Chuck laughed, turning back to face Zeke. “My ex-wife. Why do you think I’m here and she’s out there decaying?” He shrugged. “Maybe now she’ll understand the consequences of not doing what I told her.”
Zeke had height, weight and reach over Chuck, who was unarmed. And a head of steam building. If he knocked the man out now he could go on alone. It would make retrieving the phone a heck of a lot easier. “I don’t find that funny.”
“Not here for your amusement.”
“Don’t need you here at all.” Maybe there was a way to save everyone in Abundance except Chuck.
“We don’t want the city slicker getting lost on company time. I’m following you into the forest, so you can get a tree for your fruitcake sidepiece. Don’t go picking a fight with me.”
It wouldn’t take much to knock him out, he’d have to explain why, though gun to the throat lack of appreciation would probably do it.
“Now if I said I’d give my left nut to fuck your sister just one time, then you could take a swing at me.”
Zeke flattened his voice, but his firsts curled. “Are you saying that?” This could all become really simple.
Chuck took a step back and held up both hands. “I’d give both nuts.”
Fuck.
“And so would every man here, but Orrin has her favored so no one is going to touch her until after he’s finished with her.”
That shouldn’t have made him feel lighter. “Mention wanting to fuck Rosie again and I’m going to remember you stuck a cocked fucking rifle in my face and I’ll knock your teeth out.”
He was worried enough about Rory. She was back at the settlement doing everything she could to find the signal jammer and avoid Orrin’s attention and five days was a long time to be out of contact with her. Five days and four nights remembering how she’d demolished Earl and come after him, and how close he’d come to kissing her after he stole her donut. Ah, hell, she was giving him the donut, because she knew he needed it, just wanted him to work for it. Wanted to know she could still trust him.
Five days and four nights thinking about how he’d almost kissed her lips after he licked her fingers.
Which would’ve been a spectacularly boneheaded mistake. Everything she didn’t need.
Chuck laughed. “My advice, that you aren’t asking for. Fuck Susan as soon as possible, man, before she goes cold on you.”
Zeke strode past Chuck. “You fuck Susan.”
From a couple of paces behind he heard Chuck say, “Been there done that. Enjoyed the ride. Got a kid out of it.”
One punch, that’s all it would take for Chuck to be seeing stars before they showed in the sky. Would be worth opening up the blisters on his palm again. “Talk about something else.” Definitely leaving Chuck behind.
“Nothing else more pleasing to talk about than women you want to fuck.”
“What if I was gay?”
Chuck caught up. “Hey, I’m here for you liking it that way. But you still have to make babies, man. You can be gay as you want, so long as you make someone pregnant every year.”
That was fucking abusive, but he held his tongue. He’d signed up for this. “How many kids do you have?”
“Eight. And one on the way. That’s why you need to have babies because my own kids can’t be fucking each other.”
Jesus Christ. “Can we talk about anything else?”
“What do you want to talk about? You want to talk about growing up with Rosie?”
Zeke picked up the pace. “I want to talk about anything else but sex, babies and my sister.” All of those topics put acid in his bloodstream.
Chuck kept with him stride for stride. “You want to talk about food? That’s a sore topic for me, man. I miss food from out there. I dream about paella, chorizo, jamón—”
“Not food.” It would only remind him of all the coffee and sugar goodness he was missing out on.
“You want to talk about our firepower, weapons and shit?”
He stopped walking.
Chuck slapped him on the back. “Just kidding.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered walking on. “I get that you want me to trust, but I can’t stop thinking about how we’re supposed to keep this place secure with things so bad out there with just that fence and those mountains.”
“Those mountains are a motherfucker.”
“But a fence is just a fence to a tank.”
“Someone drives a tank into our fence they’re going to find themselves in an early grave.”
“I want to believe,” Zeke said in his best Fox Mulder.
The shade wasn’t lost on Chuck. “We have our ways. You don’t need to know yet.”
“Asshole.”
