There was a lot that could be overlooked in the name of loyalty. When someone was willing to put themselves in between you and danger, their rough edges seemed a lot smoother.
It was four in the morning when I awoke, and this time it wasn’t to an imaginary truckload of cement. I looked around, wondering what had brought me awake, and I saw Dax sitting upright. He’d sensed something too. He looked at me, then Tiffy, who had somehow nestled in beside me without waking me, and he didn’t have to say anything else. I nodded and scanned our group. Everyone else was still asleep. I looked back to Dax but only saw his retreat as he disappeared into the woods.
My heart thudded loudly in my chest as I realized how wrong it felt to simply lie here, waiting, but I didn’t want to throw off any alarms to whoever, or whatever, Dax and I had sensed. I’d understood the signal Dax had given me. Take care of them because the beast would be off hunting tonight.
I lay back down as if everything were fine and tugged Tiffy closer to me, while my other hand clenched the knife that was under the makeshift pillow.
Tiffy stirred beside me, and I knew she was awake before she spoke. “Don’t worry. He’ll get them. If not, my friends will.”
She didn’t say anything else, and I heard her breathing even out as she fell back to sleep. She was so trusting that she’d be okay, that no harm would get to her. I lay awake, my hand clenched tightly on the knife, listening to every leaf rustle.
Dax didn’t come back for almost an hour, and when he did, his skin was flushed and his hair was wet, like maybe he’d had to stop by a stream on the way back. His chest rose and fell, as if he’d just exerted himself.
My eyes met his and there was a subtle nod of his head. The threat had been taken care of, whatever it was. I wouldn’t ask for details now. If it had been someone he suspected to be from Newco, he would’ve gotten us all up and moving, in case there were reinforcements nearby. Probably just a band of bandits. We were safe. That was all that mattered.
I expected him to go back to his makeshift bed and if not sleep, at least feign it until the sun rose. He remained standing across the clearing, a rawness to him that I’d learned to recognize as the remnants of the beast. I wasn’t sure what becoming the beast did to him exactly, but the aftereffects seemed to strip away his walls.
His eyes shot to where he’d made his bed close to mine and then back to me again. He didn’t say anything, and disappeared back into the forest, probably to patrol the perimeter of our camp.
No matter how I told myself the threat was neutralized, sleep was lost to me after that. There could only be so much adrenaline pumped into the machine before the switch was turned on. I closed my eyes, and with nothing else to do, I tried to feel the burn of magic inside of myself. Like all times before, it fluttered out quickly.
I had to figure this out, and it needed to be soon. Lying here waiting for someone else to protect me wasn’t going to cut it. When I’d gotten out of the Cement Giant, I’d thought I’d hit the ground running. Turned out I was moving along at more of a crawl, but damn if I wouldn’t find my stride.
I lay there beside Tiffy as the sun started rising, my thoughts wandering back to who Dax had found prowling around our camp. Would he know if they’d been Dark Walkers? There were all sorts of bandits that roamed the area, but not that many had the nerve to go out at night.
The stress of having Tiffy lying beside me, just a little girl, exposed to the threat I carried every day, made me wonder about the choices I’d made. Fudge, way past her prime, should be lying in a toasty bed in her room right now, not on the hard, cold ground. Had I made a mistake staying at the farm? Had I been selfish? When Dax had told me I could leave at any time, I’d always thought he said it to force me in line. Maybe he’d rethought his offer and really wanted to force me out?
What if I took them all down with me? Tiffy and Fudge were here because of Dax. If Bookie got hurt, that one was all on me. I should’ve listened to Fudge and not invited him along.
I heard Fudge, always one of the earliest risers, starting to move around, and I knew I didn’t have to feign sleep anymore. I nearly jumped up, looking for any distraction.
We were all up getting ready to go soon as I watched Bookie out of the corner of my eye, my thoughts of the night before weighing on me.
Bookie wasn’t like me, wasn’t as resilient, but it was too late to send him back. He was on this journey, wherever it led, until I could figure out something else. The only solace I had was knowing exactly where we were going, and as long as we got there, Bookie would be even safer than at the farm. But I had to start putting some distance between us, because this had to be the end of the line for him. The road I was headed down wasn’t leading toward pretty white fences and happy endings.
I wasn’t the only somber one that morning. We all moved around in a different sort of state. No one spoke much as we all ate some jerky and packed up. Another day was here, and by that night, we’d be even farther from the farm than we were now.
I got on the bike with Bookie, and held on a little tighter than I normally did. I knew I’d have to let him go, but not yet.
I looked up at the sky while we took off. The sun was shining bright. It was going to be a beautiful day back at the farm.
* * *
We pulled up to the Rock just as it was getting dark. Dax had seen trouble coming from a long way off, and I knew arrangements had been made for us to come here. Maybe oil or something else had changed hands. Still, waiting there for the great metal door to creak open, taking just as long as I remembered it from the first time, I felt a lot like a pauper coming to a place I’d rather not be for a handout.
No one else seemed to have trepidations. If they did, they hid them really well. I tugged on the gloves I was wearing, the ones that covered the scar that was no longer in a P shape, but still there.
