Wonderland (Deadly Lush Book 2)

by Harper Alexander

  “What's that?” he asked, coming out of his daze.

  “War paint. So we can make a fierce little warrior out of you.”

  He eyed the bucket skeptically, but the way he stretched to see inside made Shiloh think the skepticism was only a show to hide his curiosity.

  “Nothing gross,” she promised. “Just crushed fruit, sap, and moss.”

  “Moss is gross.”

  She cracked a grin. “You got me there.”

  “But no bird dung?” he asked.

  “No bird dung.”

  “Okay.” Putting aside his craft, he repositioned himself to make room for Shiloh in his little fort.

  “What are you making?” she asked as she joined him.

  “Nothing. Just a thing.”

  “Things are something.”

  “I didn't know what else to make. Jayx has a necklace.”

  “He does. And after we turn you into a warrior, I bet you can wrestle the shark to make yours match his.”

  “After all this time...you still just want to find a way to feed me to the sharks, don't you?”

  Shiloh chuckled, recollecting the voyage they'd shared. How she’d gone all territorial on the little intruder and threatened to throw him overboard more than once, until his rotten charm had gotten the best of her and convinced her not to toss him to the sharks so hastily.

  “No complaining,” she said. “This time I'm equipping you to fight them off first.”

  “I'm going to look cool, right? Not silly?”

  “Definitely cool. Totally hardcore.”

  “Okay. Let's do this.”

  “All right,” Shiloh began, taking command. “Chin up. Look at me.” Dipping her fingers into the indigo mixture, she smeared the first line of paint underneath his eye.

  “Smells funny,” he said.

  “That's the bird dung,” she replied, completely serious. Zack's gaze flashed up to hers in a moment of uncertain horror, and Shiloh kept a straight face for all of two seconds before laughing off the facade. “Gotcha,” she gloated, detailing another smear opposite the first. When she was done with his face, she smeared a bit into his hairline, combing it up and back so it swept wildly away from his face, stiffening as the mixture dried. She cocked her head at the effect, considering his new look.

  “Done,” she declared, grinning with approval.

  “What do I look like?”

  “A sooty demon child.” Wiping her hands on her pants, she stood and scooted the bucket aside with her foot. “Come on,” she said. “Let's go find you a mirror of some sort.”

  Below-deck they found a musty old pane, and Zack stood inspecting his new look. With a subtle, heavy breath, Shiloh squeezed his shoulder and admired his fierce little reflection, and murmured into the quiet,

  “Be brave, Zack.”

  Underneath the paint, she saw the determination that took hold of his face. Suddenly, he looked older.

  Good. Her confidence-boosting trick had taken root, to some extent.

  But she couldn’t deny the pang of loss that arced through her with her success, mourning the fading of his innocence.

  *

  Zack wasn’t the only one trying to don a cloak of confidence around himself. Before agreeing to any organized treks into the island, Jayx made sure to drill everyone on the common dangers that had been outlined at the beginning of everyone’s training. They went back over Haggardwings, Carniflora, blood-thirsty hummingbirds, rabid butterflies…and on down the line. Learn to look for the predatory potential in everything, was his blanket rule.

  They were supposed to be honing in on the tenacity and self-assurance to manage on the island, and yet, as the list went on, it seemed to Shiloh it only became a more daunting notion. Any number of new mutations liable to crop up at any given time... Look for the predatory potential in everything... She could only hope Jayx's pupils didn't become quickly more discouraged, than enabled.

  Hold onto that hatching beastie inside you, Shiloh, she warned herself. Lest it crawl back in its shell and pull all the cracks shut against the cruel world again. It was paramount she wedge something in the crack of that egg, that ripening, tension-packed, foreboding dragon-like egg, and use whatever leverage possible to pry it open. Get out here, dragon. Blow your freaking fire.

