The Hunt (The Wilds Book Two)

by Donna Augustine

  “He left again?”

  I nodded. From my calculations, Tiffy was one of the three people who knew what Dax really was. I’d never asked her, but she’d referred to me meeting “Hairy” in the past. My hunch was that Hairy was the name she called Dax’s beast form. Fudge was the other person, and she definitely knew. Dax had been one of the two beasts in Fudge’s memories that had saved her when she was just a child.

  The only thing that tripped me up with the Fudge situation was that Fudge was nearly seventy from the looks of her. Dax appeared to be thirty—tops. If that had been him, shouldn’t Dax be pushing sixty or seventy too? The math didn’t add up, like it so often didn’t of late, and tossed another question onto the pile of unanswered ones, as if that needed to get any higher.

  I didn’t ask Fudge about it. None of us talked about it: Tiffy, Fudge, or me. We were like the unholy trinity of secrets.

  “He’s handling a lot of stuff,” Tiffy declared. Her fluffy red curls bobbed in the breeze.

  I often wondered what went on in that head. Must be mighty interesting. “I’m sure,” I said, not wanting to drag Tiffy into my crushed expectations.

  “Yes. Completely,” she said. She took my hand and then patted it, serenely calm. “I know there are things out there that really don’t like you. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to my friends. I’ll tell them to warn you if trouble’s coming your way.”

  Inwardly I grimaced at her words, but tried to make sure the feeling didn’t hit my face. It was bad enough that I was nervous. I didn’t want to freak the kid out too. Sometimes I forgot how young she was, especially when she said things like this.

  “Thanks.” Her invisible friends had my back. Hoped that counted for something.

  “I’m not sure they’ll do it, though, since they’re getting quite mad at you for not meeting with them.”

  “I told you to have them stop by my room anytime.”

  “I told you, Dal, that’s not how it works. You have to go to them.”

  It was true. She’d been telling me for more than a month now on a weekly basis. I didn’t know why her invisible friends had such an issue with coming in the house, though.

  “Okay. I’ll go meet them next week, maybe.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to do it,” she said. Her hand dropped mine as she gave me a final smile before heading off toward the gate.

  “Where are you going? Don’t you want lunch?” I still couldn’t get over how all these people took Fudge’s food for granted. I hoped I didn’t ever get like that. I wanted to appreciate every meal like it was my last. You never knew when it would be true. Most people didn’t know when they were eating their final meal. How bad would it stink to have choked it down in a rush without any enjoyment?

  Tiffy stopped and looked back toward me, her little brow furrowed in concentration. “I’m having tea and sandwiches with my friends today. They wanted to talk about you. I mustn’t be late for it. They’re deciding some important issues that I need to weigh in on.”

  “Important issues about me? Like what?” I swallowed past a lump in my throat and then reminded myself again that these friends were invisible. No one had seen them, not once. I’d asked around. They certainly weren’t making any decisions about me.

  “I’m not allowed to discuss that with you.” She put her hands into the air, palms up, as if to say it was out of her control. “You could come and find out.”

  “No, I think I’ll hang here for Fudge’s food,” I said as I watched her make her way to the gate, fully expecting sister-lover—

  No, I said I wasn’t going to call the guard who’d made out with his sister that ever again. The guard there would certainly stop her.

  I was still scratching my head over the fact that not only did Tiffy have invisible friends, but they also hooked her up with tea, too. Everything about Tiffy was like trying to fit a square peg into a round slot. Tiffy was one of those people who you had to accept didn’t fit into the game like the pieces that came in the box. She was her own custom piece with her own set of rules.

  As if to prove the impossibility of everything that surrounded her, she neared the gate, and I expected the guard to jump to attention and turn her around. Instead he seemed to become mesmerized with something far off in the distance. Whatever it was, it was in the exact opposite direction Tiffy was approaching from. Tiffy walked right past him, lifted up the latch and let herself out, and closed it again without him ever turning around.

