“I can see why they’d want horses, but what do they want with you? No offense.”
“They’ll take anything they think they can sell.” He wriggles around to get a better look at her. “You’ll be out of here in no time.”
Silver doesn’t like the sound of that.
“If that’s true, why are you still here? Shouldn’t you have been sold on by now?”
“People like me can be difficult to shift.” He sticks his left arm through the hole, showing her a brand on his wrist: a Delta symbol.
“So why don’t you leave?” Silver rattles the bars on her cell door, checking to see how well it’s all welded together. “This place isn’t exactly escape proof. Just climb out of here like a little monkey and off you go.”
Tomkin pulls his left arm back through the hole and shoves his right arm out instead. “Tried that.”
His wrist is swollen, bruised, and clearly very painful.
“They broke my wrist and haven’t given me any water for three days. If they can’t offload me by the end of the week, they’ll surely kill me. But you …” He withdraws his damaged flesh. “You need to get out of Mercia.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard that word today. What the hell is Mercia?”
“The largest county in England.”
“And it’s run by Slade?”
Tomkin chuckles to himself, amused by her lack of local knowledge, but the chuckle soon turns into a sputtering cough. It takes him several seconds to recover from it.
“He wishes.” His voice croaks. “He controls Manchester, which is only a mile or so square. I’ve known wild dogs to keep a bigger territory than that.”
“So where should we go? North?”
Tomkin shakes his head. “There ain’t nothing north of here. Northumbria, the next county up, is a wasteland—nothing but ruins.”
Silver pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, starting to despair. “Is nowhere safe?”
“Depends. If you’re not Mercian, or a Taint, you’re best to keep going west and cross the border into Delta territory. You can seek asylum there.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
He doesn’t get to answer. Footfalls down the tunnel herald the approach of the guards, and he’s dragged swiftly from his cell.
“Slade wants to see you,” one of the guards barks at him. “P’raps today’s your lucky day, Delta.”
Too weak to protest, Tomkin lets them push him out into the main tunnel space, and as he stumbles in front of Silver’s cell, she gets her first clear view of him. He’s in his thirties, and would be good looking if he wasn’t covered in welts and bruises—some old, some new. He’s been beaten repeatedly, though not severely, his dark hair spattered with dried blood and dirt.
His clothes—the same style of shirt, waistcoat and trousers that are now becoming so familiar—are covered with the same: blood and dirt mingled together. On his feet, black leather, knee high riding boots are buckled all the way up, his trousers tucked inside them. They’re scuffed and splattered with muck, but otherwise appear to be in good shape.
Laughing and joking with one another, casually exchanging personal stories and anecdotes like this is simply another normal part of their work day, the guards slap a pair of handcuffs on Tomkin and use a cattle prod to get him moving.
The echoes of their departing footsteps fading, Silver hears the clang of something solid hitting metal, followed by a scrabbling and fumbling, and the sound of falling debris. Looking up, she finds Alex perched on the dividing wall between their cells.
“I think we should cut loose now. Don’t you?” He holds his hand out to pull her up.
“There’s nothing I’d like more.”
She accepts his hand and relies on his muscle to help heave her up onto the top of the wall with him. Once there—once he’s certain that she’s properly balanced—he jumps off the wall into the tunnel, then holds his hands out to catch her.
She hesitates to follow. “What about Luka?”
Before Alex gets to fix a frustrated grimace on his face, a gunshot blows out the lock on Luka’s cell door. The gunshot is followed by a strong kick that causes the door to swing back so hard and so fast it almost breaks off its hinges, and Luka emerges holding the backup handgun from his ankle holster.
Silver grins and jumps down, deliberately landing beside Alex instead of in his arms. “I told you getting out of here would be a piece of cake.” She retrieves her hold-all and gun from the pile. “Now let’s grab Tomkin and get the fuck out of here.”
Alex seizes her by the shoulders and holds her back. “Whoa. We can’t help him.”
“What do you mean we can’t help him? We’re not gonna leave him here.”
“Yes, we are. Silver, we don’t know where we are, we don’t know how many of Slade’s men are out there, or what weapons they have. We can’t risk it.”
Thinking Alex’s position cowardly, Silver looks across at Luka for a second opinion, hoping to find his thoughts in line with hers, as they so often are.
But not today.
“I’m sorry, El.” He uses a diminutive of her first name, hoping that makes the apology sound more heartfelt. “Alex is right. We need to leave while we have the chance. Letting Huck and Rex take us in was a bad idea.”
Numbed by their decision to ditch Tomkin, Silver follows them into the tunnel network, sullen and annoyed. With no idea of the layout, Alex chooses directions based solely on airflow: where there’s a breeze, there must be a way out.
After five or ten minutes of what feels to Silver like an aimless march through a series of damp, dark holes, some of which are little more than narrow walkways beside old canal ditches, they reach a junction of passageways and she stops abruptly. Somewhere that she has absolutely no hope of pinpointing, a woman is sobbing, the sorrowful noise drifting through various air ventilation grates and pipework.
“Do you hear that?” She spins in a circle. “Where is that coming from?”
