Calico Descending

by Keri Lake

  I turn my head to see, from this distance, the blaze of fires, where all the tents have succumbed to flames. The occasional gunshot that echoes over the screaming tells me some of the men are still alive. I scan the camp in search of Valdys, and see him tear away the head of a mutation, tossing it behind him as he moves onto the next, like a warrior.

  “If Cadmus hadn’t ... “ Neela sniffles beside me, and I twist back around to see her shaking her head. “After what they did.”

  Tears fill my eyes, as I pull her into me. “I know.”

  “I thought Calico was worse.” Her body jerks with a sob.

  As I stare off at the chaos outside, I’d be inclined to agree with her. But I know what we saw was the worst of it.

  It has to be the worst of it.

  A minute later, and Neela settles beside me. “Cadmus saved us.”

  I’d like to believe that. I’d like to think it was my pleas that broke him from whatever trance in which he seemed to have fallen, but the look in his eyes, after he killed those men, told me his mind was still trapped somewhere else. It told me whatever he saw while killing them wasn’t the same thing I saw.

  Something thumps the back of the truck, and my muscles stiffen. The shouts are familiar, Cadmus, and the truck shakes, as if something is wrestling with him in the back. I snap my attention back toward the driver door, exhaling with relief when Valdys strides up. Through the window, I watch him glance to the side and shake his head, and I unlock the door as he approaches. When he slides in beside me, he looks beaten and weary. Battered with new cuts and gashes.

  “Cadmus … is he?”

  A flicker of a frown dances across Valdys’s face, as he shakes his head again, and when the screams from the back fade, and the truck settles, he fires up the engine. The lights flick on.

  At the crash of shattering glass, I twist around to Neela’s teary-eyed face. No more than a breath later, she’s yanked through the passenger side window on a harrowing scream. I lurch to reach out for her, but too late, as a mutation pounces off into the darkness, with her body dragging behind it.

  “No! No!”

  A hard yank snaps me backward, as a second flash of white takes up the width of the window. Screams rip through my chest, when a claw reaches in, swiping for my legs. Valdys stretches across, taking hold of it, and cracks it in half with his bare hands. The mutation screeches and recoils only briefly, before reaching in again. The moment it grips my leg, its body is yanked back, and it releases me.

  I scramble back against Valdys and peer through the window, where Titus wrestles with it in the dirt. In the distance, I see no sign of the other mutation that ran off with Neela.

  Panic throbs in my chest, as Titus takes hold of its skull and rips it clean off it’s body, and I scan for Neela again. “We have to find her! We have to!”

  Covered in blood and bits of flesh, Titus opens the passenger door and slides in beside me. “You’re not going to find her.” The grave tone of his voice tells me she’s either dead, or close to it. “They’re just like Ragers. It’ll find a nest and …. Either way, there’s no saving her now.”

  The tug in my throat is a sob that I swallow back.

  “Would you have left me?” I turn to Valdys, my body quaking with the will to keep from breaking down. “Would you have bothered to come for me?”

  Valdys stares off a moment, and jaw clenched, he throws the truck in gear, heading in the direction Neela was taken.

  The darkness of the desert whips past the window, as I sit between Titus and Valdys, and when the truck slows, I scoot forward, noticing an object lying in the dirt. A scrap of our yellow uniforms. At the foot of a small mountain, Valdys brings the truck to a stop and opens the driver door. I set to follow after him, but a thump hits my chest.

  “You’ll stay with Titus.” There’s an unyielding command to his voice, laced with a small bit of anger, and I don’t fight him on it. Instead, I sit back into the seat and wait.

  Through the windshield, I watch Valdys disappear inside a cavern.

  “What happened to Cadmus?”

  “I don’t know,” Titus answers quietly, resting his elbow on the edge of the bashed-out window beside him.

  “Where is he?”

  “Had to put him in one of those cages in the back.”

  “Like the mutations?”

  “I had no choice. Valdys thought he might hurt you. Or Neela.”

