by Angela White
“Yes,” Conner agreed reluctantly, still unable to deny that timbre anything.
There was heavy bitterness in the one word, and Angela’s mind went to the child’s words on the tape.
“The grownups left us.”
How could they do that? Would Adrian let them into Safe Haven?
No, I won’t, but I can’t leave them as hunted animals either.
Understanding and agreeing, Angela walked between Adrian and Conner so that she could play mediator if it were needed.
And because he makes you feel safe, the witch stated.
Angela didn’t deny it. Adrian was the light.
“I have to make a stop,” Conner informed them.
Adrian slowed when Conner did.
Behind him, grunts and groans of relief echoed. They’d kept the fast pace for the better part of hour.
“You guys should be quiet,” Conner stated uneasily.
Angela stayed at Adrian’s side as Conner tapped three times on a huge stone door. Set into the wall, Angela thought she would have missed it if Conner hadn’t stopped.
“Who isss it?” a female voice called.
“Conner, for trading,” Conner replied.
The door immediately began to roll open.
The mission team stared in surprise at the underground market. Shelves and tables, crates and boxes were what they picked out first, but the clerks running this bonanza caught and then held their attention.
The women wore some sort of shiny decoration, their boots and long gloves were covered in them. The small sequins caught the light of homemade candles anchored to the damp walls, and cast eerie forms along the tables. The shiny decorations were in hair and covering the packs worn on their backs. A few of them even had the decorations sewn over their gray trousers and shirts, giving a sensual, frightening impression of a room full of dangerously glinting women.
Angela classified them that way for many reasons, not the least of which was the blowguns and rows of needle darts on their belts. These females knew how to survive, clearly, but the way they had adapted was amazing.
Conner eased into the room and the adults followed slowly, staring. There was an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables, and even producing plants for sale, but the gallon jugs of clear water drew Angela. Apparently, Conner needed the same, because he went straight for them, too.
As the team came closer, they realized the shiny decorations were scales and the respect went up. The team hadn’t seen the sewer snakes yet, but the size of the skins and the amount of scales the women were using implied that the reptiles were large and numerous.
The clerk behind the low table stepped closer to her stock as she got a look at the hard-asses lingering by the slowly closing door.
“Three gallons,” Conner instructed.
The clerk’s eyes swung back to Conner, and Angela wasn’t able to place exactly what it was about these merchants that she didn’t like. They wore the same mismatched clothes covered in dirt; they even had the same abused auras, but there was something else...
“Let’sss see your cash.”
Angela gaped. The clerk sounded like a snake!
Conner pulled the gun from his jacket pocket and slid it onto the plank. “Five bullets left. Use ‘em in good health.”
The clerk made the gun vanish before Angela could blink.
“Deal. Anything elsesss or change?”
Conner pointed toward a basket of dried apple slices. “Use the rest on those.”
“No meatsss?”
Conner shook his head. “I don’t like snake meat. I trap coons and badgers, a rabbit or two when luck’s with me.”
The clerk nodded. “As do most since the mutations began showing up in reptiles.” Cara grimaced miserably. “Until we broke free of the prison, rodents and the like were all we had.”
Angela sensed the lie, but didn’t remark on it.
Conner reached out, putting a hand on the woman’s arm. “Thank you for the trade.”
She smiled hotly at him, burning with a feverish light she knew he could see, if not sense. “You won’t reconsider my previous offer?”
Conner blushed. “No.”
Snake woman took a step back, making his arm fall. “Then stop touching me or the choice will no longer be yours to make!”
Eagles stepped closer at the threat, but Conner only laughed. “Pretend for them, but don’t bullshit me, Cara. You’re Garret’s girl. You won’t sacrifice that.”
Cara glared in defeat. “No, but it doesn’t stop the want.”
She tried to get herself under control. “What about your friendsss? Are they buying?”
Conner raised a brow.
Adrian opened his hand, revealing a number of small gold and silver ingots. “Whatever you need.”
Conner sneered, but didn’t refuse the generosity. “They only want me, not supplies, so load them up. My father’s buying.”
The room went still...and then cold as the snake clerks glared. This man had left the gifted boy to rot here.
Adrian faced them without anger, but also without guilt. The only one he had to answer to was his son.
4
“The Major’s coming.”
About to hit his favorite romance scene, Hudson marked his place in the book. It was one of three intact paperbacks he owned and liked to use to make the other bounty men jealous. The Major didn’t want too many of his crew acting smart or thinking, and Hudson was the only one allowed to keep the materials. The fact that Hudson had them booby-trapped and was lethal with his knife had probably helped that choice.
“Say it again.”
Despite the fact that he couldn’t see much of Embry’s face through the bandana he wore unfolded, Hudson disliked it immensely. If not for those sharp brown eyes that were so good at recognizing risky opportunities, Embry would have been placed lower in Garret’s crew. Then, Lenore would already be in Hudson’s cot at night. Those wide hips and thick legs would be perfect for passing the long nights of waiting for Mitchel to show.
“Major Garret is coming to talk to you.”
