by Tracey Ward
“I would never betray—”
“Let me stop you there because you’re a liar, plain and simple. To be a member of Marlow’s inner circle means you swore an oath, and if you lied to him you’ll lie to these people too.”
“You openly betray everyone who has ever trusted you and you have the nerve to throw stones at me?” Andy growls through clenched teeth.
“I’m open about it. You’re a lying coward.”
“You’re a selfish prick. You’re worse than a traitor because you never had the balls to belong to anyone or anything in the first place. You’re nothing but a cocky little boy playing at being a man when what he really should be doing, what would benefit us all a little more, is if he’d disappear. And that’s what you’ll do someday. You’ll die, you’ll vanish, and no one will care that you’re gone.”
His words sting me, but I’m not sure why. I doubt they’ve even scratched the surface with Vin, but for some reason they hurt in my heart. Maybe because I wonder if they’re true. I sneak a peek at Vin to find him watching Andy with a familiar wry smile on his lips. He watches him for a long time before calmly and clearly telling him:
“Eat me.”
It’s a trigger for Andy. I know firsthand how much he hates judgment on their lifestyle, and somehow Vin must know it too.
The room erupts around me. Andy makes a lunge at Vin. Elijah goes to grab him. Ryan steps between them. Trent easily gets ahold of Andy from behind. Andy slips from his grasp only to be grabbed again, this time by both Elijah and Trent.
Vin never moves. The rest of the room bursts with people shouting for calm, grabbing at angry hands, but he and I both stand perfectly still inside the madness. With the entrance of the cannibals, this was already a powder keg waiting to blow and Vin just lit the match. This was a union that was destined to die violently, but what choice do we have? How many choices do we ever have? None. Or at best we get two and they’re never good. The sum of the life we live is the lesser of two evils. You dance with the Devil you know because he’ll leave you broken and bleeding, but at least you have a chance in hell at making it home to recover. It’s the unknown that will kill you, and even though I know that, even though I’ve lived it every single day for the last nine years, I’m still foolishly hoping that this time it will be different.
Maybe this time it will set me free.
“Are we going to have to separate you two?” I ask, shouting over the noise of aggression and rage, staring straight at Vin. He locks eyes with me, his face impassive. “Or can you play nicely?”
He smiles broad and easy. “I’m sugar-sweet, Kitten. You know that.”
“Can you tone it down a bit?”
“You want me to be less me?”
“I want you to shut your mouth a little more.”
His eyebrows raise in surprise. “You giving me orders now?”
“I’m giving you advice. If you can’t say something nice—”
“Say something painfully honest?”
“Shut your trap.”
He grins again. “That’s not how it goes.”
I gesture to Ryan, Trent, and Elijah forming a barrier between him and a still seething, though quieting, Andy. “Neither is this. If you can’t play nice, you need to get out of the sandbox. I’m getting past the fact that we’re all meals on wheels to them and if I can do it, anyone can. Even you.” I look around to the rest of the room. “All of you can. And you will or we’re boned. We may as well just go home now.”
Vin waves my words away. “I don’t care what they eat. Or who. Live and let live, I always say.”
I shake my head, feeling exhausted. “I really doubt you’ve ever said those words before.”
“Maybe not, but it’s true. The cannibalism thing, that’s never bothered me.”
“Then why are you pushing his buttons like this?” Ryan asks, turning to face Vin. I don’t care for his back being to Andy. The only thing keeping me sane is that Trent is there too.
“Because he’s a liar,” Vin says simply. “He’s betraying The Hive after how many years under their roof? At their table? In their beds?”
“So you don’t trust him. Fine,” I say, letting my exasperation show. “We all know it. Bottom line—can you work with him or not? Can you all get past your issues and work with them to get this thing done?”
Eyes hit the floor or shoot to the sky. People avoid looking at each other and I don’t know if it’s because they’re ashamed for hating someone they don’t know just because they… well, because they eat people and that’s jacked up, or if it’s because they don’t want to face the fact that they can’t get over it. I understand either way.
Vin looks Andy up and down slowly. I know why he’s doing it. He’s dragging the moment out to stress every last person in the room—everyone but him and probably Trent, because Trent doesn’t stress. I don’t like it one bit. I feel like Vin is trying to make Andy slip up so he has a reason. The same reason he had with Breanne.
“Yeah, I can work with him,” he says finally. But then his eyes swing to Alvarez. “But they don’t get the MOHAI. Not a chance.”
“Who would you suggest inherits it, then?” Alvarez asks, but he already knows.
Vin stares at him long and hard without answering.
I see Alvarez’s jaw clench once tightly, but then he nods. “It’s yours if you can get it back. Elijah, the same goes for you and your people. If you get us into the southern Pod like you promised, then it’s yours. Deal?”
Elijah nods, his eyes still on Vin. “Deal.”
“Great,” Alvarez says sarcastically. “Now can you all stop acting like children and get back to business? We still have a lot of work to do.”
