Tempting Trade, page 1
part #1 of Desolate Lands Series
Tempting Trade
Desolate Lands Book One
By Skye Jones
Copyright © 2018
Tempting trade is book one in a three book series. It contains adult content and is only suitable for those aged 18 and over.
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used without the written permission of the publisher.
All events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to places and persons is coincidental.
Thanks go to my amazing editor, Lissa Mathews
My fantastic proofreader Donna Hokanson
Early beta reader Kathi Soniat
And last but not least Obeithion cover designs!
Thanks also to all those who read this and take a chance on me.
You all rock!
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Dangerous Deal
Prologue - Early Spring
Jackson watched the young woman run, her hair streaming out behind her.
She played a dangerous game.
Alone.
Far too near the edge of the supposedly safe compound where she lived.
Thankfully, she had her dog with her. A beautiful golden retriever. They matched one another. Both possessed warm, blonde hair. Both were running. Both seemed without a care in the world.
He hunkered down, then settled on his belly in the grass, binoculars in hand. The fence of the compound was thirty feet high, live with electricity and spiky with barbed wire along the top. They weren’t taking any chances. Inside the perimeter, before the first homes, were guards. He knew because he’d been in there before.
The guards were like him. Not fully human, or maybe super-human, depending on how you liked to look at it.
Nothing scared him.
Not the groups of feral humans wondering the wastelands outside the compound.
Not the Foamers either. Those disease ridden, flesh eating, walking half-corpses held no terror for him.
He couldn’t catch the virus they had.
Any Feral or Foamer would be stupid to take him on. King of the damned world he was. What was left of this shitty little corner of it anyway.
Yep, nothing scared him except for the scrap of a girl now skipping – fucking skipping like she was ten – through the field below.
She scared him.
Terrified him.
Because one day soon, they would meet.
Then both their lives would change forever.
His latest dream about her had even shown him where the fateful encounter would occur. She’d been taken, grabbed in a raid on her compound and he’d recognized her captors. The Ravens, a gang so stupid he wondered how they’d survived this long, but they had a nasty kind of cunning that kept them alive by the skin of their teeth. They currently had a snatch and grab operation going where they sold humans taken from the compounds to the Russians.
Luckily, it seemed as if fate were on his side for once. He knew the Ravens, and he’d also heard a rumor they needed a doctor for their little operation. With this information, he’d put a plan in place.
If it all went smoothly, he’d soon be helping the bastards who would take her from here. Jackson, and his men would be right where they needed to be when the girl was grabbed, helping the Ravens do their very dirty work.
Of course, he could have simply raided the run-down prison the gang used as their headquarters once they’d grabbed her, but that would risk collateral damage. Risk her.
And he needed her. She could prove vital to the Resistance.
A presence next to him had him whipping his head around, but he already knew it was only Doc, his friend. He’d scented him a while ago.
“Watching her again?” Doc muttered as he sat cross-legged on the grass, shading his eyes against the bright sun. “Simply keeping tabs on an asset,” Jackson muttered.
“Yeah, right.” Doc took an energy bar from his pocket, unwrapped it, and bit down. He chomped for a moment, getting on Jackson’s every last nerve as he did so. Then he carried on. “Don’t know why you don’t just hop the fence and go say hello.”
As if anyone, even them, could simply hop the fence. He growled a non-response.
“Or take her. Now, from here, before they do.”
Jackson shook his head at that idea. “We’d need to raid the compound. It’s risky, if their guards opened fire, or any householder nearby did, then she could get hit.”
Doc turned his blue eyes on him. “Same goes for them taking her, doesn’t it? Christ, I mean I don’t trust Chris and his compadres in the Ravens as far as I can throw them. What if they screw up when taking her and get her hurt or killed?”
“Thing is, though,” Jackson countered. “I saw her…in my dream, safe at the Raven’s prison. My dreams, visions, or whatever the fuck they are, say they take her without harming her. I’m going to speak to Sienna tonight and see if she’ll give the okay for us to start helping Chris process the people he’s taking.” He paused. Gave Doc his gaze and plowed on. “They need a Doctor. Right now, they have no way of testing the girls, and the few boys, they take. So, this will involve you. Are you in?”
Doc stopped munching on his bar, swallowed hard and grimaced. “You want me to enable them to traffic girls by checking they are healthy and virus free.”
“Yep.” Jackson nodded. “For a while at least, until we find blondie down there at the prison. Then we can stop. Anyway,” He grinned. “I figured we could do some good while we are at it. Put a tracker in the girls. Once we have blondie safe and sound with us, we can send some of the Resistance in Russia, or wherever the girls end up, to go get them. Without us interfering those women will never be free. This way, they get a chance.”
Doc sighed, scrubbed his face and turned to watch the young woman, Milly, as Jackson knew she was called from his dreams. Still skipping, hair still streaming, she painted a pretty picture.
It made Jackson angry, the way she behaved, as if she lived in a shampoo advert, not some dystopian hell hole. “Okay,” Doc said. “I’m in.”
