Writing on the Wall (10 page)

“Did a piss poor job of it today.” he grumbles, fisting his hand and glaring down at it. It’s then that I notice the cuts along the back of it, all of them fresh and enflamed. He threw some punches recently.

“Knock it off, Vin.” Nats tells him harshly. He looks over at, his face dark. “You did all you could for us.”

“Then why are you in this van?”

“What’s important is that we’re not alone in this van. You could have left us, but you didn’t.”

“That’s not a victory. I should have saved you.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Maybe you still will.”

Vin
chuckles darkly as he looks at his hands again. There’s a dark metal ring on his left hand that he spins thoughtfully. Just as I’m about to doze off again he looks up at me, studying me. “Maybe Kitten here will help me.”

“You saw what happened to the last guy who called me that, right?”

The smile Vin gives me then can only be described with one word; sexy. It’s not something I’m terribly familiar with but he wears it well.

“Help you do what?”
I ask.

“Escape the Colony.”

I take a deep breath, trying to focus on not falling asleep. It’s becoming a struggle. My head aches so bad I’d love nothing more than to lie down. “We haven’t even gotten there yet. How do you know you won’t love it?”

“Because I belong in the wild. So do you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know a wild thing when I see it and you,
Kitten, are a wild thing. Six years on your own? You don’t want to be locked up in a cage or you would have joined willingly years ago. I’m still trying to sort out how you hid from the gangs all these years, let alone the Colonists and Risen.”

“
I found ways. You said it yourself, I don’t want to be locked up in a cage.”

“Or a stable?” Nats asks wryly.

I glance at her, not sure if I’ve offended her, but her face is placid.

“
Not anywhere by anyone.”

She nods in understanding but says nothing else.
Vin falls silent as well and soon the only sound in the van is Breanne’s snoring along with the bump of the suspension on the rough, ruined roads. I doze off eventually. Vin lets me do it. Maybe he’s got other stuff on his mind. Maybe he figures I’m not in his stable, I’m not his problem. I don’t know how long I’m out but I wake with a start when the van slams to a halt.

“
Get back here against this wall.” Vin says urgently.

I scur
ry across the floor of the van to the back where I squat down next to Breanne. She’s groggily sitting up, rubbing her eyes and looking more afraid with each passing second. She’s the younger of the two women though she’s still older than I am, but something in her face is almost childlike.

“
So what do you say?” Vin asks me quietly.

There’s a screeching of metal against metal then a long yawning sound. We move forward again and the acoustics outside the vehicle change d
rastically. There’s an echo now. I imagine we’ve entered some kind of building.

“You gonna help me get us out of here?” he asks.

The yawning again, then a deafening slam. All light coming in from any cracks in the door is extinguished and we’re plunged in total darkness. I hear Breanne whimper pitifully.

“No one’s ever escaped the Colonies.”
I whisper, feeling my heart leap into my throat as the silence drags out.

When
Vin looks over at me the pull of his electric green eyes forces me to look back. He grins, his face fierce.

“There’s a first time for everything.”
He reaches out his hand, offering it to shake. To make a deal.

There’s a screech of metal again, then another yawn, this
time from the front of the van. We lurch forward. We’re passing through something. We’re entering their compound. This is real.

I hesitate only a moment before slipping my hand into his. I’m surprised to feel cold metal pressed between our palms and when I take my hand away I see that he’s slipped a small, sharpened scrap of metal into it. It’s not much, not even enough to call a knife. It won’t kill but it will hurt.

“They’re going to separate me from you girls.” Vin tells me hurriedly as we roll quickly over surprising smooth ground. “Keep them safe and I’ll work on our escape. Deal?”

The
van stops. Doors are opened and slammed. Footsteps approach from both sides to meet at the back door.

“Do we have a deal?”
Vin demands.

The
door flies open. Bright afternoon light spills in, blinding us all. I hear footsteps thunder across the metal floor then harsh hands lift me up and pull me away. Breanne screams. I hear Vin’s deep, calm voice telling her to cool it. That it’ll be alright. More feet, more hands, then cold air.

