Thicker than Blood (40 page)

Glancing down at my latest Grannie ensemble,
stunning wasn’t a word I would have used to describe myself. I was
wearing a handmade pale pink, short-sleeved shift that barely
reached mid-thigh, the material light and flimsy like a bed sheet,
which was probably exactly what it had been made from. I’d paired
it with a pair of black leggings with holes in the knees, so worn
they appeared a faded charcoal gray. Also new were a pair of men’s
military-issued army boots, a size and a half too big for me.
Alex’s weapons belt was slung low on my hips, my blade seated
firmly at my side.

I looked mismatched at best, like a young
girl trying to rebel against societal norms while still attempting
to appear cute and feminine. Worse were the looks I’d been getting
from the men. Though they said nothing, their expressions suggested
I looked like a pretty pink Popsicle they wanted a nice long lick
from.

It was an awful feeling, a hundred pairs of
eyes on you as if you were nothing more than prize to be won. Back
in Fredericksville, no one had so much as glanced my way without
purpose, and never to ogle me. But back in Fredericksville, women
weren’t whores, at least not for the masses. We were simply the
whores of the men who’d forced us into marriage.

I didn’t know which was worse.

“Stay with her,” Alex muttered in Grannie’s
direction while prying my fingers from his arm. One of Grannie’s
thick arms wrapped around my waist, a surprisingly strong grip for
an older woman.

“I’ll be fine!” Alex shouted over the noisy
din of the crowd.

Grabbing my face, he pulled me up on my
tiptoes and pressed his mouth to mine. His tongue slid between my
lips and mine between his, tangling together in a messy, desperate
kiss that I didn’t want to end. I’d never been a proponent for
public displays of affection, yet I couldn’t help but worry that
Alex was going to fare even worse than Evelyn had. And if that were
the case, I wanted him to know how much he meant to me. I wanted to
show him.

Too soon, he broke away from me, Grannie
still holding tight to my waist as I reached for him. He gave me
one last look before shoving through the people in front of us and
disappearing into the crowd.

“Let me go!” I shouted, twisting in earnest,
trying to free myself. Eventually she did, but it was already too
late. As I pushed and shoved through the crush of people who were
shoving me right back, by the time I managed to reach the ring,
Alex was already inside it, along with Mike and Bryce.

Misty’s body had been taken away but her
blood still remained, wet and thick as it pooled on the smooth
dirt, glinting an ominous red in the flickering firelight. The
infected, trapped in their metal cages, were still going wild for
the blood and flesh so close to them, yet so far out of their
reach.

“Alex!” I shouted, gripping the rope as I was
continuously shoved against it. “Alex!”

Either he didn’t hear me over the growing
noise, or he was refusing to look at me in fear of distraction from
the coming fight. Pulling his T-shirt off over his head, he gripped
the collar and tore it down the center, continuing to rip the
material until he had several strips of cloth that he began
wrapping around his hands and knuckles. Neither Mike nor Bryce had
done this; they were fully clothed and without protection for their
hands, and both were glaring at Alex.

Their angry stares confused me. The last time
I’d seen them, they’d been friendly and smiling. We’d saved them
from infected, and this was how they repaid us? Had it all been an
act? Or was this the act for the fight? For the viewing pleasure of
the masses?

I glared around the ring, then focused on
Jeffers, deciding that he was to blame. He was the one who had said
we owed him—that he’d wanted the score settled.

Stepping inside the ring, Jeffers took his
place in the center, his hands raised. All at once, the shouting
dropped to a murmur, and then the murmuring to a whisper.

“For your viewing pleasure!” Jeffers’s deep,
gravelly voice boomed through the silence. “In this corner, two of
my best scavengers, Bryce and Mike!”

Grabbing hold of Mike’s hand, Bryce thrust
their joined fists up into the air, and the audience went wild.
Although, unlike the thunderous applause that Misty had received,
the crowd seemed less impressed with these two. Amid the cheering
there were shouts of ridicule and mockery.

“And in this corner!” Jeffers gestured toward
Alex. “Straight from outside the motherfucking gates…a man with not
only a claim on one, but TWO women…WILD MAN!”

