Writing on the Wall (9 page)

“And it almost got me killed. Twice.”

He smirks and looks at the knife still at the ready in my hand. “Are you going to kill me if I try to help you? Even the score?”

I sheath my knife and take a step back, pressing my back against the cold, stone wall behind me. “I don’t need your help. Thanks.”

“Because you said ‘thanks’ and that probably nearly killed you, I’ll let it go. But if you ever need anything will you ask me?”

“Probably not.”

He grins. “You’re difficult.”

“You’re dangerous.” I mutter before I can think.

He lifts his eyebrows in surprise and takes a step toward me. It’s not much, he’s not touching me, but I still feel claustrophobic because of it. Because of one small step.

“You scared of me, Joss?”

I snort. “What’s there to be scared of?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s a dumb question.”

“I don’t think so.”

He takes another step toward me.

“You don’t think at all.” I tell him, trying to sound angry but it comes out breathy and strained.

“I’m thinking pretty hard right now.” he says, taking another step closer until he’s nearly touching me. He’s looking down at me with his warm eyes and I can see hunger in them. Not the Risen hunger I’m used to and not the starved animal hunger I see all around me during the winter. This is different. New. Exciting.

“You’re thinking with the wrong parts.” I whisper. “That’s what makes you dangerous.”

When he chuckles I feel his breath on my face. He doesn’t back up and I don’t push him away. I should, though. I should get out of here, away from him and never write on that wall again. But it’s already been done and whatever damage we’ll incur for all of this is already here or swiftly on the way. There are things I’ve seen, heard, felt and want that I never understood could actually exist outside the frame of my tiny TV. And this Pandora’s Box, once opened, does not close easily.

I close the distance between us. I step up on my toes. I lean forward. I grasp his face in my hands and pull him closer.

And I kiss him.

It’s better than before. It’s slower, easier. He holds on to me loosely, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling my hips against his. His hands are big on my back, his breath warm on my face. I’ve never been held like this. I’ve never had hands touch me with such tense tenderness. I can feel the want coiled in them, the desire to push and gain whatever ground they can, but they hold off. He holds off. Ryan takes his time and reins them in, telling them to wait and there’s a sweetness to that restraint that stands apart from all of the grappling, needy, violence of the world. It’s such a contrast it makes my breath hitch in my lungs and my blood warm to the surface and I know I’m blushing as he kisses me. As he smiles against my mouth and I smile back and I think I laugh in the back of my throat. Or was it him? Either way, it’s there between us and it’s decadent and delicious.

He moves his mouth from mine and trails it across my jaw, down under my earlobe and against my neck.

“You are,” he murmurs. “The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

I chuckle. “I’m probably the only girl you’ve ever seen.”

He pulls his face back to look at me. “I’ve seen other girls. I wasn’t born to this anymore than you were.”

“You’re right. I’m the only girl you’ve seen lately.”

He lowers his eyes and shakes his head slightly. “That’s not true either.”

“Where have you seen other women?” He doesn’t answer me. He keeps his arms around me and his gaze down, looking somewhere along my collarbone. Finally I ask, “Other gangs?”

He nods minutely and meets my eyes again. His are apologetic and I’m instantly nervous.

“
Your
gang?” I ask, pushing away from him.

“No.” he says firmly. “We don’t keep slaves. Men or women.”

“That’s very noble.” I say sarcastically.

Ryan scowls at me and his voice grows hard. “It kind of is. Even the Colonists are using people as slaves. Almost every gang in the city keeps at least a female or two. They bring them to market with pop up tents and use them as currency, a currency we don’t take.”

I look at him skeptically. “None of you?”

He grinds his teeth together briefly, his eyes angry. “Sometimes some of the guys will trade personal wares for time with the women. As a whole, we don’t do it but individually, that’s their business.”

“It’s sick.”

“I know.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“I just agreed that it’s sick.” he says, sounding exasperated.

“Just because it’s sick doesn’t mean you won’t do it. You didn’t like killing a man but you did it anyway.”

