Homestead Harem 2, page 22
Suddenly, Maven began to laugh. A wry, rasping chuckle that reminded me of crabgrass in a dry field.
“That’s a nice tale and all,” Maven declared, sticking her thumbs through the worn belt loops of her jeans. “But tell me, Jonas. Where is that beautiful young woman who I heard was carrying your child?”
I dropped my smile. Clenched my fists at my sides.
“She’s sitting this one out,” I declared through my teeth. “No need for her to be involved.”
“You hear that?” Maven declared, spinning around to face her girls. “The poor mutant girl he bred isn’t available right now.”
At that, half the girls started cackling, Maven turning around to spit brown saliva at my feet.
“I bet you killed her, didn’t ya?” she declared. “I bet she’s buried out in them fields somewhere, her pretty body already fertilizing the soil.”
My muscles tensed as Maven forced the image into my head, but I remained calm. One glance at Blossom reminded me of her only directive, which she’d commanded to me quietly moments before we’d gotten into position.
Don’t let her get in your head.
“No, she just decided it was a little too early in his development for our son to witness his first massacre,” I said, smiling at Maven. “All the baby books said we should wait til 6 months.”
Maven’s cracked lips spread into a wide sneer, her eyes narrowing as she took me in, angry her dig hadn’t landed.
“Maven, can I ask you a question?”
She spit on the ground again.
“Sure,” she replied, although it sounded an awful lot like go fuck yourself.
“What was your mama like?” I asked.
At this, a few of Maven’s girls started laughing, repeating the question in mimicking tones.
Maven was momentarily stunned, this fitting into exactly zero of her possible scenarios for the attack. I bit down my grin.
She was playing my game now.
“Boy,” Maven started, “why in the hell would I tell you about my—”
“My mama was a saint,” I cut in jovially. “She rode horses her whole life, taught me to ride when I was just a tot. Made the meanest apple cinnamon cookie you’ve ever tasted in your life, used to read me stories at night, come check on me when there was thunder. She taught me to be kind but fair, showed me mercy more than a few times when I didn’t deserve it. Don’t get me wrong, she drove me and my father up a wall sometimes, the way she’d sing so damn loud and offkey in the car—how she’d force us to go stand out in the rain on summer nights. How she made us eat dinner together every single evening, even when I was a bratty little shit who hated to put his napkin in his lap. She was a damn special woman, my mother. Made me who I am today.”
Maven kept the same hateful expression on her face the entire time I made my little speech.
“Now, I ask again, Maven. What was your mama like?”
I could feel Blossom tensing up behind me. But I knew, ultimately, she trusted me.
Maven faltered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“She was a mean old bitch,” she finally declared, to an uproar of laughter from her crew. “A very special woman,” she mocked. “Made me who I am today.”
I smiled pleasantly at her joke.
“You think she’d be proud of you today?”
Maven’s smile disappeared.
“That ain’t got nothing to do with—”
“I think my mama would be proud of me,” I declared, interrupting as if I didn’t hear her. “That’s what I ask myself when I’m faced with a tough decision, you see. What would my mother say?”
I looked out at the girls beyond Maven, trying to meet the eyes of those who seemed eager to listen.
“When I first heard of your vendetta against us, I wanted to hunt you down and kill you in cold blood,” I said, redirecting my attention to Maven. “And I coulda done it too. But my mama wouldn’t have liked that very much. Some of the girls here reminded me of that—of who I really am. Who we really are here.”
I stole a glance back at Ellen. She nodded in encouragement.
“So I realized, Maven, my mama would give you the benefit of the doubt. She would appeal to your humanity, remember you’re a person with your own mother too. Try to show you we actually are good people who care. That we’re even building a new house so your people have room to join ours.”
I gestured at the half-finished structure. Some of the girls in the crowd perked up at this, angling to see the house.
