Lawless (Lawless Saga Book 1)

by Tarah Benner

  Fighting the prickle of paranoia crawling down his neck, Soren turned ninety degrees to his right and walked across the field as if he were headed for the vacant barn that used to house the colony’s livestock.

  He knew he should be heading for morning mess, but Soren couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to. His legs were moving of their own accord, propelled by an enticing mixture of curiosity and hope.

  Finally he reached the old barn, where he had a clear line of sight to the next guard tower. With the sun breaking over the horizon, it was impossible to mistake what he was seeing.

  There was no one there.

  Soren’s heart leapt into his throat. His breath was coming in ragged, uneven gasps, and his skin was tingling with excitement.

  This changed everything.

  Maybe he could get out of there, he thought. Maybe he could escape San Judas, make his way to Texas, and get Micah.

  In the four years since he’d been convicted, finding his brother had been all Soren had thought about. And for the first time, escape seemed like a genuine possibility.

  He had to get out of there. Soren hadn’t received a letter from Micah in more than a year, and every month that passed with no word, the sick feeling in his stomach grew. He’d tried everything to reach him — even bribing one of the guards — but he’d hit a wall at every turn. No letters were coming in, and no letters were going out.

  As he fell back to the woods to check his snares, he scanned the treetops for more missing guards, mentally mapping which ones he needed gone to make his escape. He didn’t stand a chance with the guard over the northern fields watching. And even if he managed to get over the fence and the twenty-foot wall, Soren wouldn’t make it far with the two guards positioned along the west side of the colony.

  It was definitely a long shot, but Soren felt drunk on possibilities. A tiny crack had appeared in the prison’s security, and Soren was determined to rip it wide open.

  three

  Lark

  The next morning, Lark awoke to the sound of restless footsteps and a crackle of nervous energy. Bernie’s bed was already empty, the blankets pulled up to the edge of her pillow and tucked in on both sides.

  People were milling around outside, talking in excited whispers and awaiting the bell for morning mess. Lark sat up, ran a hand through her hair, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

  It was unusual for the other inmates to be so active in the morning. Normally they shuffled silently from their shanties to the bath house, back to their shanties, and over to the mess hall. But that day wasn’t like any other day. It was supply day.

  On the first of every month, the interior gates opened on the women’s side, and the inmates made their way through the south corridor toward the administrative building. There they could pick up the colony’s allotment of seed, fertilizer, soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, cooking fuel, and that month’s mail.

  Supply day was a big deal — particularly in the spring — because the supply of seed left at the drop dictated what the colony would be growing that year. Last spring they’d received a dozen varieties of squash and an abundance of turnip seed, but hardly any grain. One year, the prison administrators had given them five different varieties of sweet corn, which was a disaster. Sweet corn didn’t grow well in northern New Mexico, and the crops that weren’t killed by the frost were later devoured by ear worms.

  Supply day in the colony always made for a restless morning because it was the one day inmates could make contact with the outside world. Not only did the women have to march right past the fields in the men’s colony, but there was also the possibility of a letter from home, a care package, or even a new inmate.

  That day emotions were running high because the trickle of letters from home had been steadily dwindling over the past six months. Last month, nobody had received a single letter or package, and the colony hadn’t seen any new inmates for more than a year.

  The cessation of mail had put everyone on edge. The few inmates who still received regular letters weren’t troublemakers, so it didn’t make sense that their mail would have been suspended for bad behavior. Mercy didn’t like it, because a stoppage of care packages meant she had no way to replenish her supply of cigarettes.

  Lark didn’t have anyone left on the outside who cared enough to send her letters, but the lack of mail still made her uneasy. Eliminating one of the few amenities at San Judas meant that the prison was looking for ways to streamline operations — a.k.a. cutting costs.

  Judging by the anemic rays of sunshine just breaking over the horizon, it was only about six thirty. The gates didn’t open until seven thirty, which meant Lark still had time to look for the watcher if she skipped morning mess.

  Her stomach rumbled in protest as she pulled on her cleanest clothes and laced up her dusty boots. Several of the eyelets were broken, but she didn’t have anything to trade with Rita to get them repaired. All she had left was the dog-eared copy of Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West, which Mercy had returned to her to help with Lark’s foraging.

  Halfway to the woods, Denali leapt out from an enormous sage bush and tore up ahead in a kick of dirt. He seemed unfazed by the spy across the river and was just excited for another romp in the woods.

  Lark gave Denali some space, hoping that the watcher would mistake him for a clumsy fawn, and picked her way carefully through the trees. She wandered through a dizzying grove of aspens and under the unruly tufts of sugarberry leaves, finally coming to a halt under the lazy arch of a large cottonwood.

  Denali was already sniffing along the fence line with purpose, and Lark knew it was only a matter of time before he tore after a rabbit or a squirrel. She waited in silence, trying to become one with the tree as she watched for movement on the opposite bank.

  Lark waited under the cottonwood for what felt like hours. The wind was lively and the trees were swaying, but there was no sign of movement across the water.

  Finally, it was time to return to the square. Lark whistled for Denali, but he didn’t come bounding up as he normally did when she called.

