Backs Against the Wall (Survival Series) Read online

  So I look. You know, to prove I’m hard.

  I immediately turn my head and vomit.

  “Told you not to look,” Trent chides.

  He takes this opportunity to slip the shirt around my injured arm, spiking the pain I’m already feeling from unbearable to black-out-off-the-charts. I’d vomit again if I had anything left. He steps behind me, something I abhor, and ties the sleeves of the shirt firmly around my neck.

  “There,” he says gently. “It’ll feel a little better soon.”

  I run the back of my sleeve over my mouth, removing the clinging bile.

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  “We need to move. People are coming,” he says abruptly. I feel his hand on the small of my back urging me forward. Like his words a moment ago, it’s surprisingly gentle.

  “How do you know that?” I whisper.

  “I can hear them. They’re on the fire escapes,” he whispers back.

  I can’t hear anything, but I trust that Trent absolutely does so I move beside him as quickly as I can.

  “In here,” he whispers as he ushers me into a doorway. It’s deeply recessed, a lot like mine at home, and it reminds me of the night I watched Ryan from it. The night I made the decision that changed everything.

  “Won’t they see—“

  His hand clamps over my mouth as he pushes me farther into the shadows in front of him, his back to the street. It’s then I notice he’s dressed almost entirely in dark gray and black. He uses his free hand to pull the hood of his sweatshirt up over his blond hair and suddenly he’s completely indistinct. He’s way taller than I am, but still I cower down so my head is hidden behind his body. Seeing that I understand, he releases my mouth.

  It’s not long before I hear the fearless trample of footsteps. It’s the kind of walk only the gangs can have. The security in there terrain, their numbers, their unashamed existence. The Lost Boys can all afford to be loud. It’s almost like a badge they wear stating they’re unafraid. Why should they be?

  Trent and I listen to them cruise down the street. I hear at least three different voices but there are more than that. These three are just the loudest.

  “How much longer until the next market?” one calls out. “I need my fix.”

  “You’ll go broke dealing with that mess.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Eight days, dumbass,” someone else says. “Learn to count.”

  “I’ll learn to count when you learn to read, genius.”

  “I can read just fine.”

  “Yeah, right! You can’t even spell your own name.”

  “Maybe not but I do know sign language. What does this say?”

  I hear laughter disappearing down the street, then the faint cry of, “Screw you too!”

  Trent doesn’t move a single muscle. He stays perfectly still, his face hovering over me with unfixed eyes. He’s listening, probably hearing things I can’t make out anymore. I don’t dare speak a word because I know how to survive. You have to be patient, you have to be smart and most of all, you have to be quiet.

  “We’re clear,” he finally says, his deep voice reverberating in the confined space.

  When he steps away, I instantly feel cold. I hadn’t realized how freezing I was until the pain in my arm began to fade a little. Now that I have a chance to focus on it and I got a taste of what warm could be huddled next to Trent’s body heat, I’m very aware of it.

  “You don’t have an extra coat in there, do you?” I ask reluctantly, gesturing toward his backpack.

  He frowns. “No. I can give you mine.”

  “No,” I tell him quickly. “No thanks. You need it for the camo, shadow thing you do. I’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll move faster. It’ll warm you up.”

  I nod as I fall into quick step beside him. He doesn’t speak at all. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s busy listening or because he doesn’t like to make with the small talk. Either way, I like it. I’ve lived alone a long time and I don’t especially care for chit chat either. It’s a little intense, this complete silence from him, but the longer we walk together the more I feel myself relax. We’re not exactly best friends yet, but considering he hasn’t killed, molested or sold me, I think we’ve got a shot at not being mortal enemies. I’m counting that as a win.

  Chapter Two

  It’s a mile but it feels like a hundred. It takes less than an hour but it feels like years. By the time Trent slows us down to circle around his gang’s building, I’m panting and sweating from pain, exhaustion, exertion – you name it. If he would stand guard over me while I lay down on the sidewalk and took a nap, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But something about his no-nonsense attitude toward everything makes me think that isn’t happening.

