Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The rocky outerwall of the mine presses into my back, as I sit on the ground thumbing through Papa’s journal in the shade. Beneath the notes, the photographs, the technical scientific terms that I can’t begin to pronounce, there’s a story, an undercurrent that gives insight into a man who remained an enigma to me, up until his death.

It begins with the untimely loss of his daughter, and the ice-cold chains he fastened to his heart. The early notes reflect his pain, his anger. His refusal to acknowledge that the patients he’d been tasked with cutting apart were once human.

But while his perceptions turn my stomach, it’s easy to see how he could’ve gotten swept up into the lies, the mindset of those who worked in Calico. Ragers destroyed his family. His life. He held his only child, a young girl who loved books as much as I did, while she fought and spoke in tongues about wanting to crack his skull open and eat his insides. And it was he who administered the poison that would render her eternally silent.

In the beginning stages, the Ragers are like mental patients. Sociopaths. And by the end, they become single-minded animals. That’s how Papa viewed them. Nothing but animals. Soon, his views would extend to those who carried the disease – the second generation, who, at the time, he felt didn’t deserve the world.

As I read on, I learn how much I reminded him of his daughter. How a single glance down at the book I clutched in my arms, when I first arrived, saved me from those incinerators.

I lift a page that’s folded and taped inside the journal, revealing a picture of Papa with Doctor Ericsson, Szolen, and two men I don’t recognize, dressed in military uniforms. It appears to be older, with worn edges and discoloration. Behind them, a digital screen mounted on the wall reads October 19th, 2016 and the time.

Before the bombs hit. Before Dredge was unleashed onto the world.

The pages that follow hold diagrams and sketches of the organism. They describe a common virus fused with a prion that’d been excavated from soil. Natives who once lived there were known to be cannibals that snatched travelers, killing them in violent ways, the evidence found in a cave filled with skulls and bones.

I pause my reading for a moment at a flash of all those skulls lined in Rhys’s room, before continuing on.

The journal lists measurements and terminology that I vaguely recall from my time spent in the lab with Papa. And when I reach the end of the notes, chicken scratch at the bottom of the page seizes my attention.

Anti-prion protein PrP ab623418

Isotype: IgG

Clonality: Polyclonal

The number is recognizable—the one tattooed on the back of Six’s head.

“He did find a cure,” I whisper as I stare down at the page.

Below the notes is a quote from the bible: So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just—Matthew 13:49.

“You’re Wren.” The familiar voice peels me from my reading, and I lift my gaze to Red, standing over me with a cigarette dangling from her fingertips. “That’s your name.”

“It is.”

Her chin dips toward her chest, lips pressed into a hard line, and she shakes her head. “I honestly thought he made you up. A side effect of all the … shit he went through. But here you are.”

I don’t say anything to her, but instead close the cover of the journal and tug my knees close to my chest.

“Rhys doesn’t talk about Calico, except for the girl who saved his life.” Her cheeks cave as she sucks the smoke into her mouth, before blowing it off to the side. Back in Szolen, Jessie sometimes smoked tobacco rolled in her own homemade hemp paper. The faint skunky scent on the air tells me they probably make their cigarettes the same way out here.

“I didn’t save his life.”

“Stop with the modesty. I’ve seen his scars. Heard his nightmares. We’ve all seen his moments of rage and anger. If you hadn’t found him, he wouldn’t be here, simple as that. He’d be part of that gray cloud of smoke that haunts the sky.” She swipes at her nose and sets her hand on her hip, flicking the ash. “I’m sorry for the punch. I just …. Rhys may be a scary bastard, but he’s protected all of us. Me, Tripp, Trinity.”

I’m guessing Trinity is one of the handful children running around the cavern. “Your daughter?”

She nods. “Legion raided our hive a few years back. Killed my little boy and girl in front of me.” Double-blinking and shifting her jaw is a poor attempt to fend off the tears welling in her eyes. “Left me for dead. That’s when the Ragers came, feeding off the bodies left behind. I managed to corner myself in the utility closet of an abandoned clinic. They were beating and rattling at the door, trying to get in. And then, after one of the longest nights of my life, the beating and rattling stopped, and the door opened to Rhys standing there. The Ragers wouldn’t come near him.” She looks out over the desert and back to me. “I’m not one to keep another woman in chains, but he told me not to let you leave. He specifically ordered me to watch you. And I figured … there had to be something about you. Something important ‘cause he ain’t never asked me to do that before.” She drops the cigarette to the ground and grinds her boot into it. “You could’ve run, but you didn’t. Thanks for what you did back there.”

“It’s okay. Leanna.”

“Lea.”

“Lea,” I echo, resting my elbows atop my bent knees. “Rigs said he has blackouts?”

“That’s what we call them. It’s when his eyes are open, but he ain’t there. Something takes over, and he just …” She shakes her head, brows pinched to a frown. “He’s not Rhys anymore. Those are the times I wonder if I’d be strong enough to kill him myself.”

