Survival Instincts, page 10
“Let him go. He’s good at sensing danger. If he’s gearing up to hunt rats, it’s probably clear.” From what Lynn could see of the chapel beyond, it wasn’t that big anyway; not much room for anything to hide.
Skeever sprang forward with a crisp bark.
Dani entered more slowly with her spear raised, but only a few seconds later she lifted the shaft so it rested against her shoulder. “All clear.”
Lynn swallowed. Now that they had arrived, a mixture of relief and dread filled her. She couldn’t help feeling as if she were walking toward her sentencing. Had the incisors ripped her skin from flesh and flesh from bone? How much blood had she lost? How much grime had gotten into the wounds? If they got infected, would she lose her arm—or her life? Her chest seemed to compress and prevented air from getting into her lungs. She attempted to distract herself by looking around.
The chapel consisted of a single carpeted room probably twenty by fifteen paces across. It was filled with rows of dust-caked and partially destroyed chairs. The high ceiling sloped up to a point at the center and was covered with slim wooden boards, many of them on the verge of falling down. A kaleidoscope of colors spread across the wall opposite the door. Their source was a stained-glass window that Lynn only glanced at in favor of further inspection of her unfamiliar surroundings.
Skeever growled and yipped.
Something small scurried past.
A faded American flag moved in the breeze as Skeever chased the rodent into the left-hand side of the room. The tattered cloth hung over half a dozen upturned coffins.
Coffins? In a church? Lynn frowned. “What is this place?”
“Cemetery.” Dani jiggled a chair leg jammed behind the handles of a set of secondary entrance doors on the right. She pushed then pulled at it until she seemed satisfied the door was properly barred. “This was the place where they held the uh…services, I guess.” She motioned to the coffins. “Busy day.”
Lynn snorted despite herself.
Dani smiled fleetingly. “I’ll stand guard so you can…” She nodded toward Lynn’s arm, then busied herself by standing sentry at the main entrance.
Despite Dani’s outward hardening, Lynn suspected she felt responsible for what had happened—and she should.
Lynn slid her tomahawk into the loop on her belt and pulled up a chair. All right, let’s do this. Careful with her arm, she lowered her pack onto the seat. With every button she popped on her jacket, she drew a slow breath, but her hands weren’t steady and her heartbeat continued to thunder. She shrugged her jacket down her good right arm and peeled it off her throbbing left arm. As the heavy leather slid over the wound, sharp pain forced her to suck in a shuddering breath. She soldiered on. Her coat fell to the floor and threw up dust. Less blood than she’d expected had soaked into the wool of her sweater. It was a hopeful sign, which nevertheless proved nothing. She paused.
Dani hadn’t moved.
Skeever noisily chewed on something in a corner.
Lynn had as much privacy as she was going to get, but she still turned her back to Dani. She didn’t want Dani to see either her arm or her expression before she’d had a chance to come to grips with how it looked. Her hand trembled, and she flexed and clenched, flexed and clenched to steady it. She gripped her wrist and fastened her gaze on the display of colors on the wall. Deep breath. She pushed up her sleeve. The wool tore loose where blood had already dried, and pain coursed up her arm. She puffed out her breath. The force of her pulse inside her skull was giving her a headache.
Breathe. Look down. Just…look down. She did.
Relief flooded her system as strong as a wave. Oh thank fuck.
The upper canines had punctured her skin and had torn into the flesh below, but the incisors had only broken the skin in a few places. She turned her arm over. Bruises had already started to form, and her skin was torn in a few more places. She was lucky that her coat and sweater had protected her against what she’d feared the most: the tearing away of the skin from the flesh that was so telling of a wolf’s bite. This, if treated properly, would heal. With a little luck and a lot of care, it wouldn’t get infected. She wouldn’t lose her arm.
She pressed her eyes shut. Thank fuck. A lump constricted her throat, and she swallowed. “It’s not as bad as I thought.” She sounded hoarse. Her legs threatened to give out. I need to sit down. She lowered her pack from the chair and slumped onto it.