  We encountered a few Risen along the way. I got to sit uselessly idle, tucked safely away against a building with my back to the wall, watching as he worked his magic. Trent is quick and efficient. He doesn’t strike a blow that doesn’t serve a purpose. Every use of his energy is a gain for him, every assault is dealt with a higher purpose. I’m good, don’t misunderstand me, but sometimes I get frantic and start whacking away at things, beating them to a pulp until they can’t come at me anymore. It’s exhausting and as I watch Trent, I realize it’s wasteful. And emotional. That dirty word that won’t leave me alone. Or maybe it’s been with me longer than I think, I’m only just noticing it now.

  “We’re going to go in a side entrance,” Trent tells me, his eyes fixed on mine. I am powerless to ignore him and that stare. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t ask any questions. Don’t leave my side. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Wait.”

  His jaw clenches for a split second. “What?”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Inside the den,” he says slowly.

  “No, I get that. I’m asking where you’re taking me once we’re inside. You’re obviously hiding me, but I want to know where.”

  “Ryan’s room.”

  “Does Ryan have a roommate I should worry about?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “You wanna take a second and spell that out for me?” I ask, feeling annoyed.

  “Yes, Ryan has a roommate. No, you don’t have to worry about him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s me.”

  I take a deep, calming breath. “Wouldn’t it have taken less time to simply tell me that instead of making me play 20 Questions with you?”

  “It would have taken less time to not answer you at all. We could inside by now. Anything else you want to ask?”

  “So many things, but they can wait. For forever probably. Let’s go.”

  He leads me across a small side street into an alley. It’s filled with debris both from buildings and life in general. I see soiled mattresses, ripped clothing, fractured plastic pallets, a large satellite dish that I’m guessing came from the roof and just piles on piles of who knows what. Trent jumps on top of a large section of the garbage, a section that I believe to be a true industrial sized garbage bin, but it’s so buried and rusted I can’t be sure. He makes the leap then lands silently, like a cat. A tall, creepy, cryptic cat. His eyes scan the alley, then the roof, then the wall of the neighboring building, me, some garbage and then a window with a sill sitting at nearly eye level for him. He’s processing all of this on some next level that I’ll never understand, mapping it out in his mind and cataloguing it for future use. Or for fun. Maybe attention to detail is how he gets his jollies.

  He makes an abrupt motion with his hand, calling me toward him. I have to bite my lip against a cry of agony when he helps me up onto the garbage pile. My left arm is jostled around roughly, and while I tried so hard to leave it slack and never to use it, I still instinctively flex it several times. Liquid lava pumps in my veins as Trent peers through the window. He eventually pries it open, then gestures for me again. He hoists me up onto the sill like I weigh n
othing at all and carefully pushes me inside. There’s a table on the other side that I slip down onto, no problem.

  I look around, taking in my surroundings. The first thing I notice is the smell. Living in the apocalypse you learn to deal with rancid smells. Rotted everything is everywhere, the most popular of which is rotted wood and textiles. Carpets, couches, rugs, clothes. They get so full of mildew that almost all of the buildings smell of it. But not here. Here the first thing I smell is burning. It’s a clean, campfire kind of smell. Strong, dry wood snap crackling with warm orange flames. It’s probably what’s heating this place. A furnace or fireplace lit somewhere feeding in warm, dry air that chases the moisture away. It’s a luxury I’ve never had living alone. My fires are always dire circumstances, life or death types. Always secret, always scary. And while the Colonists had power and warmth, it wasn’t like this. It was sterile and electric. This is sort of… homey. It reminds me Crenshaw.

  I kind of hate it.

  Trent leaps silently into the space beside me, his eyes immediately roaming the empty hall we’ve entered. After several beats, he takes my uninjured hand and begins to pull me forward. I jerk my hand away, my heart racing. My skin burning.

