The Wilds: The Wilds Book One (18 page)

Chapter 24

We weren’t speaking when we got on the bike, and I considered myself lucky that all Dax was doing right now was ignoring me. Then the bike wouldn’t start. No matter how hard he jumped on the thing, it wouldn’t roar. It didn’t tank his mood—it couldn’t. It was already nearing bottom.

“Get off,” he said. “We’re walking.”

I’d already been climbing off, as if I hadn’t figured that out.

He grabbed the handlebars and started off. I followed, wondering how long it would take to get back on foot, and then how long it would seem when those four words might be the extent of our conversation.

We walked until it was dark. It was probably only about four hours, but four hours times the not-speaking rate of a gazillion and it felt closer to a lifetime. Add in the bugs that felt like they were actually pulling hair from my scalp and it might have been closer to an eternity. Considering we’d be walking again in the morning, by the time we got back tomorrow, it was going to feel like we were near frozen in time.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he kicked stuff out of a small area.

“We’ll sleep here.”

I looked about the area and weighed his mood against my concerns, then decided my question was important enough to take on his bad mood. Plus, I had to cut him some slack in that area. I had lied to him. He just didn’t understand he was giving me no choice. “What about the beasts?”

He stopped kicking shit to shoot me one of the most annoying looks I’d ever gotten. Eyebrows raised, and just short of rolling his eyes, he asked, “You’re worried about them now?” I wasn’t crazy about this new expressive Dax that kept popping up.

“Not if I was awake. I can’t protect myself if I’m sleeping.”

“They aren’t a problem.”

“Why?”

“That would be filed under full disclosure.” And another obnoxious look, something close to
ha, see how you like it.

I didn’t like it one bit.
Damn your black heart, Expressive Dax.

“Come on,” he said, motioning for me to lie in a spot cleared next to where he was lying down.

“You want me to sleep there?” I asked as I watched him settle in and get comfortable.

“Yes. Don’t act like my presence offends you. I’m not planning on attacking you. It’s strictly for your safety.” He certainly wasn’t acting interested.

If I didn’t lie down next to him now I looked like a fool who was self-conscious. “Fine,” I said, walking over and settling down beside him but careful not to touch him anywhere. “But just so you know, I officially revoked my earlier offer.”

“You revoked it?” he asked, adding an insulting half laugh to the end of it.

“Yes. It was only offered as payment and when I thought you might be a nicer person.”

“Good to know.” Instead of being insulted, he sounded amused. My couple inches of buffer space disappeared as he turned on his side.

I didn’t like him anymore. I really didn’t. It would be just like not seeing the Dark Walkers and Becca being okay. I had a mission. Nothing else could matter. Not liking Dax one day or not liking him the next, it didn’t fit into my tunnel.

I woke up with his arm wrapped around my waist and his stubble grazing my cheek.

“Don’t panic. Be still.”

I hadn’t been panicked until he’d said that. I hadn’t even been awake, but now I was and at full alert. Also panicked. There was something very close to me, so close I could feel the heat off its body, its breath fanning my face.

I should’ve lain there and feigned sleep. That would’ve been the smart thing to do. Instead my lids flickered open and froze. I was staring straight into the beast’s red eyes. They almost glowed they were so bright. It was covered in a wiry gray hair as it rested its weight on one dangerously clawed hand in front of me.

I bent my leg, raising my knee slightly higher so I could get my hand around the knife I’d borrowed from the kitchen and tucked into my boot. Last time I’d slept out here without it in my palm. From this day on, I’d be hugging that knife to my chest like it was the softest teddy bear, and I was four years old.

Its lips curled away from its teeth, which had to be five inches long, and it emitted a low growl. The beast knew exactly what I was doing.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Dax said, utterly calm considering that thing had teeth that could rip into the both of us, not to mention the claws.

I froze and it stopped growling although its lip was still raised, as if it wanted to make sure I didn’t forget that it had a very large set of fangs and could bite me if I tried anything. It came even closer, its nose almost touching mine, and my pulse went wild. It moved its head lower and I felt its wet nose skim the flesh of my neck—the oh-so-thin layer right over my carotid artery, to be exact.

My breathing completely stopped as I waited for the beast to finish its inspection.

Dax, still lying behind me, didn’t so much as tense. And yes, that made him an ass in my current opinion. Only an ass wouldn’t care about getting mauled and dying as some beast’s midnight snack.

It finally lifted its head. There was a blur as it stood to a towering height and then it was gone before I could even get a good look at its upright form.

I sucked down more air than my lungs could fit, trying to make up for their momentary lack of breathing.