“What, hustler? We have to treat you delicate like. Can’t overwhelm you all at once with our magnificence.”
“I’m supposed to make a kid but I can’t know how we stay safe? How five thousand of us can fight off even a thousand people who want what we have more than they care about killing us? You’re telling me I can sleep safe at night and not worry about Rosie because we have defenses strong enough to knock out a tank, take on an army?”
“This is why you got roughed up a little, because you ask too many fucking questions. Why’d you come here if you think we’re not ready for the end of the world? This isn’t just some great experiment. We’re not waiting for the rapture to come carry us to heaven. This is real life. There’s no rapture, there’s no one going to save us but what Orrin built and invited us into. We are the future. We won’t let anyone take it from us.”
They were at the edge of the forest. Zeke plowed in. He was sure there was a weapons cache somewhere. They couldn’t break Abundance on suspicion alone. Holding a branch aside for Chuck, he said, “How do I earn a straight answer?”
“You want me to tell you we have rocket blasters and munitions and enough firepower to start our own war?”
Chuck stepped past and Zeke let the branch go. “Fuck yeah, I do.” Show them to me right now. And in one phone call this whole thing is over. It’ll be Frappuccino, Grand Master time.
Chuck threw his arms out wide. “Choose a fucking tree.”
Zeke moved around Chuck, trying to find a path through the undergrowth, holding branches back so they could pass. “You’re saying we don’t have weapons?”
“I’m saying if you don’t want your sleep disturbed again, maybe a few broken bones this time, shut your ignorant mouth. We’re going to lose the sun, choose a fucking tree for your pity fuck and then go home and screw Susan and stop worrying about things you can do fuck all about.”
That’s when he hit Chuck. He could’ve simply distracted him when he saw the blue of the parachute from the drop, but the dude was a massive dickhead and it was hard to forgive the stunt with the rifle, so Zeke dropped him instead. Nothing but satisfaction in the way it jarred his arm and made his hand sting. Why was it most of the men he’d met so far inside Abundance were entitled, sexist pricks? Did this place bring it out in them or was it something they were taught from birth?
He had enough time to rescue the package, check the phone—power, but no signal—not that he’d expected it way out here, and cut down a baby spruce before going into nurse-mode over Chuck.
The guy had an egg on his forehead consistent with a tree branch blow and Zeke’s knuckles were already a mess, so he didn’t have to hide them. He tapped Chuck’s cheek, none too gently.
“Wake up, asshole.” When that didn’t work, he tipped the contents of his water bottle over Chuck.
Chuck work up spluttering. “Wha—what happened?”
“We were arguing. You walked into a tree branch. Out cold.”
“Holy shit.” Chuck felt his head and winced. “No way I walked into a tree. How long was I out?”
Just about the right amount of time. “Few minutes. Can you sit? Want me to go for help?” Zeke extended his hand.
Chuck pushed it aside. He struggled to sit upright and then got to his feet, wavering. �
��I walked into a tree?”
“I was in front of you, heard you yell.”
“No.”
Zeke shrugged. If Chuck made something of it, he’d deal with it. It was time to find out if he could act like ET and phone home.
“Come on, hustler. If we miss our ride home, you’ll wish all you walked into was a fucking tree.”
He let Chuck lead them out, a hand to the egg on his forehead and a sway in his gait and didn’t feel an ounce of remorse for being the cause of that.
Chapter Sixteen
Standing in her kitchen corner, Rory was in a battle between anticipation and boredom that was shredding the lining of her stomach.
The long cons she usually worked were far more predictable and part-time than this and between events she went back to her regular life. To her beloved apartment, her state-of-the-art gym, her local coffee place, lunches with Tres and Sherin, and the quirky bookstore on the corner that she was frightened to stop shopping at in case it closed. She spent so much there she might as well offer to pay their rent.
All she had at Abundance was regularity. It was stunning in its monotony. She woke early, ran till her legs shook, showered, showed up for the taxing work of standing in a corner, breakfast, lunch and dinner. She could’ve done that naked for all the attention she was paid. Not even the kids were interested in making faces at her anymore.