  He looks back, his face concerned.

  I shake my head dismissively, feeling like a psycho, then gesture for him to go ahead.

  Bless his cyborg’s heart, he lets it go and gets a move on. He doesn’t ask why I can’t stand to be touched. Why I’m weird. He leads me down a narrow hallway past a series of closed doors. Finally, toward the end of the hall, he opens one and ushers me quickly inside.

  The room is small but warm with two beds, one small desk and a window that has been all but boarded shut. The beds are nothing but old, bare mattresses with blankets tossed over them. I notice that the floor is covered in clothes. I glance at Trent in surprise, shocked to see that Mr. Methodical is a pig at heart, but whatever insult or question I had for him dies on my lips. The wall beside one of the beds has been hollowed out, the drywall stripped down, the insulation yanked out. In its place is shelf after shelf secured between the wood. On those shelves are more books than I can ever remember seeing in one place. I’m sure I went to the library at some point as a child, but I honestly can’t remember and right now, I really do not care. Even if those libraries of the old days had housed a million books, they couldn’t compare to this. To one wall full of treasures saved and preserved in a world where everything and everyone wastes away to ash and dust.

  “They’re Ryan’s,” Trent tells me, seeing my stare. “He’s a bit of a collector.”

  “Little bit,” I mutter in agreement.

  “That’s his bed on that side if you want to lie down and rest. He won’t be back for another few hours. You may as well get some sleep.”

  I feel myself blush at the idea of laying in his bed. Honestly, I think I’d be more comfortable laying in Trent’s. There’s something less… I don’t know. Meaningful about it, I guess. Sleeping in Ryan’s bed? I almost feel like I’d enjoy it too much.

  “I don’t want to bleed on his bed,” I say lamely, gesturing to my jacked up arm.

  Trent quirks an eyebrow at me, not buying it. “You’re giving his bed more credit for cleanliness than it deserves.”

  “That doesn’t really entice me to jump right in.”

  Trent shrugs before taking a seat on his own bed. “Stand then. It’s your call.”

  I’m too tired to stand. I’m too beat down, exhausted and aching tired to be proud or embarrassed either. I carefully step through the room, mindful of the piles of clothes on the floor, trying to avoid them and but failing. Then I carelessly collapse on his bed. The sigh that escapes my lips is pure joy leaking from my soul. I slept on a bed in the Colony. It was weird and awesome, but I also resented it. I saw it as a sign of the world being forced on me, of the lie they were all living. But this is different. This mattress is far less comfortable, far more worn and it smells of dude. It has the faint scent of a very familiar soap made by the wizard of the woods and the musky smell of good old fashioned stink. It’s earth and sweat. Grass and warm skin.

  This I kind of love.

  I lay on my right side with my back to Trent (a massive show of trust or a case of too tired to care on my part), my face close to the books in the wall. It’s a crazy collection, one I think he built based on availability and not personal preference. I don’t recognize any of them. Not until I see the tattered, faded spine tucked in close behind the jagged edge of the crumbling drywall. This one I know immediately.

  The BFG.

  I want to touch it. I want to pull it out and run through the pages, to get the scent of book in my nose and the feel of the paper beneath my fingers. To read the words and hear my mother’s voice in my warm, darkened room at night as I lay bundled up trying not to fall asleep. But I don’t because it’s dumb. It’s a mistake. It’s crying waiting to happen and I’ve shed enough tears in the last twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime. I’m all tapped out on sad today.

  So instead, I close my eyes and I fall asleep.

  ***

  “He’s coming.”

  I jerk awake, my arm screaming in pain. I don’t know when I fell asleep or how long I was out, but Trent’s deep, quiet voice snaps me out of it immediately. I sit up in the bed, pressing my back to the wall so I’m facing the door. Outside it I can hear footsteps and a loud, laughing conversation. It’s Ryan. The other voice may be Bray, but I only heard it once before. It’s too long ago and too muffled now to tell for sure. Trent sits at the edge of his bed facing the door. Waiting. It takes me only a moment to notice the knife ready in his patient hand.

