Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2)

  There was a fourth man, a Dead Rabbit built like a fucking brick shithouse. He saw Cavalo and Bad Dog first, from his perch in the far corner of the room, hidden in shadows.

  He said, “Hey. Hey. Hey.”

  Zag was laughing so hard he was choking.

  Dory and Aggie looked over at the man in the corner, who pushed himself up from the wall.

  Bad Dog went for the laughing man. Zag.

  The large man took another step said, “Hey.”

  Cavalo said, “Hey,” and kept his promise, throwing the knife end over end. The blade buried itself in Dory’s throat. Dory gagged, eyes wide, his hands coming up scrabble along the hilt, blood spraying out around his fingers.

  He said, “Guh,” as Cavalo moved snake-quick, darting around the lumbering giant. The man reached for him, hands blistered and leaking like a nightmare.

  Cavalo heard Zag stop laughing and start screaming as Bad Dog snarled, but Cavalo paid them no mind. The large man would follow him, and Cavalo had work to do.

  The giant said, “Hey,” again, as if that were the only word he knew, and Cavalo almost laughed as he pulled the knife from Dory’s throat, slicing the would-be rapist’s fingers. Dory looked shocked. Surprised, even, and Cavalo remembered what Hank had said about surprises. What Deke had thought about surprises.

  He stabbed Dory in the heart. Up through the ribs. It took only seconds.

  Aggie stood. Shocked. Not quite comprehending. Part of him probably thought he was still about to fuck Lucas. To fuck him because he’d never fucked anything or anyone before. He was young. Thin. His eyes were sunken in his skull. Lesions along his arms. His neck. His tongue darted out quick, wetting his lips. He looked as if he were trying to smile, but it got stuck partway through a grimace.

  Cavalo saw Lucas over his shoulder. Lucas, whose eyes were narrowed and filled with rage. Lucas, who—

  Arms wrapped around him.

  Pulled him tightly toward a muscular chest.

  The stink of fetid rot surrounded him, and the large man whispered in his ear, “Hey.”

  Aggie took a step toward them as the knife clattered to the floor.

  “I know you,” Aggie said, sounding awed.

  Cavalo kicked his feet up off the dirty floor and pushed back. He brought his legs up and pushed out, knocking Aggie in the chest.

  The large man grunted and took a faltering step back as Aggie stumbled directly into Lucas, who had pulled himself up using the chains until he could wrap his legs around Aggie’s neck. Aggie began to kick and scratch, letting out a garbled scream that cut off when Lucas squeezed his legs together tightly.

  Cavalo struggled against the giant. His breath was crushed from his chest as the arms tightened further. He felt his ribs creak dangerously, and the—

  The giant cried out in his ear, brassy and bright. His grip loosened, but before Cavalo could break out of his hold, the giant hurled him toward the far wall. What little breath Cavalo had managed was knocked from his body as he landed on the floor. He raised his head and saw Bad Dog, teeth buried in the giant’s calf, snarling and snapping his head back and forth. The giant grunted and reached down, punching Bad Dog in his side.

  Bad Dog whined pitifully, jaw slackening, but he didn’t let go.

  The knife was on the floor, feet away.

  Cavalo pushed himself up, ignoring the flare in his wrist.

  He gritted his teeth as the giant raised his fist and brought it down onto Bad Dog again.

  Bad Dog didn’t let go.

  Cavalo took a breath. His vision was spotty. It hurt to breathe.

  Another fist to the dog.

  Cavalo saw red.

  He lunged toward the knife, but Aggie’s foot knocked into it as he fought Lucas. The knife skittered along the floor and bumped into the giant’s boot.

  The giant grinned. He bent over. Picked up the knife.

  Brought it up and over his head. Bad Dog shuddered and refused to let go.

  Cavalo said, “No. Please. No.”

  A flat crack burst in the room. A flash of light. The smell of acrid burning.

  The giant said, “Hey,” as blood poured from the bullet exit wound in the middle of his forehead. “Hey. Hey, don’t.”

  He fell to his knees. Then onto his face. Then he died.

  Richie stood, arm still outstretched, a thin curl of smoke twisting around the barrel of his handgun. He was pale. His hand shook.

