Beneath Blood and Bone

by Madeline Sheehan

  Flustered and panicked and ready to turn tail and run back in the direction we’d come, I was almost grateful when Liv grabbed hold of my wrist and yanked me forward.

  “Use some elbow grease!” she shouted over the noise, and sent her bony shoulder into the soft side of a large man. He turned, his fists already swinging, but Liv quickly ducked past him, and still dragging me with her, we vanished into the crowd.

  I allowed her to pull me, grateful for the sole fact that as long as she was holding me, I wouldn’t be swallowed alive by the crowd. Although it was nearly impossible to distinguish one person from the next, I tried desperately to find Eagle. Where was he? Was he even here?

  And the smells, oh God, the smells were even worse than the marketplace. I found myself breathing only through my mouth, but the stench was so heavy here, so demanding and forceful, that it didn’t seem to matter that I could no longer smell it. I could taste it.

  Time passed with agonizing slowness. My panic escalated, my stomach clenching with every shoulder or hand that accidentally or purposely grazed my body. Spinning chaotically, my mind churned with fears of never again finding Eagle, of being lost in this awful place forever, alone and at the mercy of this awful woman.

  “Here we are!” Liv yelled, yanking me to an abrupt stop at her side. Releasing my wrist, she pointed ahead of her to where a large portion of the field had been dug out. “We need to get closer!”

  There was no need for her to grab my wrist again. We were close enough to the center of it all that as soon as the others standing near us saw her, they parted for her, allowing us a pathway that led us straight to a small wooden barrier. Behind the barrier was a large metal cage, currently empty.

  A nearby man crawled up the side of the cage. He was as large but nowhere near as big as Eagle, substantially older, and had a thick head of white hair. I stared up at him, my mouth agape.

  Now standing on top of the cage with a large megaphone in his hand, he surveyed the crowd with a bland smile. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said with theatric flair, only to stop short and begin to laugh. He laughed loud and hard, and soon the crowd joined in, until I felt surrounded by nothing but laughter. Only it wasn’t the joyous sort, but the kind that sent shivers up and down your spine.

  “Tonight’s fight,” he said as he turned in a circle to survey us all, “is going to be a damn interesting one. You all know Paul, right? One of our scavengers?”

  The crowd responded with a cacophony of jeers and booing.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” the man continued. “Well, Paul was caught stealing. While all you good people were protecting Purgatory, holding up the gates against the rotters, Paul was rifling through our shit and taking what wasn’t his!”

  Another round of booing commenced, this time louder, darker, and much more bloodthirsty than the first.

  “Normally we’d cut off both his hands and be done with it, right?” The announcer grinned down at his hyped-up audience, and they screamed and cheered. “But Paul here is asking for mercy.”

  As the crowd erupted into yet another round of booing, the announcer gestured for them to quiet, which to my surprise, they did.

  “And since Jeffers is a fair man, he decided to give Paul a choice. The first being he could have both his hands cut off, and the second . . .” The man paused, running his gaze over the bulk of the crowd, purposely drawing out the building tension.

  A surge of fear barreled through me. Biting down hard on my tongue, I sneaked a glance at Liv and found her watching me expectantly, a smirk twisting her lips. Something bad was going to happen. Something even worse than a man who was potentially about to lose two hands.

  “The second being he can keep one of his hands, whichever one he wants, but he’s gonna have to fight for it!”

  The crowd roared with excitement. And if it weren’t for the fact that I was standing directly beside Liv, I was sure I would have been trampled in that moment. Yet, just like with Eagle, people seemed to know to steer clear of her.

  “First, let’s meet Paul’s opponent!” The announcer turned to his right, and I followed his gaze to where the crowd was parting, giving whoever was coming through an even wider berth than they’d given Liv.

  I gasped when I saw Paul’s opponent, and my heart came to a shuddering halt. It wasn’t an opponent; it wasn’t even human. These sadistic freaks had brought in a biter.

