Текст книги "Backs Against the Wall"

Автор книги: Tracey Ward

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Chapter Two

It’s a mile but it feels like a hundred. It takes less than an hour but it feels like years. By the time Trent slows us down to circle around his gang’s building, I’m panting and sweating from pain, exhaustion, exertion – you name it. If he would stand guard over me while I lay down on the sidewalk and took a nap, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But something about his no-nonsense attitude toward everything makes me think that isn’t happening.

We encountered a few Risen along the way. I got to sit uselessly idle, tucked safely away against a building with my back to the wall, watching as he worked his magic. Trent is quick and efficient. He doesn’t strike a blow that doesn’t serve a purpose. Every use of his energy is a gain for him, every assault is dealt with a higher purpose. I’m good, don’t misunderstand me, but sometimes I get frantic and start whacking away at things, beating them to a pulp until they can’t come at me anymore. It’s exhausting and as I watch Trent, I realize it’s wasteful. And emotional. That dirty word that won’t leave me alone. Or maybe it’s been with me longer than I think, I’m only just noticing it now.

“We’re going to go in a side entrance,” Trent tells me, his eyes fixed on mine. I am powerless to ignore him and that stare. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t ask any questions. Don’t leave my side. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Wait.”

His jaw clenches for a split second. “What?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Inside the den,” he says slowly.

“No, I get that. I’m asking where you’re taking me once we’re inside. You’re obviously hiding me, but I want to know where.”

“Ryan’s room.”

“Does Ryan have a roommate I should worry about?”

“Yes and no.”

“You wanna take a second and spell that out for me?” I ask, feeling annoyed.

“Yes, Ryan has a roommate. No, you don’t have to worry about him.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s me.”

I take a deep, calming breath. “Wouldn’t it have taken less time to simply tell me that instead of making me play 20 Questions with you?”

“It would have taken less time to not answer you at all. We could inside by now. Anything else you want to ask?”

“So many things, but they can wait. For forever probably. Let’s go.”

He leads me across a small side street into an alley. It’s filled with debris both from buildings and life in general. I see soiled mattresses, ripped clothing, fractured plastic pallets, a large satellite dish that I’m guessing came from the roof and just piles on piles of who knows what. Trent jumps on top of a large section of the garbage, a section that I believe to be a true industrial sized garbage bin, but it’s so buried and rusted I can’t be sure. He makes the leap then lands silently, like a cat. A tall, creepy, cryptic cat. His eyes scan the alley, then the roof, then the wall of the neighboring building, me, some garbage and then a window with a sill sitting at nearly eye level for him. He’s processing all of this on some next level that I’ll never understand, mapping it out in his mind and cataloguing it for future use. Or for fun. Maybe attention to detail is how he gets his jollies.

He makes an abrupt motion with his hand, calling me toward him. I have to bite my lip against a cry of agony when he helps me up onto the garbage pile. My left arm is jostled around roughly, and while I tried so hard to leave it slack and never to use it, I still instinctively flex it several times. Liquid lava pumps in my veins as Trent peers through the window. He eventually pries it open, then gestures for me again. He hoists me up onto the sill like I weigh nothing at all and carefully pushes me inside. There’s a table on the other side that I slip down onto, no problem.

I look around, taking in my surroundings. The first thing I notice is the smell. Living in the apocalypse you learn to deal with rancid smells. Rotted everything is everywhere, the most popular of which is rotted wood and textiles. Carpets, couches, rugs, clothes. They get so full of mildew that almost all of the buildings smell of it. But not here. Here the first thing I smell is burning. It’s a clean, campfire kind of smell. Strong, dry wood snap crackling with warm orange flames. It’s probably what’s heating this place. A furnace or fireplace lit somewhere feeding in warm, dry air that chases the moisture away. It’s a luxury I’ve never had living alone. My fires are always dire circumstances, life or death types. Always secret, always scary. And while the Colonists had power and warmth, it wasn’t like this. It was sterile and electric. This is sort of… homey. It reminds me Crenshaw.

I kind of hate it.

Trent leaps silently into the space beside me, his eyes immediately roaming the empty hall we’ve entered. After several beats, he takes my uninjured hand and begins to pull me forward. I jerk my hand away, my heart racing. My skin burning.

