Survival Instincts, page 11
A victorious thrill coursed through Lynn. She cradled her arm against her chest and flexed her fingers to ease the pins and needles. “That should do it.”
Dani put her hands on her hips and sucked in air. “I’ve got this.” She shot Lynn a glare, then began to stuff the gaping holes of the two front windows with more leafy branches.
Lynn rolled her eyes. Whatever. “Skeever, come.” She snapped her fingers.
Skeever shot up the slope.
Lynn followed him a lot slower, trying not to use her throbbing arm. Serves you right for trying to help. Let the stuck-up bitch figure things out herself if that’s what she wants.
Even in the few minutes she’d been away, the fire had died down to small, flickering flames looking for sustenance to fuel their young life.
Still scowling, Lynn fed them scat and twigs and poked the fire up again.
Skeever dropped down by her legs and exhaled audibly.
Eventually the grunting and mumbled swearing and the rustling of drying leaves below her stopped.
Lynn was hungry. They’d walked far today; she’d fought with wolves and Dani, and perhaps more importantly, she was back in the Wilds. All had taken their toll. They’d eaten jerky and bread with sour goat cheese while walking, but that was long gone.
As if roused by her thoughts, her stomach growled. Soon. The fire was scarcely hot enough to heat anything up now, but it would do with patience.
Lynn bit back a smirk. Patience was never your strong suit, Tanner.
Skeever lifted his head and stared out into the deepening darkness.
Lynn followed his gaze even as her hand settled on the handle of the tomahawk she’d laid next to her.
Dani came up and dropped down heavily by the fire without sparing Lynn a glance. She frowned and leaned to the side as she reached under her butt and pulled a piece of warped metal out of the rubble. Dani tossed it across the plain of their hideout.
It clanged onto the debris somewhere in the darkness.
Skeever shot after it, almost catching fire as he sailed past its flames, yapping eagerly.
Lynn let go of her weapon and straightened.
More carefully, Dani straightened as well, then stuck out her legs along the fire.
Here was an opportunity for small talk, Lynn realized. She stubbornly refused to take it. “You have the food.”
Dani glared at her but got up with a groan. She pulled her pack away from the wall and into the circle of light cast by the now healthy fire.
Skeever returned and offered the bent iron bar to Dani, tail wagging.
Dani grunted. “Not now, Skeever. Go.” She pushed against his flank. “Go!”
Skeever turned a circle and looked expectantly up at Lynn.
Lynn grinned. “How about food instead, hm?” She drew her aching legs under her and untied a stiffening rat from her backpack: Skeever’s second catch of the day. She held it up.
Skeever promptly dropped the bar from his mouth, then trotted along.
She took him to a spot just outside the circle of light, not wanting to watch him demolish his meal while she ate. “Down.”
Skeever hesitated. He whined, then turned on the spot she had indicated and sagged down.
She laid the rat between his legs and watched him as he tore into it.
His tail drummed excitedly on the rubble.
Tiny bones cracked under the force of his jaws.
Lynn shuddered, not so much at the sound but at the realization that the wolf could have done that to her arm with ease. She rubbed the appendage in question.
By the time she returned to the fire, the sight of a jar awaited her. She recognized yesterday’s elephant stew, and her mouth watered.
Dani had settled her shoulders against her pack. Her eyes were closed. The firelight flickered across her features. Her wrestling contest with the branches and rubble had left her face and neck smeared with dirt.
Lynn squatted next to her pack and took out a spoon and a bowl before rummaging around for two old cans. They were dented and blackened but held water—and elephant stew—just fine.
Dani’s head shot up, and her eyes blinked open sleepily. They settled on Lynn for a moment, then drooped again.
Amateur. Lynn shook her head with a smirk. She opened the jar and filled both cans to the halfway point for the first round of dinner. After securing the lid, she kneeled by the fire, pushed the sticks aside to expose some of the red glowing embers, and dug both cans in.
