Midnight (2 page)

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Authors: Ellen Connor

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Romance, #Fantasy

BOOK: Midnight
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Small magnets in her boots made her work a little easier. She’d often wondered if the drivers thought she had superpowers, since they could never seem to shake her off. Smiling at the thought, she dropped to her belly and set up her safety gear. Then she hooked her feet, dropped upside down beside the driver’s door, and broke the glass between the iron bars—brass knuckles wrapped in cloth.
With her other hand she cocked the gun. “If you don’t want to die right now, you’ll stop the truck.”
The driver gazed at her, wild-eyed, out of his peripheral vision. He was hardly more than a kid, but this was a brave new world.
You do what you have to.
Rosa could shoot him, disengage from the harness, and slide through the window fast enough to save the supplies. After all, she’d done it before.
From his expression, he guessed as much.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said on a little moan of fear.
Maybe it wasn’t nice, but given how powerless Rosa had been in her youth, his reaction was damn near an aphrodisiac. She bared her teeth in a fierce upside-down smile. “Good boy.”
The truck gradually slowed. Doubtless the driver didn’t want to risk having her finger slip on the trigger. Kill or be killed wasn’t just a cliché. But she would always come out on top. People took advantage of the weak. She’d grown up with that knowledge burned into her brain.
When the truck stopped, her men roared back into play. She kept her weapon trained on the kid until Falco opened the passenger door and yanked him out. She could see he was pissing-scared, but the story would only enhance their rep, so she didn’t rein Falco in. Instead Rosa levered back up, a feat made possible by rock hard abs. She stowed her safety gear before vaulting down with lithe grace.
Her second spoke to the driver in a low growl. “On the ground.”
The kid complied, whimpering. He dropped facedown and put his hands behind his head without being asked. Word was getting around. Anyone passing through Valle lands would pay the toll or suffer reprisals. She didn’t mind being considered a warlord. Fear was good for business.
Qué padre.
With teamwork and skill born of long years together, her men popped the trailer, making sure to protect against hidden guards. But no, it was a good clean haul: bottled water, toiletries, canned goods, and best of all—pre-Change liquor. Months had passed since they’d indulged in anything but
tiswin
or agave wine. The next Burning Night would be wild.
Once he secured the cargo, Jameson fastened the doors and added extra chains. It wouldn’t do for anyone else to jack their stolen goods. Peltz in particular, the leader of a violent band of dust pirates, was getting too ambitious, treading on her territory as if he’d been nurturing and defending it for years.
The bravos ran back to their bikes.
“I’m leaving water and a smoke flare for you,” Rosa told the kid. “Next time one of your people drives by, use it. Then tell them I own these roads. If they want to ship through my territory, they pay the toll. Otherwise I have this confiscation policy.” She nudged him with a boot.
“Comprendes?”
“Yeah,” the kid squeaked.
“I’ve also set a sharpshooter on that ridge. If you move before he reaches a thousand, you get a bullet between the eyes. Count slow, just to be safe.”
Apparently too afraid to speak, the boy nodded. Each settlement used professional wanderers who ensured the trade of necessary supplies—a dangerous task. She couldn’t imagine why they had entrusted the delivery to him. A rite-of-passage thing? Or maybe this outfit was so poor and desperate that it used kids for drivers and risked the consequences of refusing her toll. Not a worry for her bravos. But an armed shipping concern like the O’Malley organization could pass through any day. Rosa needed to plan accordingly.
Falco grinned at her. “You ready to roll,
Jefa
?”
“
Claro.
Let’s ride.”
With an ease born of practice, she slid into the passenger side. One of the other bravos had his bike. Falco could drive anything with wheels, and Rosa functioned better as muscle, which confused a few bigoted
hijos de putas
at first. She only needed to beat them down once to teach that particular lesson. The bravos arrayed the bikes around the truck as further deterrent to anyone who might mess with them. Still, she wouldn’t let her guard down until they reached Valle de Bravo.
Falco glanced over at her, one hand on the wheel. “We lighting up the dance hall tonight?”
Burning Night was a tradition everybody enjoyed. But they knew better than to indulge on the same night as a successful raid. Such activity never failed to attract the attention of local nomads, who looked for any opportunity to catch the town unawares. Peltz, especially, seemed eager to exploit them. He was craftier than most. But Rosa was smarter; she’d had to be.
“We’ll give it a night or two,” she said. “Then we can cut loose. The bravos deserve it.”
The liquor would make for a hell of a party, and the men would have more fun if more women waited in town, but Rosa didn’t mind the unique position of power. With the male-to-female ratio at such an imbalance, the bravos knew better than to demand monogamy—or they’d wind up with no tail at all. They’d had a little trouble at the start, but two executions had ensured that the rest of the Valle’s males got the message.
No always means no.
“You and me, then?”
Rosa glanced over at her second, suppressing a sigh. Falco was tasty, if you went for the rugged, muscular, sun-toughened type—brown hair with lighter streaks, nice blue eyes. But she knew his game. He figured if he moved into her bed permanently, he’d take the de facto role of boss man. Not that he was a bad guy. He’d made his intentions clear.
She was having none of it.
Rosa flashed a smile to take the sting from her words. “You wish, Falco. You couldn’t handle even half of me.”
She pretended she wasn’t tense, awaiting his response. Deliberately, she stretched her legs. Tightrope walking for fun and profit. She’d been careful not to sleep with anyone, refusing to be viewed as a sexual creature. Instead she was the militant Madonna for whom they’d die.
“One of these days, I’m gonna make you mine,” he said lightly.
Yep. Right after hell freezes over,
cabrón
.
When the settlement came into view, she relaxed. She’d crawled to this place to die, but to her surprise, she hadn’t. For months she’d hunted, gathered, and killed those monstrous hellhounds all by herself, too tough to lie down and give up. And from there, she’d built. When survivors started to trickle in, Rosa had made it clear that the town was hers, a place where only the brave survived.
She didn’t know what it had been called before, only what it was now. Valle de Bravo. The valley of the brave. The valley of her warriors.
The landscape was green in comparison with the dry land that surrounded it. An underground river ran through, filling the wells. That was probably why folks had settled in this spot hundreds of years earlier, perhaps abandoning it when the mines played out. Rosa had first stumbled into a ghost town. From the dirty white adobe church to the abandoned clapboard general store, it had been like stepping into a different world.
Now she took in the scene with a practiced eye. Everything looked normal. Good. No raids while they’d been gone. The possibility always concerned her when she took a large number of able-bodied men on a supply run. Any number of enemy factions would love to get a foothold here, Peltz most of all. His filthy gang moved camp too often to be found outside supernatural means.
But the perimeter was secure. The young bravo at the gate stopped them, just as he ought to. Rio was hardly old enough to shave but had hard, savage eyes. He’d crawled into town from gods only knew where, all alone, much as Rosa had been. Some townsfolk bitched about her lax immigration policy, but after having suffered the boot of the New United States’ ferocious anti-immigration measures on her neck, she couldn’t refuse sanctuary to anyone. Newcomers only needed to prove willing to pull their weight and follow her rules.
As long as they were human.
She smiled at Rio, taking in his too-big khaki pants and the spiked leather wristbands Singer must have made for him. He looked fierce enough to tear someone’s throat out with his bare hands—and, well, he was. Her bravos had kamikaze souls.
“All clear?”
“Quiet as the grave,” Rio said with a wide white smile.
He motioned for the gatekeeper to let them in, and the convoy passed into the town proper. Half the population turned out to see what they’d brought back. A shout went up when they saw the cases of quality vodka.
Viv, the woman who ran the
taberna
, took charge of those bottles. She was a weathered little woman in her late forties, but hard work had kept her fit. Between her ageless Chinese features and the skewed gender ratio, she accepted help from the six men who offered. Attentive faces revealed anticipation, hoping for her company.
Rosa kept herself above that game. It wasn’t hard. She’d spent enough hours pinned under grunting, sweating men to be glad of the Change. Apart from Falco, most of the bravos saw her as
la jefa
, not a woman to be banged in celebration of a successful raid.
They knelt to her before each job and kissed her fingertips, having sworn blood loyalty to Valle de Bravo. Rosa insisted on the ritual because she knew such things strengthened spoken bonds. Now all her bravos bore tats, marking them as hers. She who took none as her own claimed them all.
Wicker, who ran the general store, assumed responsibility for the majority of items. The town ran on a barter system, and since the old man had once managed a business of his own, he was in charge of keeping the books. Too old to fight now, he had a calm temperament well suited to the task. Such a useful occupation salved his pride.
At the back of the truck, they found a rare cache of booty. Fabric. A soft “ahh” went up from the women. New clothes. Rosa couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn anything new, made just for her. Sometimes they traded among themselves for variety, but it wasn’t the same. This would be good for morale.
For a few moments Rosa watched the work, overwhelmed with a quiet sense of accomplishment. She’d done this, a woman who had never been able to get a decent job, no matter how smart she was. Pride swelled in her chest, making each breath hotter and sweeter.
I did this. These are my people.
And then the cry went up from Rio at the gate. “Raiders incoming!”
Rosa cocked her gun and ran.
TWO
 
