The Alpha Plague (Book 7)

by Michael Robertson

  “So urgent that I can’t wash first?”

  The now familiar cock of an eyebrow and she stared at him. The veiled threat dared him to push it.

  “Okay,” Flynn said with a sigh. “I can wash later.”

  The Queen didn’t respond. Instead, she stormed from the room and Flynn followed her out.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Flynn rode pillion again. Of course he did. Like before, no one spoke as they made their way across the grassy fields. The place would have looked so different twenty years ago. The frail corpses of buildings stood on the skyline, painting a picture of what used to be. Cars would have driven down the broken and grassy road they currently travelled along.

  When they left the royal complex, the sky had been clear. Now clouds covered the vast blue expanse. The humidity had turned up several notches and Flynn sweated where he sat. His T-shirt clung to his back and the brand above his right kidney, although sore, felt much better for the cream he’d put on it. Half a tube down, hopefully they’d give him more when he ran out. If he hadn’t gotten away by then.

  The sway of the horse forced Flynn to constantly move so he didn’t fall off. It sweated almost as much as he did and his trousers had turned damp with it. It would have been much easier to hold onto the Queen for stability, but he wouldn’t do that. No way.

  The Queen’s guards had come out with them. Four horses on either side of them, each had two guards on. Eight royal blue women.

  Mistress and several of her hunters had joined them too. It all amounted to Flynn giving up on the idea of escape for the time being.

  Were it just him and the Queen, he would have killed the bitch and been long gone. Too much longer around these lunatics and he’d go nuts. Especially with what she had planned for him.

  “So where did you say we’re going?” Flynn finally asked, breaking the muted atmosphere and pulling the attention of everyone onto him.

  “I didn’t,” the Queen replied as she continued to stare straight ahead. “You need to be more patient. I hope you’re not as eager in other departments.” She reached back and clamped a strong hand on his thigh, her fingers stinging as they dug in. “Maybe I’ll find out. Maybe not. Jason was very eager, you know.”

  A look at the others and Flynn met their dead stares. They knew where they were going. They knew what would happen to him.

  The Queen spoke again. “I want to show you something.”

  Several of the hunters flashed predatory grins at Flynn, but he didn’t ask any more questions.

  A cool breeze ran over the fields, bending the long grass and cooling Flynn’s sweating skin. It brought a fresh smell with it, clearing the stink of horse momentarily.

  Movement from Mistress’ hunters and Flynn saw several of them draw their weapons. They pulled their horses to a stop, as did the others.

  “Get off,” the Queen said.

  A look from the Queen to Mistress’ hunters and back to the Queen, and Flynn said, “Why?”

  “What’s with the questions?”

  Despite the cooler breeze, a hot wave of nausea rose up in Flynn. When he saw Mistress’ hunters slip from their steeds, he did the same.

  The Queen remained on her horse, the wind flicking her long black hair. She stared down at Flynn, zero emotion in her cold expression. “We have something for you.”

  Six of Mistress’ hunters had dismounted and all of them brandished their weapons as they formed a tight circle around Flynn. At first, he spun and looked at the one closest to him, then the one next to him, then … Once he’d turned several complete circles, each hunter levelling a steely glare at him, he looked up at the Queen. She watched on with her usual detachment. “What have I done wrong?”

  The hunters closed in another few inches.

  At that moment, the clouds above split and the first drops of rain hit Flynn’s bare arms. He looked up at the ominous sky, gunmetal grey stretching out above them. It took all he had not to piss himself where he stood.

  “Wait,” the Queen said to the hunters and she slid from her horse. The men parted for her as she walked over to Flynn, her dark stared fixed on him. “Let me do this.”

  Chapter Sixty

  A small bag hung from the Queen’s belt. Flynn hadn’t noticed it until now. More a pouch than a bag, it lifted away from her hip as she walked and patted against it again. She slipped her hand into it as she stepped into the ring of hunters and drew out a pair of binoculars.

