I covered my mouth to yawn. "It's okay. I have one of those too," I assured him. Then sleep took over.
* * *
I woke up to the lovely aroma of something cooking. Before I opened my eyes, I made a wish that this had all just been a dream. When I opened my eyes, I hoped I would be in my own bed, in my own home, and the lovely smell was my mother's cooking.
I was immensely disappointed to find myself still in Merna’s cottage.
Nigel and Colden sat at the table while Merna scooped something into bowls. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty," she said.
My body ached, but I forced myself up and over to the table. I was starving.
Dinner was some kind of soup. There was no meat in it, but an assortment of herbs, vegetables, and spices. It was delicious. We ate in silence until the last person I wanted to hear decided to open his mouth.
"My mother's been very kind to you, hasn't she?" Colden asked.
I nodded. "Yes. Yes, she has. I'm very grateful."
"That's the kind of person my mother is—good and kind-hearted. Too bad she only has sixty-seven years and she's lived sixty-five of them."
I looked down at my soup, because I didn't know what to say to that and it didn’t seem appropriate to keep eating.
"How many years do you have, I mean did you have?" Colden asked.
"Four-hundred-and-seventeen," I said, almost whispering.
Colden nodded. "Isn't that nice. And the assholes in the Upper Estates have even more. Do you know how many years I have, Naomi? Thirty-two. That's it. And I only have that much because of the lifestones we've stolen. If not for that, we'd all be dead."
"It's not her fault," Nigel said.
But Colden wasn't about to let up. "Your people, you act like we're some kind of bloodsucking insects. That we're thieves because we attempt to raid the Mill and get to the lifestones before you do. You call us Foragers. We just want to live. We don't want our people to die out. That doesn't make us bad. We need those lives much more than you. We just want what rightly belongs to us. We're Grims too. We're supposed to be collecting lives too, but can’t because of that damn Dunningham—he's going to get his."
Colden's comments hit me like a truck. Nigel had said that this wasn't my fault, but I felt ashamed of myself and my people. I'd always looked at Foragers as the enemies, or as Bram would say, the ones who kept food from our mouths. They weren't the enemy, we were. Grims had no right to look down on them. They were only doing what they did to survive, and any of us would do the same. As Colden pointed out, they should be able to collect lives themselves.
"I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry." But I knew that apology wasn't worth much.
Colden wasn't moved. He narrowed his eyes at me. "This assignment that you botched up, a group of our kids went there. If they had collected the lifestones, that would have given as all a chance at longer lives, so you kind of screwed the Grim side of us over. But one of our girls didn't return. Do you know what happened to her?"
She was probably the girl whose neck Doyle had snapped like a twig. "No. I don't."
Colden went back to his soup. "You're leaving tomorrow."
I had a long, restless night. Maybe it hadn't been a great idea for me to sleep during the day. I was nestled in between Nigel and Merna. I reminded myself not to move so much so I wouldn't disturb them. I wanted morning to come so I could get up and move about, but I didn't want it to come because Colden would make me leave and I had nowhere to go.
When I awakened, Nigel was gone. Merna gave me a small bowl of water to wash up. We had leftover soup for breakfast.
"I hope this is okay," Colden said bitterly. "I know it's not the steak and quail eggs you're used to having for breakfast."
I had never once had either of those things for breakfast. "This is fine," I muttered. We ate our breakfasts silently.
"When are you leaving?" Colden asked as I helped Merna clear the dishes after breakfast.
"She's not going anywhere," Merna argued.
"Yeah, she is. I'll tell Dunstan you're harboring one of his brother's Grims."
Merna looked sharply at her son, but said nothing. I wondered if Colden would really do it, snitch on his mother.
After the dishes were done, Colden handed me my duffle bag. "Let's go." I took the bag and hoisted it on my shoulder once again. I decided that I hated Colden.
Unexpectedly, Merna wrapped me in a hug. "You're a sweet girl, whatever happens, stay strong." I suspected Merna thought I would die soon. I agreed with her.