Alex doubles back, snags her wrist, and compels her onward. “There’s no time, Silver.” He doesn’t even try to hide the frustration in his voice. “We have to go.”
He pulls her out into a large, cavernous room where Luka’s waiting for them beside a rusty access ladder that extends in excess of forty feet upward. Wind whips down from above, howling through crevices in the stonework.
Luka points upward. “Who wants to go first?”
Alex does. He puts all his weight on the ladder and jumps up and down, testing its sturdiness. Satisfied that it only offers up one creak and a small shower of rust flakes, he begins to scale it. At Luka’s urging, Silver goes in the middle, while he takes up the rear.
“You wanna look at my butt,” she taunts him.
At the top of the massive ladder, Alex moves aside a manhole cover and pulls himself out into a covered parking garage directly beside the Great Northern Warehouse. When Silver emerges behind him, she practically whimpers with relief: there are cars!
“Oh, finally!” She makes a beeline for the nearest one. “No more walking.”
She starts checking the wheel wells for a hidden key and, remarkably, finds one.
“I love you.” She flings her arms over the hood of the car, hugging it.
“Where are we going to go?” Luka throws his backpack in the trunk.
“West.” Silver gets in and starts the engine. “We’re going to Delta territory.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Silver turns the key in the ignition again, but the engine refuses to turn over. A battery light on the dashboard blinks red, indicating that all six power cells are now empty.
“Stupid electric cars,” she grumbles.
Resigning himself to another long hike, Alex gets out and stretches his legs. “It’s not the car’s fault you happened to pick one that was only at a quarter charge.”
At least it got them away from the city.
Away from Slade.
Silver knows she s
hould feel grateful for that, but she feels dismal. Reluctant to leave the relative comfort and shelter of the vehicle, she looks out at their surroundings: nothing but fields, with dense tree cover up ahead.
She can no longer find the beauty in it. Instead, she finds it depressing. Even though they’ve come over a hundred miles since first landing here, it feels like they’re back at the beginning.
“I hate this country.” She collapses against the steering wheel.
“It’s not so bad.” Luka tries to look on the bright side. “We must’ve covered about forty miles, and that’s saved us a twelve hour walk.”
“How dare you be so chipper,” Silver moans. “This is awful.”
“More awful than being executed?” Alex takes her by the hand and drags her out of the car. “Because that’s what would’ve happened to us if we’d stayed in Amaranthe.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She puts weight back on her complaining feet.
“We’ve only got a few hours of good light left,” Luka observes, squinting up at the gloomy sky. “We should go a mile or two, then look for somewhere to hole up for the night. I think it’s gonna rain.”
Alex digs around in the trunk of the car, looking for anything useful they can take with them. In the end, all he finds is an old tarp.
“What are we going to do with that?” Silver frowns at it. “Cut a hole in it and use it as a three person poncho?”
“Any shelter is better than no shelter if the weather turns.” He bundles up the tarp and sticks it through the handles of his hold-all.
He’s right, but two hours into the walk, Silver manages to find something that proves to be even more useful when the first droplets of rain start to fall: the ruins of a cottage. It doesn’t look that old, and probably only had a few years of use before the people who built it either died, or decided to move elsewhere.
The forest has started to reclaim it already, with trees growing in and around it, and ivy covering it, but it promises to protect them from the elements nonetheless. Sections of the roof are still intact, along with all of the first floor, leaving the ground floor completely covered. While they stand looking at it, a gray squirrel hops out of a small hole beside the front door and sits on the porch, staring at them with its head cocked.
After a few seconds, it appears to decide that they’re a threat and attempts to protect its territory. Puffing itself up, ruffling its tail above its head, it starts to grunt at them, making a sound akin to that of an angry duck.
“Home sweet home.” Luka picks up a stick and tosses it in the squirrel’s direction.
Sensing that it’s outnumbered, the squirrel bolts for the nearest tree and scurries up it, continuing to shriek at them from the safety of the branches.
“Easiest eviction of a squatter ever.” Silver pats Luka on the shoulder.
“I’ll go take a peek inside,” Alex offers, already halfway there. “If there are any more rodents hiding in there, I’ll flush the little buggers out.”
If Silver weren’t so tired, she’d complain about that. Though she’s certain many women would love to be treated like a delicate little flower, she sure as hell isn’t one of them. She’s perfectly capable of flushing out rodents on her own, thank you very much.
“What is it about a vagina that brings out such overprotective, macho bullshit in men?” she wonders, half to herself, half to Luka. “It makes you go all panicky and soft.”
“That’s not what your vagina does to me.” He smirks. “It actually has quite the opposite effect.”
Silver blushes, glad that Alex isn’t around to see it. “Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?”
Sharing a naughty smile with her, Luka becomes transfixed on her eyes, causing the redness in her cheeks to stick around.
“What’s your issue?” She turns her head, waiting for the fire to dissipate.
“Your eyes.” He breaks into a broad grin. “They’re completely back to normal. Does that mean you’re free of the virus now?”
