Survival Instincts, page 6
He uttered a broken warrior’s cry—the cry of a man knowing he was committing suicide but doing it anyway—and lunged.
Ren jumped aside with a small yelp of fear.
The storm that had been raging inside Lynn’s skull settled in an instant. Calmly, she brought up the knife and sidestepped as planned. There was something about the possibility of imminent death that was very soothing.
Before Dean could reach her, someone burst into her field of vision from the left and smashed into him. The force knocked both over into a tangled heap of legs, arms, and grunts. They fought for control of the knife.
Cody. Lynn sucked in a breath. It was Cody who had come to her rescue—or maybe Dean’s, depending on how he judged their odds.
Ren rushed forward to help but ended up on the periphery, bouncing from one foot to the other, yelling.
Taken by surprise by the sudden turn of events, Lynn watched the ensuing struggle as if she were miles away.
Ren yelled, but the meaning of the words didn’t sink in.
She spotted Flint now, his face grim and his gun raised in one hand as he watched. Dani gripped her spear, waiting. Eduardo had held up a hand uselessly near the smokehouse, in a quiet and completely ignored stop sign.
“Dean! Pipe down!”
Cody’s voice snapped her attention back to the struggle. He had Dean pinned down, but the boy bucked and contorted, still struggling. Cody was out of breath, but he was a strong man with a level head. He spent only the energy he had to while Dean was wasting his with his thrashing. This fight was over, even if Dean hadn’t realized it yet.
She straightened and relaxed her tense and sore muscles. The adrenaline drained from her and left her dizzy and unbalanced. She gripped the table for support and felt the handle of the knife dig into her palm.
The movement seemed to catch Ren’s attention, and her gaze settled on Lynn.
Why does she look so afraid? Then Lynn remembered the promise she had made, that if Dean came after her again, she would kill him.
Dean began to cry in ragged sobs.
She glanced down at him. Snot and spit left streaks on the boy’s face. Despite what she’d said—and thought—earlier, she didn’t need petty revenge. To show they needn’t worry about her, Lynn placed the knife on the table and pushed it away. She stepped back on unsteady legs.
Dean caught his second wind and pushed hard enough to almost tip Cody over.
Cody scrambled to solidify his hold.
“No! Dad is out there! Who knows if he’s being eaten right now or—or—” His voice broke.
Lynn shuddered. She shouldn’t be watching this. It was too embarrassing to see someone so utterly stripped of their walls. To busy her eyes, she looked over at Dani, who stood in the same spot but had lowered her spear. She wasn’t watching the fight; she stared at Lynn with an unreadable expression.
Why was she looking at her like that? She managed to hold the gaze a few seconds but then had to look away. She couldn’t deal with Dani right now—or her own emotions.
Cody embraced Dean, and Dean buried his face in Cody’s sweater. He cried openly now that the fight had drained out of him.
Lynn licked her lips. “I meant what I said.”
Ren tensed.
“I’m not going anywhere with him.”
Ren deflated. She turned back and watched her husband console the grieving youth. “I don’t blame you.” Her voice only just carried over all the nighttime noises.
Lynn resumed her staring as well, as painful as it was. She finally had time to process this attack, this plea. Why did Dean want to collect his father’s body? She’d buried him, all good and proper. There were big stones on his grave. Only the most determined of animals would manage to get down to him in the deep hole she’d spent an entire morning digging. He was safe, buried, gone.
When she looked up, Dani was still watching, but now her gaze alternated between her and Dean.
Dani met and held her gaze for a second before she turned and disappeared into the shadows of the workshop.
With a pang of unease, Lynn returned her gaze to the two men embracing on the floor, one stoic and supportive, the other small and broken.
There was no need to get Richard’s body. None at all. But the threat of it loomed over her now. It might have been Dean’s idea, but it was one of those ideas that could—would—spread until they all became convinced their loved one needed to be with them. She’d seen it before, this mob mentality. Another chill went down her spine. Her imprisonment and the subsequent punishment for the crime of being at the wrong place at the wrong time were solidifying, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Kate made her first appearance of the night once dinner was served around the fireplace. A young carbon copy of his brother clung to her hand. Dean didn’t come up to the roof with them, and neither did Skeever. The quiet conversation between the members of the group—which had not involved Lynn in any way, shape, or form pretty much since the confrontation with Dean—died down as Kate and the boy came to a halt beside the benches.
Lynn tensed and surreptitiously glanced up from her food.
Kate looked like shit, pale and numb. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face void of expression. The hairdo that not even killing an elephant had managed to dishevel had largely escaped from the bun on the back of her head.
This can’t be good. Lynn looked away. Perhaps avoiding eye contact could delay the inevitable. Not keeping an eye on Kate made her uncomfortable, so she glanced back as she took another bite.
“Would you like some elephant stew, Katherine?” Cody asked.
Kate shook her head.
The young boy Lynn presumed to be Toby clung to her leg. When Kate tried to pass him off to Ren, he started crying and pressed his face more tightly against her.
Kate sighed and—with the dignity of a woman too proud to collapse in front of others—laid her hand on the boy’s head and kept him close.