  Squinting downstream through the tangle of tree branches, Lark caught a glimpse of his silvery coat up near the river wall. There were three such walls along the section of the river that ran through San Judas. They spanned the entire width of the water and had strong metal bars running down the middle to catch pieces of trash and debris floating downstream.

  Denali was bent over something on the bank, sniffing and pawing at it like crazy. Lark called to him, but he didn’t come. Her voice didn’t even break his attention.

  Annoyed, she let out a huff and scrabbled down the hill to see what he was investigating. Denali was smart enough to avoid most things in the forest that were dangerous, but once he had gotten into some horse nettle and nearly died.

  But instead of finding a sprig of fruit resembling tiny tomatoes, she saw that Denali’s wet nose was glued to a piece of garbage on the other side of the fence. It was a twisted piece of plastic bobbing in a clump of weeds where the fence met the river wall. Upon closer inspection, Lark saw that it was an old soda bottle — probably carried downstream from a nearby town.

  “Leave it,” she muttered, patting her leg to get Denali to follow.

  But Denali didn’t leave it. Instead, he let out a frustrated whine and continued to paw at the fence.

  It didn’t make sense. Denali rarely disobeyed a command, and he never acted this way. Squinting down at the crumpled piece of plastic bobbing in the weeds, Lark saw something tucked inside — a piece of paper rolled into a tight cylinder.

  Struck by sudden curiosity, she hunkered down in the soggy weeds and locked her fingers around the neck of the bottle. It was still too large to fit through the chain-link fence, but as she pulled and twisted, the plastic started to give.

  Denali pawed at the fence again, staring at the bottle. Lark kept twisting until the bottle was so scrunched and mangled that it nearly fit through the gap in the wires. With one last tug, the
bottle slid free, and Denali’s tongue flopped out in a satisfied pant.

  “Yeah,” Lark mumbled. “You worked hard for that.”

  Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being watched, Lark unkinked the plastic and twisted off the filthy cap. She stuck an index finger inside and worked the piece of paper out of the bottle — a difficult feat, since her hands were trembling with excitement.

  Lark wiped her palms down the front of her pants to avoid smearing the ink and smoothed out the fragile scrap of paper. Her heart skipped a beat.

  There were eight lines of text scrawled across the page in neat, slanted writing, but that wasn’t what immediately caught her eye.

  At the top of the page was a drawing of a bird — a lark, actually — with its wings stretched in flight. It looked exactly like the bird the real Lark had tattooed above her heart.

  Breathing hard, Lark focused on the writing below — a poem clearly addressed to her:

  A weak man’s true prison

  is all in the mind

  Oppressors need no shackles

  to keep his soul confined

  A man with convictions who loses his will

  Is hardly any better still

  But a man with a purpose who is dogged and strong

  Cannot be held behind bars for long

  Lark read the poem fast — almost greedily. The words bounced around in her head like a thousand dancing sparks, illuminating briefly before fading into nothingness. Then she read it again, and the whole world went still.

  She could no longer hear the river. She couldn’t hear the quiet tick-tick-tick of wind in the aspen leaves or smell the lush perfume of wet sage. She was utterly transfixed by that piece of paper — words passed to her from another human being on the other side of the river.

  The words sounded beautifully foreign and familiar, all at the same time. Lark had never heard the poem before, but it spoke to her on a visceral level. Her heart swelled as though it were trying to take flight, but she also felt vaguely threatened.

  She’d known someone had been watching her, but for how long? She and Denali had been coming down to the river at least once or twice a week for the last four years. The day before had been the first time she’d ever seen anyone on the opposite bank, but somehow she doubted that was the first time the watcher had seen her.

  But what made Lark truly uneasy wasn’t the watcher himself — it was the poem. It felt almost as though the writer had reached into her mind and extracted her most dangerous dream — a private longing so deeply buried that she hadn’t even dared to dwell on it herself.

  For most of the women in San Judas, freedom was a not-so-distant possibility. But for Lark, her longing to walk out those gates and follow her mother’s journey along the Continental Divide made her ridiculous at best — clinically insane at worst.

  The loud crack of a breaking branch yanked Lark out of her thoughts. In one jerky movement, she leapt to her feet and smashed the note into a ball to hide it from view.

  “Who’s there?” Lark called, trying and failing to keep her voice steady.

  Nothing.

  A hard shiver rolled through her. Lark knew she hadn’t imagined the sound, and she was swamped by an abrupt surge of paranoia.

  Maybe the message hadn’t come from the men’s colony after all. Perhaps Portia or one of the other daughters had left it there to lure Lark into trouble. It was a long shot, but it was possible.

  Suddenly, a short figure came crashing through the trees.

  “Boo!” shouted Bernie, practically bouncing in delight from having gotten the drop on Lark.

  “Shit.” Lark deflated with relief. Her heart was pounding wildly, and she rested a hand on her chest to calm herself down. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  At that, Bernie erupted into a trill of musical laughter. “What? Did you think I was a jumper coming to have my way with you?”

  Lark caught her eye with a serious look. Bernie’s face fell, and she flushed a deep red all the way to the roots of her hair.

  “Shit,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Sorry.”

