My freedom hadn’t lasted long, and with pain shooting up my leg, I wasn’t sure I’d ever have another chance. Curled on my side, I let my heart harden a little more, knowing it might be the only way I’d survive.
The last noises finally drifted away, and the only thing left was the wind whistling as it blew through the gaps in the wall.
Fingers whispered across my scalp, as if fearing to apply any more pressure than a feather.
“Teddy.” My name was spoken even softer.
“Tuesday?” I opened my eyes to see chaotic, dark curls framing a pixie face so ethereal that she could have had fairy blood in her veins.
She had big, soft eyes, like Maura’s had been before they’d closed for the last time.
Maura—I still felt the loss of her like a knife slashing through my heart, even though she’d been gone for over eight years. I’d known her death was coming, but more often than not, you couldn’t escape your time. When the date was stamped deep inside the flesh, not even knowing could help you avoid it.
There was a sickness that had grown in her for a long time. She’d fought it, but death had won, as it usually did. Tuesday, her daughter, the sister of my heart, if not my flesh, was all I had left of her. We’d been raised together, after they’d given me to Maura to nurse.
As I held Maura’s hand on that last day, she’d promised me the pain would eventually dull from her passing.
I was still waiting.
“Tuesday, you have to get away from me.” I scanned the area.
People were always looking, even if you didn’t see them. They were searching for a way to get a few more crumbs for themselves, a ration of meat on the few occasions the hunters brought back more than Baryn or Turrock could eat. If it cost the blood of others, they simply made sure they turned around before they had to see the outcome of their deed.
Last time Tuesday came to me when Baryn had chained me here, she’d caught a few blows herself. The circle was isolation. A spectacle to be seen by all but not approached. To cross the stones around the post was to risk being chained here yourself.
She pulled a bun out from under her jacket. “Here. Take this.”
“No, you keep it.” Food was tight, even if her lot wasn’t as bad as mine.
Kenny, the guy in charge of keeping the walls around this place intact, was sweet on her. He’d lightened her lot while he clung to the hope she’d turn equally sweet on him. He’d managed to get her a job in laundry, which wasn’t the worst you could do. After all, it kept her clear of Baryn and Turrock.
Kenny didn’t seem like the worst as far as people went, either. I’d never seen him look for trouble, but she hadn’t sweetened up yet, and she probably wouldn’t.
She shoved the bun back toward me. “You know you won’t get much while you’re stuck here. Please take it.”
I laid a hand on hers and pushed it back.
“I can’t eat it anyway.” The inside of my mouth was so chewed up from the last punch that hunger pains were preferable. Besides, my mouth was too dry for bread, but that wasn’t something I’d share with her. She’d risk her life to come back with water.
“I’m okay, Tuesday. You’ve got to go away before someone sees you. Please. I can handle anything but seeing him get to you too.”
She was barely hearing me. She stared at where the threadbare fabric of my pants was pulled tight across the swelling of my leg, purple flesh showing through the ripped seam.
“Your leg—”
“Will heal.” I’d walk on it again, and refused to think anything else.
She forced a smile even as her eyes nearly flooded, tears pooling on her lower lid. She squeezed my hand. “But you almost made it.”
Not even close. I tried to smile anyway, but the effort made her grimace, the gash on my lip straining. I dropped the pretense and returned the squeeze instead.
“Next time, I will.”
That was the plan. I’d escape one day. I’d settle somewhere far away and send her a pigeon in a month or two. Then she’d follow. She could leave here whenever she wanted. It was me who was trapped, but no matter how many times I’d told her to go, she wouldn’t.
Part of it was fear. I didn’t begrudge her that. If I had her life, this place might have been just enough to keep me here. Nothing good, but nothing too horrible. Just enough. Maybe you could do worse than getting by in this horrible place if what they said about everything out there was true. Or maybe this place was truly hell.
