Juniper Unraveling

by Keri Lake

  Now.

  I tap the shoulder of the man beside me and stalk along the perimeter of the camp, careful to stay hidden behind the rock and shrubs, until we reach Zahra’s cage. Approaching from behind, I click my tongue to get her attention, and she twists, her eyes lighting up with a smile.

  The opening of the cage sits on the other side, where the women prepare food.

  All four of the men rush back into the camp, one of them carrying my bag, the other two holding the loaves of bread. “Intruders!”

  It’s only a matter of time before they notice us tucked behind the cages.

  As one nears, head tipped like he’s caught sight of us, I swing the bolas low and launch it at him. They wrap around his ankles and yank his feet out from under him.

  “Motherfu—!” His back slams into the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust around him.

  In the hope they won’t spray us with bullets, I shoot up from behind the cage with my hands up in the air.

  Two guns pointed in my direction urge me out from my hiding spot.

  I don’t even know what my plan is. I’m moving on impulse. Stupid, reckless impulse. “Don’t shoot. I’m just here for the girl.”

  The ginger-haired one turns to spit his tobacco. “Well, you ain’t taking the girl.”

  “Me for her.” My mouth is a ship with no captain, running on pure adrenaline.

  “We’ll be taking you, anyway, sweetheart.”

  I skate my eyes to Zahra’s dad, and back to the men. “I’m from the other side of the wall. I made a point to alert the Legion soldiers before coming after you. They’ll be here any minute.”

  A lie, of course.

  Ginger slides a wary glance toward the other.

  “Let him and the girl go. He’ll call them off.”

  “How ‘bout I just keep the two of you and send him on his way?”

  “He’s her father. He’s not gonna run off to do you a favor without her. Let them go, and I’ll stay.”

  “I’ll just kill ‘im.” Ginger shrugs his shoulders and aims the gun toward the man beside me.

  “He’s got five boys.” I nod toward the young one sitting by the camp. “Surely, you wouldn’t want your own trying to survive out here alone.”

  “Gordy,” one of the women says from behind. “You ain’t killin’ this man in front of the boy.”

  “Shush, woman!” he snaps, and turns his attention back to me. “Why would Legion listen to ‘im? He ain’t nothin’ but a scavenger.”

  “He is. But they know he’s a friend of mine. He can intercept them. Tell them I’m dead, and you got away.” I exchange a nod with Zahra’s father. “You don’t have much time.”

  A short pause follows, like they’re deliberating.

  “I’m worth more than her, right? Adult female. Clean.”

  “Gordy. We don’t need Legion on our asses,” one of the dark-haired men says to the ginger. He waves his hand toward the women. “Pack this shit up. We’re getting out of here.”

  Two of the men approach, still holding their guns on us.

  I twist toward Zahra’s father and lower my voice, “Take the truck. The guard at the wall is Denny. Tell him where I am. Hurry back.”

  He wraps his arms around me, pulling me in for a hug. “Thank you.”

  The cage flies open, at the same time a harsh grip pulls me forward. The man I hit with the rock snarls at me, and his eyes trail up and down my body. “You owe me for the rock, bitch. I’ll be taking that punishment out in trade, later.”

  “Fuck you.” I hock a gob of spit in his face, and his snarl turns into a growl.

  A cold slap smarts my cheek, tingling with pain. He yanks me around, securing my hands with rope.

  I glance back to see Zahra and her father led out of the camp by one of the other men, before my head is pushed toward the ground and I’m shoved into the cage.

  “We’ll get a pretty penny for this piece of ass.” The redhead pats rock boy on the back. “We’ll be eating like kings when the Skulls get their hands on her.”

  “’The hell are the Skulls?” I grit, pressing my back into the wall of the cage, as the man I hit crouches in front of me.

  “Sweetheart, you’re about to see a whole new side of hell.” His smile widens to reveal crooked, brown teeth, hanging on for dear life from his swollen gums.

  I glance down to my satchel in his hands and back to him. “We’ll see.”

  The man watches me from across the bed of the truck, my truck, gun set across his lap, as the dirt roads jostle us through the desert to a location where I’m certain the guards will never find me.

