What Remains (Book 2): What's Left

by Fuller, James

  “Coming from a slaver, that’s rich,” she hissed back. “You could sneak out of here right now, jump in your trucks and run far, far away. If you cared so much for the lives of those you’ve traded for, you could easily just let them go! So, don’t try and make me look like the fucking bad guy here.”

  “The life they will live after I sell them won’t be kind and won’t be pretty,” he confirmed, “but it won’t be anywhere as cruel as will happen to them here.”

  “Fine, you want me to fight and try to win?” she questioned.

  “Yes, of course!”

  “Then do me one small kindness.”

  He looked hard at her. “And what is that?”

  “Bring Wren to me for a few hours.”

  Everett raised a brow. “Why?”

  “I’d rather not chance leaving this world a virgin.”

  The words struck the slaver and he nearly laughed out loud. “Truly?”

  “Did I fucking stutter?”

  He looked her up and down; what a strange, and yet realistic request. Though he would never have thought she would have been a virgin... “And if I refuse?”

  “Then I guess you’ll see just how cold-hearted I can be when I let myself be killed.”

  Too much rode on this fight to be petty now. “Fine, I will bring him to you. You’ll have two hours, I suggest you make them last. But first get some sleep, I’ll have food and water brought to you. I expect you to eat it all!”

  “Fine, whatever.” She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep again.

  Preston watched from his hiding spot as the three men searched the area around the water tower. The same area he would have been meeting up with Vincent, had the man gotten his note, right now. Meaning someone had found the note and told the council.

  “We are on to the truth aren’t we!” he whispered to himself.

  “You were!” a voice said from behind him.

  Before he could react, something hard smashed into his head and his world went black…

  Auska stirred awake again, hearing her cell being opened. Everett stood with two guards flanking him, as he pushed a confused and worried Wren inside.

  “You will have an hour,” Everett told them, locking the cell again, “I suggest you use it wisely.”

  Auska pushed herself up. “I thought you said we’d have two.”

  “I doubt you’ll have the energy for two, not to mention I don’t want you to waste that much energy fucking.” He glared at Wren, a hint of jealousy in his eyes. “Please her well and I’ll make sure you get double rations tonight. Disappoint her and you will be cannibal rations!”

  “Umm, ya… of course,” Wren stumbled. “I’ll do my best?”

  Auska grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her. She pressed her mouth against his and kissed him hard, her tongue dancing with his as she guided his hand up under her shirt to her breasts. His hands were gentle as they caressed her smooth skin and she found herself kissing him with more passion, something stirring within her that she hadn’t expected.

  The sound of the door closing in the background echoed off the walls and made her curse as she stopped and laid back. Part of her wanted to continue and she didn’t know why. Sex had never been something she had cared about. She wasn’t a virgin, but neither was she at all experienced.

  Wren stopped also and looked around. “I assumed that was for show, but a guy can always dream, right?”

  “Depends. You said you wanted to escape and were willing to help me.” She looked up at him; he wasn’t ugly by any means… boyish, but cute. “You still willing to help?”

  “Say no, get to have sex and be sold as a slave… Say yes, escape, and likely be killed in the process…” He sighed, “These are hard decisions for a man to make.”

  She grinned and shook her head, slowly pulling his hand from under her shirt and, sitting up with a wince, she looked him in the eyes and kissed him again. “Yes, but you forgot, we get out of this alive, maybe we can finish this under better circumstances.”

  “When you put it that way, yes, yes I will help you escape.” He paused, suddenly remembering where they were. “Not sure how, though. Would have been easier before we were locked in a mountain full of cannibals.”

  “Can you get us out of this cell?”

  Grinning, he pulled two pins from his shaggy hair. “Locks are never a problem. It’s the mile and a half of armed human eaters that worry me.”

  “Just open the door and we will worry about the rest when we need to. I am sure I remember the way out of here.” She quickly swallowed six of the pain killers. She had already taken four but knew she would need to be numb for what was likely to come.

  “Yeah but outside the front will be crawling with guards and slavers. I just came from that way. It would be suicide.”

  Auska rolled her eyes as she watched his nimble fingers work the lock. “I told you, I have been here before. When I was twelve, I was travelling with a man who was helping me stay alive and bringing me to Sanctuary. There is another way out of here. There is a tunnel that leads up the cliff to an exit near the top.”

  The soft click of the lock popping open was music to their ears.

  “So, I did my part,” he pushed the cell open and helped her out. “Now how are you going to keep us alive and see us out of here? Not going to lie, you are looking in rough shape.”

  Auska almost felt like laughing. “Good thing I’m not used to being the damsel in distress. You’d make a piss poor knight in shining armor.”

  Wren held up his hands in his defense. “I told you, we all have our talents in this world.”

  She felt the pull of her crudely stitched side. Wren was right, she was in bad shape. Any physical fighting and she would be badly pressed, more so without a weapon. Pressing her ear up against the door she listened, she could hear breathing outside, but couldn’t tell if it was just one guard or two.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “You’re not going to like it,” she told him with a grimace. “Open the door and see who’s out there, then high tail it back in here.”

