Now, she felt lost. Inept. She was a soldier out-gunned, outmaneuvered. She knew nothing of flirting. The coy glances and secretive smiles that Haven had taught her was a foreign language.
Then again, how could she laugh and pretend everything was easy and wonderful when winter had been harsh and starvation loomed like a giant, wasting shadow over her friends and family? And now the governor might think he had reason to deploy his army to Erling, take what little they had, and exile them all to the Deadlands.
Get it together. Sanna shook off the tentacles of doubt threatening to drag her down. Nico’s family was well known, wealthy and respected. He liked her, not the other girls. She had to be the one to secure him and the connections his family represented. It could mean more food, supplies and weapons. Freedom from suspicion. Survival.
She slowed her pace until he caught up. “Hey,” she nudged his shoulder with her own, then instantly regretted it. “If you really want to see Canada, I know of a kayak that can still float. Sort of.”
“Hmmm...sounds tempting. But why leave when paradise is here?”
Sanna laughed—not a practiced, airy laugh but her natural chuckle. She clapped her hand over her mouth, wishing the earth would break open and swallow her whole.
“Hey, I mean it. Erling is better than a lot of places.” Nico brushed a nearby pine branch, sending a cascade of snow glittering to the ground. “Everyone seems pretty happy. Like they really care for one another.”
And I can’t fail them. Sanna swallowed. “It’s a nice place. Everyone has a job. A purpose. We don’t have much, but we’re equal.”
“Your family is a little more equal than others, right? I mean, your dad practically runs the place. And your mother is the best doctor in the region.”
“They do okay.” Sanna shrugged. “Mom mostly gets paid in favors these days. And Dad doesn’t need much more than the barracks and skulls to crack to make him happy.” She faced Nico. “Is that why you’re interested in me? Because you think we’re rich? We’re not. At least, not compared to you. Or the other colonies. And we don’t have any hidden treasure.”
“What?” Nico recoiled, his brows lifting. “No—that’s not what I meant at all.”
Yes, it was. Sanna sensed his disappointment like a frigid draft. “It’s okay. I understand if you’re disappointed...”
“I’m not. I swear.”
Sanna’s heart skipped at his words. Part of her desperately wanted to look at Nico, and another part of her thought she’d die if she did.
Nico closed the distance between them. “I haven’t seen any sign of Infected today. You must keep this area pretty clear.”
Sanna latched onto the familiar topic. “We try. The hordes ebb and flow with the seasons, of course. But there’s always a few loner stage ones and twos lurking around. It helps that we built the town so close to the cliff. Especially when it comes to guarding the fields during harvest.”
Nico eyed the axe and daggers hanging from her belt. “And here I thought you put those on because you were afraid of me.”
She snorted. As if she’d need an axe to finish him off. Not that it would come to that. They were supposed to be on a date, after all. Her first. She was supposed to be snagging him with her feminine wiles, not thumping him on the head with her fist.
“Are you really as good as they say?” He reached out and tried to push an escaped curl behind her ear. It snagged on his gloved finger as he pulled away.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, her scalp smarting. “I mean, I’ve never lost—a fight, that is. It’s basically the only thing I’m good at. My mom tried to teach me medicine for a while, but I guess I didn’t take to it.” More like the words got all scrambled on the brittle pages of the ancient medical textbooks, and her mom got so frustrated she ordered Sanna out of the clinic. Sanna eventually learned how to read on her own, but by then Haven had appeared at her mother’s side and hadn’t left since. Sanna had never stepped foot in the clinic as a student again.
It was for the best, really. For Erling. The wall was where Sanna belonged.
She swallowed around the knot in her throat. “Lead the way,” she stepped off the path for him to pass. “You’ve got the bow.”
She fell in behind him, lost in the blizzard of her own thoughts, and soon any warmth that existed between them was sucked away by the icy wind.
