“I need you to brand her, and I’m not going to ask again,” I said in a low voice, my body tensing with growing anger.
Stepping closer to me, Don glanced from the girl and then back to me. Lowering his voice to a near whisper, he asked, “Since when do you brand women?”
“Yeah, E,” Adam cut in. “And who the hell is she? Never seen her before. Is that who they were looking for? What the fuck is up?”
I turned to Adam first and stared hard at him until he began to squirm in his chair. “Don’t you have something to do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I saw you come in carrying her. Was wondering what was going on.”
Rolling my eyes, I looked back toward the female in question, the squirrel, who even after her dunk in the tub still looked as if she’d been rolling around with pigs. Her eyes were already on mine, waiting for my answer, the same as Don and Adam.
Again I felt pity at the sight of her, of those big, gray eyes on me. She didn’t have a clue. And now Liv was pissed at me, and if Liv was pissed enough, she could and would do everything in her power to make a person miserable.
But Jeffers didn’t take branding lightly. In fact, it had been him who’d insisted on the branding back in the beginning, giving married women and girlfriends a sense of safety in the chaos. And I was banking on using that knowledge—and Liv’s own brand against her—if she attempted to make this branding invalid.
Turning back to the men, I clenched my hands into fists and focused on Don. “The why isn’t any of your goddamn business. Now, brand her before I blow your fucking head off.”
“Jesus Christ,” Don muttered, and shook his head. Scrubbing a hand over his cheek, he took a deep breath. “Whaddya want on her, E?” he asked, his tone tinged with resignation.
“An eagle,” I said tersely. Pulling up my shirt, I revealed the eagle that had long ago been tattooed across my abdomen.
Don’s gaze flickered across the ink, quickly taking in the intricate detail with a practiced eye before nodding once and turning toward his stool. The tattoo was old, older than this goddamned apocalypse, but Don already knew it well and had touched it up a few times.
Pulling my shirt down, I rolled my shoulders and turned to the girl. “Ready?” I asked, but it wasn’t really a question. She had no choice but to be ready. Be ready or be ready to join the ranks as a whore.
Without waiting for her answer, I turned and hefted my body up onto a nearby table and waited for Don to get started.
Seated on his stool, Don wheeled a nearby tray closer to him and sorted through his equipment. Grabbing a piece of cloth, he turned toward her and gestured for her arm. She hesitated, looking from him to me, her throat convulsing nervously even as she glared at us both.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Don said gently. “Pain is all up here anyway.” He tapped on his temple.
When she didn’t respond, Don cut his eyes toward me and I responded with a shrug.
“Most women here would kill to be in your position,” Don continued as he again gestured for her arm.
She responded by slowly outstretching it, the thin limb trembling ever so slightly. Don lightly cupped her wrist and set to work methodically cleaning the area of skin just above her wrist, staring intently at her dirty skin as if memorizing every ridge and bump.
“Not many are branded, but they wish they were. And my man E, here, nobody fucks with him. You’re about to become the queen of hell.”
She looked over at me, her eyes full of questions, but remained silent. I said nothing, only stared back at her until eventually she turned away with a small sigh. My eyebrows peaked. This was progress. Sighing was better than screaming, growling, or biting.
Finished cleaning the area on her arm, Don picked up his tattoo machine, adjusted the needle, and turned it on. Swiveling back toward her, he again took hold of her arm and pressed the needle lightly against her skin. She flinched and emitted a loud squawk as she shot upright in her chair. Wrenching her arm away from Don, she pressed the limb to her chest and cradled it against her.
“Hey now,” Don said, sounding affronted. “I barely touched you.”
“Listen to me,” I growled, sliding down off the table and stalking toward her. “We don’t have time for this. Unless you want me to hand you over to Liv, who will hand you over to Dori, give the man your arm and get this done.” I jerked my chin toward Don and gritted out, “Now.”
“No,” she whispered, staring back at me, looking as squirrely as ever, her breaths coming in rapid bursts. But for the first time since laying eyes on her, I saw something other than just anger, defiance, and fear. There was a name for it, this emotion flitting across her features, but fuck if I knew what it was.
Bending down on one knee to bring me eye level with her, I searched her filthy face, forcing her to hold my gaze. “Calm the fuck down,” I said slowly and evenly, purposely gentling my voice. So much for not coddling her.
“You’re young,” I continued, “you’re an unclaimed female, and you’ve got nothing to trade but your body. You do this one thing, you get my brand, and you get my protection. Do you understand what that means?” I waited a moment, letting my words sink in before continuing. “It means no one, not one fucking person, can touch you.”
Slowly, her breathing steadied and her posture relaxed. “The blood,” she whispered. “The blood . . . the biters . . . they’ll smell it.”
“Hell no, there won’t be no rotters getting past our gates,” Adam said. “We’ve held up here against three different hordes. Just this morning Eagle and I singlehandedly got a huge group of those bastardos off our gates.”
She looked to Adam, her wild gaze calming as she took in the sight of him leaning forward in his chair.
“How?” she asked softly. “How’d you get them away?”