It’s a low blow. Before the words are even out of my mouth I wish I could pull them back in.

His eyes are on fire now. “That’s what you think? That’s how you see me?”

I regret this conversation so much. How did we go from that kiss to this? How does this world seep into everything and rot it from the inside out? You can’t find something beautiful here without it dying in your hand before you can make it home.

“You know what?” Ryan says angrily. “I’m out of here. Good luck.”

He goes to step past me and into the light. Into the outside and out of my life and the pang in my chest is a gnawing pain that rips me wide open. How hard is it really? How difficult is it to have something and not throw it away because it’s nothing like what you’re used to? Nothing you’ve ever needed or had before. How hard is it to let yourself want something simply for the sake of wanting it? Just to make it yours?

My hand shoots out and I take his arm firmly. I meet his eyes, absorbing the anger rightly seated there and letting it burn into me. I let it teach me a lesson as it aches. I let it school me in never throwing a punch I don’t care to see land.

“I’m sorry.” I choke out. “I was wrong.”

And I don’t know which of us is more shocked to hear it.

Chapter Ten

Ryan wants to start meeting on the regular. He asks if I’ll meet him in the woods in the clearing where they killed the buck, but the memory of how deftly they cornered that animal and slit its throat open on the forest floor gives me pause. Years of conditioning scream at me and I find that even though I want to meet with him, I can’t do it. I can’t completely shake the idea that he’s bait on a lure and I’m falling for it hook, line and sinker. He’s disappointed when I tell him no. He’s also a little annoyed because he knows
why
I’m saying no, but he accepts it. I’m skittish and I have every reason to be so this I do not apologize for.

He kisses me goodbye when he goes. It’s short and sweet and full of promise. It’s a lot of things I don’t understand, things that scare the crap out of me, but it’s also nice. Knowing he’s out there and that he knows about me, thinks about me,
is insane to me. It’s like being split in half and existing in two places at once. It’s disorienting. It’s also exciting. I’m here in my home high up above the streets, but I’m also out there with him in the wild running with the Lost Boys across the crooked asphalt. He takes me places I could never normally go. He makes me free. I feel like I’m so much more than I used to be, taking up so much more space than I thought I deserved.

I’m present and so full. Like hidden music on a rooftop.

So of course I’m happy. I’m alive and happy and awake. Blindingly awake for the first time and when I see a message on the wall a week later, I’m smiling when I answer.

Mornin’, Beautiful.

I miss you.

How are you?

I’m waking up.

“It is pretty early.”

I spin around, my hand going to my ASP but I’m too late. The man behind me slams me into the wall, pressing my back hard against it until I feel like crying out in pain as the rough edges dig into my skin through the thin material of my jacket. But I don’t. I don’t cry and I don’t scream. I take deep, calming breathes and I assess my situation.

It sucks.

The guy walked up behind me from down the street where I can see the silent rolling Colonist vehicles parked in the middle of the road. There are two of them, one with its back doors wide open and the other locked up tight. I count at least four other Colonists milling around the street and poking their heads inside buildings. They’re looking for others that must be with me because I couldn’t possibly have been alone. How would I have ever survived on my own?

“Where are—ooh!”

The guy doubles over in pain as my knee connects with his crotch, hitting him where it hurts. It’s a dirty shot but do you see any refs out here? All’s fair in the apocalypse. He lets go of me momentarily but that moment is all I need. I run from him as fast as I can, whipping out my ASP as I go. I leave my knife hidden against my jeans and under my jacket because if they do manage to get ahold of me I want to have a surprise up my sleeve.

The Colonist’s cry grabs the attention of the others and two come running at me. They’re all men and it pisses me off. No women in the roundup teams? What are they all doing? Sitting back at the Colony knitting winter sweaters, raising the children and making the meals. Sexist!

I swing the ASP and crack it down on the wrist of a man reaching out for me. It breaks it easily and he cries out louder than Crotch Shot back at the wall. I sprint for a small alley just across the street hoping I can make it in and up the fire escape before they can get me. If I can do that, they’ll never catch me. I know how to jump between the buildings from here for ten blocks easy. It’s not something you do if you don’t have to and certainly not something you try if you haven’t practiced. They won’t follow me, I know it.

