I told the men, “I’m not on my own though. I met up with someone and we’re sharing space … kind of a roommate, I guess. We help each other get food and water. It’s working out pretty well.” They didn’t need to know that my roommate was actually only a standoffish tomcat who, other than leading me to water that first time, really didn’t bother to help out around the place.
“That’s good,” Rivers said, looking relieved. “It’s always better to have someone around to watch your back. Listen, though ... if you need help, you can come to Wolf pack. I’ll protect you from Eddie and his buddies.”
“Or to the Liberty pack,” Mateo added. “I would be glad to speak to the pack leaders on behalf of a … friend.” He licked his full lips and lingered suggestively over the last word as his gaze slid slowly over my curves.
Ick. I could just imagine the friendly favors that Mateo would expect in return for that recommendation. No thank you; I was better off on my own.
“Well, thanks for the offers, guys, but things are okay for now. I’m just going to head home before it gets too much later. I don’t want my roommate to get worried.” I wasn’t sure the cat would notice my absence, much less worry about me, but it didn’t hurt to reinforce the idea that I was not on my own.
I raised my hand in a quick wave as I started walking northeast; my café was actually closer to due south from here, but I stuck with the misdirection I’d used earlier about where I was staying.
“Take care,” Rivers told me. “I come around this way once a week or so to check my traps. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again?”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “See you. Later, Mateo.” Mateo only nodded, his dark eyes tracking my path through the rubble-crowded street. I moved into the shadows as soon as possible, trying to be sure that they couldn’t see exactly where I had gone. Moving as silently as I knew how, I crept up the back of a tumbled stack of cinderblocks and drywall and tucked in behind a heap of debris.
I could just barely see Mateo and Rivers standing together in the street where I’d left them, and I couldn’t hear their conversation at all. It was only a few moments before they finished speaking, though, and headed off in separate directions. Rivers went west, Mateo moved north, and both disappeared from view quickly.
Trained by my father to be excessively cautious, I stayed where I was. My restraint paid off after a few minutes when Mateo silently reappeared in the street where we had met. He prowled the area, obviously looking for something. I couldn’t be sure that he was trying to find where I had gone, but it sure looked that way.
I watched Mateo pick his way through the cluttered street in the direction I had gone. He passed directly below me, looking intently into the shadows and peering at the nooks and crannies that could have hidden a small girl. Like most people, he never thought to look up, so he didn’t catch a glimpse of me.
I waited until he was out of sight and then waited a few minutes more. Finally satisfied that he was gone for now, I made my way back to my café. I blocked the doors with extra care once I was inside. Something about Mateo had spooked me, and I needed to feel like my little home was still a safe retreat.
Once I was convinced that the café was as secure as I could make it, I settled into my bedroll for a night of restless sleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next few weeks slid by in blur of routine. I wouldn’t call my days monotonous, because it seems like a ridiculous description for days that regularly included a chance of death or grievous injury. Still, every day included the same tasks again and again: collect water, forage for food, check traps for game, practice my self-defense skills, and most importantly, avoid deadly plants, mutant animals, and dodgy people.
I ran into Rivers every three or four days. I had the impression he was deliberately checking in on me. I didn’t mind that, but he generally had Mateo tagging along. I didn’t enjoy seeing Mateo. He was always staring at me intently and took every opportunity to brush up against me, touch my arm, or stroke my hair.
Though I had told him repeatedly to keep his hands to himself, the message never stuck. Even worse, I’d caught him trying to follow me home again just yesterday, and turned back to confront him over it.
“What do you think you’re doing, Mateo?” I’d asked.
“Nothing, my love. I am only trying to be sure that you reach your home safely,” he told me, all innocent eyes and charming smile. I wasn’t fooled.
“I’m not your love,” I told him firmly. “And I don’t need you to see me safely home. Turn around and go back to your own home.” I glared at him, arms crossed and jaw set angrily. As usual, Mateo didn’t take me seriously and only smiled and shook his head a little.
“As you say, my dear. I will see you another day.” He started to walk away, but at the last minute turned around and bent to kiss me. I tilted my head so his lips only grazed my cheek and shoved him away with both hands on his broad chest. He let himself be pushed back but only so he had a better view of my cleavage.
“Go. Home.” I gritted. “Do not follow me again or I will make you regret it.”
Mateo stroked his hand over my right cheek and then let it slide down my neck, across the outside curve of my breast and onto my hip. I shoved him again, this time with plenty of force, and he lost his grip on me as he stumbled back a step.
To my dismay, he’d only laughed as if my resistance was only a flirtatious game. He whistled cheerfully as he finally turned and walked away. He didn’t seem at all discouraged by my resistance. I wasn’t sure what it would take to convince him that I was not interested. I hadn’t yet resorted to really getting physical with him, but it was getting to the point that I’d about decided I was going to have to break a finger or his nose or something in order to really get his attention.
