Initiation (Gypsy Harts #1) (3 page)

“Brit—” Em snarled, her face darkening.

“Look at her,” Brit snapped back, hand thrust out at the girl. “We put her out for the highest bidder and we could stock up for a four-month winter.”

“It’s all up for discussion,” May cut in, backing Em down with one look. “If she has no skills there’s only one way she can earn her keep.”

“Not like that,” Em insisted.  “She’s an innocent for all we know.”

“Doesn’t matter if she is or not. She
looks
like one. They’ll love her.”

The girl watched the three women, their tense looks and body language thoroughly confusing. Even over at the kitchenette Coral was keeping track, but she looked away when the girl caught her eye. “What are you talking about?” she finally asked.

“In our commune everyone contributes,” May answered, eyes still on Em. “We’re scavengers. We go out looking for supplies. Brit here’s a good cook and Coral also helps with laundry. Em’s a nurse, as you know.” May chewed her lip. “So what are
you
?”

Of course the girl had no idea what she could contribute. “I’m sure I can clean, cook. Whatever needs doing.”

“What if she can’t walk?” Brit asked, her grin nasty. “She’ll be on her back anyway.”

The girl’s skin crawled under that look and after that remark. She was worried she might understand what they were talking about, and she was hoping she was wrong. “What does that mean?” she had to repeat.

“Sometimes men come by the commune,” Brit said, voice low, her eyes almost mocking the girl as she spoke. “They bring us meat they caught, grains. Clothing. Boots. Weapons. There’s only one way to pay them back for that. And there’s no use for money anymore.”

The girl’s stomach turned. “You…sleep with them?”

“I only sleep with who I choose,” Brit answered, grinning now. “But we have a few girls who don’t mind serving as payment for supplies. They’re not as picky about what they do with whoever that comes along.”

The girl looked to Em to confirm that Brit was just teasing, but one second of study and she knew that this was real. The truth.

“A small offering of peace as well,” May spoke up, as though she was trying to soften this. “We know these groups that we allow inside our walls. We trust them more than anyone else out in the world. It’s a tense truce, but we give them what they want, and we get something in return.”

The girl’s heart was fluttering, a new kind of panic flaring up. “I don’t think I can do that,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t.”

“You don’t have to,” Em assured her gently.

“As long as you’re not fucking useless,” Brit added, falsifying sincerity with that statement. “But if you can’t help out in any other way, that pretty little ass of yours is going to get used right up.”

“Enough Brit,” May snapped with a sharp look. Then her face softened a bit as it returned to the girl. “We’ll find a place for you, I promise. But one thing you need to know; there’s no halfway with us. You’re all in if you’re in. We’d lay down our lives for each other, and we expect the same from you.”

The girl nodded. It was easy to agree to anything at the moment. She had no idea what she would be living with or up against once they left, assuming they were honest about taking her with them. They could just kill her and take everything they needed.

Yet, as Coral served up bowls of canned beef stew, she had a feeling that they were serious about her tagging along. As frightening as they might be, she got the impression they were the kind of people who protected the weak and helped the scared. That had to be what brought them together in the first place.

A warm bowl was placed in her hand and Coral was smiling as she looked up to thank her. “Eat up,
Anne
,” Coral chided as she walked away. “Gotta be ready to kick ass tomorrow!”

Chapter Two

The girl woke again, confused as to where she was and why, but as she blinked and fought for focus there
were
memories that came back to her. Four women telling her that the world was a nightmare that raged overhead. And as May came into view with a sharp nod, she knew it was time to leave.

During the hours before sleeping, her arms had gained strength. She had been able to pull herself into her hospital bed, and it had been under her own power that her legs swung up onto the bed with her. Walking might be a few days off, but it was enough to buoy her spirits.

Now as May watched she got herself sitting, rotated her hips to dangle her legs over the edge, and reached for the arms of the wheelchair. May held it steady as she grasped the arms and hefted herself off the bed and dropped into the seat.

May patted her shoulder. “Damn, Anne. Those legs will be back in no time!”

It was hard not to smile, being so pleased with herself. So she didn’t fight it, she grinned up at the woman and wheeled herself down the hall to the main room. The place was a flurry of activity, boxes appearing out of nowhere overnight. Or so it seemed. They were all labeled with various types of canned food as far as she could see. There were also a dozen or so red jerry cans on the ground next to a door that stood open. A door she hadn’t even seen the night before.

May set to helping the others carry out armfuls of supplies. The girl would have liked to help, but she was stuck in the chair and useless.

When the boxes were cleared out Anne realized the women were all wearing what looked like combat fatigues; heavy canvas coats and pants with their heavy boots. They all had scarves wrapped around their heads, goggles at the ready, riding at their hairlines.

