My suspicion that they belonged to Stefan only heightened. I needed to mention it to Richard.
Asshole Number Two turned around with a smirk on his face. “The men here are literally responsible for repopulating the planet, and not one of us would pick you. We’d rather let humanity die than fuck you even with a bag on your head.”
Her muscles tensed under my hand and I could feel the explosion building in her body. Control was not something Macey had great quantities of; in that, she was not like the first Macy at all.
I tightened my hold on her arm that was cocked and ready to punch him square in the face. She might have been one of the smallest of the women in the caravan, but, man, did she pack a punch. I’d seen it more than once in the last month with the men who’d thought she was an easy score because of her size and age. And I’d helped her on demerit duty on three occasions already after she’d been scolded for fighting. Though she was the same age as me, she looked years older. The world had aged us all.
But I felt like I owed it to her. To her and my first Macy.
“He’s not worth digging shit holes for,” I quietly reminded her. “And I will not be helping you this time.” That was a lie, but she didn’t need to know that.
“I think he is.” She pushed against me, and I held her arm tighter. He kept that smug grin on his face and I glared at him. I had to work hard to dredge up his actual name. I preferred Asshole Number Two. It was far more suiting to his personality, or lack thereof as the case was.
“Tom,” I said, working to put a smile on my mouth, “I’ll let her go in about five seconds. If you aren’t smart enough to move along, you’ll deserve your third broken nose from her this month. Then even Lucy won’t bang you.”
Lucy was what I would consider the easiest woman in the caravan—she craved the men wherever she could get them and the sense of safety being in their beds gave her—her words, not mine. But she was sweet, and the other women loved her for her gentle disposition and kind heart. What she was doing with a guy like Tom was beyond me.
Then again, the women here didn’t have the luxury of being picky unless they wanted to go to Stefan and his bastards. The world had shifted so rapidly that it was no longer about who had the best car, the best job, the best abs . . . now things were about who could survive. Who could protect the children brought into the world.
Who could see the monsters before they caught you in the dead of night.
I squinted at him, thinking. Maybe abs could still be considered important. Surely, they would be a better trade-off than this loser.
Basically, it wasn’t about how romantic a guy was anymore, or even how nice. You’d put up with a man’s garbage if he was good at keeping you alive. Who cared if he was good anywhere else, right?
The whole situation was so wrong.
Tom frowned, and I tipped my head as I began to count down. “Four. Three. Two.”
He skittered away before I made it to one, leaving the two of us to walk alone once more. I patted her on the shoulder. “You must learn to rein in that temper, Macey. I won’t always be here to hold you back.”
She tipped her head to the side to look at me, her eyes narrowing. She affected a strong English accent. “You must learn to rein that temper in. Why? You got a man you’re going to run off with? You’ll be here until you die, just like the rest of us.”
I shook my head at her attempt to imitate me. Much as we were sort of friends, she wasn’t the soft sweet kind of Macy. She was harder than granite in more ways than one.
I didn’t see myself telling her the truth about me and Oka.
Humans were too fragile . . . and seeing them die broke something in me every time.
How had my mentor seen so much death and kept her heart intact? I wasn’t sure I would ever understand the strength she had.
You could be that strong, if you embraced me. Damn that inner voice. She whispered to me, but I pushed her away. There was no good answer for that suggestion.
I’d survived this far without letting the darkness in me rise. I could survive another three years. Or thirty if I had to.
“I don’t like being the outcast, you know.” Macey lowered her voice so those walking ahead of us wouldn’t hear. “I’d like to feel safe at night. To be able to sleep without keeping one eye open for wandering hands.”
“They leave us both alone.” To be fair, they left me alone, and because Macey slept near me, they left her alone now too.
My first night, one of the men tried to join me in my bed. I’d been exhausted and stupidly let my guard down, falling into a deep sleep.
Which left Oka protecting me. She’d gone mental and almost shifted into her alter ego on his scrawny ass. As it was, a six-pound house cat against a two-hundred-pound man, you’d think there would have been no contest. And there wasn’t, not for Oka.
His face had been slashed up so badly, after stitches, he promptly got an infection and had been useless for almost a week as he’d fought off fever and pus-filled abscesses. Which was the other reason humans didn’t bother Oka any more than they bothered me.
So being an outcast was just fine with me as it kept me from getting too close to anyone, but Macey seemed bothered by it. That was the thing about humans; they loved to be part of something bigger.
Macey’s eyes darkened, and her face tightened like a storm building on the horizon. I wanted to groan at the look on her face. This was not going to go well. It was just a matter of when she’d blow.
We walked behind the thirty or so humans, including the three kids and one pregnant woman. For vehicles, there were two trailer-pulling pickup trucks and a Humvee, all of them plagued by the constant smell of the magic and alcohol mixture the trucks ran on.
I was fairly certain I’d never get that tangy, acrid scent out of my long blond hair. Or my cloak, for that matter. I touched the material, tugging it a little tighter around me. My last connection to my father, Raven, as he’d given it to me what seemed like forever ago.