Jackson felt something in his chest loosen.
Soon.
Soon that girl down there, that beautiful girl who haunted his dreams, would be with him and his men.
Chapter One
Jackson: The ends Justify the Means
Jackson: Sienna?
Sienna: Yep.
Jackson: You okay? You sound out of breath.
Sienna: On a run, it’s fine. The line’s secure. Go ahead.
Jackson: Quick update for you. There’s a grab organized for later this week. The Ravens are planning on keeping the girls for a day or two. Sorting them out into the ones who can be sent as Premiums to Russia. The others will go down to London to work in service. Those headed for Russia will be taken to the docks and put on the boat.
Sienna: We won’t do anything about the London girls. They’ll be easy enough to recover. But you need to tag the Russian cargo. Get the Doc to do it as usual when he gives the exam.
Jackson: Cargo? Christ! I thought I was hardened.
Sienna: Yeah, well, this life will do that to you. Speaking of, how are you holding up?
Jackson: Fine.
Sienna: Wow. Talking with you this way is as good as talking with you in person. Such communication skills.
Jackson: What do you want me to say? I can’t sleep? Some days I can’t eat? And I can’t forgive myself for the fact I already had to see three lots of girls get shipped off to be sex slaves? Nah. As I said. I’m fine.
Sienna: Hm. You started this, and because of some dreams no less. Don’t forget that. The ends justify the means, Jackson. But… If this girl you’ve dreamed about so much doesn’t appear soon, my superior’s will probably pull the plug.
Jackson: She will. I’ve never been wrong yet, and the dreams were clear, she was taken by the Ravens.
Sienna: When you get her, take her back to your place and inform us. We’ll send someone for her ASAP.
Jackson: I think we ought to be the ones who train her.
Sienna: Baby, don’t think above your level. You need to take the edge off? Perhaps we should organize a meet up?
Jackson: No offense, but I’m not really in the mood.
Sienna: I think you need to let off steam. I know how you like to play, Jackson, you and your boys, and I like it, too.
Jackson: You’re my superior. Isn’t this fraternization or something?
Sienna: Probably, but there aren’t any rules now, didn’t you get the memo?
Jackson: No shit. I’ll be in touch with the details when I have them. I’ll let you know if we tagged the girls okay.
Sienna: Be careful.
Jackson: Always.
Chapter Two
Milly: Things could be worse
“Milly, for God’s sake. You will be late. Again!” My mum’s voice came out high and angry.
I’d struggled to get up again this morning after having the dreams all night. Weird, hyper-realistic, scary, and at times sexy dreams. They were getting more frequent as if telling me something was coming. But what?
In the dreams, I saw rivers of blood, people in dingy cells, medical rooms with people on trolleys screaming. Horrible, disturbing stuff. Then there were the parts of the dreams where things became disturbing in a whole other way.
Where a dark-haired man I never fully saw, but who was huge and powerful, took me as I writhed under him. A man I increasingly felt I knew on the deepest level, despite not knowing his name or clearly seeing his face. “For the love of all that is holy, Milly. You are going to miss the bus.” Mum was about ten seconds away from properly losing her temper.
She didn’t get it. I half wanted to be late. Hated taking the first bus and having to make conversation with Blake because it was like getting blood out of a stone at times. The second bus was always quieter, too. I could read, and study, and they always let me sneak into the back of the lecture hall five minutes late. Who cared if I missed the first damn bus?
“Get your arse into gear, little sis.” My brother Simon popped his head around the door.
I gave him the finger and he laughed. Dick!
He wasn’t going to let me use the shower this morning, when it was my time to grab the small window of water supply we had, but Mum made him. Simon was two years older than me, and good looking. In the final year of his degree, he was going to be a scientist, studying diseases and cures. Or so Mum and Dad dictated. He didn’t seem too happy about it, and for the time being kept himself busy as some sort of sex god. I swear, he shagged more girls than I had hot dinners. He was good looking. Blond, tan, tall, and muscular. Girls fell at his feet, and he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to look fresh and clean.
Mum sabotaged his efforts on a regular basis, in favor of me. Not because she loved me more. She simply wanted me looking my best for Blake, rich kid extraordinaire and Mum’s main hope for a better life.
She and Dad wanted me to marry the golden boy, so we could live in relative luxury. I didn’t want to marry him. He was a nice guy, good looking, too, but I didn’t want my life narrowed down to an arranged marriage and a safe job educating the mini-me’s of the future. Before everything collapsed, I had harbored my own hopes and dreams, and they didn’t die easy.
Sure, I was lucky. I lived in a safe zone, and got to get an education, which made me better off than ninety percent of humanity in the West these days. It still hurt though, to go and study knowing it would all be for nothing if my mum’s match making worked out.
“I swear.” Mum slammed a door somewhere.
Seriously. Since all the shit happened a few years back, she’d been an absolute nightmare to live with.
Yeah, things were hard, but we had it easy compared to most.
We’d kept our nice house. A house that happened, by luck or grace, to be in one of the compounds that had sprung up in wake of society going to hell.
