Every Dark Little Thing

by T. S. Ward

  Six goddamn months.

  YEAR THREE

  Day Fifteen

  There’s a break in Factory’s patrols. Ezra doesn’t see it on paper, but I do.

  I’ve been here enough the last couple of weeks to know the weak spots, to know what patrols are lazy and what ones spend their nights drinking and smoking weed. And I know there’s a spot in the fence where two small people might fit through and slip off into the woods unseen.

  I know where Sadie is, too.

  She’s on clean-up duty in the kitchens, and that’ll take her out the back with the compost scraps, out past the latrines, and this particular patrol doesn’t bother going past them—there’s a reason the fence hasn’t been repaired. There’s a reason no one saw me sneak up while I was ‘hunting’ and cut it myself.

  My heart is in my throat. I can barely feign relaxation.

  Ezra sits next to me, boots off and feet propped up near the fire, with his arm across the back of my camp chair.

  “Here. Drink some whiskey. It’ll keep you warm.”

  He mistakes my nerves for a chill. I’m shaking, leg bouncing, trying to talk myself out of it because I know damn well being nervous is going to fuck me over. But it’s a good fucking opportunity, risky with Ezra here, but I’m not sure I can take another second of this.

  The past six months, Ezra’s gotten… handsy. It’s some attempt at a clearer form of flirting that I’m still trying to brush off as naively as possible. It’s his arm over the back of my chair, or touching my hand, touching my elbow, my back, every chance he gets. He’s trying to make it look like he’s been successful in this endeavour for the sake of the other men not knowing the truth.

  That he’s not all powerful.

  Which, at least, keeps them back, too.

  The thing is, though—he’s getting frustrated. I know he is. I know he’s trying to be as obvious as possible without being entirely blunt. And I’m nervous that he’ll get around to that.

  After all, he’s blunt with everything else.

  So, I drink some whiskey, and pass the bottle back to him.

  There’s a truck stashed in the woods nearby. I left it there during the trip when I cut the fence, left my most personal items in it. My journal. Ben’s knife. My radio. That photograph of me and Adam and Sadie.

  “Squirrel, you look like you’re about to vomit,” Throttle calls across the fire.

  I keep staring into the embers, thinking over the escape.

  Ezra puts his hand on my back, leaning forward. “Hey. You feeling alright? Can’t hold your booze?”

  This is a good opportunity. Good timing. A bad idea, but a damn good opportunity.

  I grip the arms of the chair and clear my throat. “Yeah, I, uh… I’m just gonna hit the latrines and call it a night, actually.”

  Ezra stands up when I stand up. He sets a gloved finger under my chin and pushes up, so he can look at my face straight on. His lip twitches. “You weren’t bit, were you? You look like death.”

  I give a short laugh and hold my hands up as I step away. “No, no. Nothing can kill me but me, John. I’m fine.”

  He nods, sticking his hands in his pockets as he backs up, watching me go.

  The taste of whiskey is still in my mouth, burning at the back of my throat like acid. It’s a welcome distraction. It keeps the chill of the night out of me and leaves only the cold that comes from fear.

  I keep telling myself to call it off. Keep telling myself to pick another time, wait until I’m on my own to come around and find her, to use this time to warn her I’ll be coming.

  But I’m a fool. A goddamn fool.

  I don’t get smarter with time.

  I don’t trust my own gut.

  The back door to the kitchen opens as I pass the building. I look over, and I see her stomping out, lugging a heavy bucket overflowing with scraps. She slips on the step, catches the bucket on the edge of it, and looks up when I stop walking.

  Ezra’s in the corner of my eye, watching me.

  “You good?” I ask her.

  She looks like she’s about to cry. She grabs the scraps that fell out and returns them to the bucket, swearing like a damn sailor when she sees a crack leaking liquid everywhere.

  “God, the fucking raccoons are gonna—”

  “Chill,” I say, grabbing one of the empty buckets from behind the other building, right where Ezra can see. I walk over to her. Out of sight. I take the bucket and drop it into the new one. “Here. Grab the handle, I’ll help you carry it.”

