The Wilds Read online

  “Yes.”

  What would Moobie do in this situation if he had some leverage? “And if I help you? What’s in it for me? Will you help me in return? I’ve got to go back there and get my friends out.”

  “You’ve already been paid. I broke you out. After you help me, we go our own way. Never see each other again. That’s what you get.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I didn’t need you to get me out.”

  He had the nerve to roll his eyes. “So you were there by choice?”

  I straightened my shoulders and lifted my head. “I was waiting for my opening. Thing is, I didn’t ask for your help. Why should I pay for it?”

  “I think you’ve misunderstood. This is not a negotiation.”

  “And if I refuse? Then what?”

  “There’s ways, but much less pleasant.”

  I huffed out a half laugh. Did he really think that was going to work? “You did notice that I was strapped to a chair with electrical leads when you came, did you not? You should go ask them how much cooperation they got from me.”

  “You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that. I know about those places and I know their methods. Trust me when I tell you they’re amateurs. The way I see it, you need me more than I need you right now. I cut you loose and you’re dead in under a week, or worse.”

  “What’s worse than dead? Is there a new ranking system in the Wilds I’m unaware of?”

  “There is worse. You’ve got a strong will but you’re weak as a kitten and you don’t know the first thing about how stuff works out here. Unless you want to end up serving pirates like the ones back at the boat and getting raped by those men every night, I’d take my offer.”

  It might have been a scare tactic but I heard the truth in it. It was well known that only the hardest and toughest survived in the Wilds and the rest lived almost like slaves to the mighty. I was tough, no matter what I looked like, but I was weak in body, at least right now. It wasn’t a bad offer, as long as there was an end in sight. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Maybe a month.”

  I’d need a month anyway to start working out the details of my plan to bust my friends out. “Then we cut all ties? No strings attached?”

  “Yes, and in return, the time you spend with me, I’ll teach you how to survive the Wilds so that when you do leave, you might actually live another week or two.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” I sat down on a free corner of the log to think for a minute, the bark scratching at my thighs reminding me how undressed I was, not that he seemed to want to get a look. “It’s not a dependable type of thing. I can’t guarantee what I’ll find out or if I’ll get anything at all.” I didn’t want any reneging on his part, saying I didn’t live up to his end and him wanting something else from me, or worse, prolonging the deal.

  “I’ll take that chance.” He held out his hand to me and I looked at it. “First rule of the Wilds: you shake when you make a deal with someone.”

  That was one I’d known about, but no one had ever wanted to shake my hand before, especially not the right, the one that had the brand. I reached out my hand and he took it in a firm grip before releasing it. I smiled. I’d just made my first negotiation in the Wilds with a man that I was fairly certain was pretty badass.

  “You shook on it. Don’t cross me.”

  I narrowed my eyes and tried to look as intent as he did. “Don’t give me a reason to cross you.” Then I ruined the whole goddamn effect by smiling. It was hard not to, though. I’d always wanted to be able to say stuff like that, like Moobie would. I’d wanted to live, and after almost eighteen years, I was doing some serious, hardcore living. My smile got even larger.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  I narrowed my eyes again even as my smile wouldn’t budge. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” It was classic Moobie.

  Dax shook his head.

  He didn’t get it, but Moobie would’ve been so proud.

  Chapter 9

  “Here,” Dax said, handing me my white dress and the darker sweatshirt. “They aren’t dry but they’re better.”

  We’d been sitting in the alcove for a half-hour or so if I had to guess. We hadn’t talked but he’d shared his canteen of water with me and some bits of dried meat he’d called jerky, which had come from the pack on his bike.

  “So your big plan is to go back to the compound after I’m done with you? Going to go rescue your friends?” he asked.

  “You got it,” I said, already knowing he was calling me all sorts of stupid in his head.

  “Everyone has their own path and is responsible for themselves.” He looked at me, and I knew what he was going to say even before it came out. Not because he was transparent or any easier to read, but I knew what the situation looked like to an outsider.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he said. It was exactly what I’d expected.

  “No, I won’t.” He hadn’t sounded overly concerned, but I still had to try one last time for the girls. I knew what failure would mean. “You could help.”

  He shook his head and said, “Not my responsibility, either,” before he took a swig from his canteen.

  “You’ve got your secret plans and I’ve got my—well, not-so-secret plans. The point is we both have plans. You do you and I’ll go be the decent person.” Leaving them there was something I’d never do. Not to mention it was so un-Moobie-like. You didn’t leave a man behind.

  “You’ll go be the dead person, but it’s your choice.”

  The way he’d said it, I could tell it wouldn’t really matter to him. Maybe he felt he had to warn me for some reason. Maybe he had a code, like I did, but just not as strong or good. I guessed a weak code was better than none.

  “Yes. That’s right. It’s my choice.” Everything that happened from this point on was going to be my choice and I was going to start them off right. I’d seen lives go bad from too many wrong choices. Even little bad choices piled up after a while into a whole big mess. It was all the choices you made in your life that determined who you were, not some abstract notion you made up in your mind, with motivations and feelings filtering out the ugly.

