Juniper Unraveling

by Keri Lake

  “We’ll make a deal with Szolen himself. Keep Ericsson out of it. Szolen can be the hero, the one who discovers the cure and saves the world.”

  “And what do we get out of it?”

  “We get to walk away. He agrees to let all the prisoners in Calico free. And we make our own wall to keep everyone safe. I just need to get inside. To get my hands on that antibody.”

  “What makes you think it’s there? What would make you risk your fucking life and suffer the most brutal death, for something that may not even exist?”

  I shrug and look out over the mountains. “Hope.” My gaze falls to his once more. “What kept you alive in that place, when you knew you should’ve been dead?”

  His brows flicker with a frown. An argument, no doubt. “I’m not—”

  “I can’t watch you do that again,” I interject. “I’ve spent an entire night trying to figure out why I haven’t run from you. I mean, killing is one thing, but …” The sting at the rim of my eyes threatens tears, and I cast my gaze toward the cracked limestone beneath my boots to keep from seeing the hurt in his eyes.

  “What do you need to hear, Wren? That he put a bullet through the skull of a twelve-year-old girl last night? And Crank, too?”

  “The torture, though. How are we any different than them?”

  “We? You didn’t do anything. I did.”

  “I could’ve stopped you, and I didn’t. I didn’t want to. And all I can come up with, is that we’re both fucked up and I can’t walk away from you. I won’t.”

  “You know I wouldn’t stop you from leaving. If that’s what you truly wanted.”

  “Please, Rhys. Let down your guard. Just a little.”

  His shoulders sag in defeat, as if he’s about to hand over his soul to me. “Do you not have any idea what you mean to me, Wren?”

  “I thought I did. I was certain I could pull you from that dark place inside your head. But I’m not strong enough. You and I seem to be of the same thread. Infected with the same evil that damaged us.”

  “I knew exactly what I was doing last night. I didn’t do it for pleasure, or some morbid form of entertainment. I did it for you. Because he hurt you. And your pain is my pain.” Still wearing a frown, he rubs his hands together. “I spent years in that hell, battling voices inside my head that I couldn’t escape. Until I heard yours, and everything else silenced. When you found me all those years back? I don’t even know if I was considered human. Felt more animal than anything. I saw you, and I was certain God had it in for me. Sent his best angel to try and save my soul.” His eyes soften a bit, but he doesn’t smile. “I don’t even believe in all that religious shit, but I was convinced you were there for me. To walk me through death. And I couldn’t fucking wait.” He sniffs and glances away from me. “Turns out, I was wrong. To the rest of the world, you were just a girl. A lonely girl from the other side of that wall. But to me, you’ve always been more than that. The air when I couldn’t breathe. My voice when I couldn’t speak. When I couldn’t feel anything anymore, I felt you. Goddamn, Wren, you were my heart, pumping life into a body that was mostly dead. You were everything to me. You are everything.”

  Tears fill my eyes, and I blink to keep them from falling.

  His lips press to a hard line. “So, yeah, I killed him. I showed him how it feels to be at the mercy of the merciless. Whether that makes me a bad man, or a good man, don’t matter to me. I’m willing to be whatever I need to be for you.”

  I want to believe him, but pain tells me not to trust love. “What’s to keep you from punching your fist into my chest and ripping out my heart?”

  He shakes his head and rubs his thumb across his palm. “Because it isn’t your heart, anymore, Wren. It’s mine. You’re my life. If you die, I die.”

  I run my fingers over the scar at my wrist, and the tears distorting the long white line slip down my cheek. In the past, my ties to those I’ve loved have been severed, or frayed, and I feel his words wrap around me, creating tight knots across my heart. I want to tug at them, to make sure it’s strong enough, but part of me doesn’t care how fragile this is.

  The world isn’t what it was in the days when two people professed love with frivolous gifts and words. Now, it’s about living and surviving together. And to survive the predators who would eat us alive, humankind has to be stronger. Faster.

  Willing to become more frightening than the monsters.

  Like Rhys.