  “I don’t need your damn help,” she snarls.

  “You sound too much like me,” I whisper. “Now grab the handle and walk with me. We’re too close.”

  Reluctantly, she agrees, taking the handle in both hands with anger and determination screwing her face up. I carry most of the weight, surprised that she even managed to get it as far as she did. The thing weighs more than she does.

  “Sadie, I need you to listen to me,” I say quietly.

  My eyes scan everything around us as we move toward the compost. There’s nothing but darkness, and thin snowflakes drifting down, and frost on the pale-yellow grass.

  “I know Adam handed you over to Ezra. And I know I was missing for a year before all this. That wasn’t my fault. But the first thing I did was go looking for you, and I found Adam, and he told me who you were with. It took time to find him. And it took time to figure out where to find you. I had to get close to be able to do that. You understand?”

  “You killed Lizzie’s sister,” she says.

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here,” I hiss, hauling the bucket up as she pulls the lid on the compost open. Shit’s heavier than the silicon. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be this close to him. I wouldn’t know that there’s an opening for us to get out of here.”

  She mimics my tone. “I don’t want to get out of here, idiot.”

  I put the bucket down and wipe my hands off. “You goddamn little shit. I have been doing this for months for you. I have so much goddamn blood on my hands just trying to get you out of here—”

  “That’s your problem, not mine!”

  “Sadie—”

  “Sadie, sweetheart,” Ezra’s voice says.

  It chills me right to the core.

  He comes up behind me, slips his arm around my waist, the other hand clutching my elbow hard. I can feel the bones of his fingers through my jacket. “I have been waiting for this to happen. Soon as I saw you, I knew. That’s that rabid squirrel, right there in that photograph. And then there you were, right in front of me. You know, you waited so damn long for this I almost thought I was wrong.”

  I was wrong. I should have listened to my gut. I should have fucking listened to my damn self!

  Sadie’s acting like some goddamn rat, trying to save herself. “She was trying to get me to leave, sir—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth, child, I swear to god!” I shout at her, try to lunge forward, but Ezra’s got a tight hold of me. “You have no goddamn clue what you’re doing, running your mouth.”

  “Says you,” she snaps back. “You know what you did to Adam?”

  “I didn’t do shit. Adam’s dead—”

  “He was better than your sorry ass!”

  “You’re really defending him? He sold you for fucking drugs!”

  “And here’s better than home ever was!”

  Ezra whistles while we’re shouting at each other. Sharpe and a few others guide her back toward camp, and Ezra’s dragging me along with him.

  “Goddamn cat fight,” he mutters.

  “You think you had it bad, huh?” I shout at the back of her head. “You think you had it so bad, did you? With all your Christmas gifts and birthday parties, living your whole life getting everything handed to you, no ass kickings, no getting kicked out for the dumbest shit—hell, you never even had Eli try to murder you. You lived in a bloody fucking fairy land compared to us and you’re goddamn welcome, you ungrateful little shit—”


  They have to grab her to keep her from turning around on me. She’s shouting back, and I’m shouting even more, and I’m not even mad at her. I’m mad at myself.

  I’m so goddamn fucking stupid.

  How could I not have thought this would happen? Or, rather, how could I think this would happen and do it anyway?

  We’re almost at each others throats when Ezra turns me around, grabs me by the jacket, and slams me to the ground. He kneels over me, presses his hand to my mouth, and squeezes my jaw shut.

  He leans close, warning, “If the two of you don’t shut your fucking mouths, I am going to slit her throat and let you drown in the blood. Understood?”

  I nod as best as I can with him pinning me to the frosted dirt.

  Sadie doesn’t get the message. “Why me? I didn’t do anything, I—she was the one trying to get me to leave, but I didn’t! I wasn’t going to! I promise, I promise…”

  Ezra hauls me back to my feet and turns me around again. I catch her eye when she looks back at me. Still yammering, still making excuses. I shake my head.