I followed Colden out of the cottage. "Where are we going?" I asked him.
"To see Dunstan."
"Why? I don't want to cause any trouble. I'll just be on my way."
"On your way to where? We're in the outskirts of Nowhere, sweetheart. There's nowhere else to go."
He was right. I walked behind him, contemplating my options. I spotted two women kneeling, washing clothes in a tub filled with a thin layer of water. They looked at me strangely as we passed. "Then I'll go back the way I came."
"Dunstan has to know you're here. I should have brought you to him yesterday."
Any way I looked at this, I was out of luck, so I followed him. Dunstan lived in a large cottage a little ways off from the others. It was a far cry from his brother's mansion, but still much better than the other cottages. Colden knocked on the wooden door and a young boy with sandy-blond hair answered.
"Yes?" asked the boy.
"I need to speak with Mr. Dunstan, please."
"Concerning?"
"We have a trespasser here. A refugee from Farrington."
Refugee? I hadn't considered myself to be one of those, but I guessed I was. The boy closed the door. Colden and I stared at the chocolate-colored door in silence. After a few moments, the boy opened it back up and told us to come inside.
Unlike Colden's cottage, this one was separated into different rooms. We followed the boy into a small office in the back room. A man with a bald head sat at a desk with his back to us.
"Have a seat," he said gruffly.
Colden and I sat in two armchairs against the wall across from the desk. The boy continued to stand by the door. Dunstan sat still and silent. I guessed he was reading. Finally, he turned to us.
I drew in a breath. It startled me how much he looked like Dunningham, although it shouldn't have, seeing as though they were identical twins. The only difference was that Dunstan had aged a lot more. He was a forty-years-into-the-future version of Dunningham.
"Colden," he said, nodding toward him.
"G'morning, Mr. Dunstan."
Dunstan eyed me. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm in trouble. I'm just passing through, really."
"What kind of trouble?"
I repeated the story for what felt like the one-hundredth time. Colden sat beside me, huffing during the whole recollection.
Dunstan breathed deeply, sat back, and stroked his gray beard—just like his brother. "So, it was you who cost us those lifestones. Why in all creation would you do a thing like that?"
"I don't know. I just felt I had to."
Dunstan looked me up and down for what seemed like forever. "Stand up!" he ordered sharply.
I looked at Colden. He pointed his head toward Dunstan, indicating that I'd better do what I'd been told. I stood.
"Come closer," Dunstan said, sounding like a wicked witch trying to lure a small child in the woods.
I realized I was moving, but not on my own. Colden was pushing me toward the middle of the room. Dunstan left his seat. Standing in front of me with his arms folded across his chest, he studied my face for a long time. I focused on his nose, trying to avoid eye-contact.
Then he began to circle me, sniffing life a hungry predator. A chill ran down my back. I'd never been sniffed before. The air from his nostrils hitting my face caused me to flinch.
"W-what are you doing?" I managed to say as he held my hair under his nose. He was just as creepy as his brother, if not more. At lea
st Dunningham had never tried to inhale me.
Dunstan stood in front of me once more. This time I did make eye-contact. I wanted him to answer my question.
"You're one of us." The way he talked—if serpents could speak, they'd probably sound that way.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your people callously call us Foragers, but we like to refer to ourselves as hybrids. But yes, you're a hybrid."
I shook my head. "No, I'm not part human. Both my mother and father are full-blooded Grims."
Dunstan narrowed his eyes at me. "How long have you been here?"
"I came yesterday in the early afternoon."
Dunstan laughed, "Dear, I know this is not what you want to hear, but it's this truth. You're not a full-blooded Grim. You're a lowly hybrid like us."
"I just told you that's impossible."
"If you weren't one of us, you'd be dead by now," Dunstan said. "The temperatures here are much too high for a full-blooded Grim who’s used to the coolness of Nowhere. They would survive here, a few hours tops. See, it's different when you're on assignment and you have your scythe—"
"I know. The scythe regulates our body temperature so we're okay, but that doesn't mean anything." My scythe charm still hung around my neck, tucked inside my shirt. That's why my body temperature was regulated. Something told me not to tell Dunstan about the charm. I turned to look at Colden. There was a small trace of surprise on his face. "Why would Nigel and the other men help me get over the wall if they thought I would die?"