  Thinking of ugly, my white dress wasn’t such a prize right now. Clothes in hand, again I didn’t have to ask him to turn his back. He just did. I really wished I knew what was so wrong with me that he was so averse to seeing even a flash of skin. Not that I wanted to put myself on display, but I didn’t want to feel like an ogre either. It had never bothered me, men’s lack of interest. Maybe now that my first goal of freedom was achieved I had more room to think about these things?

  I made quick work of changing and handed his shirt back to him.

  He tugged it on. “Let’s get going. We need to catch up to them before nightfall.” He kicked out the metal bar that kept the bike upright and settled onto it.

  “Why before nightfall?” I asked, super aware of every place our bodies touched as I climbed on behind him, remembering exactly what his flesh looked like beneath the places my hands now lay.

  “I don’t want them to be alone after dark.”

  “So it’s true what they say about the beasts? They come out at night?”

  “Yes,” he said, and then the bike woke up, stopping any more questions.

  * * *

  We slowed to a stop just as dusk was upon us, in between strange hills all lined up in a row. It was the oddest forest I’d ever seen, but I hadn’t seen many.

  He pulled alongside one of the larger hills and we got off the bike. He started walking it around the side of it but I stayed in one spot and turned, taking in my surroundings.

  “Why’s it look so weird here?” I asked. “What’s with all the hills?”

  He stopped walking and looked around the place as if maybe he’d forgotten how it appeared. “They aren’t hills. They used to be homes. People lived in them. Most of the people in the community probably died. The few who survived probably went looking for oth
ers survivors and nature claimed this place back for itself.”

  “Why would they want to live in little mountains?”

  He shook his head. “They weren’t once. They were buildings that nature grew over.” He tilted his head toward the back of the hill. “Come on.”

  I followed him to the other side and watched as he pushed back some vines that revealed an opening. He rolled his bike into the hill.

  Scar and Patches were inside already. It looked more like a cave I’d seen in pictures, but I could see the remnants of walls where vines and leaves didn’t cover what used to be a house. They were sitting around a fire and the smoke drifted up toward an open sky, the roof probably having caved in long ago and lying beneath the dirt I stood on.

  Dax pointed toward Scar. “That’s Tank.” And then his finger jumped to Patches. “And that’s Lucy.”

  I guessed we were far enough away from Newco that it was okay to exchange names. I nodded to them. Tank nodded back. Lucy ignored me.

  “Your bikes filled up?” Dax asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucy replied, and then pointed to a red container sitting beside the opposite wall. “But we’re running low.”

  Fuel. That was what the machines ran on, but I knew it was incredibly valuable in Newco. I thought it was almost priceless in the Wilds. I wondered if they stole it from within one of the countries, but maybe not. I couldn’t really take anything for granted. Everything I knew about the Wilds was gossip and hearsay that trickled into the Cement Giant.

  I found an empty spot and settled down. Dax pulled out some more jerky from his pack.

  “Can we go hunt for dinner?” I asked. “If someone lends me a knife, I’ll go do it.” Actually I wanted to do it, but tried to downplay it for no good reason.

  “Not at night,” Tank said, looking at me skeptically, as if he didn’t think I could catch dinner. “The beasts are territorial.”

  There wasn’t much talk after that. I figured that had to be on account of me. What did they think was going to happen? I’d get scooped up from their camp and spread all their local gossip? These people must have something they could talk about. Or maybe not?

  I grabbed a nearby stick and started drawing in the layer of dirt beside me. It was the shape I remembered of the Cement Giant from all I’d seen. I’d been piecing together what I knew of the inside and what I’d seen outside.

  A pair of boots stopped a few inches away from taking out one of my walls, and I looked up to see Dax staring down at my sketch. He didn’t say anything but he shook his head before he walked back to his spot.

  “You do you,” I said as he sat not far from me.

  “I didn't say anything.”

  “No, but you think obnoxiously loud.”

  I didn’t know what Tank or Lucy thought of our little snippet of conversation but they didn’t say anything. They must have been having so much fun not talking at all. I mean, yeah, I didn’t have any good stories because I’d lived in a jail. After I lived in the Wilds for a while I hoped I’d be a bit more interesting than these three.

  The sun had been down for hours when Tank and Lucy both finally lay down and closed their eyes. Dax sat wide awake, a branch in his hand as he stoked the fire in front of us.

  “Get some rest,” he said to me. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

  “What about the beasts in the forest?”

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  I took the sweatshirt he’d given me and used it as a makeshift pillow on my bed of dirt, but it would be a long time before sleep would come. I heard every branch that broke and leaf that rustled. It seemed like I’d barely fallen asleep when I was being shaken awake. I was just about to let out a wallop of a scream when I heard Dax say, “It’s me. Get up quickly. We’re getting company.”

  “Who?” I asked as I rose. I looked upward, through the open roof, and saw the stars still bright in the sky. Tank and Lucy were grabbing their stuff together and kicking out the fire.

  “Probably from Newco or the jail,” Dax said.

  “I thought you said we’d be safe in the Wilds? I thought they didn’t come here?”

