Lawless (Lawless Saga Book 1)

by Tarah Benner

  Soren took one more long look at her and stepped back toward the water. “It was good to meet you, Lark.” He smiled. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Lark nodded, her throat too tight to speak. She could feel a strange warmth spreading from the pit of her stomach to her chest.

  She felt breathless and exhilarated and lighter than she had in a long time, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been knocked off her axis — that Soren had shot out of the sky like a meteor and left a crater in her armor.

  Lark knew she shouldn’t have been talking to him. She certainly shouldn’t be wondering when she would get to see him again. If she were caught fraternizing, she’d be beaten within an inch of her life, but that wasn’t the most dangerous aspect of their interaction.

  Soren had lit a fire inside of her that she hadn’t even known could exist. It was as if Lark had been sleepwalking for years, and Soren had shaken her awake.

  There was no going back now, and that scared the shit out of her.

  nine

  Soren

  Soren was so enamored with Lark that he’d forgotten to check his snares that morning. By midday, all but two of them were empty, and by the looks of things, a large predator had beaten him to the remaining squirrels.

  He couldn’t return to the colony empty-handed, so he spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing through the woods, ears piqued for the slightest hint of movement.

  Hunting in the colony was technically prohibited, but the prisoners had been supplementing their rations with wild game for years. It wasn’t all that difficult to fashion a bow from a pliable piece of wood. Hunting with one was the real challenge.

  For one thing, hitting a target with such a primitive weapon took lots and lots of practice. Most of the inmates with hunting experience had only ever hunted with firearms, but Soren had been bowhunting with his grandfather for years.

  The more serious problem was the shortage of large game. Soren hadn’t caught a deer since last fall. He hardly ever saw mature bucks anymore. They’d been hunted to the brink of extinction within the walls of San Judas, so Soren focused instead on snaring small game. Squirrels and rabbits were plentiful in the forest, and they cooked up well in Jorge’s stews.

  But as the sun sank lower in the sky and Soren’s pack remained empty, his hopes of reaching his meat quota began to wane. The wind whipping through the trees had a definite chill, and the sky overhead looked like rain.

  The treetops had grown silent as all the animals took shelter, and when it grew too dark for Soren to see, he headed back to the colony.

  Rain began to fall before Soren had reached the edge of the woods. The trees provided some cover, but by the time he was halfway between the forest and the colony, it had started to pour.

  He broke into a sprint and headed straight for the Peters brothers’ building near the middle of the square, his dread mounting with every step.

  The one caveat to being a hunter in San Judas was that he was required to store his weapons with the Peterses at night. He had several flint knives that they didn’t know about, but having to surrender his bow made it easy for them to keep tabs on Soren’s quotas.

  A heavy gust of wind and rain blew him inside the large adobe building. Hudson was seated in the back room by the fire, smoking a joint while Clarence joked with Big Jim.

  They glanced up at Soren when the door shut behind him, but nobody said anything as he hung up his bow and game bag.

  Soren could feel Hudson’s eyes on the back of his neck, and he made a show of pulling out his hunting knife and tossing it onto the table. He had another knife hidden in the holster under his shirt and a third tucked into his boot, but Hudson couldn’t know that. The only explanation was that Soren’s flimsy game bag had caught Hudson’s eye, and he was deciding how he wanted to punish him.

  “What did you get?” he asked.

  “No luck today,” said Soren, trying to keep his voice casual despite the accusation in Hudson’s gaze.

  “You didn’t catch anything?”

  Soren swallowed. “The storm has the animals spooked. I’ll make up for it tomorrow.”

  He reached for the door handle, but the sound of Hudson’s chair scraping against the floor made him stop.

  “You think this is a game?” he asked in a low, deadly voice.

  Soren turned slowly, trying to adjust his expression so that he didn’t appear worried or defiant.

  “No.”

  “What part of ‘we have no supplies’ don’ you understand?” asked Hudson, getting to his feet and taking two giant steps toward the door.