“Uh, well . . .” Adam glanced at me and I shot him a look. If he told her the truth, I’d knock him out.
Leaning back in his chair, Adam shrugged lightly. “I asked them nicely,” he said, winking at her. “I’m just that good, chula.”
We all watched as her lips began to twitch. At first I thought maybe she was having some kind of seizure, or possibly getting ready to leap out of the chair and try to claw one of us to death. But then she surprised us all when her lips parted, revealing a smile.
It wasn’t a grin, it was hardly even a smile. It was shy, tentative, tight lipped and reserved, but there was no denying what the dimples meant that had appeared on either side of her mouth, deeply indenting her cheeks. They meant she was smiling. At Adam.
I’d saved her life, nursed her back to health, and was now branding her, putting myself on the line to protect her from Liv and everyone else in Purgatory. Hell, I was protecting her from Purgatory itself, and she was smiling at Adam.
I got the shit-smeared mess of a girl, who clawed at me more than she spoke, who puked on my floor and forced me to bathe her. And Adam, who’d done absolutely jack shit for her, got dimples.
“Get up,” I snarled. Jumping down from the table, I grabbed Adam’s arm and yanked him out of his chair. Shoving him toward the door, I turned back to Don. “Do this shit, now.”
Don looked from me to her, and with a shrug gripped her arm tightly and set to work. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit down on her bottom lip, every once in a while whimpering loudly.
“Almost there,” Don murmured. Dipping his needle into the ink one last time, he finished shading the tiny wings.
When Don pulled away and his tattoo machine went silent, I got up to survey his work. While she remained unmoving in her chair, her eyes still closed and her teeth clenched, I looked over her wrist. He’d done an incredible job; the miniature eagle inked onto her skin was a damn near replica of my own.
“We’re good now?” Don asked.
“Yeah, we’re good.”
Chapter Sixteen
Autumn
Eagle was silent upon returning home and spent the following several hours beating on the punching bag that
hung from the rafters in his bedroom. Wary of his mood, I opted to remain on the couch, ignoring my hunger pains, my dry throat, and the throbbing pain on my wrist in favor of not upsetting him further.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was starving, my stomach sickened and burning with the need to eat. Quietly, I left the couch and tiptoed across the room, stopping just outside his bedroom. Peeking inside, I found him shirtless and covered in a sheen of sweat, his tattooed muscles flexing menacingly with each strike of the bag.
“I don’t know why,” he muttered to himself as he leveled the bag with yet another punch.
What did I do to gain his attention without angering him? Did I knock? I nearly giggled at the thought of knocking. What a foreign concept knocking was to me. I’d been alone for so long, and living in a cave. Nobody knocked on my cave. And then I remembered the last time someone had and my laugh died on my lips.
I’d been sleeping, in and out of conscious as the heat of the day wore on outside when the knocking had sounded. A tap-tap-tap, as light as the peck of a bird on a tree.
Sweaty and tired, I’d forced myself to sit up, the mud caking my skin crumbling as I moved. The sound came again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
And then another sound. A growl, a scrape, followed by another growl. A biter was at my door, clawing to find purchase and climb up inside my cave.
“What the fuck do you want?” Eagle angry and breathless voice knocked me out of my memories and back to the present. He threw another couple of punches before he let his arms fall to his sides and turned toward me.
The first thing I noted was that his hands were bleeding. Despite the scraps of cloth he’d wrapped around his knuckles, blood had seeped through, staining the once white material a dark brown. Seeing the blood, my breathing hitched, an instinctual response that I knew I’d never be rid of. The blood brought the biters. Blood would always bring the biters.
Not knowing how to broach the subject of food, I stupidly presented him with my wrist instead. “It hurts.”
“It hurts,” Eagle repeated, laughing coldly. “You were stabbed in the gut, and you’re complaining about a little tattoo?”
My nostrils flaring, I only stared at him. How could such a cruel man at the same time be so kind?
“If a little pain means you’re not being hauled off to the Cave, I think you can deal with it, right?” His eyebrow raised in question.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “But . . .” I stopped short, not knowing quite how to ask the many questions I still had.
“But what?”
“But what else does it mean?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound stronger. “Does it mean . . . I’m your wife?”
I had never imagined being married, at least not in a long time. I didn’t believe that sort of life was even possible anymore. My life consisted of a day-to-day struggle for survival.
At my question, Eagle looked at me sharply, his black eyes widening, his features pinching with obvious disgust.
“No,” he said flatly. “Not even close. Don’t ever fucking say that again.”
I should have been relieved. He’d said earlier that he didn’t find me attractive, that I wasn’t the sort of woman he liked, and now he was obviously repulsed at the idea of marriage. But instead of relief, I felt hurt and flustered.
“Does it mean you can do whatever you want to me?” I hurried to ask before I could lose my nerve. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Anger sparked to life in his eyes as every muscle in his body tensed.
I moved backward, away from the door frame and into the shadows of the main room. I’d only wanted to ask about food, not worsen an already precarious situation.
“Are you trying to ask me if I’m going to rape you?” His voice broke through the shadows, a low and menacing growl.