Another candid glance told Lynn that everyone but Cody studied their food with acute attention. The atmosphere was charged.
Lynn took another spoonful of meat, potato, and vegetable pulp. She was quite content staying out of this mess. Her thoughts had turned inward the more the group had ignored her as the night went on. They had watched her, but without chores to dole out—ones they trusted her with, anyway—they had let her be as long as she stayed seated. The food had made her sleepy, and it had become impossible to remain on guard at all times. None of them had moved from their chosen seat since they’d sat and had left Lynn alone to valiantly struggle for wakefulness. Well, Kate’s appearance had woken her up just fine.
“Lynn, could I talk to you a minute?”
Lynn jumped despite anticipating Kate’s question. Deep breath. “I guess.” She put the bowl down reluctantly and stepped out of the square of benches.
After barely sparing her a glance for most of the evening, everyone now stared at her.
“Ren, take him, please?” Kate tried to pry Toby off her again, but every time she’d loosened one hand, Toby’s other had taken a renewed hold.
Toby whimpered and pressed his face more tightly against her leg.
“Sure.” Ren got up and lifted the boy.
The second she did, Toby started crying. “Mommy, no!” He took a big gulp of air and released a cry so high and sharp it was physically uncomfortable.
Lynn turned her head to the side to angle her ear away from the source of the sound.
“It’s okay, baby. I’ll be right back.” Kate reached out to stroke his hair but retracted her hand quickly when Toby tried to grab at it.
“I’ve got him.” Ren lifted Toby into her arms and rocked him to calm him down.
He kicked at her, pushed, and clawed until she was forced to sit down quickly and take hold of his hands.
The anguish on Kate’s face made Lynn uncomfortable, but not as much as the sheer volume of Toby’s shrieks did. She fingered the strap that usually held her tomahawk in an almost subconscious effort to regain her composure. She hated noise. The warmed metal of the knife in her boot reminded her that, while vulnerable and alone, she was not defenseless. Still, no one had taken it from her. Lynn suspected that they might have actually forgotten this time.
Kate guided her wordlessly away from the fire and into the shadows. Once she stopped, Lynn halted at a safe distance and eyed her.
“Let’s make this brief.” Kate had to raise her voice to be heard over her son’s cries. “My husband was an honorable man. He did what he had to do for his family.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“We want to bring him home.”
It was strangely anti-climactic to hear the actual words. “Why can’t he stay buried where he is?” She didn’t even try to take the edge out of her voice.
Kate regarded her. “I don’t trust you. You say he was killed by a snake, but for all we know you killed him and took his stuff.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t take anything. We went through your backpack, but that doesn’t prove you didn’t kill him. You did take Skeever.”
Lynn’s anger rose. “You did what?” She took a step closer.
Kate’s gaze hardened. Her hand slid down to the hilt of her machete. “Careful, Lynn.”
“Or what?” Her whole body tensed as she prepared to grab her knife, consequences be damned.
“Or we’ll be a lot less friendly to you from here on out.”
Lynn set her jaw but forced her body to relax. “I’m not doing it.”
Emotions and schemes played in the cold gray of Kate’s eyes. “I don’t think you have a choice.”
“Oh, I have plenty of choices.”
Kate smirked. “Really? Like what? I know you still have that knife in your boot—and you’ll be handing that over—but even with that knife, we’ll kill you before you can do any real damage to us.”
The telltale sounds of the group behind her rising as one and Dani’s spear extending sent a shiver down Lynn’s spine. Her heart thumped in her chest. “You will never know where Richard’s body is if you kill me.”
“True, but I think you value your life too much to risk dying right here, right now.”
Dammit! Everything in Lynn screamed to turn around so she could see the Homesteaders coming, but she fought the urge. “I’ll draw you a damn map, and you can get him yourself.” Even agreeing to that felt like admitting defeat.
Kate shook her head instantly. “I’m not that stupid, Lynn. Who says it’s accurate? Who says you’d not be leading us into a trap? No, you’re coming with us.”
Lynn swallowed as reality hit. There was no way around this; she could put up a good fight, but at the end of the day, Kate had the power. She could make Lynn go back under armed escort if that was what it took. Cody, Flint, and Dani together would be able to control and guard her around the clock, even out there, where she was much better equipped for survival. No, she couldn’t fight this, but she could try to survive it. “I have demands.”
Kate frowned. “Demands?”
The ruckus behind Lynn continued.
“Yes.” She needed to make sure she would be in control at all times out there, which meant she needed to avoid an armed escort—or at least one she couldn’t take in a direct fight. “I’ll do it if Dani comes with me. Just Dani—and Skeever.”
Kate’s gaze darted to the group, lingered, then returned. “Why would I agree to something as ludicrous as that? You’ll take off the first chance you get.”
Damn right I will! “It’s a risk you’re going to have to take. See, you can force me to take all of you, but I swear I’ll make it hell on you. I’ll lead you through every wolf-packed, snake-infested, crater-pocked hell terrain I can find in the hopes it’ll kill you all.” Lynn all but hissed the words out, and in the moment, she wasn’t even bluffing. She didn’t know if she could stand by and watch anyone get mauled, but as she stared into Kate’s squinted eyes, she knew she might be able to with Kate and Cody and the whole damn lot.
