Dauntless (Lawless Saga Book 4)

by Tarah Benner

  “I know,” said Lark quietly.

  “You know?”

  “I mean, I sort of thought you might . . .” Lark trailed off, unsure what to say. She felt guilty that she had internalized an assessment given to her by the Department of Homeland Security, and at that moment, telling Soren that she believed in some bullshit personality test seemed like the wrong thing to do. “You have this thing,” Lark stammered, “about wanting to be the white knight that rushes in and saves everyone.”

  “The white knight?” Soren repeated, his voice low and deadly. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m some kind of joke?”

  “No!” Lark cast around for the right words. She didn’t know what to say. Agent Cole was the one who’d put the idea in her head, but she hadn’t disagreed with him. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

  “Wow,” said Soren, his face turning to stone. “It must be pretty bad if you’ve already got me analyzed.”

  “It’s just an expression!”

  “So is ‘it’s not you; it’s me.’ That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I think we should take a step back,” he said. “This isn’t good for either one of us.”

  “Where is this coming from?” asked Lark, a sick feeling rising up in her chest.

  “It’s coming from me,” said Soren coldly.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yeah, I do, actually. I know how this ends, and it ends with me looking like a chump. I’m going to want more than you’re willing to give, and you’ll just be done with me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Soren. “Have you even thought about what you might want in the future?”

  “The future?” Lark repeated. “I’ve just been trying to stay alive! We were on the run, and then we were in Cheyenne Mountain . . . The last few days were absolute hell, so forgive me if I haven’t had a lot of time to think about the future.”

  “You haven’t thought about it at all?”

  Lark threw up her hands in resignation. This wasn’t fair. She had the fleeting thought that Soren was picking a fight on purpose, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Because I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  Lark sighed. “I’ve thought about the fact that I want to be with you,” she murmured.

  “For how long?”

  “We haven’t even known each other for that long!” Lark cried. “Am I supposed to have this figured out already?”

  “No, but —” Soren squeezed the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I’m sorry. You know what? It doesn’t even matter. I just want to skip that part and go back to being friends.”

  “We were never just friends!” Lark growled.

  “Well, then, I guess we should just end this before it gets away from us.”

  “What?” In truth, Lark knew she should have seen this coming, but she felt completely blindsided.

  “I’m sorry,” said Soren. But he didn’t sound sorry. He sounded sure.

  He walked away before Lark had a chance to say a word, leaving her standing alone by the truck — angry, shocked, and hurt.

  FALL

  11

  Lark

  Lark awoke suddenly to the loud slam of a door. Weak golden sunlight was trickling through the windows, and she knew immediately that she’d overslept.

  That morning was the start of the harvest. She’d been getting up before dawn to help Walt every day for the past two and a half months, and that morning should have been no different.

  Lark had laid out all her clothes the night before and gone to bed early. She’d been anxious to see how their crops had fared, but Bernie must have overslept, too.

  She could hear voices bleeding through the walls, and Lark had a sudden urge to burrow under the covers. Soren and Bernie were fighting in the hallway, and they weren’t bothering to keep their voices down.

  “If you’re gonna shave in the sink, it might be nice if you’d clean all those little hairs out!” said Bernie.

  Soren scoffed. “I would have cleaned the sink out if you weren’t banging on the door every two minutes!”

  “I think you’re being a little dramatic.”

  “I’m being dramatic?”

  “I was only banging on the door because you were taking forever!” Bernie cried.

  “Like you’re one to talk.”

  “I’m a girl. I have needs.”

  “Well, so do I. You overslept, and that’s not my problem.”

  “Look, if you need to beat off in the shower ’cause you’re not gettin’ any, that’s your business —”

  Soren let out a groan.

  “But it shouldn’t interfere with my morning routine. I know this looks effortless, but it takes real work. You think I just wake up like this?”

  “Like what?” Soren shot back. “Annoying? Bratty?”

  “You’re such an asshole. I’m glad Lark broke up with you.”

  Upon hearing her name, Lark felt her face heat up. Bernie knew very well that it was Soren who’d broken things off between them, but she was trying to get a rise out of him.

  Soren muttered something that Lark couldn’t hear, and a second later, the bedroom door burst open. Bernie huffed inside in a cloud of fury, slamming the door behind her. Her leg had finally healed enough for her to ditch the crutches, and she was using her newfound freedom to make a lot of dramatic exits.

  When she saw that Lark was awake, she looked startled, and a guilty expression spread across her face.

  “Uh . . . morning,” she said nervously. “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Pretty much all of it,” said Lark. “Your voice is loud . . . The walls are thin.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Bernie. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into that. He’s just been acting like such a tool!”

  Lark sighed. She didn’t want to say anything in case Soren was listening, but she couldn’t argue with that. To say that Soren had been difficult to live with for the past two and a half months would have been an understatement. They hadn’t really talked since the breakup, and the silence between them had morphed into a dark cloud of despair that hung over the entire house.

  At times Lark felt as though she were being suffocated by the silence. Every fiber of her being was aching to talk to him — not just to clear the air but to absorb some of the pain she knew he must be feeling.