***
Three hours later finds me eating my last meal in the forest. We’re having a late breakfast, then it’s off to war. I’m noticing that this overthrowing business is exhausting. I keep accidentally looking off in the direction of my loft, dreaming of my bed and my bathroom. After the tense meeting we just had with the cannibals, I’m even having thoughts about my bottle of vodka.
“It took you long enough to come back,” Lexy tells me bitingly.
The girl is ruining my meal. Ever since the stable girls showed up, she’s been attached like glue to Vin’s side. I recognize it for what it is—infatuation. No way Vin is leading her on. He barely tolerates her, which isn’t to say he isn’t sleeping with her, but he definitely isn’t putting pretty pictures in her head. She’s doing that all on her own.
“That’s what he said,” I grumble around a large bite of bread, gesturing to Vin.
“We were sure you’d left us to die.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Don’t be. We wouldn’t have been sorry to see you go.”
I look up from my plate to eye her carefully. I do it for too long. She twitches under my stare, making me grin.
“‘We,’ huh? You’re a ‘we’ now?”
Vin looks up sharply. “What? No.”
“Vin,” Lexy protests.
“Are you sure?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he tells me angrily. He stares Lexy down. “And, no, we’re not a ‘we.’ We’re nothing.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, Lex,” I tell her consolingly. “Never give up hope.”
“Kitten,” Vin growls in warning.
Lexy shoots me an icy stare from across the table. It’s cute how hard she tries. “Be sure to watch your back out there, Kitten,” she spits sarcastically. “I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
I put up my finger in her face, getting serious. “Watch yourself. You’re toeing a dangerous line with me right now and I don’t want to have to remind you what happened to the last girl who threatened me. Forget Vin, I’ll put you to bed with Caroline. You get me?”
Lexy pales. She glances once at Vin, then Ryan and Trent. All of them keep their heads down, carefully pretending they have no idea what’s happening. Finally she stands slowly, turns, and leaves without a
word.
“Well, that’s handy,” I mumble, picking up my bread.
“Kinda harsh,” Ryan comments.
I hate that I immediately feel a twinge of guilt just from those two words from him. “I did him a favor,” I say defensively. “That girl was one kiss away from collecting his hair. I don’t have time for that kind of crazy.”
“Amen to that,” Vin says heartily, raising his glass to me.
“Calm down, Romeo. You’re the idiot who keeps getting us into these situations.”
“‘Us’?” he asks with a sly grin. “Are we an ‘us’ now?”
“No,” Ryan replies darkly.
I roll my eyes. “Can we talk about something else?”
“I think there are almonds in this bread,” Trent states affably.
“What happened to your dad?” I ask Vin.
“Maybe pecans?”
He doesn’t have to say anything—I can feel Ryan’s annoyance rolling off him in waves that crash over me again and again. But I don’t care if I’m being too blunt. Vin is the rudest person I know. I don’t owe him any attempt at etiquette.
Vin eyes me shrewdly. “He died.”
“No kidding. How, though? Marlow did it, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because he lied to him.”
“About what?”
“About everything.”
“Nats said you were an orphan before the fall. How did your mom die?”
Ryan nudges my arm. I scoot away from him.
Vin shrugs. “I don’t know. I never knew her. She ran when I was born.”
“Why didn’t your dad raise you?”
“He did. He was a drunk and a druggie. As soon as I was old enough to run away, I did.” Vin sets his food down and leans across the table, giving me his full attention. When he speaks, his voice is flat. Dead. “I lived on the streets and I took care of myself. When the illness came and everyone started dying, I thought it was great. I thought that finally all of the worthless, lazy deadbeats out there would be gone and all that would be left were people like me. Smart and fast. Tough. So I went back to my dad’s house a few months after it started. I wanted to see his fat corpse banging around inside his tiny, filthy apartment. I wanted to be the one to bash his head in. But you know what I found instead of a zombie? That SOB was still alive. He’d stolen food and drugs, probably killed living people to get it, and he was still alive. He attached himself to me after that. I couldn’t shake him and for some stupid reason, I couldn’t kill him. I prayed for him to get bitten, but it never happened. Eventually we took up with Marlow when he was just getting started. Dad sold Honey for him, but he took more of the drug than he sold. He got into trouble and Marlow put him down. Tossed his body in the Sound while I watched. He let me keep his ring, though.”
“Why do you keep it if you hated him so much?” I ask quietly, stunned by this amount of information from Vin.
He holds his hand up, showing me the ring. “Marlow said to wear it and remember what happens to traitors. It kept me in line. Now I wear it so I’ll always remember not to be stupid like my dad was. Stupid and weak won’t get you anywhere but dead. It’s the only thing that loser was ever able to teach me.”
He slams his hand down on the table, the ring making a sharp sound against the metal of his battered plate.
“Anything else you want to ask me, Kitten?” he asks calmly.
I shake my head stiffly. “No, I’m good.”
“Great. I gotta hit the head.”
Vin stands abruptly, his legs knocking the table and spilling my cup of water. The liquid runs over the uneven surface, chasing the path of least resistance until it finds the edge and begins to drip down onto my leg.