“Now Anne,” May was saying softly, approaching her with a heavy coat. “You haven’t been exposed to any radiation yet. We’re going to keep you covered up real good, though. Maybe you won’t absorb too much of it. This is just like our jackets, and we can cover you with some blankets too. And I want you in a gas mask. The air is different out there now and I’m not sure how you’ll react to it. So we’ll expose you slow, okay?”

Anne swallowed hard and nodded. With the help of Em and May she was soon wrapped in the heavy jacket with a dense blanket across her legs. The two of them carried her on their clasped arms up the stairs, Anne’s arms across their shoulders. She hated feeling so weak, but they didn’t once complain. It was even Brit who retrieved her wheelchair for her.

Outside the women all pulled their goggles over their eyes, and Em helped Anne with the gas mask. The air felt very dry—it seemed to affect her eyes almost immediately. The goggles of the mask were welcome protection, even if she felt trapped inside it.

They had set her in the rear seat of a large black van, but it didn’t exactly resemble any cargo van she could conjure up from memory. The windows were lined with heavy bars, there was a large cage on the front that looked like it could toss anything out of its way without much effort, and it was running on tank treads.

That gave her a second’s pause. As did the large machine gun on top of it.

As the van began rolling, Anne cast her eyes to the very back of the vehicle. It was stacked high with all the boxes and clothing that had been inside the bunker where Anne had been sleeping. And right behind the bench she was sitting on was a stack of guns, tossed in casually like they were snacks for a road trip.

A
lot
of guns.

Anne turned forward again, her swallow sounding like a gulp. Next to her Em was studying her closely, and Anne tried to appear casual.

“Your neighbors had a lot of guns,” Em explained, shouting to be heard over the noise of the vehicle. “
Lots
of guns. I think they had an internal dispute and killed each other.”

A cold chill ran down her spine. She didn’t know who these “neighbors” might have been, but the way Em said it was coldly indifferent. Like it didn’t matter that a stack of dead people may have been left lying around.

“Did you see them?” She wasn’t sure how clear her voice would be with this rubber mask on her face.

Em nodded. “Dead quite a while. Didn’t even really stink too much.”

“How many were there?”

Em frowned, not understanding.

“How many?” she asked louder, spaces between her words.

“About eight.”

Anne frowned. “Were there bodies where I was?”

Em shook her head. “Nah. Your dad must have left to go find something, or someone. Couldn’t make it back. I think you were maybe alone for a few days.”

“So he might be out there somewhere?”

Em shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. If he left five or six days ago, I wouldn’t hold out much hope.”

“How do you know how long I’d been on my own?”

Em smiled. “Your piss jug, honey. And the IV drip.”

Anne felt her cheeks color when she remembered how she’d been found.

“I’m pretty sure your father didn’t leave you on your own because he wanted to,” Em continued. “Not with how well looked-after you were. He did good, if you were there for as long as we think.”

Anne wasn’t comforted, but she nodded to show her appreciation.

The cab of the van was silent, so Anne turned her attention out the windows. It was surprising how little there was to actually see. It was just a beige stretch of desert, and the sky was a slightly lighter tone of beige. Here and there bits of bare shrub were sticking up from the sandy ground like blackened sculptures. It was a painting of destruction, not even believable.

Where there
were
buildings, they were the crumbled suggestion of four walls. The sand had blown any land shapes smooth, covering it all to look flat. It was an entirely different planet.

“How close were the bombs?” she whispered, then shouted as they passed a stone wall with no windows, no door, and as they moved along she realized it was just the front of the building. The rest was long gone.

“About sixty miles,” was Em’s answer. “I wouldn’t want to get any closer to a blast site than this.”

“How come?”

“Radiation,” was the simple answer. “Gamma radiation has a half-life of about thirty years. And it’s the shit that will make you sick, too.”

“Radiation sickness?”

“Yeah. It’s nasty shit,” Em’s voice got hoarse at that and Anne wanted to ask if she’d seen someone get suffering from that very thing, but she held her tongue.

“How many people are at the…commune?”

“About fifty.”

Anne was surprised. She’d expected a dozen or so. These women really did have a lot of responsibility caring for each other.

“Are there only women there?” Anne thought she already knew the answer to that.

“Yes,” May answered that one. “One of our women has two sons, and they’re the only men that live there. They’re thirteen and fifteen.”

“That’s why we kinda welcome in the men that we know,” Em said quietly.

“Why?”

That made Brit cut up, and she turned sideways in the front passenger seat to gawk at her. “Because sometimes a girl just wants a good fucking.”

“Brit, grow up,” Coral groaned, pushing Brit’s arm to turn her around. “But she’s right. The whores take the guys we’re scared of. The rest are fair game,
if
we want.”

