Page 87 of Darkness I Become
Yet somehow, he knew, with absolute certainty, that she’d left him. Before he could object, before he could sway her with all the things he’d just been thinking of doing. She didn’t want his apology; she knew how easily those could be taken back, or nullified with more ugly abuse.
Cade looked for her, of course. He grilled the guards at the gate over what they’d seen of her.
“She just left,” one of the men said with a shrug that infuriated him. “Said she’d be back.”
“When?” he asked shortly, though he knew the answer.
“She didn’t say,” the guard replied, running a hand through his greasy brown hair. “She said you’d sent her on a mission.”
Cade ground his teeth. “I’d never send her alone.”
The guard shrugged again. “If I’d known, boss, I woulda stopped her.”
Cade tried to act rationally. He organized a search party. He tore apart the Nest looking for her, and then the wider Guardian territory in the city. No one reported seeing her besides the guard, which meant only one thing.
She’d retreated into the wilderness, and she could be anywhere by now.
As the sun rose on the horizon, Cade had to admit defeat. He was exhausted, and there was still no sign of Asha. His heart ached with the thought that she might be lost, afraid, or hungry. Or that she might die out there, all alone, and he’d never told her all the things he should have.
Eventually, Leo ordered him to get some sleep, but it was only after Dom promised to keep searching that he returned home.
Cade sat on his bed, lowered his face into his hands, and wept like he hadn’t since he’d found his mother dead. He took short, stuttering breaths in staccato, shaking like a leaf, and remembered the way he’d relayed his mother’s words to Asha:tears are a pressure valve, a way to expel pain when it’s too much.
These released nothing, however. They only reminded him of how much he’d lost in the last three years, and of the precious little he had left. When he finished, he got up to wash his face at the basin, and as the cool water soothed his salty skin, he made a decision.
There were eyes and ears in all the Settlements. He would bide his time, stall the Order for as long as possible, and use all his new resources as leader to find her. However long it took. He expected that she’d have to stop at one of the Settlements at some point; she had little in the way of practical survival skills, and she would need to resupply.
There was still time.
Chapter 28
Autumn 2097
Reunions never went quite the way you predicted, Asha thought, as she watched the back of her once-best friend’s head. It was the middle of the night, and the woods were pitch black, but the moon was full, lending a silvery glow to the brush. Claire walked ahead of her, her vibrant red hair flowing down her back, and glanced back at Asha every so often, as though she couldn’t believe she was real.
Asha couldn’t believe it, either. When she’d reached that little bunker under the school in the Cave, it had been untouched, as she expected. Shelves and shelves of long-life food and survival supplies meant that she could stay for weeks, if not months. She’d had no real plans beyond catching her breath and deciding her next move.
She certainly hadn’t expected, on the third day of her stay, for her dead best friend to burst through the door of the bunker with a strange Wastelander in tow. Herboyfriend,she said. They were there to find a shot of Regenerex for a friend who’d been injured on their travels up north, towards a farm that the Wastelander claimed had electricity and water—a promise that was surely far too good to be true.
Since when do you consider Wastelanders fuckable, Claire?Asha wondered as she watched her friend carefully step over an errant tree root.And since when are you so damn gullible?
Claire had always been terrified of them, probably because she’d been required to teach the Cave’s propaganda about outsiders. Asha had never believed the more outlandish claims—thatWastelanders were more animal than human, or that they all exclusively ate human flesh—because she’d gathered from her government-employed parents that they were exaggerated. Her parents rarely spoke of Wastelanders at all, contrary to the fearmongering that was encouraged in the public at large.
But Claire’s own father had lost his life to Wastelanders. To see her hanging on the arm of a man who totally looked the part of a dangerous outsider was terribly strange.
Despite her misgivings, Asha left the Cave with them, sneaking out a breach in the wall that Claire had found. After all, she had nowhere to go now, and no one else to look after. They offered the most viable escape route.
“If you give us away or do something stupid, I’ll kill you,” the Wastelander said, pinning Asha with a hard look. “Understood?”
Asha spared a glance at Claire, who didn’t even look sympathetic, before glowering at him. He didn’t flinch, and grudgingly, she replied, “Understood.”
From the moment Asha had set eyes on Claire’s newboyfriend,she hadn’t trusted him. He was white, tall and lean, with light brown eyes and dark brown hair that was shaved on the sides in an undercut, with the rest falling to his shoulders. He wore hiking boots, practical long pants, and a leather hunting jacket. A hunting rifle was strapped to his back, and he held a pistol in his hand. His physique was clearly fit and muscular, but it was the kind of body that came from hard labour rather than the gym.John Madigan,he’d introduced himself as, when they’d gotten clear of the compound.
As if this fucker has a last name,Asha snarked. No Wastelander she’d ever met had one; it was one of those things that died with civilization.He looks like he walked right out of a cyberpunk comic, and he has the mouth of a sailor. No fucking way he has anything as civilized as that.
She resolved to refer to him only as Madigan, if only to amuse herself with his lies. She believed none of what he said. After all, she’d met plenty of men like him, who gave women protection in exchange for their bodies. She mentally prepared herself to shoot him when he inevitably turned on Claire and her.
As soon as they’d left the compound, Madigan gave orders—not just to Claire, but to Asha, too. She clenched her jaw,irritated.