ONE MONTH LATER
 
Chris jerked awake and sat half upright. A rock gouged the palm of one hand. The vivid spring dawn made him squint. He checked his weapon and found it primed nearby, but he heard no threat. The secluded crevice where he’d made his night camp served as a trusted partner at his back.
The last of his weariness gone, he eased out from the crevice and surveyed the surrounding gorge. Creosote bushes bloomed along the jagged upslope of striated limestone, their roots clinging to the smallest holds. A woodpecker made a racket, reminding him of those first few months after the Change hit the West Coast. They hadn’t seen sign of any wildlife, not even insects, until the demon dogs had cleared out, starving and defeated. That so many natural creatures still thrived in the world should have given him some reason to smile, but Chris hardly remembered how.
He checked his Beretta in its holster and slumped against the cold, solid rock wall. A dream must have woken him. Closing his eyes, his skin already covered in goose bumps, he tried to recapture the last few moments of unconsciousness, fully expecting to find memories of blood. But the lingering images were not so violent. He saw a wisp of white, a flash of corn-silk hair.
Whenever he dreamed of Penny—the child he’d left behind after her mother died—he walked south . . . and always found something remarkable. Once he’d found water, just in time to keep his dehydrated body from shutting down. Another time he’d found a young girl. She’d been hiding in a tree, stranded after escaping a pack of demon dogs and too scared to climb down. In appreciation, her brother and mother had opened their meager stores to him.
Reluctant curiosity tugged him to his feet. After a quick piss, he packed his gear and stepped into the sharp daylight.
Climbing up the short bank of what might have once been a river, he allowed himself to think about Penny. It was for the best that she lived with his friends Jenna and Mason now. After Ange died, he had found it impossible to stick around beyond the spring thaw.
And Chris was alone. That too was for the best.
He reached the top of the rise and looked over the desert. Dawn still tinted the landscape, but the dry heat sizzling the back of his neck foretold the coming day. He scratched his jaw through his beard and searched for abnormalities. No voices. No prickling sensation of another human presence.
But then came an unexpected sound—an old sound that took a long minute to place.

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