  It crackled partially back to life in her chest, and the relief that came to her had a strange fond quality to it. As if it were really some fetus she harbored in her womb, a live, infant beast she must nurture and carry to term, her motherly instincts helping to forge an unbreakable bond. She touched her abdomen – muscles becoming chiseled from the exercises she'd been putting herself through – and imagined a little baby dragon, curled in the fetal position, growing inside her.

  Sweet baby dragon. Sweet, vicious baby dragon.

  Snapping out of her enamored little paradox, Shiloh returned to her drills.

  Jayx found her doing pull-ups in the rigging, her arms glistening with ocean vapors and sweat.

  “Zack looked ready to challenge one of the Tribal to a fight to the death,” he remarked, referencing the magic Shiloh had worked with the war paint.

  Shiloh peered down at him through her clenched, straining arms, holding herself aloft. A tight breath oozed out of her. “That's the idea,” she responded.

  “Your idea?”

  Letting herself down slowly, Shiloh dropped to the deck, wiping her forehead on the back of her arm. “A gimmick, maybe, but sometimes an illusion is necessary to build confidence. He needed something to help him be brave.”

  “Where's yours?”

  Grabbing the handkerchief she was using as a sweat rag, Shiloh began mopping herself up. She nodded toward the bucket that held the rest of the paint base. “I hadn't gotten that far yet. Was trying to decide if just slopping something on would suffice, or if there should be... A bit more ceremony about it. A persona I should put some thought into.”

  “Ah. Yes. To be the scale-laced, fire-engulfed dragon-woman, or the claw-marked, scar-like macabre wonder. An important decision.”

  Unsure if he was mocking her or acknowledging there was some actual sense to her debate, Shiloh stole a glance at him. He was watching her intently, as if standing there in all her sweaty glory was a riveting study in his world.

  She felt her skin tighten under his gaze, became hyper aware of every bead of sweat trickling down the taut panes of her skin. As if the beads of sweat were his eyes, sliding over her.

  “What do you think?” she asked, trying to divert his attention. “What effect would best intimidate the Tribal?”

  It was the wrong question to divert his attention.

  “May I?” he proposed, gesturing to the bucket.

  You set yourself up for that one. A bead of sweat slid down her neck and chest like an allusion to Jayx's fingertips, soon to be tracing his own patterns over her skin. She swallowed, suddenly unsure. Human contact was not something she readily sought. You didn't let people get close enough to touch you.

  To hurt you.

  To kill you.

  How unnatural to fight the way she was programmed, to deem the being before her an exception to the rule, and convince her reflexes to believe it. Jayx was as dangerous as they came. How could she just let down her armor for a man far more deadly than most she had encountered in the treacherous ruins of her homeland?

  On the other hand, a burning curiosity was challenging her natural instinct, wondering what would it be like to be touched?

  To sit unflinching while another human's hands were on your body? What would it be like to consciously prolong that taboo, to sit there enduring a connection, letting their senses be full of you?

  What was it like to let someone else's texture meet your warmth, for your life forces to brush, mingle, spark...

  Shiloh found herself inclining her head, against her better judgment, the curiosity winning out. Maybe it was the fact that she had so recently committed to hardening herself, had already started the clocks on that objective and realiz
ed this might be the only chance she got to experience human connection, however slight, before furthering the cold, independent, feelingless character she had no choice but to become.

  This is the last day, she thought.

  And then she would slay anything that touched her.

  Jayx went for the bucket, and nodded at the railing of the ship. “On the rail,” he instructed, and Shiloh climbed up and sat cross-legged on the wide strip, facing down its length. Jayx joined her, straddling the beam and placing the bucket in her lap. It was comforting, somehow – having something between them.

  Dipping in his fingers, Jayx cut his sharp blue eyes to her face. They were like shards of ice, always cutting. And so startlingly clear. Dazzling gems embedded in the rugged landscape that was his body. You had no idea until the light hit them. Then they blinded you. Shiloh found herself so absorbed in his brilliant eyes that she didn't even notice when he touched her face.

  And then, slowly, it filtered through. Like a drop of rain, sliding softly down her cheek. Diagonally, though, as if angled by a gentle wind, licking across her cheekbone.

