Damn right I will! “It’s a risk you’re going to have to take. See, you can force me to take all of you, but I swear I’ll make it hell on you. I’ll lead you through every wolf-packed, snake-infested, crater-pocked hell terrain I can find in the hopes it’ll kill you all.” Lynn all but hissed the words out, and in the moment, she wasn’t even bluffing. She didn’t know if she could stand by and watch anyone get mauled, but as she stared into Kate’s squinted eyes, she knew she might be able to with Kate and Cody and the whole damn lot.
Seconds ticked away. Kate was considering the proposal, and Lynn knew she had her. She could all but see the gears in Kate’s head turn. Again, Kate glanced past Lynn to the group—probably at Dani.
Finally, she set her jaw and nodded once, sharply. “You can take Daniela.”
Murmurs started up all around her. Lynn caught slivers of the conversations.
“…did she want Dani?”
“…how come Kate didn’t…?”
“We should have forced…”
She ignored them. Dani’s full name is Daniela. Lynn suppressed the thought. Now was so not the time for that. “And Skeever.” As she said it, a deep longing for her companion settled in her heart. “He’s used to being out there. He’ll hear danger coming long before we do. I plan to live through the insanity of walking around with a buffet for carnivores—”
Kate flinched at the description of her husband’s body.
Lynn relished her discomfort. “…and I need Skeever to do it.”
Again, Kate first held out but then gave in. “Okay.” Her eyes had gone colder than Lynn had ever seen them. She was undoubtedly planning murder.
Dizzying relief flooded Lynn’s system, but she held it at bay. If she wanted a shot at making it through this affair now that she’d antagonized the whole lot, she needed to get out of here quickly. “Good. Now, I want to wash myself, and I want enough food and water for a weeklong trip as well as any equipment I can think of.” Unlike everyone else, she was still covered in blood and dressed in her blood-soaked clothes. She hated it.
“Agreed.”
“Dani and I are leaving in the morning, after breakfast. Have everything ready then.” Without waiting for Kate to speak again, she turned on her heel, squared her shoulders, and pushed straight through the throng.
Everyone stared at her, weapons still at the ready.
In a stroke of masochism, she searched for Dani’s eyes in the crowd. She half expected her not to be there, but she was, standing next to Cody.
Their gazes locked.
Dani’s emotions had been impossible to read so far, but the events of the last few minutes had shattered the mask. There was fear in Dani’s eyes, mixed with shock and surprise.
Lynn set her jaw and met the gazes of the others. Her heart pounded in her throat hard enough that she feared it would be obvious how terrified she was. She used it as fuel to darken her voice. “Which of you assholes wants to show me where I can wash up, hm?”
CHAPTER 4
A STRANGER LOOKED BACK AT her in the dirty bathroom mirror, a thinner and bloodier version of herself that Lynn had not met before. She’d seen herself in a real mirror for the last time in Canada, almost a year back. And the intervening time had been—she struggled for a word. Terrifying? Stressful? What was that word Old Lady Sana had liked? Eschaton? The end of days and all the horrors that came with it?
Her hands trembled as she submerged them in the hot water Eduardo had brought her after Cody had locked her into this Old-World bathroom with nothing but a candle and a set of clean clothes from her pack. She was still reeling from her confrontation with Kate—and she hadn’t wrapped her head around the fact that she would be going back for Richard’s body. She ran the conversation over and over in her head and thought of a thousand things she could have said and done differently, but it didn’t matter now. The damage was done. All pretense of hospitality was gone now, and truthfully, it was a relief. They had all known she was a prisoner here; it was about time it showed in more than being watched.
“Clean yourself up.” The words reverberated back to her off tiles and the doors of disused toilet cubicles. Even her voice sounded unfamiliar, as if her reflection had spoken the command. She shivered. “And stop talking to yourself.”
It didn’t solve anything anyway. It didn’t blunt her fear, and every word still caused sharp discomfort in her throat. Besides, one of them was out there, outside of the locked door, waiting for her to clean up so they could take her to her room for the night. It could be Cody or even Flint. Lynn had heard male voices talking, but she didn’t know these people well enough to tell who it was. Neither was a very appealing option.
She tilted her head back and inspected the bruises underneath the film of dried blood still coating her skin. She could actually make out the shapes of Dean’s fingers, wrapped around her neck like the wings of a moth. When she swallowed, the moth shivered as if trying to peel off and fly. For a second, the visceral image of not just the bruises but the skin and flesh below tearing off to fly away overwhelmed her. The blood staining her neck and chest seemed to be hers, gushing from the flayed skin. She quickly tilted her head back down to chase the vision away. One thing was clear: she needed sleep to restore her sanity from beyond these tattered remains.
The stab of longing to hold Skeever again came up so suddenly and so strongly that she doubled over and had to put her hands on the bottom of the bucket in front of her to keep from crumpling. She needed him. If she hadn’t found him—that brilliant ray of happy hope—she may not have made it even these extra days. She could feel in her very bones that she was wearing ragged out there alone. Most of the time, she didn’t allow herself to feel it, but it was true: slowly but surely, she was starving and going insane. People weren’t built to be alone, and she’d been alone for so long until Skeever came along.
She’d been hard-pressed to hunt for herself lately, but Skeever brought her game he’d hunted. He’d warned her of danger and kept her warm when her deprived body had failed to do so. His desire to go anywhere as long as it was forward had urged her onward. Seeing the simple joy of life in his eyes had allowed her to experience the world that way herself again, even if just a little. Not having him near her now was physically painful. She felt it in her gut as if someone had reached in, gripped fast, and twisted.
Stop thinking about him.
She straightened and took a ball of wet wool out of the bucket. Streams slid down her arm as she began to soak the caked grime loose. As she scrubbed, blood and dirt accumulated over many days came off reluctantly. It clung to scars and burn marks. She watched them reappear and let their presence and the memory of how she had gotten them soothe her. They were mementos of times she’d cheated the Reaper. She certainly looked like one of his prey—big eyes, small breasts, protruding ribs and clavicles, and muscles built by causing death.
She pondered the issue as she worked up to her shoulder. Diluted red ran down to her breast, where the stream split to each side of it. The chilled drops traversed her belly and were soaked up by her blonde bush below, darkening the hairs to a faded pink that amused Lynn. “You must really like me, hm, Mister Reaper?” She forgave herself for talking to herself again. Where she rubbed higher up her shoulder, fading bite marks appeared.
A Wilder, Cody had called her. Every settlement had different names for the people who stayed put and those who traveled. Wilder was one of the more accurate ones for the travelers. She met her eyes again in the mirror. Wild. Yeah, that was as good a descriptor of her as any. There were certainly days where she could form no more sophisticated thoughts than kill or be killed, eat or starve, make a fire or freeze.