Backs Against the Wall (Survival Series) (8 page)

“It is an island,”
Crenshaw finally says softly, “filled with people. Survivalists like myself. They cleared it of the wraiths, built homes, made it sustainable. They are very reclusive. Very exclusive. Many in my generation know of them but they are heavily guarded and not to be trifled with. You may join by invitation only and they stopped sending out invitations a long time ago.”

“You had one, didn’t you?” Ryan asks him gently.

Crenshaw nods sadly. “I did. I still do. I helped them years ago to set up their gardens for the apothecary. In exchange, I was given an open invitation to join them at any time.”

“Why haven’t you?” I ask.

He ignores me. He sits in silence staring down at the map. At the small point lovingly labeled
Elysium
.

“Why didn’t you go?” Ryan finally asks.

“Because I would not leave her behind,” he whispers.

His daughter. Even I can follow this part of the conversation.

“Will they help us to take down the Colony? To overthrow A-36?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer me directly.
He doesn’t look at me. “They despise the Colonies. They were once one of them. The original. Not on the island, but farther south in the deserts of another land. Of another time. A time when the war was waged with true armies and still we lost. Now our hope lies in you, in the two of you and… I am sorry. I have drifted off topic and you need answers. You need them
now
.”

“Come on
, Cren,” I say, trying not to sound as annoyed as I feel. Or as guilty.

“If anyone will help you, it will be them.
”

“Do they have a name?” Ryan asks.

Crenshaw nods. “The Vashon. They took that name when they broke from the zealots. When innocent blood was shed and they would stand for it no longer, which is why they are your greatest hope. I learned my hatred of the zealots from them and trust me, it runs deep. If you go to the others they will betray you. They will steal from you, enslave you, murder you, but the very last thing they will ever do is help you. I hope you understand that.” He stands abruptly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve grown weary. I would be alone, thank you.”

“Of course,” Ryan agrees, standing quickly.

He puts his hand lightly on my back to usher me forward. I start to turn to snap at him but his touch turns impatient. I’m shoved out the door past Crenshaw before I can say a word. Ryan stays inside for a brief moment. Then he bows, accepts a light hand laid on the back of his head and that’s it. Thus concludes the crazy portion of our day.

I turn silently to leave with Ryan, but when I look back at the small dark hut set deep in the woods, I feel sick in my stomach. Sad. We got information. We have a lead on a path to take around The Hive.

But I know I might have burned a bridge getting it.

Ryan and I walk in silence back to my loft. We have to deal with Risen along the way, but we take them down easily and without a word. We’re surrounded at one point, something that should have scared me, should have sent my blood running cold through my veins and my heart hammering in my chest until it couldn’t take it anymore and stopped. My breath should have died in my throat, a strangled moan escaping to be drowned out in the roar of moaning surrounding me. It should have happened because it’s happened before.

But I was alone before.

This time Ryan and I immediately went back to back, my shorter body pressed up against his tall, broad one, and we faced off with the closing crowd. My missing arm is annoying but manageable. The pain is getting better meaning I’m getting better. Stronger. I’m healing and coming back from this thing that happened to me that left me broken. And, yes, I am well aware that it’s only my bone that’s healing. Whatever else was damaged is still fractured and jagged, cutting into everything and everyone around me.

When we get to my building, t
he second I step into the entryway, Ryan turns abruptly and begins to walk away. I stand amazed for a second, my jaw literally hanging slack as I watch him go.

“Where are you going?” I call after him.

He stops but he doesn’t turn. “You’re home. Now I’m going home.”

“That’s it? You’re just going to leave without saying goodbye? Without say anything.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He turns to look at me, his brow pulled tight in anger and amazement. “Are you serious? I’m pissed off, Joss.”

“At me?”

“Oh my—“ He throws his head back as he rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Unbelievable.”

“I know why you’re mad,
” I say bitingly, getting annoyed that he’s acting like this. I already feel guilty about so many things, I don’t need this too. I don’t need another lecture from another person telling me I’m doing it all wrong.

He drops his hands to stare at me. “Why? Why am I mad?”

“You think I don’t know. That is so condescending! I’m not a child. I’m not an idiot.”

“I think you don’t understand. I
hope
you don’t understand, because if you do then what you did back there was cruel and I really don’t want to find out you’re cruel. A lot of things I can overlook, but I will not deal with that.”