  Just stop, I want to say, you’re making it worse.

  There’s a scaffolding set up outside this warehouse, and Ezra takes a pair of handcuffs from someone. He grips my arm and puts one end around my wrist and the other around a pole, around my other wrist. There’s this absurd thought that if I just behave right now, he’ll let her go. And I’m looking at her over his shoulder, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  He runs his thumbs under my eyes and gestures to his men to climb up the scaffold.

  I start shaking my head, but he puts his hands on either side of my face and holds me still.

  He holds my gaze for a while, and then he presses his lips to my forehead, and wraps his arms around me, sighing. “I almost thought you were smarter than this. Smart enough to keep pretending. Smart enough to act like you didn’t recognize her, or recognize her name. Sadie Jane Newell. Right there on that list. Almost admired you for the strength that must have taken. But… all I had to do was ask her, and she sold you out right away, Keely. Ain’t that cute?”

  I can’t handle this. I can’t. “Please. John, please.”

  “Now, that’s just music to my ears,” he laughs, “But here’s the thing, Keely. Squirrel. Ghost. I was going to let her walk away. At the beginning. Just because I like you, you know? But this, no. No, no, no, this is pushing it. Even after that cat fight, you’re still begging for her life, even after that shit she said about you being a royal fuck-up, the black sheep of the family, you’re still begging. You went all this time without a goddamn hint that you knew what was up, and I can’t have that kind of motivation undermining me. I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Then kill me,” I whisper, “Let her go.”

  He tilts his head, pulls back a little. “You’re too damn valuable, babe. You’re just a reminder that even the ones this fucking close to me can still be beat down and tamed. You’re dangerous, sure, but I like that about you. I like you. Just need to tick off the right boxes.”

  He starts to stand, but I’m lunging forward against the cuffs and the bar. “John. John, wait, don’t—please, don’t hurt her. Please. I—I’ll do anything. John. John! You kill her I’ve got nothing left. There’s nothing left between me and—Ezra! Ezra, I’ll fucking kill you! Get back here—”

  I keep screaming as he moves out of sight. His boots are rough against the scaffold, and the vibration travels down the pole. I can hear Sadie screaming, too, and I’m trying harder than Soldier did to get out of these cuffs. They dig into my skin as I pull, fold my fingers as flush as I can get them, and it feels like I’m pulling my skin off.

  The bar I’m attached to isn’t screwed into the ground. It shifts as I push back against it, dig my heels in to the ground, and try to bend it enough to pull the chain under. But there’s weight pressing it into the ground.

  And there’s no more screaming from Sadie.

  Oh, thank god, he let her go—only, that’s a stupid thought to have. It’s the first thing that pops into my mind as I stop struggling, and it’s the dumbest shit I could have ever come up with.

  He didn’t let her go.

  I crane my head back to look up, and I can see that clear as day, and then my chest grows tight. My heart pounds faster than the goddamn beat at an EDM concert.

  And then my brain does another stupid thing—I look at the crowd that’s gathered outside the barracks warehouse. Watching.

  I don’t even notice the blood dripping on me, pouring down, coating my hair, my shoulders, until it’s dripping off my brows and my nose and hitting my lips. Until Ezra is back, crouching down away from me.

  Blood coats him like a second skin.

  And then I feel it. Warm. Worse than the beetle in the hardware store. Steam rises from it. From me.

  “Think you get the message?” He asks, and he doesn’t say it any different than when he’s fucking flirting. “Think they get it?”

  I bare my teeth and taste copper. “Fuck you.”

  “Alright, then,” he says. “I’ll come back for you in the morning.”

  I watch him walk away, blink blood off my eyelashes, and feel it dripping down my arms and over my wrists. I watch them disperse the crowd. I wait an hour, until there’s no one standing around that fire, and then I work.

