The Hunt (The Wilds Book Two)

by Donna Augustine

  I might be sexually naive, but I wasn’t utterly stupid. Or not anymore. That was an I want some sexy time look. I’d seen enough of the men in the camp do it now to recognize it. Did he want me? No. I’d laid myself out like a free buffet for him and he hadn’t even sampled.

  Still, he was looking at me just like I’d seen one of those guys back at the Rock look at this one girl before I saw them all over each other beside the lake later that night.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at the dirt by my feet, feeling weird all of a sudden. When I looked back at Dax, he seemed normal again, even if he was still pumping out that strange magic.

  “You have to see something,” I said, trying to break the weird tension. I turned and headed back to the mud field, while trying to make sense of what I’d seen and felt from Dax. I knew he didn’t want me, so what was that look about? Maybe I was interpreting it completely wrong. Maybe it was all the killing that made him look and feel all charged up?

  I got to the field and stopped with him by my side, peeking over at him. He was looking at the field intently now, instead of me.

  “What do you think? Weird, right?” I asked, and I dropped my arms from my chest, wondering if I could get him to give me the sexy time look again. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t panicked back there and crossed over to him at that moment? Would he have kissed me? Would it have felt like chapter ten? Would I have “swooned in his powerful arms” just like the girl in the book?

  “This isn’t the first wasteland of mud I’ve seen,” he said, his undivided attention on the field.

  I looked over the expanse. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but it was just mud. “Maybe an underground spring?” I asked, trying to maneuver myself in front of him, but was thwarted when he walked right up to the edge of it and then squatted down.

  “It smells wrong,” he said.

  I followed over to where he was and his arm shot up; he still wasn’t looking at me, but was blocking me from going any farther, as if I’d planned on mud wrestling. Silly man. Still, I was close enough to take a deep breath. “It smells like mud to me.”

  He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “No. There’s something off. Don’t get any of it on you.”

  I leaned closer to the mud field in spite of his arm and breathed deeply, becoming more interested in the field than a look I’d probably mistaken anyway.

  “I smell nothing.”

  “I have better senses.”

  “How many of these mud fields have you seen?” The thing really was a mess. There wasn’t a single sprig of vegetation to be seen.

  “A few, and all with the same off smell of rotting flesh.”

  I was glad I couldn’t smell that.

  He straightened up quickly and looked over toward where the trees were growing really thick.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I think there’s another one.”

  “I thought we were hunting Dark Walkers? I can kill three alone and now I can’t touch this one?”

  He turned to me, and I caught his eyes shifting down, but they shot right back up. “Yes, because you killed all the other ones and I wanted one alive. Stay here. I’ll take him down and then you can come over while I question him.”

  I’d read about something like this. “You mean like good cop, bad cop?” This was straight out of Moobie.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “You go in like a… You go be yourself. After you’re done wowing it with your charm, I’ll pretend to befriend it and it’ll spill all its secrets.”

  “You’re going to befriend it? That’s going to work?”

  “You probably don’t have experience in any other area but scaring, but yes, it should.” He had no idea what he was talking about. I was getting very good at faking being nice with people.

  “Wait here.”

  I waited, at least until he had a good lead on me, anyway.

  By the time I saw the Dark Walker, it already knew Dax was about to attack. Dax moved in a blur, and it hit me how much he actually held back when he sparred with me, or I would’ve been one messed-up-looking chick.

  Dax had the Dark Walker tackled and pinned to the ground with almost effortless ease, his heel on the Dark Walker’s throat as he held an arm outstretched in his hand. “What are you doing here?”

  The Dark Walker’s head was immobile, but I saw his eyes shoot to my hand. The brand was no longer there, but a scar still remained.

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’m a Plaguer. Now what the hell are you?” I asked, deciding it was going to be two bad cops. I couldn’t fake nice, not with one of them.

  “Fuck you,” the Dark Walker said, but it was muted somewhat by the pressure Dax applied to his throat.

  His eyes kept shooting back to me, instead of on his immediate threat, which was Dax.

  “You recognize her.”

  I’d thought it was just me, but Dax had noticed the same look. The Dark Walker looked at me like he’d seen me before.

  The Dark Walker’s eyes darted back and forth between us. “We’ve all seen her.” He smiled after he said it, even as ridiculous at that might look with Dax’s heel still at his throat.

  “How?”

  His attention focused on me alone then. “There’s pictures of you everywhere. They’re coming for you.”

  “Who?” Had to give it to the monster. He definitely had balls.

  “Answer her,” Dax said, and I could see his boot digging deeper into the Dark Walker’s flesh.

  “My people.”

  “Why?”

  Dax applied more pressure and then released it, but the Dark Walker said nothing.

  “Why?” I screamed.

  The smile remained as he refused to reply.

  I heard a crack before I looked to see the wrist of the Dark Walker was bent at a painful angle now. Dax must have kept a lot of the beast’s strength even when he was human. No man could’ve snapped that bone with just his hands for leverage.

  “Answer her.”

  “I’m dead anyway.”