  I sniff and wipe the tears from my cheek. “I felt nothing for Ivan. No pity. No mercy. I’m glad you punished him the way you did. And I’m glad he’s dead. I want to believe that we’re not like them. But maybe we are.” I shrug my shoulders, toying with the leather string of my shirt. “Maybe we have to be. I’m not afraid of you, Rhys. Not even after what you did. However fucked up that makes me, it’s the truth.”

  He pushes to his feet, standing before me, and tucks the hair behind my ear. The corner of his lips kick up to a mirthless smile. “A match made in hell, yeah?”

  A loud beep and a garbled voice interrupts him, and he lifts the walkie-talkie from where it lies in the crumpled shirt beside him.

  “Prisoner’s gone. Hear me, Rhys? He’s gone! Son of a bitch took Lea!”

  Rhys’s eyes shoot to mine, and the expression on his face turns my blood ice cold. “What have you done, Wren?”

  Chapter 40

  Tripp prods a finger in my face, and I have to swallow the urge to bite it right off his hand. “She was the last one in that room! Ratchet said he let her in, and as soon as she left, Lea went missing.”

  “I did not set him free.”

  “But that’s exactly what you asked me to do.” Rhys’s accusing stare followed me all the way back to the mine and hasn’t relented since.

  “I didn’t do it! I’m telling you! He was chained up when I left him! How did he manage to escape with Lea?”

  “There’s a vertical shaft at the south end of the mine. Lea went out for a smoke. You do the math.” Tripp’s words carry the stiff clip of anger, as he paces back and forth.

  I wrack my brain for any slip, any possibility that I could’ve put Damian in the proximity of anything that could’ve set him free, but there’s none. “And Hawkeye? He didn’t see him drag her off?”

  “Says he was taking a piss.” Rigs shakes his head and sighs. “Of all the fuckin’ times.”

  “Well, how convenient is that?” I cross my arms, lips pressed to a hard line.

  Rolling his head against his shoulders, Rhys stands with a fist propped at his hip and runs his hand down his face. “We have to find the two of them before Legion does. He took his gun and his walkie-talkie. Stole Tripp’s fucking bike. Soldiers may already be headed this way.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “You’re staying. And you’re lucky I don’t tie you up for this shit.”

  “I didn’t let him go, Rhys!”

  “I don’t have time to argue, Wren.” Rhys jerks his head toward Rigs and Tinker, one of the bikers known for his bomb building expertise. “We loaded?”

  “Ready to go.”

  “Ratchet, you’ll move everyone out. Ceniza is about thirty minutes north. Do not use the two-ways. I don’t need messages getting intercepted. We’ll rendezvous at Ceniza at dawn and head north.” Rhys’s gaze flicks to me and back. “If we’re not there, go on without us.”

  “And me?” I try not to let the tears touch my voice. Not in front of all these people. “Do I just go on without you?”

  “You have before.” The resolute tone is a slice to my heart, and I clear my throat to choke back the evidence of my sadness. He strides off toward the entrance of the cave without so much as a glance back.

  My head tells me to let him go, but my heart, the stubborn masochist, can’t. I follow him toward the tunnel and reach out for his arm, swinging him around to me. The armor settles over his skin once again, hardening his face, and his eyes are no longer translucent, but instead have turned cold and unwavering. I
don’t even know what to say to him. My brain tells me he has to go—they have Lea, and Legion will undoubtedly send an army to fight whoever remains here—but everything about this feels wrong. “I didn’t set him free, Rhys. I’d never betray you like that. Tell me you believe me.”

  He lowers his head, and nods. “I do. But either way, I’m going. Can’t just let them waltz in here and destroy everything. I won’t let that happen.”

  The relief washing through me is quickly snuffed out by the ache of knowing these might be my last words to him. “You have to go, I know. I won’t stop you. But I’m afraid of what I’ll do, if you don’t come back.” My thumb instinctively rubs the scar at my wrist, while my mind drifts to those nights I thought I’d lost him years ago. “So, please … come back. Or take me with you.”

  “I’m not taking you with me.” He steps back from me, hands balled into tight fists. “I already told you. You mean too damn much to me. I vowed to keep you safe, Wren, and that’s what I’m going to do. No matter how much blood I have to shed.”

