Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2) by TJ Klune Page A

buy.”
    There’s no food here , Bad Dog grumbled. He lifted his leg and watered the wood and snow. This is also mine now. I own many things.
    Lucas pointed at the sign and shrugged. Why would people buy what they were told?
    “I don’t know. It was how the world worked, I guess. Dick Lewis told them how.”
    Lucas scowled. Fuck Before. Fuck Dick Lewis. He kicked at a piece of wood. It broke off and fell into the snow.
    “Fuck Dick Lewis,” Cavalo said softly.
    Fuck Dick Lewis! Bad Dog barked excitedly. He pissed on the billboard again and put his nose back to the ground.
    We fit , he thought.
    Cavalo looked down the broken road after the dog. The black smudge wavered in the distance. They were still alone. He wondered how much longer that would last.
    They passed the burnt-out shell of a truck, the rubber tires long since rotted away. The door to the truck was open, the seats inside cracked and covered in mold. Dead blue bunchgrass poked through the seats, black and frozen stiff. Bad Dog sniffed around it, as he sometimes did, but they didn’t stop. There was no point; what had been in the truck, if anything, had been ransacked long ago. Cavalo knew from personal experience that had he looked inside the cab, he’d have seen a small curved seat lying upside down under the dashboard. All that was left of the child that had been in that seat was a small skeletal arm fused to the floor, the third and fourth fingers missing. The bone of the arm was splintered and pockmarked with little divots. Cavalo hoped it was an animal that had chewed on that arm. And that the child had not been alive.
    He wondered if Lucas had ever caused teeth marks in bone. He thought it possible. He was a Dead Rabbit, after all.
    He can’t fit , Cavalo thought. Whatever I am. Whatever I’ve done, I’m not like him.
    At least Jamie hadn’t ended up like the child in the truck, not that it was possible. Jamie had been nothing but a crater left in the ground. Pink mist and shards of bone. That was all that had been left of the boy who sometimes stuck his tongue out between his teeth when he thought hard on something.
    Lucas buzzed at him, pursing his lips and blowing. I can hear your bees , he said. The knife had been put away when Cavalo hadn’t been watching.
    Cavalo said nothing, keeping his eyes on the black smudge on the horizon. He thought he knew what it was. He hoped he was wrong.
    I can hear them over mine , Lucas said, wincing as he grabbed the sides of his head. They have to be loud for me to hear that.
    “Sometimes,” Cavalo allowed.
    What happened?
    “When?”
    Now. To make your bees come. He pulled the fur-lined hood of his jacket up and over his head.
    “The truck.”
    Truck?
    “That… vehicle. In the road.”
    Lucas shrugged. What about it? They’re all over.
    “Yeah.”
    So?
    “That one’s different.”
    How?
    “There’s an arm in it.”
    Lucas glanced back the way they’d come. The truck was out of sight. So? Lucas said again. You’ve seen worse.
    “Have I?” They hadn’t talked much about before. Not Before, but before Lucas had first held a knife to his throat in the clearing of the haunted woods.
    Yes. It’s on your face. In your eyes.
    “Is that why you hide yours? Behind the mask?”
    I don’t hide. He covered his face with his hands.
    “Sometimes you don’t wear the mask.” You have to push , he thought.
    I don’t need it.
    “But most of the time you do.”
    Stop it.
    Cavalo chuckled bitterly.
    Lucas glared at him.
    They walked on. Bad Dog was ahead of them. Cavalo was waiting for him to pick up on the smell of the black smudge that lay ahead. If it was real, it’d be soon. Cavalo hoped it was nothing but the bees playing a trick on his mind. They’d done it before. They’d do it again.
    “Did it hurt?” he asked eventually. Push, push, push.
    What?
    When Patrick cut your throat. “The tattoos,” he said instead.
    Lucas didn’t answer. He pulled the knife back out instead. Bared his