Lex Talionis

by Keira Michelle Telford

  The wait is painful.

  Even though Silver has no reason to doubt herself, her body is filled with nervous tension. She removes the blindfold and hands the scarf back to Tuppence, trying to appear completely nonchalant about the whole thing.

  When the kid finally returns with the target sheet, he’s grinning from ear to ear. He passes it to Honey first, so that she can examine it privately, and Silver doesn’t relax until she sees that first telltale upwards curve of the powerful woman’s lips.

  She hit the center.

  Impressed, Honey holds up the sheet so that everyone can see. “She can shoot.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be agreeing to my terms?” Silver hopes.

  “You and your men will leave first thing in the morning with two of my Deltas. Tonight, you’ll sleep in Gwydir; I’ll have someone make up rooms for you. Is there anything else you think you’ll need?”

  “How about some dinner?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  At the thought of eating even one more bite of meat, Silver’s stomach flip-flops. It’s richer than anything she’s ever had before, and her body’s not used to it. She’s certain she needs the protein—as people keep reminding her, she does have another life growing inside her belly—but she knows she won’t be able to keep it down. Not to mention the fact that almost every Delta in the courtyard has been staring at them since they sat down for dinner at the head picnic bench, and it’s starting to piss her off.

  A small child flicking an enormous beetle across the table at her is the final straw. She abandons the rest of her steak and spears the unfortunate animal with her fork before it can scuttle away.

  The poor thing ends up impaled against the tabletop, twitching, right in front of another one of Honey’s guests: the pale girl with short black hair and green eyes—the one who’d been so keenly watching her shoot earlier.

  The girl stops eating, her mouth full of steak. She grimaces at the beetle, peers up at Silver—albeit briefly—then returns her attention to her food.

  Don’t look at the crazy lady.

  Don’t look at the crazy lady.

  Don’t look at the crazy lady.

  Her eyes flick up again, finding the crazy lady grinning at her.

  Shit.

  “I think I’m done.” The girl averts her eyes and quickly excuses herself.

  Disappointed by how easily she was rattled, her small ounce of fun over with, Silver’s grin fades and she pushes her plate away from her. “I hate this.”

  “It’s venison.” Alex, sitting to her left, mops up the blood on his plate with a chunk of bread. “What’s not to like? Too gamey?”

  “People are staring at us.”

  “I thought you liked making people feel uneasy?”

  “Only when I’m doing something to deserve it.”

  Luka, sitting to her right, points at the remains of her steak and hands her a piece of cheese. “Trade you.”

  She snatches the cheese and slides her plate over to him. “Take it. I’m craving dairy anyway.”

  Devouring the cheese in a few bites, she swings her leg over the bench and braces herself on Alex’s shoulder to get up.

  “What’s wrong?” He squeezes her knee.

  “I have to take a walk.” She presses a hand against her queasy stomach. “Otherwise, I’m gonna throw up everything I just ate.”

  She stands and stretches, her abdomen feeling bloated and tight. As soon as she’s cleared the bench, Linx slinks under the table from her seat on the other side. Crawling beneath it on her hands and knees, dinner plate in hand, she finally resurfaces in the space Silver left behind between Alex and Luka.

  Shocked by the audacity of this young, purple-haired Taint, Luka flashes Alex a look of warning, then glances up at Silver to gauge her reaction.

  Silver upturns both palms, shaking her head in amazement. “Would she jump in my grave so fast?”

  Well aware that it would be inappropriate for him to stay put, Alex attempts to show loyalty and rises from the bench. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.” Silver holds up a hand. “Stay. Enjoy.” She glowers at the back of Linx’s head. “Have fun.”

  While most of the village is still gathered to eat, either in the communal courtyard area, or in their private homes, Silver begins to explore. Investigating the village hall, she flicks a switch by the door and is rewarded with a flood of light from electric bulbs all around the room. There’s no lag, no delay, and no noise. They must be connected to a mains power supply, though she can’t fathom where or how it’s being generated.

  Pinned on the back wall is a map of the British Isles, and, for the first time, she gets a detailed look at the lay of the land. The old Anglo-Saxon heptarchy is back in use, but with some minor differences. The country that once was Wales is now all Delta territory, with D10 marked as the capital. It borders Mercia, which takes up most of middle England. Northumbria is to the north, like Tomkin had said, and above that, there’s Scotland.

  To the east, there’s a small county called East Anglia. It’s tucked into a hipbone-shaped corner of land above Essex, which itself rests above London—the nation’s capital, which appears to be completely independent from its neighboring counties. Below London, Kent is stuffed into the heel of the country, with Sussex bordering it to the west. Wessex, the last county, is contiguous to Sussex and stretches to the very tip of England’s toe.

  Each has their own coat of arms, and the map makes it all seem so neat and orderly—which is far from the impression she got after visiting Manchester. Turning away from it, she pulls a small circular device—white plastic, with a little green light on top—out of a power outlet and taps it, trying to figure out what it does.

  “It’s a wireless charging unit,” Aiden explains, appearing in the doorway behind her. “If you have anything that runs on batteries, all you need is to be within a ten meter radius of one of these and it’ll charge automatically.”