  “And if you die?” My voice cracks, like the first fissure of my heart.

  “If I die, I die for you. No better reason than that. But whether I have to limp, stumble, or crawl across this desert, I’ll come back for you.” He reaches out to cup my face and leans forward, pressing his lips to mine. “I promise. So, you go with them. And you stay alive. Hear me? You stay alive, too.” At my nod, he strides off toward the mouth of the cave, and though every part of my being yearns to stop him, I don’t.

  Just like that, I hear the threads snap inside my head. The ties to my heart flit out of my grasp, and the distant echo of pain’s cruel and mocking laughter tells me it won’t be long now.

  It assures me he won’t be coming back.

  Bodies scurry all around me, gathering up supplies, but I can’t move. I can barely breathe. I feel as if I just got him back, and I keep losing him over and over.

  My gaze skates to the right, toward the dark tunnel, and I hurry down toward the room where Damian was kept captive. Scanning the space shows the fallen binds, and I examine them, noticing they’ve been sliced.

  His uniform is missing, along with his walkie-talkie and gun, as Tripp mentioned earlier.

  But Ivan’s remains piled in a heap.

  I gather it up into my arms, staring down at it. I’ve disguised myself once before to get inside Calico.

  I’ll do it again.

  They say David carried five stones to fight Goliath.

  I plan to defeat the giant with three bullets, a prayer, and an offer I’m hoping he won’t refuse.

  Papa didn’t intend to hand the antibody over to anyone, for fear of the power it would bestow. I’m hoping that greedy yearning for power is enough save the only person left on this planet that I love.

  I pad across the open desert, toward the garage where all of the vehicles are stored.

  Glancing back, I catch Hawkeye, pacing with his gun propped at his hip, and I wave back at him, hoping the guy doesn’t shoot me in the back.

  He waves back, but crouches to watch me, undoubtedly curious as to what I’m doing. The Legion uniform and the gun sit tucked inside my satchel, and I reach into the bag, pulling out Papa’s journal from inside. I figure I’ve got about ten minutes before the others come pouring out of the cave.

  Leaning against the building, I flip open the book, as if to read while the others gather up their belongings for the journey to Ceniza.

  Hawkeye resumes his pacing, and the moment his back is to me, I slip inside the building.

  Many of the bikes have cleared out, leaving only the few belonging to Ratchet, Hawkeye, and three other bikers I don’t know by name. Three green Calico trucks sit at the end, and I opt for the smaller one closest to the exit—easiest to drive out. Between the two bigger trucks and the bikes, there’s plenty of vehicles left to get everyone safely evacuated.

  I fire it up and hammer the gas, tearing out of the garage, and the moment I hit the road, the tires squeal on the hot pavement. Pings hit the undercarriage, and I look over to see Hawkeye aiming his gun, no doubt looking to take out the tires. Two more pings, and I’m out of his shooting range.

  I don’t look back as I take off down the road.

  A highway that leads straight to hell.

  A half hour passes, without a single sign of them anywhere. The truck teeters on the quarter-full mark, which means, either way, there’s no going back.

  A figure ahead catches my eye, and I let up off the gas, tugging the gun from my bag that I set across my lap.

  At a hundred yards, or so, I stop the truck, trying to decide what to do, while anger pulses like flames through my blood.

  Sliding out of the front seat, I tuck the gun into my back pocket, and Lea breaks into a sob, running toward me.

  “Jesus, Wren, I thought you were more of them.” Stopped just short of me, she rubs a trembling, bloody hand across her forehead, and I scan down to her dirty, torn shirt and the blood on her jeans.

  “What happened?”

  “Rhys, Rigs, Tinker and Tripp came. They were ambushed. An army of Legion soldiers. I managed to get away, but they took them. All of them.”

  “And how did Damian get loose?”

  “I don’t know. I was … out having a smoke, and … he just came out of nowhere. Dragged me off like a Rager.”

  “He stole Tripp’s bike. What are the odds?”