A rumble of thunder startled me out of my reverie. Reflexively, I glanced at the sky and confirmed that the usual afternoon storm was rolling in. Black clouds were racing east from the mountains, and I knew that I had only twenty or thirty minutes before the soaking rains began. Abandoning plans to check more trap lines, I headed for home in an attempt to beat the rain. In spite of my hurry, I was careful to keep watch behind me to be sure that Mateo had not circled back to follow me.
As summer eased into fall, I had learned that autumn in Denver involved lots of rain. It was practically guaranteed that a booming thunderstorm complete with wind, rain, hail, and the occasional funnel cloud would hit the city every afternoon. The regular rain made it easy to keep my water supply full, even though the afternoon storms cut down on my time for gathering food. The rain also dropped the afternoon temperature abruptly, leading to some uncomfortably cold nights already. I was not looking forward to winter. If the autumn storms continued into winter, they would leave a lot of snow behind.
Not for the first time, I thought about trying to track down Sharra and her pack. Presumably they were set up to make it through the winter, where I was not. I hadn’t done anything about it so far because I was enjoying my independence and solitude. But I was starting to think that I would soon have no choice. I wasn’t going to be able to deal with a long, cold winter on my own. Going to Rivers’ pack was not a great option, because it meant I would have to deal with Eddie and his friends. And I certainly wasn’t going to ask Mateo to take me back to join his pack.
I had a third friend of sorts out here, a woman in her fifties or sixties who lived packless. Leeza didn’t exactly dislike other people; she was friendly enough whenever we met. She just didn’t want to live with other people all the time. She and I often saw each other when we were gathering berries down by the creek, and we talked while we worked. I’d told her part of my story – the part about coming to town with Sharra and then losing her – and learned that she actually knew Sharra.
Leeza and Sharra had known each other when Sharra had first arrived in Denver and was living rough, much like me. When Sharra had decided to join a pack, Leeza had declined. She preferred to stay on her own. But Leeza knew
the general area that Sharra’s pack claimed as territory and had told me how to find the neighborhood if I decided to go looking.
Honestly, I knew I should probably put more effort into finding Sharra; but frankly, I was just enjoying the freedom of being completely on my own for the first time. I had been in the spotlight for almost my entire life and it was so nice to be able to do what I wanted when I wanted. No one was watching my every move, ready to judge and criticize me. No one was scheduling every minute of my day with activities that were supposedly important but only felt trivial.
When I’d first run from Goodland I had burned with fervor to somehow regroup and return to make Cruz pay; but that was before I’d realized how much effort was required to simply survive out here on my own. And thinking about what had happened to my beloved father sent me spiraling into crushing sadness that made it hard to even function, so I’d chosen instead to just refuse to think about it. Besides, what could I do? I was one girl. I had barely managed to escape in the first place; what made me think I could do anything but die if I went back?
I shook my head and pushed the thoughts of winter away as I always did. I wasn’t ready to go looking for a pack yet. I preferred the solitude in spite of the hardships. I wasn’t sure I was willing to follow Leeza’s example and stay solo for the long term, but for right now it suited me. Maybe in another couple of weeks I would be ready to be with other people full-time again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As the last weeks of fall slipped away, Rivers, Mateo, and I settled into a routine of meeting in the Kalamath roundabout every three days for lunch. We’d each bring a bit of food to contribute and share it around to make a meal. Mateo had finally backed off a little and seemed willing to accept my assertion that I wasn’t interested in any sort of relationship, so spending time with him was no longer so uncomfortable.
And while I didn’t want a relationship, I was willing to accept the food they shared as friends. I was grateful that both men regularly brought meat saved from the previous evening’s meal. I was still not good at setting traps, and it was getting harder to find fruit and other edible plants as the weather grew colder. I wasn’t starving exactly, but those leather pants were definitely fitting more loosely than they used to.
Based on the way they gave the largest portions of lunch to me each time we met, I was sure Rivers and Mateo realized that I was running short on food. I was hungry enough not to argue, though.
As usual, our mealtime conversation covered our version of current events. “I saw a bear over by the river,” I offered. “It was clearing out the last of the blackberries from that patch of bushes under the freeway overpass.”
“Did it give you any trouble?” Rivers asked.
“Nope,” I said around a mouthful of roasted rabbit. “I saw the bear before it saw me, so I turned and hightailed it out of there.”
The men laughed a little, as I’d intended. Though Rivers had seen me scuffle with Eddie a little on the first night we’d met, and I’d had very small altercations with Mateo, neither man really knew that I could fight. Instead, I’d used an old strategy I’d learned from my father and cultivated an image of myself as just a bit less capable and competent than I really was. Let them think that I was weak and needed taking care of; it just meant they would underestimate me if we ever found ourselves at odds.
Mateo offered his local news next. “You should avoid the Monarch pack’s territory. They have found a way to collect and store flammable gasses. I do not know where they are storing it, so it would be best to stay far away from the territory altogether. The rumor is that the containers are not very stable and tend to explode without much provocation.”
