Backs Against the Wall (Survival Series) Read online

  Ryan smiles. “It’s part of the beauty.”

  “The greatest part.”

  “I’m sorry about your daughter.” Ryan says, obviously gleaning more from this conversation than I am. What daughter?

  “Don’t be sorry for me. Just do a better job protecting her than I did.”

  “I swear it.”

  “Good lad.”

  “What the hell?” I mutter, looking back and forth between them.

  They wouldn’t hear me with Ouija board.

  Crenshaw rises from the table slowly. It’s as though his outburst has drained him of everything he had. He’s hunched slightly, his movements labored. I have to remind myself that as spry, lively and crazy as he seems, he is an old man. He’s got a lot of life under his belt and it’s not just bones that get tired.

  He goes to a wooden box about the size of a toolbox sitting at the foot of his bed. After digging around silently, he pulls out a large piece of worn, white paper. I’m waiting anxiously to see what this is. It could be anything. A spell book. A nude drawing of Tom Hanks. A cheat sheet to the 2009 SATs. Or something far more disturbing like a nude drawing of himself or a detailed chart monitoring his bowel movements. One never knows.

  What he actually does lay out on the table both startles and amazes me.

  It’s a map of Neverland. A hand-drawn, near perfection, detailed map of the Seattle area. Not as it was, because who cares? This is a map of what the city is today. Instead of zip codes, the city is broken up by gang territories. The stadiums are labeled as what they really are – Colonies. I eagerly search the outer edges to the south, looking to see if Cren knows exactly where the third Colony lies, but there’s nothing. Just a drawing of the shoreline with a topless mermaid out in the water, waving at me.

  “Whoa,” Ryan breathes, stowing his spike hand under the table and leaning forward over the map.

  Crenshaw smiles at him happily, his mood shifting dramatically. He’s proud and pleased to see Ryan so into his work. Excitement is written all over both of their faces.

  “It is incomplete,” Crenshaw warns. He spreads it flat with gentle, soothing hands. “I shouldn’t be showing it to you, Helios. Other gangs, other tribes, would be angry to know I’d shown you where their hideouts lie. But I have faith in you. I trust in your trueness.”

  “Thank you, Master Crenshaw,” Ryan says with a small smile. He looks so happy. Flattered by the old guy’s admiration and I realize I’m not the only one who grew up without a dad. Who feels that missing piece of me.

  “I believe I have the names of each of the tribes correct, but of course I’m unsure as to what the true names of the Colonies are.”

  “C-92,” I deadpan, pulling my eyes away from Ryan’s smile. I wipe my sweating palms on my pants before pointing to the football stadium. Next I point to the baseball stadium right next door. “G-11. The one in the southeast is somewhere along the water but I don’t know where. The people I talked to didn’t either. It’s G-35.”

  They stare at me in shock. I don’t know if they’re surprised I remembered the names or that I know them at all. I have a brief, paranoid and horrifying thought that they’ll think I’m a spy. That I didn’t ‘escape’ the Colony at all but that I was released to… what? Be socially awkward with a hot guy and help an old lunatic finish his map quest?

  “Where were you held?” Ryan asks.

  He’s looking at me, I can feel it. I keep my eyes trained on the table.

  “The MOHAI,” I reply curtly.

  “The what?”

  I point to the spot on Cren’s map. The small area tucked in the harbor that felt a million miles away from here but now looks so close. Too close. And too small to house so many people. Too small to house a person like Vin.

  “It was here. In the old museum building. I can’t remember what MOHAI stands for, but it was Colony A-36.”

  Crenshaw quickly whips out a charcoal pencil from his box of goodies and begins filling in the information I’ve given him.

  “Why did they name them like that?” Ryan asks, watching Crenshaw’s simple, slanting handwriting scrawl over the pages. I expected something more somehow. Old English flourishes or Latin. Maybe Aramaic. These chicken scratches annoy me. “It seems so cold compared to what they’re always spouting on the billboards or over their intercoms.”

  “Everything about them is a lie,” Crenshaw mutters.

