Authors: Melissa Marr
“He probably just heard that she
did
stay dead, so he’d be watching for the new arrival. We got to her first, though. With Garuda’s gift, she’ll recover from the transition faster. We all need to be ready if Ajani is coming around again.” Jack pulled Katherine in for a hug even as he threatened, “I have another full bottle of it, plus what’s left in that one. You’re not leaving camp unless you drink it. If you try to leave without it, I’ll leave you chained in the tent. I’ll hate it as much as you will, but I’ll do it if I have to, Katherine.”
“Jackass,” she muttered, but she hugged him back quickly before stepping away and folding her arms again.
“Everything will be fine,” he promised her.
“So, there’s no reason—”
“You’re still drinking the Verrot,” he interrupted. “Drink or stay in camp. I can’t risk losing you, or risk Edgar being so worried he’s useless. There are too many changes right now, Katherine.”
“Jackass,”
she repeated, but this time there was no hug to soften the temper.
C
hloe was feeling a mix of trepidation and frustration as she waited for Kitty to walk back into the tent. She felt more alive than she’d felt ever in her life. Earlier that day, she’d explored the camp a bit with Kitty, but it was now the middle of the night and she still felt unable to stay still.
She’d sweated through her jeans and blouse, and they needed laundering, so she was now wearing a skirt that was slit up both sides—“so a girl can reach her thigh holster,” Kitty had explained—and a shirt made out of a lightweight but coarse material. Chloe wasn’t given a thigh holster or any other sort of weapons, but she was given a pair of very tall, battered, brown leather boots that Kitty had found in what appeared to be a steamer trunk. They were almost the right size, and a bit of wadded-up cloth shoved into the toe of each boot corrected the disparity. The high-slit skirt felt a little awkward, but in this terrain, boots were a vast improvement over even the low-heeled pumps she’d been wearing when she’d arrived. According to Kitty, they’d protect her leg from any desert-dwelling serpents or lizards that might decide to take a bite. Her pumps certainly didn’t offer that benefit.
By the time Kitty entered the tent, Chloe was trying to stay still long enough to lace the boots. That was the only downside to them, staying still and fastening them when she felt like her body was vibrating with energy. She took another deep breath, hoping it would help her sound calmer, and asked, “Am I a prisoner or anything or can I go look around on my own?”
Kitty closed her eyes and rubbed her temples for a moment before she answered. “You’re not a prisoner, Chloe. You need to realize, though, that you’re new here and not thinking clearly either. It’s the Verrot making you feel like this. It’s a drug of a sort, but more dangerous because no one can get it out of a bloedzuiger without permission or murder. You need to ride out the initial high, and then you’ll be fine. I thought the exercise earlier would’ve helped.”
“Right. It did. Definitely.” Chloe nodded so quickly that she felt like her teeth were rattling together. “Back at home, in my real world, I was a recovering alcoholic. I’ve done this part before. I might not understand your world, but being smashed I get.”
She shuddered forcefully as the attempt to stand still became too trying. Her body was going to move, with or without her cooperation, and she wanted—
needed
—to be in control of that much at least. As levelly as possible, she asked, “Just tell me where I can’t go.”
Kitty batted Chloe’s shaking hands out of the way and finished fastening the boots. “Later, when you calm down, I’ll apologize for my brother. Right now I’ll shelve it so you can go.” She stood, forced Chloe to look at her, and enunciated very carefully, “Remember what I said about the fences? Don’t touch them.”
Then Kitty walked over and pushed open the tent flap. Chloe followed her to the doorway, and Kitty added, “You need to stay
inside
the camp. Everyone in camp is one of us. Outside camp”—she pointed into the darkened desert—“there are more monsters than I can explain when you’re unable to even stand still. There are cities, forests, rivers, and oceans. There are people—Wastelanders they’re called.
You
stay in camp. Got it?”
Impulsively, Chloe threw herself at Kitty in a tackling hug and then released her just as quickly. “Promise!”