She’d expected a reprimand from Macy for her meal delivery stunt and the fact it didn’t come was all kinds of disappointing.
She wasn’t even worth scolding. She should be cool with that, except she couldn’t learn enough this way. Every day she didn’t gather evidence was another day this was her home.
She was an island of one in a sea of Continuers and the tide was rising. And it was getting to her. Making her frustration more and more difficult to tamp down. This was a game of chicken now. Orrin had told her to find her peace, but what he really wanted her to do was break like an egg and the moment she did, he’d be there to mop her up, aiming to make it impossible to resist him.
Impossible if she was Rosie Woods. Aurora Rae Archer had to find a way to keep Orrin guessing.
She patted her back pocket for the umpteenth time, looking for her phone as the dining room emptied and the cleaning crew arrived and there was still no sign of Zeke.
It’d only been five days since he’d been gone but it felt like five years.
The consolation prize was that Cadence was hanging about, waiting in the dining room to walk back to their cabin together.
“Zack is late. I’m worried,” Rory said, sliding into the seat opposite her roomie. It wouldn’t look so desperate to meet the truck Zeke was coming in on if Cadence was with her. And she was currently made of the elements that defined desperate. Hypervigilant, jumpy, teetering between feelings of hopelessness and the need to do something, anything to have Zeke safely back in her sight again. And very aware that she had to lock those feelings down. If she let him see she wasn’t cool, he’d worry she wasn’t handling things. It was an unspoken rule of this job that either one of them could call it done if the other was knocked too far off-balance.
Cadence didn’t look up from the mending she had in her lap. “No reason to be. Late is just late out here.”
Zeke was beyond late, which didn’t help her equilibrium loss. If they didn’t make contact with Tres tonight, she’d be preparing to send in an extraction team and this whole sting would be a bust. “What about bears?” What about men who were convinced the world was about to end and suspicious Zeke didn’t feel that way?
“Bears eat the ugly ones first. They have more flavor. Everyone knows that. So that’s Mike, Ted and Chuck. Unless there were a lot of bears, Zack will be fine.”
Rory grinned. Cadence had loosened up a lot since her panic attack. “I’m still worried. Will you wait with me for the truck?”
“It’s not like it’s not safe for you to wait on your own. No one is going to hurt you. This isn’t the city, remember. What is with you tonight? You go running everywhere on your own in the dark. Hardly ever sleep as far as I can tell.”
The lack of sleep was starting to tell. Every night this week she’d raided HQ, going through the file cabinets looking for anything electronic or incriminating. Every night she missed Zeke being there to boost her through the window.
“I thought it would be nicer if I didn’t have to wait alone.” And it’s not like there was an array of social events Cadence would be missing out on. Abundance didn’t exactly have a thriving nightlife.
“You’ll be fine.” Cadence’s head shot up. “Oh wait. This is you trying to do a girlfriend kind of thing.” She put the shirt she was mending on the table. “Okay, okay. It’s weird but I’ll wait with you.”
They were the last ones out of the dining room and there was still no Zeke. They sat on a garden-retaining wall in the town square in the dark and waited. It was two days since she’d turned the cell jammer off. Rory leaned back on her hands and looked at the blanket of stars above. She’d gotten used to how close they looked. Like you could ask a tall person to pluck a few down for earrings. Come on, Zeke, come home. Hold on, Tres—just a few more hours.
“Well this is exciting,” Cadence said after ten minutes of nothing doing.
“It’s what all the hot chicks do on a Friday night in Abundance.”
“All the hot chicks, aside from you, aren’t waiting for trucks full of filthy stinky men. They’re inside doing something filthy with a stinky man.”
Rory laughed. That signal jammer had to be off still. Zeke had to have gotten to the drop site because Cadence should never be forced into a sexual relationship and a pregnancy she didn’t want. No woman should.
“Do you ever think about leaving?”