  Whenever Lark thought that Soren wasn’t looking, she would watch him move around the house and try to guess what he was thinking. He carried himself low and hunched these days, as though the emotional weight had begun to take a physical toll. He was sullen and moody at meals and spent most of his free time alone up in Starlight’s room. He worked by himself whenever he could, or else he found a job that didn’t involve speaking to Lark.

  Sometimes the silence would become too much for her, and Lark would want to scream. She wanted to shake him and demand that he talk to her. But this wasn’t about her — not really. Micah’s death was still fresh and raw. Soren was hurting, and he seemed determined to ride out the pain alone.

  Feeling horrible, Lark started to dress in silence. Bernie hovered nearby making nervous small talk, but Lark wasn’t really in the mood. She hated the tension their breakup had brought into the house. She felt angry, embarrassed, and hurt, and Soren’s bad temper only made it worse.

  Once she was ready, they shuffled downstairs for breakfast, where everyone but Soren and Thompson were already seated. Simjay was talking excitedly to Katrina, and even Axel seemed in good spirits.

  Today wasn’t just a big deal for them; they had already given the seed to more than a dozen families in the area to plant, and it looked as though it was going to be a plentiful harvest. If they were right, that would mean it was time to expand and distribute the seeds to other farms in the Southwest.

  Lark sat down next to Simjay, glad to have a distraction from the drama upstairs. She grabb
ed a piece of toast from the plate on the table, but a second later, Soren came storming into the room. His hair was still damp from his shower, and his jaw was set in the stormy expression that had become his default.

  “Could you grab me some more water?” Simjay asked, turning in his seat and presenting his glass to Soren.

  “Don’t your legs work?” asked Soren, scooping out some eggs from a pan on the stove.

  “Somebody’s crabby,” Simjay mumbled, getting up to fill his own glass from the cistern. He reached around Bernie to hit the tap, pressing his body close to hers.

  “Whoa! Watch it,” said Bernie, slinking out of her position between Simjay and the counter.

  “What?” he asked, looking taken aback. “I’m just getting a glass of water.”

  “You totally just groped me,” said Bernie.

  “I did not!” Simjay cried, blushing furiously and taking a huge step back. “Your juicy badonk just backed into my junk.”

  “Really?” said Bernie, turning around to face him and crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Uh-uh,” Axel mumbled. “That dog ain’t gonna hunt.”

  “You didn’t just rub your junk all up against my butt?”

  “No. Of course not,” said Simjay, looking panicked. “Trust me. If I wanted to grope you, I’d’ve groped you.”

  Bernie arched an eyebrow, and Lark could see a grin twitching at the corner of her mouth. Something about that peculiar expression told her that Bernie might be open to being touched by Simjay under different circumstances.

  “I — That came out wrong,” Simjay stammered, his eyes widening in horror. “I — I just meant that I . . . Not that I haven’t thought about it.”

  Portia snorted with laughter.

  “Nope. That’s not what I meant,” said Simjay, blushing profusely as he struggled to find the words.

  “And what did you mean?” asked Bernie, trying not to laugh.

  “What I meant was . . .” said Simjay, gesturing with his hands as if he hoped to distract her from his words. “Just that I have too much respect for you . . . and all women. I would never touch you — or your butt — without your permission.”

  Bernie let him squirm for a moment before doubling over in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

  “What?” said Simjay, turning to the table with a bemused expression.

  “Nice try, Tech Support,” said Axel. “You just gotta own it.”

  “Own what?” Simjay spluttered. “I didn’t —”

  “Stop. Just stop,” said Katrina. “You aren’t helping yourself.”

  Bernie ducked around Simjay to get back to her seat, when all of a sudden he stiffened and his eyebrows shot up. He seemed to be squeezing his butt cheeks together — a very amusing pose that caused Axel to snort out a stream of milk.

  “Everybody saw that, right?” said Simjay, looking from Katrina to Axel. “She just pinched my ass.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” said Katrina.

  “Me either,” said Lark.

  “Just like it says in the Bible,” Bernie chuckled. “A grope for a grope . . . Wait. That’s not right, is it?”

  Lark couldn’t help it. She laughed. Katrina joined in a second later, and even Portia seemed to be fighting a grin. Axel howled and pounded his fork on the table, and a second later, Simjay seemed to relax.

  Soren was the only one who seemed utterly divorced from the joke. He shoveled the last bite of eggs into his mouth before scooting his chair away from the table and throwing his plate into the sink. It hit the other dishes with a violent clatter, and he strode out of the room without a single word.

  His exit seemed to create a vacuum of tension, and they all finished their breakfast quickly.

  “What is it with you two?” asked Lark when it was just her, Bernie, and Portia left.

  “What do you mean?” said Bernie, her voice too shrill to be convincing.

  “I know you like him,” said Lark.

  “Simjay?” said Bernie, her voice inching slightly higher. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Come on,” said Lark. “It’s so obvious.”

  “Is it?” said Bernie, putting down the dish she was washing with a look of concern.

  “Yes,” said Lark and Portia in unison.