Would she be brave enough to set out into the Wilds without me beside her? I didn’t know. But dreaming about it for hours was one of the things that had kept us both going, so I didn’t delve too deeply into reality. I didn’t have the strength to strip the colors from the mirage when the mirage was all we had. So we’d talk about the day we’d get out of here and neither of us said a word otherwise.
A last squeeze to my hand and she stood, making her way back into the shadows of the buildings. I watched for flickers of movement from hidden watchers as she did. If a beating came her way tomorrow, I wanted to know who to blame.
Sometimes I wondered if hate drove me more than hope now. It didn’t really matter. Maybe hate was better, stronger. I had something to fuel the hate. Yesterday, when I’d run through those trees, I had hope. Somehow, it made the fracturing of my dreams that much worse. Hate was so much easier to hold on to.
I was still huddled against the wall, wondering how much longer they’d leave me here, when the gates creaked open. It was surprising they worked at all with the way they groaned at doing their job. Maybe they were trying to do their part and warn off newcomers.
At this late hour, it was probably Turrock returning. I didn’t look up, lying limp, too injured to come awake. He might go inside his house and get settled then. If I looked alert, he’d be drawn to me for sport, just as his brother was. Whatever their sickness, it seemed to run in the blood.
The night grew silent again. The danger had passed. My head on the ground, I tried to sleep, tried to ignore the pulsating pain that refused to stay in my one limb.
I didn’t know anyone was near me until I heard the crows caw and then a gasp. I cracked the eye that would still open to see two men, halted about eight feet away. Strangers, probably here to see Baryn or Turrock.
One of them had crazy blond hair that reminded me of a lion’s mane, like I’d seen in Tuesday’s picture book. He was staring in my direction, oblivious that he’d step over the stone ring as he stood in leather pants too rich for anyone I knew. It might have been the white-blond shade of my hair that was a curiosity, or sometimes it was the scars. I was a walking sideshow.
His stare wasn’t the dirty kind that made my skin crawl, but pity. As much as the lion wouldn’t look away, his friend seemed to have the opposite problem and wouldn’t look at all. That I was used to.
There was a time in my life, when I was younger and naive, that I would’ve asked for help. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I hadn’t been her for so long that it seemed as if she’d never existed at all. The only one that was going to save me from this hell was me, and I would. I didn’t know how yet, but the time was coming and I didn’t need anyone. I’d be my own savior. I’d leave this place one way or another, if only to watch it burn to the ground from a few feet away.
I laid my head back down again, trying to ignore them.
“Koz, come on. We don’t get involved in other people’s business. She’s probably a thief or something. Leave her be.”
I didn’t need to open my eyes to see the scene, but I did anyway. The one who couldn’t look tugged at the arm of the lion who was fixated on me.
“I don’t know if I can,” Koz said.
There was something in Koz’s voice that tugged at an innocence within I’d thought I’d murdered a long time ago. I couldn’t afford expendable emotions. Innocence and trust were among the first that had to go.
But maybe, just maybe, this one would be different? It wasn’t like there hadn’t been a few oth
ers that had tried. Nothing ever came of it, though. There’d always been a price to pay, either in their blood or mine. Usually both.
But what if he had the strength others hadn’t? He looked strong, much tougher than most of the men here.
“Koz, we need to handle our business and go.” The other man tugged at Koz again. “Come on. It’s not the same.”
Not the same? Same as what?
I wished they’d go about their business. I needed to forget them and not get crazy ideas, like asking for help. If they turned me down and then told Baryn, I might end up so bad off that I wouldn’t even be able to crawl from this place.
“Isn’t it though, Zink?” Koz asked.
Zink’s head angled slightly toward me but didn’t complete the turn. Then he gave me his back, shutting the door on my situation. “She’s one of them. Their business. Not ours. You know Callon’s rule. We keep to our own, take care of our own.”
