The Dead Page 22

It was something so strong it still scared me, and yes, he was right, I’d been running before. But now I knew what it felt like without him, and I knew real fear. I didn’t know if this was what they called love, like Rocky said, but I wasn’t sure I could go on without it.

  “I can’t believe you thought you were going to be able to do this without me,” I said, as I picked up the rope ladder and dropped it down the side of the ship.

  “I know. It’s not like I’m Moobie or anything,” he said as I started climbing down.

  A minute later, as he settled into the boat beside me, I said, “Exactly my point. You need me. You can’t be running around the Wilds alone.”

  Dax laughed as the pirate rowing the boat raised his eyebrows.

  36

  After buying the only bike in existence in a ten-mile radius, we rode for nearly a day and a half straight until we finally got to the place I’d buried Bookie.

  My legs were already weak from all the riding as I walked over to the place I’d buried him and fell to my knees beside the grave. “He’s here.” I ran my fingers over the stones I’d covered his grave with, as if I could touch Bookie somehow.

  Dax looked about for a stick, but I pointed to nearby shrubs. “There’s a shovel there.”

  “Why did you leave a shovel here?” he asked as he dug around and found the spot it was hidden.

  “So I could bring him new books when I visited.”

  Dax grabbed the shovel from where I’d left it and walked over to where I was. “You don’t need to stay. Go take a walk. I’ll handle it.”

  I shook my head, refusing to sit there and cry while Dax did all the work, or worse, run away and hide from the ugliness of Bookie’s death. “No. I put him here and I made the deal. I need to stay with him.” I moved some of the stones aside.

  He didn’t argue with me as he started digging.

  “How far down did you bury him?” Dax asked after he’d been digging for a little while.

  “About three feet or so,” I said, and leaned over, looking down into the grave like I’d avoided doing until now.

  “He’s not here,” Dax said as he jumped out of the grave.

  I didn’t think of what I was doing, but I climbed into the spot he’d vacated. I dropped down and dug with my fingers for his body under the dirt. “How could he be gone?”

  “Dal.”

  They’d taken Bookie. “Who would take him? Why would they do this?”

  “Come on,” Dax said, a hand reached down toward me.

  “Why would they do this?” I asked again, ignoring his hand and feeling like I was back in the house when Bookie had just died. When I buried Bookie here, I knew I’d always be able to visit him. Now he was gone.

  “Dal, give me your hand,” he said.

  “I have to find him.”

  “There’s nothing there but dirt, and I don’t think I can handle watching you look for him for another second.”

  Ignoring him, I continued to dig, my nails breaking and the skin on my hands getting cut up by rocks.

  Then Dax was in the hole with me and pulling me upward as I fought against him.

  “No, I have to find him.”

  “Dal, he’s not here,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “Stop. He’s not here.”

  The strength left me, my hands no longer pushing against his chest but just resting there.

  “You don’t understand. He was my best friend. He didn’t care who I could be or what I could do for him. He liked me.”

  Dax’s arms were warm around me and I felt his hand stroking my back. “I’ll be your best friend,” he said softly.

  “You don’t even like me most of the time,” I said on a half sob at the notion.

  “That’s not true. Just some of the time.” It was the most idiotic thing to say, and the most perfect, because instead of crying, I started to laugh.

  A couple minutes passed before he climbed out of the grave and gave me a hand up.

  “This is bad. I made a promise to the Wood Mist. Who would’ve taken him?” I looked at the empty grave, with only the books I’d buried there now.

  “I don’t know, but I’m thinking we’ll find out. Come on. Let’s get going.” He tugged me away, and I let him.

  He got on the bike and I remembered the Rock was only a few minutes ride from here. “Dax, I’m not going back to the Rock. Not even for the night. It’s a safe place for Tiffy, Tank, and Fudge, but it’s not the place for me.”

  “That isn’t where I meant.”

  “Then where?” I asked, knowing we’d have to stop somewhere to rest up and plan. He appeared as fresh as someone who’d just slept a solid eight hours, but I didn’t need a mirror to know how I appeared.

  “The farm.”

  It was too good to be possible. “But I thought it wasn’t safe?”

  “I heard from Lucy before I left. A couple search parties stopped by but haven’t been there for a while. They’re probably watching the place, but they won’t be watching the way we come, and it’s closer to Newco.”

  “What about Tiffy, Tank, and Fudge?”

