“Hungry?” Amara asked, and I nodded. “We don’t have as many ovens up and working yet here so a lot of it is cold foods—salads and such—but we have a couple of camping stoves and managed to make a huge hotpot with canned vegetables and meat from an animal that Anne caught.”
The small feisty woman I had first met back at the first Highwaymen camp came over to me and I threw my arms around her neck and pulled her close. I didn’t even realize I was hugging her until I was, and then I think I was as shocked as Amara by my overly affectionate ways. I’m not a hugger—never was—and yet that day, that was all I wanted to do: hug people and hold them close.
It felt like I had been living in a bubble for almost a year and I was now finally coming out of it. Now I could breathe. I could speak. And I was finally seeing the people around me again. I looked around the room at the familiar faces. Faces that I’d been living with but hadn’t been paying attention to, and I suddenly had the urge to cry. I forced myself not to, because I knew that once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“So what was it?” I asked Anne.
“The animal?” She laughed. “Coyote. It was fast, but you know me and knives.” She winked and laughed, and her cheeks turned pink. She looked happy. Like really happy.
“Yes, I do,” I laughed back, remembering her knife-throwing hobby and how useful that had come in back at the previous camp when she’d hit an intruder right between the eyes. “Maybe that’s something you could actually show me sometime.”
“It takes years of training to get this good, Nina,” she teased with a smile, and my own smile grew bigger because it was so good that she was finally appreciating her own talent so blatantly. She could have given the men a run for their money, that was for damn certain.
Amara stood at my side, and when I turned to look at her, I saw that she was looking at me affectionately. I truly didn’t feel I deserved the attention. After all, I’d done little in the past year but be awful to everyone, and I went to tell her that as my smile slipped and I thought of how awful the past two days had been.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t ruin it for yourself. You’re allowed to be happy.”
I frowned. “Am I?” I asked, and I meant it.
She nodded sternly. “Yes.”
I nodded back, not really believing her, but honestly, I was just so tired of feeling angry and sad all the time. I couldn’t feel happiness; it was like my body didn’t recognize the emotion anymore, but maybe—just for the day, at least—maybe I could just not be angry at the world. At my loss. At the world’s loss.
It was all one and the same, really, but it all mixed itself up inside me until they were separate things. Until they were inexplicably linked and yet intrinsically different.
I swallowed and leaned into Amara as she wrapped her arms around me again. Today, I wouldn’t be angry. Today I would just be. And we’d see what tomorrow brought tomorrow.
“Well, whatever you have cooking, count me in for a huge bowl of it, because I am starving.” I forced a smile that felt completely wrong to my face. “Coyote, rat, I don’t really care, just let me eat.”
And then suddenly my thoughts went back to the Savages. Back to the person that they had carried out of the warehouse…no, two people, Tyson had said. There had been two bodies in that sheet, and they had been alive.
“Everything okay?” Amara asked, and I nodded, my thoughts elsewhere.
How long did those people have before they were slaughtered, I wondered?
How long before the Savages killed them? Or maybe they wouldn’t kill them right away. Maybe they would torture them first. Maybe they were building up their stocks, preparing for a feast, much like we were doing right then. I swallowed, feeling a little sick, and my stomach flipped in anxiety.
The thought seemed suddenly strange. That we were so similar to the Savages in our ways—we just had different tastes in food and acceptability, I suppose. We hunted and ate coyote, and they hunted and ate their fellow man.
There was something else that was bugging me, and as Amara handed me a steaming bowl of stew, I pondered thoughtfully. The food was delicious, more delicious than I could ever have imagined, and I was momentarily drawn out of my thoughts to thank the women profusely for the food. Canned potatoes dissolved in my mouth, carrots mushed between my teeth, broth slid down my throat, and the coyote meat was divine. Better than any venison or expensive steak I’d eaten in my previous life.
I slurped the last of the broth down, my belly feeling full and warm. Sleep tugged at me again. With a full stomach, how could it not?
“Do you need help putting that on?” Anne asked, pointing to my arm that I’d placed on the bench next to me.
“Please.” I nodded and I stood up.
She strapped it around my shoulder and I reached over and unclipped the machete before sliding it into the holster at the back of the attachment. It felt good now, like I had two arms again. Like I was a whole person, almost.
“You look like you need to sleep, Nina,” Amara said, and I nodded in agreement. “Let me grab you a glass of water to take with you.”
She filled a large glass with water from a huge plastic tub in the corner and then handed it to me, and I thanked her and took a sip.
We still had the trade with the other women we’d found on the road, and I thought of all the things that they had said they had to trade. I wondered, briefly, how they had gotten all those things, who had they traded with to get them.
Most things could be collected and built over time. And enough time had passed that small societies of people had popped up all over. Some thrived, others didn’t. But the successful ones, the ones with the most to lose and the most to gain, with thriving populations and supplies of food and ammo and water…they were the ones that traded.
You had to if you were going to survive. Supplies were in too high a demand, and if you had something and didn’t want to trade for it, well then if someone found out what you had, they’d just come and take it anyway. Better to trade and stay alive. Just like those creepy kids had done. They’d traded people they’d caught for water. Barrels of water.
