Two of the women moved forward as the children released their grip on the sheet and moved back to Tyson’s side. The women reached down and untied the corners of the sheet and looked down at the contents. I tried to see what was inside, but the lighting was too dim and the angle was all wrong.
“This one is fat too,” the freak in leather said, sounding pleased. Her gaze skipped to me before darting back down to whatever was wrapped in the sheet as if to assess who was fatter.
And then it hit me what was wrapped in the sheet.
A human.
A person.
Male or female, it didn’t matter.
There was an actual person wrapped in that sheet… No, two people.
“The water is outside in the barrels,” the woman said, and two other women began tying the sheet back up. “You did good,” she said, sounding pleased. Her tongue darted out to lick along her lips as her gaze moved over the masked children and Tyson. “There are many of you?” she asked.
“Yes. More than you see here,” Tyson said, his voice growing hard, like he was becoming wary of her. “Many more, with guns and dogs,” he added.
She nodded, her gaze sliding over to Crank’s dead body. “This one, how long has he been dead?”
“Hours,” Tyson said.
“Did he change?”
“Started to, but she ended him first,” he said, and I knew he was talking about me.
“Shame. He would have made a nice pet for me,” she tutted. “If you find more like this, I’ll trade handsomely for them.” She pointed toward Crank to make sure Tyson understood who she was talking about. “Not just water. We have other things you might want.”
My heart stuttered in my chest and I glanced up at Tyson, willing him to keep his damn mouth shut about Shooter and Highlander. Tyson glanced down at me, I couldn’t make out his expression because of his mask, and the eyes on his mask were black holes in his face. He looked back up and I decided right there that I was going to cut him in half if he said anything. I would literally take my knife and slice it right through his testicles, up through his chest until I reached his skull.
The bag at her feet moved slightly, a grumble coming from inside as whoever was inside woke up.
“It’s time for you to leave, Aife,” Tyson said, and my ears pricked at the sound of her name.
And then it hit me who they were.
Who she was.
The only people willing to trade in humans were the Savages, or their followers.
Cannibals. Flesh-eaters. The sick bitches that I had been hunting for the past year to make them pay for everything that Mikey and I and everyone else I cared about had gone through.
I almost laughed at the irony of it all, but caught myself in time. The cotton sheet body bag moved again and a whimper sounded out from inside of it. I wondered who was inside. Were they a man or a woman? Children perhaps? Were they good or bad? Evil or kind?
Did it matter?
These were the Savages, and they were trading in humans because they were going to eat them. They were going to cook and eat whoever was in that bag.
I felt sick, a wave of nausea washing over me.
I’d imagined meeting them for so long. I’d imagined being strong and ready to attack. Prepared for the kill. Yet there I was, my body wrapped around a teenage boy’s legs like I was his concubine. I was vulnerable, weak, and alone. And I was terrified.
“Goodbye, Tyson,” Aife said with a sneer. She looked at me one last time and then turned to leave, ordering the women she was with to bring the body bag.
I watched her walk away, my heart hammering in my chest as I trembled at Tyson’s feet, praying that Shooter and Highlander didn’t turn up right then because everything would go to hell if they did.
Moments passed, the silence foreboding as we all waited silently for the Savages to leave. Finally, Tyson reached down, his fingers hooking under my chin and lifting my face to his. He watched me silently from behind his white mask, a hundred seedy thoughts no doubt going through his mind.
“I didn’t trade you,” he said.
“Thank you,” I stammered, still in shock at being so close to the Savages…to Aife, their leader.
“I didn’t tell them about the other men,” he continued.
I swallowed and nodded. “I appreciate that.”
He dropped to a crouch so that we were eye to eye, and now the angle was just right, a sliver of light hitting his mask at just the right angle so I could see the color of his eyes. Gray brown…
“Perhaps you would like to stay here with us,” he said, and if I didn’t know any better I would have thought there was hope in his voice, but surely not, because he couldn’t seriously think that I would stay there with him and his creepy little kids. He couldn’t truly believe that I would trade my freedom and a man like Shooter for this dank, dark warehouse and a virgin teenage boy with a crush.
This was all new to him, I realized. Women and relationships. He had no idea about any of it. He knew how to control these children, how to trade with monsters like the Savages, but on how to seduce a woman he was clueless.
I wasn’t sure if that made him more or less dangerous.
I still hadn’t answered him, and yet my answer lay between us as clear as anything. No, I did not want to stay with them…with him. When Shooter and Highlander came back, I would leave with them, but we’d be back another day to burn this place to the ground, killing everyone within it. These kids weren’t kids anymore. I could see that now. They may have looked like them, but they weren’t them any more than I was the same woman I had once been.
They were little monsters, deadlier than any zombie out there.
They traded human life for water.
They killed without sympathy.
They were devoid of real emotions.
Suddenly, I was all too aware of the awful situation I was in.
Tyson’s gaze dropped to my arm. To the dangerous attachment that he’d so far left me with.
“Take that off,” he ordered, standing back up. He looked across at the children, nodding at them. “Take that off her.”
21.