  The words weren’t bravado. I could see from the creature’s face that it was useless.

  Dax lifted his boot off its neck then slammed it back down on its throat, a crack sounding as he did. The thing was dead. “He wasn’t going to answer,” Dax said, dropping the thing’s arm.

  “I know,” I said, squatting for a minute as I looked at the creature, and realizing the dark mist clung to him even in death.

  “We’re hunting them. You didn’t think it was one-sided, did you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “They aren’t going to leave you alone until they get you back,” he said, squatting down beside it, and nailed me with a look. “They really must hate how you can ID them,” he said, and I saw the question there, like maybe he had guessed there was more to it and was waiting to see if I’d say something.

  “Yeah. Seems so.”

  “Come on. I’ll bury these later. No one is going to find them this far out.”

  We’d made it all the way back when the bike died right in front of the gate. We both got off as the gate was opening, and he looked at me.

  “Shit.” He reached over his back and tugged off his shirt then handed it to me.

  “Put this on.”

  “I’m fine.” It was a little chilly, but we were almost inside now and I’d be in the house changing shortly.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “It’s partly dry.”

  “Not dry enough.”

  “So I look like a drowned rat. Who cares? Nobody even looks at me. Mostly they try and avert their eyes.”

  “You can never make things easy.” He threw his shirt back on as the door creaked open. Dax stepped in front of me when I would’ve walked forward, and I heard him say to the guard, “Don’t you dare fucking look at her.”

  I didn’t know what his problem was. It wasn’t like I looked that bad. Or I hadn’t thought so until I felt more than a few pairs of eyes on me as
we walked toward the house.

  We hadn’t gotten very far before Dax was whipping his shirt off and handing it to me again. “Put it on or someone is going to get punched.”

  I didn’t argue this time.

  Chapter 27

  I wasn’t that far from the Rock, only a mile or so from the walls. I was in the safe zone, as I’d heard it described around camp. No one came that close to here, that was what they said. But here they were anyway, a group of five Dark Walkers circling me.

  It was stupid, but I’d been near the gate when I heard those damn chimes. It was them, the Wood Mist. I knew it was. If I could get to them, find some way to communicate, I could make them understand Tiffy belonged with us.

  Dax was all the way on the other end of the place working on his bike when I first heard them. I hadn’t had time to get him or anyone else. I saw some guards walking in the open gate and I walked out.

  So much for following the chimes. They’d led me right to my enemy. I’d love to see Dax walk up out of the blue, but it wasn’t going to happen this time. I was on my own. Hopefully that last time hadn’t been a fluke.

  A knife in either hand, I prayed to any god I could: Fudge’s god, the Gods of the Wilds that I’d heard some speak of—I prayed for whatever magic I had stored inside me to let loose right now.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “You.”

  That didn’t leave much room for negotiation.

  “Why?”

  “It’s our orders.”

  Two of them came at me at the same time, and I didn’t even recognize my own body as it twisted and turned, evading them, and countering with my own attack. I caught one behind the knee, taking him out of commission. I heard his screech of pain as he limped and then fell. The other I nailed on the thigh.

  I could see the others grow a little warier. Maybe I wasn’t such easy prey after all.

  “That’s right. I’m not going down so easy.”

  The other three swarmed, while the other two were limping but still waiting to lend a hand. The heat in my chest was near to bursting, but I wasn’t sure the magic was going to save me this time. There were too many.

  As if adding to my feeling of impending doom, a bolt of lightning lit the sky and a downpour of rain the likes of which I’d never seen drenched us all.

  They came at me, almost all at once, but two of them lost their footing while I seemed to remain steady on my feet, finding target after target. A knife in each hand, I nailed one in the chest before ducking a blow and running a knife behind another’s leg and taking out its hamstrings. I was quicker than all of them, and my accuracy was insane. I only needed to see a target to know I would hit it.

  The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, and I was surrounded by dead Dark Walkers. I didn’t know how long it took, as every second seemed longer during the fight, but I’d guess it had only been five or ten minutes.

  I pulled the bodies under some brush, the wet ground making it easier to move them, but they were too close to the Rock to leave them here. I had to get Dax. Rocky was going to need to know as well. It was his place. I had to let him know how close the threat was getting.

  I looked down at the splattered black blood all over me. If I walked back in there like this, no way I’d avoid questions, and I couldn’t tell anyone else. They’d freak out for sure.

  Dropping to the ground, I rolled around until you couldn’t see anything but mud on me. Better than the alternative.

  I looked like I’d gone mud pile diving by the time I walked back in the gates, but most of the people here thought I had cooties anyway. What was a little dirt really going to mean to them? More of them noticed than didn’t as I walked to the house, but I kept on my way as if nothing was amiss.

  Bookie asked when he took one look at me as I walked toward the front of the house, “What’ve you been doing?”

  “I fell.” I hated lying to Bookie, but he had enough to worry about, and there was nothing he could do about it anyway. No, I’d talk to Dax, who would be predictably calm about something like this and all would be fine. We’d bury the bodies and that would be the end of it.