  Cavalo said, “Richie. You. I. Thank you.”

  Richie nodded and swallowed thickly. He dropped his arm. The gun twitched at his side.

  There was dry rattling off to his right. Cavalo pulled himself up and looked over.

  Aggie’s hand stretched toward Cavalo. His eyes bulged from his head. His face was flushed with blood. He begged silently. Begged Cavalo to help him. To save him.

  They’d been here before, this situation.

  Wilkinson. Back in Cottonwood.

  It’s all happened before, Cavalo thought. And it will all happen again.

  Lucas’s mouth was twisted in a silent snarl as the muscles in his legs tensed. He jerked his knee to the left sharply, right below Aggie’s ear. Aggie’s head snapped to the side at an odd angle. There was a wet crack. Aggie’s feet kicked out on the ground. Then he stopped, hands falling to his sides.

  Lucas released him and he slumped to the floor, eyes wide and unseeing. Lucas lowered himself back to the ground, chains rattling above him. He took a breath. Let it out slowly. Grinned at Cavalo with his red teeth. With his beaten face. And for a moment, Cavalo forgot that it was done, that this first fight was over, and in the cold, underneath the surface miles above his head, he thought, knee to groin, dislocate right shoulder, gouge eyes, break neck, and he had to force himself up. He had to force the cold away, to breach the surface because he was this close.

  Lucas knew. He always knew. And his bloody smile never wavered.

  If anything, it grew.

  The bees laughed at the both of them.

  Cavalo came back into himself. There was regret waiting for him, as it always did when bodies piled up around him. But he pushed it away, knowing it would still be there if they survived this day.

  He opened his mouth to ask where the keys to the manacles were. He opened his mouth to tell them they needed to move quickly. Instead, he said, “I would do that again. I would kill all of them. For you. They hurt you, and I would kill them again and again.”

  The bloody smile wavered. Trembled. And for the briefest of moments, the clever monster was gone, and in its place stood a young man, barely in his twenties, hurt and afraid, bloody and bruised, and didn’t Cavalo’s heart just ache then? Didn’t it just burn at the sight of him?

  It did. Because Lucas was little more than a child in a dark world.

  It could have been different. For him. If he’d been born to anyone else. It could have been different.

  Cavalo then thought of Deke and wondered if it even mattered at all.

  But the illusion was gone. Because Lucas was not innocent. He was not a child.

  Cavalo stepped over the body on the floor and kissed Lucas. Lips met and teeth clashed, and Cavalo tasted blood, his or Lucas’s, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. They were the same, now.

  He pulled away but only just. He pressed his forehead against Lucas’s and breathed him in. He stank of sweat and gore, but Cavalo could feel the beat of his pulse as his thumb brushed over the Dead Rabbit’s neck.

  Lucas said, You came for me.

  “Yes.”

  You shouldn’t have.

  “I know.”

  But you did anyway.

  “Yes.”

  Stupid man, Lucas said. You stupid, stupid man.

  Cavalo kissed him again. Then stepped away.

  “Keys,” he said gruffly. “Who has them.”

  Lucas glanced down at the floor. At Dory.

  “Watch the door,” Cavalo said to Richie.

  Richie nodded, glancing between Lucas and Cavalo w
ith something that resembled shock. Cavalo stuttered only once in his step when he realized he’d kissed Lucas in front of Richie. Richie, who didn’t know about them. Richie, who belonged to Cottonwood. Who didn’t know about them.

  There was no disgust there. On Richie. Not yet.

  “You okay?” Cavalo asked as he crouched over Dory. He reached out and ran a hand over Bad Dog’s head, tugging gently on his ears.

  Bad Dog whined and took a careful step toward Cavalo. Hurts, Bad Dog said.

  “Bad?”

  Maybe. Breathing hurts. I’ll live. Smells Different okay? His blood. I can smell his blood on the bad guys.

  “He’s okay,” Cavalo said. “Just banged up. Like you. Like me.”

  We’re not very good at rescuing, Bad Dog said. He walked gingerly over to Lucas and bumped his head into Lucas’s knee.