  The only way I get through this is the numbness that washes over me. I work my hands out of the cuffs, the blood making it easy, while I watch the snow come down. By the time they notice I’m gone the trail will be hidden.

  I duck low, run fast, and cut right back toward the damn compost where we got caught.

  I can’t stay here. Can’t live with that.

  I slip through the fence and drive myself straight into the trees, and I keep running. I don’t stop running. Not until I hit the truck hidden down in the woods and drag myself into it, start it up, headlights off.

  Viking’s map is on the passenger seat.

  I drive all night, gas pedal pressed to the floor, hands slick on the wheel, hyperventilating the entire time. It’s a wonder I don’t crash the thing—although I’m not sure I’m discounting that as an option right now.

  Lakeside. That’s the name of that place. Where they left the sticker on the map.

  I think I see headlights in the rear-view more than once, but when I really look, I don’t see anything. I can’t help thinking if Ezra had just stayed at that damn fire, if I hadn’t acknowledged that she was there with him watching—it would have been a clean getaway.

  Not a goddamn bloody one.

  Day Sixteen

  The truck idles outside the gate. My hands are sticky against the wheel, the window cracked just enough to let in cold air that makes me shiver. The headlights cut through the dark morning shadows, cut across the gate, and there’s only silence on the other side.

  It doesn’t seem like there’s anything here, so I just sit there. And I don’t move. I don’t know what I’m going to say if anyone is here, anyway. Or if I’ll have to say anything. Or if they’ll be just like Ezra and his group.

  I don’t know how anyone could be.

  An hour or two passes. The sun is starting to come up when someone finally steps out, pulls open the gate, and lets out a couple of other people.

  One walks around to the driver side window and peers in at me. “Jesus—who are you? What do you want? What the hell happened?”

  I’m shivering so much I can barely say anything. “Fox. Viking.”

  “That some code phrase I don’t know about?”

  My head jerks when I try to shake it. “People.”

  He looks around to the others. “You guys know a Fox and a Viking?”

  There’s silence, and I can feel everything crashing down around me. It’s this slow-motion destruction upheaving my entire life, and all I’m thinking over and over in my head is what if Ezra runs this place, too? And then someone says something. Says they think there’s a Fox and a Viking working on winter crops for the p
ast week.

  “Alright,” the first guy says, “Go find them. See if they’ll vouch for… what’s your name?”

  I turn my head slowly. “Ghost.”

  He shouts that back to his friends.

  I stay in the truck, the engine purring noisily, this guy standing awkwardly outside as we wait. Time passes so goddamn slow. It feels like the world is standing still. If feels like Ezra is breathing down my neck. I can’t stop shaking.

  When I see them, relief warms me enough to pull the lock on the door, to crack it open and slip out. Absolute horror covers their faces, slows them down, and then they’re running to me. Running, catching me as I collapse. Viking picks me up despite the blood.

  “What the hell happened, Squirrel?” Fox asks, nodding to the others to say this one’s on us.

  I let my head fall against Viking. “Had someone.”

  “Squirrel,” he starts.

  “No. Ghost.”

  Day Seventeen

  They get me cleaned up. They take all my shit, my clothes, to clean them, they say. They put me in a room in the basement of some house wearing sweats and a t-shirt that are too big for me, and lock the door. And then I sleep. For the entirety of the twenty-four hours that they keep me down there, I sleep.

  It’s a dreamless sleep, pervaded by the smell of blood.

  In the morning, the door unlocks, and a knock wakes me up fully.

  “Ghost? It’s Fox. Can I come in?”

  I don’t move. I stay curled up on my side, facing the wall, arms around my head. Every waking second I’ve had in here has just reminded me that I was this close to being fucking free, to having Sadie with me. To saving her from that bullshit.

  Fox walks over to me and sets a gentle hand on my shoulder. I flinch away.

  “Sorry,” he says, “Just making sure you’re alive.”

  He sits down on the edge of the bed.

  “Ghost, this is Charlotte. My wife. She’s a nurse, so if you need anything…”