  Curious, Silver plugs the device back in and retrieves her old Hunter Division cell phone from her pocket. Sure enough, the battery is full.

  “What is that?” Aiden takes it from her.

  “A cellular phone.” She laughs at him. “What else would it be?”

  He looks completely blank.

  “Don’t you have phones here?” She sounds disbelieving.

  He shakes his head, handing it back to her. “Never seen one, but we have a lot of other things that run on batteries: medical equipment, clocks, emergency vehicles—”

  “You have cars?” Silver cuts him off.

  “For emergencies only.” Aiden nods. “An ambulance, a fire engine—that sort of thing. We also have these.” He picks up a tablet device.

  “What does it do?”

  Aiden switches it on and a login screen appears: Welcome to the British Library.

  “A digital library.” Silver is slightly awed.

  “And so much more.” Aiden shuts it off. “It’s connected to a central network that gives us access to all kinds of information, including police broadcasts for missing people, fugitives and so on. All our news from London comes through it.”

  “Where do you get all these things?” Silver wonders, still snooping through the room. “You can’t be manufacturing them here, surely?”

  “We don’t have any engineers that skilled. We rely on our trade with the Mercians for everything electronic, as long as our natural assets continue to be of value to them.”

  “Today really is your lucky day, then. My husband is an engineer.”

  “He’s good?”

  “He’s the best.” She admires the tablet again. “But I’m curious: what natural assets do you have that are scoring you gear like this? I’m not trying to piss on your import-export business, but it seems to me that you must be flogging more than a few pretty flowers and some deer meat.”

  Aiden nods. “I’ll show you.”

  Quite unceremoniously, he leads her on a fifteen minute walk outside the village, to a
hidden valley surrounded by trees.

  It’s a massive cannabis field.

  “Holy shit.” Silver laughs. “You’re drug dealers.”

  “It’s more than that. We use hemp to make clothing, rope—all sorts of things—and we sell those products to the Mercians. Along with the buds,” he admits. “But we need to. We need medical supplies and equipment, and a few other things that are only available in London: decent boots, kicksies—”

  “Huh?”

  “The leather trousers Linny and some of the others wear. We wouldn’t be able to afford any of it without the cannabis.”

  “Just cannabis?” she enquires, intrigued.

  “We might also have a few poppy fields,” Aiden confesses shamelessly. “Speaking of which, I want you to take this with you to Manchester.”

  He hands her a small pouch of white powder.

  “Are you giving me heroin?” She inspects it. “Why are you giving me heroin?”

  “Keep it on you. If you get in a tight spot, you’ll have something to trade. It’s better than money when you’re dealing with Slade and his men. Most of them are users.”

  “You won’t be coming?” She stuffs the heroin into her back pocket.

  “I can’t. I’m heading out to the Trefaldwyn outpost at dawn, and I’ll be on border duty there for a month. Besides, Honey’s already selected your traveling companions.”

  “Oh? Should I be worried?” Silver sounds wary.

  “She’s giving you Mason, and Tomkin’s best friend, Bold—they’re not bad guys—and I want you to take Fitch.”

  “But he’s yours.”

  “Yeah, but he likes you.”

  Aiden attempts to give her a friendly slap on the back, but it agitates her wounded shoulder, making her wince. Paying closer attention, he notices blood seeping through the bandage.

  “How’s that doing?” He extends a hand toward her. “May I?”

  Nodding, Silver lets him peel back the bandage to assess the wound.

  “We’d better get you to the infirmary for a proper dressing. They’ll also give you a check-up to make sure you’re fit to travel with the baby. If you’re not, Honey won’t let you go.”

  “Honey’s not my mom.”

  “No, but she will ground you.” Aiden takes her back to the village. “When you’re done in the infirmary, I’ll have someone escort you to your room in Gwydir.”

  “We’re really being put up in that fancy ass place?”

  “For now.” Aiden smiles broadly, amused by her turn of phrase.

  The infirmary is located inside a converted church, but the stained glass windows are only remnants of the building’s religious past. The entire place has been gutted and refurbished, and it looks nothing short of any medical wing you’d find in a modern hospital: beds, machinery, and the smell of antiseptic. The ossuary beneath the church is now a locked pharmacy that houses all of the infirmary’s medicines, and the old parsonage has been transformed into a small outpatient clinic.

  While Silver receives a new bandage for her shoulder, and undergoes various other procedures—including an ultrasound, and a chorionic villus sampling to determine the health of her baby—she finds herself assigned a bed next to the pale, black-haired girl she’d briefly made eye contact with at dinner.

  The girl is pretending not to notice her. She’s visiting another patient: another young female who looks weak and sickly.

  “I saw you at dinner,” Silver says at last, when the attention of her eyes can no longer be ignored. “And you were watching me show off earlier. What’s your name?”

  “Carmen,” she says without looking up.

  “My name’s—”

  “Silver, I know. The whole village is talking about the three North American strays Aiden picked up near the border.”

  She seems hostile, but Silver is undeterred.

  “What happened to your friend?”

  “Pneumonia,” Carmen answers defensively. “What’s it to you?”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “No-one.”

