in for good measure.
It was also the brightest beacon of freedom available, if you were tough enough to survive. None of the countries messed around in the Wilds. There was no law. There was no government. If you were stronger and could take it, it was yours. If you were tougher, you were in charge. If you were weak, you begged for citizenship to one of the countries; even with the corruption and flaws, it was still better because the weak didn’t survive any life worth living in the Wilds.
In my opinion, the Wilds was the perfect place for me to regroup and start preparing.
“I’ve got no problem with the destination but I want to know why you broke me out before we go any farther.”
“Forty miles.” He looked down at my right hand where it was hidden in the folds of the dress. “Let me see your hand,” he said, pointing to it.
I knew what he wanted. “My brand is none of your concern.”
He was in my space and grabbing my wrist anyway. I tried to tug it away but his hold was solid and resisting was only going to accentuate how weak my position really was. I stopped fighting, as there was no need to broadcast it. I looked over at the bike as he stared at it.
The brand, the ugly, scarred letter P that had been burned onto the top of my hand, was clear to him. Most people were repelled by just the mention of it. The revulsion at the sight of it was usually stronger. I might be out of the compound but I was still marked. There was no outrunning that.
He pulled it closer, only a few inches from his face, as if trying to determine its legitimacy or something.
He dropped my wrist after half a minute or so. “It is my business. In the Wilds, Plaguers are killed. I need you alive.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it so I guess I’ll have to figure out how to stay alive,” I said in a flippant tone. I knew what that brand did to me more than anyone. I’d lived with it, year after marked year.
He went to a pack attached to his bike and dug around in it. “Here.” He thrust a pair of black leather gloves at me, ones with the fingers cut off. “Put these one.”
I took them. He clearly had all the details planned. “Won’t this make people suspicious?”
“Maybe, but no one expects to actually ever meet a Plaguer, not with the survival rate. You live in a place that houses them. How many have you met?”
In all the years I’d been there, I could count them on one hand, and I knew I’d met a lot less than the amount of people who survived the Bloody Death.
“If they see it, it’s a different story.”
“But if they do get suspicious?”
“It doesn’t matter. If someone wants you they’ll have to get through me first, and they won’t.” He motioned to the gloves. “This just makes things easier.”
I put them on, looking down at my hands and not seeing the ugly scar for the first time since I was four. I looked back at him, not wanting to give any hint of how I hated that thing or how I felt about being able to disguise it. It was just skin, after all.
“You plan on telling me why you busted me out?”
“Like I said, when we cross the border.”
“Why?”
“Because if they get you, I don’t want you to be able to tell them anything when they try and torture it out of you.”
I nodded. It was hard to disagree with that logic. This guy did seem to know a thing or two about the government of Newco and the compound.
He climbed back onto the bike, hands on the bars and feet planted on the ground.
“Get on.”
I did without a fight. Who was I kidding? He could’ve been one of the beasts they talked about that roamed the Wilds and I would’ve ridden his ass right across the border if that were what it took to get out of here. The bike came awake with a loud growl as we started along a rough pathway that looked like it had only been cleared recently—and roughly at that.
I wasn’t sure how long we’d been riding for, but the sky was just starting to get a tinge lighter when
Donna Kauffman
Brad Clark
When Someone Loves You
Danube Adele
Susanna Gregory
Isabel Cooper
Douglas Lindsay
Miroslav Penkov
Paisley Scott
Emily Page