  Cavalo almost smiled. He dug through Dory’s pockets, wishing the man was alive so he could kill him again. He hadn’t had time to enjoy it.

  His fingers brushed cold metal, and he pulled the keys from Dory. There were three. One didn’t look like a normal key. It was flat and rectangular, the edges chipped and worn. He hoped it would be one of the other two. If the key wasn’t here, he didn’t know what they’d do.

  Of course you do, the bees said. You’d pick up his knife and stab him in the heart. Then, you’d cut off the skin from his stomach and chest and leave the body behind. The blueprints would be destroyed, and everything would go back to the way it used to be.

  He took the knife from the dead giant’s hands.

  Lucas watched him, never fooled.

  The first key didn’t fit. Wasn’t even close.

  Cavalo fumbled with the second.

  He thought maybe he would just die here too. Tell Richie to go. To take Bad Dog and just go. He thought it fitting that he could die in this haunted and fucked-up place.

  He wondered what it meant that he was so quick to die. So easy to make that decision. It probably meant nothing good.

  The key fit, though. Of course it did.

  You could still kill him, the bees insisted, because that’s what they did.

  Instead, he moved to the second manacle.

  The key didn’t fit.

  That was okay, he told himself.

  He could do this.

  He would just cut off Lucas’s arm. It would be okay. It would all be okay.

  The manacles were mismatched.

  Before he could use the knife, he tried the first key again.

  The manacle unlocked.

  He felt a sort of relief.

  Lucas grimaced as he dropped his arms, wincing and rolling his shoulders. Rubbing his wrists. Cavalo shrugged off his heavy overcoat, draping it on Lucas’s shoulders, covering bare skin. It was cold outside. He needed to keep Lucas warm.

  Lucas scowled at him. I’m fine, he said.

  “I know,” Cavalo said. “We have to leave.”

  Lucas looked around the room. Cocked his head, listening. The room around them creaked and groaned. Where are we?

  “You didn’t see when they brought you here?”

  He shook his head, touching the side of his head where the skin was split and bruised. Knocked me out.

  “Who?” Cavalo asked, anger rising.

  Lucas said, SIRS. He looked away.

  And Cavalo was angry but for different reasons. “Dworshak,” he said. “We’re underneath Dworshak. And I guess that means you don’t know how to get out of here.”

  Lucas’s good eye widened. No, he said. I didn’t know. I’ve never been here.

  Richie took a step back into the room. “I remember the way back out,” he said. “To the hatch.”

  Cavalo eyed him. “Do you?”

  He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I think so.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Cavalo wanted to be angry, but then he remembered he’d run after his dead son through the tunnels underneath Dworshak. He thought maybe he had no place to be angry. At least not at Richie.

  “I need you to be sure,” he said as Lucas took his knife back.

  Richie nodded. “I can be. I promise. I’ve got this.”

  His lack of confidence wasn’t what Cavalo wanted to hear, but they didn’t have much choice. “How much time do we have?”

  “Thirty minutes. A little less.”

  They’d be cutting it close. “You good to go?” he asked Bad Dog.

  Bad Dog huffed. Fine. Fine. I’m fine. Move. Let’s go. I don’t like this place, and I want to find Tin Man and go home. You owe me so much jerky.

  “I know,” Cavalo said. “Home.” He liked the sound of that. He didn’t think it was a possibility, but he liked the sound. He’d never thought of the prison as home before. Not really. And now that he was so far removed from it, he realized it was nothing but their home.

  “We move quickly,” he said, taking Richie’s machete from him and leaving him with the handgun. The less noise the better. “We move quietly. Follow my lead.”

  Lucas grinned, splitting his lip. Blood dribbled onto his chin.

  He moved toward the door. The others followed behind him.

  They were up the stairs and back into the main corridor. The stairs in front of them went up. The arrow pointed farther down the hall to the right. The left was where they’d come from.

  They went left. Cavalo, Richie, Lucas, and Bad Dog in the rear. Cavalo knew the first turn up ahead. He remembered that much at least. His son had turned that last corner and disappeared, leaving only Mr. Fluff to rest at the bottom of the stairs. But Mr. Fluff had been gone when they’d come out of the room, hadn’t he? He’d been gone because someone had taken him. Or he’d never been there at all.