Seconds ticked away. Kate was considering the proposal, and Lynn knew she had her. She could all but see the gears in Kate’s head turn. Again, Kate glanced past Lynn to the group—probably at Dani.
Finally, she set her jaw and nodded once, sharply. “You can take Daniela.”
Murmurs started up all around her. Lynn caught slivers of the conversations.
“…did she want Dani?”
“…how come Kate didn’t…?”
“We should have forced…”
She ignored them. Dani’s full name is Daniela. Lynn suppressed the thought. Now was so not the time for that. “And Skeever.” As she said it, a deep longing for her companion settled in her heart. “He’s used to being out there. He’ll hear danger coming long before we do. I plan to live through the insanity of walking around with a buffet for carnivores—”
Kate flinched at the description of her husband’s body.
Lynn relished her discomfort. “…and I need Skeever to do it.”
Again, Kate first held out but then gave in. “Okay.” Her eyes had gone colder than Lynn had ever seen them. She was undoubtedly planning murder.
Dizzying relief flooded Lynn’s system, but she held it at bay. If she wanted a shot at making it through this affair now that she’d antagonized the whole lot, she needed to get out of here quickly. “Good. Now, I want to wash myself, and I want enough food and water for a weeklong trip as well as any equipment I can think of.” Unlike everyone else, she was still covered in blood and dressed in her blood-soaked clothes. She hated it.
“Agreed.”
“Dani and I are leaving in the morning, after breakfast. Have everything ready then.” Without waiting for Kate to speak again, she turned on her heel, squared her shoulders, and pushed straight through the throng.
Everyone stared at her, weapons still at the ready.
In a stroke of masochism, she searched for Dani’s eyes in the crowd. She half expected her not to be there, but she was, standing next to Cody.
Their gazes locked.
Dani’s emotions had been impossible to read so far, but the events of the last few minutes had shattered the mask. There was fear in Dani’s eyes, mixed with shock and surprise.
Lynn set her jaw and met the gazes of the others. Her heart pounded in her throat hard enough that she feared it would be obvious how terrified she was. She used it as fuel to darken her voice. “Which of you assholes wants to show me where I can wash up, hm?”
Chapter 4
A stranger looked back at her in the dirty bathroom mirror, a thinner and bloodier version of herself that Lynn had not met before. She’d seen herself in a real mirror for the last time in Canada, almost a year back. And the intervening time had been—she struggled for a word. Terrifying? Stressful? What was that word Old Lady Sana had liked? Eschaton? The end of days and all the horrors that came with it?
Her hands trembled as she submerged them in the hot water Eduardo had brought her after Cody had locked her into this Old-World bathroom with nothing but a candle and a set of clean clothes from her pack. She was still reeling from her confrontation with Kate—and she hadn’t wrapped her head around the fact that she would be going back for Richard’s body. She ran the conversation over and over in her head and thought of a thousand things she could have said and done differently, but it didn’t matter now. The damage was done. All pretense of hospitality was gone now, and truthfully, it was a relief. They had all known she was a prisoner here; it was about time it showed in more than being watched.
“Clean yourself up.” The words reverberated back to her off tiles and the doors of disused toilet cubicles. Even her voice sounded unfamiliar, as if her reflection had spoken the command. She shivered. “And stop talking to yourself.”
It didn’t solve anything anyway. It didn’t blunt her fear, and every word still caused sharp discomfort in her throat. Besides, one of them was out there, outside of the locked door, waiting for her to clean up so they could take her to her room for the night. It could be Cody or even Flint. Lynn had heard male voices talking, but she didn’t know these people well enough to tell who it was. Neither was a very appealing option.
She tilted her head back and inspected the bruises underneath the film of dried blood still coating her skin. She could actually make out the shapes of Dean’s fingers, wrapped around her neck like the wings of a moth. When she swallowed, the moth shivered as if trying to peel off and fly. For a second, the visceral image of not just the bruises but the skin and flesh below tearing off to fly away overwhelmed her. The blood staining her neck and chest seemed to be hers, gushing from the flayed skin. She quickly tilted her head back down to chase the vision away. One thing was clear: she needed sleep to restore her sanity from beyond these tattered remains.
The stab of longing to hold Skeever again came up so suddenly and so strongly that she doubled over and had to put her hands on the bottom of the bucket in front of her to keep from crumpling. She needed him. If she hadn’t found him—that brilliant ray of happy hope—she may not have made it even these extra days. She could feel in her very bones that she was wearing ragged out there alone. Most of the time, she didn’t allow herself to feel it, but it was true: slowly but surely, she was starving and going insane. People weren’t built to be alone, and she’d been alone for so long until Skeever came along.
She’d been hard-pressed to hunt for herself lately, but Skeever brought her game he’d hunted. He’d warned her of danger and kept her warm when her deprived body had failed to do so. His desire to go anywhere as long as it was forward had urged her onward. Seeing the simple joy of life in his eyes had allowed her to experience the world that way herself again, even if just a little. Not having him near her now was physically painful. She felt it in her gut as if someone had reached in, gripped fast, and twisted.