Nina
“Tyson,” I stammered, afraid now. “Please, don’t do this. That’s like my arm—don’t take my arm from me!” I begged, realizing how stupid that sounded. And I was whining too, which made it even worse, but I couldn’t stop myself. The thought of being separated from it was horrible. “It’s a part of me. Please.”
“It’s a weapon. It’s dangerous. You’re dangerous,” he said, obviously realizing that I had no intention of ever sleeping with him and that it had been a ploy to stop him from trading me with the Savages. He went back to sit on his throne, and I had no doubt that behind his mask he was scowling at me.
Some of the children had come closer, and their little hands fumbled with the straps of my attachment. I tried to shrug them off but I didn’t want to start a fight because clearly I would lose no matter how many of them I took out in the process. There were too many of them.
“Please don’t take it,” I begged again, pleading now, because I didn’t want them to see the useless stump of flesh underneath. I didn’t want them to take my fake arm and leave me with only my ineffective stump. I didn’t want them to ask about it, or to want to see it more closely or try to touch it. Hell, I didn’t want to see it! But this was happening, and no matter how much I begged, no one was listening. No one cared.
Tyson sat on his throne and gestured for a couple of the children to come closer. He spoke quietly to them as little fingers unfastened the leather from my body and slid it from my arm. The children talked excitedly in hushed whispers, taking turns to try it on as I sat there, half the woman I had been moments before, my stub feeling cold as the dank air of the warehouse wrapped itself around it. I lowered my head and looked down at the ground, feeling miserable and weak, tears of anger and sadness building at the backs of my eyes.
My jaw was clenched tight as I tried to hold myse
lf together, refusing to let myself cry over something so stupid as a fake arm! I hadn’t even wanted to wear the ridiculous thing initially, and now I couldn’t bear to be apart from it. What was wrong with me?
I felt dirty and ashamed as, like I had expected, I felt the tender touches of little fingers pressing against my gross stub and whispered questions about it in my ears, surrounding me, swallowing me whole.
And all the while, Tyson sat and watched my misery, basking in it.
I closed my eyes, wishing to be anywhere but there. Tender touches sliding along my skin, over the sensitive skin on my padded stub. Little voices talking excitedly.
“How did this happen?”
“Who did this?”
“Was it the monsters?”
“Will it grow back?”
“Does this hurt?”
A sharp pain burned through my arm and I opened my eyes and pulled my arm to my chest, glaring at the children surrounding me. I wasn’t sure who had hurt me or what they’d done it with, but a blossom of red grew over the end of my stub and a small giggle erupted from the group.
“It still bleeds,” a voice whispered, and another giggle came, but I couldn’t tell from whom. Masked faces surrounded me and I felt suffocated by them. I backed away, but there was nowhere to go.
“Make it bleed again,” a voice whispered from the masked crowd.
“Yes, yes!”
They came closer and I slid further back on my ass, my body bumping into Crank, who I half expected to sit up and try to take a bite from me at any moment. But no, he couldn’t. I’d killed him. I’d put a knife through his skull and stopped him from coming back, and yet it felt like this horror movie sequence wouldn’t be complete without the unexpected arrival of a long-dead friend.
“Leave me alone!” I yelled, watching as the children flinched back from me, their shocked faces concealed by their white masks. Heads cocked to one side as they assessed how much of a threat I was to them. They weren’t used to shouting, and I had only shown them affection so far, but I couldn’t contain my anger now as they reached for me again. “Get away from me!” I screamed, the words bursting from between my lips.
One of the little girls waved a knife in front of her and hissed at me. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, but she was completely lost to this cruel world, a victim of the evil that grew within it. Another child copied her, and then another, until I was surrounded by hissing, snapping children brandishing weapons in my faces. Some got too close, their knives nipping against my bare skin and drawing drops of blood, and I whimpered.
“Tyson!” I screamed, not being able to find him among the white faces that surrounded me. They were coming closer, no longer happy little kids wanting to have their hair braided and a story told to them, but deadly weapons that Tyson had used to keep himself safe all these years. And now he was using them on me, as punishment. “Tyson, please!” I begged. “Make them stop.”
I could have sworn I heard him laughing, but the hissing and the snapping of teeth, the whispers in the dark as the children continued to torment me, completely aware of the terror they were putting me under, could have been sending me mad for all I really knew.
It felt like hours as they circled me, a viper pit of children trapping me within their writhing mass of deadly limbs and even deadlier blades, but eventually they backed away, slipping back into the shadows as if from a nightmare. I was curled up in a ball, my face buried against the soft folds of Crank’s leather cut, the smell of him keeping me grounded and reminding me that it would end. That Shooter would come back for me and I could go back to the clubhouse and forget this place.
“Would you like to stay with us?” Tyson asked, his voice so close that I let out a small yelp of surprise. After the hushed whispers for so long, a voice at normal pitch seemed exceptionally loud.
I pulled my face away from the smell of leather and cigarette smoke, of familiarity, and I looked up into Tyson’s masked face. I stared at him, too terrified to speak. If I said yes, I’d be stuck there with him and them, but if I said no, would the punishment start again?
