"What do you mean?" Cormac and I asked at the same time.
"Me and some of the others were talking about it a couple of days ago. There's just something about you we all feel drawn to."
I was a bit stunned by that admission and the door swung open to the Lizard Man before I could reply. There was no doubt who it was. He stood on two legs but his torso was freakishly elongated. His skin was a mottled yellow-black and he didn't greet us with words but with a forked tongue tasting the air.
"How cansss I help yousss?" he asked, his words blending into hissing noises at the end of some of the words.
His eyes roved over the group of us and I saw a different glint when they landed on me. Colleen was right; the changed were drawn to me. Cormac must have recognized it too, because he actually let me take the lead, instead of doing our normal arm wrestle for control.
I stepped a few inches nearer without getting too close. "Give me Sabrina's picture?" I asked Cormac.
He dug into his pack and handed me a now well-worn photo of her.
"Have you seen this woman?" I held it up to him.
"I seesss no one," he replied staring forward, refusing to look.
"She's in trouble. We don't mean her harm."
He looked down at the picture and then back to me. "My business isn't to tellsss people'sss secretsss. If I did seesss her, I notsss remembersss for certain."
It was as much of a yes as we were going to get. "We need to get across. You're supposed to be the man that can help us."
"What do youssss have to paysss?" He eyed up our few supplies suspiciously.
I did a mental inventory. I doubted water canteens and proteins bars were going to cut it.
"What do you want?" Cormac asked when I sputtered and stalled.
"Gunsss." Lizard man pointed to Cormac's holster.
"We'll give you five when we return."
"No. Nowssss." He shook his head adamantly.
"No."
"Yousss might not makesss it back."
"You can have mine now, theirs on our return," Cormac countered.
"Whensss?"
"How long will it take to cross?"
"One hoursss."
"We'll meet back here at nightfall."
Chapter Twenty-Six
We settled down in an abandoned building that was on the very outskirts of the town, taking turns keeping watch. Even though this little town looked to be about the safest place we'd seen since the destruction, it was all relative. Safe wasn't what it used to be. Not having the imminent threat of being shot or ripped apart was great and all that, but if you were smart, you still slept with one eye open.
I was half in and out of sleep when Dark got up from his place by the window and jolted me fully into the here and now. He was still in wolf form, which burned more energy and needed more sleep. That he still hadn't felt comfortable switching back to his human shape said it all.
I tensely watched him, not able to hear what he could. Then he relaxed and gave me a nod. Whatever he'd heard wasn't a threat. It took another minute before I heard the footsteps that alarmed him.
Cormac stepped into the room, food cradled in his arms. We were all starving by now. We'd packed for a quick raid, not a camp out.
He'd gotten bread and some sort of smoked meat, there was even cheese.
"How did you get all this food?" I asked.
"If we make it back, we aren't going to have a gun or bullet between the lot of us."
"Did you find out where they're getting all their supplies?"
"They're bartering with the people on the other side of the wall."
"What do they have to barter with?"
"They wouldn't say."
If you didn't have food, and money meant nothing, there weren't too many things left to trade. If I had mouths to feed, I'm not sure what I'd be capable of doing to see them eat. No one judged, anymore. You couldn't. If you went down that road, you wouldn't have too many people left you could talk to. People did what they had to and no one talked about it.
What really struck me was how did the people on the other side have things to give?
We split up the chow, each making a sort of makeshift sandwich. Back in the day, this would've been smothered in mayonnaise. Now? I was just happy I had water to chase it down with.
I slowed down eating after a couple of bites, looking at how thin Colleen was.
"Don't you dare," Cormac said as he sat beside me.
"But look at her," I said under my breath.
"There's been enough food at the casino," he said.
"If you get your ration, there is. It doesn't look like she's been getting hers."
"She's with Dodd and Dark now. We'll get her fattened up when we get back."
If we get back, I thought to myself.
"You try and give away your food right now and I swear I'll take you down before you even get to her."
"I got it. I'm eating."
I knew he was bluffing but I didn't feel like expending the energy to argue. I'm either becoming mature or I'm beyond exhausted. I covered the yawn that came with that thought. Yeah, just tired.
Cormac stood and grabbed his bag, pausing by Colleen and handing her the rest of his. She hesitated but he shoved it in her hand, forcing her with one of his scarier looks.
We packed up our few belongings, mostly just shirts used as makeshift pillows, and headed back over to Lizard Man's house. The town that had been bustling before was now deathly quiet and it showed how insecure everyone still was in their environment. Didn't matter if the rippers weren't here right now, you still knew they were out there, waiting. And maybe one night, if they got hungry enough, the tornado wall wouldn't keep them at bay any longer.
Our feet crunched along the ground as we walked down the streets. Flickering candle light allowed me glimpses of families trying to persevere in this harsh new world and occasional laughter proving they could.
Lizard Man was waiting outside of his house when we arrived.
"Gunsss?"
"One gun," Cormac said and reached for his holster to give him his.