Why is this so hard? She’d take on a stage two any day over this uncertainty. Here she was, practically halfway through her life, if the latest health statistics were to be believed—and yet, still single. The human race was on the brink of extinction, and she couldn’t even find a boyfriend. There had to be something really wrong with her.
Haven was lucky. She was barren and beautiful and therefore exempt from this whole degrading process. No one ever looked at her and wondered if she was doing her part to save humanity from imminent extinction.
Stupid repopulation plan. It’s not like the Health Department would ever find out if I don’t have kids. The government basically ignored Erling as long as their tithe was paid. It was her mother, Erling’s physician, who extolled the importance of reproduction. According to her, the only way to defeat the virus was to outbreed it.
Sanna sighed. Mom was going to be disappointed in her. Again.
The rabbit swinging from Nico’s belt seemed scrawnier than before. It was barely enough for her parents, let alone the scores of others who gathered in Erling’s communal kitchen every night, eating gruel that grew thinner with each passing day.
Get a grip. Self-pity was a rotten weakness, and she wasn’t some princess who could spend her days wallowing in it.
Sanna scanned the snow-covered ground for tracks, hoping for a deer. She’d even go after a bear, if given half a chance. Either of them would be enough to stave off hunger back home until winter loosened its icy grip.
Time was running out. Already the sun was sinking in the West, and soon the darkness would chase them behind the tall, metal-clad walls that encircled Erling. If they returned with only a rabbit...
The gaunt, hungry faces haunted her. How much longer could they live on gruel and bread?
Nico’s footsteps slowed. “Did you hear that?”
The sharpness of his tone raised her alarm. She stilled, training her ears to the forest. The wind threaded through the branches overhead, sending a few crisp leaves gliding to the snow-crusted ground below.
Movement flickered above her. Sanna adjusted the grip on her axe, a chill skittering down her spine. She knew she was being ridiculous—the Infected froze every winter—but the cold, leaden feeling settling in her stomach suggested otherwise.
If the last two-hundred years had proven anything, it was that even the dead could evolve.
CHAPTER THREE
There were countless ways to die in the Deadlands and right now, each one was running through Sanna’s mind at lightning speed. She breathed heavily as she scanned the forest, the echoes of her dead friends’ screams ringing in her ears.
They’d been in a place like this when the attack happened, and no matter how many Infected she killed, there were always, always more.
“Sanna, I’m sorry—” Nico began.
A shadow exploded from the depths of a nearby pine. Sanna ducked and struggled to see through the shimmering haze of snow.
Crows. It was just...crows.
Giddy laughter chased the end of her exhale. She glanced at Nico. The blood had drained from his face, making the freckles scattered across his nose stand out like copper flecks in snow.
“Hey,” she lowered her axe, and touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, right? False alarm.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. She sailed by him, buoyant with relief. Nico grabbed her wrist. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
It dawned on her that there was no way she’d ever snag a guy like him, but maybe if she were honest, he’d help dispel the rumors about Erling. “Look, I know you’re not interested in me. But Erling isn’t hiding anyth
ing. We’re really trying to improve the fields...”
Nico blinked, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s fine.” Sanna stepped back. “I get it. You don’t have to pretend to like me anymore.”
“It’s not that—” Nico started.
“Wait...” Sanna eyed him. “Are you saying—no. Forget it.” She shook her head, tamping down the nerves fluttering in her stomach. “Look, I don’t want to play games, Nico.”
“Neither do I.” He raked his fingers through his hair again. It was a nervous habit—something her mother would have nipped in the bud. “I’m serious. I like you, Sanna.”
“Yeah,” she scoffed. “Whatever.”
A smile flitted across his handsome face. “Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Because...I...I’m...” Me. Her recent exploits replayed in her mind—wrestling with Carlo in the mud until he cried for mercy, bellowing a war cry as she led the charge against a gathering horde. Hocking spit over the wall with the other soldiers.
Romance wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to someone like her. She was the girl guys hung out with, not one they dated. In fact, she suspected that most of the guys her age didn’t even see her as female.