  “It’s to confuse people.” I point vaguely to the MOHAI. “The people in the building where I was held are pulled from all of the other Colonies. It’s what I told you about breaking up families. Every one of those people has someone in another Colony somewhere. Someone they care about. They all have something to lose.”

  Ryan nods. “Makes sense. It’s a good way to control people. But why did these people get pulled away from their families to go here? Is it a new Colony? I’ve never heard of one up that way.”

  “It can’t be new. It’s too well developed. And a girl I talked to said it had been occupied before but there was a problem in the building. They abandoned it for a while.”

  “Who was this girl?”

  I shrug, sitting back with my arms crossed over my chest. “Just some chick angry at being there.”

  “Another friend?” Ryan asks, grinning.

  I shake my head. “I punched her in the face.”

  “Typical.”

  “And the ear. I almost knelt on her throat. Nearly smothered her with a pillow.”

  “Now do you see why I have a hard time believing you made friends in there?”

  “This young woman,” Crenshaw says suddenly, frowning at his map, “did she know if there were others? Other Colonies?”

  “No, just the ones you have marked now.”

  He looks up at me, his face drawn. He’s disappointed. “It is a shame you could not gain us more valuable information while you were there.”

  “It is. It’s a shame I didn’t do more sleuthing while I was there,” I say, my temper rising. “I should have gone all Sherlock up in that joint, but I was too busy trying not to lose my mind from all of the bright lights and bodies everywhere. Next time, I promise, I’ll do better.”

  Ryan isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s watching Crenshaw carefully, probably worried I’ll upset him with my sarcasm. Part of me is worried too, but a bigger part is annoyed. Tired. Angry.

  “What is this?” I demand, changing the subject.

  I point to a dark area of the map, shaded in shadows with jagged strokes. It’s in the south, just a few blocks from the two stadium Colonies sitting side by side.

  “Hmmm,” Crenshaw moans quietly. “That is a portal into Hell.”

  “Right.”

  “The space between here,” he points to a narrow corridor running between the dark area and the Colonies, “is the Valley of the Shadow of Death. One must never, never pass through it.”

  “Of course not.”

  “But none of this is important, not right now. What I want to show you is this.”

  Crenshaw turns the map toward us. He points decisively to a small area at the very bottom. It’s just the peak of a piece of land, nothing descript or defining about it at all. But written carefully over the top of it is the word Elysium.

  “And what is that?”

  Crenshaw smiles at me, his eyes wild. “Heaven.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say faintly, squinting at the map. “I can see it now.”

  “How is it Heaven, sir?” Ryan asks.

  His foot nudges mine gently under the table. I don’t know if it’s on purpose, if it’s a warning or an accident. Either way I don’t like it and I move my feet away from him.

  “It is an island in the south. It is completely and utterly wraith free.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “My boy, in Heaven nothing is impossible. This is where you will go to look for help.”

  “To where?” I ask feeling frustrated. “What is this? Who’s there? I’ve never heard of anywhere being Risen
free, nowhere real. It’s all myth.”

  “It is a place like no other. One must only believe, to have faith in—“

  “Crenshaw, what is it?” I snap, exasperated.

  My patience for this conversation has died. I care about this guy, I really do, but I’m already pushed to my limits with everything else going on and now talking about the Colonies, being scolded for not getting better intel while I was in prison… I’m spent. I’m riddled with guilt and this ring pinching at my finger, growing tighter every single day, is dragging me down to the ground. I need answers. Real ones, not fairytales that will send me on adventures or journeys to strange mystical lands where I’m meant to ask for help from the fairies or the centaurs. If this is all the help he has, some slice of land in the south where he thinks he saw an angel once, then I have to get real and go to The Hive.

  He looks at me in surprise, his eyes narrowing. “It is rude to interrupt, child. I thought you better than this.”

  “Well, I’m not. This has been fun, but I need the real Crenshaw for a minute. Is he in there or am I wasting my time? Cause if he’s not in, that’s fine. I’ll go get my help elsewhere.”

  He sits back in his seat, appraising me. “You mean the others.”

