Wolfen (18 page)

With shaking hands, Desiree put the test tube back in its
place. She couldn’t think while it was on her desk. Not that thinking would do
her much good now. God, how she wished she could just walk out of here and
disappear!

She turned around, and her lower back cramped something
awful. Desiree had to lean hard on her desk to stay standing upright, and even
biting down on the inside of her cheek couldn’t keep the agonized moan from
making it past her lips. It took a full minute for the spasm to subside and by
then, Dare and Arik were back and she was gasping.

Dare smiled and elbowed Arik with glee.

The perpetually annoyed-looking dark-haired guard shoved him
back, not amused.

Desiree tried to move around her desk to sit, but decided
against it. She needed to lie down. Eyeing the makeshift crutch propped up
against the wall, she sighed.

Dare was all but bouncing on his feet. “Triiiipod… Tripod.
Tripod. Tripod…” Beyond the obvious enjoyment of watching her in pain, Dare
knew when things got bad enough for Desiree to need her crutch, he and Arik
were off the hook. She couldn’t get into trouble when she could barely move,
which meant as soon as they’d gotten her back to her bed, they had the rest of
the day off.

Desiree looked from Dare’s nasty grin to Arik’s impassive
face. He merely quirked a winged eyebrow at her in question, and waited. In a
crowd outright hostile toward Desiree, Arik was the poster boy for apathy; he
couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about her one way or the other. That didn’t
make her special, though. He was an equal opportunity no-rat’s-ass-giver.

“Tripod,” Dare taunted. “Whatcha doin’, Tripod? You got
yourself a boo-boo, Tripod? How ‘bout you move that bony ass a little faster,
huh? Chop, chop, let’s go!”

Desiree’s temper boiled. Would anyone miss the redhead if he
croaked? Honestly, would they? She could do it. A pinch of this, a couple of
drops of that, a needle in the jugular when no one was looking…who would know?
Who the hell would care? All he ever did was torment her and screw every woman
willing to bend over for his underdeveloped dick. He was a wastrel, the
grown-up equivalent of a playground bully who’d never amounted to much more
than qualifying to carry a gun.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Dare demanded.

“Will you shut up already?” Arik snapped. “You’re starting
to piss me off.”

A blowgun lay on the far end of her desk. Some kid had
whittled it to shoot mud balls at the girls, but Frank had made her modify it
to fit poisoned darts. That might work. Desiree actually leaned over to reach
for it, but a sharp twinge in her lower back pulled her up short. The pain
sobered her in a hurry, leaving her weak, and as quickly as it had heated, her
temper cooled.

She hung her head.
You win, asshole. This time.
“Yeah, I’m done.”

“
Yes!
” Dare shouted. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!
I’ve got places to see, bitches to fuck.”

Arik shook his head. “You really are a class act, you know
that?”

“Hey, don’t hate the player, man, just ‘cuz you can’t get
pussy.”

Desiree tuned them out and grabbed her crutch. It was crude,
whittled from a sturdy tree branch. The top support was angled wrong and
bruised her armpit and the handle had broken off a while ago, but it was the
best she could manage.

As much as she hated to use it, right now it was her only
means of getting from point A to point B. She tucked it under her arm and
hobbled to the door. Dare and Arik didn’t bar her way. The Wolfen were probably
gone, or contained elsewhere. “Make yourself useful,” she said to Dare.

Asshole didn’t move.

She came down onto his foot with the crutch and leaned on it
hard as she opened the door for herself. He groaned, but bit back his retort
when Arik glared at him.

The commons was filling up again. People emerged from their
burrows, all but sniffing the air to see if it was safe. The market reopened.
Commerce was still a way of life, just like the old days, and those with skills
fared better than those without. Intellectuals weren’t in high demand, but
cobblers, welders, weavers, craftsmen…all those professionals who’d earned
minimum wage CE, were now living high and stepping pretty, NE style.

Bully for them.

Desiree tottered over the threshold, and all life stopped.
Eyes turned to her like the next act in a very bad play. She kept her chin
high, though her cheeks burned, and she didn’t look anyone in the eye. That
only invited unpleasant conversation from Haven’s denizens.