  Soren didn’t answer right away. His heart was pounding against his ribcage, but he couldn’t afford to appear uneasy. Hudson could smell fear.

  “I’ll be out first thing tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll bring you twice my normal quota, and I’ll skip mess tonight.”

  Hudson’s eyes flashed. Soren could tell he was aching to throw him against the wall, but the Peters brothers weren’t stupid. Soren was their best hunter, and Hudson couldn’t afford to lose him.

  “Fine,” he huffed.

  Soren let out a breath of relief and turned to go before Hudson’s temper got the better of him. But when he pulled the door open, he caught a few threatening final words.

  “We can’t afford to waste food on dead weight,” he called after Soren. “I wouldn’t want your friends to suffer because of your laziness.”

  “He actually said that?” Shep groaned when Soren delivered the news.

  “Yep.”

  “He actually used the words ‘dead weight’?”

  Soren nodded. He was pacing back and forth between their bunks, rubbing the same spot on his neck as the storm raged outside.

  Normally, they’d all be out by the fire after evening mess — playing cards, tossing a ball around, or smoking the toothpick-sized spliffs they’d won in a bet — but the storm had driven them all inside. When Shep had seen the look on Soren’s face, he’d had no choice but to tell them what Hudson had said.

  Shep hadn’t stopped moving since Soren shared the news. Axel was throwing one of Soren’s knives against the wall, trying to kill a horsefly. Simjay was lounging in the makeshift hammock he’d strung up between their bunks. Wolfe was repeatedly shuffling the same deck of cards, and Finn was nervously pretending to read.

  “Which of us do you think it’ll be?” asked Shep.

  Soren didn’t answer right away. He tried to pretend that he didn’t know what Shep was asking, but his meaning was clear.

  Since the day he’d strangled Anthony in the square, Hudson had been on a violent spree. It was only a matter of time before he killed again, and Shep thought one of them might be his next victim.

  “Can’ be me,” said Axel, lazily scratching his balls as he tossed the knife at the wall. “I earn my keep ’round here.”

  It was true. As much as Axel irritated Soren, he wasn’t as much of a useless fat ass as he seemed. Axel had grown up raising hogs, so he was the one entrusted with the welfare of Angie, the colony’s prized pig. Angie was the only sow they had left, so taking care of her and her piglets was an important job.

  “Can’t be me either,” said Wolfe.

  Despite Wolfe’s hair-trigger temper, Soren had to agree. Wolfe got on with the Peters brothers better than any of them. He’d worked in construction before he was convicted, so he was the colony’s go-to handyman. And because Soren and Shep had so far managed to keep Wolfe’s fighting in check, he’d been able to fly under the Peterses’ radar.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be me,” said Shep in a nervous voice.

  “’Course not,” said Soren, though he wasn’t so sure.

  Hudson had had it out for Shep since the very beginning. Shep was big, which made him a threat, and he didn’t serve any vital function within the colony.

  Shep had gone to school for computer programming, which made him virtually useless on a farm. He didn’t know anything about livestock. He couldn’t cook, and he
couldn’t hunt, nor could he build or fix anything. He was just another field hand — a slow planter at that — and at the moment, he didn’t have a lot of work to do.

  Soren knew Hudson wouldn’t off Simjay. He was always offering unsolicited advice on what to feed goats in milk (grain and alfalfa), how to keep the chickens from getting worms (garlic and mint), and the best way to store squash to keep it fresh (by leaving two inches of the stem).

  Simjay’s constant stream of advice was as aggravating as it was helpful, but it served as insurance that he would never be killed simply for annoying the Peters brothers. Soren suspected that about sixty percent of it was total bullshit, but Hudson was so enamored with Simjay’s brainpower that he’d taken to calling him “Google.”

  Finn was a smart guy, too, but he was oddly skittish and kept to himself. At the moment, Shep, Axel, and Simjay were all staring right at him.