“No one is asking you to deal with anything,” I growl, taking several quick steps toward him. “No one asked you to ‘overlook’ anything. If there are things about me that you don’t like, Ryan, then get the hell away from me. Leave me alone. You’ve been stalking me since the start. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you or for them,” I spit out, gesturing to the north, toward the Colony, “and I
definitely didn’t ask to be anyone’s hero. So go ahead and go. Walk away and let me forget about you and the Colony and Crenshaw and Vin. It’s all a mess anyway. I’ll be better off without it.”

Ryan closes the distance between us. He stops a single step away from me, staring down at me with his golden glowing eyes
that make me want to cry. It’s so humiliating. The tears are everywhere lately and if I’m not very careful, I could drown in them. I’ll be like Alice from the Wonderland stories swimming in her own tears that refuse to stop because she’s too scared and lost and alone.

“You can’t do that. That’s not how it works,” Ryan tells me quietly, his anger seemingly gone
. Poof, like magic. Like a burst balloon. “People aren’t all or nothing. Friendships don’t live and die on a single argument. You don’t love everything about a person and you don’t hate everything about them either. There are going to be things about you that I don’t like, Joss, but not all of them will send me running. There are going to be things about me that you don’t like—“

“So many,” I mumble.

He grins faintly. “But you can’t quit on me. Not until you find something you can’t forgive. Cruelty I can’t forgive. What about you?”

I swallow
hard, shaking my head. I don’t know what a deal breaker for me is. I’ve never had to think about it. All I know is that the only thing I will not abide from him is dying. But I can’t say that because he won’t promise me that it won’t happen and I’ll hate him for it. So instead, I make an effort at mending fences in the hope that someday soon I’ll get good at it. And once I’m good at those, hopefully I’ll feel strong enough to rebuild bridges.

“
I wasn’t being cruel,” I tell him firmly. “At least I wasn’t trying to be. I was impatient. I have this thing weighing on my chest, sitting like a sack of rocks on top of me and I can’t shake it. Not until I get this done and it’s already been weeks. I don’t have time to sit around talking nonsense with him all day.
They
don’t have time for that.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But remember, not all of his nonsense is nonsense.”

“Ugh,” I groan, dropping my head back. “I don’t have time for riddles either.”

“It’s not a riddle. Look, you’re smart. You’ll figure it out. Why don’t you go inside now? We’ve been out here awhile and we haven’t been quiet. That’s
gotta be bugging you.”

“Not as much as it should be,” I mutter, looking up and down the street. It’s empty. For now. “Are you still going home?”

He hesitates, watching me. “I probably should.”

I grin. “
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. What are you actually going to do?”

He kisses me. It’s light and lingering. Surprising. His lips are the only part of him touching me and they’re barely doing that.
I feel exposed, open to the cold air while his heat is hovering nearby. It’s amazing, breathless and free, like I want to be kissed like this by him for the rest of my life. I know he’s done it on purpose. That he’s keeping his distant, giving me space. That he’s adapting to my own crazy, setting his watch to my cuckoo clock and it’s incredible how that makes me feel. How it changes the kiss into more than skin against skin. It makes it a promise. An understanding. It doesn’t feel closed in, doesn’t feel confining. It feels light as air, heavy as sunshine.

He breathes warm across my mouth, making me shiver and smile. When he pulls away, he puts two steps between us.

“Now I know I should go home,” he says, his voice deep.

I lift a skeptical eyebrow. “But are you going to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come watch a movie with me,” I blurt out. “We can watch
Pretty in Pink.
”

“Why that one?” he asks, already closing the space between us again.

He’s so easy.

“Because I don’t like it.”

“Then why would we watch it?” he laughs.

The sound of his voice echoing up and down the deserted street makes me smile. I should be cringing. I should be telling him to shush it or he’ll get us killed. But
I like the sound of his laughter all around me, the way it is in the loft when I feel the space shrink around him, becoming warmer. Brighter. Somehow more mine by his being there.

“
You’ve seen what I like. Why wouldn’t I show you what I don’t like?”

He grins down at me, his eyes happy and full. “That’s a really good point.”

“Is that what people do?”

“I don’t know. But it’s what we do. When do I get to show you what I don’t like?”

I roll my eyes, turning my back on him to head toward the building. “I already know what you don’t like.”

“Really? Hit me with it.”

“You don’t like when I’m mean. When I’m too harsh.”

“True, but I just told you that.”

“You don’t like it when I pull away from you.”

He’s silent behind me, no sound other than his footfalls in time with mine.

“You don’t like it when you think I don’t trust you,” I continue.

“No, I don’t like it when you absolutely, positively do not trust me.”

I stop two steps up from him on the stairs, turning to look down at him.