  The thought of him trapped inside that suffocating box feels wrong, somehow. “He saved us back there. If he hadn’t … we would’ve …”

  Running a hand down his face, Titus silently confesses his own guilt. “I saw him … tear away one of marauder’s arms. He bit down into it.”

  In the silence that follows, I frown at that, trying to imagine such a thing.

  “We’re no different than Ragers, or the mutations. The only thing that separates us from them is the small bit of humanity we cling to, and I’m afraid what little is left in Cadmus is slipping away.”

  Movement at the mouth of the cavern is Valdys, covered in blood, as he carries something that dangles from his grip. In the path of the truck’s headlights, he tosses the mutation’s head onto the ground, and dread settles over me again.

  With an air of abruptness, he throws back the driver door and climbs inside, his arm knocking into me. “She’s gone.” At the flat tone of his voice, I know not to ask any questions.

  Tears swell in my eyes, as he shifts the truck in gear and we drive away.

  Chapter 31

  I unroll the sleeping bag, one of two I managed to scavenge from the back of the truck, onto the dirt beside the fire Titus built. Valdys hands me some of the jerky he found packed away in a box full of supplies and water. After the events of the evening, I don’t have any desire to eat, but I know I’ll need my energy, so I accept his proffered chunk of dried meat and take a sip from a canteen of water.

  Sitting against a rock, beside which we’ve taken some measure of shelter, Valdys pulls his knees up and lets out a quiet grunt. I kneel down beside him, examining his new wounds, as Titus lies back on his sleeping bag, across from us, tucking his arms beneath his head.

  A wide gash on Valdys’s bicep marks the swipe of a claw, and I reach inside the pack for the emergency kit I saw there.

  “Stupid,” he says, as I pull an alcohol swab from the box of medical supplies. “You’d think they’d have had more soldiers to escort the truck.”

  Setting the wet swab to his wound, I dab away the small bits of dirt along the jagged edge. “They weren’t transporting the truck to a new facility. They were delivering it to those men.”

  Understanding seems to dawn on his face, and he shakes his head. “They wanted them to be set loose.”

  “How many hives could those things destroy?”

  He sighs, allowing me to twist his arm for the bottom half of the wound. “More than a horde of Ragers, I’d imagine.”

  “And the Alphas are the only effective means they have of controlling them. Which means, they’ll be coming for us. For you.”

  “Then, we keep driving. First light, we head north. There’s enough gasoline to put us miles from here.”

  Once the wound is clean, I nab one of the sutures from the kit, and pass it through the flame, before setting it to the narrow tip of the gash. He doesn’t so much as flinch when I feed the needle into his skin.

  “Where’d you learn to sew a wound?”

  A smile stretches my lips, as I tug the suture and feed it through again. “I didn’t. My mother taught my sister and I to sew when we were young. Bryani was better at it, though.”

  “Younger ones always are,” he says with a knowing smile, and I pause for a moment.

  “You had a sibling.”

  At his nod, I tug the line through each side of the wound, drawing the edges together as I go.

  “A younger sister. Serena.” He glances down at the wound. “She knew how to sew, too.”

  “What happened to her?”

/>   “The raid. That was before they took the women and girls. I was eight when I saw my mother and sister shot in the head.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what such a thing would ...” But I can. I can because I saw my own sister shot dead by the guards.

  “They rounded up my father, my older brother, and me. When we arrived, they separated us into groups. My father told me not to be frightened. That they were only men, like us.” His eye twitches at that, and I close the last of his wound, giving a gentle tug to seal it. “They were nothing like us.” He stares off, as if he’s reliving the moment. “That was the last I saw of my father and my brother.”

  “Do you know if they lived?”

  Lips pressed together, he shakes his head. “I got word they’d been sent to the pathogen labs.” From what I understand, some of the subjects were taken to pathogen labs and injected with various strains of the Dredge, along with other infectious organisms to test the competitive nature of the disease. The ones sent there never lasted long. “They tell us to fear the Ragers. The disease. But at least the Ragers don’t hide what they really are.”