  “What are y—“

  “Shhhh,” Trent shushes me quietly, his eyes steady on mine and his finger pressed to his lips.

  With his creepy, all seeing eyes the gesture is just about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.

  “I’ll get you next time,” someone says from down the hall.

  “You say that every time,” Ryan replies, his voice laughing, “and every time, who wins?”

  “I will beat you.”

  “Every single time.”

  “Jerk,” the other person grumbles.

  “See you at dinner.”

  “Yeah.”

  The doorknob turns with a creak. I watch Trent’s hand clench on the handle of his knife, the knuckles going white. Every other inch of him looks completely calm. I look around for a weapon of my own. Something to attack Trent with before he can get to Ryan. There’s nothing. Dirty, holy socks and a worn out muscle tee. Worthless. Who doesn’t sleep with a knife by their bed?!

  As the door swings open, I hold my breath, my body going rigid on the bed.

  Ryan steps into the room. His face is flushed like he was just running. His hair is standing at odd angles, wet around the edges from his sweat. He looks a mess. A vibrant, broad, beautiful mess.

  “Hey, Trent, you’re back. Where did you go—“ Ryan’s voice dies out the second he sees me. Then it bursts to life again, far too loud. “What the f--!!! How did--?!?!”

  He cuts himself off both times, biting down on his knuckle and dropping into a crouch in front of the door. He isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s staring at the ground, reining himself in.

  Hurried footsteps run back up the hall, heading toward us.

  “Ry, you okay?” someone asks. They try the doorknob but Ryan quickly throws the lock. He presses his weight harder on the door. “Open the door, man. What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Ryan says, his voice tight. “Trent scared the hell out of me, that’s all. You don’t want to come in. He’s naked.”

  I frown, glancing at Trent. He’s grinning.

  “Why is he naked?”

  “To mess with me. Seriously, it’s fine. I’m good.”

  “Alright,” the voice replies. He sounds relieved to be kept on the other side of the door. “Tell Trent to put his gear away.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ryan stays cro
uched down, his back to me, as the footsteps fade. When they’re gone, when we all hear the click of a door closing down the hall, he stands up slowly. I watch his shoulders rise and fall quickly with a sharp breath, then he turns to face me. His brown eyes lock on mine.

  “How are you here?” he whispers roughly.

  I grin, feeling myself glow inside just seeing him again. “It wasn’t easy. Your buddy here got me most of the way.”

  He looks at Trent, his eyes falling on the knife and ignoring it. I relax a notch. “You saved her from the Colonists?”

  “Just the Risen,” Trent corrects. He lays the knife on the plastic crate serving as a nightstand beside his bed. It makes me more nervous unattended than it did in his hands. “She did the rest herself.”

  “And the Eleven,” I correct him.

  Trent nods slowly in agreement. “But the Colony, that was all you.”

  “You escaped from the Colonists alone?” Ryan asks incredulously.

  I shift in the bed, wincing in pain from my arm. Ryan takes another step closer to me. It’s a small room. Two more and he’ll be sitting on the bed with me. I hope he has the sense not to do that.

  “Did they do that to you?” he asks, gesturing to my arm, his eyes tightening in the corners. “The Colonists, did they hurt you like that?”

  I shake my head. “No, I did this to myself while I was running from them. They gave me pie.”

  “What?”

  “Pumpkin. It was really good.”

  “Then why’d you run?” Trent asks.

  I look at him, not sure if he’s making a joke or not. His face is stone.

  “You are painfully hard to read,” I tell him.

  “Maybe you’re not a strong reader.”

  “Is that an insult?”

  “It is if you take it as one. Perception is—“

  Ryan groans loudly. “Trent, come on. It’s not a great time for a philosophy lecture.”