Page 35 of The Pale Rider
He didn’t need to paint me a picture. I couldn’t imagine what could be worse than this. If Isaiah was planning something, based on what I could remember of him, I knew he could accomplish it.
I didn’t know how Aeron intended to accomplish this with just the four of them. I just knew my father used my blood to create this mutation, and Leif might be able to use it to end this.
I was now totally on board with killing the President of the United States.
Chapter 22
I
didn’t even get the chance to process the fact that something in my blood managed to animate corpses and turn them into cannibals. Someone knocked on the door. I didn’t care who it was. I wanted Aeron to ignore it and continue this conversation. Like he would ever do that. If there was a way of getting out of explaining things to me, he would take it.
He jumped to his feet and nearly lost his towel.
“That’s probably dinner. I know you want to keep talking, but we should take hot meals where we can get them. It’s better than the mystery cans we’ve been eating, and we won’t have to make any supply runs while we are in California. We can talk and eat. I promise.”
Aeron was a lot of things, but he’d always kept his word when he made promises. I fell back on the pillow and waited for dinner. I ended up bolting back up when I heard the man in the room.
“Jade wants to see your friend when you pass through Sacramento. She has a request.”
“Excuse me?”
“She saw your work at a convention. She says you won the top prize. She wants a tattoo.”
“Does she know I don’t remember how to give one?”
“She’s aware. She says it’s all muscle memory, and it will come back to you. She expects you both in Sacramento. She has the equipment. You just need to draw the art and tattoo her skin. I have your dinner. I hope it’s to your liking.”
I would have taken hot anything over the cold canned shit we had been eating, but what the fuck? I was supposed to tattoo the gang leader of California with no memories? I already knew if I fucked this up, we were both going to get banished from California. I was all on board with killing Isaiah and helping Aeron and his friends fix this, but I still wanted to come back and live here when this was over.
Based on how my life was going since I woke up from that coma, I would give a gang leader a shitty tattoo and get banished from California. Who wanted me to tattoo them in the middle of all this shit?
“It’s fine. Tell her Speedy will be happy to do it,” the traitorous bastard in a towel said.
Did he want to get us banned from California? Because that’s how you get yourself banned from California. The man with our food disappeared, and as much as my empty stomach was growling, I had to ask Aeron what the fuck he was thinking.
“Aeron, I don’t remember how to tattoo anyone! I’m not even sure I can draw a straight line.”
“Jade doesn’t take no for an answer, Speedy. Art is in your blood. You could draw with a blindfold on. In fact, I think if we could find a pencil and paper and just have you draw with your eyes closed, you might draw a memory. Jade saw your work, and now she wants it permanently on her body. Doesn’t that make you feel good a little? We will be banished if you don’t do this.”
“She will murder us if I permanently fuck up her body, Aeron.”
“You won’t, Ariel. I have this feeling it’ll all work out. Don’t you want to eat? I can hear your stomach from here.”
Yeah, I was hungry, but could I have five minutes to lose my shit? I thought I was handling the end of the world pretty well so far, but that was because Aeron had this big plan, so I was following his lead. I had a healthy respect for the fact that I’d been in a coma since this started and had no idea what the fuck was going on. I was happy to let Aeron make all the decisions because so far, it had kept me alive.
What the fuck had my life been like before that someone I’d never met before knew who I was, knew I didn’t remember shit, and wanted me to ink their skin permanently? Shit, was I famous before?
Aeron handed me a Tupperware container of food. It was still warm.
“A few things about California now. You can get takeout, but it’s served in reusable containers, and they expect you to return them. It’s not like anyone is getting paper or Styrofoam containers anymore. Almost all the food is vegetarian. You can still get eggs, but they are focusing on breeding farm animals for now. They only kill them for meat when they are too old to breed.
“A lot of farms got destroyed by bombs, so building up livestock with the animals that survived has been an ongoing process. When they do slaughter an animal, they use every part. People have learned to eat things like brains and tongues because sometimes, it’s the only meat they can get.”
I looked down at the Tupperware container in my hands.
“Is there mystery meat in here?”
“No, Speedy. People that could cook came together and started opening places to eat. They work with the farms, and they get provided grain, vegetables, and milk. You’d be amazed what they’d been able to do.”