  Her brow twitches with a frown. “What do you mean?”

  I pull the gun from my jeans and point it at her. “I’ve got three bullets. And I’m a damn good shot myself. So, unless you want one carved into your skull, you better tell me the truth.”

  Her nostrils flare with the tears gathering in her eyes. She licks her lips and glances away. “I wanted a safe place. For me, Trinity, and Tripp.”

  “And what was Tripp’s role in all of this?”

  “He didn’t know.” She sobs, wiping the tears. “And they took him. They took all of them.”

  “You tried to strike a deal with Damian?”

  “Didn’t you? Isn’t that what you were trying to do?”

  “Yes, but unlike you, I was thinking of all of us.”

  Her eyes soften, and she shakes her head. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a little girl out here. You don’t know the worry I live with every damn day, that someone, or something, is going to come out of the shadows and steal her away. I went through it once, Wren. I can’t go through it again. So I met up. To trade Damian and the others for asylum.”

  “You traded the other women?”

  She nods, tucking her hands into her pocket. “Said they’d take them in. Find them husbands.”

  “Who?”

  “Doctor Ericsson.”

  He has no intentions of finding them husbands. He’s looking to create third generation offspring to study and perform his disgusting experiments on. Tongue gliding across my teeth, I shake my head. “One rule, you told me. Everyone has a choice.”

  “I’m sorry, Wren. Please. I didn’t do it to hurt anyone.”

  I back away toward the vehicle, and as she lurches forward, I rack the chamber of the gun.

  “Please.” She clasps her hands as if in prayer. “Let me go with you. I can help.”

  “You made your choice, Lea. And I’m making mine. I’m going alone.”

  “You’ll die. It’s suicide, Wren.”

  With one foot set inside the truck, I pause to look back at her standing in the middle of the road. “So was making any kind of deal with Ericsson.”

  The sun races toward dusk, when I finally catch sight of the smokestacks in the distance. I pull the truck off to the side of the road, parking behind a small hill, and quickly shed my T-shirt and jeans, exchanging them for the black uniform. It sags enough in the front to hide my breasts, as well as the satchel strapped across my body inside, and I tuck the cuffs into the sleeve so they’re not hanging over my hands. The lightweight suit is surprisingly cool, as hot as it is in the tr
uck, with the desert heat kicking up blurry waves across the pavement. I fit the mask over my face and nab a sip from the canteen in my bag, before inserting the respirator connected to the accordion tube into my mouth.

  Once dressed, I pull the car out onto the highway and breathe to calm my rattled nerves. With every mile closer to Calico, my demons rise up from the shadowed side of my mind, and I have to screw my eyes shut, blinking those images away. I see two Ragers on the side of the road running toward the vehicle. A spray of red spatters across the windshield, as a third one hits the wide grill of the truck, but not even that can tear me away from the memories of this place commandeering my thoughts.

  In minutes, I’m staring at the front of the building, the line-up of vehicles where I hid from Ivan and Doctor Ericsson at fifteen years old. My stomach twists with the recollection of wondering whether, or not, I’d make it out of the place alive, and here I am, headed straight for the gates of hell.

  A guard stands alongside the vehicle and signals the other to open the gate. I pull in, parking the truck amongst the others, every hair on my skin standing on end. I force myself to take slow, easy breaths, to keep from hyperventilating, and slide from the seat, my nerves bouncing like livewires.

  They’re going to know. They’re going to find out.

  I sneak past the guard, who doesn’t say a word to me. Doesn’t even acknowledge me, as he sits thumbing through an outdated magazine with a half-naked woman on the cover.

  I’m certain everyone I pass can see the trembling. Surely, they notice the oversized suit. The mask still fastened to my face. The boots, too big for my feet, that clunk as I walk.

  And yet, they don’t. Aside from an occasional nod when they pass, not a single one claps their eyes on me for more than a second, or two.

  I almost feel like Six walking among the Ragers.

  Six. I need to hurry. As much as I want to search for him, I know it won’t do me any good unless I have something with which to barter. Something valuable. Something Szolen would kill thousands of innocents to possess.