“What happens in the blackouts?”

Her eyes level on me, with a grim darkness that sets my teeth on edge. “Ever see a man flayed alive?”

Swallowing a harsh gulp, I shake my head.

“I have.” She blinks hard and rolls her shoulders. “Rhys didn’t so much as flinch at the screams. And that’s how I knew something evil was inside of him.”

“So, Rigs brought me here as some kind of distraction for him?”

“I guess. I dunno.” She shakes her head, toeing a small hole in the dirt with her boot. “I don’t know what distracts a man like that. If we didn’t chain him, poor bastard would probably slice his own skin off.”

“Has he ever killed a woman?”

Lea shakes her head. “Not since I’ve been here. Damn near every woman here has offered herself to him. In these times, that’s quite a fortune falling at your feet.” A chuckle escapes her seconds before her lips tighten, and a small part of me wants to ask if she’s ever desired him that way, but I don’t. “A man who can walk among Ragers, even if he’s a little crazy and a whole lot scarred, is a man you respect. And that respect has made him a catch for any female out here on her own.” Tipping her head, she toys with a red bandana tied to her belt loop. “I think he must’ve been waiting for you, though.”

“What makes you say that?”

Her eyes soften, lips kicked up as she stares down at me. “Because I have never seen that bastard smile the way he did this morning, when Tripp asked if you were still here.”

I haven’t smiled in a long time myself. My heart wants to trust the wholeness since having found Six again, but my mind tells me happiness is temporary, and to be wary of it. It tells me that pain hides in the shadows and to keep my guard up.

“The other women. They’re here for the men?”

“We have a rule. The women choose. In all cases, she chooses, and if she doesn’t choose, she’s welcome to stay, or leave. No one here is a slave, but everyone has a job. For some? It’s keeping the men happy.”

“But they’re traded. Like property.”

“As I said, every woman chooses. It’s how we survive and protect the ones we love out here. Remember that.”

“I get it.” And I do. Hell, I bartered myself to save a little girl. But I chose to do that on my own. “As long as they are given a choice.”

She turns to leave, but before she takes the first step, I sit forward.

“Lea.”

She spins around, and I glance to either side, making sure no one’s standing in earshot.

“You got any … Queen Anne’s?”

Her brow furrows, and my stomach sinks. “He’ll want you to have his baby. You know that right? It’s what they all want out here. Some kind of future.”

I watch the children running around the open yard, too skinny and covered in dirt, while the adults watch over them with guns strapped to their bodies. “I’m not ready yet.”

“You’re never really—”

“Please. Just … do you have any, or not?”

Stuffing her hand into a satchel at her side, she pulls out a small square of cloth, unfastens the twine, and dumps a few seeds into my palm. “Chew them thoroughly. It’s the oil in the seeds that prevent implantation.”

Whether, or not, its effective remains to be seen. I heard some girls in Szolen ended up pregnant, anyway.

“Why do you give these to the others?”

“I told you. It’s their choice. It’s why I’m giving these to you now.”

Staring down at the seeds, I nod. “Thanks.”

* * *

Rhys leadsme down the path I took just two days before, where Ragers ambushed us. The thought of what could’ve happened sends a shiver down my spine. We pass the dark stain on the limestone, I’m guessing where they fed on the older woman, that’s dried in the harsh sun. The only evidence that the woman ever existed.

We come to a stop beside the tinaja, which has since grown shallower, and Rhys pulls me into his body. Lips crushing mine, he slides my shirt up my belly, until it dances over my hardened nipples, and I’m forced to raise my hands into the air. He tosses it to the side, along with the canteen I brought. Next, he unbuttons my pants, shoving them to the ground, and I kick them away, standing naked before him. Crossing his arms over his body, he lifts his shirt over his head, then removes his pants, and kicks his clothes away.

Taking my hand, he leads me into the water, which cools my hot skin, the second I dip my foot in. Even with whatever has evaporated from the top, the water is deep enough that it comes to about my neck and Rhys’s chest.

“They say this tinaja was formed after the bombs hit. It rained for days after. We’re bathing in the desert’s tears.” Rhys pulls me into him, and his wet body slides across my skin as he lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist. His erection presses into me, but he doesn’t breach my entrance.

I glide my hands over his skin, washing away the sweat there. I noticed the other day that the women bathe outside of the water, only dipping long enough to cool off.

Without warning, Rhys lifts me up onto the edge of the tinaja, to one of the flat shale-like rocks sticking out like a platform. The water splashing over the rock cools the scorch against my bottom.

He spreads my legs and buries his head between my thighs. Dragging his nose across my sex, he smells me, and I can feel his fingers digging into my hips with the growl that rumbles in his chest. He reminds me of an animal savoring the scent of its prey before the kill. The stubble of his beard flinches my muscles, and I moan at the prickle. The first sweep of his tongue sends my hips forward, and he holds them down, pressing his thumbs against my folds like he’s peeling back a ripe fig for the soft fruit inside.