Hudson was instantly uneasy. He must think the new people are a real threat, Hudson deduced. Most groups that had come through Little Rock had stayed low and quiet, but this one was the opposite. They had to know they were being followed, but they showed few signs of worry. They might be a harder caliber, and Hudson became glad the Major was on top of things.
“He’s here,” Embry whispered in awed admiration.
Hudson gestured rudely. “Get lost, Em, while we talk.”
Embry spun, sputtering in protest, and the Major supported his XO.
“Get lost.”
Embry flushed at the order and vanished into the lines of snickering, elbowing bounty hunters that made up Garret’s personal guard.
The Major signaled for the lines of men behind him to fall out of sight, and then leaned toward his top explosives man. “Get up to the dam and set a surprise for dawn.”
“We floodin’ this shit-hole?” Hudson asked. He’d wanted to do that when they’d first arrived here.
Garret confirmed it. “Yes. We’ve been here for months. It’s time to finish it and go.”
“But our men–” Hudson stated to protest.
“Have served their time. Give them an honorable discharge. It’s time to roll.”
Garret hated Hudson’s way of rubbing his fat, crooked nose when he was deep in thought and switched attention to something more pleasant–like the blood on Hudson’s army boots.
Hudson understood. The Major never left before he got his man, not once in the twenty years they’d been together. “That’s Mitchel down there! We’re in the homestretch.”
Garret was pleased, but also uneasy at the intelligence. “And that’s why you have my right, Hud. Now, do as I said and do it right, like usual.”
Hudson swelled at the praise and went in a fast trot. Life was good.
The line of hunters taking up perimeter places and lying low
around the Major didn’t react to the order. Garret was as apt to kill as to sleep, but they were wired the same. Sympathy and empathy were things the Major’s chosen guards didn’t have.
5
It took a little while for the clerks to fill the order. Conner kept pointing to things, and the clerks kept loading the team up. Only Kenn and Kyle weren’t given a pack, at Adrian’s orders. Those lethal hands needed to be free for protection.
Conner saw the clerk approach Adrian. Cara was glowering despite the nice chunk of profit she and her girls would get from this transaction.
“If you leave him here this time, he will die,” she stated, scales on her wrist glinting in bright warning.
Shorter than the rest, it was still clear that Cara was in charge. Her scales were brighter, almost golden, and her braids were woven around the top of her head in a coil. Her painted face (heavy blue around both eyes and black lipstick) glared out to make her different from her girls. Her markings said, Pay attention, I’m the leader here.
Adrian took the heavy bag without complaint or answer. He had no intentions of leaving the boy again.
Annoyed at the silence and worried for Conner, Cara lowered her voice. “The hunters are coming for him!”
She spun away before Adrian could ask when.
Kenn got a whiff of Cara as she moved away and couldn’t stop the vague interest in her as she walked away. Nice ass. Too bad.
Adrian picked out things the others missed. The females had baskets of dried and drying meat in the corners, telling Adrian they’d been allowed to operate down here for a while. He wondered what they’d used for bartering with Major Garret. They also had weapons, which meant the kids might, as well. Adrian narrowed in on the carpet-layered walls and wondered how many exits were had hidden behind them.
Adrian stared at the clerks, picking up their resentment, but also their concern for his son. Conner had his own army here. Did he know it?
“They won’t fight. Not unless I agree to Cara’s deal,” Conner stated as they waited for the stone door to be opened. “She wants a marriage and to merge the kids into their group. Without telling the Major, of course.”
Conner led them into the darkness without any change of tone. “I’ve considered it, but they kill the males, so I had to tell her no.”
“How long until we get to wherever we’re going?” Kenn asked.
“I’ll handle that,” Adrian directed. “You give our newest friends a surprise.”
Kenn eagerly pulled the black box from his pocket. He powered it on and didn’t hesitate to flip the switch.
Beep!
Kenn held up a hand. “Five...four...”
He curled a finger down with each number he counted. They all braced when his hand was a fist.
Silence...
“They found it, maybe,” Kyle said.
Booooommmmm!
The explosion echoed for miles in the apocalyptic stillness, rattling the ground as it went.
“Boo-ya!” Kenn laughed.
The repercussion hit the tunnels an instant later.
“Come on!” Conner shouted, picking up that fast pace again.
The team followed, hoping the dust would be the only thing to fall on them as the sewer walls groaned from the pressure.
6
“What are those?” Kevin asked when Conner’s pace allowed breathing. “They smell funny.”
The floors were clear of debris and the dead as Conner led them deeper, but it had gained a few inches of murky, reeking water that none of them wanted against their skin. The boy had slowed back down when he was sure the tunnel wasn’t coming down, but none of the team were exactly relaxed as they followed a mere teenager through the nasty gloom.
“Those are Kudzu vines. The city used to spray to keep them from taking over. They grow super-fast anyway, but with all the water and no service crews to cut them, they’ve taken over most of these tunnels,” Conner stated.
The thick plants were twined throughout the sewer tunnel, running along the walls and ceiling like webs.
“Not just underground, though, and not only here,” Adrian informed them. “A lot of cities were fighting Kudzu before the war.”