Dani had turned and lingered by the door. She glanced away when Lynn looked up. “Good.”
“I’d say so.” Lynn examined her.
A little bit of the tension had drained from Dani’s posture. Something else was different too. The distance between them was the same as it had been since they’d left the Homestead, but unlike that first frustrating half morning, Dani now seemed to be repelled by Lynn’s presence where before Dani’s anger had repelled Lynn.
When Lynn realized she was frowning, she straightened out her face. “I need water.”
“Right!” Dani cast a quick look outside, then walked back, slipping off her backpack. She lowered herself and it to the floor by Lynn’s legs and pulled her water sack from its depths. “Here.”
Lynn took the sack and pulled the bone stopper from the neck with her teeth. She dropped it to her lap and pondered how to proceed. The thought of jugging perfectly good water over her arm didn’t sit well with her.
“Do you need help?” Dani’s tone was deceptively light.
“No!” Lynn winced as the reflexive snap left her mouth. Deep breath. No need to take her head off. Shit happened; you’re alive. “No, but I could use a bowl and something to wash with.” There, I’ll become a socially capable being yet. But why should she? She wasn’t sticking around. Her nerves were too frayed for these types of thoughts, she decided, and focused on the task at hand.
Dani rummaged through her backpack and came up with a rag and a bowl. “Here.” She was still down on a knee and offered Lynn the tools.
Lynn took them, happy to note her hand cooperated fully even though her arm smarted. She poured some water into the bowl and handed the sack back to Dani. “Thanks.”
Dani nodded. She sat on the dirty ground and stretched out her legs before rotating her ankle joints.
Were Dani’s feet sore already? Lynn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn’t even noon. It’s a good thing you get to go home soon. To her surprise she felt a little bit of guilt after the thought struck her. She covered her confusion by wetting the rag. Why was she feeling guilty? She had nothing to feel guilty about. Right? Of course that wasn’t entirely true. When she abandoned Dani somewhere, Dani would have to find her way back to the Homestead alone. If she came face-to-face with another roving band of wolves, she would be on her own.
Dani had pulled another rag from her pack and started cleaning her spear.
Less thinking, more cleaning. She rubbed the coarse wool over her sensitive skin and winced. Despite what she’d told Dani earlier, Lynn wasn’t used to getting hurt quite this often. Yes, at least once a day she came across something that could potentially kill her, but more often than not she managed to sidestep the crumbling edge of a ledge, go around the packs of wolves or roving dogs, and stave off starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia. She had skills, and they kept her safe—usually. When other people entered the equation, all bets were off, it seemed. Her ponderings caused her to brush too close to the worst cluster of wounds. Pain flared up her arm, and she hissed.
“You okay?”
Even though Lynn avoided looking at her, she could feel Dani’s gaze on her. She didn’t want to talk about it. “How do you know this place?”
“It’s one of our hideaways when we go hunting,” Dani said after several seconds of silence. She scratched a stain off the metal shaft. “One of our farthest.”
“Do you guys ever stay out overnight?” She forced herself not to make a sound of discomfort as she scraped the wool along the underside of her arm.
“No, never.” All emotion had drained out of Dani’s voice.
Lynn paused to stare at her. “Never?”
Dani shook her head. “I haven’t spent a night outside of the Homestead since I arrived.”
She tried to pass it off as something unimportant, but ever since the wolves, Lynn thought she was getting better at reading Dani’s expression and body language. The thought was a little unsettling; if she was getting better at reading Dani, maybe Dani was getting better at reading her too. And Dani had already been pretty good at it to start. “How long ago was that again?”
“When summer comes, it’ll be two years.” Dani folded and extended the spear experimentally and inspected it, seemingly to busy her eyes.
Lynn kept her gaze on her wounds as she cleaned them of her blood. Thankfully, her cleaning confirmed her earlier assessment. “So, how scared shitless are you right now?”
