Still, Jack could allow that his walking in and offering Verrot to Chloe without any conversation with Katherine on the subject hadn’t been the most graceful way to handle things. The truth was that Chloe was a liability—and that Jack wasn’t thinking anywhere near as clearly as he should. If he’d had time to ride out the initial rush of the Verrot, he’d have handled things better, but for reasons he wasn’t grasping just yet, this particular high was clouding his mind a little more than usual.
He took a calming breath. His mind was speeding. The challenge now was to harness the speed. Maybe another patrol. Killing something sounded very relaxing.
First, though, he needed to drop off the Verrot in his tent, but he couldn’t stay there. He had to check in on Hector—or maybe that was just the excuse he clung to in order to keep from facing the reality that sleep wouldn’t be coming soon or fast. Or at all. If Mary were still alive, it would have been less of an issue.
Since she’d died, he’d felt like he should mourn her more than he was because they’d had an understanding, but that would be a lie of the sort that he and Mary had agreed not to indulge in at the beginning of their arrangement. Neither one of them had any illusions about what they were. He wished they had sometimes. He hadn’t felt anything more than physical needs for anyone in far too long. He cared for his baby sister, and he respected Edgar to the degree that he’d call it affection of a sort. Lately, it didn’t seem enough. He wanted to feel, to care about something beyond the job, and if he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he sometimes suspected that he only cared about the job out of habit.
The cause, the ideal that had once driven him, was the slight thread of belief that they could improve their situation by doing the right thing. Unfortunately, he hadn’t believed that in years. Nothing that he did or said mattered. He was pretty sure that this was where they were until they died; he just couldn’t confess to the others. Even if he had no faith, he pretended to because it gave the others something to cling to. The only thing Jack truly believed anymore was that he would do his level best to look after the small band of people who’d ended up in the Wasteland.
Some days Jack wasn’t sure if he wanted to know why they’d all ended up in the Wasteland; on other days he wanted that answer the way a drunkard wanted one more drink. The bits of truth that he’d parsed together weren’t comforting, but he couldn’t stop trying to make the Arrivals’ peculiar lot in life make sense. Back in California, he hadn’t been a particularly God-fearing man. If he were a confessing man, he might even admit that he’d broken most of the commandments. Repeatedly.
He wasn’t exactly a good example either. It was his fault that Katherine had taken up gambling and ended up working in a saloon. Such habits wouldn’t have been her way if not for his own failings. He hadn’t protected her, hadn’t made sure she was tucked away in a good position or wed like a lady should be. Instead, when his parents passed on, he’d brought Katherine with him like baggage. Worse yet, he’d brought her here to the Wasteland. She’d been holding on to his arm when he last stood in a sodden alleyway in California, and the next thing they knew, they were in a strange new world. More than a few times he’d wondered if his failings had caught the attention of some god or devil who’d cast them out of their home into this world where monstrosities roamed. And, after more than two decades in the place, he still had no idea how to improve their future.
When Jack returned to the guard post, Hector barely hid his look of surprise. He was one of the least subtle of their group, quick to anger and quick to laughter. Hector attracted a different sort of attention in the Wasteland than the rest of the team, mostly because his wiry muscles were liberally decorated with tattoos. The art of body decoration wasn’t something Jack had seen back home, but in the Wasteland it was common. Here, every bloedzuiger had a pack brand, and many members of the monastic order had their own inked symbols. Other Wastelanders had tribe affiliations or achievement decorations on their flesh. Among the Arrivals, though, it was rare—but Hector was happy to use his art as a way to ease the discomfort the native Wastelanders felt with the Arrivals.
He leaned back on his stool and glanced over at Jack. “Did you forget something?”
“No.” With effort, Jack kept himself from speaking too quickly or too much. “I’ll finish shift.”
“Sure.” Hector grabbed his personal knives and headed out. He was a decent enough man, never asking questions that Jack didn’t know how to answer—or if he had such questions, he didn’t belabor the point by pressing them when Jack ignored them. All told, Hector was an asset that Jack would miss when he eventually didn’t wake up.
It was nice to have at least one or two relatively uncomplicated people in his life. Like Mary. Francis often bordered on uncomplicated, but right now he was second only to Katherine on Jack’s needing-a-smack-in-the-head list. Admittedly, though, that list changed often. Depending on how Edgar was handling Katherine’s behavior and how Chloe handled the Verrot, any of them could easily knock Francis back to the bottom of Jack’s list of problem children.
Jack spent the next few hours scanning the desert, wishing he was out in it rather than trying to stand in one place. Forcing himself to do so, testing his own discipline, was a better theory than reality. He paced while he watched animals run, fly, and scuttle. He loaded, unloaded, and reloaded guns. He sharpened blades. By the time Francis arrived to take the midnight shift, Jack was ready to forgive him for letting Katherine leave camp simply because he showed up on time. Standing guard while he was humming with this much energy was far more trying than it had ever been.
“She’s not helpless, and she was upset, and she wasn’t going in the dark, and I told you not too long after.” Francis’s words were one long rambling stream, followed by a gulp of breath.
“I know.” Jack stood and stretched as if he were as tired as he should be.
“Edgar’s going to kill me, isn’t he?” Francis pushed his floppy hair back.
“I suspect that all depends on Katherine. Just don’t be stupid again.”
Francis rocked back on his heels, pushed his thin brown ponytail over his shoulder, and stared at Jack like a dog that had lived on the edge of town too long.
Jack shifted the rifle from his lap to the table beside him. It was still in reach, but now that the darkness had receded, he didn’t need to be as alert. “Starting tomorrow, you’re on early daylight guard. I’ll give Edgar the early night shifts the next few days. That should buy you time for him to calm down before you have to cross paths.” He concentrated on speaking at a normal pace as he detailed the plan he’d used far too many times already. “Don’t do anything else stupid, Francis.”
Francis nodded and turned his attention to the desert, and Jack walked toward the tents.
Katherine stood outside her tent with her arms folded over her chest, her boot-clad foot tapping in the sand and a look on her face that reminded him almost painfully of their mother.
“You simple fucking idjit.” Katherine stomped toward him. If there’d been boards under their feet, her footsteps would’ve resounded like warning alarms. As it was, her stomping toward him merely set dust to swirl around her, creating the illusion of steam radiating from her. Jack couldn’t stop grinning even as she reached up and poked a finger into his chest.
“Where did you get it? Never mind. It was that bony bastard, wasn’t it? You know better. Seriously!” She was now shaking her finger at him. “I know you drank it too. Are you a . . . never mind, we both know you are.” She finished her diatribe with a little half-muffled scream and then added, “Say something!”
“You look like Mam right now.”
All of the steam left her in a whoosh of a sigh. “That’s not fair.”
Jack knew he should take advantage of her moment of softness, so he said, “Ajani is involved in the monk situation. I need you to drink it too.”
“Jack—”
“Don’t make me resort to something barbaric to make you dr
ink it,” he half begged. “We’re down one fighter, and if Ajani is coming around again, you and Edgar are the biggest targets.”
“And you. And Hector, and Francis, and Melody because he’ll see them as expendable. And Chloe because she’s new.” Katherine ticked off their names on her fingers. “Oh God, he’s going to know about Chloe before she has a chance to adjust, isn’t he?”
“That’s why I gave her the Verrot,” Jack pointed out as mildly as he could.
Katherine shivered a little. “There’s no way he could’ve known Mary wouldn’t wake, right? I mean, that’s imposs—”
“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.
Chapter 13
Chloe 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 ha
sty 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.