Cadence gave a shocked gasp. “No.”
Rory used silence and Cadence filled it. “Yes. Sometimes. I really miss going to the movies. Sitting in the dark on my own and forgetting about everything for a while.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
“It’s not safe out there.”
There were many places where two women sitting waiting in the dark wouldn’t be safe. Where one woman waiting in the dark would be considered provocation, asking for it. On that level it wasn’t easy to argue the world outside Abundance was a better option, except for the fact that Abundance was fantasyland. And thinking the world had no good in it was a conveniently false argument.
When the truck came into view, they both stood as if this was a special event and not a load of weary, hungry men arriving home. They saw the tree before they saw Zeke. He was first off the truck and carried it across his arms as if it was a large shaggy dog.
He could’ve been carrying a carcass buzzing with flies and Rory would’ve been pleased to see him. He looked tired and dirty, but his face lit up when he saw them and the tension in her chest eased. He had both legs and arms and all his fingers, and he was home. She couldn’t stop grinning at him and his ridiculous tree, and the clear signal it sent that he’d needed an excuse to get to the forest and found it.
“This is for you,” he said holding the tree out to Cadence. From the truck there was a roar of sound, a dozen men acting like idiots, whistling and hooting.
Cadence took two steps backward for every step Zeke took towards them. He stopped. “It’s for your cabin so you can have a pine fresh smell.”
She looked at her feet. “Oh, um. Okay.” She let Zeke step up and put her hand out to feather the needles. It really did smell great.
A voice boomed, “Big mistake, Zack. You’ll have to fuck her now.”
Cadence stepped back as if she’d been pushed. “This is a joke.”
“No, no, it’s not.” Zeke tipped his head to indicate the truck. “Don’t listen to those juvenile assholes,” he said loudly enough for the dispersing men to hear.
Rory shifted from foot to foot. Her anxiety had eased but there were bats in her belly and they were flapping double-time. The hours were wasting, and this was
horribly awkward.
Cadence turned to her. “This is why you wanted me here, to humiliate me.”
She put her hands up, surrender style. “How could I know—”
Cadence pointed at Zeke. “I don’t want you in my cabin.” She backed off. “I’m not a toy for your amusement.”
Rory tried again. “Cadence, please wait. We didn’t—”
But her roomie was beyond reach. “Both of you can go to hell.”
They watched Cadence go, shoulders and head down as if she carried the sky.
“That went well,” Zeke said. He hefted the tree over his shoulder. “Tell me you’re okay?”
He said that in a brook no disobedience tone so unlike him. “I’m fine.” Nothing a stiff drink and massage wouldn’t fix.
“I have the phone.”
“I found the jammer. Turned it off, don’t know if it stayed that way.”
“What a team we make,” he offered a palm for a high five. When she slapped his hand, he folded his fingers though hers. “We can’t do this here, too many eyes.”
She pulled her hand free, too many eyes and the bats in her belly went ballistic the moment their palms met. It was ridiculous to be so excited about making a phone call.
“I know a place.” She took Zeke and his tree to the empty cabin with the three clay ducks, staying to the shadows and moving quickly and quietly. Inside they sat on the floor with their backs to the wall and moonlight streaming in through the kitchen window.
“Where was it?” he asked, rummaging in his pack.
“Top floor of HQ. That’s where Orrin lives.”
He stopped and turned to her, brows drawn. “What happened?”
“We sparred and then he sent me back to my naughty corner to find my inner peace.” She wanted to run a finger over Zeke’s brow and ease his concern. He smelled of earth and pine and it was such a relief to be able to talk to him again, to see his familiar handsome face.
“That’s all?”
“Call Tres first. We can talk later.”
That satisfied him. He stuck his hand back in his pack and came up with the phone. It was industrial grade, terrestrial cell and satellite. Nothing fancy to look at, a physical keypad, small analog screen and an antenna. But for all its smarts it could still be blocked by geography or human interference.
The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game Book 3) Page 14