“Well?” he asked, his fingers reaching out to stroke against my cheek. When he pulled his hand back, I noted the dark smear across the pad of his thumb.
One of the children came forward, close to Tyson, to whisper in his ear. And I watched his posture change, his shoulders looking tense as he sat back on his haunches, his gaze still on me, assessing me.
“Never mind,” he spat. “You’re too old anyway.”
He stood up and turned his back on me before walking back to his throne, and I had the insane urge to laugh loudly. He thought I was too old for him. The thought was hilarious. A small smile split my lips, but I forced it back as I heard the deep, booming voice of Shooter coming through the warehouse.
The doors slammed open and he stormed in. Highlander and Gauge were close behind, and each man was carrying several bags in their hands. Their gazes moved across the warehouse and found me, and I saw a flash of fury on Shooter’s face before he looked away, focusing on Tyson.
“Here’s all your shit,” he snarled, dropping it at his feet. “Nina, get over here.”
I stood up unsteadily and started to walk to him, the gap between us feeling like it was a great expanse instead of a couple of feet. Relief hit me as I finally reached him and he pushed me behind his back.
“We need our parts,” Highlander growled out, “and our brother.” He nodded toward Crank’s body.
Tyson sat silently in his chair, so still I would have mistaken him for a statue if I hadn’t felt his fingers on my face only minutes ago.
“Get what you need and go,” he finally ordered, and two small children came forward, directing us further into the warehouse with little grunts and growls, more like animals than children.
I stayed close to Shooter as we passed through some more doors, ignoring Tyson’s gaze every step of the way. Highlander and Gauge took off in different directions once we were in the other room, grabbing boxes of parts and tools and God knows what else, finally coming back with heavy backpacks and arms laden with cumbersome boxes. They gave a sharp nod of the head to Shooter.
“Let’s get out of here,” Shooter grunted, taking one of the backpacks from Gauge and throwing it over his shoulder and then lifting up a box.
The children led us back through the doors and into the main warehouse, no doubt watching us carefully in case we tried anything. I hoped Shooter didn’t have anything planned, because all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and be on our way. Gauge slid a backpack full of parts onto his back and headed over to Crank’s dead body before leaning down and hoisting the dead man up and over his shoulder with ease.
“Where’s her weapon?” Shooter demanded of Tyson, his tone leaving no room for arguments.
One of the children came and dropped it at his feet, and he grunted at me to pick it up. I did, catching the kid’s eye as I did, and for some reason I thought she might have been smiling at me beneath her mask. I wondered, if only briefly, who that kid had been before the end had come. Who she could have been if the world wouldn’t have taken her parents, her family, her life. It was stupid to even think about it, and yet it was hard not to at times.
That little kid, standing in front of me, brandishing a deadly weapon with surprising ease, couldn’t be more than fourteen, and yet she seemed more equipped for this world than most adults. What part of herself had died to make sure she could flourish in this cruel, unforgiving world?
“Come back soon, please,” she whispered, skipping back off into the darkness.
Shooter snorted on a dry laugh and then we started to back out of the warehouse. Children came out from every dark corner, a crowd of them following in our wake. Up high, their guns were aimed down at us and there really wasn’t any reason for them not to kill us anymore; they had what they wanted, after all. Yet they let us leave. They let us live.
We passed by the tent and the sleeping bags we’d se
en on our way in, past the deader bodies on the ground, and then we were ducking under the warehouse door and we were back out into the fresh air.
Night had fallen while I was inside, though it was likely to be more early morning at that point, and I suddenly realized that I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep for as long as possible. I wasn’t sure how I was going to hold on to Shooter while we rode back to the clubhouse, never mind how we were going to get back there with Crank’s body and several boxes and backpacks of parts, but I needn’t have worried.
Outside was one of the club’s trucks, and while Gauge and Highlander gently lay Crank’s body in the back, covering it with a blanket and then carefully placing the boxes around it so they wouldn’t tip over onto him, Shooter helped me into one of the seats.
He climbed in next to me, leaning over and cupping my face with his large hand briefly. I had no doubt that I looked like total shit right—black bags under my eyes, dirty bloody face, my skin pale with fear—yet he looked at me with nothing but affection and admiration.
“You good?” he asked as Gauge and Highlander climbed into the front of the truck, slamming their doors behind them.
“The Savages were here,” I said, my voice throaty and sore. I watched awareness grow in his eyes and his features tighten.
“You’re sure it was them?”
“Yes. More than sure,” I replied sternly.
“Okay.” Shooter let out a hard breath, his scowl deepening. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, and I knew he meant Tyson.
It was a hard question to answer though. I thought back over everything that had happened in the past few hours—the trauma of it all… The fear and the anxiety of the situations that I’d found myself in: almost being traded to the Savages as lunch, Tyson wanting me like that even though I was old enough to be his mom, learning the horror of what they were trading, and then being tormented by those masked children.
Yet really, the worst of it was the little kids and the realization that they were doomed. They hadn’t had a chance to be little kids at all, and they were forever damaged and changed because of Tyson, because of this world and the evilness that grew in its belly, and because of people like the Savages and what they drove people to do to survive.
The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7 Page 16