I’m heading into the alley when a hand grips the back of my jacket and yanks me off my feet. My attacker easily lifts me up then slams me down on the ground face first. I have to throw up my hands to keep from breaking my nose on the asphalt and my ASP flies away from me, skittering through the darkness and into a pile of dirt and rubble. I’d have to search to find it and time is not a luxury I have anymore.

“Are you gonna be good?” the guy asks, breathing heavily. He barely ran. Boy needs more cardio in his life. It gives me hope that if I can slip away from him I can make it out of here. “Are you going to get up and go quietly?”

“Rick, you got her?” someone calls from down the street.

“What do you think, kitten? Do I
got you?”

“Yeah.” I say, feeling my knife’s sheath digging into my hip bone as I lay on the hard ground. “You got me.”

“Good girl.” he grunts.

I’m pulled up onto my feet and he pushes me in front of him, still holding onto my jacket. Perfect.

“Let’s go.”

“Okay.” I agree meekly.

I grab the zipper on my jacket, pulling it down hard and fast. The second it releases at the bottom I throw my arms back, shrugging easily out of it and out of his hold. He gives a shout of surprise and frustration, but I don’t care a thing for him. I’m running again. Unfortunately I’m running in the wrong direction. He had me pointed toward the vans and to my right is the wall but there’s also Crotch Shot and he’s recovered somewhat, vengeance heavy in his eyes. I can’t get to the alley and open road behind Rick. I’m free but not for long. Not long enough. It doesn’t surprise me when I make a break for it past the vans that I’m clotheslined. I’m slammed back onto the pavement, the wind rushing out of my lungs and my head connecting sharply with the ground. I see stars as I struggle to keep conscious and drag air into my lungs. Neither comes easy. Hands lift me up and stand me on my feet. I promptly sway and nearly topple over but a surprisingly gentle hand helps me stay steady. Another prods the back of my head and I flinch when I feel a sting. I’m bleeding, I know it.

“Get her inside, now!” a voice beside me shouts. “She’s bleeding. It’ll call the Risen straight to us. Let’s move!”

I’m being pulled toward the back of the van and the gentle hand is starting to irritate me. I pull against it but it latches down harder, forcing me forward.

“You don’t want to be out here dizzy and disoriented when the Risen show.” the guy says calmly, sounding unreasonably reasonable.

“And unarmed.” Rick says from behind me. I recognize his voice and smug tone. I also recognize his hand on my ass as he shoves me toward the van.

“Not unarmed.” I murmur.

I gather every ounce of clarity I can find inside myself and unsheathe my knife. I turn quickly, bringing up my hand as though I’m going to slap him. He grabs it easily, laughing in my face at my feeble attempt.

“Kitten has claws.” he chuckles.

I sink my knife into his thigh. He was too distracted with my hand and deflecting the slap, he never saw it coming. His eyes say as much as the pain registers. While he’s distracted by the knife in his leg, I thrust my head forward and up, straight into his nose. It breaks and bleeds into my hair but I don’t care. His shocked, bloody, broken face is worth it.

“You bitch!” he exclaims as he inhales sharply.

I’m tossed into the back of the van carelessly. The last thing I see before they close the doors isn’t Rick’s mangled face or the concerned face of the guy with the gentle hands who sorrowfully tells me I shouldn’t have done that. What I see far off in the distance, up high at the top of a building, is a flash of reflected light. Small and precise, like the mirror in a woman’s makeup case. It casts a beam of light directly down on my face making me wince. Then the doors slam shut and it’s gone.

I’m gone.

***

“Are you cold?” a woman asks me.

I pull myself up off the freezing metal floor of the van, fighting against the rocking as it bumps silently down the uneven streets. I thought the back of the van was empty but it’s not. There are three people huddled deep in the back; one man in his late twenties with two women. One is only a couple years older than I am while the other is easily older than the man. They’re all bundled up tight, ready for the cold weather, and the man sits between them. Each of the women has her arms wrapped around one of his biceps, pulling him close.