Weariness had claimed Dani again. Her head bobbed. She’d crossed her arms in front of her chest, but one arm was threatening to slip from the tangle.
As much as Lynn scoffed at Dani’s surrender to exhaustion, there was also something enviable about it; Dani apparently lacked the terrifying experiences that even a few minutes of inattentiveness could cause out here—like the way the wolves had been upon them in seconds today—that would have her fight her exhaustion no matter what.
The same exhaustion Dani felt, Lynn felt too. Perhaps more so because she hadn’t even come close to recovery during her night locked up in the Homestead’s disused closet. Yet Lynn couldn’t imagine napping like this around Dani and most certainly not without having her weapons within reach.
Dani’s spear lay above her head. Her knife hung on her belt but was secured by a strap. If something barged in now—or if Lynn attacked her—it would take Dani precious seconds to free her knife. Seconds were all it took out here.
Lynn stirred the stew and tasted it. The potato was still stone cold. She sighed and shifted. It upset some of the leaves under her feet.
Dani shot awake again and sat up, looking around and then at Lynn. Her eyes narrowed as if Lynn was somehow the cause of her drowsiness.
With a snort, Lynn returned her attention to the cans. She stirred again and made sure to scrape the bottom. “Almost done.”
Silence. Dani shifted until she sat close by the fire, cross-legged, and rubbed her eyes and cheeks with the flat of her hands, spreading even more dirt on them.
I should get away tonight, when she sleeps. They were far enough away from the Homestead, and Dani was too tired to follow her into the dark. The thought should have brought her elation, but it caused a heavy weariness instead. Lynn was exhausted too. Traveling in the dark was a terrifying prospect even when she didn’t ache all over. Unable to reach an instant decision, Lynn’s thoughts dissolved when Dani moved.
Dani opened her pack and pulled out her own spoon and wooden bowl.
Lynn tried the stew again. It was hot enough. She pulled the sleeve of her sweater from under her jacket and covered her fingers with it before gripping the edge of one of the cans. Heat seeped through the wool instantly so she hurried to lean over the embers and put the container down in the rubble by Dani’s legs.
“Thanks.” Even Dani’s voice was weary with sleep.
Lynn hummed and liberated the second portion from the fire.
Dani employed the same trick Lynn had used to draw the hot can farther along the ground before she tipped its contents into the bowl and scraped out the tin.
They ate without speaking, but it wasn’t quiet. Skeever hadn’t quite finished his meal—he liked to play with it, Lynn had discovered—and the sound of snapping bones and scraping nails rose up from the corner. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees all around them. Owls hooted. The fire popped and crackled. In the distance something howled.
Lynn shivered. She scooted forward a bit to chase away the sudden chill that seeped into her bones. She scraped her spoon along the bottom of her bowl and finished off her first portion, then her second after it finished cooking.
Dani had finished too. She stared into the fire with half-lidded eyes. Fatigue radiated off her.
The silence between them stretched to the point where it got uncomfortable to Lynn. Despite herself, she put her bowl down loudly. The spoon rattled against the edge.
Dani’s head shot up, and her now-alert gaze settled upon Lynn.
“How are your feet?”
Dani squinted. “Why do you ask?”
“I think you should take your boots off. If you have blisters, they could get infected if you don’t air ’em.” She nodded toward the leather-and-rubber contraptions around Dani’s feet.
Dani looked down too. She hesitated, then untangled her legs and went to work untying the leather strings. Her jaw set as if to steady herself before she pulled her boots off. She put them by the fire with a slightly trembling hand.
Even from here, Lynn could see blisters along the edges of her little and big toes. She’d guessed correctly: Dani wasn’t used to walking this long. The chapel had been an outpost for the Homesteaders—and it was almost within spitting distance of the Homestead. It had been a long time since Lynn had suffered from sore feet, but she could imagine the discomfort.
