The woman set to work, mindlessly chopping off odd bits of hair too tangled to be salvaged, until Autumn’s brown hair looked like a mismatch of drastically different shades and lengths. Some strands were brighter than others, probably from sun exposure, while others were darker.
Picking up a clear bottle with a spray nozzle head, the woman began spraying what looked like dirty creek water over Autumn’s remaining hair, soaking it through. Autumn, with her eyes still closed, began to breathe more deeply, her chest rising and falling even more rapidly than before.
“This girl and goddamn water,” I muttered under my breath. Taking a step forward, I readied myself to grab her if she suddenly decided to launch herself off her stool and kill the poor old woman.
Poor woman? the voice asked with surprise. Since when do you have sympathy for the elderly? Or women? Or anyone, for that matter?
Fuck off, I spat back.
“I’m thinkin’ here,” the woman mumbled, looking to me for approval. Her hand was level with Autumn’s chin. “It’s the only way it’ll be even.”
“Do I look like I care?” I said. “Just fucking cut it.”
To further motivate her, I turned away and headed toward a tent filled with odds and ends. The guy manning it was a middle-aged man who looked as unkempt, and about as useful, as his goods did. He eyed me carefully, first the vulture in my grip and then my face, shrewdly assessing my mood. He probably wondered if he needed to reach for the gun at his hip.
While keeping one eye on the man and his gun, I scanned the junk strewn about, most of it useless shit that no one used anymore, let alone needed. A pile of table clocks, a couple of sets of mismatched skis, and strangest of all, boxes upon boxes of Christmas decorations.
“What’s with the Christmas shit?” I asked, nodding at the boxes. “Nobody’s celebrated Christmas in a fuck of a long time.”
The man seemed to relax once I’d spoken, no longer deeming me a threat. Taking a step forward, he stuck out his hand in greeting. “Samuel,” he said, his voice as raspy and grating as ten miles of bad road on bald tires. “I already know you. Hell, everyone knows you,” he said and gave me a crooked smile.
Ignoring his hand, I pinned him with a hard stare. “The decorations?”
Frowning, Samuel dropped his hand. “I got ’em all. Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, Saint Patty’s Day—” He stopped abruptly and dug through his messy piles. “Aha!” he exclaimed and dropped to one knee. Rummaging through a dirty cardboard box, he pulled free his find and jumped to his feet.
“For Memorial D—”
I stared long and hard, anger burning through me. I reached over and snatched the intricately folded flag from his grasp and tucked the triangle safely inside my denim jacket, under my arm.
“You fuck,” I spat out, and Samuel’s eyes grew round with shock. “This is an American flag. And not just any American flag, this was a flag given to the family of a fallen soldier. This isn’t a goddamn decoration!”
My uncle and my grandfather had both served in the military, and although I’d given little thought to the Armed Forces since they’d been eradicated altogether, seeing that flag had brought to life something inside me. Something I hadn’t felt in a long damn time.
It wasn’t a decoration, it wasn’t a prop, it sure as fuck wasn’t meant to be sold, and it definitely wasn’t something to be buried beneath a box full of shit lying on the ground. It was a memory. The last blanket to ever cover the soldier it had belonged to, and then presented to the family of the fallen in appreciation for their service. For the life they’d sacrificed.
This flag was a motherfucking privilege, one that Samuel had no right to.
Samuel put his hands up in the air. “Listen, buddy,” he said. “I didn’t mean no harm. I’m a collector, is all. Trying to keep the spirit of humanity alive here.”
Giving him a nasty grin, I took another step closer until my large shadow covered him. “Never once seen anyone buying jack shit from you. Looks to me like you’re trying to keep a bunch of shit long dead alive.”
Letting his hands fall to his sides, Samuel took a deep breath. “Keep the flag, free of charge,” he said. “It looks to me like I’m not the only one holding on to the past.”
I opened my mouth, ready to make him eat his words, when I felt a light tap on my arm. Turning quickly, too quickly, I nearly knocked into a woman standing beside me. Caught off guard, she stumbled backward, her hair falling into her eyes.