“
Kitten!” Vin calls. I can hear him struggling in the back of the van. “Do we have a deal?!”

“Couple hours with her and you’re already trying to pimp her?” a guy asks from beside me. “We don’t play that way here. You’re out of a job, buddy.”

I’ve never made a deal with a Lost Boy before, certainly not a member of The Hive. I don’t know that it’s a smart thing to do. Saving Ryan has caused me a world of trouble. It’s a mistake I really shouldn’t repeat. It’ll be easier to sneak myself out alone than try to get Vin, Breanne and Nats out with me. As far as anyone knows, no one has ever escaped the Colonies before but maybe that’s not entirely true. Maybe people like me have. Loners who found a way and slipped back into the wild with no one to tell the tale to. No one to welcome us home. No one to care if we lived or died.

“
Joss!”

“Yes!”
I shout back, surprising myself. My eyes are evening out, becoming adjusted to the light. I can see Vin’s face now. He’s being hauled out by three guys but he’s staring straight at me, his eyes focused hard on mine.

“Yeah,
Vin.” I repeat calmly, slipping the shiv up into my sleeve as I step closer to his girls. “We have a deal.”

I have no idea where we are other than beside the water. In front of us is a huge white building with faded blue trim. It looks like a warehouse that was once dressed up to serve a grander purpose. Kind of like a train station or library. It squats on the upper left corner of a large lot full of green space that is being used for
planting. The even rows suggest fields, though any crop is far out of season at the moment. I shiver against the cold, missing my jacket and hating being this close to the water. It surrounds the lot on all sides but one; the south side where we entered. When I look back at it I can see a row of multicolored, weathered shipping containers stacked two high. The line of them runs from shore to shore. Most containers are lined up end to end except for two right in the middle. They’re running the opposite direction so that they can be opened and vehicles, like ours, are allowed to pass through. Now they stand locked up tight, an impassible barrier for zombies and Lost Boys. And us.

 
They take Vin away immediately, leading him through a side door and out of sight. He goes quietly once I’ve made my promise, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. The tightness in his step. They’d be wise to keep an eye on him.

Breanne, Nats and I are left standing out in the cold surrounded by three men on guard. I don’t know what month it is but judging by the briskness in
the air, I’d say it’s almost December.

Christmas time.

The thought pisses me off almost more than being taken prisoner. Almost.

“Can we go inside yet?” Nats asks a guard, glaring at him. “It’s kind of cold out here.”

The guy with the gentle hands shakes his head apologetically. “We have to wait for the women to come get you. They’ll take you to the showers.”

“Hot showers?” Breanne asks hopefully. She’s clinging to Nats’ arm the way she was clinging to Vin before and I find myself getting annoyed with her. It’d be brilliant if
it was all an act, making herself look meek and afraid only to throw them off, but I’m pretty sure this is her 100%. I’m already regretting taking on the role of babysitter.

“Hot showers.” gentle guy says with a small smile.

“What then?” I ask, my voice hard. “What do you do with us then?”

“Then we’ll get you something to eat.” He smiles at Breanne again. “Something hot. After that you’ll get a tour and you’ll be assigned a bed. Then
we’ll help you get acclimated, start helping you find the right job.”

“What if I don’t want a job?”

His smile fades. “We all work. You’ll need to contribute to stay here.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to contribute. So if you’ll just show me the door…”

“You’ll learn.”

“Learn what? To like prison? No thank you.”

“This is for your own good.” another guy tells me, his eyes pitying. “You can’t survive out there alone. We’re here to save you.”

I glare at him. “I’ve survived out there alone for the better part of a decade. I do
n’t need you or your protection.”

He shakes his head sadly. “You’ll learn.”

I’m certain I don’t want to know what they plan to teach me here.

A door
swings open on creaking hinges, drawing all of our stares. Three women come out one by one in a line, all of them perfectly clean and groomed. Their soft, shining hair catches the sunlight and a small breeze, rippling like silk. They all look to be about late 20s or early 30s and they’re all beautiful. I feel especially grimy just looking at them and I realize that with the chill in the air lately I haven’t risked a full washing in almost a month. It’s too cold to have wet hair this time of year.