  Cavalo didn’t know which was worse.

  He started to turn the corner, looking back over his shoulder. “Richie, you’ll have to—”

  He bumped into a Dead Rabbit.

  The Dead Rabbit stumbled back.

  Cavalo stopped. Richie came up behind him.

  Richie said, “Oh no. Please no.”

  There were at least ten of them. All males. All in various stages of decay. Tumors and lesions. Open wounds that leaked pus and blood and from one man, a black, viscous liquid pulsed from his neck with every breath he took.

  It happened quickly because that was the only way Cavalo knew how to react.

  The Dead Rabbits looked shocked.

  Lucas took in a sharp breath.

  Bad Dog started to growl.

  Cavalo moved. The Dead Rabbit in front of him, the one he’d bumped into, was recovering from his stumble. His coat was open. He wore a belt around his waist, resting against his hips, and Cavalo knew what those things attached to the belt were. He knew because once upon a time, before his world had ended, his son had held one such thing in his hands, and Cavalo had thought he could save him. Had thought he could protect him from the monsters.

  The Dead Rabbit had a grenade belt. Completely full.

  Cavalo brought up the machete, hooking the tip into the belt. He jerked it upward, and the Dead Rabbit gasped as the blade punched through the leather and into his stomach. The belt started to slide, and the Dead Rabbits in the corridor began to snarl, and it’d only been seconds, mere seconds since he’d rounded that corner, and they had one shot at this, one fucking chance.

  The Dead Rabbit screamed as blood spilled from his stomach.

  The grenade belt began to slide from his waist.

  Cavalo caught the belt on the blade, turning to roar over his shoulder, “Go!”

  The Dead Rabbits began to surge.

  The gut-punched Dead Rabbit took a step forward.

  Richie, Lucas, and Bad Dog turned to run.

  Cavalo flipped the blade up, the grenade belt coming toward him.

  He grabbed it with his bad wrist, ignoring the protests of his aching body.

  He just needed one as he took a step back. Just needed one—

  He squeezed the h
andle of the grenade.

  His finger hooked into the pin on one of the grenades.

  He pulled.

  It came out with the greatest of ease.

  He dropped the pin. Let the handle go.

  It snapped off, spinning out toward the wall.

  He threw his arm out in a flat arc, tossing the grenade belt back at the Dead Rabbits.

  The Dead Rabbit in the front reached for him, the grenade belt colliding with his face.

  Cavalo kicked him in the chest, knocking him back.

  The Dead Rabbit fell into the others charging down the corridor.

  The ones in front stumbled and fell.

  Cavalo spun on his heels and ran.

  He rounded the corner and thought, move move move.

  Richie, Lucas, and Bad Dog were farther down the corridor, almost to the stairs.

  The cries of rage and fury rose behind him.

  He remembered how long it took for his son to disappear in a concussive flash.

  Seconds.

  Mere seconds. That’s all it had taken. That’s all that it would take now.

  And move. Move. Move.

  The look on Jamie’s face when his mother had been shot, his hands covering his ears, and he said Daddy—

  There was a dull fwump from behind him. A blast of hot air at his back. The floor shook under his feet and the concrete walls shifted with a groan. He fell forward, pulling his broken wrist across his chest and twisting to land on his shoulder.

  The impact was jarring, Cavalo’s breath knocked from his chest. Somewhere, he thought he heard an alarm shrieking deep within the dam. He gritted his teeth together and shook his head, trying to clear his vision. There was a brief moment where he was unsure of where he was or who he was, just a clean blank slate, and everything was nice. Everything was wonderful. Nothing bad had ever happened, and nothing had ever hurt.

  Arms grabbed under his, pulling him up. He tried to bat them away, saying no, no, no because it was okay now. It was fine. It was—

  Hands cupped his cheeks as he sat on his knees. He opened his eyes and saw a hard and beaten face in front of him. He knew that face. He felt a great many things for that face. Anger. Desire. Pity. Remorse. Adoration. And something else he couldn’t quite grasp, something else he didn’t want to know, because it was too much, it was just like Jamie and her and it—