  His eyes flickered over me. “They don’t. Not normally.”

  I listened keenly but didn’t hear a thing. I wasn’t going back there. If he thought they were coming, that was enough to get my feet moving.

  They rolled out their bikes in a row with me behind them. Just as I climbed on behind Dax, I heard the dogs and the bikes roared to life. Did Newco use dogs too or was it Ms. Edith sending them after me?

  * * *

  We didn’t stop until late morning, and by then I understood why they had us shower every day at the compound. I had dirt everywhere, under my dress, logged in the tiny crevices left of what nails I had left. I’d probably swallowed more bugs on the ride than were stuck to my shirt, and I wasn’t the only one looking worse for wear.

  But when Dax started to slow the bike, a shower was the last thing I was concerned with. “Is it safe to stop?”

  “We aren’t stopping for long but I think we’ve put enough distance between them and us for a quick break.” Lucy and Tank slowed down and stopped beside us.

  “Take her down to the stream with you,” Dax said to Lucy as she was getting off her bike then took off toward the trees.

  Lucy stopped moving and shot me a dirty look once Dax was gone. “Will I need to carry you there, too?”

  “I don’t want shit from you—” I started to spit back, and then Tank was in between us, his back in my face as he spoke to Lucy.

  “Dax said to go do it. Now stop arguing and do it.”

  I couldn’t see her expression but she didn’t say anything, just turned and headed off.

  “I don’t need someone to go with me. Just point me in the right direction,” I said to Tank.

  Tank just lifted his arm and pointed toward where Lucy was heading. I guess it made sense the direction would be where she’d went.

  God, I hated this chick, but I followed her, wanting the fresh water more than I disliked her. We hadn’t stopped long enough to drink since we’d left the camp, and I was anxious to wash the dead bug taste from my mouth.

  Lucy moved through the woods and roots like she was strolling across a ballroom. Not that I knew what a person in a ballroom looked like, but Moobie had described it in his last book and it had made me envision something just like this. I was a bit slower picking and choosing where I stepped since I didn’t have shoes.

  It took five minutes for us to reach the stream and I watched as she stripped off her shirt. She was all lean muscle without the larger breasts I had hanging off my chest. Maybe that was why men didn’t like me. My lumps were too big and the rest of me was way too skinny.

  I tried to rinse my arms but was ashamed to take anything else off, feeling deformed in comparison.

  She looked up suddenly from where she was washing and caught me staring. “What the fuck you looking at me for? What? You want a kiss?” she sneered.

  “No, I just…”

  “What?”

  I turned away, flustered and then embarrassed. First I’d gawked and then I’d stammered. It was just she looked like she belonged out here. It was the first time I’d ever really been jealous, and it had been like a wrench thrown into the spokes of my brain.

  “Figures a dirty Plaguer wouldn’t wash,” she said loud enough for me to hear.

  The stammering had only been a minor glitch in my brain and she’d just pissed me off enough to push past it.

  I turned and looked back at her, not flinching at all now. “You’re right. I do like dirt. I like digging big holes in it to bury all the people I kill with the Bloody Death.” I smiled at her like I was truly as insane as they said.

  She shot me a dirty look. Her movements gained steam and she was throwing on her shirt and then heading back to the guys in no time. I had a nice little chuckle. That was much better.

  I washed up in the stream as best as I could before I walked back by mysel
f to the group. Tank and Lucy were there waiting, but Dax hadn’t returned yet.

  Lucy, who was only a few feet away from me, made a huffing noise loud enough to make it obvious she had some sort of issue and then turned to Tank. “You know we’re lugging around a dead girl. We aren’t going to make it home with her in one piece. She’s an idiot and we know what happens to even smart Plaguers.”

  I wasn’t as stupid as she thought. I’d heard, probably more times than she had, what they did to my kind. I knew about the killings and torture.

  My feet were heading in her direction before my brain had made a decision on what it was going to do. “Go ahead, try and kill me,” I said to her. The only thing stopping me from closing the final distance was Tank stepping in between us.

  Tank held out a hand in both of our directions and said to Lucy, “Shut. Up. Dax didn’t ask you to come. You volunteered and you knew what for.”

  It didn’t matter if she said another word. I’d hit my limit. “I don’t need this and I don’t have any overwhelming desire to help a boy killer.”

  “What did you call me?” Lucy asked with much less of the bravado than what she’d had before.

  I’d zeroed in on her soft spot but I hadn’t let loose the killing blow. Yet. “Boy killer? What was he, ten? Twelve?” I asked, underestimating the age on purpose. They didn’t understand, and I didn’t either until that moment. I’d shut up for so long and taken so much shit, I wasn’t sure I was capable of holding back anymore. It was like the restraints were off and the anger spilled out. “How did it feel?” I asked her. “Did you enjoy killing that little boy before he’d even hit the prime of his life?” I asked even though I knew she hadn’t.

  “See, Dax? She’s fucking crazy like they say.” Her voice cracked as she said it, and I turned around, realizing he’d come back. I’d just been about to feel bad for what I’d said to her when she had to go and call me crazy.