Whatever reply Kitty offered was uttered so quietly that Chloe wouldn’t have heard it even if she waited around, which she didn’t. In a blink, she was outside, standing under two very bright moons and staring at a small tent city that seemed to be nearly empty. This was a far cry from D.C., and while she didn’t know how she’d gotten here or how to figure
that
out, she had every intention of figuring out the world where she now found herself
Carefully, she looked around, trying to decide where to go. She hadn’t taken in too many details earlier. She started to explore, walking as slowly as she could with the Verrot singing in her veins. There were about a dozen tents scattered around, all of them far enough apart to make sure no resident violated another’s privacy. A few fire pits were set in the ground, a strange thing to see in the desert. As Chloe went to investigate one, she saw that the sand was held back by metal rims, and ashy piles of wood and a few small bones mingled with sand in the bottom of the pit. She paced past the pit, avoiding eye contact with the very large man dressed all in black who stepped out of a tent as she passed. She was pretty sure she’d greeted him when she’d been brought to camp, but she couldn’t remember for sure. She ducked her eyes and walked faster in the hopes that he might think she hadn’t seen him. Standing still to talk seemed akin to torture just then—mild torture, but still . . .
As Chloe walked, she realized that the camp seemed to have a very clear perimeter. A line that had been worn into the ground hummed quietly. It appeared to be made of various metals and some sort of crystal. A metal fence extended just outside the line.
She had just stepped closer to the fence when she heard a voice say, “It’ll kill you if you touch it. The fence, I mean.”
“I know,” she said, not exactly admitting that she had forgotten that particular detail. The Verrot made her feel like her body was capable of anything. Later, when the high passed, she would need to . . . do something about her access to it. If it didn’t have a crash like drugs or liquor, maybe she could enjoy feeling like this.
Maybe it really isn’t addictive.
She thought someone had said that earlier. For now, she shoved all her questions away and turned to see the man who’d brought the Verrot to her.
Jack looked as wired as she felt, eyes wide and lips parted. He also looked like he’d be a hell of a good time: muscles and attitude, knowing gaze and inviting lips, and just enough danger to make all of her warning systems go on alert.
“I’d rather you don’t die when you’ve just arrived.”
“Are there things here that
won’t
kill me?” She backed away from the fence, putting herself closer to him, and wasn’t sure if doing this made her more safe or less. “I’m pretty sure I saw a dragon last night. Your sister gave me a skirt cut so I can reach weapons—which she wisely didn’t offer me considering how jittery I am because you drugged me with
vampire blood
.”
“They’re not vampires; they’re bloedzuigers. Katherine just dislikes them, so she calls them that.” He shifted side to side a little, as if standing still was difficult for him too. “I might have been a little hasty about giving Verrot to you without explaining, but it makes you stronger. Drinking it meant you’d shake off the travel sickness faster. You’re already well.”
She licked her lips, thinking of the Verrot, and his gaze focused on her mouth. Somehow, that shift in attention made Chloe feel cornered. She inhaled and exhaled as slowly as she could, trying to force herself to relax. The fence was deadly, so she couldn’t back away, and moving forward now meant moving closer still to a man who, in the short time she’d been here, had carried her across several miles of desert and given her a dangerous drug without warning.
“Being part of the team means trusting my judgment.” Jack’s gaze shifted to the desert behind her.
“Is there something behind me?”
“No. If there was, it couldn’t cross the fence.” He stared directly at her as he added, “I’m just used to looking for trouble.”
He didn’t look away from her, and she wondered if he was suggesting that she was trouble. They stood at an impasse of sorts for long enough that she was considering asking why, but then he turned abruptly and walked away from her.
For reasons that could’ve been either curiosity or stupidity, she ran after him. “What are you doing?”
“Walking.”
“You drank it too.” She caught up to him, feeling self-conscious about the way the borrowed skirt exposed so much skin, but still hoping he’d steal a look at her legs.
He stopped abruptly, forcing her to put a hand on him to steady herself or smash into him. The solid muscle under her hand was as defined as the body of the amateur boxer she’d dated briefly, so much so that she was hit by a guilty temptation to slide her hand down his back. Instead she yanked her hand away from Jack as quickly as she’d reached out.