“Fucking watch it,” I growled, and turned away to look for Autumn. The old woman stood in the same place we’d found her, directly beside her stool, but Autumn was nowhere to be found.
A pang of panic speared me. Where the fuck was she? Did she try to make a run for it?
“Eagle?”
I turned toward the voice and blinked in surprise when I found it was Autumn standing beside me. Her hair was just as the woman had said it would be, chin length and angled toward her jaw. It was still damp, but dry enough that her natural highlights were glinting in the sunlight.
Tucking her hair behind her ears, she stared up at me, her big gray eyes full of questions. Wait, what the fuck? Was she wearing eye makeup? She looked ten years older than she was.
“No,” I snarled, grabbing for her wrist. Dropping the vulture at my feet, I dragged her forward and spit into my right palm. As I wiped my wet hand over her left eye, Autumn shrieked and attempted to jerk away. Nearly losing my grip on her, I grabbed a fistful of her newly shorn hair and forced myself not to shake her.
“No,” I repeated, spitting on my hand again and giving her other eye the same treatment. “You want them to think you’re a whore? The last thing I fucking need is some sick motherfucker looking to get between the legs of someone like you, pulling a gun on me and making that brand on your wrist fucking useless.”
She stopped fighting me, went still in my grip and simply stood there, allowing me to finish ruining her face paint. Whatever the woman had used on Autumn’s eyes was now successfully smeared across her forehead and down her cheeks, making her look filthy again.
“Everyone is staring,” she whispered as she blinked up at me. Tears had gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill free from her lashes.
I glanced around us and found she was right. Everyone was staring. Half the main drag had stopped what they were doing to stand and gawk at us.
“Fuck ’em,” I muttered, and bent over to pick up the vulture. Finding the space by my boots empty, I straightened, fury coursing through me as I surveyed the crowd. I spotted him quickly, a boy of around five or six who was moving quickly and had just broken through the small crowd. Shoving Autumn aside, I took off after him.
He was a damn fast little fucker, but I was faster. My legs were longer and far stronger. Heaving, I shot forward, picking up more and more speed until I was nearly on top of him.
“You little—” I grabbed the shock of long curly hair bouncing on his head and yanked him straight off his feet and into the air. Comically, his legs and arms continued to pump for several more seconds, his shocked gasp coming a few moments too late.
“You’re hurting me!” he screamed. “Mom! MOM! MOMMY!”
I snatched the vulture from his hand and released his hair. He hit the ground on his backside with a loud oomph and started to wail. Red faced and with snot dripping from both nostrils, he let loose an ear-splitting siren song that was sure to draw every mother or ovulating female for miles around.
“Shut the hell up,” I gritted out. “I’m not going to hurt you!”
Through his tears, he glared up at me. Folding his arms across his scrawny chest, he released another brain-melting scream.
Unwilling to deal with a mob of angry women, I turned away from him only to realize how far I’d actually run from the main drag. I was near the far lot, where most of the vehicles were kept, the same place I’d last seen Wildcat as she’d torn straight through the gates.
For a moment I just stared at the recently repaired sec
tion of gate and wondered, yet again, if any of them had actually made it out there. Out there in the wild, where Autumn was from.
“Fuck!” Coming to my senses, I started jogging back the way I’d come. I’d just left her there alone, and with all those people.
How much trouble can she have gotten into in a matter of minutes?
And the voice in my head just laughed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Autumn
Angry and embarrassed with the weight of everyone’s eyes on me, I watched helplessly as Eagle took off running into the crowd. Considering his size, I wouldn’t have thought he’d be able to run so fast, and yet within seconds he was out of sight and lost in the crowd.
“I’m so sorry, honey.” The older woman who’d cut my hair offered me a tentative smile that I couldn’t manage to return. There was too much happening all around me, too much happening inside me to be able to focus on anything other than my racing thoughts. And even then I couldn’t seem to pinpoint any one of them for any substantial amount of time.