“Oh, God, Rhys,” I whisper.

The sensations collide inside of me, and I tip my head back toward the sun, taking in the heat, the cool water, and his tongue dancing across my sensitive flesh. My body tenses, breaths stiff, and just when I think the heat is too much, he jumps out of the water, crawling over top of me. His cool, wet body soothes the burn, and he guides his tip inside. With one hearty thrust, he fills me completely, his hard length pushing against my tight walls.

“You belong to me now, Wren. Promise me you won’t leave.”

“I promise.”

“Say it. Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours, Rhys. I won’t leave you.”

“You’ll bear a son, or daughter, for me. My own child.”

“Isn’t it a bit soon to be talking kids?” The question makes me inwardly chuckle, but when I look up at him, Rhys isn’t smiling, at all.

He’s dead serious.

“Tell me you will.”

It’s not Szolen, or the romance novels I used to read, where couples courted each other. Out here, you meet someone you like, and you try to make a future. There are no dates. No marriages. Out here people seize life while they’re still a part of it.

Papa’s words drift through my mind from years ago, when he told me Six was driven by the same needs as a Rager. To eat, mate, and survive. He referred to it as the biological imperative of the species. It shouldn’t be a surprise that those needs would surface in time, and most women my age have come to accept the day when they’re called to fulfill that role. But as usual, I’m not most. “Lea came to you.”

“She told me you asked for them. I want you pregnant with my baby, Wren. I need to leave something behind. Something good. And I want you to be the one to carry my future.”

“When I’m ready, I will.”

His brow furrows, and he nods. “Okay, I can accept that.” Hips driving forward, he tightens his arms, holding himself off of me, as he pumps into me. “You choose when. But in the meantime, I choose you, Wren. That means we don’t fuck anyone else but each other.”

“Fair enough.” I don’t want anyone else. I’ve gone years comparing other men to Six, and even when I came to the conclusion that I’d never experience that kind of connection again, I still didn’t want anyone else.

My fingers dig into his back with the hammering of his hips. A sheen of sweat and remnants of water sparkle across his skin, and I drag my tongue over it for the salty taste of him.

His brows flicker as the pressure inside of me intensifies, and I know he’s close. Jaw tight, his hips grind out the final climb to climax. Our muscles tremble. My body arches into him. Higher. Higher.

A moan leaks past my lips, and when I cry out, he pulls out of me, directing warm jets onto my stomach. A low guttural growl signals his final release, and he pounds out the last of his seed.

His lips find my throat at the same time he spreads his fluids across my belly. “You belong to me,” he whispers against my skin. When he lifts his head, I notice the creases in his brow have lessened.

I run my finger over the shallow lines there.

“I’ve been trapped inside this hell, and you fly back to me like a breath of redemption. Why?” he asks.

“Why not?”

“Only a good man deserves a woman like you.”

“Well, then. You see?” I trail my fingertip down along his temple. “I told you there was goodness in you.”

His lips stretch to that beloved roguish Six grin, which quickly disappears. “I hope that’s true.”

“I don’t have to hope for anything anymore.” I curl my fingers around his nape, dragging his face to mine for a kiss.

A muffled static noise interrupts us, and Rhys’s head tilts to the side. He reaches for his pants nearby and tugs out a walkie-talkie, holding it to his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Got a signal from about twenty miles out. Legion.”

“Load up. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Rhys pushes off of me, scrambling for his pants, and with a mask of confusion, I sit up on my elbows.

“Where are you going?”

He tugs his shirt over his body, hiding the chiseled, but scarred, stomach beneath. “Another raid.”

Those two words explode inside my ears, sending a rush of panic to my muscles. “You’re going after Legion?”

“If they haven’t already cleared out, yes.” After dipping a canteen into the pool, he strides toward me and rubs the water over my stomach, washing away his now-dried release.

I push his arm out of the way and crawl toward my clothes. “I’m coming with you.”

“The hell you are.”

Tugging my pants up over my hips and fastening the button, I shake my head. “Rhys, you can’t … you can’t just. You can’t do that. I just found you again, and you’re going off to fight?”

“We’re just going to scope it out.” He slides a grisly-looking blade out of a holster at his hip before securing it back inside. “If it’s too dangerous, we’ll pull back.”

I pop my head through the T-shirt and jab my finger toward the knife he just pulled. “What’s that for, then? A jar of peanut butter along the way?”

“They’re our allies, Wren.” Hands set on his hips, he maintains a healthy distance from me. “The surrounding hives supply us with food and clothing for protection. I have no choice. We have to go.”

I lurch toward him as if I could wrap him up and steal him away. As if I have the power to move a man like him. “What if something happens to you?”

“Nothing is going to happen to me. I won’t do anything stupid.” He strides forward and comes a stop in front of me. Curling his fingers around my biceps, he tugs me into his body and brushes his lips over mine. “I’ve got too much at stake now.”

“Promise me you’ll come back.”

“I promise,” he whispers, and seals my arguments with a kiss.