  Until more showed up.

  “You hurt?”

  “Just my wardrobe.” I walked in the house and tried to step softly so I didn’t knock any of the mud crusting on me onto the floor. “Dax still working on the bike?” I asked Bookie, who’d followed me inside.

  “Nah, I think he finished up a while ago. Rocky was looking for you. Told me to tell you that you’re invited to the dinner tonight.”

  Shit. Another dinner? I had dead bodies lying a mile from here piled up under a shrub. This wasn’t a good time.

  I paused by the bedroom door. “How did he say it?”

  “Huh?”

  He had no idea what I was talking about. I grabbed a change of clothes and headed into the bathroom. I’d make an appearance just in case this was another of those “calm the natives”-type deals. Hopefully, I’d find Dax there and he could help me clean up the mess before anyone tripped over a heap of legs hanging out from under a bush.

  “I’m going to go clean up and change. Tell them I’m running a couple minutes behind, is all, but I’ll be there soon.” I shut the bathroom door before he answered, knowing I was running short on time.

  “I’ll hang back and wait,” he yelled through the door.

  “It’s okay. Go ahead.”

  “Nah, I’ll wait,” he yelled.

  I opened the door and saw the fakest smile I’d ever seen, and that included the ones Ms. Edith used to make. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just figured I’d keep you company.” He was shrugging so often that instead of looking like it was a relaxed posture, it appeared more like a nervous tic.

  I shook my head but didn’t tell Bookie he was the worst liar I’d ever met, even though he won by a long shot.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and launched off another flurry of shrugs.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but…”

  “But what? Spit it out.”

  “Are you and Dax…” More shrugs. If he didn’t stop shrugging soon I was going to have to pin him down to make it stop.

  “Are me and Dax what?”

  “Sometimes the two of you seem…close. You’re always disappearing together and stuff like that.”

  The Dark Walkers must have knocked some of the sense out of me, because it took way longer than it should’ve for me to figure out where this was going.

  “No. We’re nothing. He needs me. I need him. That’s it.” It was mostly the truth, or all I’d admit to, anyway.

  “Okay. I was just curious because Becca stopped by to talk to him while he was fixing the bike. I didn’t know, was all.” He started shrugging again.

  “There’s nothing between us like that,” I said, and shut the door. “Give me five minutes,” I yelled, thinking maybe walking to dinner with Bookie wasn’t such a bad idea.

  * * *

  I’d been warned, but it felt a lot worse than I imagined when I saw Dax sitting there beside her. It might have just been luck that they were seated together. I could’ve convinced myself of that if I didn’t see the way she was looking at him. He wasn’t looking at her like that, but he wasn’t standing up to sit beside me, either.

  The bottom line was there was nothing between me and Dax, and there wouldn’t be.

  I felt Bookie’s warm hand wrap around mine as we crossed the last ten feet to the table. In this messed-up world, Dax might have been my security, but Bookie was my emotional rock. I kept telling myself I needed to get some distance from Bookie, for his own safety, but then I’d lean on him anyway finding yet another excuse, like tonight.

  I sat down at the table with Bookie by my side, and Dax glanced over from where he seemed deep in conversation with Becca. He nodded in greeting and then went back to talking to her, and I was glad for the support of Bookie beside me. This might end u
p being worse than the first dinner.

  I looked down the table, but Rocky wasn’t there yet, and that was when I realized something was very different this time. There were hesitant smiles, but they all looked genuine.

  A pretty brunette who was sitting across from me held out her hand to shake mine. “I’m Angel. I’m in charge of the wall guards and security in this place.”

  I took her hand with my scarred one. “Hi.”

  Then a few more people did the same. I met Toby, who was in charge of the foodstuffs, Susan, the administrator, Pete, the stable guy and all-around animal expert. It went on until the majority of the people within range of me at the table had introduced themselves.

  The food was served and I was among the first to have the bowls in my hand. I noticed that Dax was paying attention as well, and it bugged me. I didn’t need him to watch out for me while he sat there with Becca, and I made a point of not looking down at that end of the table after that.

  I wasn’t sure what was going on until ten minutes into dinner, Angel said, “Rocky said there was a chance you might be willing to stay here? He mentioned you have some unique talents?”

  Holy shit, all of these people believed in Dark Walkers? Was that what this was about? Did I care that that was why they were being nice to me? Nah, not really. It was just nice to be included, especially on a night like tonight while Dax was doing his own thing.

  Try as I might, I still snuck glances down at Dax’s end of the table. I only saw the back of his head, but I could see the way Becca stared at him. I also knew Bookie was beside me, feeling bad for me. Damn if I’d sit here and look like I cared.

  I pulled out every trick I had in my bag, every skill I’d used to keep the girls going strong in the Cement Giant, and swallowed my own sadness. Every theatrical trick I’d discovered was employed, anything to hide how I was feeling. I laid out every funny story I could think of, not knowing how they’d be received. I told them about Piggy Iggy vomiting her way through the cafeteria, Patty’s bad haircuts—nothing was off limits.