Dani tensed, and the grip on her spear tightened.
For a second, Lynn thought she’d pushed the tentative comradery too far, then she realized what she was seeing in Dani wasn’t anger but fear. She swallowed. “Sorry, that was insensitive.”
“Whatever.” Dani began to pace.
Skeever, roused by the movement, trotted over from the corner and followed her back and forth across the small chapel. He bounded ahead. Within seconds he returned with the mangled remains of the rat in his jaws and brushed his head against Dani’s hand to get her to take his offering and throw it.
Dani pushed him away twice before she tossed the dead rodent across the room. Disgust crinkled her features. She wiped the tips of her fingers on her pants.
If Dani was afraid now, how scared would she be when she was alone out here? Lynn sighed and focused on cleaning her injuries—injuries she’d sustained because of Dani’s stupidity. Fuck Dani and her fear.
“Is it safe?” Dani scanned the site before them hesitantly.
“It’s defendable.” Lynn let Skeever sniff through the rubble in front of what had been a house pre-war. Its top stories had collapsed, but unlike its brethren in the area, its outer walls still stood.
Dani glared at her. Defendable was apparently not a satisfactory criterion for someone used to an almost absolute guarantee of safety when she slept.
“It’s the best option we have.” Lynn glanced around. This section of the city had been decimated by the bombers. The tallest things around were the trees that had grown on and through the grass-covered remnants of civilization.
Dani had urged them on well beyond what Lynn felt comfortable with, unwilling to agree to a sleeping place this open, but the destruction in this area had been complete. As imperfect as this shelter was, Lynn knew they could make it work. And she needed to make it work too; the dull throbbing in her arm had worsened to a steady pulsing. Swinging her arm as they walked, bumping it against her body by accident, and reluctantly using it to climb over obstructions had taken its toll. It was also getting dark quickly now.
“Come on. Let’s look inside.” Lynn clambered through the gap in the structure that had once held a door. It was now the start of a steep slope of debris. When she pushed aside a variety of green creepers, she upset a mass of spiders. She shook them off without a second thought, planted her fingers into the dirt between the stones, and hauled herself up. She bit back a grunt of pain.
Skeever scrambled up after her, tail low. He overtook her.
Lynn stood up. Inside was better described as on top of. The building’s innards had compacted into a rubble layer as thick as its entire first story. The collapse had created a fairly level and spacious surface to camp on. As far as hideouts went, this was a decent one. Walled in on three sides, sheltered from the wind, and as long as it didn’t rain, a fire would keep them warm. As Lynn stood, she could look out over the ruined walls but saw little more than sunset-red-colored treetops.
Skeever beelined for something in the far left corner and circled, nose to the ground, panting loud enough for Lynn to hear him the entire length of the space away.
Carefully, she tested the solidity of the ceiling-turned-floor as she made her way over to him.
It held.
She crouched down by a collection of bones and dry scat and pulverized some of the feces between her fingers. It was old. Either it was a single dropping of a bear or multiple droppings of something smaller. Wolverine? Dog? Lynn didn’t like any of the options; they were all fiercely territorial and wouldn’t take kindly to intruders. The skeleton was the size of a small doe, but it was hard to tell what it had been exactly, with many of its parts missing—including the skull. More wolves? This not knowing was going to haunt her in the long, dark night.
Skeever sniffed her fingers, then licked them. His tail trembled between his legs.
You don’t like it either, do you, boy? She scratched along his jaw.
“Are we staying?”
Lynn’s heart stuttered. She whirled around. “Dammit! Don’t sneak up on me!”
Dani flinched, then her features hardened. She drew herself up to her full height even as the tip of the spear lowered loosely to Lynn’s chest height. “Don’t yell at me.” Her tone was metered. Her eyes narrowed. “You knew I was coming up after you. Tell me what you’ve found.”