A blond walks up to us smiling brightly
as she fakes a shiver. “Ooh, it’s cold out, isn’t it? Let’s make this quick! Ladies and—oh, I thought we had ourselves a gentleman as well?” she says, looking questioningly at the men guarding us.

“He’s already been taken in.”

She blinks once long and hard but her smile never fails. It’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen and, as you can imagine, I’ve seen some seriously creepy things in my day.

“No matter. At any rate, ladies, welcome to the MOHAI!”

We all stare at her blankly.

“As you may not know,” she continues happily. “The MOHAI was, and some of us feel still
is
, the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. It’s a beautiful building with very exciting exhibits inside. Now, admittedly, we’ve taken a lot of them down and disposed of them due to space issues but there’s still some fun stuff to see.”

I look sideways at Nats. I’m relieved to
see my confusion mirrored on her face.

What the hell is happening here?

“Now,” says Tour Guide Barbie, turning serious. “We are so excited to have you here and we can’t wait to show you just everything but first things first. We have to get you cleaned up. So, if you’ll follow me I’ll take you straight to the showers.”

As she turns her back,
I look her and the other women up and down, searching for weapons. The men who have been standing guard all have utility belts on with knives, sharp screwdrivers and either a hammer or a heavy wrench. One even looks like he might have a Taser, something I’ve been eyeing since we left the van.

But the wome
n appear to be defenseless. It has me thinking of the shiv in my pocket. As we follow them inside the door I notice how they break us up. They usher in Breanne, then one of them, then Nats, another of them, then the blond ushers me in ahead of her with that saccharine smile of hers. If I get a chance to cut anybody today, it’s going to be her.

The inside is warm and dry.
And lit! There are actual light bulbs in sockets hanging from the ceiling at regular intervals. We walk down a long, narrow hallway that expands into a big open room, one wall of which is lined with showerheads. It’s been stripped down to just cement walls and floors with a big drain in the middle and I wonder what it was before. Storage? A break room?

“Alright
.” the blond says, clapping her hands together sharply. The snap of skin against skin echoes through the large room sounding like a gunshot. “My name is Caroline. This is Melissa and Andrea. What we’re going to do is get you clean. All of you. Every last inch. You’ve been living in the wild for so long we have to take some precautions so this is going to be thorough. Please don’t be embarrassed, we’ve all gone through it.”

“What exactly are you going to do?” Nats asks, stepping closer to Breanne.

One of the other women, a brunette who I believe is Melissa, smiles at her reassuringly. “Nothing scary, don’t worry. We’re going to help you wash your hair with lice shampoo, use some exfoliating scrubs, use an antibacterial soap to eliminate… well.”

“Bacteria?” I ask dryly.

She looks at me, her smile slipping. “Everything undesirable.”

“So to begin we need you all to strip down, please.”
Caroline says, closing the door to the hall and flipping the lock.

“Already locking us
in?” I ask her.

“No, I’m locking the men out. Prying eyes are not welcome here. We want you to feel safe. Comfortable.” She smiles broadly, catching eyes with Breanne. “Pampered even.”

Breanne smiles and begins to pull her clothes off. They look clean but worn out, something unavoidable on the outside, even in the stables of the biggest gang in Seattle. Nats follows suite though she does it with much less zeal. The shiny trio smiles approvingly at them then casts their eyes on me. I can’t exactly escape right now, with or without Vin and the girls, and I’ll be honest, a hot shower with real soap sounds amazing. But I’m worried about my shiv. I’m going to lose it, there’s no two ways about that. I can’t hide it from them here and I know they’ll burn my clothes once I give them up.

Not wanting to be caught with it as that will put me under heavier watch than I’m already to be under, I
walk to a bin in the corner. It’s full of towels of all different colors all folded neatly in stacks. I give the pretense of leaning against it to untie my shoe and deftly slip the shiv out of my sleeve. I let it fall inside the bin where it disappears in between the stacks of colorful cotton. I can’t help but frown as I watch it go. That’s three weapons I’ve lost today.