As the crowd continued to shout and scream,
Alex remained still, his gaze solely focused on his opponents. He
didn’t raise his fist in the air, didn’t even turn to acknowledge
the crowds. Standing there, his shoulders slightly hunched, his
wrapped hands curled into rock-hard fists, he bounced lightly from
one foot to the other, and waited.

“Last chance to place your bets!” Jeffers
continued. “The payout for this one is gonna be huge!”

“Three cases of my finest!” an older man
shouted. “On the wild man!”

“An AK-47 and three boxes of ammo!” another
man yelled. “For the wild man!”

“A week of free pussy!” one scantily clad
woman called out. “If Bryce and Mike win!”

I tried to drone them out, their greed, their
lack of morals, their sick and twisted need to derive pleasure from
the pain of others. I stared at Alex, praying that he would come
out of this on top, praying that he wouldn’t be harmed. Yet, I
couldn’t help but envision the very worst possible scenario—his
death—and without him, the brand on my wrist and Evelyn’s meant
nothing.

Without Alex, what would happen to us? The
possibilities of such a fate were enough to make me shiver despite
the heat from the bonfires, chilling me straight through to my
bones.

“DING, DING!”

My breath caught in my throat, my body went
rigid with fear. Mike rushed forward while Bryce seemed to be
taking his time, as if he was waiting for Mike to attack and while
Alex was busying fending off Mike, he would strike. Mike never
reached Alex, though, as Alex deftly jumped to the side and out of
his grasp, then went barreling into Bryce.

Gripping Bryce’s neck, Alex sent his fist
straight into the older man’s face, and just as he was readying to
punch him again, Mike jumped onto Alex’s back, his arm encircling
Alex’s neck, and then…

I never did see what happened next. One
minute I was watching the fight with bated breath, my heart
pounding in my chest, and the next a hand was slapped over my
mouth, an arm hooked around my waist, and I was dragged off through
the crowd.

I kicked and I screamed, thrashing wildly in
an attempt to free myself, but this wasn’t Grannie holding me, this
was a man, a strong man whose strength was much greater than
mine.

This went on for several long, excruciating
minutes, me being dragged farther from the fight, and the crowd
ignoring me or just plain not noticing as I was hauled off. Once we
were away from the gathered masses, the bonfire light waning, I was
released and shoved backward.

My back hit a jagged brick wall, the broken
cement digging painfully through the thin material of my dress and
into my skin. I blinked through the darkness, trying to make out
the face of my kidnapper with only the aid of the moonlight.

“You,” I whispered breathlessly, recognizing
him as the man who’d approached Alex and me outside of Grannie’s
tent.

He smiled at me, several dimples appearing on
his handsome face. “Me,” he said, sounding almost proud.

“What are you doing?” I continued whispering,
my gaze flitting from left to right, hoping to find someone nearby.
But there was no one around this late at night; the market place
was empty, everyone either at the fight or the Drunk Tank.

“Your man is gonna die out there,” he said,
smirking. “Jeffers doesn’t allow his men to be bested by any
outsider. Figured I’d better stake my claim on you before you’re
sent to The Cave or put up for auction.”

“A-auction?” I asked, my voice shaking as my
body shuddered.

“Don’t you worry, sweetheart,” he said, and I
watched, horrified, as his hands dropped to his pants, already
working his belt buckle loose. “Be easy enough to cover up that
brand and slap a new one on. And don’t you worry, I won’t share
you.”

His eyes lifted, meeting mine. In the
reflection of the moonlight within them, I could see the sincerity
of his madness-fueled promise. He wouldn’t share me.

“I’m fucking lonely,” he said as he stepped
up against me and flattened his body against mine. “I’m sick of
whores, sick of having to pay for it, sick of having to share women
with every other asshole in this place.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I turned my head
away, evading his mouth.

With a sigh, his lips pressed against my
cheek and then lower, to my neck. “I had a girlfriend before,” he
murmured, his teeth grazing the skin along my collarbone. “She was
beautiful…I was gonna marry her.”

His tongue darted out, licking its way across
my neck, pausing every so often to stop and suckle my skin as he
ignored my soft whimpers. “Looked a lot like you,” he
whispered.

