Page 47 of Darkness I Become
It was dark outside before he finally returned at the end of the day. Asha had done nothing all afternoon but stare straight ahead at the wall. She wondered if she’d even had any thoughts in that time.
Cade carried a lantern with a candle inside, and he did a quick washup before undressing and climbing into bed beside her. He blew out the flame and moved closer to her. She instinctively scooted back toward the edge of the bed, away from him.
“Asha,” he murmured, much gentler than hours earlier.
She didn’t reply. A moment later, his hand found hers under the covers.
“You’re clammy,” he said softly, and he held her arm against his chest. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Asha finally answered. “You said it before: it’s how it is. I have to accept that I’m nothing more than property. Chattel.”
He rubbed her hand between his, massaging her fingers, which had been clenched tightly into a fist. He knew there was no point in denying her statement, even though his silence told her that he didn’t agree.
“I know you’re angry,” he sighed eventually. “You’re right to be. It’s just me and the dark again, darling.”
The sincerity in his voice told her that he wanted to hear it, and the darkness provided the cover she needed to whisper her ugly truth: that she wanted every man at that slave market dead, and that nothing but the blood of all those like them would sate her thirst for vengeance.
Chapter 15
Aday later, with the rents collected from Hillside, they departed for Silver Creek, the second settlement on their journey. They followed another derelict highway back into the woods, and Asha hoped the trip would be a little less taxing than the first one.
The forest was quiet, and they walked in silence for a long time. Eventually, the flat terrain transformed into a rockier, more treacherous region, and the brush thickened around the old, overgrown highway. Trees had grown right up to the road, effectively encasing it in wilderness. Soon, even this highway—this small, battered sign of what the world used to be—would crumble into dust, reclaimed by time and nature.
Asha was a little unnerved by the wildness of their surroundings, but the others seemed untroubled; they’d been this way before.
“How long until we reach Silver Creek?” she asked Cade.
He looked at Raph, who replied, “At least a few hours.”
She suppressed a groan of impatience. Her feet were hurting more than usual.
“You throwing in the towel, darling?” Cade asked with a small smile. “I thought you were made of tougher stuff than that.”
She bristled, pulling herself up to her full height. “I’m just fine, for your information. I was asking for…” Her eyes scanned the group and landed on the youngest recruit’s face, who looked a bit peaky. “…Davy’s sake. He looks like shit.”
Several of the men laughed, including Cade, and Davy flipped her off with a grin on his face. They started taunting him about tapping out before the onlygirlin the group, and Asha rolled her eyes.
“Children,” she said to Cade, who continued to look amused.
They came to a section of woods where the path forward was surrounded by hills, and that was when Cade gave the order to stop.
“Good spot for an ambush,” he said to the troops, but he was looking at Asha with wariness. “Let’s go slow and tread carefully now, guys.”
There was murmured agreement through the group, and they did their best to step lightly as they crossed the passage. Asha sucked in a breath, letting Cade get ahead of her as she watched the ground with every step to avoid tripping on rocks and errant tree roots. With the highway so overgrown, leaves covered much of the disintegrating concrete, making it difficult to see obstacles until she was on top of them.
Was it her, or had the woods gone oddly quiet? A few moments before, she’d heard birdsong. Now, there was only the gentle breeze through the trees, and the blowing leaves suddenly seemed ominous rather than peaceful. As she set her foot down on a small pile of leaves that covered the road beside a large tree, she felt a sharp, painful jolt on her ankle.
Asha screamed as the ground fell away underneath her. Rough, vine-like ropes closed in around her, forming a net around her as she hung upside down from a high tree branch. At the same time, she heard Davy’s shout from the other side of the road, and then a cacophony of shrill, animalistic shrieks from the hills.
Her blood ran cold. She recognized the calls. The last time she’d heard them, she’d left her best friend behind.Cannibals.
Three dozen filthy, primitively dressed men descended on them, still shrieking wildly. Some carried crudely formed handheld weapons like spears, clubs, and bats, while others had bows and arrows, which they immediately began firing at the soldiers. Vastly outnumbered and caught by surprise, the Blackguard scattered.
“Asha!” Cade’s frantic voice carried over the din, but he was too far ahead to reach her.
Asha struggled furiously against the ropes as all the blood rushed to her head, but it was futile. She couldn’t reach the snare aroundher ankle, and the netting around her was thick, woven by practiced hands.
Chaos surrounded her. No one was close enough to cut her down, and the cannibals were attempting to box the entire squad into the narrow space between the hills. Arrows rained down from the hills on either side of the road; there were more of them up there. She thought she would go deaf from the explosion of sound: the crack of gunshots as the Blackguard returned fire, Cade shouting orders over the havoc, and the continued shrieks of the cannibals as they attacked.