  The creature snapped and snarled at the people nearby, trying to lunge for them, yet each time it tried, the chain around its neck tightened, stopping it short. Affixed to the chain was a long metal pole, and holding the pole were two scared men. Like a feral animal that knew no better, the biter flailed its arms and gnashed its teeth, desperate for the nearby flesh, only the people didn’t seem to mind. They all laughed and cheered, throwing stones at it and jeering as it was pushed forward and shoved inside the cage. The door was quickly slammed shut, and as the monster staggered around the cage, throwing itself at the bars, it left a sticky trail of gore and blood in its wake.

  “You ready for Paul?” the announcer bellowed, and the crowd practically exploded, screaming and chanting, begging for blood.

  Dizziness overcame me. I staggered sideways and would have fallen if Liv hadn’t suddenly been there to catch me.

  “I got ya,” she cooed into my ear, her tone full of dangerous intent.

  “I . . . need to go,” I mumbled, and tried to pull away.

  “No, I think you need to see this,” she said, her grip on me tightening. “In fact, I insist you see this. Because, sweet thing, this is exactly what’s going to happen to you.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t try to fight her. Why I didn’t scream and thrash, bite, claw, whatever it took to get free of her. Maybe my fear had grown so great, overwhelming me with it, that I simply couldn’t move, couldn’t find the strength to do any more than stare as a man emerged from the crowd. He looked terrified, sweat pouring down his face as he was shoved forward by two men dressed in what looked like mismatched military gear.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, he . . .”

  “E can’t protect you from me,” Liv said darkly, then she leaned closer and sucked my earlobe into her mouth. “No one can. And I always get what I want.”

  The feel of her, touching me so intimately while holding me so cruelly with her nails digging into my skin, it wasn’t just fear it spawned in me, it was overwhelming repulsion.

  Laughing, Liv placed a soft kiss against my throat and released me.

  I spun around, ready to run, ready to battle this entire crowd if I had to in order to escape from this madwoman, but as I turned, Liv was there too. Grinning widely, she snapped her teeth at me, and then without warning, she sent her fist flying straight into my face.

  My vision clouded as I stumbled backward. Someone shoved me and then another, and then like some cruel game, I was shoved back and forth, pinging in one direction and then another. Hands grabbed at me, some groping me, taking handfuls of my breasts and my backside, while the uproarious laughter and jeering continued all around me.

  I couldn’t seem to maintain my balance. Either she’d punched me hard enough to jar me, or the crowd simply wouldn’t leave me alone, let me regain my footing. In any event, I was precariously close to falling over entirely and being trampled to death.

  “Eagle!” I screamed.

  I shouted at the top of my lungs while slapping at the hands grabbing for me. I couldn’t see a thing, not past the waterfall of tears pouring down my cheeks. It was all a blur of color and smells, none of them welcoming or familiar.

  I screamed again and again, only to be met with more laughter, more shoving. Someone else was shouting now too, a masculine scream, probably Paul.

  “Eagle!” I continued to shriek, swaying heavily on my feet. “Eagle!”

  The fear was so great, and too heavy a burden to bear for even another second. I stopped screaming and let my body collapse, uncaring of the foot that lashed out at my back, or the next that struck my rib
s. They would trample me eventually, but at least I’d be free.

  “Jesus Christ, Squirrel!”

  My eyes snapped open and my head shot up. Through the blur of faces above me, I focused only on one, on its hard lines and angles. On eyes as black as midnight.

  Bending down, Eagle lifted me off the ground and brought me tight against his body. I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face into his jacket, inhaling his scent, the familiar and safe smell of him. I could feel him moving but I refused to look up, to see the faces of the people cheering for Paul’s death. Hatred anew washed over me, for these people and this place, and everything they stood for.

  Eagle carried me until we were free from the noise, until the only sound I could hear was the gentle hum of insects and his own heavy breathing. He set me down in a thick patch of grass and looked me over.

  “What the fuck were you doing there?” he demanded. Reaching out, he grabbed my arm and brought it forward to inspect it. Bloody half moons had been cut into my skin from Liv’s hold on me.