  “You’re right,” he muttered, “I don’t like it.”

  “We don’t have the time or the resources to come up with anything fancy. Straight and bold is all we have, and the timer is ticking.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he grabbed the door handle. “Fuck me this is going to suck.”

  Wren opened the door quickly and stepped out. The guard turned in surprise. “What are you doing out!”

  “Just thought I’d go for a walk,” Wren joked, stepping back into the room as the guard leveled an axe at him.

  Auska watched Wren step passed her. She was pressed up as hard as she could against the door wall, making herself as invisible as possible. The axe head came next, hand, arms, then the middle-sized man himself. He didn’t notice her; his attention was locked firmly on Wren.

  Using her leg, she pushed off the tunnel wall, shoulder checking the guard with her good shoulder as hard as she could. The attack worked well; she hit the guard squarely, toppling him into one of the barbed wire cells.

  Auska gave him no reprieve, knowing if he regained his senses, he would likely be able to overwhelm her. Ignoring the searing pain in her side and the throb in her shoulder, she grabbed fists full of his matted hair and forced his face down. He fought against her, trying to push himself off the razor wire. Not being able to do it one-handed, he quickly discarded the axe and put both arms into pushing off. Auska kneed him as hard as she could in the ribs, again and again, driving the air from his lungs and the strength from his arms.

  Slowly she lowered his head down, mere inches away from the thick tangle of tiny blades. Another knee to his side and she heard ribs splinter and his arms give out. Savagely she pulled his head back and forth across the wire, leaving a bloody, pulpy mess, until final the blades worked through his throat and gouts of blood poured free, his body sagged, and the fight was over.

  “Look out!” Wren cried.


  Auska turned just in time to see a second guard bearing down on her, a weighted club in hand. She dropped herself down, bring the body of the dead guard with her. The impact of the club smashed into the bloody corpse and was like a punch to her chest. But still, it was better than the full force the blow would have caused.

  She heard a crash as she struggled to pull herself from beneath the dead guard. Within moments Wren was there, blood was splattered across his arms and face.

  “Here, let me help you up.” He offered his hand and pulled her to her feet.

  Auska glanced down at the second guard. An axe wound had opened his midsection, while another had cleaved halfway through his neck. “Aren’t you full of surprises?”

  Wren shrugged. “You distracted him. I just took advantage.”

  Pulling the axe from the dead guard, she went to the doorway to make sure the noise hadn’t been heard. “We’ve overstayed our welcome.”

  They moved out of the room and down the left side of the tunnel. She knew she had gone left after freeing Archer and Vincent. Quickly they ran, she ignored the pain plaguing her whole body.

  “What are you looking for?” Wren asked nervously after they stopped for the third time and Auska bent down to inspect something. “I thought you knew the way out of here!”

  “When I was here as a child, I marked the way, with little arrows, so I wouldn’t get lost!” She growled, annoyed at finding nothing again. “I was hoping some faint trace remained.”

  “And if we can’t find one?”

  Auska pushed herself back up; Wren helped to steady her. “Then we take a guess.”

  “Life has always got to be suspenseful,” Wren muttered.

  “Come on, our hour is ticking by.”

  They continued down the tunnel and had to turn off to a side tunnel as several men were coming. Both knew now it was only a matter of minutes before the dead guards were found.

  “Wait!” Wren whispered grabbing her arm. “I smell something.”

  “Other than blood and death, I’m surprised,” she hissed pulling her arm free and moving back down the way they had come, they needed to get back on track and fast.

  “No, its… its fresh air!”

  She needed no more than that. “Can you follow it?” She sniffed the air and could smell nothing but death that clung onto her.

  “I… I think so. This way!”

  Auska followed behind him, as he sniffed his way down the tunnel, turning at several intersections. Twice more they had to detour and hide from several cannibals that moved by.

  Before long Auska could finally smell the fresh air, too, and glanced down at the wall and saw a faint arrow mark she had made over a decade ago. Her heart nearly leaped from her chest. “This is the way!”

  Together they ran, the slope of the cliff leading up; slowly, then as they round bend after bend, it steepened, until they caught the faint dimness of sunlight.

  Auska grabbed Wren’s arm and stopped him, putting her finger to her lips. “Last time I was here there was a guard outside the door.”

  He tightened his grip on the club he carried. It was a heavy and awkward weapon, one that he would be next to useless at using effectively, but it was better than nothing. Slowly he followed her, keeping to the side of the tunnel.

  Creeping to the entrance, Auska peered out. A table and two chairs were set up twenty feet away, empty. But two rifles were leaned up against rockface beside it. They wouldn’t have just left guns up here. There were two guards, maybe more, somewhere… but where?

  “We should just make a run for it,” Wren whispered. “If we can make it passed the first hundred feet, we can slip through the trees and lose them.”

  “Or get shot in the process.” Had she thought she would be able to sprint for more than a few seconds she might have agreed with him, but there was a plan there. “You want to run, run, make sure you grab a rifle on your way and be ready to use it.”