  “Well, I haven’t made up my mind,” said Bernie. “He’s always flirting with Katrina, and —”

  “Simjay flirts with everybody,” said Lark. “But he definitely flirts with you the most.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, who cares?” Portia groaned. “Cut the crap and screw him already.”

  Bernie flushed. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Portia.

  “I don’t even know if he likes me,” Bernie mumbled, grabbing a rag off the counter and proceeding to wipe down the table all over again.

  “Of course he does,” said Lark.

  “Who said anything about liking anybody?” said Portia. “You’re both fresh out of prison, for fuck’s sake. You’ve gotta be horny as shit. Lark is. He is. Hell, even I’ve thought about screwing Simjay.”

  “You have?” said Bernie, looking simultaneously horrified and a bit put out.

  “Haven’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Bernie mumbled.

  “So go for it,” said Portia. “I’m certainly not going to.” She nodded down at her swollen belly. “I mean, normally I would, but that could get weird.”

  “Agreed,” said Lark, shooting Portia a glare. “Keep it in your pants, will you?”

  Portia gave Lark a dirty look, but Lark just grabbed Bernie by the hand and led her out of the kitchen. Portia was six months pregnant, grouchy, and demanding. Apparently she was also horny, which explained some of the weird things she’d been saying about the guys.

  “Forget her,” said Lark quietly. “If you like Simjay, you should go for it.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Trust me!” said Lark. “He likes you. He just needs you to make the first move.”

  “I’m not good at making moves,” Bernie grumbled.

  “Just try.”

  “You’re one to talk. I don’t see you trying to fix things with Soren.”

  “That’s different,” said Lark. “It’s . . . complicated.”

  “It’s not that complicated.”

  “He broke things off with me, remember?” said Lark. “He needed space, so I’m giving him space.”

  Bernie shook her head. “He still loves you. I know he wishes that he could take it all back.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Lark sighed. “He hasn’t yet, and I’m not sure that would even be enough.”

  They fell into a gloomy silence as they walked outside. Chickens were pecking lazily at the dirt around the pigpen that Axel had helped reinforce, and Walt was already working in the fields with the swather. He was harvesting an acre of pearl millet they’d planted, and he was wearing a satisfied expression that told them it was going to be a plentiful harvest.

  Lark and the others all got their assignments, and they fanned out to get to work. Denali couldn’t seem to contain his enthusiasm. He kept running through the fields in a manic frenzy, bounding through the rows of millet with his tongue hanging out.

  Lark and Bernie were in charge of hauling the cut millet from the field into the barn. They would load it onto the tractor trailer, and then one of them would drive up to the barn with the other riding on the end with the millet.

  On their third load, Portia ambled out to the field and announced that she’d been assigned to help them. Bernie seemed happy to have her on their team, but Lark was less than thrilled.

  Portia wasn’t supposed to lift anything over twenty pounds — something she liked to remind everyone whenever she had the chance. The only thing she could do was drive the tractor, which left Bernie and Lark doing all the grunt work.

  “You know, you could be a little nicer to her,” Bernie yelled at Lark over the rumble of the trac
tor as they rode back to the barn.

  “I’m nice,” said Lark incredulously. Portia was the one who’d just told Bernie that she’d screw Simjay if she wasn’t pregnant.

  “She’s doing this all on her own,” Bernie pressed. “She deserves to have everyone cut her a little slack.”

  “I am cutting her slack,” said Lark. “I’m cutting her tons of slack. She’s just such a pain sometimes.” She didn’t bother to keep her voice low. She knew Portia couldn’t hear her over the motor anyway.

  “She is not,” Bernie shouted. “You just remember her the way she was in San Judas, but she’s changed. We all have.”

  Lark sighed and hopped off the end of the trailer. Bernie always saw the best in people, which was annoying when a person was so clearly terrible. It didn’t help that Bernie was supposed to be her best friend, and at that moment she needed Bernie to be on her side.

  Lark began to unload the cut millet without a word, hauling the enormous baskets off the trailer and depositing the contents onto a tarp in front of the tall stacks of hay.

  Even though it was hard manual labor, the work was a welcome distraction. It helped take her mind off Soren and Portia and her general anger toward the world.

  But just as Lark deposited the last load into the pile, she heard a brief scuffle followed by a shriek. There was a blur of movement near the tractor, and Lark wheeled around just in time to see someone grab Portia by the hair.

  Portia shrieked as someone dragged her off the tractor, and Lark saw that the stranger was a thickset man with a bushy black beard.

  Panicking, Lark scanned the barn for Bernie and saw her disappear on the other side of the trailer. A moment later, a fat redheaded man appeared with his arm curled around her neck. Bernie was squirming as she tried to free herself, but before Lark could do anything, another man leapt out from behind the hay bales and grabbed her around the shoulders.

  This time, Lark’s reaction was automatic. She slammed her foot down on his instep and kicked him in the groin. He doubled over with a groan but didn’t release his grip.

  Lark flailed and kicked and twisted in his arms, but she couldn’t manage to break his hold. She reached for the handgun that was usually strapped to her hip before realizing she’d left it down at the house.