Crucible Zero Page 13

  “How are we going to do that? Our bus went over the cliff, and Quinten is unconscious.”

  “I think the clanks have a solution,” Left Ned said.

  I turned to get a look at Abraham and Foster, overshot how fast my head could handle my moving, and ungracefully fell forward, away from Neds.

  Crap.

  “Matilda?” Right Ned said, startled.

  “I’m fine.” I pushed back up while the world did a hard spin and made me want to puke. “Just a second.”

  “You’re injured and stupid,” Left Ned said. “Hold still.”

  He helped me roll onto my back, my head near Quinten’s knees, the tree we’d been deposited by spinning lazily around the edges of my vision.

  I closed my eyes. “Spinning. But no roses. Never thought I’d hate the smell of roses.”

  “You’re babbling,” Right Ned said. “Just rest. Let me see how bad that hole in your head is.” He paused. “Well, I’m not gonna lie. This is going to sting.”

  He was wrong. It didn’t sting. The cloth he pressed against my scalp burned like a thousand angry bees had nested in my head.

  “Ow. Sonofa— That really hurts,” I said.

  “Baby,” Left Ned said. “You’ve had worse.”

  “I know I have.” I opened my eyes, because I always dealt with pain better with my eyes wide open.

  Right Ned frowned a little. “You have?”

  “Bullets hurt more than this. Getting chewed up in an explosion while time smashes you apart hurts a lot more than this.”

  Left Ned sucked air through his teeth. “You sure did come up odd, didn’t you, Tilly?”

  “More than you know. How’s Quinten?” Talking was helping me keep my mind off their fingers poking and prodding at my head. How could a man with only one hand suddenly have a hundred poking fingers?

  “Still out. We’ll get smelling salts after we get this cleaned.” Right Ned frowned, and then his pretty blue eyes flicked downward to hold my gaze.

  “You have a cut and it’s swelling. I don’t think stitching it is going to do you any good. So I’m going to pack it with the medicine, then wrap your head. I might need to cut some hair.”

  “Shave it—I don’t care.”

  Right Ned shook his head. “No, I just need to make sure I can get enough medicine on the wound. I am sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It will grow back. And I’ve always thought going really short would be fun.”

  He pulled out Evelyn’s small, sharp sewing scissors; cut away some of my hair, trying not to pull too hard on it, which was sweet but mostly unnecessary; and then spread a thick layer of the tin-can balm on it.

  To my great relief, the medicine numbed and soothed. I sighed.

  Then he pulled out a pad of cotton and the binding. “I’ll need your fingers. Think you can manage?” Left Ned asked.

  “I just set your shoulder,” I said. “I can manage a square knot.”

  He got to work placing the cotton, which I helped hold in place, since he was one-handed right now. Even one-handed, it didn’t take him long to wrap my head to his satisfaction.

  I felt like a mummy, but he’d stretched the bandage around my head a couple times, careful to make it tight enough to hold the medicine and pad in place and to not slip into my eyes.

  “Good?” I asked.

  “Enough,” Right Ned said. “I’ll see if I can wake Quinten. Rest a minute.”

  He moved away from my line of vision, and even though I knew we had to get moving before the ferals showed up, and we needed to be either somewhere safe or at least in a defensible position before nightfall, I was more than happy to lie there for a moment and pull myself together.

  We’d traveled only half a day outside our property and had already been shot at, driven off a cliff, and almost killed.

  Slater had shot me.

  I suddenly understood how comforting a nice, walled fortress might actually be.

  “Matilda?” Abraham said.

  I rocked my head so I could see him, standing to one side of me. Wisely, he crouched.

  “Thanks for, um . . . dragging us all out of the crash,” I said. “And killing the mercs.”

  “We need to get to cover before nightfall,” he said.

  “You’re not one to stand on gratitude, are you?” I tucked my elbows under me and rolled a bit to one side so I could prop myself up.

  Ouch. My pulse hammered against the inside of my skull, and that bandage felt much too tight.

  I thought I had been doing a fairly good job, but when Abraham reached over and helped me sit, his hand resting beneath both of my elbows in case I tipped over, I was grateful for it.

  “You have a concussion,” he said.

  “I know. I’ll be fine. But my brother’s unconscious. How are we going to get him”—I pointed, and was pretty proud that I didn’t topple over—“on that?” I shifted my finger to indicate the motorcycle.

  “One of the vehicles is a four-wheeler. We should be able to transport him that way. Can you stand?”

  “You have no idea how good I am on my feet,” I held my hand out for him, getting ready to shove up onto my feet.

  He smiled. “Love to see it,” he said. “But maybe at a later time.”

  Oh. The look he was giving me was sharp with curiosity and something else: he found me fascinating. And from the way he took my hand and smoothly straightened up to standing, his arm reaching around to wrap me in an embrace as he stepped into me, so that our bodies were pressed together, thighs, hips, stomach, and chest, I knew clearly that he was intently interested in more than a dance with me.

  I should not fall in love with a killer. Should I?

  With my head tipped back so I could look at him, the world was a little fluttery and dizzy around the edges, but, blessedly, without any scent of roses.

