Deception

by C. J. Redwine

  Stepping forward, he cups my face in his calloused palms and says, “I know you aren’t okay. How could you be? I’m not okay, either. But hiding from it isn’t going to solve it.”

  Something hot and painful throbs inside my chest. “Nothing’s going to solve it, Logan. I can’t . . .”

  “You can’t what?”

  “I can’t be strong enough to face this”—I gesture toward the bluff behind us and hope he knows that I mean everything. Oliver. Dad. The Commander. Everything—“if I start talking about my nightmares. And you need me to be strong. Everyone needs me to be strong. Falling apart isn’t an option.”

  “Who says you’re going to fall apart?” He leans closer. “You’re the strongest person I know. Most would’ve quit trying by now, but not you. Trusting me with whatever is hurting you won’t break you, Rachel.”

  He’s wrong. If I trust him with it, I have to also trust myself. I’d have to drag what lives in the shadows out into the light and hope I survive what I see.

  And if I look my darkness in the face and it overwhelms me, how will I find the strength to get back on my feet again?

  He rubs his thumb across my cheekbone. “It’s hard to face talking about things that hurt. But I think if we’re going to survive this together, we have to.”

  “How come I’m the only one who has to talk about the hard stuff? You said you aren’t okay, either.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll go first.” He lets go of me and pushes his hand through his hair. The silence between us lengthens until he laughs, a sharp, bitter sound. “You’re right. It’s a lot harder to talk about stuff like this than I gave you credit for.”

  “Stuff like what?”

  A shout goes up from the bluff, followed by more laughter. Behind us, the city is silent.

  Logan tilts his head back and stares at the sky. “I think I might be to blame for the Rowansmark tracker killing our boys.” His voice sounds weary. Like this is a familiar thought he can hardly stand to face again.

  “How could you possibly be to blame?”

  “What if the message the killer left for us was meant for me? The first message was in my tech bag. What if the debt that needs to be paid is mine? What if I’m . . .” He swallows hard. “What if my choices are responsible for the deaths of those boys?”

  I fist my hands on my hips. “Who put that stupid idea into your head?”

  He shakes his head and doesn’t speak.

  An owl hoots somewhere above us, and something scurries through the underbrush at our feet.

  I step closer to Logan and put every ounce of conviction I possess into my voice. “You aren’t responsible.”

  “I am if this really is a tracker delivering Rowansmark’s sentence of pain atonement. I kept the device—”

  “I gave you the device in the first place. If you’re responsible, then so am I. So is Quinn, for keeping it safe for me instead of bringing it back to Rowansmark. In fact, while we’re busy writing fairy tales, my dad is responsible too, for bringing it out of Rowansmark in the first place.” I tap my foot against the ground while I wait for him to see reason. “Anyone who could slit the throats of innocent boys is a twisted, depraved lunatic. I don’t care what his sick justification was. If you take a life, you and you alone are responsible for that choice. If you can’t see that then you aren’t half as smart as I’ve always thought you were.”

  He reaches out, takes my hand, and pulls me against him. His hands tangle in my hair, and he leans toward my mouth. “Do you know one of the things I love most about you?”

  “No.” My voice is a faint breath of air.

  His fingers slide down my back. “You are incapable of being tactful to spare someone’s feelings.”

  My heart sinks a little. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

  “I’ve spent my life as an outcast.” His voice is quiet. Steady. “I walked into stores and people started whispering. I’d enter a crowd and see parents shoo their children away from me like I’d contracted some terrible disease no one else wanted to catch. Yet all the while, those same people would smile to my face. I never knew if the friendliness I saw in someone’s eyes was real until I met you.”

  “Well, those other people were obviously idiots.”

  He tilts my head back and leans closer. “I always know where I stand with you. Even when you were angry with me, you never bothered trying to hide it. You are exactly who you seem to be, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  His kiss is gentle, and much too short. When he leans back, he says, “I shared what was bothering me, and it helped. Ready to do the same?”

