The General's Daughter (Snow and Ash #1) (2 page)

Doesn’t matter though. I still hate him.

I finish the meal, fold a couple rolls into my napkin, and secret them in the pocket of my dress. I take whatever I can at night and leave it for our housekeeper. Sometimes it’s fresh fruit, others it’s something lame, like now.

None of the people at the table have spoken to me, and there are five of them. They are allowed to, but I guess I’m just not interesting enough. When my father doesn’t return, I excuse myself, find my coat, and rejoin Sgts. Morey and Garrett at the door.

“I’m not going to walk tonight,” I say. My head aches so badly by now that my neck hurts. Even the front part.

I’m retying my belt when I notice Morey’s eyes widen. He almost trips.

“I just don’t feel like it,” I explain.

Sgt. Garrett nods, and there is a hint of a smile tugging the corners of his mouth. His eyes take on a far-off look, as though he’s already hunting down a girl for the evening. He’s one of the soldiers who accepted the vasectomy. V-Secs, we call guys like him. Not a lot of birth control rolling around in the apocalypse, but guys who are sterile are pretty popular with the ladies.

And then I remember something. “Hey, guys, when we get back, can one of you wait outside a minute? Dad gave me some boots, but they don’t fit. If you guys know someone that wears a size 8, can you pass them on?”

I know perfectly well what size Erin wears. In the before times, we were friends.

Sgt. Morey bites his upper lip and nods. He looks…scared. What is up with that? Free stuff like this should’ve put him in a great mood. Perhaps he is afraid Dad will think I’m being too friendly. You know, he could be right. I’ll need to come up with a story to explain the gift. Or else not give it.

When we reach the house, Garret excuses himself and leaves. Morey fidgets, glances at his watch, and his entire face pinches.

“I’ll only be a sec,” I assure him.

Once inside I take the stairs two at a time. I don’t want to get caught, and I know for sure Morey doesn’t. I grab one of the LED lanterns on the upstairs landing and switch it on. Dad might be the most powerful man in a two-hundred-mile radius, but even he doesn’t waste electricity. The windmills power the hydroponic gardens, the hospital, and the other emergency services. Period.

The instant I throw open my bedroom door, I sense that I am not alone. My body goes rigid as someone sucks in a loud gasp. I shove the lantern farther into the room, and that’s when I see a small figure cringing against my dresser.

“Erin?” Shock practically blows my hair back. Is she out of her freaking mind?

Erin Morey licks her lips and eyes the door, so I shut it behind me. She’s been rooting through my sweater drawer.

“Please,” she whispers. She sucks in her lips and flicks the door another yearning look.

I grip the sides of my head.

“What is wrong with you?” My voice comes out in a harsh whisper as I cross the distance between us. “You know what they’ll do to you.”

She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, they are wide and wet. “Please,” she whimpers, and the way she says it, it’s like she’s pleading with her executioner. “I know you’re not bad. Not all bad. You gave food to Maria. And that shampoo—you gave shampoo to Cynthia.”

Fear fuses my spine, and for a moment I cannot move. People…know. I cannot speak. When reason returns, I seize her arm in a viselike hold. “How do you know this?”

Erin is shaking. My former friend is terrified of me. “Cynthia told me,” she bleats.

I push her farther into the dresser, and my grip on her flesh is not kind. “Well, you tell Cynthia to keep her goddamn mouth shut. That shit’s going to get me in trouble.”

Her expression shifts as she processes my words, and she eyes me warily. “We want to leave, Andy and me. If you let me go, I’ll never bother you again.”

I drop her arm and cup my hands over my face. “Do you even know what’s out there?”

“I’m having a baby.” Her increasing excitement is apparent in the flush of her cheeks, the shine in her eyes. “We can’t stay here.”

I roll my eyes and turn away. Someplace is always
better
. There are people out there who think it’s better
here
. And it is. Outside Dad’s reach, people are eating human flesh just to stay alive.