The door finally creaked open wide enough for us to pass, and Dax rode through, followed by the rest of us. Dax pointed toward the right and made his way down a small, quiet street. I caught glimpses of candles and fireplaces through the windows as we made our way. Every other house or so, I would see someone peeking out to get a glimpse of who was entering their little community.
Dax stopped his bike on a shared driveway between two small ranch houses, and Tank pulled in behind him. Bookie parked ours about five feet away. Dax got off his bike and started laying out the orders before Bookie had finished helping Fudge off her horse.
“Fudge, Bookie, and Tiffy, you’re in that house. Dal, Tank, you’re with me,” he said, pointing to the blue one on the right. “Bookie, you know where the stalls are.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Bookie said, stopping to pat the mare before he got Fudge’s and Tiffy’s bags off the horse.
Dax tossed his bag toward the door of where we’d be staying and then turned to leave, stopped suddenly, and said, “I’ll be back in an hour,” then walked off, taking Tank with him.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d all of a sudden decided he needed to let me in on his schedule. He was giving me a curfew.
I giggled a little as I stopped myself from telling him, Good luck with that, buddy. Why bother alerting him? It was much easier to simply do as I pleased.
“You good?” Bookie asked.
“I’m good. See you in the morning,” I said, and watched him walk the horse away.
I turned around to take a really good look at the place, viewing it as someone who’d be living here indefinitely. The houses were charming, the town center as quaint and attractive as it had been the first time I’d been here, but all I could focus on were the walls that stood beyond, remember the metal door blocking the entrance. Back at the farm, there had been a fence, but the place always felt wide open. The walls here reminded me of another place. This was going to be a long stay, even if it were only a couple of days, which I doubted.
As much as I wanted to wander the neighborhood for exactly an hour and ten minutes, I grabbed my bag, deciding to cu
t my losses and grab some sleep before the night turned for the worse. I was too tired to bother spiting Dax, just to let him know he wasn’t my boss. I had to stick to my personal improvement list of pros and cons. Do what was best for me, and that included not chopping off my nose when I wanted nothing more than to sleep.
I walked into the small ranch house that had a living room and kitchen off to the side. It wasn’t a bad-looking little place to call home, if one were so inclined. Everything was nice in a useful, utilitarian type of way. I told myself it wasn’t fair to compare it to the farmhouse, with its curtains, braided rugs, and vases of flowers. My biggest problem with the place was that I’d already found somewhere to call home, and it was miles away.
There were three bedrooms off a small hallway that all looked nearly identical. I grabbed one, collapsed on the bed, and decided to call it a day.
Sleep. Sometimes I liked it more than food.
Chapter 16
I hit the rocky part of the path that circled the Rock’s lake for the third time before I came to terms with the fact that no matter how many laps I walked around, it wasn’t going to rid me of my claustrophobia. All I saw in this place were the walls. The walls peeked out in between the houses, over a low roof or in between a tree. Even the outlet to the lake was walled off above where the water flowed. I’d spent too much time inside walls to willingly lock myself behind more.
This wasn’t forever. I wouldn’t let it be. I took some deep breaths like I’d read I should in a self-help book on meditation I’d found at the library with Bookie. I needed to train my brain to think positively. It wasn’t a bad place. I needed to forget about the walls and focus on the pluses. Positive attitude and all. That was what I needed.
I pretended I didn’t see the metal door in the distance and focused my eyes on the cluster of houses all nestled together. I just couldn’t look up, or to the side, or too far back the other way. Or at Bookie, who was rushing to catch up to me because he didn’t look so charming at the moment either.
There was a really smart person named Mehrabian who lived during the Glory Years who had declared that the majority of communication was nonverbal. Bookie was currently proving Mehrabian’s theory. His brow conveyed worry and his pace was too fast for something not to be wrong. In return, I picked up my pace as my entire body came alert, mimicking his.
I scanned past him, to where the main community was again, this time looking at the people and not the structures. They were walking around leisurely; some kids on the other side of the lake were trying to skip stones—I think. It didn’t look to be going so well. The gate was closed. So it wasn’t a community problem, but something more personal to our core group.
The second Bookie got within earshot, he blurted it out, “Have you seen Tiffy? Fudge hasn’t seen her in a while and is getting worried.”
The tension that had been building in me turned into imaginary fingers and gripped my chest while my own hands felt numb. Bookie wasn’t an alarmist. If there was anyone whose glass was half full, it was Bookie’s.
“No, not recently.” We didn’t even know what was wrong yet and I was cursing myself for coming here. I’d known this place was a bad idea. Tiffy was already lost.
“When did you see her last?” he asked.
I looked up at the sun sitting low on the horizon, telling me it had to be close to three in the afternoon. “This morning, when Fudge was making breakfast.”
His face lost what was left of its color just as I could feel the blood drain in mine.
“Where do we look?” It wasn’t so much a question for him but my own declaration of desperation. We hadn’t been here long enough to establish where she’d go.
The place wasn’t that big. Between the two of us, we should be able to make short work of it. “I’ll take the west side. You take the east.” He nodded and took off in the opposite direction.