“She would want me to ask you to consider your people before you send them into a senseless battle,” I continued. “She would want me to beg you to stop your lies, to stop the power games and the manipulation, to just let your girls be free the way you never were.”
Meeting Maven’s violet eyes, I took a deep breath, steadying myself for my final plea—the last words that might, by some miracle, convince this woman to not go through with all this.
“There’s still time for both of us to make our mothers proud,” I told her. “Your daughter Blossom believes you can change. I want to believe it too.”
Maven blinked at me, her eyes softening slightly.
“So what do you say, Maven?” I asked, my voice swelling as I reached the conclusion of my speech. “Can we call this thing off and settle this like civilized people?”
A pregnant silence filled the space between our clans. My heart buoyed in my chest—could I actually be getting through to her? Could she really be—
At that moment, a loud crash from the aux barn echoed across the property. Two seconds later, a pair of Maven’s horse-girls pushed Charlotte out the door of the barn, the baby clutched in her arms.
“Oh, thank God!” Maven declared theatrically, throwing her head back and speaking loudly to the crowd. “I thought I’d have to listen to that god-awful speech all day!”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
Shit.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
I took one step towards Charlotte, but Maven held up a finger, stopping me.
“Ah ah ah,” she said, grinning evilly. “My girls are under strict instruction. I don’t want that child to die, but if you interfere, they will kill it.”
My blood froze in my veins hearing the wolf woman say this so casually. I made a conscious effort to breathe normally, to remain as calm as I could while two horse-girls pushed Charlotte forward, jostling her while she walked with the baby. Those are the first two to die, I told myself just to calm down. Those girls I kill first.
While they made their way to us, Maven took the opportunity to turn and address the crowd.
“We have a moral responsibility to save this child from the ways of men,” she pontificated, making me grit my teeth. “This little boy may have been cursed by his circumstances at birth, but, if we take it upon ourselves to raise him right, we can save him from the evil nature of his father. He won’t grow up believing it’s okay to imprison women, to brainwash them into believing that they’re free while all the while keeping them enslaved, using them only to carry on his own bloodline. No, we can save this child from becoming the monster that his father is.”
Maven whipped back around at me in disgust.
I didn’t move. Truthfully, I’d never stopped watching Charlotte, now reaching our little face-off flanked by the two pushy horse-girls. She approached me and Maven with her head held high, despite the tears streaming down her face. The baby was wrapped in a blanket and pressed into her chest, Charlotte obscuring his face from Maven, like she didn’t want the evil wolf-woman’s gaze to burn him.
Charlotte and I locked eyes, sharing a silent conversation. Then Maven stepped between us.
“Hand over the child,” she demanded.
Charlotte held her ground.
“I don’t want to have to do this the hard way, girl,” Maven said, stepping closer to Charlotte—towering down on her is more like it. “You know by now that I’d rather that child die than stay here with this man. You can come with me and be with your child, or you can stay with him and die. Take your pick.”
I swallowed. At least Maven’s girls were hearing her talk like this. At least they could hear how heartless she was—how she’d kill an innocent child in cold blood. Or maybe they already knew that.
My fingers twitched toward the holster of my gun.
Not yet, Jonas. Wait for your moment.
Charlotte, seeing she had no other choice but to comply, inched slowly toward Maven, the baby clutched tightly to her chest. She planted herself mere inches from the psychotic wolf-woman, sniffling gently as she lifted up the little bundle.
And then she tossed it into Maven’s face, a large puff of white powder exploding from the baby blanket containing only a lumpy bag of flour.
With Maven blinded for half a second, I stepped forward and pressed the barrel of my shotgun firmly into the center of her forehead. When the flour settled, she blinked up at me in shock.
“Last chance, Maven,” I declared. “Drop this now, or die.”
My heart pounded in my chest, my finger itching to just pull the trigger and kill her. But I knew I had to give her one more chance—show her people that I had exhausted every possible option before executing her, or they’d never trust me willingly. Sure, they might join our clan as the next best option—jumping from one murderous leader to the next for protection. But I wanted them to know I was different—we were different.