  Soren felt a kick of dread deep in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to believe that Finn could be the target of Hudson’s threat, but it seemed the most likely.

  Rumor had it that Finn had suffered some kind of mental break when he’d first arrived at San Judas. That had been before Soren’s time, but Jorge had told him once in passing about the day Finn had lost it in the kitchens.

  Soren couldn’t be sure how much of Jorge’s story had been embellished, but the way he told it, Finn had been laughing one minute, and the next, he’d upended a vat of boiled cabbage, hurled a cast-iron skillet at another worker’s head, and run screaming into the woods.

  Four years later, most of the inmates still thought Finn was touched in the head — even if they hadn’t been around to witness his meltdown. He was shunned and mocked on a daily basis, and he’d been reassigned to a new vocation twice.

  In truth, Finn probably wouldn’t have made it in San Judas if it hadn’t been for Willie Texas Ranger, who’d suggested that Finn look after the goats. Up until that point, Willie had been in charge of all the livestock, and he was happy to offload the feeding, milking, hoof trimming, kidding, and constant fence repair to someone else.

  Nobody thought Finn would last a week, but something about the goats’ floppy ears and curious faces must have appealed to him, because he hadn’t had another episode since. Willie Texas Ranger, the newly self-promoted Head Livestock Ass-Kicker, was proud to report that the goats had never produced more milk.

  Still, the stories about Finn hadn’t gone away, and Hudson in particular seemed to enjoy making loud goat noises whenever Finn was around.

  “It’s me, isn’t it?” said Finn glumly.

  Shep and Soren exchanged uneasy looks, but Axel just shrugged and lifted his hairy caterpillar eyebrows. “Who else would it be?”

  “It could be you,” said Simjay matter-of-factly. “It could be any of us. But it’s probably Finn or Shep.”

  Shep threw Simjay a filthy look. Finn didn’t look scared, but his head drooped forward slightly, and his shoulders sagged.

  Soren felt sorry for him, and he also felt guilty. He hadn’t told anyone about the missing guards apart from Lark, but now he felt that he had to.

  The news was something he’d normally share with Shep, but as Shep would be getting out soon, there was no point in telling him. Bringing the others in on the secret increased the chance of news leaking out, but with Hudson threatening to off one of them, he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer.

  “We won’t let him getcha,” said Shep.

  “Thanks,” murmured Finn.

  “We won’t,” said Soren. He sounded much more confident than Shep had — so confident that the others turned to look at him.

  “Okay, but I’m not trailin’ after the kid like some kinda bodyguard,” said Axel.

  Soren sighed. “I might have a better idea.”

  The other guys listened with rapt attention as Soren told them about the guards’ disappearances. He told them about his plan to escape after the next stint of cloudy weather, leaving out his crazed fantasy of bringing Lark with him.

  By the time Soren had finished, Shep’s eyes were the size of silver dollars. Axel and Wolfe seemed unimpressed, Simjay was positively sparking with excitement, and Finn looked terrified.

  “You want to escape?” Shep asked in disbelief.

  “There’s no way,” said Axel. “They wouldn’t leave them posts empty.”

  “I don’t know,” said Simjay in a knowing voice. “San Judas has halted intake over the past year, which means their revenue has stagnated.”

  “Revenue?” repeated Shep.

  “They get a stipend from the government based on the number of prisoners,” said Simjay. “No new prisoners means no growth. Maybe they’ve started laying off guards.”

  “You’re full of shit,” said Wolfe.

  Simjay shrugged.

  “You aren’t serious,” said Shep. Soren met his gaze with a sincere nod, and they had one of their silent conversations.

  Soren doubted Shep would even consider making an escape — not with six months left on his sentence. Simjay might go along with the plan just for the rush, and Axel and Wolfe would stay the hell out of it. None of them knew how much time Finn had left to serve, but as he had freaked out and attacked his biochemistry professor, Soren suspected Finn was doing some serious time.