Lynn’s heartbeat settled to a strong thumping, ready for battle, a powerful pulse that steadied her. She straightened slowly and pushed the tip of the spear aside before stepping past it, into Dani’s personal space. The motion rendered Dani’s weapon ineffective, but Lynn didn’t need much room to swing her tomahawk. The smooth wood of the handle settled against her skin as she tightened her grip.
Dani’s eyes widened; she knew it too.
Lynn allowed only a fraction of the smirk that tugged at the corners of her mouth. That’s right, Dani. Don’t forget you’re in my world now. She pushed forward.
Dani had to attack, take a step back, or fall over. She stepped back.
Lynn’s blood ran hot in her veins, victorious. Her dominance established, she relented. “Something used this as a lair, but not for a while. So yes, we are going to bar whatever we can, and then we’re going to stay. Agreed?”
“Y-Yes.” Dani broke the eye contact. She turned and walked away, shoulders slumped. “I’ll start on the door.”
Lynn considered protesting. Could she trust Dani to build adequate defenses? She’d said herself that she hadn’t spent a night out in the Wilds for years. But Lynn was so tired. Hauling heavy with her weakened arm would worsen the injury, and she knew it. “Don’t fuck up.”
Dani tensed and she slowed her step, but only a second. Then she tilted her head up and marched off without looking back.
Lynn watched her slip down the slope until she disappeared completely. She loosened the grip on her tomahawk and deflated with a slow release of her breath. Dani’d had a point, she realized; Lynn should have never let herself be caught by surprise like that. Of course Dani would follow her up. Stupid. She shook her head. At least Dani now remembered who held the power between them. Lynn wondered why that mattered so damn much to her, but it did. Maybe it was because she’d let Dani push her until sundown was upon them instead of setting up camp when light had still been abundant. Lynn liked to have everything set up to perfection before darkness fell. Now she would have to scramble to get that done. She cracked her neck on both sides and rotated her sore shoulder with care. Time to make the best of it. First step: clear a spot to camp down.
A short time later, she added twigs to a small fire built on dried scat and leaves. It would take more time and more wood to build the fire up to one stable and hot enough to heat up some food or water, but even this crisp, little fire offered relief from the rapidly encroaching darkness.
Sounds of grunting and dragging reached her ears again. Dani had been busy too.
Skeever barked, but it was his happy bark.
What is she doing, anyway? Lynn added a few more twigs and bits of bark to the fire. She tightened the ring of stones around it and got up. Tomahawk in hand, she walked back to the slope and stared down into the twilight. Her eyes adjusted quickly.
Dani was dragging a man-sized branch into the hole in the wall. The crown of leaves sealed it up behind her and Skeever. Other leafed branches lay nearby and she piled them on, creating a hedge of sorts to keep the predators out.
Lynn analyzed the improvised barricade. It wouldn’t stop anything from coming in, but it would make a hell of a noise while their attacker struggled.
Dani stepped back and crouched. She got her fingers under a heavy-looking piece of debris—something that seemed to have been part of the roof—and pushed up with the obvious intent of tipping it up and over against the branches to create an even more solid barrier.
Lynn had to begrudgingly admit it would solidify the barrier greatly if she got the solid piece of wreckage in place.
Dani managed to hoist the sagging slab onto her thighs but then faltered.
“Coming down.” Lynn slid down to her.
The well-defined muscles in Dani’s arms trembled with fatigue or strain. “I’ve got it.” She forced the words out through gritted teeth.
“You don’t.” Lynn knelt down, reached beneath the debris, and checked for sharp edges. She found something squishy that wiggled instead. Shuddering, she brushed it off and took a hold. “On three.” This is going to hurt. She braced herself. “One…two…three!”
Dani pushed.
Lynn set her jaw and put tension on her arms. Pain seared through her injured forearm like lightning, and she had to lessen her grip or risk dropping the whole thing.
Even with the force of three and a half arms, they managed.
Skeever bounced around them excitedly as the slab crashed onto the thick branches and against the wall. It slid to the side; a piece broke off, and it threatened to topple. Then it settled.