He looks back, his face concerned.

I shake my head dismissively, feeling like a psycho, then gesture for him to go ahead.

Bless his cyborg’s heart, he lets it go and gets a move on. He doesn’t ask why I can’t stand to be touched. Why I’m weird. He leads me down a narrow hallway past a series of closed doors. Finally, toward the end of the hall, he opens one and ushers me quickly inside.

The room is small but warm with two beds, one small desk and a window that has been all but boarded shut. The beds are nothing but old, bare mattresses with blankets tossed over them. I notice that the floor is covered in clothes. I glance at Trent in surprise, shocked to see that Mr. Methodical is a pig at heart, but whatever insult or question I had for him dies on my lips. The wall beside one of the beds has been hollowed out, the drywall stripped down, the insulation yanked out. In its place is shelf after shelf secured between the wood. On those shelves are more books than I can ever remember seeing in one place. I’m sure I went to the library at some point as a child, but I honestly can’t remember and right now, I really do not care. Even if those libraries of the old days had housed a million books, they couldn’t compare to this. To one wall full of treasures saved and preserved in a world where everything and everyone wastes away to ash and dust.

“They’re Ryan’s,” Trent tells me, seeing my stare. “He’s a bit of a collector.”

“Little bit,” I mutter in agreement.

“That’s his bed on that side if you want to lie down and rest. He won’t be back for another few hours. You may as well get some sleep.”

I feel myself blush at the idea of laying in his bed. Honestly, I think I’d be more comfortable laying in Trent’s. There’s something less… I don’t know. Meaningful about it, I guess. Sleeping in Ryan’s bed? I almost feel like I’d enjoy it too much.

“I don’t want to bleed on his bed,” I say lamely, gesturing to my jacked up arm.

Trent quirks an eyebrow at me, not buying it. “You’re giving his bed more credit for cleanliness than it deserves.”

“That doesn’t really entice me to jump right in.”

Trent shrugs before taking a seat on his own bed. “Stand then. It’s your call.”

I’m too tired to stand. I’m too beat down, exhausted and aching tired to be proud or embarrassed either. I carefully step through the room, mindful of the piles of clothes on the floor, trying to avoid them and but failing. Then I carelessly collapse on his bed. The sigh that escapes my lips is pure joy leaking from my soul. I slept on a bed in the Colony. It was weird and awesome, but I also resented it. I saw it as a sign of the world being forced on me, of the lie they were all living. But this is different. This mattress is far less comfortable, far more worn and it smells of dude. It has the faint scent of a very familiar soap made by the wizard of the woods and the musky smell of good old fashioned stink. It’s earth and sweat. Grass and warm skin.

This I kind of love.

I lay on my right side with my back to Trent (a massive show of trust or a case of too tired to care on my part), my face close to the books in the wall. It’s a crazy collection, one I think he built based on availability and not personal preference. I don’t recognize any of them. Not until I see the tattered, faded spine tucked in close behind the jagged edge of the crumbling drywall. This one I know immediately.

The BFG.

I want to touch it. I want to pull it out and run through the pages, to get the scent of book in my nose and the feel of the paper beneath my fingers. To read the words and hear my mother’s voice in my warm, darkened room at night as I lay bundled up trying not to fall asleep. But I don’t because it’s dumb. It’s a mistake. It’s crying waiting to happen and I’ve shed enough tears in the last twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime. I’m all tapped out on sad today.

So instead, I close my eyes and I fall asleep.

***

“He’s coming.”

I jerk awake, my arm screaming in pain. I don’t know when I fell asleep or how long I was out, but Trent’s deep, quiet voice snaps me out of it immediately. I sit up in the bed, pressing my back to the wall so I’m facing the door. Outside it I can hear footsteps and a loud, laughing conversation. It’s Ryan. The other voice may be Bray, but I only heard it once before. It’s too long ago and too muffled now to tell for sure. Trent sits at the edge of his bed facing the door. Waiting. It takes me only a moment to notice the knife ready in his patient hand.

“What are y—“

“Shhhh,” Trent shushes me quietly, his eyes steady on mine and his finger pressed to his lips.