I asked every person I came in contact with, regardless of whether they wanted to speak to me or not. Most looked down at my gloved hands with suspicion and took a couple of steps back as I approached. I didn’t care, and took a couple of steps forward until I got my answer. I scanned their faces and realized this would’ve been a great time to be able to read a person.
I’d scoured the west side twice when I saw Bookie walking over.
“Nothing?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
There was a holler from behind the steel gate, and both of us watched as it opened. Dax had been gone since morning, but he never would’ve taken Tiffy without telling Fudge. Still, my lungs ceased to work as I hoped to see Tiffy walk through beside him, or maybe alone with some crazy story about how she was out visiting her friends.
Dax walked through beside Rocky, but no Tiffy. Bookie and I went over to them immediately, and drew a few more looks from people milling about.
“Have you seen Tiffy since this morning?” I asked Dax, not caring what anyone heard or if I sounded as frantic as I felt.
He turned and gave me his full attention for a change. “No.”
“We can’t find her. She’s not with Fudge, either. Bookie and I can’t find her.”
“You sure she didn’t—”
“Fudge told her she wasn’t allowed outside the gates and came down on her pretty hard about it. I heard her this morning. Even if she threw caution to the wind, Tiffy wouldn’t have been gone this long.”
Rocky, who’d been listening this entire time, immediately turned to the two guards at the gate. “Raise the alert. Get every able body to comb through every house and corner of this place.”
Within fifteen minutes, every person in the community was looking for Tiffy. After an hour, search parties had been formed and branched outside the walls and into the surrounding forest. Dax headed up one with me and a few locals. Tank led another. Bookie went with Rocky’s group.
But we were running out of time. We weren’t that many miles away from the walls when one in our group pointed out that we were running out of daylight. The consensus was to turn around until tomorrow. Only the toughest of Rocky’s men would leave the walls of the Rock after nightfall.
I’d known we’d get limited help before we even set out, and I held back the scream of frustration. I watched them prepare to turn around. They were afraid of the beasts. I shouldn’t blame them for not being willing to risk their lives. I shouldn’t, but that didn’t mean I didn’t. Emotions rarely listened to logic, mine included.
“Head back with them,” Dax said as he came to stand beside me, watching as the rest of our group prepared to return to the Rock.
The group was getting fidgety, and I knew the only reason they hadn’t left yet was because of Dax.
“No. I don’t want to stop looking. I know you’re not going to. Tell them it’s okay to leave us.”
“You won’t be able to keep up with me. You’ll only slow me down.” In other words, he was going to switch to the beast once the forest had been cleared of people.
It took me a minute to force the emotions down, but logic won out and I nodded. I wanted to keep going, but not at the cost of Tiffy.
“What are you going to tell them?” I asked, looking at the already suspicious group.
“Nothing. Let them think what they want. Try and keep Fudge calm.”
“Sure,” I said, but I didn’t think it would actually work. I couldn’t keep myself calm, not on the inside.
I walked back to the community, lagging a good ten feet behind the group and dragging my feet the whole way. I looked at every bush, tree, and boulder, hoping somehow I’d spot her on my way back.
Fudge was settled on the couch by the fireplace when I got back. Bookie had beaten me to their house and was in the kitchen making her tea or something of the sort.
I sat beside Fudge on the couch and found myself taking her hand and patting it, just like Tiffy would do. “Fudge, Tiffy is going to be okay. She’s a tough girl.”
Fudge only shook her head and didn’t speak. I didn’t have the stomac
h for lying. I didn’t know anything. None of us did. Tiffy was six years old. How tough could she really be?
Bookie came and sat on the other side of her, handing her a cup of tea, sitting there useless with us. This was going to be a long night.
Chapter 17
Dax hadn’t come back and Fudge was still on the couch when the morning came, although she’d finally drifted off around three or so. Tank had been in and out, charting maps of the area and trying to think of the best routes and locations for the search parties to go as soon as the sun came up.
Bookie was analyzing the list of people that should go in each group, who could track and what assets they had. I was on the floor, my back against the arm of the sofa, appearing to do nothing, while in truth I was trying to get my magic up and running so I could be more useful. I only took the occasional break to imagine the worst, becoming alarmingly close to what someone might call a pessimist.
I was on a pessimism break when Dax walked in the house. Fudge immediately sprang into a sitting position, which showed she hadn’t been sleeping at all. I heard a small sound escape her lips that I knew was the unintended consequence of him walking in alone. We didn’t need to ask, but he shook his head anyway. Our best hope of finding her, a man/beast with the nose of a bloodhound and eyes of a hawk, had come up empty.
Tank came in seconds later, having surely seen Dax come back.
“Any leads?” Tank asked, before he shut the door.
“No.”
“Dax.” It was Rocky’s voice, and we all turned to see him now in the doorway, a piece of leather gripped in his hand.
Rocky looked at Dax and then around the room.
I wasn’t sure if anyone else realized, but Rocky was asking Dax if it was okay to speak freely. I must have missed a signal to go ahead, because Rocky held the hide in his hand out to Dax.
The Hunt (The Wilds Book Two) Page 11