  Setting my hand to his cheek, I lean forward and kiss him, letting my silent apology settle across his lips. His hand slips along my back as he pulls me onto his lap and holds me there.

  “When I realized they’d taken you, when I thought about what they’d do to you in that camp, I wanted to burn this whole fucking desert to ashes.”

  I run my thumb over his furrowed brow and kiss his forehead. “I knew you’d come for me. I knew you’d find me.”

  “I’ll always come for you, Calithea. I’ll never leave you.” He pulls me in tighter, and I press my lips to his once more. Pressure against my cheek breaks the kiss, as he holds my face, his eyes turned away from mine. “Did they ...”

  “They tried. They almost did.” I crane my head back toward the truck, where Cadmus remains trapped inside one of the cages. “He saved us.”

  On a long exhale, he strokes his thumb over the vein in my neck and pulls me in for another kiss. One so fervent with passion, it’d buckle my knees if I weren’t already sitting. When he pulls away, he licks his lips and plants another kiss at my jawline. “What I wouldn’t do for you. There is no hell I wouldn’t walk through to get to you.”

  “And I’d do the same for you.” It’s true, I’d face the gravest consequence for him. “It’s why I couldn’t let you stay in that cell one minute longer.”

  Eyes softening, he strokes my jawline and smiles when he kisses me again. He lifts the sleeping bag, allowing me to settle inside, and climbs in after me. The feel of his body against mine, the muscles drawing me closer, the heat blazing off him, eases the tension that’s been running through me since Roz woke me earlier in the evening.

  Roz. The thought of her leaves an ache in my heart.

  Warm, calloused hands drag over my skin, and I lift my head toward Titus, see the easy rise and fall of his chest, his mouth slightly gaping.

  Even with his friend having dozed off, likely oblivious to the two of us, Valdys doesn’t go anywhere near the place that throbs for his touch. Perhaps he thinks he’s giving me time, space to deal with what happened, but I need this closeness from him. I need his hands to erase the feel of that marauder’s on me. I want his breath on my neck, and his body pressed against mine, so that I might fall asleep with those thoughts in my head, instead of imagining what could’ve happened if Cadmus hadn’t stopped it.

  With his chest pressed tight against my back, I take his hand beneath the covers and guide it over my hip. At his hesitation, I turn my head to the side and whisper, “Please, Valdys.”

  Tucking his head against the back of my neck, he snakes his hand down inside my pants, stirring my body to life as he glides his finger along the seam of my bare sex. His body shudders against mine, and he kisses my shoulder as he dips his finger up inside of me.

  I close my eyes and surrender to his ministrations, taking in the feel of his massive arm crossed over me, his big protective body shrinking me beside him. In the safety of his embrace, I breathe easy, and open myself to him like a desert flower touched by the first rays of morning light. Writhing and breathing, I reach back, take hold of his swollen cock, and squeeze as I run my hand up and down his thick shaft. Abandoning the strokes, I tuck my fingers into the waistband of my pants and slide them down to mid-thigh, then reach for his cock once more. Back arched against him, I line his tip to my entrance, and allow him to push up inside of me.

  On a gasp, I turn my face into his bicep beneath my head and bite down, as he slides all the way to the hilt. The pressure inside of me fills my belly, and I let out a grunt through my nose, teeth still lodged in his flesh to keep from crying out. When he withdraws, I release him, and reach back to grip his nape, as he enters me again. Fingers still dancing over my sensitive flesh, he sets his lips to my neck and I rest the back of my palm on his outstretched hand that he curls over my knuckles, threading our fingers together. In slow and lazy strokes, he drives in and out of me, stirring the wetness that dribbles down my thighs.

  “Valdys,” I whisper. “I don’t want this to end. I don’t ever want this to end.”

  He lifts his head and kisses the edge of my neck, never once breaking rhythm as his tongue drags across my jawline.