  I got to my feet and brushed off the dirt as I stepped out of the garden, planning on getting her back here, or at the least following her, but Bookie bumped into my side and startled me.

  “Let her go. She’ll be okay. She won’t go far.”

  Bookie, my bestie here, had earned his nickname because he was fascinated with books. Thanks to him, I now had a nice stack of reading material in my room from the old library he’d found when he’d gone exploring the ruins. He was pretty much the only one I trusted—as much as I was capable of trust, that is. Growing up in the Cement Giant didn’t breed too much trust. Add the Dark Walkers trying to pry my secrets from me all those years, and it made me want to hold them closer.

  I’d read somewhere that three weeks of doing something repeatedly made it a habit. I’d had fourteen years of keeping secrets. By my math, it wasn’t just an ingrained personality trait after a length of time like that. It was an etching on the side of granite.

  But Bookie was different. When I’d lost my friends, Bookie had helped fill the void. As much as I missed Margo, it was for the best we weren’t together, and not just because the Dark Walkers were out there and surely still wanted me. I couldn’t think of Margo and not think of Cindy and Patty, who had died, or the dream of us all living this grand, free life. Those thoughts death-spiraled into how I’d let them all down. If I’d gotten to them sooner, maybe we’d all be standing here together about to go in and get some of Fudge’s great cooking for lunch. That was now impossible. Death was one thing you couldn’t quit.

  “You’re getting that look again.” Bookie bumped into me with his shoulder and sent me off balance a bit.

  He looked like he was growing at almost a daily rate lately. If he kept going, he’d be as big as Dax—in man form, anyway. I didn’t think it was possible for a human to grow as big as a beast.

  “What are you eating these days?” I asked as I looked over his frame that wasn’t as lanky as it used to be. He looked more and more like a man by the day, but his eyes still had a boyish heart glowing out of them.

  “Must be the spinach,” he said, and I knew he was ribbing me about some old cartoons I’d found in the library. One had been about a character named Popeye who became super strong when he ate spinach. I’d made the mistake of eating quite a bit of spinach the next day. I mean, it had mostly been a coincidence. Can’t blame a girl for turning over every stone in times like these.

  “Good. It’s gone,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The look. I hate it. It’s like the story didn’t end the way you’d hoped.”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “Good thing the story isn’t over yet,” I said, and forced the corners of my mouth to go up even when they wanted to head down. Thinking about the Dark Walkers and what they’d cost me tended to do that. They were never far from my mind, especially when I was waiting for them to walk through those gates any day or thinking of what I’d do eventually to them.

  “I must say, that’s the lamest smile I’ve ever seen.”

  “That’s because you don’t look in a mirror enough.” If I was the queen of keeping secrets, Bookie was the king of plastering on a smile, no matter how bad the storm.

  I nodded toward the place I’d just seen Tiffy disappear into the woods. “I know you’ve never seen them, but have you ever heard of anyone who’s seen these friends Tiffy talks about?” She just didn’t seem that nuts. There had to be something to it. Or did that mean I was nuts to think that maybe they did exist?

>   He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nope. Not one. Ever.” His eyes shot to my arm, as if he’d just remembered something.

  I tried to angle my body slightly away from him in the most nonchalant way I could, knowing exactly what it was that had just come to mind.

  His brows dropped down and his mouth flatlined. “Why don’t you have your sling on?”

  The jig was up. I turned my arm toward him and made a show of flexing it. “Because I don’t need it? My arm’s good enough.” I’d made the prognosis myself that very morning after a lengthy self-exam.

  “Good enough isn’t good.”

  He sounded just like Fudge right now. Sometimes I felt like everyone acted older than I did, so why did I feel so ancient most of the time?

  I stretched out my arm in a continual show of strength even as I felt the lingering weakness wanting to set it to trembling. “No. But it’s enough.”