“I hate this stinking shit hole of a world,” Macey said, surprising me. I mean, not that she hated it, but that she said it out loud. That kind of talk could get you kicked out of a caravan on the hunt for Shamballa.
The world was so different since Larkspur, the elemental known as the Destroyer, had done just that—destroyed it.
The truth was my heart still searched for her in this broken world, but I hadn’t found her in my three years of aimless, pointless, wandering here in the north. Or what had been the north.
Although the landscape had changed, and we were with a caravan, I was still alone. Well, not completely. I had Oka, of course. She and I had been through a lot together. Even before the breaking.
I loved that saucy little cat and her fierce determination to protect me.
Macey didn’t have anyone like that in her corner. As far as I knew, she’d been alone since the beginning, and I felt like I should be that person for her. To somehow make up for failing the first girl who’d thought I could protect her.
Macey never said if she had a family before. She never talked about it. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. How had she—a fifteen-year-old human girl at the time—survived when so many had died?
“Macey, why not tell Richard? He’ll stand up for you, surely?” I didn’t mean to poke at her. I’d just seen how relentless the men of the caravan had been with her. Even if she hadn’t done anything, they couldn’t just let her alone. They constantly berated her. Reminding her she was worthless in their eyes, only good for one thing. That kind of torment grated on a person.
If she didn’t do something, eventually they’d break her spirit enough that she’d give in to their demands.
Her best bet was to change caravans. Not an easy task, but they were out there. They were on the CB radio from time to time as they gave their locations and asked for news.
That had perhaps been the biggest shock to me when we joined Richard and everyone. That there were other humans out there s
urviving besides Stefan and his men.
Macey shook her head and tugged on that long braid of hers. “Because every group is the same, Pam. Every single one of them. Full of survivors. That does not mean nice people.”
I frowned. That was the hard truth of this new world.
She was right. Despite the fact that this wasn’t the only caravan out there, the dynamics wouldn’t be that different. Stefan was a perfect example. Without laws to adhere to, many of the humans and supernaturals had gone seriously rogue.
And while adding another person to a group meant more hands to help take the burden of chores, it also meant more mouths to feed. And living on the edge of survival for so long had made many people unsympathetic, to say the least.
The humans were harder in this world. Meaner and more suspicious. Frankly, I wasn’t sure it was what the world needed in its brokenness.
“Well, that isn’t true. They don’t all have me and my fabulous cat,” I offered, trying to steer her in a more lighthearted direction.
“How you’ve kept that little thing alive all this time is beyond me.” She shook her head. “Seriously, and how do you get her to follow you like she does?”
I smiled. “Oka takes care of herself. And me, occasionally. She came trained.” I left it at that. They didn’t know who I was, and they certainly had no idea who, or what, Oka was. I wasn’t about to enlighten them. My anonymity was my biggest ally, at the moment. Because even if they knew what I’d been capable of once, I was no good to them now.
Not true, you could still be strong, little witch.
Yeah, no thanks. I kept Macey at a comfortable distance. I’d do my best to help them, but my skills only went so far. And the darkness was not something I was willing to give in to.
I smacked her on the back a few times, adopting one of my mentor’s sayings. “Suck it up, buttercup. Moping doesn’t look good on you.”
She gave me a sidelong glance and walked away to follow the caravan on her own.
Well, so much for cheering her up. I grimaced. I was rusty with my social cues after so long on our own.
I’d never work in management, that was for sure.
My lips twitched at my own stupid joke. Management in the After Rending, or AR as the humans kept calling it? Sweet baby Jesus, that would be running or helping to run a caravan. Thanks, but no. Been there, done that, got the emotional scars to show for it.
I held back, waiting for Oka to catch up, and thinking about my own family. The ones I’d left behind and the reason I was alone.
After the Rending, I could’ve gone back to Rylee and Liam, all the others that had been my only real family for years. But it didn’t feel like the right time, for lack of a better way to explain it. I didn’t doubt that at some point I would go home to them . . . just not yet. I needed to find someone who could free me of these fucking bracelets. And maybe someone who could complete my training. Raven was out of commission, to say the least, and I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Maybe the elementals had been right about him.
I reached inside my cloak, feeling the last remnant I had of him, my zombie-slaying blades.
It hadn’t been that long after Lark had pushed the reset button on the world that he’d given them to me. The remaining humans were dying by the millions from a plague there was no cure for no matter how they tried to fight it. On the other hand, the supernaturals fared much better, preying on those who’d survived.
After the supernatural plague claimed so many of their population before the Rending, they needed to add to their ranks too. And the humans were ripe for the taking in this post-apocalyptic world.
The humans had no idea what hit them. They hadn’t even known the supernatural world was a real thing, not something only relegated to books and movies. They found out soon enough that they were in far more danger than they could have ever imagined. That the breaking of the world and the loss of their technology was the least of their concerns.
I learned from Richard that was when the earliest groups of humans began hiring either a mage or a witch to keep them safe—whatever they could find and afford. They started with small communes, thinking they would be safe if they settled and put up walls.
Not so much. The supernaturals knew easy prey when they saw it.
Sitting ducks . . . that’s what they became. While Oka and I had been surviving in the wild, thinking we were alone, the humans were striking out for Shamballa (a place that as far as I was concerned, did not exist) as fast they could.