  “I mean The Hive.”

  “Joss,” Ryan says quietly. His tone tells me that, yes, the foot nudge was a warning.

  I ignore it and him.

  “What’s it going to be, Cren?”

  There’s a long tense silence in the small room. The smell of the onions is starting to give me a headache, the low light messing with my eyes and making them burn. As he continues to stare at me, something in his face changes. He’s angry at me but there’s something else too. Something I’m not equipped to read or understand.

  “It is an island,” Crenshaw finally says softly, “filled with people. Survivalists like myself. They cleared it of the wraiths, built homes, made it sustainable. They are very reclusive. Very exclusive. Many in my generation know of them but they are heavily guarded and not to be trifled with. You may join by invitation only and they stopped sending out invitations a long time ago.”

  “You had one, didn’t you?” Ryan asks him gently.

  Crenshaw nods sadly. “I did. I still do. I helped them years ago to set up their gardens for the apothecary. In exchange, I was given an open invitation to join them at any time.”

  “Why haven’t you?” I ask.

  He ignores me. He sits in silence staring down at the map. At the small point lovingly labeled Elysium.

  “Why didn’t you go?” Ryan finally asks.

  “Because I would not leave her behind,” he whispers.

  His daughter. Even I can follow this part of the conversation.

  “Will they help us to take down the Colony? To overthrow A-36?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer me directly. He doesn’t look at me. “They despise the Colonies. They were once one of them. The original. Not on the island, but farther south in the deserts of another land. Of another time. A time when the war was waged with true armies and still we lost. Now our hope lies in you, in the two of you and… I am sorry. I have drifted off topic and you need answers. You need them now.”

  “Come on, Cren,” I say, trying not to sound as annoyed as I feel. Or as guilty.

  “If anyone will help you, it will be them.”

  “Do they have a name?” Ryan asks.

  Crenshaw nods. “The Vashon. They took that name when they broke from the zealots. When innocent blood was shed and they would stand for it no longer, which is why they are your greatest hope. I learned my hatred of the zealots from them and trust me, it runs deep. If you go to the others they will betray you. They will steal from you, enslave you, murder you, but the very last thing they will ever do is help you. I hope you understand that.” He stands abruptly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve grown weary. I would be alone, thank you.”

  “Of course,” Ryan agrees, standing quickly.

  He puts his hand lightly on my back to usher me forward. I start to turn to snap at him but his touch turns impatient. I’m shoved out the door past Crenshaw before I can say a word. Ryan stays inside for a brief moment. Then he bows, accepts a light hand laid on the back of his head and that’s it. Thus concludes the crazy portion of our day.

  I turn silently to leave with Ryan, but when I look back at the small dark hut set deep in the woods, I feel sick in my stomach. Sad. We got information. We have a lead on a path to take around The Hive.

  But I know I might have burned a bridge getting it.

  Chapter Eight

  Ryan and I walk in silence back to my loft. We have to deal with Risen along the way, but we take them down easily and without a word. We’re surrounded at one point, something that should have scared me, should have sent my blood running cold through my veins and my heart hammering in my chest until it couldn’t take it anymore and stopped. My breath should have died in my throat, a strangled moan escaping to be drowned out in the roar of moaning surrounding me. It should have happened because it’s happened before.

  But I was alone before.

  This time Ryan and I immediately went back to back, my shorter body pressed up against his tall, broad one, and we faced off with the closing crowd. My missing arm is annoying but manageable. The pain is getting better meaning I’m getting better. Stronger. I’m healing and coming back from this thing that happened to me that left me broken. And, yes, I am well aware that it’s only my bone that’s healing. Whatever else was damaged is still fractured and jagged, cutting into everything and everyone around me.

  When we get to my building, the second I step into the entryway, Ryan turns abruptly and begins to walk away. I stand amazed for a second, my jaw literally hanging slack as I watch him go.

  “Where are you going?” I call after him.

  He stops but he doesn’t turn. “You’re home. Now I’m going home.”

