by Raven Dark
“Master, the town needs this water.”
“Are you always such a bleeding heart, Little Spy? How does someone who ended up with a sick fuck like Damien turn into such a do-gooder?” Flies buzzed around his head near the door, and he swatted at them. “Salvage has its own water supply. Come on. You’re going to help me carry the water out.”
Sighing, I followed him into the huge, steel-walled safe.
“Pirates to the end. I…Maker!”
Two steps into the room, my heart found a home in my throat and I bit back a scream. A man—the owner, I guessed—was tied to the chair by his wrists and ankles in the middle of the room. He’d been stripped naked, and small, shallow cuts slashed his arms, his chest, his face. His scalp had been removed, and blood covered his upper body, dripping down his face and chest to his lap. It pooled on the hardwood floor under him.
The credit boxes that lined the shelves were empty, and except for the water, those shelves lay bare.
Sheriff shoved me behind him, but not before I had a chance to see something else. Someone had carved a word across the man’s chest—the word Hellhounds.
“Dregs,” he spat. He grabbed my hand and dragged me back down the hall. His strides were long and swift; I stumbled trying to keep up with him.
“Wait, where are his men?” I hated the panic in my voice. “He should have had men working here with him.”
While these stations were neutral ground, I couldn’t imagine that anyone who ran them worked alone. Besides, he’d have needed men to take the money to the town’s bank every week or so.
“They must have gotten away. Or…” He stopped halfway down the hall and looked up. I followed his gaze.
The blood drained from my cheeks. A pool of blood turned a patch of the ceiling red. A droplet fell on Sheriff’s face and he wiped it off.
“They’re upstairs,” I finished for him. My gut roiled. What must have been done to them for there to be so much blood that it leaked through the ceiling?
When we reached the main room, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at us.
Steel dropped a pastry to the floor. “Sheriff?”
“What’s wrong, boss?” Hawk strode over to us.
“The owner. He’s dead. Tortured, and whoever did it emptied the safe.”
“Maker’s tits,” Steel muttered.
“Steel, Pretty Boy, upstairs. Make sure the owner’s staff aren’t up there needing help.”
“Whoever did this might still be up there,” Pretty Boy warned.
“If the fucks who did this are still here, bring them to me,” Sheriff growled. I’d never heard his voice so filled with loathing, not even when he spoke of Damien. “If they are, Hawk, you’ll take the women and the others somewhere safe while I deal with them. Men, let’s get the women outside.”
Everyone but Pretty Boy and Steel headed out of the station.
In the parking lot, I looked back over my shoulder at Sheriff. “Who would do something like this?” I whispered, my hands shaking.
“Dregs.” Hawk squeezed my shoulder and led me over the bikes where the others waited when the General didn’t answer.
“Who?”
“Dregs. It’s what we call marauders who terrorize places like this.”
“Hurry it up, boys. We need to go.” Sheriff waved at Pup and Crash to unplug. “That’ll have to do. Mount up.”
“But that’s only going to give us a few hours worth of—” Pup started.
“Now!” Sheriff roared.
Hawk helped me onto his bike, and I leaned into him. “Master, why would Sheriff want to deal with the men who attacked this place? Wouldn’t it be safer for all of us to just get out of here?”
I knew I was speaking out of turn, but nervousness wouldn’t allow me to keep quiet.
“He has his reasons, Kitten.” Hawk patted my thigh. “We’ll keep you safe. Trust me.”
Other questions begged to be answered, but I forced them down, pressing myself into Hawk’s back. Taking solace in his strength and protectiveness.
Moments later, Pretty Boy and Steel emerged from the station and joined us.
“There’s no sign of the attackers, Sheriff.” Pretty Boy got on his bike and shoved his helmet on while he gave his report. Disappointment laced his voice. “The owner’s men are dead. Two men. Looks like they were tortured, too. The marauders left the Hellhounds’ mark on both of them. Drowned one of the men in a tub, and hung the other from a chain in the—”
“PB.” Steel gave a subtle nod to me and the other women, then kicked the stand up on his bike. “Later.”