“Holy crapola.” I got up, sleep not an option anymore, and turned on him. “And what is wrong with you? Aren’t you afraid of dying? I thought those things killed?”

“The answer to that would fall under the full disclosure clause.” He yawned and folded his arms behind his head.

“You really aren’t going to tell me why the beast didn’t try to eat us?” I was on the verge of screaming. While I kept an eye out for another one, he was closing his eyes.

“Full disclosure.” Even half awake and with only a partial moon to display it, his
You’re the one that started this, not my fault if I’m better at it
face was about to make me lose it.

“I think that’s some bullshit you’re just using to keep your secrets.”

“You would know something about that, now wouldn’t you.” He turned on his side and went back to sleep.

Chapter 25

We’d been walking along for a few hours on a not-so-traveled road when five men appeared in the distance. They looked a little rough around the edges, even for the Wilds. If they actually spoke, it still might be an improvement from current company.

“Where are your gloves?” Dax asked, looking at my hands as we saw them approaching us.

Oh shit. I couldn’t believe I’d done it again. An image of them sitting by the creek, where I’d splashed my face with water yesterday, sprang to mind. This was bad. “I left them back by the creek.”

“You. Left. Them. By. The. Creek?” he asked in a tone of disbelief.

“Yes. I. Did.” I mimicked his tone.

“You think this is funny?” he asked.

“No, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. It was a mistake.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d only forgotten them because he’d gotten me upset by calling me a Plaguer. A joke had seemed the best course of action. Looking at him now, maybe it hadn’t been? He certainly didn’t deserve an apology.

“Stay behind me and don’t take your hands out of your pockets, even if they want to shake them.”

“Why would they want to shake my hand?”

“Handshakes in the Wilds have two purposes. To make sure you don’t have a gun in your hand and to call you out if there’s a suspicion you’re a Plaguer.”

My hands went deep in my pockets. Enough said.

“And don’t talk.”

I moved closer to his side and said, low enough that there was no way the group could hear me, “I think it looks more suspicious when I say nothing.”

“I don’t care. I’m afraid of the shit that will come out of your mouth and I don’t feel like killing any more people than I’ve already had to. I’ve got a cap on how much blood I like on my hands and I’m currently over quota this year, so please, do me a favor and just shut the fuck up for a little bit?”

“Fine. But why do you think they’ll even bother with us?”

“Because we’re outnumbered and we have something they want.”

I looked at us. “The bike?”

“No. You. Did you see how they were carrying multiple guns on their hips?”

I nodded.

“There’s a price on your head and only bounty hunters carry like that in these parts.”

“A price?”

“From Newco.”

“Do you have a price?”

“No. Just you. They’re telling people that you are a live carrier of the plague.”

“But that’s a lie and they know it,” I said. “I was around people for years and not a single one of them caught anything.”

“They aren’t doing it because they believe it. They’re doing it to drive you out. They also said it was dangerous to approach you and that they should send message and they’ll come and extract you themselves. But bounty hunters won’t do that. Too afraid they’ll get cut out of the money, plague or not.”

The unexpected guest flashed in my mind. Dax had said it was nothing. “That’s what that guy came to tell you at dinner the other night. Were you going to tell me?”

“At some point,” he said, and I wanted to choke the blasé tone right out of his throat. I got it. I’d held back from him and now he was going to make sure I knew the consequences.

“If they attack, throw to kill.”

“Kill?”

“Yes. Kill.”

Conversation halted as the five stopped about eight feet in front of us. Any hope of passing peacefully was shot to hell as they spread out, intentionally blocking the road.

One of the guys stepped forward, placing him slightly ahead of the others. They were all looking down to where my hands were tucked in my pants.

They already knew. It wasn’t like I was hard to ID. Young redheads walking about these parts were probably few. I’d only met one other redhead in my life, and that wasn’t until recently, with Tiffy.

“How do you want to do this?” the guy in the lead asked Dax, not me. Maybe I should’ve been insulted he hadn’t asked me, considering I was the target, but I had bigger worries.

“You don’t want to do this,” Dax said, like we were the ones with the upper hand. At that moment, a couple of things came into question about Dax: his sanity and his ability to count.

“I’m sure I do,” the leader scoffed. I couldn’t really hold it against him. I was near to scoffing.

“I guess it’s going to be the hard way, then.”

I didn’t need an interpreter to know it was time to grab my knife. I’d killed a Dark Walker and a pretend assassin. I’d never killed a human before and I wasn’t sure I had a taste for it. Didn’t seem like I was going to have a choice, since that’s all that was on the menu today. I’d die fighting before I let anyone take me back to Newco.