Jack turned to face her. “Yes, I drank the same Verrot. I need to keep everyone safe; that’s what I do. I patrol. I hunt. Most of us do.” He put a hand to the gun at his hip. “We do what jobs we can here, try to be a force for good and help keep order. It’s how we make our money, and how we atone for the sins that led to our being here.”
“The what?” She stepped backward.
“Someone picked us. Each of the Arrivals has killed someone or done something else horrible before we got sucked into the Wasteland. That’s the only thing we all have in common, Chloe.” Jack swept his arm out in a gesture that made her look around the shadowy, moonlit camp again. “These people are all killers . . . Odds are that you are too.”
Not too much he could’ve said would’ve been as effective at dousing any ember of lust she might have been nursing.
A killer?
Chloe stared at him, but didn’t answer the question he was putting before her. That’s what it was, really: he was asking her to admit to being a killer.
Fuck that.
What she’d done in the past was no one’s business. She knew well enough that there were secrets that were not meant to be shared freely—and certainly not with a man she’d just met. She’d done what she’d done, and that wasn’t something she had ever discussed. Rule number one in taking a life: never talk about it. Some secrets were too dangerous to share. Maybe the crimes of her old life weren’t punishable here, but that didn’t mean there was any reason to discuss them.
She started to walk away from him, but she’d only gone a few steps before he asked, “Can you shoot?”
“What?” She turned back to face him.
“Shoot, Chloe. Are you a decent shot? If you’re going to be with us, you need to have the ability to defend yourself. Guns are easier to handle than knives or any of the native weapons.”
“I’ve been known to hit a few targets,” she hedged.
“I’m going out. I need to do a quick patrol anyhow.” He motioned out at the barren landscape beyond the camp. “If you want to tag along, you can show me what you’ve got.”
It wasn’t an apology; it probably wasn’t even meant as a hint of an apology. What it was, however, was a way of showing his willingness not to pursue the subject of her
sins,
as he called them. That was enough of a concession for her—especially as it came with an invitation to investigate the area outside of camp.
“That sounds all right,” Chloe said. A nagging memory of Kitty’s admonishments to stay in camp floated to the front of her mind, but it wasn’t like she was going out by herself. Jack was with her; he was the boss. Surely, that made it okay. She tried to walk calmly toward him, but she suspected that her sense of what was calm was pretty far from slow just then. Remaining still long enough to carry on a conversation resulted in a buildup of energy. A long walk with some bullets at the end of it sounded awfully tempting.
J
ack didn’t stop to speak to Francis as he reached the guard point. He grabbed a couple of guns and one of the prepacked bags as Francis introduced himself to Chloe. If Jack stopped, he might think about what he was doing, but thinking wasn’t what either he or Chloe needed to do. He’d given her Verrot without even asking. He’d eased new Arrivals into this world for more than two decades. He wasn’t usually this careless.
Jack handed a shotgun to Chloe. Even someone with lousy aim could do some worthy damage with a shotgun. “Here.”
She accepted it, cracked the barrel with surprising familiarity, and snapped it shut. She didn’t speak—and Jack was glad. Mary was dead; Ajani was involved; and he was feeling as jittery as a cat in a house full of rockers. He’d thought that Garuda’s blood wouldn’t be too potent since it was filtered through the newborn bloedzuiger, but he was obviously wrong.
“Tell Katherine we went out when she comes around asking questions,” Jack told Francis. He grabbed a few more supplies and shoved them in the weapons bag he’d picked up. “Tell Edgar I said Katherine isn’t allowed to leave camp. No one is till I get back. If Hector and Melody return before me, tell them too.”
The need to move was growing, not abating, and Jack realized that he’d made a mistake. Not only had he given a new arrival Verrot, but he’d given her Verrot that was too pure. The newborn must also have drunk from Garuda before Jack arrived.
“Come on.” He tossed the bag over his shoulder and headed into the desert.
Chloe followed him. That she was able to keep pace with him so easily was only possible because he’d given her some of Garuda’s gift. Typically, the travel sickness took a few days to work itself out. In a few rare cases, he’d seen it take a week or more. Chloe, however, was far from sick. She sped up a little more, so she was in front of him rather than trailing him.