Page 9 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
I sigh at the condescending tone of Dane’s voice. The stiff silence that follows tells me how pissed off Blake is. I wander in the direction of their voices, into a vestibule, where there’s a solid door set into stone.
“Locked, is it?” I ask.
Blake gives me a venomous look.
“Blake can’t get in,” Dane says. On the surface, his tone is friendly, but it’s edged with frustration. “I thought I’d try instead.”
“You’re not going to do any better,” Blake spits.
“What do you think is in there?” I ask. Worth listening for any telltale sounds of zombies before they spend all this time on it. What if that’s what all this destruction is about? If the town herded all their afflicted up here, Dane might be about to release a horde.
“Can’t hear anything,” Blake says mulishly, answering my unspoken question. “But they might have shoved everything valuable behind this door.”
Hm. I lean back against the wall, watching. That’s the other thing, of course. When we’re out here, we can take what we like. Things abandoned belong to no one, or at least no one who is expecting to retrieve them again. Besides, if someone really wants to come out here, they can. The Citadel is always recruiting hunters, even as they train all the orphans to do this job.
Surviving out here is the skill. So finders keepers. It’s another way to increase the living we make, and it’s not necessarily the fanciest, most valuable things that help. Extra food, medicine… All the staples we might have had in a former life are hot commodities once we’re back behind those walls.
“You find anything out there?” Dane asks. He sits back on his haunches and his hands fall away from the door.
Blake murmurs something under his breath and takes his place, sliding his picks back into the lock.
“No zombies or anything. Just…” I trail off when a flicker of interest sparks in Dane’s eyes. It’s different from what I’ve seen from him before. It’s as though he’s actually listening to the words coming out of my mouth.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I don’t like that at all.
“Just?” Blake prompts, eyes still fixed on the lock.
“Just all the graves,” I say. “They’re all empty. Maybe they dug up their dead to make sure they were staying that way.”
Blake scoffs and shrugs, disinterested.
Dane’s eyes bore into me for another few seconds before he turns his attention back to the lock. “Maybe,” he says.
I leave them there. Autumn is up in the pulpit when I exit the vestibule. Rae opens the door to the confessional and wrinkles her nose.
Otto is sitting out on the steps by the door. I opt to join him, pausing at the threshold to study the sleepy landscape.
Sleeping. Is that what it feels like? The town lies at our feet, and when I turn my head, I see a forest curving around on the left. Fields roll out in the direction we’ve come from, as silent and still as the rest of it.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Otto mutters.
I hum in agreement. It doesn’t matter if he means the town, the locked door in the church, or the graves… All of it is strange.
“I wasn’t supposed to be on this job.”
“You weren’t?”
Otto shakes his head. “I had another one lined up. They switched me last minute. You know, I don’t think anyone’s been this far north before. The further away we are…”
The more likely things are to go wrong. “Hm.”
“The line we’ve been clearing is forty miles away. So many places between here and there. Why here?”
I glance back. It’s difficult to see much in the church from here now that the sun has ducked behind clouds again. Autumn is wandering near the altar. Rae is a few steps behind her.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Do you think Dane might?”
Otto shrugs. He knows what I do—if there’s any hidden agenda behind this job, any instructions to be delivered, Dane will know them. As far as the Citadel is concerned, he’s in charge.