  My throat tightens, and I swallow hard. “I dream of Dad and Oliver.” And Melkin. And blood, but I can’t find the words to paint that picture. “I see them die. Over and over. Or they come to me already dead.” My voice sinks into a whisper. “Nothing feels right inside of me since I lost them. Since we lost them.”

  He wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. “I’m sorry.” Warmth from his mouth whispers across mine as his lips brush against me. “I love you, Rachel.”

  I wrap my arms around him and stretch up on my tiptoes. “I love you, too.” I kiss him until the forest seems to spin around me, and I can’t tell which of us is holding the other up.

  A faint crunch, like a boot stepping on the rocky forest soil, echoes behind us. The whispery hiss of someone drawing in a ragged breath crawls across the air and raises the hair on my arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  RACHEL

  Grabbing our weapons, we turn back-to-back, and face the shadowed forest around us. I raise my knife and crouch. Forcing myself to control my breathing, I listen intently. Behind me, Logan is quiet too as we wait for the Wasteland to give up its secrets.

  A scout from the army? The tracker?

  Something scrapes against a tree to the left of me. I adjust my grip on my knife and get ready. If someone attacks us, we won’t see him coming before he’s almost on top of us. I’ll have only seconds to assess the threat and remove it.

  Blood on my hands. Pouring from my palms. Rushing down my throat to choke me with my guilt.

  I bite my cheek hard, and use the pain to banish the memory of my nightmares.

  Another faint sound floats toward us. This time from the right. Either two people are out there, or someone knows how to move quickly in near silence.

  Logan whispers, “When I say go, we drop to the ground and crawl beneath those bushes. Put your back to the tree.”

  I can just make out the cluster of shrubs he’s talking about. They’re a good six yards away, but if we can dive underneath them and keep our backs to the huge oak tree beside them, we’ll only have to defend possible attacks from one direction. Plus, it will force whoever is out there to hunt for us, which will hopefully give us the advantage of hearing little telltale sounds that will give away his position before he attacks.

  “Ready . . . set . . .”

  There’s a thud, and Logan lands heavily on the ground, groaning in pain. A jagged chunk of stone the size of my palm hits the forest floor beside him.

  I lunge for Logan, searching for wounds with my left hand while my right holds my knife steady. “Are you hurt?” I whisper, even though I know he must be or we’d both be crawling beneath the bushes right now.

  The sticky warmth flowing from the back of his head answers my question before he can open his mouth. He’s bleeding, hit by a stone thrown by an opponent we can’t see. An opponent who could even now be coming in for the kill. We’re exposed, and every second I spend trying to figure out how this happened is another second I give our attacker to close in on us.

  “What direction did it come from?” I ask against his ear.

  “West,” he breathes, and struggles to roll over.

  Transferring my knife to my left hand, I grab the stone, slick with Logan’s blood, and jump to my feet. Spinning to the west, I pull my arm back and throw the rock with all the strength I’ve got.

>   It slams into a distant tree with a resounding thud. I’m already on the ground grabbing a fistful of Logan’s tunic and pulling him toward the bushes, hoping the small distraction I caused will buy us enough time to get to safety. Logan pushes my hand away and gets to his knees.

  “I can make it. You go first.” His voice is slurred.

  Right. Why don’t I leave the boy I love lying injured and disoriented on the forest floor and get myself to safety instead?

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I say, and reach down to tug him forward.

  Someone laughs—an ugly sound of vicious amusement. A man. Behind us and to the west.

  “Pay your debt,” he says in a harsh whisper that lingers in the air and sets my heart pounding with fury.

  It’s the Rowansmark tracker. It has to be.

  My hands shake as I let go of Logan’s tunic and grab my knife again. Cowards deserve to be punished. Especially ones who throw rocks instead of finding the backbone to fight an opponent face-to-face.

  And especially ones who kill innocent boys and then leave cryptic messages about debts and atonement written in blood.

  “Crawl,” I whisper to Logan. “Fast. I’ll buy you some time.”