"They didn't know. They're not full-blooded Grims. It's not something they have to concern themselves with."
Dunstan was lying, I didn't know for what purpose, but he was. "What about you?" I asked. "You're a full-blooded Grim."
"Was. When I procreated with a human that was taken away."
"Listen, I have to get going—"
Before I could finish my sentence, Dunstan grabbed my left arm, pulled a knife from his back pocket, and sliced me from elbow to wrist.
Chapter 28
I heard the young boy gasp from the doorway and sensed Colden moving behind me. A stinging pain shot up and down my arm. Blood poured from the slice onto the wood floor. Blood. Why the hell was I bleeding?
"Jax, run and get Carey," Dunstan said to the boy. "Tell him to bring his kit." The boy left the room. I still stood there, watching this deep-red liquid that shouldn't be there continue to run from my arm. "Colden?"
I felt strong hands grab my shoulders and pull me back toward the chair. Gently, Colden pushed me down into the seat. "I think she might be going into shock," he said. There was a little concern in his voice and for the first time maybe even sympathy. He pushed my arm against my belly and wrapped the bottom part of my hoodie around it.
I didn't care about the pain. It was nothing compared to the branding and year-subtraction process I'd gone through. There was something more important going on. "Why am I bleeding? Grims don't bleed."
Dunstan sat back in his seat, not looking one bit apologetic for what he'd done to me. "Not full-blooded Grims. We bleed. It's the human in us."
I heard the front door of the cottage open and close. Jax entered the room with a tall, slender man wearing a black button-down shirt and black pants. The man had a small metal case with him.
Without a word, he knelt before me and told Colden to help me remove my hoodie. After the bloody hoodie was off, Carey looked the wound over for a few seconds and then whistled. "This is going to require stitches."
At first I couldn't bring myself to look at my arm, then I did. My flesh as opened and blood continued to flow.
I immediately burst into tears. It was not my intention to cry like a newborn child in front of these men, but I'd never had as much as a scrape until the day before.
Carey quickly wrapped my arm in a bandage. Then he rummaged through the metal case and pulled out a large needle filled with liquid.
I cringed at the sight of it. "What's that for?"
"Trust me. You're not going to want to be awake for this."
Before I could protest, he had grabbed my uninjured arm and thrust the needle into my elbow crease. Immediately I felt woozy. Everything went blurry and began to spin. I couldn't hold my head up. I remembered Colden pressing my head against his shoulder. I screamed something about wanting my mother and then that was it.
* * *
I opened my eyes and then shut them immediately. I didn't know where I was, but wherever it was, it was much too bright. After a few seconds, I forced myself to open them again.
I was laying in someone's bedroom on a bed underneath a window. I felt groggy as I moved my head from side to side, surveying my surroundings. The walls of the room were burnt orange and blended nicely with the dark-brown furniture. I looked beside me. The bedspread was ornate—a mixture of orange and golden swirls. My arm was wrapped in a bandage, still throbbing from pain. I made myself sit up. It hurt my head tremendously, but I couldn’t just lay there. I went to the door. After turning the knob, I discovered it was locked. I banged on it. "Hey! Let me out!"
I waited for a minute, and there was no response. After yelling twice more, I heard heavy footsteps walking toward the room.
I stood back as the doorknob jiggled. I heard keys clinking against each other. The door opened. It was Jax. He didn't say anything, but he motioned for me to follow him.
He led me to the kitchen where Dunstan, Carey, Colden, Nigel, Moore, and about six other men stood.
Dunstan pointed at the spot at the table directly across from them. I watched the men as I stepped forward. I had no idea what to expect. Were they going to attack me? Were they all upset with me for botching the assignment? Not one of them said a word. They watched me as if they were looking at one of Dorian's weird science experiments.
I sat, holding my arm. "Are you going to cut me again?"