Before he took it out, I laid a hand on his. "He can take mine," I said. I pulled it from the holster at my ankle that Cormac had insisted I wore. I'd hated the bulky nuisance from the second I'd put it on. I handed it to Lizard Man. "It wasn't much more than a prop anyway."
The Lizard Man tucked it into one of the zippered pouches on his pants and I wondered who had tailored them for his new form.
"Thisss waysss," he said.
I tried to act natural when he got on all fours with his shortened limbs and started to move like a lizard. I didn't think I pulled it off too well, so I was just grateful he was in front of us.
As we got closer to the tornado wall, I could make out the different individual cells within the massive dust they kicked up. I could see the lightning bolts striking the ground. The roar of the storms, which had been just background din before, was deafening.
Lizard Man held up a hand, signaling for us to wait. He moved along the sand, his tongue darting out continuously. Pausing for a minute, he appeared to be zooming in on one spot. Then he started burrowing into the sand at a rapid pace, sand being kicked behind him and piling up. An opening of about five feet by five feet emerged in the sand.
Looking at it, I already felt claustrophobic, even though I was standing in the middle of the wide-open desert. He stopped digging and waved us over before he disappeared into the tunnel.
Colleen grabbed my hand. Figured that she'd need support now. I was much better equipped to handle the gore in the courtyard but she was all miss independent then. I squeezed her hand with an assurance that I didn't feel.
Cormac stepped in first, almost bent at the waist, trying to accommodate his height. Dark dropped onto all fours and loped over with enough grace to make me realize he was quite versatile in this form. Katie, Evan and Sharon followed next. Colleen and I took the rear, with me ushering her in front so I could keep her going.
The noises subdued quickly as we entered and it was so dark I couldn't see Cormac in the distance, only black. Trying to keep my own abnormal breathing under control made me more aware of Colleen's. I placed a hand on her shoulder and she gripped it tightly a second later.
"Use your lightning. It will help you see and make you feel better," I whispered to her.
"I don't want to look weak." She spoke so quietly that I didn't have the heart to tell her Cormac and Dark heard her anyway.
"Colleen," Cormac yelled from way ahead of us. "Can you light this place up a bit so the humans can move easier?"
The corners of my mouth tugged up. He'd never admit it but these people, the ones who lived in his casino, were becoming his people too. He could fight and deny it all day long, but I saw the signs.
"Be careful not to touch me when I do this," Colleen said. "I'm not sure if my whole body gets charged and I don't want to hurt you." Her voice already sounded better just from gaining some modicum of control over her situation.
I didn't see anything and I started to worry that she couldn't do it. And then she spread her fingers in front of her and it looked like she held a sparkler, except it was the tip of her finger.
"That's pretty," I remarked, never having seen that version. Normally, she would toss a ball of lightning back and forth in between both hands.
"Thanks. It's a new version I've been working on, but it's a bit harder to control." And would keep her mind more focused on something other than the dirt tunnel we walked through.
It was small but it gave off a lot of light and I could see at least another three miles of tunnel stretched out ahead of us. Now to distract myself from the feeling of being buried alive.
"Mr. Lizard?" I called ahead, not knowing what else to call him.
"It'sss Sam," he replied.
"Did you dig this out by yourself?" I asked, looking at the claw marks along the walls of the circular tunnel.
"Yesss, I like to dig now."
"Where does it let out?"
"Safe placesss. Turnsss left here."
I looked up to the left to realize there wasn't just one tunnel but an entire labyrinth. We twisted and turned as we went and the true genius of it became very clear. Even if you could find the entrance, you might never find your way out without him. The knowledge didn't do much to help my nerves.
He had said three miles and at about twelve minutes a mile…nope, too long. Don't think about that.
Deep yoga breaths, one foot after another, just keep going. On the plus side, the longer we were under, the less I cared about what was waiting for us.
It seemed like an eternity before the Lizard Man spoke again. "Staysss back, mustsss dig us outsss," he said finally.
It was amazing to watch him dig. He looked just like a lizard would, or what they looked like on the nature channels. His arms worked in a flurry as the dirt kicked up and he burrowed through and then widened the hole.
"Shhhhh," he said as he waved his hand at us in a quick motion.
My hair was matted with dirt and I'd never felt grimier when we emerged from the hole. The tornado wall was far enough away to not feel like we'd be swooped off our feet at any moment but masked our sounds quite nicely.
Trying to get my bearings, I looked around quickly. A town sat in the distance, and I wondered if before the change, it might have been joined with the border town on the other side of the wall. Even though it was in rubble, there were dim lights. There were patches of plywood and tarps covering what I imagined were gaping holes in the roofs below.
From what I could see, there was only an occasional person or pair walking the streets, but they were out and about. That said more than anything else. They felt safe from the rippers at night here. Was that the senator's control, or were they just more confident of the tornado wall keeping them at bay?
"Samesss time tomorrowsss nite?" Sam asked.
"No, wait. We plan on returning tonight," Cormac instructed.
"Isss wait insss tunnel. Yousss stomp here whensss ready."