But, truth be told, I was itching for a reason to shoot.
And then I heard the sound of another gun being cocked.
My stomach dropped. I looked down and saw that Maven had a small pistol pressed directly into Charlotte’s stomach.
“I’ll kill her,” Maven rasped. “Don’t think I won’t.”
Every cell in my body vibrated with intense rage. I stared into this crazy woman’s violet eyes with enough hatred to melt off her flesh.
“According to the lies you’ve spread,” I said through gritted teeth, “I shouldn’t care whether or not she dies. But wait. Does the great Maven herself not even believe her own bullshit?”
Silence echoed across the farm. My finger tensed on the trigger.
No one moved. The birds in the trees seemed to quiet for a moment, watching intently for what would happen next.
And then a single arrow came flying down from Alexis’ post up in the old watch tower.
And missed Maven’s head by half an inch.
Before I could curse Alexis for not doing more target practice, Charlotte had twisted out of Maven’s grip, grabbing the hand with the gun and flipping the wolf-woman clean over her back to the ground. I watched in awe as Charlotte won the weapon and pressed it to Maven’s skull, not hesitating before she pulled the trigger.
And the gun only clicked. Charlotte opened the barrel and found it empty.
In that moment, an onslaught of screaming, bloodthirsty mutant girls reached us, called to battle by their leader going down—launching their attack. Within two seconds, Maven had sucker punched the shell-shocked Charlotte in the stomach and scrambled into the swarming crowd.
“Char!” I shouted, leaning down to pick her up as our people met Maven’s in violent match-ups all around us. We didn’t have time to debrief—we hardly had time to breathe. But I still had to demand: “Are you okay?”
“Never better,” she declared, her upper lip curling in a vicious snarl. We nodded at one another firmly and she pushed past me into the fight, lunging at one of Maven’s girls like a panther pouncing from a tree.
The battle had begun. And I was ready to end this war.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Charlotte attacked our enemies like she’d been locked in a cage for nine months, channeling all of her frustration at being left out of fight after fight into defending our homestead now. She snapped the first horse-girl’s neck and jumped over her body, landing in a smooth somersault and moving quickly onto the next.
And I knew I was supposed to be focused on the battle. But I couldn’t help but consider, for one second, how hot it was to watch the mother of my child break necks.
Snapping out of that particular distraction, I wrenched Alexis’ missed arrow from the dirt, turning around to look through the crowd for Maven. All I saw was chaos—Maven’s girls fighting like starving, rabid dogs, ripping and tearing at my people with their sharp nails and teeth while we struck at them with our weapons. Jordan was on a goat-girl’s shoulders, holding onto a pair of horns while the enemy tried to buck her off. I tried to focus.
We were outnumbered by a dozen girls—and through the haze of the fighting I couldn’t tell if we were winning.
Seeing the other horse-girl who’d pushed Charlotte around running past me, I decided to screw my search for Maven momentarily and get in the game, grabbing her long ponytail and wrenching her firmly back into the tip of the arrow in my hand, severing her spine. I twisted it in her back to make sure it killed her before shoving her body to the ground.
The kill made my blood hot, got my head in the game. But I needed to find Maven—now.
I pushed through the crowd of fighting bodies to higher ground, first checking on Alexis in the watchtower, my little John strapped to her chest. At the end of the day, we decided it was the safest spot for him—Alexis insisting this cemented her place as his Godmother. Now, my son seemed to somehow be sleeping peacefully on her chest while Alexis shot her crossbow at our enemies.
That’s my boy, I couldn’t help but think proudly.
An awkwardly slumped body lay at the bottom of the ladder with an arrow in the top of its skull—so Alexis had already had to defend her post. I was just grateful she hadn’t had to use the gun.