Dani produced Ren’s medicine from her pack and spot-treated each blister in turn. She muffled a groan that mixed pain and relief as she applied the ointment.
Skeever entered the circle of light while busily licking his muzzle. He brushed against Lynn’s back before he lay down with his head on her lap.
She tore her gaze away from Dani and smiled at him. “Hey, boy, good food?”
He sighed and licked his lips again.
Lynn stroked Skeever’s head. I haven’t sat by a campfire with other people since that couple near Plattsburgh. How long ago had that been? Two months? Of course she’d sat by the Homestead fire with the others yesterday, but that was different. Settlement fires weren’t like campfires made on the fly, kept small so as not to attract anything or anyone. Settlement fires never went out. They became beacons of homeliness: three meals a day, heat at night, all produced on flames easily brought back to life from dulled but still lively embers. They were kept differently, smelled differently, served a different purpose. The contrast had never been as stark as now, with the ambivalent memories of the Homestead still so fresh.
“Here.” Dani extended the jar. “For your arm.”
“Thanks.” Lynn took it. She considered packing it away, but since she would use it on her arm later, she decided to put it by her tomahawk instead.
Dani stretched her legs out and wiggled her now-glistening toes.
“Better?” It fell from Lynn’s lips before she could stop it.
Dani’s toes stopped moving. She nodded slowly. “Yeah.” A pause. “Thanks.”
“Welcome. How much longer until we can turn north?”
Dani hesitated. “Somewhere in the afternoon, I think.”
“Afternoon?” She frowned. “It took me, like, two hours to get from the interstate to where you guys hunted the elephant.” It was a vague estimate; connecting passing time with distance was not her strong suit.
“Yeah, but I don’t know that route.” Dani ran her finger along the inside of her bowl. She sucked the digit clean with an air of nonchalance that was incongruent with the tension in her shoulders and the way she avoided Lynn’s gaze.
Lynn squinted at her. Was there something going on? Something she needed to worry about? She could see no possible advantage for Dani if she deliberately lengthened their journey—unless she planned to lead Lynn into a trap. Then a thought struck her. “Do you even know where we are?”
Dani tensed even more, then shrugged. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?” She didn’t hold back the sharpness in her tone.
Dani glared at her. “Hey, don’t even start! We don’t come out this far! Flint told me the routes out of New York that he knows are still intact—or at least which were intact a few years ago—and I’m just…working with that.”
Lynn rolled her eyes emphatically. “So, basically you have no idea where we are or where we’re going.”
“Well…” Dani plucked at her pant leg. “I just need to find the bridge.”
Lynn fought her impatience. “Which bridge?”
The shadows the fire cast made it hard to read Dani’s expression as she looked up. “Um, a bridge with two pointy towers that leads to Bronx.” She hesitated. “We should have made it across today. According to Flint, it was maybe an hour away from the cemetery, along the big 278 street.”
An hour? They’d walked at least half a day since the cemetery. Anger bubbled as hotly as the stew had in the cans. “So you’re basically saying we walked half a day in the wrong direction and you have no idea where we are?”
Dani’s silence spoke volumes.
Lynn’s mind raced. She’d counted on Dani to take her out of the city or at least toward the edge of it. Once she ditched Dani, she had planned on heading straight on, leaving New York behind, and never looking back. Now straight on might lead her deeper into the city. If that happened, it could take days, even weeks to get free from New York’s clutches. “Shit!”
“We can backtrack tomorrow.” Dani’s tone had lost its bravado. “Follow the road back to the cemetery and then past it. I’m sure we’re on the right road. We just…went the wrong way.”
Lynn sighed. Shake it off. It happened. Move on. Nothing can be done about it now. “Yeah, I guess we don’t have a choice.”
Dani swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
Lynn snorted. “I bet. Next time you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, tell me, okay?”
Instead of rising to the bait as Lynn had expected, Dani met her gaze and nodded. She appeared to be on the verge of tears. “I will.”
