The all-consuming saturation was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, except for maybe during his days in spec-ops wilderness training, when only the most dedicated of the beaten-down and rewired would survive.
The past week had stolen most of his energy, leaving him a shell of his former self. He’d pushed forward despite the exhaustion, hoping he’d emerge the victor, even though he knew the odds were slim his plan would come together with the precision needed for all-out success.
Every warrior knows that most missions don’t go according to plan, usually because the intel is flawed or as a result of tactical errors. When they do proceed flawlessly, it’s called an ambush, something he hoped to avoid in reverse.
Now that the end was near, what he wanted most was a good night’s sleep. That, and a long, hot soak in a tub. His missed the days when all that was possible, long before he became the scarred enigma he was today.
Four tugged at his hand, taking him around an outcrop of rock and past a campfire flickering to stay alive. The light from the single log gave him a view of the smoke billowing up, its ribbons of white floating into a crevasse that split the ceiling into two sections, each with its own contours and formations.
The cave was a true spectacle of wonder, showering his senses with an endless cascade of angles and styles. No two areas were the same, almost as if the entire cavern had been designed with that singular purpose in mind.
If he’d been a homicide detective, he might have figured the randomness was almost too random, leading him to believe that the serial killer had gone out of his way to appear so, hoping to throw off those hot on his trail.
Too much randomness wasn’t random at all. It was something else. Something noticeable. Something that could be identified and defeated.
The Nomad wasn’t sure why his mind had let itself become preoccupied with these thoughts, but it had and he couldn’t stop the ideas from permeating.
Perhaps they had something to do with the next phase of his mission, trying to uncover something he’d missed. Something he’d failed to take into account. He wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. It was there, just under his skin, waiting for him to dig it free and expose its meaning.
Four took him past a candle burning on a ledge to the left, then stopped her feet and pointed at a shadow hiding under a ridge.
Her sudden change in momentum snapped him out of his thoughts. He paused for a beat to consider the significance of their location, then latched onto the answer. “You want me to go check on Two?”
Four grunted twice, then squatted into her trademark commando pose, with her knees pressing into her non-existent chest.
Her stance was a cross between a woman taking a leak and a preschooler dropping into a half-sit, half-ready to sprint away pose.
His knees hurt just looking at her, wondering how anyone could get back up from a prolonged stance like that.
The Nomad removed his mask and leather coat, then slipped out of his body armor and the cloth padding underneath.
He swept his long, flowing locks from his face, then tucked them behind his ears, the dangling curls another reminder of days gone past. Sure, he could have chosen to keep his hair short like his days in the military, but preferred the extra concealment the shoulder-length locks provided. More so during a hand-to-hand skirmish, when anything can happen.
The deep, heavy scars across his face, arms, back, and legs were now exposed, but Four didn’t react. She’d seen them all before—each night, in fact, when she crawled into bed next to him before they drifted off to sleep.
He dropped to his knees and ventured deeper into the rock-lined section that bent to the right, its opening narrowing as he crawled. He could see a flame flickering ahead, the light dancing with its own shadows, highlighting his route.
“Two? You all right?” he said, snatching one of the candles burning on a flat rock ahead. “I’m coming in.”
He lowered his head and snuck the rest of his frame past a narrow shelf, taking him into the private space. It wasn’t much more than a hollowed-out recess under a boulder, but he knew she called it home.
The Nomad brought the candle up to get a better view. Two was on her back with her eyes closed, her arms lying on her chest in a crisscross pattern. She appeared to be asleep, possibly unconscious, with her breaths short and choppy.
The black splotches around her lips caught his attention next. Their shape was irregular, like jagged puzzle pieces. Plus, they looked to be raised above the skin, based on the depth of shadows from the candlelight.
He brought the tip of his finger toward her mouth, planning to test if the spots were dirt or some other substance, but stopped short when the knot in his stomach tripled in size, screaming at him to keep his hand away.
The Nomad pulled his hand back and redirected it to her arm instead, letting his fingers wrap around her wrist. Her skin was warm and moist, downright clammy, and the vein on the underside of her arm pulsated like a freight train.
He brought his hand up and wiped the beads of sweat from her brow, pushing some of them together as they dripped down her temple. His touch was met with a temperature spike across her skin—almost hot.
“Looks like you’re running a fever, Two. Can you open your eyes for me?”
She turned her head toward him and cracked her eyes open. They were thin slits at first, until she moaned and opened them wider.
He could only see a portion of her retinas, but she was there, looking back at him.
Two had never seen him without his mask, but like Four, she didn’t react to his disfigurement. He wasn’t sure if that was because she was only half-awake or perhaps her eyes weren’t reporting the facts to her brain.
Either way, most people would have found his lava burns revolting, thinking he was a mutant creature from some low-budget Hollywood horror movie, one that had been experimented on in the lab of Dr. Frankenstein.
Then again, the Scabs weren’t exactly beauty queens in the traditional sense. Maybe their own horrific looks had made his disfigurement more tolerable.
The idea had merit, even though he would still choose to keep his hair long and face covered—if not for them, for himself, wanting to avoid catching a glimpse of his own reflection.
Nomad went to move her arms from her chest, but she held firm and let out a sharp cry, reminding him of a lamb’s scream before the slaughter.
“Okay, okay,” he said, letting go and jerking his hand back.
He held his position, running the facts through his head. She was obviously sick and may have eaten something toxic. That would explain the black substance on her face.
Or she’d come into contact with a contagion and now it had spread to her face. Something bacterial or perhaps a fungus—either might cause her symptoms.
Then again, it may have started with an insect bite—as in mosquito. There had been a noticeable increase in the population, thanks to the melting ice from the mountain. The dripping moisture seemed to be everywhere, leeching its way through the rock and ending up as stagnant water.
He took another few beats to think, turning his attention to the plethora of spiders. There were thousands of them, crawling in every nook and cranny, making the walls seem alive at times.
There was nothing quiet as unnerving as when the lights went out and you could sense the walls crawling with eight-legged creatures, each one on a mission to score food for the night.
The sheer quantity and variety meant any number of toxins could be swimming in her bloodstream. The same could be said for the diseases carried by the abundant bat population, their scat dotting the floor.
The facts were both clear and confusing, yielding no single answer. Plus, it didn’t help that Two was the smallest of the bunch, her weight clocking in at less than eighty pounds, leaving the girl little to fight with.