“I do trust you. Probably more than I trust myself sometimes and that’s scary. I don’t like it
, but I’m working on it. You’ve gotta give me time. It took me six years to be this way, it will take more than six weeks to change me.”

“I don’t want to change you, Joss.”

I grin at his lie. “Yes, you do. At least a little.” I shrug, continuing up the stairs. “And maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. Maybe it will do me good to let my guard down a little.”

Famous last
friggin’ words.

When we open the door to my loft, I nearly scream. That’s where I’m at on the threat level. Screaming.
Let me make something crystal clear here; I. Do. Not. Scream. Ever. Not when they ate my parents, not when I ran into the street to find a world gone crazy, not even when they pounded on the outside of the car all day and all night as I lay shivering on the floorboards soaked in urine, sweat and fear. I never made a sound.

But now, finding Trent parked in the darkness in the middle of my loft, his eerie eyes fixed on my face like a hungry lion, I choke on a shriek.

“I will freakin’ kill you,” I breathe, begging my heart to stop pounding in my chest. It aches from the pressure.

“Good to see you too,” he drones.

“Come on, Trent, a little warning. We could have killed you, man,” Ryan complains behind me.

Trent smirks. “Not on your best day.”

“What do you want, psycho?” I demand.

“It’s not what I want. It’s what The Hive wants.”

Ryan curses behind me. I second that. Trent just nods.

“They want to see me,” Ryan eventually mumbles.

“They want to know why you’re fighting again. And who it is you’re fighting for.”

“When?”

“Hours ago would have been best.”

I glare at him. “You obviously knew we were downstairs. Why didn’t you come tell us this? It’s kind of important.”

“And interrupt your magic moment? There are so few joys in this world anymore, why would I steal that from you two?”

I look at Ryan. “Is he messing with me or is he being serious? I can’t read him.”

“No one can,” Ryan says. “He’s written in backwards brail.”

I glare at Trent again. “It’d be easier just to kill him.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

Trent smiles.

“Alright, let’s not waste time.” I turn to Ryan, holding up my arm. “Take the splint off. Let’s go.”

He stares down at me for a long time, just looking. I wait patiently, my arm still held out to him.

“Would it to any good at all,” he asks quietly, his eyes imploring, “to ask you to stay here. Not tell you, but ask you nicely to stay here and wait for me?”

I take a deep breath, reminding myself I’m mending fences here.
“I appreciate that you’re not trying to tell me what to do. Consider your effort acknowledged.”

“I’m marking it in the minutes of this conversation,” Trent tells us.

“Not helping,” Ryan mutters, glaring at him over my shoulder.

“But,” I say firmly, shaking my arm to get Ryan’s attention, “it doesn’t change the fact that I’m coming with you. I’m the one with
Vin’s ring—“

“You could give it to me.”

“And I’m the one who was sent in his place.”

“They don’t know that.”

“I’m the one who knows about the Colony.”

“You’ve told me what you know.”

“I’m the one who was kidnapped, held prisoner, watched her friend nearly killed and murdered a woman in cold blood to get out!” I shout, deciding fences are overrated anyway. “I’m going!”

“Alright,” Ryan says softly. Too softly. He steps closer, pushing my arm down out of the way. “Then what about this? They didn’t ask to see you. They want to see me about the Underground. It has nothing to do with you and I can tell them that at the door if you try to go with me. You’ll be locked out, treated like a girl from the stables.”

“You wouldn’t,” I growl, fully believing the look in his eyes that says yes, he would.

He nods slowly. “Oh yeah, I would. If it means keeping you from going there, I would.”

“I promised them, Ryan.”

“And we’ll keep your promise. I’ll help you. We’ll go to the
Vashons. We don’t need The Hive.”

“What
’s a Vashon?” Trent asks.

I bristle, hating the interruption, but I bite my tongue because I’ve already shouted at one of them in the last few minutes. I’m not looking to lash out at everyone. Not yet.

“A group Crenshaw mentioned. We were just with him asking his advice,” Ryan tells him, still standing in my space.

He’s towering over me, probably to intimidate me, but what he doesn’t know (what I’ll never tell him) is that it’s comforting. Eye
level with his chest, seeing his shoulders go on for miles, knowing the strength lying in wait inside; it’s comforting. He has my back and he’s strong enough to rely on. I can let a little bit of the weight of the world pass on to him and he can take it. That’s terrifyingly wonderful. It’s why I don’t step away. Not because I don’t want to retreat. Don’t want to show weakness. Okay, that’s part of it, but mostly it’s because I just like it. I like him.