Erin takes a step forward, and this time her eyes are bright as the stars that used to shine in the night. “It’s called Tintagel. They have light there, and enough food to eat, and jobs for everyone. Not whore jobs. Real jobs.”

I sigh. There is no place like that.

“Andy’s brother went there,” she says, her voice strengthening. “It’s true.”

“If you leave here, you can’t come back. Ever. My father will kill Andy, and I don’t even want to think about what he’ll do with you.”

And then the old Erin reemerges, the stubborn one with the proud tilt to her head. “We’re not planning on coming back. Ever. Either you turn me in now and we die, or we go out there and take our chances.”

A flash of hate sears me. At least
she
has a choice. At least she feels hope. I hold my breath, squeeze my fists, and catch sight of her shabby hiking boots.

“You can’t walk all that distance in that,” I say, gesturing toward the window, where it has started snowing, as it does almost every day in this hideous perma-winter.

“But—”

I stride to my closet and yank out the warmest coat I own. It is also white, so it will blend in with the landscape. I toss it to her, and as she catches it, she gapes at me. I rummage around the floor of the closet until I find my fleece-lined UGG boots, then scavenge cashmere warmies—a hat, mittens, and scarf.

Erin starts to cry.

The door flies open, and Andy charges in. My mouth goes dry. His weapon is pointed right at me. That look on his face—he’s going to kill me. He’s known me, served as my guard for well over a year, but it won’t bother him an inch if it means saving his wife.

“No!” Erin jumps between me and the weapon. Jesus. “She’s helping us.”

He works his jaw as though holding back something violent and profane. “She’s not helping anyone. Trust me. Now get out of the way.”

“That’s right,” I sneer. “Ilsa Balenchuk helps no one. So don’t you go telling anyone this shit.” I glare at him, daring him to pull the trigger and end it. I’ve been dead for years.

He lowers his weapon, darts of confusion shooting from every pore.

Erin shakes her head. “That’s what she always says.”

The way she looks at me, it’s like she’s looking at her freakin’ guardian angel. No one has looked at me that way since I was fourteen. It really gets to me. My throat thickens.

I narrow my eyes. “Do you ever wonder what happens to me when I disobey the general?”

Both of them stare at me. Neither speaks.

By now I’m shaking. “The last time I tried to help someone, Dad beat me with his belt until I fainted.”

I’d given one of the camp whores a winter coat and some shoes. She’d said she couldn’t bear the endless string of men using her, and using her, and using her. She and a couple others wanted to run away, and back then I’d been reckless enough to want to help.

Colonel Ernshaw sent a party out after them. They caught up to them just outside the boundaries of General Barry’s territory. Dad said if they would have gotten any farther, they could have betrayed some valuable information. Never in a million years would I have thought that by looking the other way, I was putting us all at risk.

As far as Dad is concerned, undermining his authority cannot be tolerated. Any disobedience around here gets addressed swiftly and without mercy. Even when the culprit is me.

Especially when it’s me.

Andy Morey’s eyes widen, and Erin claps a hand over her mouth.

“Now you two take this stuff and leave. The troops are heading out at five a.m. I suggest you leave by three and go nowhere near Beckley.”

Morey clears his throat, his expression stiff. But the barrel of his gun is aimed at the floor.

“I knew it! Nobody changes that much. It’s just like back in school. We’re still sisters.” Erin steps forward and moves as though she’s going to hug me.

I retreat a step, my hand outstretched in the universal signal for
stop
.

“I am no one’s friend. Do not forget that.”

I am wide-awake when Dad fumbles his way through the darkness and out the door. I’m twitching when the last of the trucks pulls out onto the main access road and down the mountain. It’s only when I’m so angsty I think I’ll scream that I finally get up, wind my clock, and take my morning shower.