  He rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything else, and I wasn’t going to try and convert him to my way of thinking. The silence was enough for me. I didn’t need too much of anything anymore, just enough. That was one of my new rules. I had a lot of new rules. In the past month, I’d realized I had some growing to do if I was going to become the person I wanted to be. Some things were going to have to go. Trying to make everyone think exactly as I did was one of them. I would do me and they could do them.

  “Hey, can you sneak away for a run to the library tomorrow afternoon?” That was another thing I’d remedy at some point. I needed to learn to ride a bike. First I needed to get a bike, though, so that was on the back burner for now.

  It wasn’t like machines from the Glory Years were lying around for the taking. When you did find one, it was more likely to be a pile of rust than something that would run. A hundred and fifty years will do that to things.

  He nodded. “Sure. Looking for anything special?”

  “Everything.” That was exactly what it felt like. The list of books I would need to help me accomplish what I wanted to do would never fit on the bike.

  “Everything is going to be tough to lug back here.”

  “That’s okay. We can do it in a couple trips.” I used my bad arm to punch him in his. A little achy and not super steady, but it was enough.

  Chapter 3

  Dax hadn’t come home last night, or not while I was awake. I would’ve heard him if he had. I hadn’t heard him this morning either, so he must have left before I’d awoken. Maybe he hadn’t come back at all.

  It wasn’t like I listened for him on purpose or anything. The guy’s room was down the hall from mine. How could I not hear him coming and going when I was awake? Lying there in bed, it was tough not to hear everybody with the way the house creaked like an old man riddled with arthritis—an old man I dearly loved, I might add.

  Dax was probably off doing who knew what again. Meanwhile, I was on borrowed time. Every day, I waited for a horde of Dark Walkers to show up here. Ms. Edith, the Dark Walker who had tormented me at the Cement Giant, might be dead, but I wasn’t optimistic she would be the last of them. They wanted me. She’d said I was the key right before I’d killed her. I didn’t know what exactly I was going to unlock, but if I was the key, they wanted in this particular door pretty darn bad with the way they had kept coming for me.

  Here I was, a sitting duck, or a lying key, to be exact. What was Dax doing? He was out gallivanting every damn day instead of training me to be the badass he’d told me I could be. The current situation was unacceptable.

  Not that I’d been sitting idly by. I’d started working on myself nearly the next day, throwing knives with my good hand. But it wasn’t enough, and my inner badass hadn’t emerged yet. If Dax wasn’t going to help me, I couldn’t waste any more time just muddling through.

  That was all ending. I’d made a decision yesterday. I’d thought fuck it. Or more accurately, fuck him—not in the literal sense, as that didn’t work out so hot last time I’d attempted it. I tried not to have regrets in life, but when I thought back to how I’d laid myself out on his bed and told him to take me—still couldn’t think of it without looking for the biggest rock around and wondering if I could fit underneath. No, this was more of a figurative fuck him.

  Today was the first day of my quest. I got out of bed and dressed in my leathers, and one of the tank tops Fudge had made me, with a new determination. I headed downstairs and passed by the line for the breakfast buffet, where I caught a couple of dirty looks and a whispered “Plaguer” to start my day off right, and went straight to the source. I’d need some good sustenance for what I had planned.

  “What did I tell you about waiting your turn?” Fudge said as I entered the kitchen, waving her wooden spoon at me, the one that sometimes seemed to be permanently affixed to her hand. Her slightly robust figure animated its way through the kitchen, owning the space as surely as a bear in its den.

  “Fudge, if you don’t want me to be impatient to eat, then you need to stop cooking so well. I don’t feel like I should be held responsible for reacting exactly as any sane person should. This could be my last meal, you know. You wouldn’t want my last meal to be cold, would you?” I grabbed a plate from the cupboard and started piling bacon onto my plate from a tray that was destined for the breakfast masses who weren’t brave enough to enter Fudge’s den.