With his creepy, all seeing eyes the gesture is just about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’ll get you next time,” someone says from down the hall.

“You say that every time,” Ryan replies, his voice laughing, “and every time, who wins?”

“I will beat you.”

“Every single time.”

“Jerk,” the other person grumbles.

“See you at dinner.”

“Yeah.”

The doorknob turns with a creak. I watch Trent’s hand clench on the handle of his knife, the knuckles going white. Every other inch of him looks completely calm. I look around for a weapon of my own. Something to attack Trent with before he can get to Ryan. There’s nothing. Dirty, holy socks and a worn out muscle tee. Worthless. Who doesn’t sleep with a knife by their bed?!

As the door swings open, I hold my breath, my body going rigid on the bed.

Ryan steps into the room. His face is flushed like he was just running. His hair is standing at odd angles, wet around the edges from his sweat. He looks a mess. A vibrant, broad, beautiful mess.

“Hey, Trent, you’re back. Where did you go—“ Ryan’s voice dies out the second he sees me. Then it bursts to life again, far too loud. “What the f–!!! How did–?!?!”

He cuts himself off both times, biting down on his knuckle and dropping into a crouch in front of the door. He isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s staring at the ground, reining himself in.

Hurried footsteps run back up the hall, heading toward us.

“Ry, you okay?” someone asks. They try the doorknob but Ryan quickly throws the lock. He presses his weight harder on the door. “Open the door, man. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Ryan says, his voice tight. “Trent scared the hell out of me, that’s all. You don’t want to come in. He’s naked.”

I frown, glancing at Trent. He’s grinning.

“Why is he naked?”

“To mess with me. Seriously, it’s fine. I’m good.”

“Alright,” the voice replies. He sounds relieved to be kept on the other side of the door. “Tell Trent to put his gear away.”

“Yeah.”

Ryan stays crouched down, his back to me, as the footsteps fade. When they’re gone, when we all hear the click of a door closing down the hall, he stands up slowly. I watch his shoulders rise and fall quickly with a sharp breath, then he turns to face me. His brown eyes lock on mine.

“How are you here?” he whispers roughly.

I grin, feeling myself glow inside just seeing him again. “It wasn’t easy. Your buddy here got me most of the way.”

He looks at Trent, his eyes falling on the knife and ignoring it. I relax a notch. “You saved her from the Colonists?”

“Just the Risen,” Trent corrects. He lays the knife on the plastic crate serving as a nightstand beside his bed. It makes me more nervous unattended than it did in his hands. “She did the rest herself.”

“And the Eleven,” I correct him.

Trent nods slowly in agreement. “But the Colony, that was all you.”

“You escaped from the Colonists alone?” Ryan asks incredulously.

I shift in the bed, wincing in pain from my arm. Ryan takes another step closer to me. It’s a small room. Two more and he’ll be sitting on the bed with me. I hope he has the sense not to do that.

“Did they do that to you?” he asks, gesturing to my arm, his eyes tightening in the corners. “The Colonists, did they hurt you like that?”

I shake my head. “No, I did this to myself while I was running from them. They gave me pie.”

“What?”

“Pumpkin. It was really good.”

“Then why’d you run?” Trent asks.

I look at him, not sure if he’s making a joke or not. His face is stone.

“You are painfully hard to read,” I tell him.

“Maybe you’re not a strong reader.”

“Is that an insult?”

“It is if you take it as one. Perception is—“

Ryan groans loudly. “Trent, come on. It’s not a great time for a philosophy lecture.”

“Or it’s always a good time and you think otherwise due to your perception.”

“No, just stop. Joss, we need to do something about that arm. It looks rough.”

I nod, fighting the urge to look at it again. If I puke, there’s nowhere to do it in this room where I won’t saturate something he owns. Something he uses on a regular basis and no matter how many times he washes it he’ll remember, always and forever, that this was the thing Joss vomited on.

“I don’t know what can be done,” I tell him. I’m trying not to sound like I’m terrified of the idea of him touching it. Of anyone touching it or moving it, even breathing on it. Why can’t we all just pretend it isn’t there?

Ryan comes closer, closing that meager gap between us. I’m aware of his smell and his heat, the same smell in the bed only stronger. Closer. Warmer.