Oh God, why had he acted like that? Why had he left me here, out in the open like this and all alone?
And why was I constantly upsetting him and making him so angry? It had only been a little bit of makeup. Once my matted hair had been cut away, the woman had reached into a bag she had strapped to her waist and pulled out some makeup.
“Such a pretty girl, you’re going to put a smile on his miserable face,” she’d sung happily in my ear.
I’d been frozen in place, still upset over the feel of the water in my hair, and simply allowed her to do whatever she felt inclined to do. I hadn’t even seen what I looked like, but judging by Eagle’s reaction, it wasn’t good. The woman had been wrong, so very wrong. Eagle hadn’t smiled; he’d been furious. His pupils had dilated, and his jaw had tightened, and then he’d exploded
“It’s okay,” I said, but the woman was already gone, walking back to her station to service a man who was waiting for her.
Looking around, I was relieved to see the crowd’s attention had been diverted. So I scanned again, searching for Eagle, looking for his Mohawk and his dark beard, for his wide shoulders and hulking shadow, for his coal-black eyes. When I couldn’t find him, my head swam, my stomach burned with anxiety, and my hands trembled. I couldn’t just stand here, exposed, without even the smallest of blades to defend myself. But I couldn’t seem to move.
Someone slammed into my shoulder, knocking a yelp free from my throat. I stumbled backward as a blur of color swarmed from around a nearby corner, a crowd with their voices raised, cheering loudly as they rushed past. Other took notice as well and several faces lit up with excitement, and many dropped what they were doing to take off running in the same direction. In moments, this small area of the marketplace was nearly empty except for me and some of the vendors.
Breathing hard, my heart working overtime, I clenched my hands into fists and turned to follow after them.
Just walk, I pleaded with myself. No one is looking at you, no one is going to hurt you with his brand on your wrist, just walk. Walk! But I couldn’t. I didn’t trust this place or these people.
Raised voices sounded off in the distance, and people began moving toward the sound. Curious, I glanced around me.
I followed the crowd slowly, my eyes and ears straining as I looked everywhere for him, but he was gone, chasing some little boy through the streets for a vulture. I dropped my chin and watched my feet as I walked, breathing through my nose as I tried not to freak out. People were pushing and shoving now, the voices louder and louder.
“You still smell like shit.”
I nearly screamed when I recognized her voice, but as she rounded me, coming into view, fear of her quickly squelched any sound I could have made. A shudder racked my body as the sound of her voice filled me with stomach-curdling fear.
The pink-haired woman, Liv was what Eagle had called her, was mere feet from me, her narrowed eyes traveling up and down the length of my body.
“You think you can satisfy a man like E?” She sneered, her tongue darting out to swipe across her lower lip, reminding me of any one of the many snakes I’d lived among for years. Slim, beady eyed, always coiled and ready to strike at any moment.
My breath caught in my throat. I could do no more than give a small shake of my head and an equally small shrug of my shoulders. I wasn’t trying to please Eagle; I was simply existing. And in here, I needed him to do that.
“A man like E has very particular tastes,” she said, her eyes roaming over my face while her hands skimmed over her own body, as if trying to accentuate the hips she didn’t have. “And you don’t got what it takes. But I do.”
I could feel myself begin to tremble, a quiver in my belly that quickly grew. Yet I couldn’t allow myself to lose control, to show this woman how much she frightened me, to show any sort of weakness at all. Just like a snake, once she saw her opportunity she would pounce, and once she had me in her grip, she’d squeeze the life from me without a second thought.
“I have what it takes,” I mumbled, surprising myself. I hadn’t meant to say that; it had just popped out of my stupid mouth, triggered by fear and panic. But now it was too late. My words hung between us, large and imposing. And dangerous.