Why was that? I wondered, a frown forming on my face.
Why hadn’t they been able to find their own water? There was a small well that we used, so there must have been others around if you looked. And if there were wells, then there was water. And if there was water then there had to be rivers or streams or…
Fresh water, direct from the source… Best water you’ll ever taste…
My head shot up and the glass of water slipped from my fingers as realization hit me like a sucker punch. The glass smashed as it hit the hard floor of the kitchen, glass and water spraying up against my ankles.
The two women we had met at the gas station, they’d said they had water. Lots of it. And I realized with absolute certainty that they were Savages.
24.
Nina
“They’re Savages,” I said, my resolve strong even as the men stared at each other like I’d gone mad.
“How can you be so sure?” Highlander said, obviously pissed off and wanting to be absolutely certain because it meant he wouldn’t be getting down and dirty with that woman he liked.
“They said they had lots of fresh water, direct from the source.” I rubbed at my temples, the start of a headache coming on. “Not to mention that back at the warehouse, those creepy little kids were trading with Savages…people for water!” I emphasized the last part and raised an eyebrow.
“Aye, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same people,” Highlander replied, but he already looked defeated.
“I hate to break it to you, Highlander, because I know how excited you were to let your freak flag high with Kensa, but if you let her give you a blowjob she’s going to be asking you for a squirt of barbecue sauce to go with it,” I said dryly.
Highlander sat back on the edge of the table with a grumble. “Ya really know how to hit a man where it hurts.”
&n
bsp; I quirked an eyebrow. “I have a skill.”
“Knew something was off with them,” Shooter agreed. “It was the clothes. I thought they just needed showing how to skin and clean an animal properly, but the smell wasn’t animal.” His features were dark, his expression bleak. His hand slammed down on the table and the drinks and ashtray atop it bounced noisily. “I can’t believe we were so close to them. Twice!”
He stood up abruptly, his chair slamming back against the wall. Highlander looked over at Gauge and the two men exchanged a look as Shooter paced the room, his gaze far away as he began to put a plan together.
Gauge stood and pulled the map down from the wall. Various places had been circled to represent where different groups were, and my gaze lingered over the spot where Haven was. Shooter grabbed the pen and leaned over the map, one hand tracing the thin lines on it as he calculated where the warehouse and the gas station were.
There was no direct river source that we could see—no streams or lakes, but there were plenty of small towns, and they must have been getting their water from somewhere. We just couldn’t see where.
Shooter threw down his pen and it bounced across the table. “Where the fuck are they hiding?” he grumbled.
We stared silently down at the map, all of us deep in thought but none of us coming up with any solutions. It just didn’t seem possible that they could be so close and yet not leave any clues behind as to where they were.
“Was going to head to the library to grab those herbalist books today. We could swing by the city office and check the maps there. They’ll have details of water supplies and sources.” Highlander shrugged uncertainly.
“That’s actually a good idea,” I agreed. “If we can find the source, then we’ll likely find their base.”
Shooter stopped pacing and turned to face us, his ice blue eyes landing on me. A thousand thoughts flittered through his gaze before he finally looked away with a soft nod.
“Okay, Highlander and Gauge, you two grab another man and head out there today. See what you can find.” He pulled his cigarettes from his cut and lit one and my eyes narrowed on him.
“Balls and I got the radios working again, so we can stay in touch,” Highlander said. “The town’s pretty empty from what I’ve seen when we’ve passed through, but I’m going to take a truck in case there’s stuff in the library that’s been missed.”
Shooter nodded an okay, and Gauge picked the map back up before tacking it back onto the wall, and he left the room with Highlander. I moved around the table to stare at the map again, looking at where the warehouse had once been and wondering if any of those little kids had survived. And if so, would they retaliate in any way.
“I think they’re in this area,” Shooter said, circling a large area to the left of our camp and in direct reach of Haven.
“I agree. It would make sense.” I nodded, staring hard at the map as I willed myself not to start an argument with him. Not today. He’d lost so much today and truly I was exhausted from my own ordeal.
The area he was talking about featured hundreds of miles of open land—acres of forests and even some mountainous areas. It would be impossible to search. Highlander had to find those maps if we wanted to have any shot of finding them.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked.
Shooter leaned back against the table. He reached out and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him so that I was leaning against him, both of us staring up at the map. It should have been comforting, being in his arms, but I just felt trapped.
“It could go one or two ways. We get word to Haven about the meet with Kensa and Zuly. Aiken’s been waiting for this moment for a year now and he’s eager to finish them off. We go to the meet with Kensa and Zuly, and make them take us to their camp.”
“That’s one way. And the other would be?”
Shooter sighed. “If Highlander and Gauge find the maps, we find the camp. One team goes to the meet and the other goes to their camp. It ends the same either way.”
“And if they won’t tell us where the camp is? Or if Highlander can’t find the water maps?”
“Always so troubled with the what ifs,” Shooter said, his hand rubbing across my stomach as he leaned in to kiss my neck.