He frowns at my arm.

“It needs to be set or it will never heal right. We should splint it too.”

“What do you mean by ‘set’ it?” I ask. I know the answer and I know it’ll hurt like crazy, but I have to ask.

He meets my eyes. They look sorry. He’s apologizing already for this thing he hasn’t even done yet. This things that’s going to make me cry again.

I nod my head in understanding.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I lie. I’m angry at him that he’s going to do this to me. It’s not his fault, but I’m still angry.

“I’m also sorry we can’t do it here.”

“Why not?”

“I doubt you’ll be able to keep quiet.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath, but I don’t flinch and I don’t look away. “It’s going to be like that, huh?”

He grins but it looks more like a grimace. “Yeah, it’s gonna be like that.”

Chapter Three

Trent has to go to work up in the Crow’s Nest overseeing the world, so it’s just Ryan and I leaving the building. We go the same way Trent and I came in. Ryan is efficient and agile leaving out the window, like he’s done it a hundred times, and I start to wonder if these guys even use the front door to this place.

When we first start walking, Ryan puts his arm around my waist, pulling me in close to him to either support me, guide me or just remind himself I’m really there. Whatever his motives, it makes me nervous and a little scared. I feel trapped. Small and broken beside his strength. When I gently shake off his hold, he doesn’t say a word. In fact, we both stay silent the entire trip to my home.

Although when two Risen cross our path I get a taste of how Ryan fights. I saw it once before, but it was brief. I was too busy doing my own thing to really worry about his. But now that I’m tucked away in a doorframe again, just as Trent did to me, I get a chance to really see him.

It’s impressive.

He has a weapon I’ve never seen before. It’s like brass knuckles with a spike coming out the middle. When he holds his hand up with all of his fingers curled into his palm around the handle, the spike stands up proudly over his middle finger. Like it’s flipping the entire world the bird. There are only a few spots on the body that this weapon can be used for an instant kill, but Ryan knows them all. He doesn’t hesitate, not one second. He dances around the Risen, looking for the opening he needs, then he strikes like a viper into the eye, the ear. Fast, accurate, brutal. He’s like Trent, quick and efficient, but there’s something so much more fluid about him and his fight. It’s almost like watching a dance.

When he’s done, breathing heavily surrounded by a circle of rotted, mutated bodies, I give him a small round of applause. It’s faint and frail, the best I can do with the hands I have at the moment, but he smiles and bows theatrically. It’s an ugly scene; all death, blood, gore and everything macabre. But there in the middle is this boy. This vibrant, living, breathing, resilient, relentless boy – and he’s smiling. At me.

I cannot help but smile back.

When we finally reach my building, I nearly collapse with relief at being there. I hurry up the steps, jostling my arm painfully but unable to stop myself. I want to see if it’s okay. If all of my things have disappeared or been destroyed. I can’t imagine they’ve been left untouched. Not with Ryan and probably Trent knowing where I live. Something’s bound to have gone missing.

I push inside quickly, Ryan close on my heels. What I see stops my heart. I gasp in shock, unable to understand.

“What?” I whisper to myself.

It’s nothing I expected.

It’s perfect. Everything is in its place. From my bike to the water canister to the Hello Kitty bag I keep my veggies in. It’s all there. Even the blankets that I usually toss onto my makeshift bed are folded neatly. Like they’re waiting for me.

“I came here almost every day,” Ryan says quietly from behind me. “I knew where you were, but I always hoped you’d be here when I came in. Or that one day I’d go to open the door and it’d be locked.”

“How did you know where I was?” I ask, too scared of him and myself to turn around.

“Trent said he saw a girl taken. A girl with long red hair. That would have been enough to convince me, but then he told me she fought like an animal. That she stabbed a guy and broke his nose.” I hear him chuckle softly. “After that, I knew it was you. And I knew that if anyone could get away, it was you.”

“So you waited,” I whisper.

“And I hoped.”