  “No,” Lark broke in quickly, clearing her throat and forcing a grin. “It’s okay. Really. I, uh . . . thought you were one of Mercy’s spies.”

  Bernie’s face was overcome by a look of enormous relief, followed by irritation. “Is Princess Portia stalking you now?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Bernie rolled her eyes. “If that bitch gives you any trouble, send her to me. Tell her I’d be happy to help remove that stick she’s got stuck up her ass.”

  Lark couldn’t help it — she laughed. Bernie’s boldness was one of the reasons Lark loved her. “Bernie” was actually short for Bernadette, a German name Bernie insisted meant “brave as a bear.” Whether or not that was true, Lark thought it fit her extremely well.

  The day Bernie had arrived at San Judas, Lark had walked into her shanty to find her new roommate fighting three of Mercy’s daughters for her battered copy of Coyotes and Town Dogs. She was losing badly, but Lark had never seen anyone fight with such determination.

  Lark had stepped in and helped Bernie run the daughters off, and they’d looked out for each other ever since. Lark didn’t need protection quite as badly as Bernie did, but she needed a friend.

  As they walked back toward the square to line up for the supply drop, Lark debated whether she should tell Bernie about the note. She was dying to tell somebody what she’d found, but she knew what Bernie would say: He could be a psychopath. It could be Portia. You should just forget it.

  Deep down, Lark knew all those scenarios were far more likely than what she’d been imagining, but she didn’t want to believe them. So instead of telling Bernie, she slid the crumpled note into the leather pouch hanging from her belt.

  By the time they emerged from the woods, most of the colony was already waiting restlessly outside the gate, talking in excited whispers about what the prison administrators might leave them at the drop.

  In addition to the usual necessities, the administrators occasionally left the inmates some sort of bonus items. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the extra food and supplies, but they were always items they couldn’t grow, forage, or hunt within San Judas.

  The first “gift” Lark could remember came the spring after she arrived. It was a barrel full of pistachios that had the entire colony basking in a rare moment of joy. Three Christmases ago, the administrators had left them twelve bushels of oranges. And two Februaries before, they’d been given twenty-seven cases of canned tuna.

  Unfortunately, all the supplies dropped outside the administrative building were immediately rounded up and redistributed at Mother Mercy’s discretion. Her daughters positioned themselves at the front and rear of the line, at the gate, and all around the square to oversee the movement of supplies and ensure that no inmate tried to keep anything for herself. Mercy said this was to ensure that everyone got an equal share, but it was common knowledge that she withheld a chunk of the supplies for herself.

  Lark and Bernie dropped Denali off at the shanty and joined the throng of people waiting to be let into the south corridor. As much as he hated being stuck inside, Lark couldn’t have him going berserk in line.

  After several tense minutes, they heard the telltale beep of the electric lock, and the gate slid back. They followed the women funneling through the narrow corridor and found Rita and her wife Shay.

  Rita was a grouchy middle-aged biker who was in for attempted murder and now repaired shoes. Shay was a timid, skeletal girl with short spiky hair who’d been caught manufacturing meth in her dead neighbor’s basement.

  They were both surly, taciturn, and pretty rough around the edges, but being part of their family offered Lark and Bernie another layer of protection for times when Lark’s reputation wasn’t enough. It was Rita who’d scored Bernie her job in Salvage and persuaded Mercy that Lark could be an asset rather than a threat.

  “What
do you think they’ll leave us this time?” Bernie asked breathlessly as they shuffled through the corridor.

  Lark shrugged. She never got her hopes up, but Bernie liked to make it a game.

  “Maybe they’ll leave us chocolate,” she said in an excited whisper. “Oh god I hope it’s chocolate.”

  “Chocolate would melt,” said Shay in a dull voice.

  “Then we could bathe in it,” said Bernie, letting out a pornographic groan that made the two Latinas in front of them turn around in disgust. “I’d fucking love to sink into a pit of melted dark chocolate.”

  Lark let out a burst of laughter and shook her head. Bernie was the only person in San Judas who had the ability to turn their near starvation into a joke.

  “Maybe they’ll leave us a bunch of pomegranates,” Lark offered, trying to be a good sport.

  “Mmm. Or blueberries.” Bernie threw her head back and groaned again. “God, I miss blueberries.”

  “Yeah,” snarled a girl behind them with stringy blond hair and a face like a horse. “Or maybe they’ll leave us a big pile of dog shit.”

  At those words, Bernie turned around and shoved her middle finger into the girl’s face.

  “Shut your damn mouth,” Rita spat.

  Horse Face looked as though she wanted to say something else, but one look at Rita was enough to make her back down. Lark wanted to laugh. Bernie was always getting into it with the other inmates, but most people were so terrified of Lark and Rita that the fights rarely escalated into anything physical.

  Within a few minutes, they had crossed the footbridge stretching across the river and began walking past the east fields in the men’s colony. They looked as cold and barren as the women’s fields, but soon they would be teeming with life.

  The men were supposed to stay back and wait their turn to be let in at nine, but every supply day, without fail, they would drop whatever they were doing and press themselves up against the fence to watch the women file past.