“Right.” He said nothing more.
Maker forbid we delicate females hear the gory details of what these Hellhounds had done to the station’s personnel. It didn’t matter. My mind spun with images of the owner, the way his scalp had been peeled off, knife cuts slashing every inch of him. I did a fine job on my own of making my stomach turn without Pretty Boy’s help.
Sheriff scowled at the horizon. “Too bad. I was looking forward to some payback. There’s a valley a couple of hours away from here where we can camp for the night. Let’s ride, boys.”
Bike engines growled to life. We rode away from the station and into the sprawling desert while fear and unanswered questions chased each other through my mind.
Chapter 9
Steel’s Promise
We reached our destination two hours later. Full darkness blanketed the landscape, a moonless sky dotted with endless stars. A hundred feet of flat desert guarded by an overhanging cliff twenty feet high provided a perfect campground. The desert temperatures usually plummeted at night, sometimes bringing a chill wind the cliff would ward off. What light there was turned the desert flat from a sun-drenched gold to a silvery white. Except for the cracks that ran across the dried, hardened surface, the sand might have reminded me of the snow I’d seen in pictures of the north. The flattened land held a certain barren beauty, with only cliffs rising here and there like shadowed sentinels.
“We should be safe here.” Sheriff took off his metallic mask and swung off his bike. He looked back at the others. “Still. I want two guards posted at all times. Four-hour shifts. And someone needs to keep guard on that cliff.”
Rumbles of assent followed as the men kicked down stands, dismounted, and removed helmets and masks. Crash put up two torches, inserted into the ground under the overhang of the cliff, wrapped with cloth, and flickering with minimal light. Doc and Pup put all the bikes in a circle around the camp.
“Hawk, take first watch. Pick your partner. You take the west side of the camp, your partner can take the east,” Sheriff added taking off the metal glove that covered his arm and hand.
Hawk helped me off his bike, then gestured to Crash, a wordless summons to take up whatever position the Captain of the Guard wanted.
“Me? Captain, shouldn’t you choose someone more experienced—?”
“You wanted to prove yourself, now’s your chance,” Hawk growled. He opened one of those odd compartments attached to the side of Doc’s bike. I had a chance to see it was filled with weapons before he pulled out a bow and quiver, then another for Crash, who took them with wonder.
“A tip, boy,” Sheriff said biting into an apple. “When someone gives you a job, shut up and take it.”
“Yes, sir.” His face reddened.
“You know how to use those?” Hawk nodded to the weapons in his hands.
“I can hold my own, Captain.”
“We’ll see.”
Pup lifted Diamond off his bike and into his arms. She giggled at the young man’s show of strength. Emmy had ridden with T-Man, and he dismounted without helping her off, looking back toward the Grotto with an odd distracted expression before he went over to Crash’s bike. The two of them opened the side compartments and started unloading the camping equipment stowed there.
So that’s what the compartments were for.
“Such a gentleman,” Emmy said with a playful grin at me.
“What’s up his ass?”
A smile pulled at my lips. I was betting his mind was back home. “You don’t have red hair,” I said softly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“If you women are done gossiping, get over there and start setting up camp.” The General pointed at the empty flat space in the shelter of the cliff. “The men would like to sleep before daylight.”
Diamond nodded to him, but waved at me to follow her, muttering, “He’s Mr. Bossy Pants, tonight, isn’t he?” when we were far enough away that he couldn’t hear.
I snickered.
“He’s also paranoid,” Emmy rasped, looking around. “He’s been behaving weird since we left Salvage.” She turned and took an armful of tent equipment from Doc, saying nothing until he went to collect the rest.
No one talked bad about the General where his men heard. Except Cherry.
“He’s probably just on guard after what we saw at the fueling station,” I said as we started setting up the tents. I struggled to make heads or tails of the poles, pegs, and cloth that would somehow make the first tent.