  Eagle’s gaze lifted, meeting mine. “What did she do?”

  It was a simple question, but nothing was ever simple with this man. His tone might have been even, but his expression was anything but. His already dark eyes grew impossibly darker as a muscle jumped in his jaw.

  But I couldn’t answer him; I couldn’t speak. I was too overcome, both with what had happened and now this, how he’d saved me yet again.

  “You left me,” I eventually croaked as the peace and comfort I’d found in his arms receded, only to be replaced with the urge to run and hide.

  Who was I kidding? I couldn’t stay here—not even with him. He couldn’t be with me at all times, and when he wasn’t, I was a sitting duck, exposed to all sorts of predators.

  Because, sweet thing, this is exactly what’s going to happen to you.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Eagle

  “Squirrel, I’m only going to ask one more damn time, and then I’m going to get pissed. You tell me what the fuck happened back there!”

  From her seat on the couch, curled up beneath a wool blanket despite the heat of the late afternoon, Autumn peeked up at me through several strands of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes.

  At least a full hour had passed since I’d brought her home. I skinned and gutted the bird, cooked the meat, and set it aside in the safe, the coolest place in the building. Half was going to the guys at the garage, and the other half was for Autumn and me, only she hadn’t mentioned being hungry. In fact, she still had yet to speak.

  Fucking Liv. I’d known she wasn’t going to take this lightly. Maybe part of me had actually wanted her to strike out and publicly make a fool of herself, an action I’d hoped would result in Jeffers seeing her for what she really was.

  Needless to say, it wasn’t a well-thought-out plan. Not that anything that had happened since finding Autumn bleeding in the field had been well thought out, or could even be considered an actual plan. More like the blind leading the blind over a bridge riddled with cracks and gaping holes.

  Aw, the voice mocked me. So Adler’s carefully constructed life is falling apart?

  My nostrils flaring, I breathed in hard and released it slowly, repeating the action several times until my head was finally quiet again.

  “She told me you were there,” Autumn said, her voice flat. “She said you were at the pits.”

  Clenching my teeth and closing my eyes, I shook my head and prayed for calm. It would do neither of us any good if I lost my cool right now. She was already upset, and I needed to hear the rest of the story so I could figure out what could be done about it.

  “She’s a liar,” I gritted out as I opened my eyes. “You can’t ever believe a damn word that insane bitch says.”

  “So you don’t . . . like her?”

  I shot up off the table I was leaning against and glared at Autumn. “No, I do not fucking like her. I tolerate her because I have to. But if I could, I’d rip her fucking cold, dead heart straight from her chest.”

  Autumn’s forehead wrinkled. “So you’re not . . . um . . . friends?”

  Could I glare any harder at this dense female? “No, we’re not friends.”

  Still, Autumn looked confused. “But she said you were, she said you . . . she said she pleased . . .” She stopped and bit her lip, her pale face flushed with color.

  At first, I didn’t have a goddamn clue in hell what she was babbling about, at least not until she started blushing. And it wasn’t just any old blush; it was a full-on color infusion from her neck to her forehead. The girl looked downright humiliated.

  Under any other circumstances, I would have dismissed this conversation entirely, not bothering to answer a damn thing because I didn’t have to answer to anyone. But something inside me felt the need to explain this to her, and in a not-so-explicit way.

  “Yeah,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “We had this thing. And now we don’t.”

  But that was a lie, wasn’t it? Because even when I wanted nothing to do with Liv, I still wanted to hurt her because hurting her turned me on like nothing else could.

  And just like that, I felt ridiculous. And uncomfortable. And stricken with an insatiable desire to beat the fuck out of something.

  “Stay away from her,” I said, turning toward my bedroom. “Just stay the fuck away from her, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Inside my room, I headed for my punching bag, and without even bothering to wrap my hands, started swinging.

  This life I was living, it was becoming far more complicated than I liked. And starting to resemble something . . .

  Something I never wanted to see again.

  • • •

  Jeffers’s scream pierced my thoughts, making my stomach clench painfully.

