The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yep.”

  So much death, Diana thought to herself. There was so much pain too. Their little town had been blind to it all. She wasn’t sure how. Maybe it was just so far back from everything no one bothered with them in that way, but the more she heard these stories. Even looking at Sam, and Emily in the back of the car. She knew the Prisoner was the best option. He had to be.

  Chapter 11

  On the third night since Diana and James had left the town of Newport, they weren't as lucky to come across an old town, or an abandoned farm to lay their heads down. No. With Sam in the car and the girl, they'd come across nothing.

  Diana stared out into the bleakness of the woods. “We’ll have to go deep,” she said to James. “Make it we can’t be seen.”

  James was sitting on the passenger seat. The door was open, and he had his feet on the ground. He was too sick again to get himself up and stand next to her, but still her husband, still James. She reached a hand down to him to touch him, to have that contact. With him by her side, she was sure she could do anything.

  Sam, who seemed more than happy at the prospect of sleeping outside, stepped forward in his eagerness. “If we hike in deep enough, we can maybe light a fire. It shouldn’t be seen from here.” He took a sniff of the air, aiming his face upwards and inhaling. “From the scent of things, I don’t think many come this way.”

  "I chose the quiet routes," James said. His voice was scratchy like his throat was sore. Diana supposed it was. All that vomiting and the fever, it had to impact somewhere. The lines finally shifted, she was happy to notice. The lines on his face had faded a little in colour. Now, rather than the deep black, they were grey—light grey, and they had sunk a little.

  “We need to get fuel too,” Diana said when she spoke again. “What we got in Sam’s town won't last much farther.” Sam’s town. She knew it wasn’t Sam’s town, but that was better than thinking of it as the town where everyone was killed, or the town with all the burning bodies at the back. Sam’s town … it would do.

  “We can maybe hunt for some old cars, pray we get lucky.” Funny, how Sam had embedded himself in, in just a day. Now he, was we.

  “There’ll be a few places cars are dumped,” James added. “The last thing we need is to get picked up."

  Sam nodded. “This area, they will be checking tags. I assume you two—”

  “No. We’re not tagged,” Diana said. She rubbed at her wrist where the tag would go as she watched Sam. It had never even occurred to her to check him either. She’d just assumed, but he was wolf—shifter, and they healed faster. “Are you …”

  “No. Not me either.”

  Diana, with the help of Sam, rolled the car off the road and pushed it into a place that would be hard to spot from the road. It wasn’t so far back, but like before, they covered it with leaves and branches. Then Sam carried Emily and Diana helped James. Mostly he could walk unaided. He was just slower and needed to rest here and there. She had the backpack on again, filled with bread and other things they could eat. Diana was looking forward to just sitting and closing her eyes. Truth be told, she could have curled up in the car and easily slept. Driving all day made her head feel on fire inside. Like her mind was screaming just for some peace and time to stop concentrating. Downtime, she supposed.

  “Here?” Sam asked.

  They’d walked a good twenty minutes into the woods, and from where they were, all around them were just more trees, more woods, and darkness.

  “Think it is deep enough?”

  “Seems to be.”

  He went to put Emily down. She’d woken little on the drive, and the few times she did, she’d let them offer her water, and gone off again before even registering them. Diana wondered how much of that had to be the shock. She'd never seen someone so out of it for so long. Yeah, people got beatings, but usually, they awoke for longer than a minute or two. When she spoke, it was as if her words hung from her lips, and most of what she said was inaudible. Just random sounds.

  “Let me get a blanket.” Diana had packed a few, and she took one out, unrolled it and laid it on the ground. “There.”

  Sam eased Emily down, she stirred, her hands going for his neck so as not to let go. "You're okay," he soothed. "I'm just lying you down."

  “Way …”

  “Way?”

  She blinked hard, forcing her eyes open. "Way … ner …"

  James hobbled to the blanket Diana put down for him and then held her hand like an old man as she eased him down. "Wayne?"

  “Is it Wayne?” Sam asked.

  Emily slumped against the blanket. “Yes. Wayne.”

  Sam looked at Diana, Diana looked back at him. Wayne. It had to be the boy they had left, the one she was with. Diana bit her lip and shook her head. It would do no good to tell the girl he was gone. That the taggers had killed him. “Rest now,” she said to Emily.

  It was a blessing for them all when she went off again.

  Between them, Sam and Diana made a small fire, and then they used sticks to roast vegetables she’d retrieved from the car. Diana broke up a loaf of bread and divided it between the four. Emily hadn't eaten a thing, and although she was out of it, it didn't mean she wouldn't wake later with ravenous hunger.

  “You eat bread?” James always assumed shifters ate meat only—raw meat.

  “If I am hungry enough and there isn’t another choice. It doesn’t do me the same, but it’ll get me through.” He tossed Finn a crust and the dog snapped his jaws at it and swallowed without chewing. Sam laughed. “Did that even touch the sides?”

  “Probably not.”

  “We should get some sleep,” James said, tossing a glance upwards as if he was reading the time in the sky.

