The Condemned (29 page)

Ok, so she was the first to admit that trading a good horse for this pile of crap had been a phenomenally bad idea.

    
Nevertheless, it had seemed like a clever thing to do at the time
,
and it was too late to be whinging about it now.

The poor thing was covered in sweat and was panting like a dog that had been left out in the sun. She had to give it its dues, it was a fighter alright
,
but the last hour or so had just seemed cruel, pushing it on mercilessly, and she was looking forward to being able to ditch the animal, perhaps more to assuage her own guilt rather than for its welfare.

    
She was seeing people now, it had started as just a thin trickle at first, a couple of hours back; one or two men on horses that were carrying packs laden with trader’s goods, the odd farmer trailing a cart, one or two pedestrian
s. Gradually the dirt trail she ha
d been sticking to had widened
,
become more pronounced, turned into an actual road. More and more smaller tracks were forking off from it
,
and at each one there seemed to be more and more people adding to the growing traffic.

    
This was a good sign.

    
It had to mean that she was getting close to somewhere large enough to be worth travelling to for these people.

Maybe it was market day somewhere
,
or maybe Officials had arrived in town and were handing out free guns
,
or maybe it was the coming of the freakin’ Messiah.

    
Who gave a fuck
why
they were flocking?

    
All she cared about was that a big number of people heading in the same direction was exactly what she was looking for.

    
Still, it wouldn’t do her any good right now if any one of the travellers on the road happened to be an Official keeping an eye out for her. This wasn’t the right place and she had a lot of work to do bef
ore she let herself be found,
if she was going to do it right she had to find somewhere secure to get a little rest before she even tried putting her plan i
nto action.

    
Confident
that
she was heading in the right direction, Leci steered her nag away from the road.

The dry and dusty desert had given way some time ago to a more lush environment. The landscape dipped and rose, dotted with hilly mounds that were patchy with
brittle, brown
grass. The occasional tree grew and in places there were tall weeds that didn’t hide her but provided decent coverage. She rode parallel to the road, keeping her distance but not letting it out of her sight. It would be too easy to get lost when she was so tired and struggling to pay attention
,
and she didn’t want to be detouring unnecessarily when she was on the right
track,
when she was
so close.

    
When she cleared the next rise Leci stopped and looked down at the town below her.

    
From where she stood
,
she could see a large market square, full of tents and st
alls and bustling with people. There were s
everal dilapidated buildings, she could see a tavern and a stable, a couple of workshops and at the far end there seemed to be a campsite.

    
A nicely populated and busy area.

    
She quickly found what she had been hoping to see.

    
The largest of the buildings still standing was a four-storey one. From the look of the front of it she figured it was probably an
old
apartment block. Some of them still stood and had several rooms that were habitable. Over the years they had either been claimed by people who made their money renting out rooms to weary travellers
,
or they simply stood waiting to offer a temporary free room to anyone who might need it.

    
Leci narrowed her eyes and could make out the rusted metal ladder that climbed the side of the building. It was rare to find one intact and this wasn’t any different from usual. The ladder began
just
above the window line of the second floor and went up to the roof. It wouldn’t be any use to her unless she could access it from the inside. This posed a challenge, but wasn’t impossible, didn’t worry her.

    
Overall
,
the place would suit her needs very well indeed.
It was as close to perfect as she could’ve hoped for.

    
There would undoubtedly be Officials somewhere in the crowd below her, probably on the lookout for a blonde girl, a redhead, a bald guy and an ex prison guard.

    
Good.

    
They’d see her when she was ready for them to.

    
Dismounting, Leci didn’t bother securing the horse,
she
simply pulled down her pack, slung it over her shoulder and allowed the animal to wander off to graze. She had no more need for it. It could fend for itself, run free, find civilisation or lie down and die for all she cared, it was no longer her responsibility.

She tugged the cap down low over her eyes and tucked her hair up into the back of it, hiding as much as she could. She pulled
Amato’s heavy leather jacket
onto her shoulders and slipped her arms inside
. She was already sweating and it was far too hot to be wearing it
,
but she zipped up the front regardless. It was oversized and hid her figure nicely. If she were lucky
,
she might be mistaken for a boy dressed like this; draw less attention to herself, less cause for suspicion.

    
The town below had no boundaries, no fence or wall around it and
so
she kept away from the road that led straight onto the main street, instead snuck in through an alleyway that ran alongside the apartment building. She stayed to the wall and checked the windows as she passed them, hoping to find
somewhere that was clearly deserted.

The first room she came to was bare other than a filthy mattress lying on the floor against one wall. A thin woman and two disgustingly dirty children were curled up asleep on it
,
and she moved on to the next quickly.