  “Jeff!” I shouted as I took off at a run toward the screaming, one foot in front of the other, my arms and legs pumping, the gun swinging in my hand. Through the door, into the kitchen, into the hallway, past the dining room, past the downstairs bathroom, and finally into the living room where I came to a sudden stop.

  A small pile of gore, blood, and bones lay in one corner of the room, and in the other corner was Jeffers. Sobbing loudly, his head bowed, he had his hands wrapped around the neck of his infected wife, keeping her snarling, snapping teeth at bay.

  Shaking, I backed out of the room, back into the hallway until I felt the wall behind me. My heart pounding furiously, I slammed my head against the sheetrock, trying to breathe, trying to think, tried to figure out what the fuck I was going to do.

  What the fuck was I going to do? What the FUCK was I going to do?

  And then I heard it, a thump-thump from above that spurred me into motion. My wife, my kids, they could still be here. They could still be fine. They were hiding; they were all upstairs hiding from Layla. They were fine. I knew they were fine.

  Racing up the stairs, tripping over my own two feet, I pushed open the first door I passed, Jeffers and Layla’s bedroom. Empty. I kicked open the second door, the upstairs bathroom. Also empty. The third door across the hall, the guest bedroom. Empty too.

  And then I stopped just outside the final door, ten-year-old Danielle’s door, and put my hand on the knob, twisting the cool metal, pushing open the door . . .

  Red hair matted with blood. Blue eyes clouded over with death. Drooling, growling, her bloodied teeth bared, my wife turned away from the closet door she was scoring with her nails and looked toward me.

  “Jenny,” I said, my voice cracking. “Oh God, baby, no. No, baby, no—”

  My words were cut short as she came barreling into me, but even as stunned as I was, my reflexes were still intact. Dropping the rifle, I grabbed her by her shoulders and swung her around, reversing our places and shoving her into the hallway. As she collapsed in a heap, I kicked the door shut and locked it.

  What the fuck did I do now? What in God’s fucking name did I do now? That was my wife! My wife was one of th
em, the infected. She had the disease there was no cure for, the disease that was eating our country alive.

  The sound of tapping brought me up short. At first I thought that Jenny was at the door, clawing, trying to get back inside, but then I realized the sound wasn’t coming from that direction; it was coming from behind me. Turning, I zeroed in on the closet door, mangled and covered in gore.

  “No,” I whispered hoarsely, fear causing my breath to freeze in my throat. “No . . .”

  There were only two people left to find, two very little people. One had hair and eyes just like her mother, and the other wasn’t yet old enough to resemble either of us, but I’d hoped he’d take after me.

  Placing my fiercely shaking hand on the curved handle, I turned it and pulled open the door.

  The first thing I saw was the blood, so much blood. And in the midst of all that blood was . . .

  • • •

  I shot upright, gasping for air as I grabbed for the gun beneath my pillow. Squinting at the shadows, I carefully surveyed every inch of the room. Nothing. No one. Just me and my incessant fucking nightmares.

  But my nightmares were changing. Same place, same people, but I’d never actually entered the house before in my dreams, never saw the face of my wife or said her name.

  But I’d said her name to Jeffers. And by saying her name, I’d opened up a whole new can of worms, forcing me to relive the very worst day of my life every time I closed my eyes.

  “Eagle?”

  I flinched, my arm jerked, and I pulled the trigger in the direction of the noise, realizing too late that I wasn’t alone here anymore. The bullet ejected from the barrel with a pop and went whizzing across the room, ending its journey quickly with a loud thud.

  “Shit!” I hissed, jumping upright. I scanned the room again and still found nothing. “Squirrel?”

  “Here,” she whispered, and in the moonlight I could see the whites of her eyes peeking at me from around the door frame. “Don’t shoot.”

  If I weren’t still reeling from the dream, drenched in sweat and shaking with the kind of cold that’s buried so deep inside you, it’s imbedded in your bones, I would have laughed. Instead I sighed and let myself fall heavily back down on the sweat-soaked mattress.