I spin on my heels and I kiss him soundly. I press my body as close to his as my arm will allow and I sigh when his hands slide around me. He’ll never know what that means to me. How much it hurts me to hear him say he hoped I’d come back. That someone out there knew I was gone and wanted me back. It’s what I wanted while I was trapped; for him to remember me and carry me with him in the wild under the free open sky. I’ve been alone for too long, been running from those feelings for years and now here they are staring me in the face, straightening my world and waiting for me to come home. I hate it and I love it and when I think of what I wrote on the wall in the Colony, I whimper quietly in the back of my throat. I missed this. This kiss, these hands, this voice that knows my name, this heartbeat clamoring inside his chest, pushing against mine.

Then I whimper in pain as my arm is crushed between us. Ryan releases me immediately, holding me at arm’s length.

“I’m sorry, Joss,” he mutters, his breathing uneven. “I forgot about your arm. We need to deal with that right now.”

I groan, letting my head hang back. “This is gonna suck so bad.”

“Sorry,” he repeats.

He heads for my bathroom. I’m not surprised when he comes back out with my bottle of vodka.

“Here. Get to work on that. It’ll take the edge off. It’s still going to hurt, but it will hurt a lot less.”

I sniff the open top of the bottle, my lips curling back in disgust. “I’ve never drank it before.”

“I’m a little jealous.”

“Good God, why? It smells like acid.”

Ryan chuckles. “It’ll taste a lot better than the stuff at the markets. Drink too much of what they sell there and you’ll go blind.”

I cringe at the thought of going to the markets. I’m going to have to, though. How else am I going to get an audience with The Hive? I can’t exactly walk up to the door and knock. I’ll be shot or shoved into their stables, no questions asked. It’s something I need to talk to Ryan about, but not yet. One painful thing at a time and right now my arm has soundly called dibs.

I take a swig of the vodka. It’s not bad, not at first. Then the burn hits. I double over, coughing and grabbing at my chest where the heat is coursing through it into my stomach.

“Why?” I gasp, not really sure what I’m asking. Why do people drink this stuff? Why does it hurt so bad? Why are my insides on fire?

“You okay?”

“Ugh!” I groan. I stand up straight, my face frozen in a tortured grimace as the burn just keeps on going. “This is terrible.”

Ryan shakes his head. “That’s the good stuff. And you’ll need more of it than that. Better keep drinking before you lose your nerve.”

I glare at him, thinking of the rooftop. The jump. The fall.

“I never lose my nerve.”

He silently makes a drinking motion with his hand before crossing his arms over his chest, watching me patiently.

I take three more good, long pulls off the bottle before I hand it back to him. It was easier doing it all at once. I still want to die, though. Ryan stows the bottle back in the bathroom before coming to stand in front of me again. He doesn’t say anything, just watches me.

“What?” I ask, feeling antsy being under the microscope.

“Now we wait. It’ll hit you soon.”

“What’s it going to feel like?”

He smirks. “What does drunk feel like? Uh, good, I guess is the best way to describe it. You’ll be a little dizzy, feel a little flushed. You might vomit eventually.”

I frown. “So it’s like being sick.”

“Kinda, yeah. But in a good way. You’ll laugh more, which will be nice.”

“Do you have a problem with my attitude?”

“Asked the girl frowning at me,” he retorts, pointing at my furrowed brow. I try to relax it, but I don’t know if it works. Ryan grins. “Nah, I like you’re attitude, Joss. But I like your laugh too.”

“You’ve barely heard it.”

“Exactly. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Why do you like me, Ryan?” I mumble quietly. “I’m not nice.”

“Oh good,” he says, taking my shoulders, “it’s working.” He sits me down on my bed, pressing my back against the wall. I’m glad to be sitting because the room has started to tilt. “You haven’t eaten recently, have you?”

“Not for hours and hours and hours.”

“This will be fun,” he mutters.

He leans in close. I think he’s going to kiss me, but his head passes by mine as his fingers get to work on the knot of my sling. When it releases, I’m not ready and the pain explodes through my entire body. I grit my teeth hard, willing myself not to make a sound. He sees it when he sits back.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh huh,” I grunt.

“Joss, it’s okay to—“

“I said I’m fine.”

“Alright.”

What happens next is a waking nightmare. Fixing the damage done to my body hurts worse than the damaging did. Tears stream down my face as Ryan methodically cleans, sets and splints my arm. Because the bone pushed through the skin, I’m in danger of getting an infection. I’m also in white hot agony because Ryan had to realign the bone before he splinted it to make sure it heals right.