“Yo, Manda!” Dare grinned at the woman carrying a heavy load
of wet laundry, and crooked his finger.

She huffed, adjusted her load, and came over. “What do you
want?”

“You’re lookin’ pretty today,” he replied. “How ‘bout you
and I get together later?”

Manda slapped away his groping hand. “How ‘bout you do
something useful for once instead, like help me with all of this, maybe? Big
tough guy—you know what? I don’t have time for this.” She turned away.

Dare pulled her up short. “Aww, babe, don’t be like that.”

Desiree rolled her eyes when he leaned in to whisper
something into Manda’s ear. She blushed, giggled, but the moment she saw
Desiree looking, her expression cooled, and she sneered, pushing Dare away.
“Find me when you’re done babysitting the cripple.”

“Nice talking to you, too, Manda,” Desiree said. “Hope those
pesky
hives
haven’t come back since I last saw you.”

Dare frowned. “What hives? You sick, baby?”

Arik snorted.

Manda hissed at her, and stormed off.

“So are we still on for later?” Dare called after her, but
the only response he got was a crude gesture. He turned a nasty glare on
Desiree.

She blinked at him. “Was it something I said?”

Uneven ground made her progress slow. Some bored teenagers
had dug holes meant to trip her up again, so she was extra careful. She nodded
in greeting to the merchants, but most of them turned their backs on her and pretended
to talk to someone else or to rearrange their display items. They whispered
behind raised hands, but Desiree didn’t bother trying to make out their words.
If she wanted to know what they thought, all she had to do was ask. None of
them were shy telling her to her face.

Like the old butcher who wouldn’t trade with her. He’d had
to have his hand amputated because he’d refused to let her treat an infected
cut. Afterward, he’d called her a “useless broken cunt” and accused her of
stealing his livelihood.

Or when Lexi, who loved to trip Desiree every chance she got
had fallen from a roof she shouldn’t have been on, and twisted her ankle.
Karen, her mother, had screamed at Desiree, demanding she fix her little angel.
When Desiree had told her to ask nicely, Karen had spit on her.

And then there was Eroll. She actually hadn’t hated him.
Shame what happened there, and it hadn’t helped her image any.

Desiree supposed she could have made more of an effort to
get these people to like her, but it seemed every time she did, something—or
someone—made it all worse. Besides, she didn’t have the warm fuzzies for them,
either. Each and every one of them saw how Klaus treated her, and they did
nothing.

But that was the thing about power. It bred corruption,
which trickled down to everyone at the bottom. Klaus had set the tune, and they
all danced to it. Some more than others. To hell with all of them. She didn’t
need their sympathy, only their wares. Staring down the farmer who liked to
call her Reaper, she took an apple from his barrel and bit into it with relish.
With a wink and a smile that was sure to make him go the subtle kind of
berserk, she moved on.

Past Klaus’ little fairy-tale cottage, the commons turned
into what once would have been called the slums. These days, it was five-star
accommodations. Four walls and a roof? Didn’t get much better than that. Unless
you wanted to upgrade to a door, and maybe a window.

In one of the hovels, the three-month-old Desiree had helped
bring into this world during a nerve-racking two-day natural delivery, woke
from her nap and started caterwauling.

Ah, the miracle of birth. To Desiree’s thinking, far
surpassed in by the fact that humans still chose to procreate at all.

They’d named the brat Helen to secure Klaus’ good will.

Bastards.

At the end of the alley were communal baths. Their own
little miracle—an underground cave of hot springs Klaus had happened upon by
accident. That, of course, hadn’t stopped him from taking full credit for the
discovery. The baths were actually quite amazing. Several pools of hot water,
laden with minerals to benefit the skin—if a person had the physical dexterity
to get into one.

Desiree stopped in front of the tunnel entrance and sighed wistfully.
A long soak would do her aching body a world of good. But alas, it wasn’t meant
to be. She could have one of her guards tote a bucket of hot water to her room,
but last time she’d asked, it had arrived smelling strongly of urea.

Moving on.