“Here, let me show you.” Emmy grinned, walking over and helping me unfold one of many poles that had been collapsed to fit into the side compartments of the bikes.
Going back to our initial conversation, I gave Emmy a serious look. “You didn’t see what whoever attacked that station did to the owner.”
She winced. “Do I wanna know?”
I shook my head.
“It must have been Dregs.” Emmy had always been pale, but now the black-haired woman’s face looked bloodless.
That was the second time I’d heard that word. I stopped in the middle of taking another armful of tent equipment from Doc.
“Sheriff wants two men to a tent,” Doc instructed. “I’ll help you stake them down.”
“Does someone want to tell me what a Dreg is?” I looked around at Emmy and Diamond. Diamond was setting up stones, making a pit for a fire in the middle of the camp a few feet away. “I get that it’s a gang, but everyone talks about them like they’re more than that.”
“The scum of society,” Diamond muttered. When I looked at her, she shrugged. “Every area seems to have them. Huge gangs of men who live to lay waste to towns and steal everything they have.”
“But the stations are supposed to be neutral ground. No one attacks them.”
“Dregs do.” Doc stopped hammering one of the pegs for the tents into the ground. “They have no conscience, no honor. They never follow anyone’s rules. They’ll take the skin off a man’s bones if they can.”
“Some say the chemicals they mine have made them crazy,” Diamond added, lighting a fire. “It’s addled their brains.”
“Well, that would explain a few things.” I shuddered. “They took all the money out of the safe, but they didn’t touch the water.”
Such men would not have gotten near Zone 4 with Damien’s J’nai and his giant of a wall. He’d never told me anything about them, and if my parents had, I didn’t remember it.
In short order, five tents were erected, all in a semi circle around the fire, putting the cliff at our back. Steel and Pretty Boy took one, Latch and Pup in another, Crash and Doc in a third, with Hawk and T-man in the fourth.
“Wait…where is Sheriff going to sleep?” I looked around at everyone laying claim to tents and partnering up while Sheriff walked around the area, eyes alert in the darkness. I assumed the fifth tent would be for us females.
“He’ll be in the big one there.” Diamond pointed to a big black tent, nearly twice the size of the others. It all but disappeared into the night.
Why wasn’t I surprised he had one to himself?
“Okay, so, where do we sleep? Don’t tell me we get to sleep outside.”
Emmy and Diamond giggled into their hands like I’d told a joke.
“What?” I grinned. “What did I say?”
Doc smirked over the mug of beer he’d poured himself at the fire near me. I put my hands on my hips.
“I can tell you’ve never been camping with men like us. You women will be kept too busy to sleep much.”
His meaning sank in and my face flamed. “Maker’s Light, I should have known.”
Doc cackled. “You are one of a kind, my dear.”
Which of my men would claim me? Would they all want their turn? A mix of dread and excitement made my muscles coil and my nipples jab at my leather top.
With the camp fully set up, I helped the women serve up the evening meal, crusty bread with chicken and vegetable stew Crash had cooked in a pot over the fire. The chicken had been kept in cooler laden with ice from the Grotto’s ice shed.
“Better enjoy this, boys,” Crash said, filling his bowl with stew while the rest of us sat eating around the fire. “Meat’s only on the menu if you catch it after tonight.”
“You’ll be catching it, boy,” Sheriff said, digging in. “Low man does the shitty jobs.”
Everyone laughed.
Crash climbed up onto a ledge on the cliff to keep better watch over the camp while he ate, his bow and bolts at his side. Hawk stood between two of the tents, his arms crossed, somehow looking relaxed, even though I had the impression he was anything but. Had he eaten and I hadn’t noticed? Earlier, I noticed the shadows around his eyes as usual. He still wasn’t sleeping, was he?
The group talked and laughed for a while, Diamond looking relaxed on Doc’s lap, Emmy snuggled on Latch’s.