All of a sudden, a wild-eyed girl who had to be part cougar charged me while I was distracted looking at Alexis, tackling me backwards by the stomach. My breath caught in my chest, and I rolled out of her grip as my lungs filled back up with air, finding purchase in the grass and launching myself back at her before she had time to regroup. I got my arm around her neck behind her, squeezing the life out of her until she kicked herself off the ground and flipped backwards over my body and out of my hold.
She bared her teeth viciously.
I grinned.
“Let’s go, darlin,” I said, trying not to think about how many of my girls were in immediate danger and just focus on the fight.
The cougar-girl snarled.
As she lunged, I popped to the left, holding my arm out to clothesline her. She took the bait and hit the ground—hard—where I tried to grab her, but she surprised me by twisting back to bite my finger like it was a damn carrot. I felt my bone crunch under her teeth and yowled like a dog, kicking her in the chest as I did. She slid backwards through the grass on impact and popped back up while I shook the pain out of my index finger.
We both tensed again to strike.
And then Blossom ran up the hill like a runaway train, screaming, “You’re mine, you heinous, dessert-stealing bitch!”
Before I had time to unpack the many layers of that threat, Blossom had full-on tackled the cougar-girl to the side, snarling and biting at her with all the justifiable rage one would have for a heinous, dessert-stealing bitch. I kept moving, confident Blossom would finish her off.
My index finger throbbed and bled but I ignored it, scanning the crowd while I ran down the hill, looking for Maven. More than a few of my girls were down, and suddenly, we looked timid and unprepared next to the bloodthirsty fighting of Maven’s girls.
“Jordan!” I shouted, spotting the bat-girl crawling off the body of her latest kill. “Where the hell is the cavalry?”
“On it!” she replied, darting off toward the animal barn.
I kept moving, wrenching a snarling dog-girl off of one of ours and throwing her ten feet across the lawn, kept moving, picked up a baseball bat from the ground, saw Polly the chipmunk-girl being backed into the side of the house by two of Maven’s, threw her the weapon. Polly caught it and came out swinging, so I kept moving—where in the hell did Maven get to?
Finally—I spotted the wolf woman at the bottom of the hill. Not fighting anyone. Just watching the battle with a smile on her face like it was a spectator sport.
At that moment, the bang of the animal barn doors bursting open echoed across the farm, and two of our horses rigged to carts came galloping down the lawn. On the carts stood Benny and Kyle, brandishing homemade slingshots and buckets of sharp river rocks.
It wasn’t our most lethal plan of attack. But it couldn’t hurt.
“Jonas!”
I whipped around to find Ellen pinned to the ground by a two hundred pound boar-girl, her knee on Ellen’s throat. I sprinted at the fight without thinking, grabbing the boar-girl by her broad shoulders and wrenching her off of Ellen, who scrambled away as soon as she was free. On the ground I quickly picked up one of the rabbit-girl’s fallen knives and stabbed it at the recovering boar-girl, who managed to grab my wrist before I could pierce her flesh. We struggled against one another for a moment as I tried to push the blade towards her torso and she tried to push it away, this particular mutant apparently used to winning fights of strength.
Part of me wanted to prove I was stronger than her, show her that she’d lose this battle. But I didn’t have the time or the energy to spare, so, instead, I dropped the knife into my waiting left hand below, stabbing it directly into her torso. The boar-girl spluttered in pain and dropped to her knees, where I kicked the knife further into her body. Then I redirected my attention to the shady spot in the trees where Maven had been watching the fight.
But the wolf was gone.
“Shit,” I cursed, looking around desperately for where the psychotic leader could have escaped to. My mind raced for ideas as I tried to get in her head, determine what in the hell her plan was from here—
“Jonas!” a voice behind me cried.
Three things happened within the next one second:
I turned around.
I saw a savage raccoon-girl bringing a rusty ax directly down into my skull, and I knew it was too late to stop it. I closed my eyes, accepting this as the horrible, bitter end.