And that was what led to the caravans. Keeping on the move meant there was less chance of being hit twice by the same monster as the caravans crossed territorial lines the humans couldn’t see, but their witch or mage protectors could. In theory, that was.
And all of that was why I kept who I was hidden. With the bracelets on, I couldn’t access the power of the elemental blood I carried. Which left only one route if my hand was forced.
To embrace my mother’s bloodline and the darkness that came with it. The consequences of that . . . I had no idea what the cost would be.
I couldn’t put myself out there for the humans while I struggled to keep myself and Oka alive. I had a destiny—I was sure of it. I just didn’t know what exactly it was, and until I did, I had to keep the dark inside me at bay. Something told me if I embraced it, there would be no going back.
For now, I was meant to be here with Richard and his crew. To help protect them with what little skill I had.
I also knew that trying to keep humans alive was not easy, more like trying to keep a pack of lemmings from the edge of the cliff.
Impossible.
Yet here I was, trying to hold the lemmings back like the fool I was.
Chapter Six
As I walked along behind the caravan, my body on autopilot, my mind wandered back to the last time I’d seen Raven and the things he’d said. The tools he’d given me. I wondered as I so often did how much of what he’d said had been in code, as he loved to give me clues and make me figure shit out on my own. Puzzles, the man liked his puzzles far more than was healthy for anyone.
“Hey, little witch.” Raven’s voice startled me out of a sound sleep, which in itself was impressive as I lay on the hard, cold ground, Oka passed out on top of my chest.
I yanked a knife out, my bracelets jangling and had it at his throat in a split second. Only a few days had passed since I’d lost my magic. Since I’d lost my friends.
“Easy, Pamela. We have to stop meeting like this.” He smiled down at me. His blue eyes were mirrors of my own. His jet-black hair curled at the base of his neck, blowing a little in the night air. I blinked up at him. He looked tired—exhausted, really. And there were marks on his clothing and what skin I could see that said it all. He’d not had it any easier than us. Which was strangely satisfying.
I put the knife away. “Raven.” Yeah, I didn’t exactly call him Dad. “What are you doing here? Please tell me you can take these off?” Hope blossomed inside me at the sight of my father as I fully came awake. To human eyes, he looked no more than twenty-five, but he was far older than that with far more experience when it came to magic. “Have you come to take me somewhere, to train me?” I asked. More out of curiosity than hope. Even then, I wasn’t that foolish.
He frowned, his blue eyes shadowed. “No. Your place is here for now, Pamela. I can’t remove the bracelets, and I can’t stay more than a moment. You’ve got a good mind, and a brave heart.”
Fatigue and sadness warred inside me. “So, what do you want? I’m not in the mood for another one of your quests that ends with me helping to destroy the world.” I grumbled and pulled my cloak up around my neck. Oka poked her head out from under it as she slid onto my lap and woke up. Her golden-green eyes narrowed. I put a hand on the top of her head.
“I have a gift for you,” Raven said. “It is the best I can do for you now. The elementals are watching me closely and my own abilities have been tapped.” He held up a wrist to show me three bracelets dangl
ing there. Blue, red and white stones. He’d been blocked from wind, air and water. Why not spirit and fire? Why only the three elements?
I frowned. “A gift? Are there strings attached?”
He shook his head, a bit more sadness in his eyes. But I wouldn’t let that manipulate me. That was our relationship. He never did anything for nothing. Never. Even if he was my father, he’d been the one to teach me that.
“The world is different now, Pamela. You need all the help you can get.”
“Exactly. Which is why I need you to finish my training. With Lark gone . . .” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. She’d left me directionless. Wandering aimlessly, just trying to survive in such a broken world. It hurt that I could be so cast aside by the few people who were truly my blood relations.
Raven’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “If I recall, you left Larkspur and ran off to the north, not the other way around. And if you’d stayed with her, you would have died.”
His words cut through the lies I’d been telling myself. I hung my head; he was right. I’d left Lark, running away from the shame of helping her break the world, of turning my back on Rylee, Liam, and the rest of my family.
He drew a slow breath. “Pam, you don’t need me as much as you think you do. Stop searching for more training. There comes a point where . . . you just must let the power be your teacher. You are strong and smart beyond your years. Use what you have. I am searching for a way to remove the bracelets. And until then, use these. They are weapons, yes, but they can absorb a direct blow of magic.”
He pulled back his cloak and pulled out two crescent-shaped knives set with a finger grip in the middle of each. He set them on the ground between us. I scooted across the ground to where he crouched, and his black cloak swirled out around him. On my knees, I leaned forward.
“What are they?” I asked as I lifted one of the weapons, looping it over my fingers, loving how it fit my hand perfectly, the blade protecting my knuckles in a shape reminiscent of the moon.
“Zombie slayers. You’ll need them. More and more ground is turning into death swamps.” He picked up the other one and held it to the light. “They will cut through bone with ease, so be careful. You shouldn’t need to sharpen them either.”
Aimless Witch (Questing Witch Series Book 1) Page 4