Behind me, my nails were digging into the
brick as I desperately tried to figure a way out of this.

“You should wait,” I stammered. “Wait until
you’re sure he’s dead.” It killed me to say it, to even think of
Alex dying, but I had to stall him, had to say something to try to
save myself from being raped, or worse, from being claimed.

One hand found my breast, his other my
backside. Ignoring me, he continued his assault on my neck while
his groping became more and more fevered.

“
Please,” I pleaded. “Please, you need to
wait, please…
please
…”

His hands pulled up the hem of my dress and I
reacted, grabbing his shoulders and shoving him away. As he took a
surprised step backward, I reached for my knife. About to pull it
free from its holster, I was suddenly faced with the barrel of a
gun.

I froze, letting my hand fall back to my
side. Blinking through my gathering tears, I tried to focus
blurrily on the man in front of me. “I don’t even know your name,”
I whispered, frantically grasping at straws. “You have to at least
tell me your name.”

Still holding the gun to my face, he reached
forward to pull my knife free and toss it aside. As it clanked
against the cement several times, signaling that it was lost to me,
my eyes closed, tears of defeat leaking free.

“So pretty,” he murmured, using his free hand
to brush away the moisture from my cheeks. “Such a good, sweet
woman. Don’t find that anymore. You’re a dying breed,
sweetheart.”

The gun disappeared as he took his hand away,
slipping the weapon into the back of his pants. Again, he pressed
his body against mine, and again he went for the hem of my
dress.

His movements were quicker now, harsher, as
he fumbled to drag my leggings down. When he slid his hand between
my thighs, I let out a small cry that he quickly squelched with his
mouth.

“
No!” I screamed, turning out of his kiss.
“No! Please, someone, help me! Help! Help! HELP ME!”

“They can’t hear you, sweetheart,” he
growled, gripping the back of my thighs. With a grunt, he lifted me
up off the ground, and then I could feel him, jutting between my
thighs, hard and intrusive.

My arms flailed, my hands pushing helplessly
at his face, at his shoulders, gripping his hair and pulling as
hard as I could, but he wouldn’t be deterred. Even when I managed
to sink my nails into his cheek and tear them across his skin, he
only grunted in pain and continued to push inside me.

The more he pushed, the more I flailed and
the louder I screamed. Grabbing hold of anything I could—his arms,
his shoulders, his shirt—I pulled and pushed, and screamed,
and…

Suddenly I found the handle of his gun
jutting from the back of his pants. Gripping it, I pulled it free
and lifted it to his head. My hand shaking fiercely, my grip on the
gun no better than jelly, I pressed it against his temple.

“Let me go or I’ll kill you,” I whispered
through ragged breaths.

He went instantly still, his body frozen
against mine, the part of him he’d managed to inch inside me
pulsing angrily in time to his rapid heartbeat.

All at once he dropped me, and I would have
gone sprawling face-first to the ground if it weren’t for my
leggings still wrapped around my ankles, tripping me up, and
causing me to fall back against the wall.

Keeping the trembling gun trained on him, I
smiled bitterly as tears poured down my cheeks. “Do you know what I
did to the last man who raped me?”

He opened his mouth, maybe to apologize,
maybe to beg for his life, maybe to say something crude and
uncaring. But I would never find out. Utterly unconcerned with what
he had to say, I pulled the trigger, blowing a hole through his
shoulder. He staggered backward, his eyes wide, his hand reaching
for the bleeding wound before falling to his knees.

Still shaking, I aimed again, this time
hoping for his heart.

“Lei!”

Alex’s voice tore my gaze away from my
target. Shirtless, covered in blood spatter from head to toe, Alex
stood only a few feet away from me, his chest heaving with anger.
He was almost unrecognizable to me, his hair an unruly mess, blood
dripping from his short beard, dripping down his chest and arms,
and from his clenched fists. His body was trembling, his eyes were
wild, crazed even, darting recklessly between me and the man on the
ground, looking as if he wanted to rip him to shreds with his bare
hands. Looking as if he
could
rip him to shreds with only his bare hands.