His gaze locked with hers and suddenly her objections faded. He seemed serious—was this really happening? Could he really be attracted to her? Or was this just another dream and she’d wake up, twisted in her sweat-soaked sheets, alone and vaguely...empty?
“I mean it, Sanna.” He pressed, then looked away “ I just—I don’t want to disappoint you, that’s all.”
“Disappoint me?” Sanna frowned. She had no idea what he was talking about. “Is this about the rabbit? It’s fine—I’ve come back with less a hundred times.”
“Really?” A nervous grin flitted across his face, showcasing his dimples, and for some reason Sanna’s knees ached. “I doubt that.”
Last night, Haven had asked if she’d really fallen for him, and why. Sanna had said it was because of his lovely hazel eyes, the color of her father’s favorite whiskey. That had been the easy answer. It wasn’t so much their hue that drew her, but rather the deep well of kindness she sensed beneath.
“Besides,” a sudden, sweet surge of coursed through her. Maybe she was finally done with all this stupid dating. “You could never disappoint me.”
His grin faded. “I doubt that.”
A branch snapped ahead. Something shifted in the shadows.
Sanna sensed the intruder’s presence like an invisible hand on her shoulder. She shifted her feet wider, her weight placed evenly between them. Years of training made the movement as natural as breathing.
A sound, caught between animal and human, tore through the silence and cut straight through her girlish excitement.
“Dammit.” Nico said, turning towards the sound. “They’re here.”
The curse fell hard on her ears. He hadn’t done that before. “Who?”
“Bone Boys. They’ll take you for ransom,” he whispered, staring at the path ahead.
“Why me?” Sanna asked. “You’re the one who’s rich.”
She knew little about the Bone Boys other than they were a gang of thieves who terrorized caravans and traveling merchants throughout the Deadlands.
“Your father killed one last year, didn’t he?” Nico pressed.
Sanna’s blood turned to ice. “H-how do you know about that?”
“Word gets around.” Nico’s gaze shuttered. “Revenge isn’t something they take lightly.”
“It wasn’t...what it looked like.” She remembered the boy her father had strung up outside Erling’s main gate. He’d had made it seem as if they’d shown no mercy, even though the boy had fallen to his death while trying to scale their slick metal walls. “They’re going to kill me, aren’t they?”
“They’ll accept a ransom,” Nico offered quickly. “It’ll be high at first, but they’ll negotiate. Keep calm and be patient—"
“We have nothing.” Sanna shook her head, mentally banishing the fear that threatened to cloud her judgement. “And even if we did, my father would never pay. He’s the head of the guard, and he’d be seen breaking his own rules.”
Nico frowned. “How far are we from the Kill Zone?”
“Three miles east,” she answered, surprised by his keenness. Was it just her imagination, or did he suddenly seem to be standing taller.
“I bet there’s an ambush waiting for us if we take the trail.”
Ambush? Unease prickled her skin. This was getting worse by the second. “I-I know another way. Through the forest.”
“We’ll make a run for it.” He dumped the rabbit carcass. “Lead the way.”
Sanna picked it up, tying it to her waist. She met Nico’s disapproving glower with one of her own. There was a hardness to him, now. Strength he’d kept hidden. She didn’t know where his new sense of authority had sprung from, but he wasn’t about to give her orders.
A man dressed in black sauntered onto the trail ahead.
The stranger pushed down his hood. His head was shaven. A skeletal mask was tattooed across his face in black ink, making it appear as if he’d been flayed alive. Ash paint darkened his eye socket. creating a sunken appearance that accented their unusual color; one bright green, the other pale as ice. His gaze locked onto Sanna, and a slow smile spread across his ghoulish face as he loped towards them with lethal grace, a spear held at his side.
Sanna shook off the fear. He’s just a man. Even if he looked like something that had crawled out of the underworld itself. She licked her dry lips and lifted her axe. She was ready.
Nico stood beside her and nocked an arrow, drawing back and aiming at the attacker in one fluid moment.