  If they even bother to look for me.

  The only thing that would conceivably prompt a search is if Legion soldiers, Albert in particular, had a chance to shed some blood. And since the marauders sent Zahra and her father off without the truck, it could be hours before anyone finds out I’ve gone.

  With the sun setting off to the right of us, my hope for being rescued dwindles.

  After an hour of traveling, the truck pulls off to the side of the road, where the abandoned remains of an old motel sit in all of its decayed glory at the foot of a mountainside.

  In the same strip of buildings stands a gutted trading post, with broken windows, and a stone Native American plastered in black graffiti.

  “What’s your coordinates?” comes a distorted voice, and Ginger holds a walkie-talkie to his mouth, standing alongside the truck.

  “Old trading post off of fifteen.”

  Not that it’ll serve me much, but it’s nice to know where the hell I am.

  “You’ll be happy with this one,” he adds.

  For the next hour, we sit on the side of the road, under a tarp one of the men set out to shield me from the sun.

  Ironically, the man I hit with the rock goes by the name Rocky—a finding that would’ve made me laugh, if not for the fact I’m pissed off.

  He sits cross-legged across from me, thumbing through Papa’s journal, as if he can read it. “’The hell you need a book for? Ain’t got no pictures.”

  There are a few toward the back, but I don’t tell him so, and the way the asshole carelessly flips the pages pulls strings of tension through my muscles. “Then, give it back to me.”

  Eyes glimmering with amusement, his lips quirk, and he holds the book up, taunting me with it. “You want this, darlin’?”

  “Forget it. Keep it.”

  Frustrated, he chucks the book across the bed of the truck, and I follow where it lands just outside the cage. “Man, fuck that book. Gordy, why we gotta hand her over so fast? ‘The fuck’s the hurry?” he shouts over his shoulder, to the man pacing alongside the truck with a gun.

  “I’m starving. My boy’s starving. And so is my wife.”

  “I ain’t got no wife, no boy.” Rocky points a dirty finger at me. “I want this one.”

  “Hell, naw. She worth way too damn much. Next one. I promise.”

  “Fuck the next one. You say that every damn time. Tired of handin’ every damn woman we stumble ‘cross over to those shitarded Skulls. I need to fuck something, or my dick’s gon’ shrivel up!”

  “Hey!” The guard outside the truck pauses. “Watch your damn mouth in front of my boy.”

  “What makes you think I’d let your shriveled up dick anywhere near me,” I chide.

  He kicks the cage, and the hard panel of the truck thumps against my head. “Shut your mouth, bitch.”

  “You put one fucking scratch on her, and I’ll skin ya and leave ya for the Ragers,” the guard warns, and I whip the hair out of my face, offering Rocky the smug grin stretching my lips.

  A thunderous rumble stiffens my muscles, and I twist inside the cage, contorting my body in an awkward arc to get a look at where it comes from.

  “How’s it goin’, Rigs?” Gordy says, stepping past the truck, out of my view.

  Rocky leans into the cage, a grin now stretching his lips. “Who’s smiling now, cunt?”

  “Piss off,
toothless,” I say, as he scoots himself out of the truck.

  The thump of boots edges closer. One set, from what I can discern, and all I can see is black. A black leather vest, with bronzed muscled arms peeking out from it. A leather-gloved hand slides beneath the tarp and lifts it up, until a half-skull face stares back at me.

  I kick back from him.

  I mean, the top part of his face is normal, but the bottom half is covered in a skull mask that looks like teeth. Dark black sunglasses shield his eyes, offering no distinct characteristics that could possibly make him human.

  “I don’t know.” The stranger’s deep, raspy voice makes the other men’s sound like high-pitched squeaks. “Kinda scrawny.”

  “Scrawny!” Gordy’s voice squeaks higher into more of a squawk. “She damn sure ain’t scrawny.”

  “Hot damn, baby. You mine now, bitch.” Rocky leans in between the two men, licking his lips, and I spit in his face.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  The stranger chuckles, tipping his head. “On second thought, I think I like her.”