Pup came out from between two tents, where Steel’s and some of the other men’s bags sat in a pile. “Look at what I found.” He held up the large bottle of alcohol I’d seen Steel take from the owner’s private stash at the Oasis station.
“Hey!” Steel half sat up from where he’d been laying on a bedroll near the fire. “You steal my stash, young man?” But his grin took some of the bite out of his words. He clapped his hands, and Pup passed the bottle to him, then took a seat with the rest of us.
Steel took a drink and then passed the bottle to me.
“There’s no label,” I said, looking at the bottle. “What is this, Master?”
“Moonshine,” Steel grunted.
I held the alcohol up to my nose and sniffed, making a face at the strong smell, shaking my head.
“Go on, sweetheart.” Sheriff jerked his chin at me from the other side of the fire. “It’ll put hair on your chest.”
Laughter rippled through the group.
I took a small sip. It seared my throat, but the hint of mint over strong liquor left a pleasant warmth in my blood. I took a bigger drink and it made me feel buzzed.
Emmy gestured for the bottle, and I handed it to her. “Take it. That stuff would make me pass out with three gulps.”
Emmy took a large gulp and wiped her mouth. She took two more before handing the bottle to Doc.
While the others talked and drank, I looked out at the horizon, a strip of darker black where the sky met sand. Singing reached my ears, Emmy’s voice. I looked around to her. She had the bottle again, her voice ringing out in the night, a melodious sound that put a song bird to shame. I stared. Everyone else had silenced, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Have no fear. Trust in me. Little girl, little girl.
Time to fly, but don’t fly too far. Little girl, little girl.
Soon the fight will end, and soon your will’s gonna bend.
But trust in your Mama. Little girl, little girl.
The day will come, freedom will come.
Now fly for awhile. Little girl, little girl.”
She repeated the last two verses, and her voice broke before she stopped and took a long pull of the moonshine.
Maker, that song. My mother had sung that song to me to get me to sleep. She’d sung it to me the day before I lost her. Illegal and dangerous, never sung where the wrong person could hear, it was a woman’s song, sung to give hope when there was none.
My eyes stung, and I blinked back tears I dared not let anyone see.
Suddenly, I wondered where Emmy had come from, how she and Diamond ended up in the Grotto.
Pretty Boy stopped poking the fire with a long stick and smirked. “Ah, shit, Emmy’s getting all maudlin on us. Someone take the hooch away from her.”
More laughter, and Doc swiped the bottle, took a pull, and tossed it to Sheriff.
I shook myself, pushing away thoughts of that song, of my mother. Of easier, simpler times. I’d been so innocent then, so naïve, thinking the evils of the world couldn’t touch me. A lifetime ago, that had been. I was a different person now.
Diamond and Emmy snuggled deeper into their men’s laps. Before anyone could pull me into theirs, I stood and picked up a clean bowl, filling it with stew. Then I made my way over to Hawk while he took up station just outside the ring of tents. His swords criss-crossed his back in their twin scabbards, a bow in his hand, a quiver full of bolts hanging at his hip. He faced the desert, his back stiff.
“Master.” I put my hand on his shoulder until he turned. His yellow eyes stood out like amber jewels in the darkness. “Have you eaten yet? I brought you some stew.” I held out the bowl to him. “If you want some bread—”
“No.” He took my hand, squeezed it, then took the bowl and sat on a rock near the tent behind us. “That’s perfect. Thank you, Kitten.”
“May I sit with you?”
He nodded, silent, starting to eat.
I lowered myself beside him on the rock.
“You should get some sleep, Kitten. Sheriff always starts early on runs.” He didn’t look at me, his voice pitched low.
“Oh, I will, Master. But what about you? Do you need me to be with you tonight?”
A half smile touched his beautiful lips, a knowing, tempted smile. I loved that smile. “Your other men have missed you.”
I remained beside him, looking out at the dark and silent desert. “When was the last time you slept? You told me to sleep. You need to do the same, Master.”