Chapter 7
Lynn cursed herself for not paying better attention yesterday; they’d gone almost straight south instead of west. The position of the sun as it rose to the left was a glaringly obvious sign that Dani hadn’t had a clue where they were going. She should have noticed, but the pain in her arm had increased to the point of distraction—which had caused her to focus more on her immediate surroundings instead of something as far away as the sun. That was her excuse, anyway. Now she trudged back along the remnants of the same broad street they had taken yesterday.
Dani walked parallel to her whenever the rugged terrain allowed, keeping a steady five feet between them. The night hadn’t done her a kindness. In the pale light of morning her expression was truly blank, not just shielded like before.
Lynn suspected that the reality of her situation had sunk in. Unlike Lynn, who had settled into her well-practiced habit of dozing without ever falling fully asleep, Dani had drifted into sleep only to awake with a start whenever something scurried, howled, or otherwise made noise nearby. In the darkest hours before daybreak, she’d curled up into a ball and sobbed noiselessly until she’d drifted off into fitful sleep once more.
The blankness of Dani’s mood worried Lynn a little, but her thoughts were occupied with a much more pressing issue: she couldn’t tell if her arm hurt worse or less today. It felt different: tight and stinging. She’d cleaned the bite marks yesterday evening and again this morning. At least a few of the wounds needed stitches; they’d begun to bleed again at the lightest of touches, and the wool she’d tied over it with leather strips had greedily sucked up its share.
Too bad she didn’t have anything on her to stitch them with.
Her wounds would heal, Lynn knew from experience, but as long as they remained open, the risk of infection was severe. It would also take a long, messy time without stitches. For now, she’d slathered the whole area with the thyme ointment Ren had given her, and she’d bandaged it all up as tightly as she could stand. She’d have to figure out something to stitch it with. Eventually.
Lynn took in the overgrown rubble, the slightly swaying trees, the scurrying hares and rabbits.
Skeever saw them too. He zigzagged ahead of them and sniffed constantly. His tail was raised and flitted from side to side.
Speaking of other missing items and future plans… “We should try to find a map.” She molded her voice to a tone of airy neutrality.
Dani regarded her suspiciously. “A map?”
Lynn glanced at her but then quickly diverted her gaze. “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “So this doesn’t happen again.” She motioned in a wide arc to encompass not only the perceived path, but also the entire experience of having to make their way over the crater-pocked, partially buried, car-strewn mess of a road again. And not at all so I can better plan my escape.
“I…guess.”
“Easier said than done, though.” Lynn chuckled and hoped it didn’t come across forced. “A gas station, maybe? If it’s intact, paper might have survived.”
Dani was silent for a few seconds. “Okay, but only if we see one beside the road or something. We don’t want more delays.”
Lynn nodded. Triumph blazed in her chest, and she struggled to quench it so she wouldn’t give herself away. “Absolutely.” A map would allow her to plan her escape route—and Dani knew it too. Lynn was sure of that. Dani was anything but stupid. She glanced aside.
Dani seemed even gloomier.
What was she thinking about? Was she hatching her own plans to get Lynn to stay? Had she been surprised Lynn had still been there come dawn? What she wouldn’t give for the opportunity to sift through Dani’s thoughts even once. For now, she would have to take Dani’s compliance at face value and fake innocence as much as possible. She had to focus on finding a very specific needle in a thoroughly destroyed haystack. Lynn sighed and let her gaze glide over the pulverized city block.
Dani passed the cemetery without looking at it once. She drew up her shoulders, gripped her spear more tightly, and quickened her pace. The effect was marred by a small limp that had developed because of her blisters, which seemed to be worse on her right foot.
Lynn inspected her as she went on ahead, then turned her head toward the cemetery out of a perverse urge to drive home the fact that she could have been a day farther along. She couldn’t see the chapel from this angle—and through the growth that had overtaken the cemetery and buildings beyond—but she knew it had to be there.