I could already tell where this was leading and I pulled away from him. He gave a little resistance until he realized that I wasn’t going to relent and then he eventually let go of me. He looked pissed, and I couldn’t blame him. We hadn’t been intimate since I lost my arm, and he was getting tired of waiting. Part of me wished he’d just go and find another woman to fuck. Who knew—maybe he already had.
“Nina…” he started, but I was already walking away.
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’m just really tired and I have a headache.”
And I was really tired, and I did have a headache, but we both knew that wasn’t why I was really saying no to him. Why I was rejecting his advances yet again.
“Can’t go on like this, darlin’,” he said, standing up and coming toward me. His face was gentle but his eyes had a hard edge that told me he’d love nothing more than to grab me by the throat and bend me over the table and just take what he wanted.
But I wasn’t scared of him.
I knew he wouldn’t do that.
He’d control himself like he always did. Like he always had. Like he taught the Highwaymen to. I mean, he kind of had to because that was his whole club ethos.
I sighed. “I know. I just can’t right now. I need to get ready.”
He scowled. “Get ready?”
“I’m going with them, into town.”
He was already shaking his head. “No fucking way. You’re staying here today.”
I snorted on a dry laugh.
“Something funny to you, Nina?” he asked as he stalked toward me.
Shooter was over six feet tall and built like a college football player, and he towered over me as I backed up until I hit the wall. I wasn’t scared of him, but I also had the good sense to stay out of his way when he was pissed off. And at the moment he was horny and pissed off.
“I’m going,” I stated matter-of-factly.
“The fact that you think this is even an option is…”
“Can we not fight today, please?” I asked as he placed both hands on the wall on either side of me and glared down into my face. “You’re not intimidating in the slightest, by the way.”
I saw the corner of his mouth twitch and my stomach flipped as he leaned down, his face close to mine. “Now we both know that’s a lie,” he said darkly before placing a hard kiss on my mouth.
I kissed him back because not kissing him back wasn’t an option. Not only because kissing him was better than arguing with him, especially when the outcome was me still going to the town regardless, but because when Shooter kissed you it was impossible not to kiss him back. His kisses were demanding, dominating, and stomach-flipping. He kissed like every kiss was his last one. Like he was going off to war and he might never get to kiss you ever again, so he put everything he had into every single kiss. He owned you with those lips and that tongue and his absolute presence. And it was impossible not to melt into him when he kissed you.
Shooter’s hands found their way to my hair and he grabbed a handful and tipped my head back as his kisses moved from my mouth to my chin and down to my neck. He was breathing hard, and in truth, so was I.
His proximity was overpowering, and he owned me as his hands and mouth controlled my body, turning me from a hard-as-steel rock to a soft-as-butter flower. I felt the flutter of desire awaken in my belly, the first stirrings of yearning, but I pushed the feeling away, refusing it entry into my mind and my body. I didn’t want this, I told myself over and over, even as his hand reached between my legs and I groaned.
He swallowed my groan as his mouth found mine again, his hand rubbing against me through my jeans. He released my hair and reached down, unbuttoning my jeans as he continued to kiss me, unrelenting in his prowess and c
ontrol of me.
“No,” I murmured into his mouth. I weakly pushed against his chest, refusing him even as my fingers curled around the edges of his cut and gripped it tightly. His strong hands began to push my jeans down my legs, his fingers finding the softness inside my panties, and I cried out against his lips. “No,” I whimpered again, turning to liquid against his touch. But he was relentless, devouring me with his expert touch and debauched kisses.
I pulled out of his kiss as his hand finally left my hair so he could reach down and unbuckle his own jeans.
“Missed you,” he said, his mouth moving to my throat to kiss its way down the sensitive skin. “You have no idea.”
“Shooter, please,” I said, needing him to stop. I was weak and pathetic and couldn’t put enough force into my words, and he continued to strum my body, soft waves of pleasure rolling through me. I pushed against him weakly, panting on the words.
“Please, darlin’, I need you,” he growled. “Need you so fuckin’ much. I’ve waited and waited, and I need you so much I can’t see straight. I can’t fuckin’ think straight. I need you, Nina.” He sounded almost pained as he spoke, and guilt blossomed in my chest that I’d turned such a strong, capable man into such a wounded animal.
The heavy chains that hung from his belt hit the ground as he released his jeans and let them fall. And then he was fumbling, kicking his way out of his boots and grabbing the edge of my underwear. I heard the soft tear of the material and felt the cold slap of air as my underwear fell away and he lifted my leg up to his waist. Heat pressed between our two bodies as he pressed at my entrance, leaning his forehead against mine as he slowly filled me.
“You’re my woman and this is how it should be, darlin’. We’re good together, you and I. So fuckin’ good together.” He groaned on the words as he rolled his hips, his hands on my hips as he slowly rocked back and forth. “Goddamn, Nina.”
I buried my face in his neck and he lifted me up off the ground, pressing my back into the wall as he held me, rocking into me, my legs wrapped around his waist. Our bodies met, combined by grief, desire, and ownership.
The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7 Page 18