  “What are you doing?” Logan asks. “The bushes—”

  I lunge to my feet and raise my voice, “You filthy, miserable, no-good coward! Get out here and face me like a man.”

  Logan grabs my ankle and hisses his words. “Get down. Stop making yourself a target.”

  “Crawl.”

  I raise my voice and keep my arms up around my face in case the killer decides to throw another rock. “You’re a coward without honor. Too afraid of us to do anything but throw rocks.”

  Anger gushes through me, fueled by the memory of eight boys carved up like slaughtered sheep. “I’ll make you beg for mercy, but there won’t be any. Not for you. Not after what you’ve done. Do you hear me?”

  Something feral claws at my throat—a wild, furious need to rip the tracker apart. To make him pay. To scream and scream and scream until all the broken pieces inside of me soften into something that no longer cuts into me every time I sleep.

  My knife is a silver-sharp slice of diamond beneath the glistening light of the moon. I stab the air in front of me as if I can kill the thing that hurts me even though it’s buried so deep inside, I no longer know how to find it.

  “Rachel!” Logan drives the point of his sword into the ground. Using the weapon as a crutch, he pulls himself to his feet. He leans precariously to one side, and I swear as I wrap an arm around his waist and anchor him to my side. “The tracker will follow your voice—”

  “Let him.” My knife is still raised, my body shaking with the need to punish someone for the fear, the blood, and the injustice of it all. “We’ll kill him.”

  A shadowy blur moves in the corner of my eye. I whip my head to the right, but I can’t see far in the dark. Logan tries to lift his sword, but the movement nearly pitches him to his knees.

  “Rachel! Logan!” Quinn’s voice echoes through the night. “Where are you?”

  I grab Logan’s tunic and hold him steady. “Here!” I call out, and scan the area again, my knife ready.

  “Need help—” Logan says, his shoulders slumping.

  “Hold on. Quinn’s on his way. If anyone attacks, he and I will take care of it. But no one is going to attack”—I raise my voice—“because cowards who throw rocks in the dark don’t have the guts to attack face-to-face.”

  The only sound that greets this pronouncement is the soft slap of Quinn’s boots against the dirt. Seconds later, he whistles, and I call out our location.

  When he reaches us, he says, “I heard you yelling from thirty yards away. Are you deliberately putting yourself in danger?” He sounds angry.

  “Sort of. Logan’s hurt. The tracker threw a rock and hit him in the head. Help me get him back to camp.”

  “How do you know it was the tracker?” Quinn asks.

  “Because he said something about our debt needing to be paid. It was all very dramatic and cowardly.”

  Logan says something that sounds like he’s missing most of his teeth and has a bee sting on his tongue.

  I take more of his weight and say, “He wants to know where Willow is.”

  “She was escorting Thom and Ian back to the shelter. I was coming to find you two so we could all go back together.”

  Logan mumbles something else.

  Quinn snakes an arm around Logan’s other side. “He doesn’t sound good. Let’s make this quick.”

  We’re quiet as we navigate the forest, climb over the fuel line, and head down the main road into the city. It takes twenty minutes to get to the shelter, and I keep glancing over my shoulder, looking for any sign that the tracker is following us. When we reach the building we’re using for shelter, Frankie steps away from the door and says, “Who’s there?”

  “Rachel, Logan, and Quinn,” I say. “Logan’s hurt. The tracker threw a rock at him. Double the guard on this door tonight. We need to make sure he doesn’t try to kill anyone in their sleep.”

  “You hear that, boy?” Frankie asks. Eric steps to his side, his dark hair nothing but a smudge beneath the starlit sky. “Go wake four people instead of two and have them take over this post.”

  It takes less than five minutes for Eric to return with four new guards. We wait at the entrance with Frankie, our eyes constantly scanning the street, looking for threats.

  When the new guards are informed of the situation and are in position, we start toward our room, and Frankie says, “Where’s Logan hurt?”

  “Took a rock to the head,” Logan says, his words sounding clearer than they did a few minutes ago.