  “That’s it? You’re just going to leave without saying goodbye? Without say anything.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He turns to look at me, his brow pulled tight in anger and amazement. “Are you serious? I’m pissed off, Joss.”

  “At me?”

  “Oh my—“ He throws his head back as he rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Unbelievable.”

  “I know why you’re mad,” I say bitingly, getting annoyed that he’s acting like this. I already feel guilty about so many things, I don’t need this too. I don’t need another lecture from another person telling me I’m doing it all wrong.

  He drops his hands to stare at me. “Why? Why am I mad?”

  “You think I don’t know. That is so condescending! I’m not a child. I’m not an idiot.”

  “I think you don’t understand. I hope you don’t understand, because if you do then what you did back there was cruel and I really don’t want to find out you’re cruel. A lot of things I can overlook, but I will not deal with that.”

  “No one is asking you to deal with anything,” I growl, taking several quick steps toward him. “No one asked you to ‘overlook’ anything. If there are things about me that you don’t like, Ryan, then get the hell away from me. Leave me alone. You’ve been stalking me since the start. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you or for them,” I spit out, gesturing to the north, toward the Colony, “and I definitely didn’t ask to be anyone’s hero. So go ahead and go. Walk away and let me forget about you and the Colony and Crenshaw and Vin. It’s all a mess anyway. I’ll be better off without it.”

  Ryan closes the distance between us. He stops a single step away from me, staring down at me with his golden glowing eyes that make me want to cry. It’s so humiliating. The tears are everywhere lately and if I’m not very careful, I could drown in them. I’ll be like Alice from the Wonderland stories swimming in her own tears that refuse to stop because she’s too scared and lost and alone.

  “You can’t do that. That’s not how it works,” Ryan tells me q
uietly, his anger seemingly gone. Poof, like magic. Like a burst balloon. “People aren’t all or nothing. Friendships don’t live and die on a single argument. You don’t love everything about a person and you don’t hate everything about them either. There are going to be things about you that I don’t like, Joss, but not all of them will send me running. There are going to be things about me that you don’t like—“

  “So many,” I mumble.

  He grins faintly. “But you can’t quit on me. Not until you find something you can’t forgive. Cruelty I can’t forgive. What about you?”

  I swallow hard, shaking my head. I don’t know what a deal breaker for me is. I’ve never had to think about it. All I know is that the only thing I will not abide from him is dying. But I can’t say that because he won’t promise me that it won’t happen and I’ll hate him for it. So instead, I make an effort at mending fences in the hope that someday soon I’ll get good at it. And once I’m good at those, hopefully I’ll feel strong enough to rebuild bridges.

  “I wasn’t being cruel,” I tell him firmly. “At least I wasn’t trying to be. I was impatient. I have this thing weighing on my chest, sitting like a sack of rocks on top of me and I can’t shake it. Not until I get this done and it’s already been weeks. I don’t have time to sit around talking nonsense with him all day. They don’t have time for that.”

  “Okay, that’s fair. But remember, not all of his nonsense is nonsense.”

  “Ugh,” I groan, dropping my head back. “I don’t have time for riddles either.”

  “It’s not a riddle. Look, you’re smart. You’ll figure it out. Why don’t you go inside now? We’ve been out here awhile and we haven’t been quiet. That’s gotta be bugging you.”

  “Not as much as it should be,” I mutter, looking up and down the street. It’s empty. For now. “Are you still going home?”

  He hesitates, watching me. “I probably should.”

  I grin. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda. What are you actually going to do?”

  He kisses me. It’s light and lingering. Surprising. His lips are the only part of him touching me and they’re barely doing that. I feel exposed, open to the cold air while his heat is hovering nearby. It’s amazing, breathless and free, like I want to be kissed like this by him for the rest of my life. I know he’s done it on purpose. That he’s keeping his distant, giving me space. That he’s adapting to my own crazy, setting his watch to my cuckoo clock and it’s incredible how that makes me feel. How it changes the kiss into more than skin against skin. It makes it a promise. An understanding. It doesn’t feel closed in, doesn’t feel confining. It feels light as air, heavy as sunshine.