  Or maybe that wasn’t the world. Maybe that was just me and my wants and needs. Because even though my brain knew Abraham was not the man I had loved, my heart refused to listen. I loved him. Still. I thought I always would.

  His smile was soft; his gaze unrelenting. Asking me, without words, if I understood what he was offering me. What he wanted from me. What he was willing to give.

  I wanted to tell him yes. To give in to what my heart knew was true. But there was a world to save. A plague to end. My brother was wounded, and even though I had done the best I could with the supplies we had on hand, his best chance for survival would be to get him to a real doctor: Gloria.

  Who would die if we didn’t get to her in time.

  That was a lot to do and not a lot of time left for love.

  I took in a breath, and it was too shaky.

  He frowned slightly and lifted one hand, his thumb wiping away a tear that I hadn’t realized was there at the edge of my cheek.

  “We have time,” he said softly, strangely guessing my fear.

  Or did he? Was he telling me he and I had time, or that we all had time to try to save Gloria and kill Slater? Either way, I didn’t think we did have time. Not as long as Slater was alive. Not as long as there was a bomb ready to take out innocent people. Not as long as galvanized were considered criminals in this world.

  “Then we should spend that time on something important. Like finding a safe place for the night,” I said.

  He relaxed his grip on me, held my arms to make sure I was steady, his expression closed, but his brow furrowed, as if confused at my response.

  I was confused at my response too. Had I just told him my feelings for him—and his for me—weren’t important? Weren’t worth taking time for? I didn’t mean that. The head injury was making it hard to think. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that we get to safe ground before nightfall, before ferals and more mercenaries showed up.

  I walked over to Neds. Quinten was moaning soft
ly, semiconscious. He was trying to push away the smelling salts Neds held under his nose.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said to him. “We have to leave now. We’ll help you up. You’re going to be fine.”

  Between the four of us—Abraham and Foster being the least injured, or the least hampered by their injuries—we got Quinten on the four-wheeler, with Foster carefully holding on to him.

  I wasn’t sure I could handle driving a motorcycle, what with my jumpy vision and dizziness, but Neds had only one good arm, and I wasn’t sure he could handle a bike on his own.

  In the end we decided that Foster and Quinten would take the lead, Neds would follow on his own bike, and Abraham would drive another bike that I’d be passenger on.

  It wasn’t the best solution, but it was the best we had. And so we pulled the vehicles together, loaded them and ourselves with as much of our gear as we could carry, then started off at a careful pace, down the hill and across the valley to House Earth Compound Five.

  9

  Slater knows you’re out to kill him. He’s tearing the world apart looking for the key for how to kill you. If you read this, Matilda, don’t get close to him; don’t fight him. You can’t win.

  —W.Y.

  Even though I had my head tucked against Abraham’s wide back, my arms locked around him and legs straddling his sides, riding a motorcycle when one is concussed is all kinds of painful.

  I found the best thing I could do was keep my eyes closed and concentrate on the shifting of his muscles beneath the layers of clothing he wore, trying to make myself useful—or at least not a hindrance in the turns and switchbacks of the road.

  Unfortunately, none of the vehicles had survived the crash well, and we had to take it even slower than the vehicles might manage, because Quinten was semiconscious and Foster had to compensate for his nearly dead weight.

  What would have taken us an hour in the bus took more than two. It was late afternoon, and when I did risk a quick look out to the goal horizon, it felt like we hadn’t even crossed half the distance.

  When Neds’ motorcycle started sending out an alarming amount of smoke, we decided to pull off the road under some trees to let the engine cool down.

  I groaned as I tried to get feeling into my butt and legs, and walked stiffly over to where Foster was still straddling the four-wheeler, Quinten facing him in his arms.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “He needs rest,” Foster said. “Shelter.”

  “I know.” I glanced down the road, then back at Neds, who were strolling off a distance to pee.

  Abraham had pulled out his canteen and taken a drink, and handed it to me.

  I swallowed until I cleared the dirt in my throat, then took the canteen over to Foster.

  “We’re not going to make it to House Earth before nightfall,” I said to Abraham.

  “Mmm,” he replied.

  “Do you know of a place we can hole up until morning?”

  Foster took a swig of water, then, without having to say anything, we both worked on waking Quinten enough to take a drink.

  Quinten’s eyes were swollen almost shut, but he opened them a slit. We tipped the canteen to his mouth, and he managed to down three or four gulps.

  “Where?” he croaked.

  “Still on our way to House Earth. Almost there,” I lied. “We fell off the road. Last time I let Neds drive.”

  He grunted, which I think was supposed to pass as a laugh.

  “The ferals . . .” he said.

  “I know. You don’t have to worry about them either. We’ve got that all taken care of.”

  That either satisfied him or it was all the strength he had. He closed his eyes and slumped forward into Foster again.

  Foster wrapped his left arm around him, holding him steady as easily as if he were a child.

  “Do you want me to trade with you, Foster?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We should go soon. Abraham. Shelter.”

  It wasn’t quite a command. I glanced over at Abraham. He stood near his bike, eyes set on a point to the northwest. “There’s a cabin. It’s not large, but it should have fire lines, and it might have other provisions.”