  The only light came from their fire. That worried Diana. If someone saw it. She tried to relax about it as much as possible. If anyone were near, Sam would hear … she told herself that much.

  “We need to sleep in shifts.”

  “You and Diana sleep first,” Sam said. “I can watch. Diana has been driving all day, and you look like shit.”

  James moved on his blanket, easier than before. “Diana needs to sleep first. You sleep too. No offence, but we don’t know you. I’ll sleep when Diana is awake.”

  “James …”

  “No. He’s right,” said Sam. “If I had a wife here, I’d not sleep while she did. Do you think you can stay awake, though?”

  “I slept in the car. Finn is here. We’ll be fine.”

  “James, you’re sick,” Diana said. “You’re going to make yourself worse or something.”

  “And the alternative? You stay awake all night and drive all day tomorrow?”

  No. But … it didn’t mean she had to like it. It didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. “Okay.”

  They made it, so they were in a kind of square. Sam slept opposite James, and Emily and Diana were opposite each other too, although Diana moved closer to James so she could sleep next to him and so she could touch him. Just contact. Nothing more. Knowing he was there.

  When she awoke sometime later, her shoulder made her a groan with stiff pain, and she winced with the weakness. "Ah, Jesus. My arm is dead. This is why we don't go camping."

  James was leaning against the tree nearest to her. He had moved to get comfortable. Finn lay by his side. He laughed.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “An hour or two,” James said.

  Sitting up, she shuffled herself closer to James and rolled her shoulders. Every muscle ached and throbbed or just were plain stiff. “I think I need a massage.”

  James put a hand on her shoulder as if in answer to that and rubbed at her muscles there. “If we were home …”

  “If we were home, I wouldn’t ache so much.”

  Sam slept still. From what Diana could tell, he hadn’t moved so much either. It must have been unusual for him. Wolves slept in packs. Even when they were in the form of a man or woman, they
liked the closeness. At least that was what she understood of them. They were tactile creatures.

  “He’s only been out half an hour. You were out like a light.”

  Diana frowned. “And Emily?”

  Emily was curled on her side, with her back to the fire, and her legs bunched up. Diana was sure Sam hadn’t laid her like that, and someone had put a cover over her, well a jacket.

  “Nothing.”

  “Is it normal for someone to sleep this long when injured? I mean, she hasn’t eaten or anything.”

  “Maybe. The body shuts down sometimes.”

  "She needs water, though." It wasn't as if she was getting fluids from an intravenous line. At least if she were in a hospital, it would explain why she slept. "Emily?" Diana whispered, crawling over to the girl. "Emily, do you want something to drink?"

  She crawled around the other side of her, not wanting to shake or pull her. God knows where the girl had bruises on her body.

  “Oh, no. James … James, come here.” Her voice rose at the end. She put her hand to her mouth. “James.”

  Sam woke, pushing himself up with a start. “What?” One look at Diana’s watery eyes and he knew. They both knew. “No …”

  Sam scurried over, and James dragged himself. It was James who rolled her onto her back and then put his fingers to her throat. He nodded solemnly. “She’s gone.”

  “She … I … It doesn’t make any sense.” The words just wouldn’t come for Diana. She wasn’t crying or weeping, but her heart was. Not just for Emily, but for them all. For everything the Humans did.

  James lifted Emily’s top. Her skin was dark, bruised.

  “Internal injuries?” Sam asked.

  “I’d say so. Who knows what was busted in there.”

  Chapter 12

  Diana was a ball of anger, not upset, not sorrow. She was sorry for the loss of Emily’s life and Wayne’s, but it was more than that. It was the need the Humans had to rule everything—to destroy everything that was good. Others weren’t bad. Not in the way the Humans said. Not because of what they were.

  “I’m glad the Prisoner caused a revolt,” she said, breaking the silence that had descended onto the three of them. Even Finn had grown quiet. “It has to stop. It all has to stop.”

  “It will,” James said. But she needed it now. She needed the difference to happen right away. She’d lived so long with the repercussions of what the Humans could do—would do, that it had become normal to her, but this … beating a girl and her boyfriend, for what? Control? Fear?

  Diana had lived with her disability her entire life … well, the conscious part. She’d had whole wings when she was born. Humans had broken them—tried to break her.

  “Do we bury her? I don’t think burning would be so wise.”

  No. It was one thing to light a small fire for themselves, that fire was out now, but it was another to burn a body. The flames would rise high and the stench … it would travel for miles and alert people to someone being in the woods.

  “Cover her and leave her here,” James said.

  “What?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I know but …” It was heartless, almost too horrible to even comprehend. “Is that what we have become now? Callous? Monsters?”

  Two bodies in the space of a few hours, and they were leaving them—leaving them for the wildlife, or whoever stumbled across them.

  “If we didn’t have Sam with us, we’d have never known they were there,” James offered, trying his best to put a scenario to her. She appreciated it.

  She stared down at Emily. A young form under a blanket—dead in the presence of strangers and no way to let her family know that she was gone.