Their guns were drawn and bullets starting whizzing past me. I heard movement to my left but I kept my eyes trained on the one guy coming for me. I didn’t want to see Dax lying on the ground dead. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I did. I couldn’t look because if I saw it, it was real. It couldn’t be real. Not if I wanted to keep my shit together.

I grabbed the knife from my boot but was afraid to throw it, not sure if I was going to be deadly accurate or lose my one weapon in the effort.

I heard shuffling to my side again and couldn’t imagine what they were doing to Dax’s poor body, but I was running out of time. I had to get away from here before all their attention was back on me. I wasn’t going to win in close combat. The guy coming at me wasn’t as big as Dax but he looked a lot stronger than me. His eyes shot to my left; he probably wanted to join in on the fight before it ended, since from the sounds, the beating was almost over. It was enough to send me over the top. I threw the knife at him and it found its home effortlessly in the center of the guy’s chest.

The guy fell instantly. I needed to make a run for it, like this very second, but I couldn’t stop myself from one last glimpse. I needed to know Dax was dead and not being tortured somehow.

There were four bodies dead on the ground and Dax standing there, watching me.

“You’re alive.” I tried to hide the relief that welled in me. For the second time in days, I felt my eyes burning. It was in that second that I knew how much I was starting to rely upon him to watch my back, like we were partners or something. I’d expected him to get us out of this, and I’d felt panic over him dying. He was Dax; he couldn’t die, and he hadn’t.

But for that short moment, I’d thought he had and it had rocked my world. I was the one who was strong for everyone else. I wasn’t supposed to be leaning. I was the
support
.

He looked at my victim lying dead on the ground. “You weren’t horrible but you waited too long,” Dax said, as he walked over and retrieved my knife from the corpse, stopping only to clean the blood off on the guy’s clothing. “You need practice. You can’t hesitate, especially once you’re on your own. You’re in the Wilds now, Dal. It’s kill or be killed out here. When you fight, it’s to the death and you don’t start shit you aren’t willing to finish. If you’re soft, you’re dead.”

He walked back to me and handed me the knife and then went to look over the other bodies as he asked, “What’s wrong? Reality not as charming as it seemed in your books?”

Yes, killing the guy was upsetting, enough that I didn’t want to look at the body, but that wasn’t why I was speechless. It was him. He was pissing me off. First I think he’s dead. Then I don’t get a chance to reset my internal compass back to north and get everything straight before he’s complaining about how I’d taken too long to kill the guy.

“Not everyone is tough all the time.” I didn’t know why, but I resented him right now. It annoyed me that he always thought he was right, and it bugged me even worse that most of the time he actually was. But I had him on this point, and I knew it. “Not everyone is a machine like you.” Some people even care when they think people die and might need a second, but I wasn’t going to tell him that person was me in this moment.

He stood up from where he’d been squatting next to a body, ice-cold Dax back in place. “You have to be. You’re going to be on your own. You don’t have the luxury of emotions.”

I wanted to be tough, not depend on anyone. But he was still annoying me. “I’m not going to be alone. I’ll have my friends with me. We’ll depend on each other.” Or they’d mostly depend on me, but so what.

“I hope that works out for you,” he said in a tone of voice that drove me crazy, like he knew all the secrets to the universe, and I was just a dumb, sheltered idiot.

“What about Becca? She went out on her own, and she wasn’t a machine.”

“She wanted to leave. I’m not a jailor—most of the time. She got where she was going. What happens after that isn’t on me.” He walked over to the bike, done with the bodies. “People are who they are. You can’t make someone fundamentally different.”

He grabbed the handlebars and started walking while I remembered the last argument I’d heard him have with Becca and wondered who he was really talking about, him or her.

I had a long time to wonder, since it took us about four more hours to walk home. By time I saw the gates, all I wanted was some of Fudge’s food and to curl up in bed and put the past two days behind me.

That wasn’t how it was going to happen, though. It was stupid of me, but for some reason, when we got back, I thought there wouldn’t be any ramifications.

Dax’s first words to the guy when he opened up the gate were, “You let her leave this place without my say-so and it’s your ass. Tell the rest of the crew.” He didn’t wait for a reply from the gate guy or myself, simply continued to the house.

“What is that about?” I asked, half yelling and forcing my exhausted body to catch back up to him after I’d stalled in shock.

“You need me to translate?” he asked, not bothering to stop in his stride.

“That’s bullshit.”

“No. That’s your new reality until you give me a Dark Walker.”

I stopped chasing him and yelled, “What about ‘I’m not a jailor?’”

“I’m not, ‘most of the time.’” He walked around to the back of the house, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the front lawn.