  “What the hell are you going to do?” There was concern in his voice.

  “I’m going to make sure they don’t shoot you in the back, now go!” she urged.

  Cursing, Wren ran for the small table, his eyes taking in everything he could, but he could see nothing; there was no one. He slowed as he got to the table and snatched up one of the rifles. Still, it was silent. “It’s clear,” he called quietly to her.

  Would it really be so easy? Auska made her way out, scanning everything until she made it to the table and grabbed the other rifle. At that moment they made out soft grunts and muttered voices.

  “What the hell is that?” Wren whispered, leveling the gun in the direction of the noise.

  Auska knew what it was: someone was fucking. “None of our business, let’s get out of here!”

  They made their way down the slope of the cliff to the tree line; no shouts or calls of alarm could be heard, though they knew it would come sooner or later. Their hour was up; someone would be checking on them, find the dead guards and then all hell would be after them. They needed to be as far away from here as possible.

  “Come on. If we are quick, we can make it through the forest, there use to be a small city on the other side. Might be somewhere we can hide for a few days until everything settles down.”

  Wren slowed and looked back. “We can’t just leave them to that fate.”

  “What?” Auska asked, turning to regard him.

  “Jen, Caitlyn and the others back there,” he said. “We can’t just abandon them.”

  Auska wanted to yell at him. “And the two of us can just somehow change that? If we go back there, it’s over for us, too, and we just escaped! We won’t be so lucky a second time!”

  “So, you would just leave them?” he asked, his expression boarding mortified. “I know you are cold, Auska, and hard but even you can’t be so cruel to people you’ve lived around for years. You know what will happen to them if we don’t help them.”

  Auska was about to growl a rebuttal at him about how she was when the image of her standing defiantly in front of Archer assaulted her. ‘I don’t want to just survive! I want to live!’ “Fuck!” she barked out at him. “Fine, we will go down and see what we can do, but nothing stupid. If we can free a few, great. If not, at least we looked.”

  Wren knew that was the best he was going to get from her and nodded. “That’s all we can do.”

  Everything in Auska’s instinct told her not to be so stupid, not to take this risk, and yet she moved closer to the cannibal’s lair that she had just escaped from. It wouldn’t be long before an alarm sounded and everyone was alerted to the fact that they had escaped. When that happened, things would get ugly, really ugly, really quickly.

  Creeping through the thickly wooded area around the cliffs, they neared the slaver’s camp. Glad that they were wary enough to keep well away from the cannibal entrance, but it could be seen they were nervous, on edge, and their guard was up. Thankfully, it was mostly projected towards the cannibals’ lair, as if they were expecting an attack at any minute.

  The slaves were grouped closer together, most of their leashes running from the same four trees, forcing them more into a huddled group.

  “This is good,” Wren whispered. “I can try to blend in and pick their locks close together, and hopefully I won’t be noticed as out of place among them.”

  Auska counted four guards nearby, three were sitting around a small fire, talking in hushed tones; the fourth was patrolling back and forth, his attention more focused on the others than what might be out in the trees. “I will take out the one walking around. That will give you time to work faster without having to worry about being noticed. Downside you’ll have only a minute or two before his presence is missed.” She looked towards the cliff face. “Chances are that’s all the time we will have before shit gets loud. If this goes bad, I’ll draw their attention and will lead them away. You get as many of those locks off as you can, then scatter!”

  “Will do, boss lady.” He winked and dropped to the ground
and began his slow course towards the group of prisoners.

  Auska watched him go with a shake of her head with a small grin. “Don’t get yourself killed either… idiot… I still want to finish what we started before.” The words and feelings truly surprised her; she had to push them away. She needed to focus… to be hard, cold… a killer.

  Following around the edge of the trees, she placed herself between the furthest place she had seen the guard walk by that was also out of direct eyesight of the three men around the fire. She would have to be quick and clean with this; any noise and she knew those other guards would be on her. They were already on edge. Anything out of place would trigger trouble and in her current condition, she doubted it would end well for her.

  Waiting, she gripped the small spear-like branch. It would work so long as she was fast and her aim was true. “Fuck me,” she muttered to herself, “what the fuck am I doing out here… was this what it was like for you, when I was around?” she joked, almost expected his dream voice to answer.

  Seconds felt like minutes as she waited in the undergrowth, her eyes flipping between Wren and the guard. It looked like he was well on his way, with more than a handful already freed, but from here she couldn’t be sure. The guard was moving slowly, distracted, his attention elsewhere, his footsteps lingering after each step.

  Finally, he got closer but stopped just out of her range. He looked around idly and placed his gun against a tree, pulled his cock out and began to relief himself.

  Close enough. Auska lifted herself out and stepped forward. Her hand clamped around his mouth and she kicked the back of his legs, dropping him to his knees before he had a chance to realize what was happening. The broken branch sunk deep into his eye, and she forced it to go as far as she could. His thrashing slowed and jerked to a stop as she felt his last breath leave him. Simple.