  “Cool. Cool. Whatcha got?” Gordy asks, flicking the fingers of his outstretched hand.

  “Case of beans and six bottles of water.”

  “’The fuck?” Gordy snaps his hat off the top of his head and throws it to the ground. “Case of beans? She’s perfect, man. Came from the wall. Clean. Probably has all her fuckin’ shots, and everything. You ain’t gonna find cleaner than this one.”

  “You told me Legion’s after her. Therefore, you owe me the usual cut for covering your ass.”

  “Man, I don’t know if they’re coming for her, or not—”

  “They are,” I interject. “Your asses are grass when they find you.” My only objective is getting out of the cage before toothless decides I’m his new toy. I’ll figure out escape from there.

  The stranger shrugs. “Take the deal, or leave it. You’ve already wasted enough of my time.”

  His lack of interest in me could mean he’ll let me go. I’ve no idea what hell toothless was talking about before, telling me I was in deep shit, but I don’t plan to stick around to find out.

  “Truck’s mine, too!” I shout as the cage slides across the bed of it.

  “Don’t need a truck,” the stranger answers.

  The click of the cage signals one of them has opened it, and I roll out, arms still bound, tumbling to the ground into the soft bed of sand. Kicking back, I flip to my knees and push to my feet.

  A thick band of muscle cinches my waist, lifting me up into the air.

  Kicking my head back, I smile at the crunch of my skull crashing into his nose.

  “Fuck!”

  I fall to the ground, scrambling across the hot sand to get away, but once again find myself trapped in the arms of the stranger.

  “You are a feisty little shit, aren’t you?”

  Attempting the same trick proves futile, when he hoists me over his shoulder, and I swing back and forth toward his ass with my hands strapped behind my back.

  He stops alongside a mean-looking motorcycle—one of the old style bikes that probably still runs on gasoline, wherever he managed to find it.

  The world spins right side up as he sets me down on a small seat, so I’m straddling the bike.

  With a finger pointed in my face, he holds my shoulder. “You move from this bike, and I’ll shoot both your legs. Understood?”

  Grinding my teeth inside my mouth, I glance up. “I want my book.”

  “What book?”

  I jerk my head toward the truck. “It’s in the back of the truck.”

  “Get her book!” he shouts toward Rocky while climbing onto the bike.

  Mouth set to a hard line, the little prick fishes in the back of the truck and tucks the journal under his arm.

  Once close enough, he tosses it at me, and the book lands on the ground beside the bike. On impact, the cover flips open, and a paper flits off with the wind. The page from my notebook on which Six wrote my name. “Have your stupid book. Bitch.”

  “Bastard!” My muscles flinch as I lurch on the bike, and the stranger grips my thigh, keeping me still. I want to cry at the loss, but not in front of this piece of shit, who’d surely feel smug if he knew what it meant to me.

  A click draws my attention toward the stranger, who sits in front of me with a gun pointed at the kid. “Pick it up. Untie her arms and hand her the book. Nicely.”

  The kid glances back to Gordy, who gives a sharp nod, and he does exactly as he’s told, loosening the binds from my hands.

  He sets the book in my palm.

  I draw him close and slam my fist in his cheek, sending him stumbling back a few steps.

  The stranger chuckles and revs the bike. We lurch forward, and I wrap my arm around him, holding tight as he hammers the gas, speeding down the road in a cloud of dust.

  Wherever the hell I’m bound, I have no idea.

  Chapter 28

  After an hour on the road, the skull guy pulls the bike off to the side. My stomach sinks at the sight of nothing in either direction. No mountains to hide in. No trees behind which to take shade. Absolutely nowhere to run.

  No doubt, he intentionally chose this place to stop because of it.

  “Why are we stopped?” I dare to ask, as he dismounts the bike.

  “Making sure those shitheads didn’t follow.”

  “Follow where? Where are you taking me?”

  “You, my lovely piece of divine ass, are a gift.”

  I frown at that, crossing my arms over my chest. “A gift? What do you mean? A gift for whom?”

  “For whom? What are you, a fuckin’ English teacher?”

  “What the hell are you? Santa Claus? Answer the question.”