  Flynn stared down at them. “Huh?”

  “Expecting something more deadly?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Come with me,” the Queen said.

  The ring of hunters parted to let them out. They closed in tighter as Flynn followed after the Queen, just to make it more uncomfortable for him. Despite the rain now falling, the men still smelled of sweat—horses’ and their own.

  They’d stopped just before the brow of a nearby hill, much like they’d done when they came to the community they’d raided earlier that day. Maybe she didn’t plan on killing him. Whatever she planned on doing, she had control. So many guards and hunters around them, Flynn couldn’t sneeze without feeling cold steel between his shoulder blades.

  The Queen handed Flynn her binoculars and said, “This is what we’ve come here for.” She led him forward.

  The air left Flynn’s lungs even before he saw it. They’d approached it from an angle he hadn’t approached it from before; otherwise he might have twigged sooner.

  “Beautiful, ain’t it?”

  What could he say? “Um, yeah. What is this place?”

  The Queen moved so close to him they were touching shoulders, and the rain fell harder than ever. “I dunno,” she said. “We didn’t know about it until just recently. One of my hunters found it. But it looks like it has something worth taking, right?”

  Maybe she knew. “Yeah,” Flynn said, “it certainly looks that way.”

  “I need your help sussing the place out. We need to work out the best way to attack them.”

  Flynn nodded, his throat dry.

  “And maybe we’ll come back in a few days with a decent-sized army and roll right over them. They look like they might be harder to take down than the last place.”

  She must have known. It all had to be a part of her twisted game. But Flynn had to play along. “I think we need to get closer so we can see the place better,” he said and stepped down the hill, keeping low so the grass hid him.

  Mistress followed behind.

  “What are those things there?” Flynn said, pointing down to the new community and handing the Queen her binoculars back.

  After she’d looked through them, she pulled them away and said, “They look like tubes and pipes of some sort. Maybe some way to catch water.”

  “I reckon we should make a hole in their fence and attack them by coming through that way.”

  The Queen patted Flynn on the back, the slap of her hand stinging against his wet T-shirt. “That sounds like a good plan.”

  Together they turned their backs on Home and returned to the others.

  “We’re going to come back in a few days,” the Queen said, “and take everything they have from them.”

  Watched by the guards and hunters, Flynn kept his mouth shut.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The rain had fallen hard on their ride back to the royal complex. It left Flynn unable to justify having a bath. The bathwater was no cleaner than rainwater.

  Even now, sat in the barn with the rest of the community, Flynn’s bare arms stung from the lashing the rain had given him on their ride. It still fell hard, pelting the roof while the community ate in the sweaty space.

  While chewing her food, the Queen leaned close to Flynn, breathing the stench of her meal on him. “I reckon we should check out that community a few more times before we raid them. What do you think?”

  Flynn’s mouthful caught in his throat and he gulped several times to pull it down before he nodded. Heat flushed his cheeks and
the humidity in the hot barn made him sweat.

  The Queen stared at Flynn, her eyes boring into the side of his face. “What did you say the place was called?”

  The word Home rushed to the edge of Flynn’s tongue, but he caught it before it slipped free. He hadn’t said its name to her. “Huh?” he said because he had nothing else.

  Fire burned through Flynn’s face to feel the Queen stare at him, but she didn’t reply.

  Whatever happened between now and when they went to raid Home, Flynn needed to get the fuck away. Just because he hated a few people at Home, he couldn’t make the entire community suffer. Maybe he couldn’t stop the Queen and her band of murderous arseholes, but he didn’t have to play any part in it.

  When the Queen clapped her hands next to Flynn, he jumped as the sharp crack of it silenced the place. She got to her feet and said, “Time for some more entertainment.”

  A rock sank through Flynn’s stomach. He gripped his knife. If he had to, he’d take her down before they could do anything to him. Better to attack one of them than none.