“No,” I snapped, embarrassed. “I’m just . . . I meant . . .” I wished I could disappear because he was right. I had meant exactly that; I just hadn’t realized how insulting it would sound.
Moments passed, seconds that turned into long, unbearable minutes, the only sounds from the lights buzzing overhead and my own labored breathing.
“I’ve never forced a woman,” he said as he approached the doorway. “I didn’t plan on starting anytime soon, either.”
“Okay,” I managed to whisper, feeling both self-conscious and relieved. “Thank you.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned his shoulder against the door frame. “Don’t thank me yet. There’s still plenty of time to die between now and whenever the fuck I can get you out of here. Or worse.”
I shivered at his words, remembering what the blond woman had said to me about becoming evening entertainment. But at the same time, I felt excitement well in my gut. He was planning to help me get free of this place. Back home. Back to my quiet life. Back to my—
“What’s your name?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.
What little comfort Eagle had provided me with instantly vanished. My name? My name . . .
I couldn’t tell him my name. It wasn’t my name anymore, I wasn’t her anymore. I didn’t want to remember it, or that person. I didn’t want to think about the home I missed so much. I wasn’t her anymore, and I didn’t want to remember her.
My thoughts became hurried, violent, an earth-shattering storm swirling in my head, a flurry of random images and broken conversations, of faces of people that I had once loved—that she had once loved. And it was so much more than just the memory of them. It was all too real and too painful.
I thought of my parents, and their kind smiles and loving arms. I thought about my boyfriend, Mark, and the way he had held my hand as we walked back from school together, and the feel of his breath on my face as we kissed. And then I forced it all away, because it was stupid and pointless, because they were all gone.
I wasn’t her anymore. She’d died alongside her family and friends so that I could survive this world.
“Squirrel? I asked you a question. What’s your damn name?”
Swallowing back the gathering lump in my throat, I looked up at him, into his eyes, and willed myself to say it. To say the name I hadn’t said in a very long time.
“Autumn,” I croaked, tears forming in my eyes, then looked away from him as the tears slid free.
But that wasn’t my name. I wasn’t her. That girl was gone—the pretty face in the mirror, the long brown hair that I’d brushed every night until it had shone, and the big gray eyes that everyone loved, eyes that were identical to my mother’s. She was dead. Dead like everyone else.
“Autumn,” he said.
My heart thumped painfully in my chest. My name, my name, rumbled past his lips and into the air as if I were still real, as if I were still that girl. The girl who still had a home. The girl who still had a mom and a dad, and a boyfriend named Mark with floppy curls and a cute crooked smile.
“Autumn is gone,” I whispered. “She’s dead like everyone else.” Squeezing my eyes closed, I willed the images of the girl I no longer was to dissipate. But they wouldn’t relent; they just kept coming and coming . . .
Images bombarded me. Images of my new pink dress at my seventh birthday party, and the winter coat with the faux-fur collar that I’d loved so much. I’d continued wearing it long after it no longer fit me. And of my first boy/girl dance in sixth grade and the deep blue dress with spaghetti straps that had made me feel so very pretty. And homecoming, in ninth grade, and the slinky black strapless dress I’d worn, coupled with high heels and a flower in my hair. The way Mark had looked at me while we’d danced, the way his hands had felt on my waist, the way his lips felt touching mine.
And then I heard it, the beloved sound of my father humming while he cooked me pancakes. Every Sunday morning when Mom and I slept in, we’d wake to the smell of fresh pancakes cooking on the stove, accompanied by the deep lyrical murmur of his favorite songs.
And suddenly I missed him. And Mom. I missed their voices, their hands in mi
ne, their arms around my shoulders, and their hugs that would swallow me whole. But my father had said to fear people, to stay away from them. And I had done it. For so very, very long.
“Not everyone is dead.”
Eagle’s rumbling words infiltrated the images. I blinked, and they fell away entirely.
“Yes, they are,” I muttered. “Everyone is dead.”
“How old are you?”
I opened my mouth to answer and then paused. How old was I? I didn’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. I wasn’t even sure exactly how much time had passed since I’d lost everything.
“Autumn was fifteen when it happened,” I finally said as the grief welled and grew stronger, even more suffocating. “When it . . . when they . . . but I’m . . . I’m . . .” I bit my lip, unable to say more.
His jaw worked, a nervous tic as he ground his teeth together. He seemed angry, and then, as he moved a hand up to stroke the coarse hair on his chin, he looked sad. Or was it pity again? Whatever it was, it was definitely there; beneath the ever-present anger and the aggression was a small spark of emotion that was soft and gentle, sympathetic and caring. And then just as soon as it appeared, it was gone, snuffed out and replaced with ambivalence.
“You’re nineteen.” His voice was flat, as devoid of emotion as his features. “Maybe twenty.”
I stared at him, shocked by the revelation. Twenty years old? How could so much time have passed without my realizing it? I knew it had been long, but I’d never dreamed it had been this long.
“And I’ll call you Squirrel,” he said.
And just like that, the memories were thankfully gone once again. And so was Autumn. She was back where she belonged, dead like everyone else. Only her ghost remained, with flashes of a past long gone.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
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