He moved to a spot about ten feet from the opening and stomped his foot on the sandy ground. It didn't make a sound from where we stood but you couldn't hear much over the storms.
We watched him bury himself back under the ground, disguising any opening had existed. Dark and Cormac scoured the area, trying to pick up a scent of them.
"Her scent is here but it disappears after a few feet," Cormac said.
"That's the most obvious place to start," I said and looking at the town in the distance.
"We'll go scout ahead," Cormac pointed between the two of us, "the rest of you stay here, out of sight. If we aren't back in the hour, you go back through the tunnel."
They agreed and we headed in to scope out the town.
Cormac and I stayed to the shadows whenever possible, working our way toward the closest house. Crouching by a nearby overgrown shrub, we peered into the window of a mostly intact colonial, built during the Mc Mansion explosion.
A woman and a man were sitting down at their dining room table with a girl toddler. It would have been the picture of domestic bliss if the man didn't have lobster claws for hands and the woman's skin wasn't an odd shade of green. The child was the only normal human in the room but odds were that she wasn't either. A regular young man walked in and placed plates down in front of the family and left the room, appearing to be a servant.
Cormac grabbed my arm, tugging me after him. We worked our way around to the side of the house that gave us a better view of what looked like the main drag of the town. Still hidden by shrubs, we watched as people walked about here and there, but the thing that caught my eye the most was a cluster of ten humans working in the center. Two men in fatigues stood nearby with whips in their hands as the men looked to be clearing debris out of a park. One of the men laboring stumbled to his knees under the weight of a large piece of concrete he was carrying. The larger of the two men in fatigues walked over and violently whipped him until he rose.
Every single one of the workers appeared to be a normal human.
What the hell was going on here? I turned to Cormac and gave him a look. He nodded in agreement, thinking the same thing I was. The changed here were making slaves of the regular humans. It didn't make sense, though. They were only ten percent of the population. Even with powers, they could be overwhelmed by the humans without too much trouble.
"I want to go see what's in that building over there," he said, pointing to what looked like it might be a town hall. The building was out in the open and was going to be hard to approach.
"You go," I said, knowing he had a better shot of checking it out on his own. "I'll wait here. You'll draw less attention alone."
My eyes went immediately back to the group working, once Cormac left, wondering if there was some way to help them before we left.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"Hello, Jo."
It was the senator's voice. I knew it by heart because I'd heard it over and over again every evening in my nightmares. I stood up from my kneeling position on the ground and dusted myself off leisurely before I turned around.
He stood about fifteen feet away and was as attractive as he had been last time, all blond and golden, dressed in a dark pin striped suit. He seemed more comfortable in his skin now, not that it had been that long since I last saw him.
About twenty military men stood around him, Crash among them. I briefly caught his gaze and saw the apology there, not that it mattered to me. My thoughts didn't linger on him long as I saw rippers slowly making their way over toward where we were. They were moving closer and closer, their numbers swelling as I watched.
"What can I do for you?" the senator asked, seeming supremely confident in his position.
I closed the distance between us by five feet and watched his face. He kept his fake grin in place but I could see him watch every step I took in his direction, annoyed I wasn't cowering. I wasn't going to let him think I was scared of him.
<
br /> I stopped walking and picked the spot where I'd stand my ground. "My people are over here. I've come to collect them."
"Did you not like the terms Oslo delivered?" His eyebrows arched. The smugness of his delivery grated on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
The rippers were gathering behind him in a way that demonstrated he had quite a bit of control over them. If he told them to attack me, would I be able to stop it?
"I think we need to discuss terms that would be more agreeable to both of us." That sounded diplomatic. I could swing this. I didn't have to be a hot head.
The bastard smiled full force now, as if he'd taken my measure. I got the sense that because I didn't go on the offensive, he thought I was powerless.
"No, I'd rather not negotiate with the likes of you," he replied, confirming my impression. He lifted his hand; dark smoke sprang from his palm and started to twirl around. "Take her down."
I initially thought that he was going to send the smoke for me like he had the last time but that would've been stupid. I'd beaten him at that game before. Then the rippers took a step forward. The dark smoke could control them, just like mine.
There had to be over a hundred rippers gathered by now, who were all suddenly fixated on me alone. They started to hiss and click, the sounds I associated with their attacks. I didn't know if I'd be able to keep them all at bay or what range I'd have, so I waited for them to edge in closer. I knew my emotions were churning close to the surface and I hoped the magic wouldn't be an issue.
Four feet, three feet…"Stop!" I screamed, white smoke was pouring out of me so thickly I was surprised I didn't choke on it. Truth was, I wouldn't have even known it was there if I didn't see it floating in front of my face. The rippers instantly froze.
Do I press it and try to turn the rippers back on him? It could fail. I couldn't risk failing in front of him and showing him a weakness. I decided to try something easier that I was confident I could pull off.
"Back up a few feet, you're in my space." The rippers pressed back almost instantly, shoving at the ones behind them.
Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3) Page 18