“It’s mutating,” Angela guessed, peering closer as they came to another intersection, this one choked with the twining vines. “Don’t they usually need sun?”
“I think they have a new energy source,” Conner muttered.
He stepped high over the vines in a goofy way that had Eagles trying not to snicker. He had no idea how funny it looked.
“We’ve found bones down here that aren’t people. It could be from the snakes, I guess, but I haven’t seen a one in about three months. I believe the vines are carnivorous now,” Conner stated matter-of-factly. “I won’t let the kids touch them.”
Adrian and Angela exchanged a horrified glance, and all of the Eagles immediately began to take those higher, funny steps over the vines.
“Are there rats down here?” Angela asked, flashed to her trip under Max and Lenore’s den.
“Yes.” Conner walked faster. “Also, spiders–big ones.”
“Are they mutated, too?”
“Some, but most are on the eastern side, where the water built up and went stagnant. Some of those tunnels would require a canoe. The water’s halfway to the ceiling.”
“What keeps these tunnels from flooding?” Kyle asked.
“They slope upward, towards the dam,” Adrian answered, moving to walk by Conner.
It implied that he knew this city, but when Adrian began asking questions, the rest of his group stayed quiet, searching the damp darkness for trouble.
“Has anyone been up to the dam?”
Conner automatically adjusted his stride to match his father’s. “The adults talked about it at first, but I don’t think anyone actually went to check. I’m sure it’s leaking. The place we swam through filled up after the war.”
“How many ways into where your kids are?”
Clearly stoking Conner’s ego, Adrian listened with a trained ear to the son he was overjoyed to have found alive, and an instinctive ear to Angela as she searched.
“A lot. These sewers run all under the city.”
“Is there a cleared way out?”
Conner turned confidently at the next intersection. “Not that we know of. If there had been even a rumor of a way out, the adults would have forced us through to test it. At least then we would have had a purpose to them, a reason to be fed.”
Adrian continued with his details, employing a facade of indifference instead of the fury, the parental rage that could easily obliterate this destroyed city with mental fire. “What about the enemy? Do they come down here?”
“Not much, but when they do, it’s in big numbers. They say they’re a new world militia, but we call them bounty hunters. Or assholes,” Conner muttered.
Adrian could feel Angela wanting to smile, and didn’t interrupt that light mood. He knew how deadly bounty men could be. He would carry that heavy knowledge.
“Is there something I should know?” Angela asked sharply.
Adrian’s lips curled. Apparently, concrete didn’t put a damper on her gifts. “Where are they based?”
“They took over Mansion Hill. Garret stays there, unless there’s a problem his crew can’t handle.”
“Does anyone fight them?”
“Most of our parents fought and lost. There was a rumor that the Junction Bridge had held after the quake, but it was a trap. The parents pushed us into the sewers when the bounty hunters came; hoping that at least a few of us might survive.”
Adrian’s throat stopped working, realizing now where the boy’s mother likely was. He had been hoping she’d survived, too. He hadn’t been in love with Shannon, but he had cared enough about her happiness to give her the son she’d longed for.
“So, the adults down here now are not the parents?” Kyle clarified.
“No. The bastards down here now came after the war, when the M
ajor started clearing out survivors,” Conner replied angrily. “They pushed us further in, after taking what little we had.”
“What type of injuries do your people have?” Adrian asked, manipulative words only a small part of it. He needed to reinforce Conner’s leadership so the boy would get the others to come willingly.
“If I tell you that, you might not take them.”
There was no answer to Conner’s hope, and the group behind them exchanged concerned glances in the gloom.
Conner spun toward Adrian, stopping their convoy. “Say you’ll take them all! Even the three we think will die. Say it!”
“We’ll take them all,” Adrian repeated tonelessly.
“You’re probably lying, but I don’t have another option.” Conner’s shoulders sagged. “What do you need me to do?”
“Ensure cooperation. Are they willing?”
“They are, I’m not,” Conner snorted, not looking up. He hadn’t expected his father to have his own mind reader. He had to be careful. “They made me come out and save you from that trap. They can’t wait to flee this underground hell.”
“You don’t want to go?” Angela asked, surprised. “We offer safety.”
The teenager wore jeans and a long sleeve black shirt under a dark hoodie layered in months of crud. It was like looking at Adrian from a long time ago. Conner was roughly a third of his dad’s weight and about even on Angela’s height. Pale, filthy skin covered hard muscles, and a hood hid the hair they all knew would be like rippling wheat when clean.
“There is no safe place or safe people,” Conner warned, swiping down a wide cobweb that he rubbed down the side of his jeans. “Most of the kids voted for me because I’m the oldest, they don’t know who you are. We’re keeping it that way.”
Conner propelled himself into the darkness with angry steps. “If you had come to her a month later, someone else would have been picked, and I would be dead.”
Silence came as the team began to understand what that meant. Not all of them had realized who Conner was until now.
“How much farther?” Kenn asked, distracting.
“Twenty minutes,” Conner tossed back.
“Wait. We’ve been underground for an hour?”