“No one forces anyone,” May said sharply, meeting Anne’s eyes in the rearview. “No one makes you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Anne nodded, exaggerating the motion since she still had the damn gas mask on. She was scared to remove it, and the other still had their goggles on so she kept it in place.

“Anyone touches you without your permission, you cut them,” Coral supplied in a frightening matter-of-fact way. “And if they do more than that you tell May and she’ll make sure they get dead.”

Anne’s blood ran stone-cold right then, waiting for Coral to indicate she was kidding. But she just stared out the window, watching the span of sand as it rolled past them.

“You’re scaring her,” Em muttered, and Anne felt a bit of relief at that. Maybe it wasn’t true.

“She should know,” May insisted. “No one has to put up with that shit. And we uphold that by hurting the fuckers that hurt us.”

“That’s right,” Coral added. “Never without your consent, Anne. Always remember that.”

The van grew very quiet again, and Anne cast her gaze back out the window next to her. She tried to think about…
sex
. She had nothing. There was nothing in her memory, nothing remotely
generic
that indicated she had ever had sex. She wasn’t sure how old she was, either, but she was willing to bet she wasn’t a virgin.

There was no frame of reference at all.

“What the hell is this?” May mumbled as the vehicle lumbered past an old squat farmhouse. It had stucco walls with peeling paint, and the sand has sloped drifts against one side. And in the front yard two spikes in the ground.

The van stopped and Anne sat up, frowning. She had to be seeing things. There was something wrong with her vision because there was no way there were two girls chained to those stakes.

“What the
fuck
?” Brit snarled, leaning over Anne’s lap to get closer. “No way. No fucking way.”

“It could be a trap,” Coral was warning, but Brit was already shoving the van door open.

“Brit!” May shouted, then cursed and slammed the vehicle into park.

Next to Anne, Em was leaning over the back of the seat and picking up a rifle. She checked the chamber then snapped the thing back into line. She passed it to May, who opened her door and climbed out with the thing at the ready. She looked like she was plenty capable of handling it.

Em handed a pistol to Coral next and grabbed another rifle for herself. She leveled her goggled eyes at Anne. “You stay right here.”

Well, she could hardly move. So no problem there.

“If we’re not back in ten minutes follow the GPS back to the commune, okay?”

Anne nodded, then quite suddenly she was alone in the van. Her own breathing seemed amplified in the gas mask, and her heartbeat was loud in her ears. All she could do was stare out the window at two women, both dark-haired, sitting cross-legged on the ground in the sand. They were both wearing long, oversized white but dirty T-shirts. Their legs were bare, their eyes wide. She could tell they weren’t well-fed; their cheeks were sunken and their limbs were terribly thin.

None of this made sense. What the hell would be gained by tying people up?

Still, Anne waited.

Seconds ticked by. She felt terrible staring while the two girls were just sitting in the sand. Yet Anne was terrified and held still, thinking perhaps they wouldn’t even know she was there if she didn’t move and draw their attentions.

Until there was a loud noise from in the house. You didn’t have to hear a lot of gunshots to recognize them. It was just a series of odd sounding pops, and she froze, holding her breath and waiting to wake up.

Nothing. It had been less than three minutes.

Anne eyed up the sand between the van and the door. No way she could push the wheelchair through that. All she had was the van.

Well, okay then.

She turned to hang an arm out over the seat, stretching her arm to its limit until her fingers found something metal and cold. She pulled it up without being able to look, and the item in her hand turned out to be a handgun. It had a cool modern look to it, so it wasn’t an old-fashioned revolver. She didn’t think about what kind it must be however, because as her palm wrapped itself in place on the grip something happened.

Her panic slowed. Calm fell over her, and she titled her hand to examine the bottom. Somehow her thumb found the release on the side, and she pulled the clip clear. She set it in her lap, then pulled the slide back, hand cupping the chamber but it was empty. Picking up the clip again, she saw a round loaded at the top, and down along the back she saw that half the clip was loaded. Eight rounds.

She just
…knew
that. It wasn’t clear
how
, but that pistol in her hand was familiar. No different from picking up a telephone. She slapped the clip in place and pulled the slide back, hearing the click of the first round popping into place.

Then she set the pistol on the passenger seat and dragged herself into the front, sideways behind the wheel. With a noise of annoyance she yanked the gas mask off, tossing it into the back. Anne had to fold her legs under the steering wheel manually, which was incredibly hard and had her sweating heavily. But the shooting had stopped inside, and that had her worried.

The van was running still. It was alarmingly quiet in park. She slammed it into drive, wrenched the wheel hard to the right and headed for the building.

Anne had no idea what the hell she was doing, but she knew that shooting was likely a bad thing, and no one was indicating that everything was okay. So she was simply going to ram the front of the building and cause a diversion, if nothing else.