I finally took a long, hard stare at this Koz. He didn’t break eye contact and took a step in my direction. He wanted to help, but that didn’t matter. People wanted to do a lot of things that they didn’t do. But if there was even a chance, how did I not take it?
Zink took a few steps away, waiting for Koz to follow him. “Come on.”
If Koz kept staring at me for even a few more seconds, I’d do it. I’d ask.
Our eyes held, my turquoise to his brown.
Did I dare? His eyes hardened, as if he were gearing up for action. My heart pounded with life and I opened my mouth, silently forming the word “help” on bloodstained lips.
“Koz,” Zink shouted.
His eyes shuttered, Koz turned and walked away. My heart slowed, then stuttered out into a sluggish beat. I laid my head back down. It had been nothing but wishes on the breeze, as Maura used to say. Not worth the air it took to utter them before they blew far away, as if they’d never been said at all.
3
A boot nudged me in the ribs, bringing me awake. I knew it was Baryn before I opened my eyes. I could tell by the rancid smell of him. Turrock liked to bathe, even if it was simply because he enjoyed watching the serving girls lug the hot water buckets as they splashed and burned their skin. “Boiling hot,” he’d yell. “The water must always be boiling. Then you add the cold.”
He said it was better that way, to steam the room before he was ready to bathe. It was bullshit. Hard to steam a room with windows wide open.
Turrock liked the subtle tortures, though. An artist of abuse, he took a chisel and hammer to his victims, slowly whittling them away, piece by piece. Baryn was more direct.
It was Baryn leaning over me now. Baryn and Turrock were the only ones allowed to go near me. Every scar on my body was due to one of them.
My good eye opened a small slit. The place was sleeping and a full moon had risen, making his shirt look blood red.
I’d never seen this shirt before in person. Only in my mind. It was the one he’d die in. In my vision, it had been vibrant and clean, just as it was now.
His death would come soon. Maybe even tonight? I took the rest of his form in. He was wearing his prized ring on his pinky finger, the one that looked too feminine for him, as if he’d taken it from a woman. I had a hunch that the blood-red ruby hadn’t been the only bloody thing when he’d acquired it.
The shirt.
The ring.
The full moon.
It was happening. Would it happen tonight? Could it line up this perfectly and not?
He squatted close to me. “What do you know of Turrock’s death?”
He’d never asked me about his brother. Did he think to kill him? Not surprising that he wasn’t even loyal to Turrock. I needed to make something up. Baryn was obviously up to something. Was he planning on killing his brother? How would he do it? It wasn’t going to work, but Baryn couldn’t know that.
I swallowed, trying to act natural. Baryn must not read the worry in me. His wasn’t a death that had to happen. His wasn’t going to come from within. This one could be avoided. I needed to act normal.
He. Could. Not. Know.
“Answer me when I talk to you, girl, unless you want two bum arms as well.”
Think! Baryn would make it a gruesome death, that was for sure. “There’s a lot of blood.”
“What else?”
He’d be sneaky about it. Poison. He’d definitely use poison. What happened when you poisoned someone?
He raised his hand but then paused as a growling sounded nearby. We both turned, listening for the noise that seemed to come from the other side of the wooden wall. It disappeared as quickly as it had come, but that sound would linger in my head for a while, maybe forever.
We were both still frozen when the wall exploded, sending chunks in every direction. The wood splintered around us.
A blur of fur and claws flew past me as something barreled through the huge hole in the wooden wall. A beast lunged at Baryn. Its massive jaws clamped down on his neck and then severed his head in one bite. It was exactly as my vision had shown, right down to the spurts of blood shooting from his body and pouring onto the dirt as the beast pinned what was left of him to the ground.
It had happened. It finally happened, and there was a gaping escape route right behind me. There was also a beast crouched in front of me.
I remained frozen at the sight of it. I’d never actually seen a beast, and to see one up close was terrifying. Its fangs hung beyond black gums, blood dripping from the tawny fur of its jowls. Claws the size of my fingers were partially sunk into Baryn’s still chest. It was a perfect killing machine.