Thankfully, her room wasn’t much farther. She might make a
trip back for a sponge bath once she was feeling up to it. Her shack had a
makeshift door that hung on one squeaky hinge and had to be picked up to open
and close. Arik did the honors. He was just as eager as Dare to get going, only
more subtle about it.

Itching to send them on their way, Desiree maneuvered
through the narrow doorway and to her bed. “As always, it’s been a pleasure,
gentlemen.”

They were gone before she’d even finished the sentence.

At least they’d closed the door. With no window, her only
light came in through the gap between the door and its frame, and from a couple
of candles she preferred not to waste unless necessary. At barely
eight-by-eight, her room had everything she might require within reach of her
bed.

Desiree groaned, and collapsed onto the mattress. It was a
ratty old thing full of holes and held up by a frame of rusted pipes and part
of a chain-link fence. Someone had torn out the springs and filled the gaps
with Styrofoam and wood shavings, among other things. It was still better than
what most people got. At least it was off the floor and soft enough in places
to cradle her whippet-thin body.

Without sitting up, she groped for her right pant leg and
pulled it up over her knee. There were two belt buckles to undo, which meant
the unyielding wood and plastic would cut even deeper into her thigh before it
could be released. She hyperventilated for a few breaths, oxygenating her blood
and raising her heart rate to better deliver much-needed endorphins before she
worked the straps. It took twice as long to do without looking and left her
shaky and lightheaded. But once the straps were loose, the plastic gave, and
the prosthesis she’d outgrown years ago slipped off and clattered to the
ground. Desiree massaged the stump, working through the aches and pains to
restore circulation.

Lethargy made her eyelids droop and she let them sink,
imagining the world as it used to be: endless fields of green, golden sands,
and infinite blue oceans. She pictured herself standing still, listening to the
wind as it rustled billions of leaves. The vision calmed her heart, soothed the
turmoil in her mind. In those imagined places, she was at peace, whole and
content to be outside beneath the azure sky.

Desiree never felt lacking inside her mind. Some nights she
dreamed of running, not from something or toward something, just…running. Those
dreams were so vivid, so beautiful, and felt so real, they startled her awake,
heart racing, and stump waving back and forth beneath her blanket as if she
could sprint across the continent for real.

Strange, she knew exactly how it would feel, yet she’d never
felt it in reality. She’d never even gotten to stand up on two healthy legs.
Desiree had been born with a genetic defect which made one of her legs
significantly shorter than the other. She’d actually beaten some pretty ugly
odds—only the bottom half of her right leg had been affected by the condition.
She probably could have lived a very comfortable life, had Klaus not
interfered. See, you couldn’t hide a six-inch platform shoe. But a prosthesis?
Get her a pair of Mary Janes, and she’d be good as new, and no one would ever
know. God forbid anyone find out the perfectly golden Klaus Koch had created a
defective child.

He’d had her leg amputated above the knee and had filled her
head with dreams of bionic limbs, but before she’d gotten the chance to grow up
and get one, everything had gone to hell.

Desiree’s one and only prosthetic leg was now years past its
expiration. Adjusted a few times to accommodate her growth, even fully
expanded, the socket was still too tight. On good days, she could wear it for a
few hours, but it took its toll; bruises, scratches, and deep grooves in her
tissue were ever present decorations on her stump.

To make it worse, there was nothing to be done about the
length, and she was now little better off than she would have been with her own
limb. The missing inches threw her spine out of alignment, and made her hips
and back ache like the devil at the end of a long day.

The gift that keeps on giving.

If only she could repay Klaus for his endless generosity.

Desiree opened her eyes to stare at the barebones metal
ceiling above her.

I could do it.

She could get out of here. Leave Haven and never look back.
Klaus’ eyesight would only get worse—he’d be blind as a bat soon. Desiree was
his eyes on the texts, and his hands on the instruments. He had guns aplenty,
but what he really needed was an outlet for his mind. It’d drive him crazy not to
be able to continue his work.

Brilliant! She’d have her freedom, and her revenge, all in
one go. And it waited for her just outside of Haven’s walls. So close, she
could almost touch it. Even a cripple could hobble that far.