By the time she reached the corner of the building she’d had no luck in finding a suitable room. She was nervous about the idea of simply going inside and requesting one, there was a chance
that
people like the owner had been warned to watch out for her
,
but she finally decided to take the risk.

She kept the rim of the hat low and her head down as she hurried inside.

    
A skinny guy, kind of old looking, maybe around forty or something, no hair left on the top of his head and a bad comb over trying to hide that fact, looked up at her from the dirty, in both senses of the word, magazine that he’d been pawing through.

He grinned at her and she couldn’t hide a grimace as he exposed rows of rotten black teeth.

Shit, so her run of luck had ended? Was it too much to ask that he’d been a little less gross?

He was eyeing her up and down and she resisted the urge to vaporise him.

     
‘Got a room?’

     
‘Yep.’

    
Leci licked her lips nervously. Was it too much to ask that instead of being able to start fires she’d been given the abilit
y to do something cool like... hm... like... oo
h, like influence people’
s thoughts or
cre
ate objects out of nothingness?
Yeah, either of those would’ve been so much cooler, and far more useful right now.

     
‘I got no money...’

He grinned again
, she knew he had been expecting that,
and she closed her eyes, wondering if this was really necessary.

     
‘Close your eyes and think of Amato...’ she thought, trying to console herself, to dispel the bile that was threatening to rise in her throat. God, she wanted to wipe that grin off his face...

     
‘I’m sure we can agree on some form of payment.’ He told her, rubbing his hands together. He stood up and she caught sight of the rifle that was propped against the wall next to his chair.

     
‘Foller me boy’, I’ll show yer to yer room.’

    
He picked up the gun and headed for the staircase. Leci brightened slightly. Not only did the second floor mean that she’d be closer to the metal ladder and wouldn’t have as much difficulty getting to it when she needed to
,
but the nasty piece of work in front of her had been fooled,
apparently liked little boys.
Maybe when he found out she wasn’t his type he’d let her off the hook and just give her the room out of
embarrassment.

#

Or maybe he just wasn’t particular about where he stuck his cock.

     
‘That earns you a stay for tonight.’ He told her, buttoning his pants.

     
‘I’ll be back again t’morra if yer wantin’ to stick around longer.’

    
Leci managed not to be sick.

     
‘I’ll be out of here before then.’ She replied and he shrugged, retrieving his rifle from where he’d left it propped by the door. He left the room without another word and she was alone.

    
She shivered and pulled the thin, unclean sheet around herself as she curled into a ball on the grimy mattress.

She’d done this sort of thing more times than she could count, since she had been old enough to know that she had something men wanted from her. It had never bothered her this much before, even with worse guys than that, though she’d had to try very hard to stop from gagging when he’d been there, above her, inside of her. His skinny white ass jerking up and down
in the air as he clung to her tits and pumped away at her, his breath, putrid, foul smelling and hot against her cheek as he’d grunted and panted, then, when he came, squealing like a fucking stuck pig.

    
She had raw, red finger marks on top of the bruises she’d already had. He had tried to kiss her once but she’d turned her head to the side and he hadn’t tried again.

    
At least it had been over fast.

    
Shaking her head in disgust, either with herself for using her body as currency or with that fucking pervert for exploiting her
,
she wasn’t sure, but she was disgusted all the same. This was an unusual feeling for her and she couldn’t explain it, had never before felt any emotional connection to what she was doing. The act was a business deal and nothing more.

    
Why had this been different?

    
She wrapped a corner of the sheet around her hand and scrubbed between her legs, wiping away the sticky substance that was running down her inner thighs, getting rid of as much as she could.

    
She dressed quickly, moved to the glassless window
,
and stuck her head out.

    
She was on the third floor and as luck would have it the metal ladder ran right beside her room, she would have full and easy access to the roof.

    
Nice
, she felt it was payment, reward even, for what she’d just had to endure, things were evening themselves out, gotta take the bad with the good, and all that shit.

    
Content with this she picked up one of the metal chairs, there were two of them around a small table in one corner of the room, she took it to the door and jammed it beneath the handle. It wasn’t a great deal of security
,
but it made her feel a hell of a lot better, especially when she didn’t have any trouble at all picturing that slimy freak hovering outside the door...

    
Avoiding the stained mattress
,
she settled down on the hard wooden floor in a far corner of the room, using Amato’s jacket as a pillow, holding it against her face and breathing in the musty, strong scent. Clearing her mind, allowing it to go blank, she finally gave in to the need for rest and let her heavy lids close, drawing blackness into a world that, right now, already seemed pretty bleak.

Chapter 27