  She looked upward and started moving her free hand in swipes across her chest before asking the ceiling to help her. Bookie had told me it wasn’t really the ceiling she was speaking to. Fudge followed some religion called Catholic that was big in the Glory Years. Not many people had a religion now other than the Alter of Thyself. It was probably too hard with the way people lived these days. From what I’d heard of her religion, most people in the Wilds would be damned to hell after a day of what most considered normal living.

  She was still shaking her head in disapproval as she started piling eggs onto my plate, in direct contrast to her fake disapproval.

  “You can’t exist solely on bacon,” she said, and I knew she was rationalizing her favoritism toward me. I dug being among the favorites. I returned the favor by rationalizing why it would be bad to point out how she fed my bad behavior, because it would hurt her feelings. We both came out winners this way. Rationalizing was a beautiful thing when it worked right.

  “I’m trying to disprove the theory that one cannot survive on bacon alone. Plus, it’s only primarily bacon in the mornings. I’ve got plenty of variety left for lunch, dinner, and multiple snack times.” I shoved a full piece of bacon in my mouth and asked, “Have you seen Dax?” before I bothered finishing it.

  “He left yesterday afternoon and—” She stopped speaking mid-egg scoop. “Don’t you get that look. It’s not like he’s out having a grand time.”

  When had I become so transparent? And how much did she know? “You know what he’s doing?”

  “No. But I trust him.” She piled a couple more pieces of bacon on my plate, trying to buy my silence on the subject, which, of course, worked. The things I’d do for bacon even scared me.

  No one won an argument with Fudge anyway. It was impossible. She nailed you with these stares that sent the toughest into silence. I took my plate of bacon off toward my spot before I got nailed with another stare just for good measure.

  No matter what happened from here on out, at least I’d started the day off well. I left the kitchen and walked close by the breakfast line, where I made sure to flash my ill-gotten goods. I took a nice deep breath and said, “Mmmm, fresh from the griddle.” Then continued on my way.

  The back porch was wonderfully empty as I found my spot on the bench with my big plate of bacon and other sides, thanks to Fudge’s contribution. I was going to eat like a pig today—maybe not exactly like a pig, as that would be cannibalism, but that was a whole other topic. Later on today, I’d be going on a run with Bookie to find some good books. I’d read up on everything from shooting guns to jujitsu, and maybe some interrogation techniques while I was at it. If Dax wasn’t goin
g to train me to be a badass then I didn’t need him. I’d train myself and I needed to get serious about it. No more fumbling around in the dark.

  Moobie had been self-trained. Yeah, yeah, he might be an imaginary character from books, but so what? That almost made more sense in my opinion. If an imaginary character could do it, then I certainly could. But first I was going to enjoy some of Fudge’s cooking and fortify myself for the upcoming adventure of learning how to become a badass through self-help books. That was how I would look at it, too: a grand journey of self-discovery.

  I took another nice big bite of salty bacon, trying to forget about the pig, the one I’d named Wilbur that I’d noticed missing in the pen yesterday.

  I was chewing on the tasty meat that I refused to believe was once Wilbur when the screen door squealed open. It sounded worse than Wilbur probably had when he’d gotten stuck with the butcher’s knife, if indeed he was truly gone. I wasn’t prepared to accept that yet, or at least not until after breakfast.

  Boots hit the wooden floor of the porch in a stride I’d recognize anywhere and sent little chills that echoed through me. So Dax had finally come back from wherever he’d disappeared to yesterday, and it sounded like he wanted me to know.

  When he decided to be heard, he sure did it well. It was sort of strange how much noise he made when he wanted to, or how heavy his steps sounded on the wood, like maybe he still weighed as much as the beast, even in the form of a man. Maybe that extra size when he was the beast shrank down and he was packed in more densely when he was a human? I needed to find out how much he weighed. This was definitely one of those questions that had to be answered, if only in the name of science. Maybe he’d actually answer if I explained it that way? Could any upright person refuse science? Dax wasn’t exactly upright, though. He was slanted at best.

  The heavy steps came closer until he was blocking my view of the lawn and the view of people starting their morning chores.