  But he wasn’t the entertainment today. Instead, the doors opened and in walked a topless girl. She had a hood over her head and wore a grass skirt. A hunter walked in behind her with a drum.

  The people in the barn cleared a space in the middle like they had before. The hunter led the girl into it. She had a collar around her neck. A chain ran from it to the hunter’s belt.

  In the centre of the room, the hunter whipped the girl’s hood away and Flynn instantly lost his appetite. As before, he felt the Queen’s glare burning into him and he tried his hardest to suppress his reaction. As before, his face burned like it had been set fire to.

  “Well?” the Queen said.

  There seemed little point in hiding it. “I was sure I wouldn’t see her again,” Flynn replied as he stared at Rose. “I didn’t think the dumb bitch would make a third run through the games.”

  Calling Rose a dumb bitch seemed to tickle the Queen. She threw her head back and laughed at the wooden ceiling. Then, as quickly as her laughter had exploded from her, it fell and she clicked her fingers at the drummer. “Play.”

  Not much of a musician, the drummer played a steady beat.

  The Queen turned her attention on Rose. “Dance.”

  As tempting as it was to look at her, Flynn ignored Rose and focused on his meal. Every gulp went down like jagged rocks, but he pushed through it, flinching every time the Queen laughed next to him. He couldn’t be a part of Rose’s humiliation, but he couldn’t do much to help her either. The sooner this evening ended, the better.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Flynn peered out through his bedroom window into the darkness of the hospital’s corridor. It had to be late enough. The only light came from the moon. Everyone had to be sleeping by now. It had to be late enough.

  The Queen hadn’t called Flynn to her room that night, but she would one of these evenings soon. And she could still beckon him now. The crazy bitch got drunk on her power, so it wouldn’t surprise him if she saw fit to call on him in the middle of the night. Wake him up just so he could fuck her.

  Flynn needed to find Rose. He owed her. When she’d been hidden in a secret location miles from where he stayed, he could pretend nothing could be done. But now, with her in the same community as him, he had to find her and he had to help her. When he did, they could both get out of there.

  In the still of night, even the creak of Flynn’s door handle went off like cannon fire. Would the Queen have someone watching him? Were they waiting for him to go to Rose so she could cut his cock off in front of everyone? He couldn’t second-guess anyone or anything. Rose needed his help and they both needed to get the fuck away from the twisted community.

  Up until that point, Flynn had turned right when leaving his room. Right led out of the hospital. This time he turned left. There had to be more rooms to the left.

  Fortunately, the moon shone through the dark corridor’s skylights. Bright enough to make shadows of obstacles, Flynn managed to avoid the things in his path with relative ease.

  A glance through each round window as he passed them. Flynn found most of the rooms to be empty. Maybe he’d see the Queen in one of them.

  The next door benefitted from being directly beneath a skylight in the corridor. It lit it up enough to show him the difference between this room and all of the others he’d seen. This one had a lock on the outside. A cell rather than a bedroom.

  Flynn’s heart pounded as he looked both up and down the corridor. If he returned to his room now, no one would be any the wiser. But he’d have to remain in the royal complex. He’d have to turn his back on Rose after she’d saved his life. He couldn’t do that. Now he’d left his room, he couldn’t ever return.

  When Flynn got closer to the door, he peered inside. Unlike his room, this room had mattresses spread over the floor. Each mattress had a sleeping form on it. They looked like women, but he couldn’t be sure. It could have been small men. Or children. He hadn’t seen any children in the royal complex. He’d have to go in to find out.

  While holding his breath, Flynn pinched the cold bolt securing the door, his hand shaking. He bit down on his bottom lip as he wiggled it up and down, easing the stiff lock gently free.

  Every few seconds, he looked both ways along the corridor. From what he saw, it remained clear of people. Yet the skin on the back of his neck crawled as imagined eyes burned into him. A spectator in the dark waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves.