Liv’s eyes widened and a strained smile tugged at her lips. Her hands still on her hips, she thrust out her chest and cocked her head to one side. “Do you see that?” she asked, still preening as she jerked her chin to the side. I followed her gesture to where the woman who’d cut my hair was now trimming the beard of a heavy-set man. “Do you see the way he’s looking at me? No one looks at you that way.”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at her. His squinty eyes traveled up and down her body, pausing on all the bare bits of skin her skimpy shirt and skirt had on display. Just the thought of him looking at me in that same way, like something to be devoured and then discarded, made me shudder.
But then, somewhere in the back of my mind, I replaced his face with another, his body with another’s, his squinty, greedy eyes with a pair of angry, nearly black eyes, and I didn’t think I’d mind so much.
“I’ve satisfied him many times,” I said, my voice louder now, less wobbly. Again, I startled myself, wondering where all my common sense had gone. No, I didn’t want to show weakness, but it was dangerous to poke at a snake.
Liv’s smile faded and her eyes darkened. “Is that right?” she said, and I noted the way her voice thickened with anger and with something else, almost as if she had an accent, but one she was trying to hide.
I nodded, continuing with my lie. Eagle didn’t want me in that way, and I didn’t want him either. But the thought that he actually wanted this awful woman upset me.
“You come with me,” she snarled.
Before I had the chance to dodge her, she’d wrapped her hand around my bicep and pulled me forward. Panic reared, and I twisted and ducked beneath her arm, effectively dislodging her. My instincts screamed for me to snarl, to brace and ready myself for the fight that was sure to come. But instead of flying fists, I found Liv smirking at me.
“You’re looking for him, right?” She shrugged nonchalantly despite her gleaming eyes. “Then I’m guessing you know about the pits? Where Eagle used to fight? Considering how close you two are, I thought he would have told you all about it.”
I swallowed hard, feeling childish and silly. Eagle hadn’t told me anything about him, not one thing. All I knew of him was what I’d seen, and mostly all I’d seen from him in regard to me was annoyance. But I hadn’t shared anything of myself either; all that had mattered was his promise to protect me, to keep me safe inside these gates until he could get me out.
But now I found myself bothered by it. It annoyed me that this vile woman knew him so intimately, and knew far more about him than I did. Here I was with his eagle permanently marked on my skin and yet . . . who was he?
“Yes,” I said, my voice hoarse, the mental strain I felt seeping out into
the open. “I was just . . . going there.”
Like a predator scenting its prey, Liv smiled in the face of my insecurity. “Great.” She bared her teeth in the semblance of a grin. “We’ll go together.” She took a step forward and glanced back at me, annoyance creasing her features when she found I’d made no move to follow her.
I stood there for a moment, frozen with indecision. How could I trust that she’d actually take me to Eagle? She was a viper, and I was a bunny rabbit who’d stumbled into her snake pit.
“The fights go on for hours, you know,” she said. “It’ll be dark before they’re over. Do you really want to be standing here in the dark still waiting for him?” Her expression remained the same—annoyed—yet her body language turned aggressive, as if preparing to drag me along if I didn’t go willingly.
I glanced around, taking note of the remaining people. They were either busy or bored, and paying me no attention. But who knew what happened here when the sun went down. I didn’t want to be here to find out.
Steeling my nerves, I straightened my back and took a deep breath, attempting to calm myself. Just put one foot in front of the other, I thought, and whatever you do, don’t panic and run off.
I took a small step in Liv’s direction and then another. I could do this. I could definitely do this. I would follow her to the pits, find Eagle and ask him to take me home. It would all be over soon and I’d be safe again, back behind the row of padlocks and bar-covered windows, back inside the quiet and the dark.
“Hurry up,” Liv called over her shoulder as she disappeared around the corner of a building.
I made no move to pick up my pace; I was just happy I wasn’t running in the opposite direction. Especially considering I could now hear the din of what sounded like a substantial-sized crowd waiting for me on the other side.
I wasn’t wrong. The moment I turned the corner, I was surrounded by people. Even out in the open, without the buildings to interfere, it was a tight squeeze, suffocating as the people around me moved as one, cheering and waving their hands in the air.
Beneath Blood and Bone Page 15