That. Hurt.

I’ve never sworn so much in my life. I curse Ryan up and down, sideways, forward and backward, but he never flinches. Never hesitates. He’s calm and collected, completely methodical through the entire thing. He ignores the sweat pouring down my forehead, the shaking in my limbs, the tremble in my voice. At one point, I grab onto his shoulder with my good hand and clench down on it with all my strength, but he keeps right on working. I’ve bruised him, I know it, but he never complains.

When it’s done, when I’m shaking with exhaustion, he finally looks up at me. I expect to find pity or sadness, but there’s nothing. He’s gone numb inside. To do what had to be done, to hurt me to help me, he’s tapped out entirely. Based on his skill at cleaning and splinting my arm, this isn’t his first time. He’s done this over and over again and in order to stay sane, he’s gotten good at not feeling it.

I take a deep, shuddering breath then manage a meager grin.

“Thanks,” I breathe.

“Ha,” he laughs shortly, not sounding at all amused. “I don’t think that deserves gratitude.”

“It wouldn’t heal right if you hadn’t done this,” I mutter, feeling suddenly too weary to live, “and I’d die without it.”

He looks at me long and hard, his expression still carefully blank. I wait, wondering what he’s thinking. Eventually I can’t take it anymore.

“You wanna take a hit of that vodka with me?”

“Hell yeah,” he mutters, already heading for the bathroom.

He sits down beside me, just a breath of space between us, but it’s enough. It’s enough so that I don’t feel overwhelmed with how close he is. That I don’t feel boxed in and afraid. It’s close enough that I know he’s there and the loft doesn’t feel so huge. So empty.

He takes a hit off the bottle before handing it over to me. I take a drink as well, this time not minding the burn so much.

“I need to go out and get you something for the infection,” he says, sounding as tired as I feel.

“We don’t know I have one yet.”

“You will,” he replies, taking the bottle back and downing another swig. “The world is dirty. Where did it happen?”

“On a roof.”

“Do I want to know how?”

“I jumped. It was too far.”

He nods silently beside me. We both stare into the distance, passing the bottle back and forth without a word. I look at the wall by the door, the one where he once wrote his address. I wiped it off not long after he did it. Not long after I decided I could stay. Not long after I memorized it.

“How’d you get out?”

It’s the million dollar question. It’s one I would have asked a long time ago, but Ryan is more patient than I am. It’s also a question I don’t want to answer because the answer is too ugly. Too real. But if anyone is going to understand it, it’s Ryan.

My heart is in my throat, threatening to choke me, but I swallow past it.

“I killed a woman,” I tell him hoarsely.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He barely breathes.

“She tried to kill me,” I tell him quietly, because I feel compelled to explain. To make him understand. To make sure I understand. “She stabbed my friend. I’m not even sure he’s still alive. But then she came at me too and I knew she’d kill me if she got the chance. I knew she’d finish him off when I was gone, so I killed her.”

I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, thumping loudly. Painfully. It hurts to breathe.

“It was easy,” I whisper.

Ryan clears his throat, then hands me the bottle. “You’ll never get over it.”

I pause, the bottle at my lips. “Gee, thanks. That’s helpful.”

“You won’t because you’re a good person. Because you know it’s messed up. That it’s wrong. It’s been over a year and I’m not over doing it. I know I never will be, but I live with it. Sometimes it even makes me feel better knowing that I can’t get over it.”

I take a drink, hand the bottle back.

“Why?” I wheeze against the burn.

He takes a long drink. “Because if I hate it, I’m still human, you know? I’m not an animal yet. Not like some of the other people out there.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

Ryan shrugs, capping the bottle. “Whether it does or it doesn’t, it’s what works for me. Maybe it will work for you or maybe you’ll have to find something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, I’m not an expert.”

“Maybe I should ask one,” I mumble, thinking of The Hive looming in my future and the many killers within its walls. I spin Vin’s ring absently, wondering if he’s still alive. The ring feels especially heavy on my finger, weighing down my already injured, aching arm.

“What’s that?” Ryan asks, eyeing the ring.

“A key.”

“To what?”

I sigh heavily. “Probably my own prison.”