  “They’re better off staying there—for now, anyway. We’ll figure it out after we get there if it’s safe,” he said.

  I climbed back onto the bike and then couldn’t stop myself from mouthing, We’re going back, Bookie. We’re finally going back home.

  I told you it would be okay.

  You were right, I said as I wrapped my arms around Dax.

  ***

  We rode through a cave that led out of the stone wall that protected the backside of the farm. I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed the entrance before.

  I watched Dax cover the opening. “How come we didn’t take this way when we left?”

  “Too short for Fudge’s horse.”

  I got off the bike and couldn’t believe I was stepping back onto the farm’s rich soil, breathing the crisp air and smells that were uniquely this place’s. I stepped around the trees that hid the cave completely to see the yellow farmhouse standing there, and then checked immediately to see if they’d been tending my garden.

  It was almost surreal, as we approached and heads turned in our direction. It wasn’t the smiling faces that I’d gotten at the Rock, but I wouldn’t get that reception there either—not anymore.

  I spotted one person smiling and standing on the back porch. Lucy walked toward us, and it was the last person I’d ever expected to get a warm welcome from.

  “I hope you’re back for a while,” she said to both of us. “This being in charge shit ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.” She looked around at the crowd gathering as she said it, and I could see the disgruntled expressions on both sides.

  Dax started making the rounds with his people as Lucy fell into step beside me.

  “Was it bad?” I asked, not having to specify that I meant the Newco force coming through.

  “Nah. They’d show up and leave as soon as they poked their noses around. Haven’t seen them for a while now.”

  I headed in the house, but not before I saw a bike with a grey gas tank sitting beside the house.

  “Is that Dax’s bike?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he sent us word to get it from the Rock and bring it back here.”

  Blue tank my ass. He’d tricked me!

  “Your room is still free, as commanded,” Lucy said, oblivious to my annoyance over the bike.

  Dax had told her to keep everyone out of my room? Okay, maybe not an ass, but we’d be having a word. I looked to where Dax had stopped to talk to a group of his people. I should’ve been mad, but I wasn’t. His head turned in my direction and suddenly it was just the two of us there. I knew he’d do a perimeter run—he did it at every new place—but I wondered what bed he’d be climbing into after that, and found I hoped it was mine.

  “You slept with him, didn’t you? I know there’s something there.”

  Maybe I hadn’t given Lucy enough credit.

  “I’m super tired. Going to bed!�
�� I said as I half ran up the stairs and locked the door before collapsing on the soft coverlet and perfect bed. It was going to be hard to leave this place again.

  ***

  I snapped upright, drenched in sweat, but at least I hadn’t screamed.

  I looked out at the night sky through the bay window, back in my old room at the farm, the one I thought I’d never see again, and this time I didn’t need inventory. I knew Dax was probably out there, patrolling for threats.

  And then I felt the presence there, and it didn’t feel like Dax. I froze, not sure whether I should turn toward it or not, and trying to remember where I put my knives when I’d crashed.

  “Dal?” a familiar voice said.

  I turned and saw Bookie standing on the other side of my bed, clear in the light of the moon.

  “Bookie?”

  He nodded, but not in a smooth movement, as if he wasn’t completely sure himself.

  “Bookie, you died. I buried you.” My eyes scanned him. It was a trick, some sort of ploy by the Wood Mist or the Dark Walkers, something.

  “I know.”

  He was terrified. I could hear the tremble in his voice. Every logical thought told me not to trust the creature in front of me, that there was no way it was Bookie.

  But it was Bookie’s big hazel eyes, his mouth. It stood like Bookie, and even had the small line that cut through his eyebrow that he told me he got when a horse had kicked him and almost taken his eye.

  I should’ve headed the warnings my mind was telling me—that he was dead and buried—but it was hard to hear them when my heart was screaming so loudly. I leapt from bed, my arms going around him tightly and almost knocking him off his feet as we stumbled back together. I locked my hands together behind his back as he returned the embrace.

  “Dal, some crazy shit happened. I’m really freaked out,” he said as his arms tightened around me.

  “It’s okay, Bookie,” I said, not caring what it was. “I’ve got you back and I’m going to protect you this time.”

  Dal’s story continues in book four, coming September 2016.

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  Other Series by Donna Augustine:

  Karma Series

  The Keepers Series (Available in the Kindle Unlimited Library)