This creature would never be vulnerable. I should’ve been repelled by the creature, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t only terrifying. It was amazing.
Its head turned and its body shifted toward me, claws leaving pools of blood behind. Red eyes burned into me.
I nodded slowly in Baryn’s direction as I watched the beast.
“Thank you,” I said, even knowing I might be next. Maybe it was my time, and what a death it would be. Much more worthy a death than the life I’d led. I’d lived in a whimper, but I’d die with a roar. It wasn’t what I would’ve chosen, but it was something. If I died now, at least I could go knowing Baryn was dead. Years of torment lay bleeding in front of me.
The creature stared at me, then the chain that led to my wrist, and I could feel the growl in its chest vibrating outward. Blood still dripping from its muzzle, it lunged for me. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, waiting for teeth to dig into already-battered skin. The bite didn’t come, just a graze of wetness. There was a clanking of metal as the weight of the iron fell from my wrist. My eyes snapped open, looking first to my free wrist and then the mauled three inches of metal lying underneath it.
I was still staring at the metal when the beast’s claws wrapped around my bicep. It leapt forward, yanking me backward as it did and then dragging me through the hole in the wall. The last view of my village was the horrified faces peeking out from behind buildings as they watched a beast carry away its dinner.
The startled faces were soon forgotten as soon as I was dragged over the first bump. My broken leg was jerked over a log, then a stone and a list of other unidentifiable objects as I was pulled like a rag doll through the forest at a pace no human could hope to match. If not for adrenaline pumping thickly through my veins, I would surely have passed out immediately.
I’d survive this. I’d survive. I had to survive. There were too many deaths I’d seen that hadn’t happened yet. I wasn’t sure how, or in what shape I’d be, but I would.
I reached out with my free hand and managed to graze my fingers across a stick. It was too slick to catch and we were moving too fast. I reached for another, but missed again as the beast continued at its crazy pace. Every new bang and bump crowded my vision with black spots until there was nothing left.
4
I woke to the moon shining through the tree canopy and the forest floor chilling my back. The smell of dead leaves was the
sweetest scent ever breathed, and I was hungry to suck it deep inside and hold it there. I was alive. But was I alone?
There was rustling in the distance and the air got stuck in my lungs. Was the beast nearby but taking a breather before it made a meal of me?
“I can’t do it, Callon. Look at her and then tell me that.” It was a man, not extremely close, but near enough that I could hear every word clearly. The voice sounded like that man from my village earlier—Koz, his friend had called him. I could still picture his lion’s mane of hair. How did he end up here? Had he found me after the beast had abandoned me? Had the beast tasted me and decided I wasn’t a good meal?
I didn’t feel any bites. Nothing felt that much worse than it had. Considering I’d seen it bite through a solid chunk of metal like it was a twig, I’d probably be dead if it had bitten me.
“It doesn’t matter what she looks like,” Callon answered. I’d never heard his voice before. I would’ve remembered. It was too deep and had a distinct gravelly sound, almost like a rumble.
There was a long pause.
“Won’t you just look—”
“It can’t happen,” Callon said, cutting Koz’s plea short.
They weren’t from my village, but that didn’t mean they weren’t a threat. It just meant the coin toss on which way they’d flop hadn’t revealed itself yet. I’d listened to stories my entire life of the perils that waited beyond the walls. If they were even partially true, I could be in worse shape than before I’d left. Just because Koz seemed remotely human meant nothing. There were people back at the village that had been a little human, too. Plus, Koz clearly wasn’t in charge.
I tried to survey my options without moving, afraid of drawing attention that would probably be coming soon enough. Trying to run wasn’t an option. The leg Baryn had hit was worse off than before I’d been dragged through the forest, and I hadn’t been up to standing before then.
Wild One_Born Wild 1_A Series Set in the Wilds Page 2