  “Good thing they went after your head. Anywhere else, and they might’ve done some damage,” Frankie says.

  Logan laughs and then hisses in a breath. I don’t laugh. I don’t see anything funny about the situation at all. The tracker is still with us. Still focused on hurting us.

  Most troubling of all, he’s focused on hurting Logan.

  It takes time to navigate the stairs and reach our room. Willow is waiting in the hall.

  She holds our door open and peers at the dark trail of blood slowly sliding down Logan’s face. “It’s a good look for you, but I wouldn’t recommend repeating it.”

  He tries to smile, but moans instead as we lower him onto his bedroll.

  I hurry to the corner of the room where I keep the rest of my water ration waiting to help me freshen up in the morning. Tearing a strip from one of my blankets, I dunk it in the water and press it against Logan’s cut. By the time I’m done cleaning the cut, Drake, Nola, and Adam are hovering in the doorway, concern evident on their faces.

  “So what happened?” Frankie asks.

  I tell them. When I’m done, Drake says, “You’re sure it was a tracker?”

  “We’re sure a tracker is following the camp,” Quinn says. “If he’s the one who killed the boys and left messages for Logan, it makes sense that he’d attack Logan.”

  Frankie’s small eyes focus on Quinn. “How’d you manage to be close enough to come to Logan’s rescue?”

  “I’d just finished checking the fuel lines and was looking for Logan and Rachel so we could come back to the shelter.”

  “Weren’t you also out alone in the forest the night the boys were killed?” Frankie slowly crosses his bearlike arms and stares at Quinn.

  “He walks the forest almost every night,” Willow says as she takes a step toward Frankie. “What’s it to you?”

  “I’ll tell you what I think.” Frankie’s voice shakes with anger.

  “Oh, yes, please do,” Willow says.

  “I think it’s a mistake not to say that the most obvious suspect is standing right there.” Frankie points at Quinn.

  “My brother isn’t the killer.” Willow whips her bow up to aim an arrow at Frankie’s throat. Her voice is cold and cruel. “He has moral qualms about taking another’s life. I, on t
he other hand, have none.”

  “Willow, put it down,” I say. Willow ignores me. “Frankie, Quinn didn’t do this. I’m sure of it.”

  “All I know is we got ourselves a leaf lover who’s good enough to fight off Carrington soldiers even though he wasn’t carrying a weapon. He admits that he was out walking alone the night the boys were killed. We all know those boys wouldn’t have suspected a thing if he walked up to them while they were standing guard.” Frankie’s eyes bore into Quinn’s. “And then he left camp for nearly a week, and we had peace. Now first night after he’s back, we got problems again, and we have to take his word that there’s a Rowansmark tracker out there.”

  Willow’s fingers are white where they bend around her bow. Her arrow is steady. I don’t know how to convince her to lower her weapon. Willow does what she wants. Besides, if Frankie had said terrible things about Logan, I’d want him to pay for his words, too.

  “It’s okay, Willow,” Quinn says quietly, and she slowly lowers the bow.

  “I don’t believe Quinn would kill anyone.” Logan’s words are slurred, but his voice is as unforgiving as the floor beneath our feet. “And, Frankie, that’s the third time you’ve used the derogatory term ‘leaf lover’ toward Quinn and Willow. Do it again, and I’ll chain you to the supply wagon for a week.”

  His lip curls. “You defend these strangers? Over your own people?”

  “Quinn and Willow are my friends. They’ve acted with honor and courage for the entire time I’ve known them. In fact, they’ve treated me far better than most of my own people, and I’m not going to forget it.”

  Frankie backs toward the hall. “Fine. But I’ve got my eye on you.” He looks at Quinn.

  Willow moves restlessly, but Quinn stills her with a glance. Meeting Frankie’s gaze, he says, “As you wish.” His stoic exterior is firmly in place. “Now Willow and I are going to get some rest. We have a fire to start just before dawn.”

  Without another word, he brushes past everyone and leaves. Willow stalks past Frankie, muttering something about gutting him like a fish, and disappears after her brother.