The Bone Boy froze, cocking his head to the side as he studied Nico. His brow wrinkled.
“What are you waiting for?” Sanna whispered. “Shoot him. Before he gets any closer.”
Nico hesitated, then loosed the arrow. The Bone Boy dodged as it whizzed past him, sinking into a nearby tree. A smile broke across the Bone Boy’s face, accentuated by the teeth and gums tattooed around his lips. “That was close, man! I almost thought you meant it.”
Sanna stared at wobbling shaft. A warning shot? Really? Why waste an arrow?
“Leave now, and no one gets hurt,” Nico said, calmly.
Sanna stared at him, fear crawling into her heart and setting roots. It almost seemed like...the Bone Boy knew him.
“Whatever dude,” the Bone Boy dismissed him and turned to her. “Sanna Larson, is it? Well, come on. Let’s get going.”
“I don’t think so.” The Bone Boy’s smirk made her blood boil. Did he really think she’d be taken so easily? As if she were some helpless lamb who’d wandered far into the forest?
She wasn’t a lamb. She was a goddamn wolf.
She aimed and lunged, sending the axe cartwheeling through the air. It sank deep into the Bone Boy’s upper thigh. Blood sprayed across the snow. The Bone Boy screamed and fell to his knees, dropping his spear as he tried to stem the flow.
“Let’s go,” Sanna said to Nico. “Now.”
Nico stared at the Bone Boy in shock, then gaped at her. “Y-you could have killed him.”
“Seriously?” Sanna glared at him. “That’s the point.”
“I guess it’s true about what they say, huh, Lucas?” The Bone Boy grimaced, spittle flying through his clenched teeth. “Erlingers are bred for brawn over brains.”
“Shut up, or I’ll finish what I started. Wait—” she spun to Nico, the Bone Boy’s words echoing in her mind. “Lucas?”
“Congratulations, you finally figured it out,” the Bone Boy sneered. “I’d give you a round of applause if it weren’t for the axe in my leg!” He glared at Nico and motioned towards the offending weapon. “You said she’d be easy, Lucas!”
“And rich, right?” Sanna added, all the dreams of their future evaporating. “Turns out I’m neither.”
“It’s not what you
—” Nico began, only to be interrupted by another violent curse from the Bone Boy as he tried to pry the axe from his leg. “Stop, Zane, please, before we’re all dead.”
“So you do know him,” Sanna said, feeling sick. Coldness spread through her chest like ice forming on a lake. She’d been a fool to think someone like him would want her. Thank God she was armed.
“Please,” Nico lifted his hands in a sign of appeasement. “Let me explain—”
“He screwed up,” the Bone Boy interrupted. “He was supposed to bring you out here days ago.”
“Quiet!” Nico barked at Zane, then shifted to Sanna. “You weren’t supposed to be—”
“Armed?” Zana finished.
“Hurt.” Nico raised his hands as if she were a skittish mare. “No one was.”
“You can say that again.” Zane glowered at Sanna. “I’m gonna gut you for this.”
“Try walking first, Bone Boy.”
“Sorry, didn’t quite hear that.” His face twisted into a demonic snarl. “Why not come a little closer?”
Nico stepped between them. “Zane, I swear, if you don’t shut up right now, I’m going to end you myself.”
“Why the hell is he still standing?” Zane said to Sanna. “I may have tried to kidnap you, but at least I was honest about it. He’s the one messing with your head.”
He’s right. They were both lying dogs to her, but one had the audacity to make her feel...make her hope...for what? A future beyond fighting? Something more than the endless days and nights spent alone?
She shook her head as a toxic stew of humiliation and anger crashed over her. If she were meant for something more than a soldier’s life, she wouldn’t be so damn good at it. She’d be prettier. Softer. And certainly not filled with so much rage.
She lunged at Nico, hoping for his kidneys. He was faster than she expected and averted her more lethal maneuvers. Her fist finally found the side of his face with enough force to send him spinning.
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