“Um,” I try to speak but my tongue feels thick. My head wobbles on my shoulders
while the world tilts precariously.

“Uh oh,” the guy says, rushing toward me. “She’s going over. Nats,
give her you’re the sweater under your coat.”

He has my shoulders firmly betw
een his, holding me up as he looks me squarely in the face. I’m struck by how handsome he is. Dark hair, bright green eyes, chiseled features. The women look nothing like him, not even the same nationality, and I wonder how they all know each other. Just another band of survivors hiding out together?

Then it hits me through the fog. The way they were sitting together. The way Nats
immediately jumped to it when he told her to give up her sweater despite the cold. The angry hornet tattoo on his neck.

“You’re in The Hive.” I mutter.

“You’ve heard of us?” he asks absently, pulling the sweater over my head.

“No one in the wild hasn’t heard of The Hive.”

He shrugs. “I guess we’re pretty well known.”

“Well known?
” I ask, pulling out of his grasp to finish dressing on my own. Pride and bravado, remember? Cornerstones of life. “Notorious is more like it. Feared is even better.”

He sits back on his heels
to give me an appraising look. His face is hard but I can see it is in his eyes. He’s amused.

“You don’t seem too scared right now.”

I snort. “Not of you. You’re not my biggest problem at the moment. Hell, you’re not even my smallest problem.”

He grins
as he shakes his head. “What crew has been hiding you?”

“None. I’m not in one. Never have been.” I look at him pointedly. “I never will be.”

He laughs. “No joke? You’ve been going it alone?”

I nod feeling
ridiculously proud under his appreciative stare. “Six years now.”

“That was a good run.”

I move to sit at the end of the van with my back against the closed doors, the borrowed sweater pulled around me tightly.

“It’s not over yet.”

“Oh,
Kitten
,” he says, emphasizing the word to prove his point that they have me. “You know where you are. It’s over.”

“Don’
t call me kitten and it’s not over until I’m dead.”

The grin is wiped off his face as he watches me.
I look back unsure but unflinching. Finally he heads back to his girls and I think I hear him mutter, “Where have you been hiding?”

We ride in silence for what feels like hours. I can’t stan
d not being able to see outside. I can’t tell what time of day it is. The rhythm of the jostling van is a problem for me too. It keeps lulling me to sleep and every time I nod off, I get yelled at.

“Wake up!” the
hornet shouts, shattering the quiet.

I jerk my head up, startled awake for the fiftieth time.

“Quit yelling at me.” I grumble, rubbing my temples. I have a killer headache.

“Quit falling asleep. You have a concussion. You’ll die if you sleep.”

I glare at him. “You know an awful lot. Taken a few hits to the head, have you?”

He ignores me. “What’s your name?”

I eye him across the space between us, not sure how I want to respond.

He
sighs impatiently. “Do I look like Rumplestiltskin?”

“What?”

“I’m not Rumplestiltskin. Giving me your name doesn’t give me power.”

“That’s not how
it goes.” Nats chimes in. She’s huddled in the corner beside the guy, the other girl asleep with her head in Nats’ lap.

Her pimp frowns at her. “Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“I thought the whole point was a name exchange.”

She nods. “It is, but it’s the other way around. It doesn’t make sense the way you said it. If she’s hiding her name then s
he
would be Rumplestiltskin.”

“Who would I be?”

Nats smirks. “You’re a Queen.”

He chuckles and turns back to me. “
What’s your name?”

“
Joss.” I reply warily.

I’m confused by the dynamic between Nats and the guy.
It’s not what I expected between a pimp and a slave. They almost seem like friends.

“Well,
Joss, this is Natalie or Nats,” the guy says pointing at the woman in the corner. “Snoring in her lap is Breanne.”

“And who are you?”

Nats laughs. “He’s a Stable Boy.”

He looks at her indignantly. “I am
the
Stable Boy.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, scared I already know the answer.

“It means he watches out for The Hive’s women. Breanne and I included.”