The water is warm, hot actually, and I can’t stop thinking about Erin. She’s out there somewhere in all that snow and ice. She has Andy with her, but he’s just one person, and he won’t be able to protect her from the gangs that roam the countryside. Bands of ten, fifty, sometimes hundreds of the desperate are constantly on the move, looking for a safe place to stay, a meal to eat, or a pretty girl to steal, and very few of them are above a little cannibalism.

It’s not that I don’t get it. I long for escape sometimes. It’s just that the world I want to go to no longer exists. I’ve heard there’s a town in Upstate New York that’s run something like ours, but I don’t know a whole lot about it. All I know is, if I want to be safe, I need to stay here. I need to keep my mouth shut, keep Dad happy, and accept that my sole purpose is to serve as loving daughter and willing PR tool. I don’t like being so…I don’t know…closely watched. But I’m fed well, I have plenty of warm clothes, and I have a safe place to sleep. Pretty much no other girl has what I have, and I know it. Erin didn’t have luxuries, but she had regular food and a safe place to live. I just wish she’d understood how good she had it, too.

I’m dressed for my morning walk. I have to drag myself down the steps. I want to pretend last night was just a dream and the world will stay the way it is. That it’ll get better. I don’t want to open the door and find only Garrett.

I leave the napkin-wrapped rolls on the foyer table for the housekeeper to find. The things I steal are always for her. She has such kind eyes, and she has that loose-skinned thing going on that tells me she used to be fat. Someone that loves food that much really shouldn’t have to stick to mushrooms, potatoes, and turkey.

My muscles tense. It’s time for a cold blast of reality.

When I step outside, I’m greeted by a complete stranger.

“Corporal Roane, this is the general’s daughter.” Sgt. Garrett indicates me with a jerk of his head. “You will not speak to her, you will not touch her, and as long as it doesn’t violate the general’s orders, you will obey her.”

I swallow. I hope the expression I give him screams
confused
. “Did Dad send Sgt. Morey out with the troops?”

Cpl. Roane looks to Garrett. Garret shrugs. But there is something in his eyes. Anger? Mistrust? He’s definitely guarded.

When his eyes slide away from mine, I realize he knows exactly what Erin and Andy Morey have done. I can only pray he knows nothing about my role in it.

We set out. Dad wants me to stay active and he installed an indoor gym for me, but I hate it. I’m inside all day, every day, and the only time I get to leave is when he lets me go to the officers’ dining hall or when I go for my walks. These brief outings are the only times I get to feel free.

We head out past the country club and across the main access road, then make for the wide creek that meanders in a series of waterfalls down the side of the mountain. It’s completely frozen over, but I like to pretend sometimes that there’s still something alive under all that ice, hibernating, just waiting for the day when the sun comes back.

It’s only when we’re close to the ice’s edge that I see them. “Oh my gosh! Ducks!”

My heart pounds, my lips spread, and I do something I haven’t done in a long time. I laugh.

The birds waddle southward, and I skip along the creek’s edge and follow them. The heavy crunch of footsteps follows at a discreet distance. When I get to the woods, though, Garrett shouts something. He sounds angry.

I turn. “They’re just ducks. I don’t think they’re plotting to kill me!”

I don’t wait for his response but rather take up a slow jog. I want to catch up to my newfound friends. Wild ducks! If anyone sees them, they’ll be meat, for sure. Me, I just want to see something living, something happy and totally its own being. It’s kind of like if I can watch them, see them waddle around and peck their feathers, maybe hear a few quacks, then my life will be a little less small, a little less closed in. Ahead of me looms a twenty-foot-high boulder, and it’s totally in the way of my view.

That’s when Garrett breaks protocol. “Please, Miss Balenchuk! This area hasn’t been scouted!”

I turn and gape at him. He must be really desperate, speaking directly to me like that.

“I didn’t hear you speak,” I tell him. I give him a teasing smile, and he blinks. I am completely out of character. “I’m just going to go a little farther. I promise. We’ll turn around in a couple minutes.”

Sgt. Garrett and the new guy pick up their pace, half jogging to catch up to me as I round the side of the boulder and move out of their sight.