  “We can’t do anything for her,” he said when she said nothing.

  “I know. I just … it feels so cruel.”

  He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace she hadn’t realised she needed. But the moment she pressed against him—the moment she felt his body heat against hers and had that familiar comfort, she crumbled. Not to tears. She didn’t cry or sob, but her soul did. It reached for the one solid thing in her life.

  “We should make a move,” he said after a while. “It’s three hours to light, and we need to meet the contact.”

  “We’re that close?”

  “Yeah.” He wiped the perspiration from his face with an old t-shirt. It was dirty, and he smeared a black smudge across his cheek. Diana wiped it away.

  “This is the right thing?”

  He kissed her on the mouth. His lips were hot—too hot, but she savoured it. “It is. I promise. You ready?”

  “Ready.” She smiled.

  They left Emily, and maybe it was wrong of Diana, but she didn’t look at her again, didn’t cast her eyes at her. It was easier that way because leaving a young girl, dead or not, alone in the woods was wrong on so many levels. In Diana’s head at least, and the only way she could fathom it, and make it okay, was to pretend it wasn’t there. That she wasn’t there.

  Sam got them some fuel. He’d gone hunting in the morning, for food, and also for fuel. He was faster on four legs than he was two, he’d told them, and they let him. The result was, he’d come back a little later and said there was a car not so far away, three of them. Two of them had fuel. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to put the tank of their car over half way. And then they’d driven.

  The place of the meeting was an isolated outpost. "The Forgotten have these all over," Sam said. "At least that's what I hear."

  “Don’t they get caught?”

  “They move,” James said. “I mean, I guess someone could pretend they were meeting, and kill them, but it isn’t going to get them to the Prisoner.”

  “I bet everyone has taken an oath or something,” Sam offered. “Like they can’t give the location if caught. Maybe death is the best answer or something like that.”

  “Maybe. You’re dead either way.”

  Chilling, Diana thought to herself, but true. The only reason the Humans would want the location of where the Prisoner was, was to capture and kill. Everyone else would lose their life too. The Humans didn’t care about that.

  "Pull up here," James said. He leant forward to peer at the place where they were. There was one way in and one way out. Smart. All around there was water, and the water had high banks. A person would need to jump high to get to the building from the water’s edge. But the water was gone. That made the pool or river or pond, or whatever it was, seem deeper now.

  The only water left were small puddles of mud here and there. There was a ton of rubbish, though. Bags of it. Perhaps one day it would become a pool of waste.

  There was a waterwheel on the side of the house. God, Diana had not seen one of those in real life before. It was a lot bigger than she thought. “Look at that,” she said to James. “Have you ever seen …”

  "No. God, I bet that was good when it worked." His eyes lit up with it, but then it had been James' dream for them to be self-sufficient. "We should have made one of those back in Newport. Imagine that. Creating our own power?"

  “Yeah.” No more power outs. No more shortages, or when the Humans decided enough was enough, and they turned the grids off. In the winter when the lack of power created a lack of heat, and anyone vulnerable would die from the cold.

  “Are you sure there is someone here?” The place looked more rotten than not.

  “There’s a scent,” Sam offered. “Burnt plastic.”

  “He’ll be here,” James said. “It isn’t like he’s going to put up a sign that says, ‘revolt this way.’”

  Diana laughed. No. She supposed he wouldn’t.

  The three of them got out of the car. Finn popped out and stayed with Sam. The dog had adopted the young wolf it would seem. “There’s magic in the air. I can smell it.”

  “Magic has a scent?”

  “Everything has a scent. But this …” He inhaled. “It’s used magic. Like burnt electricity, or plastic.
You know when something has burnt out? That’s what it smells like.” He moved closer to the building. “It’s recent.”

  "Maybe the contact is a witch or fae?” Diana said, eyes on James.

  “Could be. I didn’t ask.”

  “Do we just knock on the door?” It was Diana again.

  “I don’t see why not?” James walked towards the house. He was still sick. It could be seen in the difficult way he walked, but he pushed through it. That was her James, hunched over and all. His military training had taught him that—how to keep going, no matter what.

  When he got up the two steps, he knocked on the door and waited. Diana moved to stand with him, and Sam and Finn stayed at the bottom.

  Nothing.

  He knocked again.

  “I’m not sure anyone is here,” Diana said.

  “He’ll be here. Maybe we’re early.” He knocked again, but this time he didn’t wait for an answer or a non-answer. He pushed the door open just like Diana had done at the houses in Sam’s town. It opened too. “Maybe he isn’t inside,” James said when they saw the state of the place.

  There was an upturned table in the middle of a room. There were chairs and other furniture scattered around and hidden under dust sheets. But the floor … it had holes in several places. Places that were so busted, the broken and collapsed floorboards were tipped up and dipped in.

  “There’s no one in here,” Sam said. He’d come up the steps and leant around Diana to peer into the dusty room.

  James stepped into the building, treading carefully as he went. There were doors off in different directions, and a set of wooden stairs in the middle that went up to what Diana could only assume was an attic-like room.