  “How far away?” I asked.

  “Two hours. In the right direction. We’ll be able to make the compound in the early morning tomorrow.”

  “Should we just push through the early hours of the night instead?” I asked.

  “No,” Abraham and both Neds said.

  “We’ll go to the cabin,” Abraham continued. “Foster, I’ll take lead; you follow. Mr. Harris, you take the rear.”

  Neds rolled his good shoulder and shook out his hand. “Let’s do it,” Right Ned said.

  I glanced at the motorcycle. My legs were already feeling the past couple hours. But two more wouldn’t be so bad. Besides, we still had good weather, and so far no other signs of mercenaries.

  “Is there a reason no one else has come out to kill us?” I asked Abraham as he mounted the bike and steadied it for me to get on.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “Whoever is out here is looking for their own place to hole up.”

  “Do they know about the cabin?”

  “Probably.”

  “And we’re just going to ride up to a cabin full of mercenaries and knock on the door?” I wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “I wasn’t going to knock.” He started the engine, checked to make sure Neds and Foster were set, and started down the road again.

  * * *

  Evening was draining down quickly, shadows growing under the brush thick beside the road. Old, abandoned fences threw stripes of darkness across our path.

  It was cold, and getting colder fast. I glanced up, trying to get a bead on the sunset. I couldn’t see the sun, and even the cool gold light that had poured through the trees fifteen minutes ago was gone.

  There would be no more light until morning.

  Abraham had turned off a side road about an hour ago. It was little more than a rutted path in the dirt that we had to take slowly, because of the winter washouts that had cut deep wallows in the road. Brush and brambles reached out from either side of the path, and at one point were so dense, we had to stop for Abraham to hack away at them with a machete.

  Every time we stopped, I could feel the shifting in the shadows. I’d been around ferals at the edges of our property my whole life. Crocboar and the like. I knew what they sounded like; I knew how they hunted.

  And I knew they were hunting us.

  The only good thing about us having to go so slowly was the possibility that other people—people who wanted us dead—hadn’t been out this way recently. The disadvantage?

  Well, those were lurking between the trees, flashes of teeth and fur I caught out of the corner of my eye.

  If anyone was following us, we had left obvious tracks in the dusty soil, and hacking back the brush would be a clear indication that we’d turned this way.

  Every inch of my skin was tight with goose bumps, my senses sharp, heartbeat pounding. There was danger here. We were in danger.

  “How much farther?” I asked as Abraham rolled to a stop so he could hack back another bramble of blackberries.

  “Half a mile?” he said between swings.

  I glanced at the forest around us. “Give me your knife.” I swung off the bike, pulling the one blade I had with me. Why hadn’t I packed my usual weapons?

  Maybe because I didn’t have any usual weapons, seeing as how I’d been mostly dead in this world and Evelyn had been living this life instead of me.

  Abraham pulled his knife—a long, wicked-looking thing—and flipped it, offering me the hilt.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Ferals. Close.”

  He swore in a language I didn’t recognize—mayb
e Russian—and redoubled his efforts to clear a hole we could drive through out of the thicket.

  I stepped away, walking several yards back the way we’d come so I had some maneuvering room to fight. Foster was sitting on the quad, Quinten strapped on in front of him and leaning into him. Since Quinten was unconscious, Foster’s hands were full. He couldn’t help fight if the ferals attacked.

  Neds were half asleep, Right Ned’s head resting against Left Ned’s. They had only one working arm, and needed that for the bike.

  Only Abraham and I were well enough and unencumbered enough to deal with the beasts.

  And if Abraham didn’t clear that trail, we were in for a hell of a time. I didn’t think we had enough knives or bullets between us to put the ferals down if they were as blood hungry as I’d been told they were.

  “Matilda,” Left Ned said softly.

  He didn’t have to. I saw it.

  The feral slunk out from behind the tree, three more behind it. They weren’t as ugly as the crocboar we had on our property, but they looked intent on the same thing: killing.

  Mottled fur covered their heavy heads and blocky torsos, and spindly hips were tucked down low over short, wolflike back legs. Their front legs weren’t legs, but more like monkey arms. They moved forward on all fours, lips pulled back from hooked yellow teeth, pointed ears flattened against their wide heads.

  There was only one way to make sure a crocboar went down and stayed down: stab it through the eye and into the brain.

  Since these ferals were mutated too, I figured that would work with these beasties.

  I shifted my grip on the knife in my right hand. And bent my knees.

  The beasts rushed. A storm of teeth, muscle, and claw.

  I dodged the first two, and sank my knife into the third one’s eye. It howled and squealed. I worked to pull the knife free, but it was thrashing too hard for me to get leverage. It kicked and bucked at the knife, then swung its front arms wildly, grabbing for me.

  I grabbed it back, holding its arms and pivoting. I threw my weight to force the beast in front of me.

  The other two slammed into me. I swore and braced my back leg and hips. They clawed and bit at their fallen pack mate, who was my temporary shield. I wrenched the knife free and stuck it in one eye, two. The ferals fell off, writhing and shrieking.