  His lips stretch with a smile, and he shakes his head. “Oh, Rhys is going to have fun with you, sweetheart.”

  “What’s a Rhys?”

  “Rhys is one motherfucker that you do not cross. If you were a dude, he’d probably gun a smart-mouthed shit like you down. But you? I imagine he’ll make use of your mouth in other ways.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You traded me for a case of beans—insulting, by the way—so you can pass me off to some asshole who thinks he’s going to stick his shriveled up dick in my mouth? That isn’t happening.”

  “Hey, don’t sell yourself short. Beans are hard to come by these days. And if Rhys doesn’t want ya, I’m sure as hell keepin’ you for myself.”

  “Thought I was too scrawny.”

  “I bullshitted. You’re actually perfect. And if I wasn’t pining for a promotion, I’d surely make use of your mouth right now.” He tips his head to the side, and I still can’t see his eyes behind the glasses he wears, but the angle of his head tells me they’re fixed somewhere in the neighborhood of my legs. “And the rest of you.”

  “Promotion? This Rhys is your boss?”

  “He’s the leader of the Skulls.”

  “Skulls.” I tip my head back, eyes clamped shut in frustration. “Of course. Look, you take me back to Szolen, and I’ll double your case of beans, and add some jerky and a bottle of whiskey on top of it.”

  “Tempting. But no dice. The moment I saw you, I damn near shit myself. You are spot on for Rhys’s type.”

  “Type? Does he run a singles bar in the desert somewhere? Last I checked beggars couldn’t exactly be choosy out here.”

  He shakes his head on a laugh. “Hell, you keep talking, and ol’ Rhys might be shit outta luck.” He reaches down to adjust himself in front of me. “That attitude’s givin’ me a serious boner, babe.”

  “What is he offering you? I’m telling you, I have a house. And food. And medicine, back in Szolen.”

  “For you? Hell, he’d probably make me road captain.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Respect. Means I ride in front.”

  My jaw drops with the pinch of my brows, an expression that doesn’t even begin to reflect my irritation. “You’re turning me in
to a concubine for some twisted asshole, so you can play leader of the pack with all your friends?”

  “Concubine?” He strokes the skull mask covering his jaw. “Damn, you put it that way … sounds better than some shit gift. Have to remember to call you that when I hand you over to him. Never was one for surprises, anyway.”

  “He sounds like a charmer. There’s nothing I can offer you?” The suggestion in my voice makes me cringe, but when my freedom’s on the line, to hell with virtue. “Anything?”

  He huffs, kicking his leg over the seat, and straddles the bike once more. “That offer is tempting, babe. Any other woman, and I’d be on that shit like a wild dog on a hambone. But you’re for Rhys. End of discussion.”

  He fires up the bike, giving one obnoxious rev of the engine, and we’re off.

  Chapter 29

  The sun sits low in the sky, when we approach a wide blue building that’s spattered with graffiti. Turn back is written above The hills have eyes. And mixed in with other more colorful phrases are skulls. Lots of skulls.

  The stranger I’ve come to know as Rigs pulls into the building and parks his bike in a line of at least twenty others that fill the innards of the warehouse. I’ve never seen so many motorcycles in one place. Alongside those are three trucks, with the familiar green tarp, like the ones from Calico.

  If I can fire one up, I can get away.

  As if sensing my thoughts, he quickly hops off the bike and removes his gloves, tucking them into one of the saddlebags at the side. Curling his fingers around my arm, he lifts me from the seat. “Out here, the Ragers are thick, along with mountain lions and coyotes. No sense taking off.”

  “Natural predators don’t scare me.”

  “Ain’t nothing natural about a Rager,” he says, tugging me along as he exits the building.

  “How do you even drive those things? Where do you get the gas?”

  “Every one of these babies runs on ethanol. Got a corn farmer that converts it to fuel.”

  “And what do you sell him, women?”

  He glances back with a grin. “Only one. Made her his wife.”

  “Lucky her.” I crane my neck toward the warehouse that we’re walking away from. “Aren’t you afraid someone’s going to steal all your vehicles and leave you stranded?”