  The lock let out a light click as it came free and Flynn released his breath. One last look up and down the corridor and he slipped into the room.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The rain had stopped a few hours previously, so the only noise Flynn heard in the dark room came from the rhythmic breathing as the women slept. At least, he assumed all of them were women. It felt like a room full of women.

  Still too dark to tell if Rose lay amongst them, Flynn had to check one woman at a time. It made sense to start with the closest to the door.

  Flynn’s body still ached from the exertion of the past few days, so when he hunched down next to the first sleeping woman, pain groaned through him.

  She slept with her back to Flynn. Her shirt rose up a little, revealing her brand. Over her left kidney, Flynn saw the number one. First time! He’d found her on the first time of trying.

  Flynn gripped Rose’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Rose,” he whispered, “it’s me, Flynn.”

  Despite there being very little light in the room, Rose squinted as if blinded by a glare. The confusion of sleep quickly left her when she looked at Flynn and her face fell. She shook her head and sighed. “Oh, Flynn, I wish you hadn’t come.”

  Because he’d been so focused on Rose, Flynn hadn’t seen the movement around him. When he looked up, he saw every other woman in the room had risen to their feet. Each one of them brandished a sword.

  The slow sound of clapping came down the corridor towards the room and Flynn shook to hear it. It cracked in time with her heavy-booted steps.

  What seemed like an age passed and the repeated clap chipped away at Flynn’s resolve. Each sharp snap wound the muscles in his back a little bit tighter.

  Then the Queen appeared in the doorway. Her head cocked to one side, she sighed as she said, “What a shame. I was kind of hoping you’d be different. All I want is someone to adore me, Flynn.”

  “Why the fuck would I adore a murderous maniac like you? You’re fucking mental.”

  Silence seemed to sweep through the entire building as if the old hospital itself had drawn a breath. The Queen let it hang before she looked at her guards. “You know what to do.”

  The women closed in around Flynn and Rose.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Flynn spent the entire night rubbing his wrists together. The rope had been tied so tightly he didn’t get any movement from them at first, and his hands throbbed from the circulation having been cut off. Bu
t the more he moved them, the more his bonds loosened.

  The process had rubbed the skin off his wrists and they stung with an aggressive buzz, but he had to keep going. He’d already been through plenty of pain, a little more wouldn’t stop him now.

  Neither Flynn nor Rose spoke to one another. They seemed to share a fear that someone would be listening. At least that was what Flynn assumed to be Rose’s reason for remaining quiet. He could only guess at what went through her mind at that moment.

  At least they’d been trapped in the summer. Had they been left in what equated to a human birdcage in the winter, they would have probably gotten hypothermia from the first night.

  Although summer brought its own challenges. Every time Flynn swallowed, his dry and swollen tongue damn near choked him. The rain had stopped quite a few hours ago, and he hoped it would start up again soon; both his wrists and his throat could do with the wet relief.

  The cage hung from the branch of the only large tree in the royal complex. It stood close to the barn, and when the people of the community woke up, Flynn and Rose would be in plain sight.

  The silence chipped away at Flynn, so he finally said, “I’m worried they’re going to cut my dick off.”

  Rose frowned at him.

  “She did that, you know. She had me lined up to be her fuck toy. The last guy who didn’t make the grade had his penis cut off in front of everyone in the barn. The spectators loved it. They’re fucking savages in this place.”

  “Fuck,” Rose said as she looked at the large wooden structure close by. What else could she say? No doubt her mind spun like Flynn’s. If the Queen would cut his dick off, what would she do to Rose?

  Not only had Flynn’s and Rose’s wrists been bound, but they’d been anchored to a large metal ring in the middle of the birdcage. The angle Flynn had to sit at—hunched over and leaning forwards—set his shoulders on fire with a deep ache. Although he rolled them to try to ease his pain, it had little effect other than sending the birdcage swinging.