  Rain on velvet. A single wet drop chafing petal-soft across a million sensory fibers.

  That was what Jayx's touch was like.

  His deadly touch. Rain and petals.

  Huh.

  Deceptive, Shiloh, just like everything else in this place.

  She would do well to remember that.

  He traced another line under the first, and a slightly shorter one under that. Claw marks, she identified. Then he told her to close her eyes, and painted around her lids, smudging the dark substance upward and outward to create a sweeping, fading effect.

  Even stranger than letting him touch her was letting him touch her with her eyes closed. Shiloh tensed, and she was unsure if it was to cling to the rail as the ship bobbed on the water or strictly because the vulnerability put her on edge.

  Perhaps because she was allowing herself to be vulnerable, Jayx opened up a vein in the same way:

  “I mentioned, in the jungle, that you were right,” he said quietly, almost drawing her eyes back open. Afraid it might break the spell and send him back into his reserved shell, though, she kept them closed, allowing him to speak freely, catching her breath to listen. “About my fear of losing anyone else. I try not to get attached, but I…I have nightmares,” he confessed, surprising her. Somehow, Jayx didn’t seem like the nightmare type. “About the others. The ones I could have helped, but did nothing for.”

  She did open her eyes, then. His finger trailed off in the hollow of her throat. What had he been painting on her neck?

  Jayx ducked his gaze, all at once. Dipped his fingers back into the paint bucket. “You have to have nightmares about one thing or another, here, I suppose.”

  Rain and petals, Shiloh thought again. Deep down, Jayx was a softie. She looked at him in a new light, trying to discern the sensitive man beneath the grime and scars.

  He had done it, then. Cultivated a lethal beast alongside a compassionate soul. He hadn't lost that part of himself to the ferocity. He was both. Perhaps it would always be a struggle keeping the balance, but both could coexist.

  At least, that was her train of thought, a spark of hope that flitted to life like a butterfly emerging with the changing seasons, testing its wings, the first spark of color to break up a cold winter, until Jayx spoke again.

  “Regarding what else I said in the jungle… As for winning the fight for humanity, maybe to win we have to leave the legacy in the hands of others.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a reason I excluded the children from recent proceedings. Normally I wouldn’t. Wouldn’t sugar-coat anything, for anyone. But where we’re going, with what we have to become…it isn’t something we can come back from, Shiloh. It will take our bodies, or it will take our souls, but it will take us. You will either die a violent death overestimating your ability to take on savages, or you will sell your soul to the devil attaining that affinity. There is no way around that. If we’re going to do this, it will require sacrificing ourselves; a necessary evil. Our sacrifice will simply be to leave humanity’s legacy in the hands of our successors.”

  “The children.”

  “The children,” he confirmed. “Sheltered and untainted. Everyone has their place, in a revolution. Theirs will be to inherit the redemption of Paradise.”

  It was a sad thought, at first. Imagining Zack and Starliss as the only ones left. Preserved to inherit a haunted, lonely frontier. But a grin pricked at her lips. “The prince and princess of a new land,” she mused.

  Jayx did not mirror her expression. His face became hard, all too quick to get into character for his morbid new convictions.

  With two cold strokes, he applied the last mark to her skin.

  An X right over the left side of her chest.

  “Here,” he bequeathed darkly. “So you are not held up by sentiment like I have been. So nothing will get to your heart.”

  8 – Silent Weapon

  The days flew into a grind of intensive training like never before. Hand-to-hand combat routines, weapon wielding, pull-ups in the rigging, runs on the beach. Swimming races while Lysander distracted the sirens with his music. Tree-climbing races while Farah kept watch for lurking predators.

  “Alongside becoming strong, fast, skilled... You must also become fearless,” Jayx implored them. “That is crucial to becoming forces to be reckoned with.