Rivers looked profoundly unhappy at this news. “They’re going to burn the city down around our ears,” he complained. “Even Eddie thinks it’s a bad idea to try bottling that stuff. And Eddie’s not exactly a voice of reason.”
“What are they doing with it?” I asked, mystified. “Why do they need bottles of flammable gas in the first place?”
“Well, you know, in case of revolution,” Rivers said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Revolution?”
“Against the corrupt government,” Mateo proclaimed vehemently, his eyes alight with fervor. “Someone must bring them down. We cannot just continue to let the government turn the citizens into sheep … into puppets. We must stop them at any cost!”
“I don’t know about any cost,” Rivers disagreed. “There have to be limits.”
“Um, yeah,” I agreed. “This whole idea is crazy. You want to blow up ‘the government?’ That’s ridiculous! Our system of government may not be perfect, but it’s certainly better than chaos and anarchy! Without a stable government in place, everyone is in danger. And how do you decide who makes up ‘the government’ in the first place? Is it everyone in the White House? The Capitol? Everyone in Goodland? Where do you draw that line?”
Now Rivers was into the argument. He leaned forward and spoke quickly and intently. “Look, Poppy, I don’t know your exact background, but I get the impression that you were not exactly struggling along in the middle class before you ended up in Denver. So I get it that you've been living in your little ivory tower world, above all the petty little annoyances we real people have to deal with, but here's a news flash for you. The government is not a noble, kindly, overseer looking out for all the citizens with love and care. It's a machine. And the people running the machine don't know or care how many ordinary people get run over as the machine moves along its way. It just may be that in order to make things better for everyone, we have to start by taking that machine out of the picture.”
“An ivory tower world, huh?” I replied. “Well maybe so, but I get that you've been living here in your little kingdom full of paranoid guerrilla warrior wannabes, so here's a news flash for you. That government machine you rail against is just a lot of people. People just like you who love their friends and families and who are just doing a job. They're not gleefully plotting the downfall of all the so-called regular people; they are regular people. And if you go in there with plots and schemes and scarily-unstable homemade bombs to bring down the government, those are the people who are going to get hurt. Now, if you want to do something to go after the corruption at the top and bring that down, I'm right there with you. But you will never convince me that there is a good reason to slaughter innocent people just to get to the people you think you need to eliminate.”
I got to my feet, abruptly unwilling to spend another moment with Rivers. I suddenly felt like I didn’t even know him, someone I’d come to feel was a real friend. Judging from the look on his face, he was feeling similar disappointment in me.
“I’ll see you in a few days,” I told them abruptly, and stalked away. I was so disturbed by our argument that I forgot to head off in the wrong direction and instead walked directly south toward my café. For all these weeks I’d been careful to not give any clues to the location of my home base, and now I’d stomped off directly toward it. I swore under my breath at my own stupidity, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
I hid and watched my backtrail to be sure that no one was following me, but when neither of the men appeared after several long minutes, I relaxed a little. I watched for a few minutes longer, then more carefully worked my way back home.
I sulked inside my café for an hour or so, rehearsing our short argument over and over in my mind. Of course, I was able to come up with much better responses now. The gray tomcat was the one to finally break me out of my brooding. He had come in through the window, hoping to find something to eat. After I’d ignored him for too long, he proceeded to get my attention with a few ear-splitting yowls.
Forced to focus on him, I shook myself out of my bad-temper. “Hey, Roomie,” I said. “Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you.” I rooted through my ever-present backpack to find the bits of rabbit that I had saved from my lunch and wrapped in a couple of large leaves. Pulli
ng the small package from the side pocket, I made kissy-noises at Roomie, trying to convince him to come closer. I laid the rabbit on the floor near my leg and sat very still so I wouldn’t spook him. He slowly belly-crawled toward me, inching tentatively closer to his treat; when he finally reached the rabbit, he pounced on the shreds of meat.
He was so busy enjoying the food that he didn’t bother to shy away when I reached out to carefully scratch between his ears. He only allowed me to pet him when I brought food, but that small bit of affection was better than nothing. For a change, he didn’t bolt away the moment he’d finished eating. He tolerated my petting for an extra minute or so, then jumped onto the countertop and began to wash.
Buoyed a little by Roomie’s near-friendliness, I pulled myself together and got ready to go back out to check my trap lines. Shouldering my backpack, I said goodbye to the cat and headed out to look for food.
Two hours later I trudged back home, discouraged. I’d caught nothing in my snares and found only a few withered berries left on my usual bushes. Even the dandelions were starting to die off for the season; they had been a major staple of my diet since I’d settled in here. I wasn’t sure what I could replace them with. I worried about this until I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye.
I snapped my head left, looking for threats – and saw Mateo.
“Hello, my love,” he called. “It appears I have finally found your home.”
“Why did you follow me, Mateo?”
“I only want to get to know you better, little one,” he said coaxingly. “We could be such good friends if you would just give me the chance.” He crossed the street toward me as he talked. I wanted to back away; but I also didn’t want to appear intimidated, so I stood my ground.
Into Shadow (Shadow and Light Book 1) Page 10