  “Wouldn’t you, if you were me?” Soren asked.

  Shep frowned. “No. Think of Micah.”

  “I am thinking about Micah,” said Soren.

  “You know I’m in,” said Simjay. “No way am I staying in this hellhole for another five years if I can help it.”

  Soren grinned, privately wondering if Simjay would make the escape harder or easier. Shep was shaking his head, but Soren ignored him and turned to look at Finn. “What do you say?”

  Finn seemed startled by the direct question. He fidgeted on the spot, his overlarge eyes darting around the room as if he were looking for an exit.

  Soren’s heart sank.

  Surely Finn was too much of a chicken to bust out of San Judas. Just the sight of one of the Peters brothers was enough to make him run in the other direction, and Finn would have the hardest time surviving in max if they were caught.

  But then, to Soren’s amazement, Finn swallowed and gave him a shaky nod. “Okay,” he choked. “I’m in.”

  ten

  Lark

  Lark spent the rest of the afternoon in the woods, savoring her last few hours of peace. She foraged for berries and lounged by the river, replaying Soren’s words in her head.

  His escape plan seemed like a fantasy, but her impending doom was real. After her scuffle with Bianca, Mercy would be on the warpath, and there was no telling the sort of punishment she might have in store.

  Lark would have camped out in the woods indefinitely, but by early evening it had started to rain. She didn’t like the idea of sleeping on the wet ground, cold and hungry, so she was forced to return to the square.

  By the time Lark reached the kitchen, evening mess was winding down. The field hands were grumbling as they hustled back to their shanties in the rain, and Lark gathered that the dinner had been woefully light.

  The berries and greens she’d found in the woods had hardly put a dent in her desperate hunger, so Lark sneaked around back to see if Kira had any scraps to spare.

  The kitchen was actually several long adobe buildings near the center of the colony, connected by worn dirt pathways. There was a large courtyard around the back where the cooks roasted animals and a shaded area where inmates could sit in fine weather.

  As Lark drew closer to the main building, she could hear banging and laughter coming from behind the heavy wooden door. Kira and the rest of the kitchen ladies were probably cleaning up from dinner. Lark knew from experience that Kira hated to be disturbed, but it was only a matter of time before Mercy’s daughters found Lark and hauled her back to the whipping post.

  Taking a deep breath, Lark knocked three times and waited for Kira to answer. The laughter stopped immediately, and Lark h
eard the heavy thud of approaching footsteps.

  Her stomach tingled. Deep down, Kira was a kind person, but she could be extremely persnickety if Lark caught her on a bad day. And with the colony rationing again, she had a feeling that this could be one of those days.

  Suddenly, the flap that covered the rectangular peephole flew open, and Kira’s dark eyes appeared on the other side of the door. She swore loudly, closed the peephole, and opened the door a few inches to talk. When she did, Lark felt a burst of warm air and shuffled closer to get out of the rain.

  Kira was wearing her usual grubby kitchen smock, but underneath, her clothes looked impeccably clean. She was dressed in a sleeveless crimson tunic that Bernie had sewn, and Lark could see the many burns and scars that covered Kira’s forearms.

  “No dogs,” she said, glaring down at Denali, who was covered in mud and burrs.

  “Stay,” said Lark.

  Kira sighed and pushed the door open a few more inches. Lark slipped inside and threw her a grateful look before Kira could change her mind.

  “Holy shit,” she said, rounding on Lark the instant the door slammed shut. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re sorry?” Kira let out a short bark of laugher. “You throw yourself onto Mercy’s shit list and then come crawlin’ around here? You think I want a part in your troubles? Uh-uh. We got enough on our plate as it is tryin’ to squeeze blood out of a turnip.”

  Lark glanced nervously at the three women staring at her from across the kitchen. They were all gathered around an enormous vat of soapy water, scrubbing out pots and pans and preparing for the next day.