  “To become fearless, there are two very important points to be mastered. You must not be afraid of pain. And you must not be afraid of the sight of your own blood. Pain and blood are part of this world. Just like the sun rising and setting. Just like the tide coming in and going out. Just like you must eat to survive, you must bleed to survive. Get used to the idea that you may bleed as much as you breathe.”

  He scraped a knife out of its sheath and laid the edge of the blade against his palm. Shiloh's first instinct was a quick wince of anticipation and the itch to avert her eyes, and then she remembered the point, and resisted the urge. She watched with a tightness in her chest as he coolly slid the blade across his palm, slicing it open as nonchalantly as if he were peeling fruit for a snack. He didn't bat an eye as his blood dripped onto the deck.

  Wiping the blade clean, he held it up toward the others. “Who wants to go first?”

  As the sun set that evening, the deck gleamed like polished red glass.

  *

  It was almost time to remove the bandages from their hands when Alex made a revolutionary announcement:

  “I have an idea. For giving ourselves an edge over the Tribal. I think I know of a way we can walk right into their midst, and take them by storm.” His face was flushed with excitement, his freckles blending in more than usual.

  “Well?” Shiloh prompted, because no one else seemed keen on rushing it out of him.

  “The Pulsers,” he said, referencing the devices stationed in the treetops around the old lab, which let off high-pitched tones to deter animals from breaching the encampment. “They're solar-powered. Wireless. If we can extract them from the trees, we can fasten them to ourselves. Use them like armor.”

  It was a good idea. Shiloh shot a glance at Jayx, curious as to his input. He considered a number of factors before responding.

  “It stands to reason it would work,” he confirmed. “Until the power drains and they need to re-charge.”

  Alex nodded eagerly. “I just thought... I think we can all agree they aren't serving any purpose around the lab, anymore.”

  “Except keeping any number of things in,” Jayx pointed out.

  “True,” Alex admitted. “But whatever they're keeping in can't be that much worse than Carniflora and winged wolves, right? And we're either going to get hunted down by any number of things anyway, or seize what we can to eliminate the main threats.”

  Shiloh was nodding. “I say it's worth it.”

  “It would take them by surprise, too,” Alex added. “A
lways a beneficial tactic.”

  “Is there a way to know how long their charge will last?”

  “Give me a chance to look at them, and I think I can give you an estimate.”

  “Is an estimate good enough?” Ophelia piped up, hanging back from the exchange until then. She had taken to plastering her entire honey-blond head in Shiloh's warpaint mixture, giving her regular knotted up-do a more severe quality.

  “If I estimate low, and we work within those parameters.”

  Shiloh felt a rush of excitement at the possibility. “Jayx? What do you think? Will it give us the chance to charge in and single out Mother Eve?”

  “Hard to say. She is revered, treated like a queen. She will be better protected than the rest. The first sign of trouble, and they’re likely to rally around her.”

  “But will it matter? If the Pulsers do what they should, the Tribal should wither as we approach. You said they've never so much as breached the lab encampment, and that was with the Pulsers sending out tones all the way from the treetops. We'll be shoving the devices in their faces.”

  Jayx nodded again, albeit cautiously. “It sounds foolproof.”

  “How come you never thought of it?” Ophelia wanted to know. She seemed to rethink her tone as Jayx turned his cold, crystal-edged gaze on her.

  “Because when something seems too good to be true,” he explained evenly, “it usually is.”

  Wiring her jaw shut, Ophelia shifted a little sheepishly, refraining from challenging the island expert further.

  Not to be deterred, Alex cleared his throat and hazarded continuing. “I’d like to organize an expedition. To harvest the Pulsers.”

  Thoughtfully fingering the stubble that was growing more chaff-like on his chin, Jayx gave a small nod. If he still had doubts, he kept them to himself. “Done.”

  “Shiloh?” Alex probed. “Are you in?”

  “Definitely.” She buzzed with anticipation, feeling strangely light and floaty at the notion of impending action. They were finally, actually going to infiltrate the island again. A preliminary testing-of-the-waters toward their greater cause.