These women are thorough. Disturbingly
, latex glove type of thorough and I feel a little violated after my shower. But I am clean. Really and truly clean for the first time in years and putting on clean clothes (clean underwear!) feels amazing. When I run my fingers through my long, newly conditioned hair it feels like cold satin against my skin.

They take us out of the washroom into
another long hallway. It’s cold in here and my wet hair chills me to the bone. It’s then that I realize they’ve given us nothing substantial to wear. Nothing to keep warm in the outside for too long. Long enough to, oh I don’t know, jump in the water and swim away? Once I hit that icy water, even if I made it to another shore without them catching me, I’d be frozen before I’d make it anywhere safe. That’s not an accident on their part.

We enter into a large room with glittering silver floors, wire mesh hanging from the ceiling and stark white plastic tables with matching chairs. There’s a counter to the side made of worn old wood topped jarringly with sleek metal. The sterile beauty of it gives me whiplash and I take a step back, unable and unwilling to enter. I’m amazed at how well preserved this all is. When I catch a whiff of fresh baked bread, I regain the step I lost and then some. It calls to me, pulling me forward like a siren ready to dash me upon the rocks.

What reins me in is the fact that t
his room is bustling with people, all of them shiny and happy. All different ages, races, all clean, well fed, well maintained. And there are just so, so many of them.

“Vin!” Breanne shouts
as she takes off running.

I
spot him when she jumps into his arms like a girl in love. He hugs her loosely, nods at Nats and grins at me.

“You girls clean up well.” he says, still looking at me.

“So do you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hair that short.” Nats tells him.

They’ve buzzed his hair until it’s nearly gone. It’s just a h
int of darkness on his head, making his eyes seem brighter and his face look younger. He runs his hand over it, testing it out as he smiles ruefully at Nats.

“They have barber’s sheers and I haven’t had a real haircut in years. Figured why not.”
He glances at me. “What do you think, Kitten? Does it suit me?”

“I lost my shiv
.” I say, ignoring his question.

“
Yeah, me too.” he mutters, glancing at our escorts as they approach slowly.

Caroline
smiles at him happily, taking all of him in. “I’m glad you found each other again. Excellent. Why don’t you all get in line, eat some lunch and then we’ll give you the tour.”

“Sounds great, thank you.” Vin replies, smiling back at her.

She casts us each another glance then she and her minions shove off. When I look back at Vin his smile is gone.

“I don’t like her either.” I tell him.

He nods. “She’s trouble. Watch out for her.”

“Can we eat now?” Breanne asks eagerly.

“Yeah, Bree. Go ahead. I’m right behind ya.” Vin tells her, still watching Blondie as she walks away.

Getting food should be easy and fun. Walking up to a counter
to pick what I want from where it sits warm and waiting for me sounds like paradise. But I’m in Hell. There are so many people here, easily 20 just in this room, and my skin is crawling. It’s loud, it’s hot, it’s too full. My breath starts coming in short, strained gasps. I worry I’ll hyperventilate. I hang back as Nats and Vin follow Breanne to the buffet line. I’m hovering in the doorway, both loving and hating the open space at my back, when Vin notices I’m missing.

“You okay?” he calls, his brow pinched in concern.

“I’m fine.” I say breathlessly, shaking my head.

He whispers something to Nats
before leaving the line to approach me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s…” I try to even my breathing but I can’t make it happen. “There are too— too many people. It’s overwh—whelming. They’re so loud and what if… what if one gets bitten? We’ll all die. There are just too many!”

“Whoa, slow down.” he says calmly, stepping into my space and making me look at him. His face blocks out most of the room
as he backs me against the wall. It’s still loud and he’s crowding me but it’s only one person. After Ryan I can handle it. This I’m better with. “Breathe slowly and deeply. Don’t worry. Risen aren’t getting in here. That’s not what you need to worry about.”

“They’re always what I need to worry about.
” I mumble, feeling faint. “Them and you.”

“Me as in gangs?”

“You as in ev—everyone else on the planet. Gangs, Colonists, d—dead, undead.”

He pauses, chewing on that for a minute.
When he speaks his voice is hard. “How big of a problem is this going to be?”