Page 6

He sniffs, tucking the knife behind his back, and crosses his arms, giving a nod toward me. “Meat for the woman.”

Cadmus snorts a laugh, and before Titus or I can stop him, he bounds forward and grips the man’s throat tight enough to make the stranger’s eyes pop wide. “Meat for the opportunity to keep your head attached to your spine,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Wait … just wait ...” The man’s face turns red, the veins popping out in his forehead, warning that Cadmus really does plan to snap his head from his body.

“Daddy?” A soft voice draws my attention toward a young girl, maybe thirteen, emerging from the tent behind him. Her stained and ragged dress fails to hide the bulge of a belly beneath.

“Git yourself … back in the tent … Tessa girl,” he rasps.

Pushing the man away, Cadmus releases him, and the older man tumbles to the ground.

“Daddy!” As she rushes forward and falls at his side, I catch sight of another little girl, peeking out of the tent. This one no more than a toddler.

My eyes dart from the girls, to the man who lies on his side wheezing for breath, while his daughter clutches his shoulder. “Is the child yours?”

The man frowns, rubbing the band of redness at his throat and coughs. “No, it ain’t mine. Some … little bastard who ran off. Left her alone.”

Lowering her head, the girl shifts beside him, as if she’s suddenly uncomfortable.

“Fine. You win. Let’s see the gun,” the man says, rolling over to push to his feet. “Could’ve used one tonight, I suppose.”

Titus heads toward the back of the truck and returns with one of the many guns we swiped from fallen and ravaged soldiers back at Calico. Brandon trails his steps and comes to a stop alongside me.

For the last few weeks, he’s been a far less intense companion in comparison to the testosterone-fueled Alphas, almost brotherly. Not at all like the Legion officers I came to know before him. After Calico, we gave him the option of going back to his home in Szolen, but he chose to stay with us. To find the rebels and learn what happened to his brother behind those doors.

I have to admit, it’s been nice having him along.

“You get the bullets when we leave.” Titus hands him what must be an empty gun, and the man lifts it toward Cadmus, staring through the scope.

Cadmus doesn’t even flinch the moment he flicks the trigger and nothing happens.

The man sighs, lowering the gun again, and his gaze flits over all four of us, before landing on me again. “You got quite an entourage there, young lady. Must be someone important.” Rolling his eyes, he waves us over, shoulders slouching with reluctance. “C’mon. Let’s git you something to eat.”

The girl refuses eye contact, as we pass her on the way to the fire. While we take a seat in the dirt, Titus helps the man lift the deer from the flame and hoist it onto the awaiting posts already driven into the ground.

“We’re looking for a group who calls themselves The Skulls. Ever heard of them?” I ask, watching the two of them cut meat from the charred carcass.

The man pauses mid-slice, and I catch the flicker of a frown dance across his face, before he returns to his carving. “Nope.”

“But Daddy--”

“Thought I told you to git back in that tent!” he interrupts, and I turn to find her looking at me, before she drops her gaze from mine. “I’ll bring you some food.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I steal a glance at Cadmus beside me, rubbing his hands together, and when we make eye contact, I know what he’s thinking. Perhaps torturing the man might get him to talk, but there’s no guarantee he’d tell us the truth about where to find them, and by the time we catch on to his lie, he could be long gone.

“These rebels … they have someone with them. A friend of ours.”

“Don’t know nothing about that. We keep to ourselves out here. Just try to survive one day at a time.”

Titus piles meat on a small square of hide and crosses the camp, places it down on my lap.

I catch the knowing expression on his face that sings to the tiny flicker of hope blooming inside my chest. For now, I abandon my questions and bite a piece of the meat, which practically melts against my tongue. So savory and delicious, it awakens long forgotten memories of when I last had venison. “Reminds me of the mule deer my mother would cook. Where did you hunt this?”

“Some woods up the way there.” He jerks his head toward a worn path through the vegetation behind him that disappears over a hill. “First deer I seen out here in a while. Been livin’ off coyotes, birds, rabbit.”

“How do you hunt without a gun?” I’m not stupid enough to think he’s hunted a coyote with his bare hands and a blade.