"I'm sorry," Dunstan answered, "but it was the only way I could make you believe." But he didn't look sorry at all.
"What are all these men doing here?" I asked. Jax brought me a glass of water and I gulped it down gratefully.
"We're discussing what we should do with you."
That didn't sound good at all. "What do you mean?"
Nigel cleared his throat. "We need to decide if we should keep you or use you for the cause."
"What's the cause?"
Nigel began to answer, but Dunstan cut him off. "We can't discuss that at this time. Don't you want to go back and check on your family?"
"Of course, but I'll be killed if I go back."
"You're as good as dead anyway," Dunstan said. "You think my brother doesn't know you're here? They haven't captured you because they can't come here. I know my brother. He's keeping your family alive, banking that you'll come back looking for them."
Moore scoffed. "She won't do that."
I shot him an angry look. I hated him as much as I hated Colden. "You don't even know me. How do you know what I won't do?"
Moore sighed. "Well, let's take a look at your track record. You put your family in danger by messing up an assignment. Then instead of taking your punishment like a man, you ran like a mouse, leaving your family—who had done nothing wrong—holding the bag. I doubt you'll go back to check on them."
I stood, causing the chair to fall back and crash to the floor. "First of all, I didn't just leave. My father pushed me out of the back door and slammed it in my face. Second, I risked my life to save humans I'd known for two weeks. Do you honestly think I wouldn't go back to make sure my family, my own flesh and bone, were okay?"
Dunstan looked at Moore. "She makes a good point.” He turned back to me. “Although I am a little perturbed with you interfering with our lifestone collection, I think this is actually perfect timing. You'll go back tonight, and you'll do exactly what we tell you to."
I observed the faces of the men standing in the kitchen. Their expressions were solemn and serious. What was going on that had to be so secretive?
Dunstan sto
od. "Okay, Naomi, you may retire back to the bedroom. Colden, please wait with her. Jax will bring you something to eat."
"Wait! What do you mean I'm going to do exactly what you tell me to? I don't even know what you guys are talking about!" Colden grabbed my arm, but I pulled away from him. The men were going to discuss something and I wanted to hear it. They weren't about to send me to my room like a child, when it was apparent they were going to discuss me. Unfortunately, Colden was much stronger than I was. He grabbed me by my waist and carried me down the hallway, kicking and screaming.
When we made it to the bedroom, he tossed me carelessly onto the bed, causing me to land on my damaged arm. "What's the matter with you? I get that you hate me, but you didn't have to throw me down!"
Colden shut the door behind him. "Shut up! I'm missing out on an important meeting because I have to babysit you, so shut up!"
"My brother is gonna kick your ass."
"Oh, right. What brother exactly? The one who's going to be executed because of you?"
That stung—hard. I folded my legs underneath me and turned my back to him. "Just go back to your stupid meeting. I'm not going anywhere."
"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." I felt the bed move as Colden sat down. "Why'd you have to do that? Why'd you have to screw up the assignment? None of this would be happening to you if you hadn't done that."
"Yes, Colden, I'm aware of that, thanks." My stomach growled. I hoped Jax wouldn't be much longer with the food. "You're a For—hybrid. You should understand. You're part human."
"Yes, but I'm mostly Grim, and we don't belong in that world. We belong here, so here's what I worry about. Gwendolyn was our predecessor, and we respect her, but our allegiance is not to that world."
I ran my fingers along the beige bandage on my arm. "I'm not a hybrid."
"Sure. Whatever."
"They're going to kill me if I go back."
"Well, you knew that when you did what you did."
I didn't want to speak to Colden anymore. I didn't even want him in the room with me. I lay across the bed, thinking of home. I hoped everyone was okay. I imagined them being imprisoned or dead, but I pushed the thought away. I closed my eyes and envisioned Dorian working away in his "laboratory", Mother and Father sipping coffee involved in deep conversation, and Bram up in his room doing whatever he did in there.
Naomi Grim (Part 3) (The Silver Scythe Chronicles) Page 4