Silver’s never felt such a complex surge of emotions. If it’s true, if the virus really has been eliminated, then that’s cause to be ecstatic. On the other hand, she knows it’s only going to add an extra layer of complication to their already troubled triangle.
Up till now, they’ve been in a strange sort of limbo. Alex hasn’t been able to touch her since she received the treatment that cured her, but neither could Luka—the virus was still in her system. The only reason he’d been keeping his distance was due to the risk of infection, but now that’s no longer a concern … damn.
Having established that the coast is clear inside the cottage, Alex reappears in the doorway, ushering them both inside. “I think you’ll like it here. It’s cozy. I mean, it needs some remodeling, but it’s definitely got potential.”
As Silver suspected from the outside, the place isn’t that old. The furniture, though extensively damaged by rodents, still retains sufficient padding to give some comfort, and there’s enough for everyone: two armchairs and a couch.
The onslaught of rain keeps them confined indoors, but thanks to a basket of wood stashed by the fireplace, they’re able to build a fire and generate some warmth. A quick raid of the kitchen cupboards turns up a few tins of something marginally edible: some kind of beans, accompanied by the vilest pickled mushrooms any of them have ever had the misfortune to put in their mouths.
After dinner—if you could call it that—Silver and Luka begin making up their beds for the night. The boys agree to take an armchair each, giving her the benefit of stretching out on the couch, and she’s too greedy to argue. Going on a hunt for sheets or bedspreads, hoping to find anything that might be able to add extra warmth to the emergency blankets, she makes her way upstairs and finds Alex sitting in a chair in the master bedroom—the only one still partially covered by what remains of the roof.
“There you are. I wondered where you’d snuck off too.” She spots an unlit cigarette in his hands. “I should’ve known you’d be hankering for a sneaky bedtime smoke.”
She has to admit, he’s done well. For a guy who’d normally burn through more than an entire pack in a day, he’s shown an exceptional amount of restraint. He’d had one that morning, one on their walk to the city, another in the car, and that was all.
Finally, he gives in and lights up, taking a deep draw of breath.
“Oh, my god, that feels so good,” he says upon exhale. “Fuck.”
Silver ruffles a hand through his hair. “You sound like you’re about to come.”
He takes another lungful, watching her move about the room. The sheets on the bed are too ratty to be useful, but, while rummaging through an old armoire, she hits the jackpot and uncovers a few moth-eaten blankets.
“Ooh, we’re gonna feel rich tonight.”
Alex, seeming distracted, stays silent, running a thought through his head several time before he lets it come out of his mouth.
“Would you fuck me?” he asks at last, inhaling twice in quick succession.
At the look of shock, disbelief and annoyance on her face, he clarifies. “If I didn’t have this virus in me, would you fuck me tonight? Right now.”
“What?” She stifles a laugh. “Here?”
He nods. “Right here in this chair.”
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly.
“Why not?”
“Luka’s fifteen feet away. He’d hear everything.”
“So?” Alex inhales again. “You’re not usually the shy type.”
“No, I’m the don’t-rub-it-in-his-face type. Why are you asking me this?”
Alex pinches the cigarette between his lips, unfastens his pants, and pulls out his cock. His hard, eager cock.
“Shit.” Silver rolls her eyes. “Have you been working that up this whole time?”
“I’ve been nursing this practically all evening.” He sits back and smokes, letting his weighty erection lie against his stomach. “Haven’t you noticed?”
Truthfully, she
’d caught the outline of something in his lap when they’d been sitting by the fireplace earlier, but she’d thought it was just the way the fabric of his pants was bunched up.
“Look at me,” he demands, wrapping his hand around the thick shaft.
Silver drops the blankets down on the bed. “You want me to watch you jerk off? Is that where this is going?”
“I told you I wasn’t gonna give up.”
A few moments pass, his cock swelling even more as he strokes himself in front of her. All the while, he continues to smoke, content with the attention of her eyes until the cigarette burns down and he stubs it out on the arm of the chair.
“Come closer,” he beckons her.
Despite her reservations, she does what he asks, stopping an arm’s length away.
“Now what?”
Still touching himself, he reaches out and runs his hand up her thigh to the apex of her jeans, then brushes his thumb against her core.
“Don’t.” She swats him away. “I’m not letting you in there.”
“I can still look, can’t I?”
Unable to find a legitimate objection to that, Silver doesn’t stop him when he leans forward and undoes her pants, his fat cock bobbing between his legs.
“I want to see you.” He tugs the waistband of her jeans down, revealing her cotton panties.
“That’s enough, Alex,” she cautions him. “I don’t wanna do this.”
He appears not to hear her, his face so close to her skin. “You’re wet.” He groans. “I can smell you.”
Duh, she thinks, her body tensing on account of his proximity, mindful not to let him get too close. Of course she’s wet. He just pulled out his cock and made her watch him jerk it. Under normal circumstances, she probably would fuck him right now—even with Luka downstairs.
She closes her eyes and tries not to think about it, but she can hear him pumping his cock with his hand and soon finds herself weaving her fingers through his hair, holding his face against her crotch.
Lex Talionis Page 5