  I open my eyes to see Titus, staring at us from across the fire, both lonliness and longing swirling in his gaze, before he turns away.

  An inexplicable sadness settles inside my chest, but I push those thoughts away for the exquisite pleasure humming through my veins.

  Even if I wanted to, I can’t stop now, as Valdys hastens his pace, drawing his arm up over my body to my throat. Thighs slamming into mine, he squeezes my neck, scraping his teeth over my jaw as his muscles tense against me. Grunting and groaning, I can feel him stretching me, and I surrender to the sensations building inside of me. The tension in my muscles that quiver and tremble with the promise of what’s to come.

  Small pants of breath escape me, as I close my eyes, tipping my head back. His grip grows tighter, squeezing just enough to make me dizzy. Until at last, the wave of heat crashes over me, pulsing inside of me, as it shoots through my veins, leaving tingles in its wake. I clamp my mouth to keep from crying out, the trapped breath shuddering through my nose. Our slick bodies glide against one another, as I feel his warmth filly my belly. The wall of muscle caging me in vibrates with tension, and he lets out a quiet sound of satisfaction, before he stills. Lying against each other, we breathe in sync, and he slides his hand down to my stomach, holding me against him, as he stirs the last of his erection inside of me. Instead of pulling out, he stays there, curling his fingers tighter into mine.

  “You’ll be the death of me,” he says raggedly. “And I’ll welcome it.”

  I smile, resting my hand over the arm stretched across me. How beautiful this moment is, our first taste of freedom, making love beneath the stars.

  Contentment bathes my muscles, in the calm satisfaction that he radiates through my body, shadowed only by the sadness I feel for Titus. I don’t know why it troubles me to see him lying alone, but as I lay trapped in the arms of Valdys, a very small part of me longs to comfort his friend.

  Exhausted, I close my eyes to those thoughts.

  A hard thunk breaches the void, and I jolt awake, sitting upright. The fire still crackles and burns a hot red, while beside me, Valdys is already awake, also sitting upright. Across from us, Titus lies on his back, blowing out a sigh.

  “Cadmus,” Valdys says, stroking my arm.

  I lower myself back to the ground and exhale a breath, closing my eyes, as Valdys settles in behind me once more.

  Thunk.

  Eyes snapped open, I zero in on the sound, coming from the back of the truck, and that’s when I hear the low and muffled cries, almost inaudible over the crackle of fire.

  Imagining him trapped inside that cage is enough that I can’t fall back to sleep, as I stare across our small camp, waiting to hear h
im again.

  Chapter 32

  Sleep weighs heavy on me, as I roll up the sleeping bag, while Valdys buries all evidence of our night here, kicking sand over the ashes left from the fire. Titus stands off a short distance, with a stream of urine shooting from between his legs.

  I tip back the canteen for a sip of my water, and my gaze lands on the back of the truck. “He needs water. And food.”

  Glancing back at the truck himself, Valdys reaches for the small rocks arranged in the circle that held the fire, and tosses them off behind a bush. “He’ll be fine for a bit. Let’s just get some distance today.”

  “Valdys. It’s eighty degrees already. He’s got to be miserable in there.”

  “Those cages are temperature controlled inside. He’s more comfortable than we are out here.”

  Nibbling on my lip, I set my hand to my hip. “I heard him last night. He sounded in pain.”

  He twists on the ball of his foot to face me. “What would you have me do, Cali? Let him out? He’ll be on you first, I guarantee it.”

  “At least … just check on him. Maybe give him a sip of water before we go.”

  With a groan, Valdys collects the rolled-up sleeping bag from my arms, and crosses the camp for Titus’s, before tromping off toward the vehicle.

  I follow after him, but only get a few steps, before he swings around.

  “Stay. You’re not going anywhere near him.”

  With a nod, I do as he says, until he disappears into the back of the vehicle, and I shuffle across the hot sand toward the back. Peeking around the bed of the truck, I watch Valdys huff and press the button on the side, initiating the beeping sounds. The door pops and slides to the right.