  Silver’s eyes drop to the barely obscured Crown symbol on the sleeve of her leather jacket.

  “The logo on your jacket,” she persists. “What does it symbolize?”

  She recognizes it from some of the items carried by the military personnel who invaded Amaranthe, and concludes that Carmen—who’s also carrying a gun—probably works in some branch of law enforcement.

  “The Crown Prosecution Service—the CPS.” Carmen finally meets her eyes. “How can you not know that?”

  “I’m new.” Silver sits up in bed, despite the ache in her belly from the chorionic villus test, which involved a rather large needle piercing her placenta to remove a tissue sample. “You’re from London?”

  Carmen nods. “Northside.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Annoyed by the continued intrusion, Carmen sighs and rolls her eyes. “London’s split in half: north and south. The two are as different as you and I.”

  “What makes you think we’re different?”

  Carmen glances at the dog tags around Silver’s neck. “We’re different.”

  “You don’t like the military?”

  “I don’t like much about how this country’s run.”

  “Neither do I.” Silver hops down off her bed. “So that’s one thing we have in common.” She turns to walk away, then reconsiders and asks one more question. “How long does it take to get to London from here anyway?”

  Carmen shrugs. “A week or two, depending on route and method of transport. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  After receiving her test results, Silver is escorted straight to her bedroom in Gwydir Castle. Decked out with a hand carved four-poster bed, but little else in the way of furniture, the bedroom is sparse but practical. It has everything she and Alex need, except for one thing: a second bed. Standing at the edge of the room, hovering by the door, she eyes the four-poster with caution.

  “It’s okay.” Alex emerges from the adjoining bathroom, his mood subdued. “I won’t try anything.” He slips into bed without looking at her.

  Seeing little choice but to clamber into bed with him, Silver pulls off her boots and jeans and snuggles into the sheets wearing only a white camisole and undies.

  “I guess they’ve never heard of memory foam.” She struggles to get comfortable, keeping her back to Alex.

  She’s hoping he won’t try to start a conversation with her—all she wants to do is sleep—but he needs to clear up something that’s been gnawing at him since dinner.

  “I’m not interested, if that’s what you think.”

  “Not interested in what?” She doesn’t even try to sound like she cares.

  “Linx.” He rolls onto his other side, facing her. “She’s a kid with a crush, that’s all. Nothing’s going on.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Don’t say that.” He reaches out to touch her shoulder, but retracts when he feels her muscles tense. “I know today hasn’t been so great for us, but I thought we were doing well. Before we left Amaranthe, we were getting back on track after …” He lets the rest of that sentence die.

  Silver doesn’t need him to finish it anyway. However you look at it, it’s a mess.

  After she fell off the wagon in a big fucking way.

  After he caught her in Luka’s bed.

  After she caught him sneaking around behind her back.

  Damage was done and they were both to blame. In one year of marriage, they’ve caused each other more pain than in all the twenty years prior, leaving Silver to wonder:

  “Do you ever think maybe we weren’t meant to be married?”

  “What? No!” Alex is openly offended. “I always wanted to marry you. Do you not remember how difficult it was for me to wait? You were only fifteen, but I wanted you so badly.” He nestles closer to her, running his hand up her thigh, over her hip. “You were my boss’s daughter—the most untouchable girl in t
he city—and I shouldn’t have felt the way I did, but every time I saw you, this happened.” He molds his body to hers, angling his stiff cock against her back.

  She bites on her lower lip and suppresses a gasp, her eyes pooling with tears.

  “All the other Hunters were jerking off over you,” he continues, gently rocking himself against her. “But that wasn’t good enough for me.” He murmurs softly, gaining a bit more length. “I had to have you.”

  “I don’t know how to be with you like this, Alex.” She tucks herself up tighter, her tears soaking into the pillow. “It hurts.”

  “It’s only temporary.” He kisses her hair.

  “Is it?”

  “Of course. After the baby’s born—”

  “After the baby’s born, what?” She wipes away her tears and turns to look at him, her temperament suddenly shifting. “We fuck, you reinfect me, and we all live happily ever after? Is that what you think?”

  “El …”

  “You never wanted the cure. You like being a Taint.”

  “And you didn’t?” He moves hair away from her face, hooking it behind her ear. “Look at this world, Silver. This virus is the next stage in human evolution. Where’s the harm in embracing it?”

  “You’re such a hypocrite. Do you remember how important it was to you that our child be born uninfected?”

  “I want our baby to have a choice, that’s all.”

  Silver shakes her head. “Our baby’s not gonna have a choice, Alex.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what I said: she doesn’t get to choose.”

  “Yes, she—” He stops himself. “Wait. She? We’re having a she?”

  “Yeah.” Silver nods. “They tested me when they were checking to make sure it was safe for me to travel.”

  “A she,” Alex mulls, lying back and staring at the ceiling.

  “Is that okay?” Silver can’t tell from his expression. “Were you hoping for a boy?”

  “No.” Alex rolls to face her, grinning. “A girl is good. A girl is perfect.” He lifts up her camisole and kisses her bare stomach. “Absolutely perfect.”