“Maybe don’t go digging around in people’s pasts anymore,” Trent recommends before taking a bite of apple.
“Trent, I don’t say this as often as I should,” I reply, feeling exhausted and stupid, “but I think you’re absolutely right.”
Chapter Nineteen
I don’t see Vin again after that. He leaves to go get his castle and he doesn’t find me to say goodbye. I don’t know much about people, but I know I messed up. I know he’s mad at me and fair enough. I would rage out on him if he did the same thing to me. Especially in front of other people. I thought I was being blunt and calloused the way he always is, but now I’m not so sure. I think I might have just been a jerk again.
Not long after Vin leaves with his small army, we head south in the largest gathering of human beings I’ve seen in years. Once you take everyone out of their tents and away from the trees, you can see how many there really are—a buttload. We picked up more people willing to fight from the stadiums. I think the count I heard was around one hundred, but when you consider the number we lost to Vin heading north, we’re about where we were before. He even took the girls from the stables with him. I’m not surprised in the least that Freedom knows how to fight. Her temporary pimp Dante even came out of The Hive with them, leaving me amazed at the amount of loyalty that’s built into that place. Their sense of family is a lot like the cannibals’: it’s everything to them.
I’m already nervous about marching across the city to an area I’ve never been to before, but what makes it worse is that we have company.
There’s a horde of zombies following us. A big one. The Vashons actually gathered it together! They hunted these things down from all over the city and drew them to the park. I thought it was insane, but they weren’t worried. I guess this is part of what they did when clearing their island. You get as many together as you can in a contained area and destroy them as a group with fire, explosives, whatever. I guess it uses less physical effort and lowers your level of one-on-one contact with them. It makes you far less likely to be bitten because you never get that close. The only real danger is the herding—you have to give them something to follow, and once you do, you better hope it knows how to run.
And what are we leading these zombies toward? What’s our endgame?
They’re a gift for the southern Colony.
“A guest should never arrive empty-handed,” Alvarez had explained with a wink.
The majority of us left camp well ahead of the herd to make sure we had a buffer, but we still come across random strays on the way. There’s a circling group of Vashon soldiers constantly jogging by, up and down our caravan, keeping up a patrol. Even if a Z does show up, none of us has to deal with it. I feel weird about that. About being taken care of. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.
“Good to see you found him again,” Ali says, showing up beside me out of nowhere. I jolt, wondering if she’s been taking shadow lessons from Cren.
“Good to see you with us again. Were you sick?”
Ali falls silent. It drags out for a long time, making me worry. And wonder.
“Yeah,” she finally says, her voice low.
“Are you feeling better?”
“Almost.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Ryan subtly nudges my arm with his. I look up to find him shaking his head at me faintly.
“What?” I ask.
“Just leave it.”
“Leave what?”
On the other side of me Ali chuckles.
“She doesn’t know she’s being rude,” Ryan tells her. “Sorry.”
“I’m not being rude!” I protest. “And don’t talk about me like I’m not here. I was trying to be nice asking how she’s feeling.”
“I’m fine now,” she assures me, still grinning.
“Good,” I grumble, feeling stupid and annoyed with the whole conversation. And yet for some stupid reason, I keep talking. “I grew up alone. I haven’t spent time with people in years. I’m not good at it.”
“Yeah, me either,” she says lightly.
“You’re better than me.”
“I have more practice. It’ll come to you.”
“If everyone doesn’t run sc
reaming from me first.”
She looks at me sideways, her eyes flitting to Trent and Ryan next to me. “Certain people never will.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. My moods are pretty touch and go. I have good days and I have bad days.”
“And you have really bad days,” Sam chimes in.
I look behind us to find him walking a few paces back. Always close to Ali.
She gives him a severe look that’s ruined by the grin tugging at her lips. He smiles sweetly at her.
“I do,” she admits. “I have really bad days. But people like Sam are still with me.”
“And Jordan.”
Ali nods, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Yup, Jordan has never run screaming. Not even when I told him to.”
“Why would you tell him to?” I ask.
“Because I love him and I feel like he deserves better than me.”
Yeah, I know the feeling.
I want to know what’s making Ali sick even though I’ll never ask about it again. I told Ryan he’s my social compass and if he tells me to leave it, I’m going to leave it. No matter how much it haunts me. I have a couple of theories, but none of them really make sense. Leading contender based on bad moods that make her dangerous?
She’s the Incredible Hulk.
***
Alvarez wasn’t kidding—this Pod is completely different.
The Colony up north is nice compared to how I live, how Ryan lives, and definitely how the stadiums live: it’s clean, there’s power, it’s not overly crowded. But this… this is different.
I can’t say I like it more, even though I get why a lot of people would. Especially the people living in the stadiums. Show this place to them and they won’t be cowering anymore. They’ll be ready to fight. Some would probably be ready to kill.
I can see it through Trent’s binoculars where it sits across the water. The peninsula reaches out and juts north to run parallel with the shore road we took to get here. We did it so openly it makes me nervous. I’m still getting used to being seen by a few people in the same room as me. Parading around for hundreds of people to see? That’s disturbing.