“’S’at your wedding dress?” The voice of the girl sitting across from me breaks my thoughts, and I stare down at the white dress that’s now covered in mud from having hidden out in the woods for most of the night.
“No.”
“Was gonna say. Kinda bland for the big day, you know?”
My mother worked with a seamstress to design the dress she’d always dreamed I’d wear during my ordination. And here I sat in its tatters. I lift a piece of the chiffon that’s stained with drops of the pastor’s blood.
“You’re one of those Daughters, or whatever the hell the churchy people call them?”
Frowning, I shake my head.
“So, what’d you do to get sent off to the penguin farm?”
Her comment brings a smile to my face, much as I don’t feel like smiling, at all. “I knocked the pastor out with a candlestick.”
She sits forward and snorts an ungracious sound. “You’re shitting me.”
With a reluctant chuckle, I shake my head.
“Here, I thought you were some sweet, wholesome type. So, that soldier ...” She jerks her head toward the back of the truck, as if Jack is still standing there. “He’s your dad?”
My dad. I try to push thoughts of him away, for fear of crying in front of this girl, and shake my head.
“Your boyfriend?”
The mere suggestion of that makes me frown, and the repulsion must be obvious, because she immediately shrugs.
“Guy just seemed to be worried about you. Like … more than the average Legion soldier.”
“Friend of the family.” Not that any of this is her business, but her conversation is a much needed distraction from the maelstrom of thoughts spinning in my head. “Why are you here?”
“Adultery. Whoring myself to a married man.” With a scoff, she rolls her shoulders back, chin high. “Too bad I wasn’t one of the Chosen, or fucking an older man would just be God’s work. Bunch of hypocritical assholes.”
The thought stirs the unrest in my gut. Despite the consequences, there’s a reason I did what I did.
“Wish I would’ve snuck a cigarette in. It’s a long fucking drive to the convent.”
“You’ve been there before.” It’s not a question, and the smile that creases her eyes tells me I’m right.
“This ain’t my first rodeo. First time earned me two months in the convent. Got a soldier off during his R-and-R. Little rubbing action, is all.”
“They sent you away for two months because of that?”
“He was married, too. Thirty years older than me.”
It’s impossible to hide the grimace on my face. Five years seems like a lifetime longer than just a couple of months. “What’s it like?”
“Ah, well, stroking a man is fun.” Hands still bound, she curls her palm in and shakes it up and down to mimic the motion. “I practiced on cucumbers to get--”
“I meant the convent.”
Snorting a laugh, she shakes her head. “Oh. Well. The convent is … what you’d expect. Dull. Gray. Black and white.” The humor fades from her eyes as her brows come together in a frown, and she lowers her gaze from mine. “Your friend can’t help you. Doesn’t matter how much ass you kiss, there’s no good side there. Just an endless dismal stretch that you cling to so you don’t fall over the edge into madness.”
Judging the vacant look in her eyes, while she seems to reflect on the few months spent there, I suspect they’ll have to strap me in a straight-jacket after I’ve served my time. “You’re afraid to go back.”
Before she can answer, the sound of something pelting the outside of the truck has my attention snapping toward the ceiling of it. Like rain, but more intense and sudden.
I pause to listen, concentrating on the noise, but the truck swerves, knocking me off balance, and my head hits the metal wall behind me.
Shouts from the front cab of the truck skate down my spine in a harrowing warning.
“What the fuck!” The girl across from me slips from the bench onto the bed of the vehicle.
Tires squeal.
The shouts turn into blood-curdling screams.
My pulse hastens.
The truck swerves again.
It slams to an abrupt halt, throwing me into the wall that separates the back from the cab. The floor hits the base of my spine on a painful crack. Pain throbs inside my skull, while red and orange circles float before my eyes, right before my field of view shrinks.
“Hey!” The voice draws me out of the blackness, and I blink my eyes open to the face of a woman. Brunette. Dark eyes.
I know her.
How?
My mind scrambles for missing pieces, while I stare up at her in confusion.
“The truck.” Crouched beside me, she looks around, and I notice a bleeding gash on her eyebrow. “Must’ve crashed.”
The truck … the truck. The truck that was driving me to the convent.
Squinting my eyes, I push to a sitting position, and a flare of agony strikes the back of my head. A ringing in my ears only intensifies the invisible assault inside my skull. “Ah.” I lift my hand to settle the pain, realizing my wrists are still shackled. “The Legion soldiers?”
“I think they’re dead. I tried knocking on the cab window. There’s no answer.”
Eyes darting toward the back of the truck, I don’t even give myself a moment of rest before I’m crawling toward it. The thump of my knees, and the awkward clang from my tripping forward when dizziness off-balances me and has my shackles slamming against the metallic truck bed, can hardly be heard over the pelting and flapping of the tarp. I lift the back flap, greeted by darkness and brisk winds, the painful sting of grit and sand against my face. Lowering it shuts out the chaos, and I push to my feet, backing myself toward the front of the truck once more.
“Sandstorm. We’ll have to wait it out,” the girl says from behind. “Fuck, I need a cigarette right now. ‘Least the storm will keep the Ragers away.”
Ragers. I hadn’t even thought of them until now. I’ve never personally seen one in my life, only in illustrations captured by historians in our library. Every child who grows up in Szolen receives an education in their pathophysiology, and my own studies in infectious disease drove me to a more in-depth study. I’m book smart when it comes to knowing what drives their instincts, but I don’t have a clue how to defend myself against one.
And here we are. Miles out from Szolen. In the thick of a sandstorm that will likely bury half this vehicle by the time it’s unleashed its wrath.
Whatever fears I’ve come to know up prior seem almost laughable against that which now thrums through my veins.
Chapter 3
The pelting slows to no more than the occasional tick against the tarp, and I lift the flap to find mounds of new sand, before the lingering red dust urges me to close it again. The scratchy tickle in my throat sends me into a coughing fit, and I bend over to expel the polluted air trapped in my lungs.
“We’ll have to sleep here tonight,” I manage to choke out.
“Are you kidding me? This is our chance! For escape! They probably radioed the storm before the accident. Legion will come for us. But I have friends this side of the wall. They’ll take us in.”