We had enough money for heat and light when it was available, and the water was clean for the two, half-hour slots a day it ran. There weren’t gangs roaming the streets, unless you went too near the edge of the compound where raids occurred. Compared to those living outside? We were golden.
I sighed and crammed my two hefty medical books into my backpack. If I had been lucky to be born earlier, and had been a student ten years ago, then I’d be living away from home. Having a whale of a time at Uni. Drinking and partying…and sex. There’d be lots of sex.
The Collapse had taken care of that way of life. Now, no one left home anymore. And partying and drinking were things of the past. Mostly. My mum sometimes managed to get the odd bottle of contraband wine, and she and Dad would pour us all a glass as we sat watching old DVD’s on a machine that had seen better days. Since the TV stations collapsed to only two boring as fuck state run channels, DVD’s or reading were the way to go for entertainment. Although books were increasingly rare as people burned them during the times when the gas didn’t flow and we couldn’t heat our homes.
“See ya.” Simon slammed the door and his boots crunched down the gravel.
I made my way downstairs and gave my mum a peck on the cheek. She patted my shoulder and shuffled into the kitchen. She looked fifty-five, not forty-five.
“Hi, Pumpkin.” My dad trudged down the stairs behind me.
“Are you going into work this morning?” I asked. Dad worked at the university, which was why Simon and I were getting a free education. It was purely based on aptitude who got to take one of the highly coveted places on a higher education course in one of the few surviving universities. It had been lucky to be located within the compound, and so been saved. Dad had schooled Simon and me for years to make sure we were able to pass the exams. “We could take the second bus together.” My hopes soared as he smiled.
“Not today.” His smile fell and he glanced at Mum, but she looked away. “I’ll get the lunchtime bus. But maybe we can have a coffee in the refectory this afternoon?”
I nodded. The coffee was vile. Weak nasty powder that tasted like the stuff my grandparents used to drink. But it was all there was, so we accepted it.
I wandered into the lounge and my spirits soared when I saw Tilly laid out by the fire. We’d not lit it for months, but she still lay in front of it, ever hopeful. Tilly was my best friend in the world. A beautiful, happy, full of life golden retriever. As I walked into the room, her tale thumped against the floor. Whump, whump, whump.
I wondered over to her and bent to stroke her soft, fur. Minutes passed as I lost myself in the soothing action. Tilly continued to thump her tail on the floor and she panted happily at the attention.
“For God’s sake, Mildred, you’ll miss the bus. Please will you get out of the house, your father and I need to talk.”
I glared at her, I hated her using my full name and she knew it. My name was awful. Who named their child Mildred in this day and age? I shot her another dirty look, but did as I was told. I knew just what they’d be discussing. Marrying me off to Blake. Dad went along with Mum’s plans, but he wanted to wait a year or two, whereas she wanted it a done deal. Engaged this year, married the next. Game over.
I swung my bag over my shoulder and slammed the door behind me as I went. The day was bright with sunshine, the birds sang, and no one would guess the world had gone to shit.
Daytime wasn’t too bad. The Foamers burned if they spent too long in the sun, so tended not to come out much during sunlight hours. The night though, even in the safe zones you could hear their cries and wailing from beyond the walls. I shuddered when I thought of them. A colossal advertisement to the follies of genetic engineering and biological warfare.
Still, at least we in Britain didn’t have radioactivity to contend with like they did in parts of the United States. Those poor bastards along the west coast had it bad, after two dirty bombs were dropped. For a day or two we were staring down the barrel of all out nuclear war, but then the President decided he didn’t need to bomb anywhere because the world had all gone to shit anyway. He wasn’t wrong, and this was before the damn virus emerged and the Foamers began to wander the night streets.
The Americans closed their borders, retreated into themselves and went back to the Frontier mentality that had served them so well at their birth as a nation.
Now the waters around the United States, and the skies above it were no go zones, unless you wanted to get blown out of the air or the water. They didn’t have the Foamers there, or so I had heard. They closed their borders before the virus ravaged Europe and Africa. They had radiation sickness in areas, and Marshall law across the nation, but no half-dead, half-living monsters.
You could say the worst thing to happen in their history, became the thing that saved them. They closed shop just as the rest of the world began to suffer from the strange virus.
I reached Simon at the bus stop and he shot me a scowl. “You’re so spoiled. Mum always makes sure you get the shower.”
“It was my day, and it’s not because I’m spoiled, it’s because she wants to marry me off like a prize heifer being exchanged for some corn. She gives me away, and you all get a nice new house and more luxuries. That’s why I get the water, and the only bits of luxury items she can scavenge, like body lotion. She wants me looking my best, so she can sell me off for power and prestige.”
He snorted. “I don’t get why you’re supposed to be so pretty, you still look like the goofy kid everyone used to tease, underneath all that hair. Anyway, stop moaning. It’s not as if you won’t be living in luxury yourself, Mil’s. Not if you can bag Blake. Look at all the money and prestige his family has. You might end up being the wife of the next Prime Minister if his ambitions are realized.”
