Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3) Page 7

  Beth Tarbuck held her breath and tried not to flinch as the knife-edge brushed her cheek.

  The slurred voice tickled her ear, uttered inches behind her head. “So fragile. Just one nick of the blade, and it’s gone forever.”

  Beth bit her lip, determined to hold Malverston’s gaze. The mayor’s hot stinking breath washed over her as his face drew to within an inch of hers, inhaling through furry nostrils, smelling her.

  She shivered, and the blade clipped the top of her cheek, a tiny pinprick of fire under her left eye. Something warm trickled down towards her chin.

  He groaned, a heady sensual noise that made her gorge rise. “I think I’ll have you sit on my face tonight, girly,” he whispered.

  “Go suck peaches,” she spat.

  He laughed and drew back, his wicked eyes looking her up and down. Yet underneath his ugly veneer, she was satisfied to see the same frustration she had always seen. The kind of frustration that could only come from a lifetime of gawping at what one can’t have. Every time she had looked at the rotund, old mayor, she saw a shadow of somebody else—a young gawky, snivelling weed, riddled with acne, jealous, supercilious, and mean. She could sense the rejections he had suffered in every hungry pry of his fingers; all the women who had looked down their noses at the eager, leg-humping fat boy and laughed.

  “You like this, don’t you?” he said, biting his lip. “I know you do. You can’t help yourself, like a bitch in heat.”

  In his drunkenness he had grown more volatile with each swing of the bottle. Since she had been tied to the chair, he had got through a whole bottle and a half of hard liquor, and he looked as though he meant to go on. The sheer volume of the great beach ball of a man would soak up a lot of it—any ordinary man would have been stretched out on the ground by now—but everyone had a limit.

  Once he passed that, there would be no room for error. Malverston was turning into a bomb before her eyes, one she knew she couldn’t help but set off. She refused to lay down for him, to become a sheep and submit. Even if it meant he carved her face off and capered about wearing it like a mask, she’d kick and fight to the last breath.

  Beth didn’t move one inch, her face contorted into what she hoped was a disgusted grimace as Malverston’s tongue snaked out and tickled her cheek.

  “I know you always loved that,” Malverston whispered. “Every time you lay in my bed, you pretended you didn’t, but you did. Women are all the same. Pretend you don’t want it, but deep down you’re looking for a reason to spread ’em, especially for big, powerful men.”

  She tittered harshly into his face. “Like you?”

  His expression flashed between surprise and confusion behind his drunken hunger. “I hold every scrap of land between here and Dorset, little girl. There’s no bigger pair in all the land.”

  Ready, Beth licked her lips, glancing down below his belt to the pathetic protuberance stretching into view. “Oh, I’m sorry, mayor. I didn’t know we were talking about raisins.”

  Her stared at her deadpan for a moment, then the half-filled bottle came up from out of view and collided with her temple.

  Beth lurched sideways in the chair and recoiled against her restraints. The world span and for a moment she was certain she would vomit. Then she was panting, and Malverston had turned his back, pacing the room.

  She gritted her teeth, fighting tears welling up behind her eyes, biting down on her lip. She screamed, “Why am I here?”

  “I realised my mistake as soon as I sent you to Cain and his foolish friends. Your place is here.”

  “I’ll never sit by your side, mayor.”

  “Oh, that ship has sailed.” His brow darkened. “Your place is here so you can receive your just desserts. I am the mayor of Newquay’s Moon, and I will not be embarrassed by some rosy-cheeked harlot.”

  Staggering from table to table, Malverston inspected the copious piles of trinkets given as tribute by farmers and homesteads across the Cornwall peninsula. One by one he inspected tarnished pieces of silver, precious stones, inoperable Old World curiosities, casting them aside without a care for which returned to the table or broke on the floor.

  The town hall had vacated in the wake of Malverston’s drunken roaring. Even his personal entourage had stepped outside to give, as the mayor himself had put it, a spot of lover’s passion. The upper floor, in the middle of which her chair had been bolted down, consisted of a single slant-roofed room, the corners piled high with yet more trinkets and tributes. Two cases of liquor lay nearby, next to a metal table that looked disturbingly medical in origin, covered over with a length of tarp.

  She looked at it all afresh and a sliver of fear arose from somewhere inside her. She had been here almost an hour, and not one sound had registered even on the edge of audibility. She had seen nothing of Newquay’s Moon on her less-than-elegant return. Two days ago, she had been at the Alliance homestead, along with Malverston’s goons, exiled for refusing his bed. She had hated going for her departure had been coupled with her home being turned upside down. Melanie, her sister, and her mother, who already had so little and worked so hard to scrape by, had been left with nothing.

  Because of her.

  But being at the homestead had meant being with James. James, who had appeared months ago from the wilds and cast the first twinkling rays of hope into her life. His green eyes, his easy smile, the stupid pigeons that hung around him all the time—she had noticed all of it, the moment he and Alex Cain had arrived to see the mayor for the first time. The look in their eyes had been one she had seldom seen except in her own, whenever she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

  They had no intention of bowing to the cretin. They had a plan.

  The first time she and James kissed had been in the peach groves under the cover of darkness. She had known then that she could never be without him. If she couldn’t escape Malverston’s clutches, she would rather die than lay in his bed, night after night, with his flabby bulk pumping impotently atop her.

  When Malverston had flung her away to the homestead, despite the knowledge that she was leaving her family behind, a secret relief had nestled in her chest. Because she had been going to him, and briefly, she had dared to hope that it might be the end to her suffering. But when she had arrived, the fantasy popped. Malverston’s goons, wheedling their grubby fingers into the Alliance’s classrooms to learn the ways of the Old World, had taken her as their plaything. While her mind’s eye had played film reels of James cutting them all down, one by one, he had left.

  He left her alone with those monsters. She fought them for an entire day while James’s friends watched, their hands tied by dirty politics. Then while she slept, a bag had been thrust over her head. The next time she had seen light, she had been back in the Moon.

  “Why bother sending me all that way just so that you could bring me all the way back?” she said.

  Malverston turned from the table and splayed his arms as though to say, What are you gonna do?

  “I remember what you said. You said I was all used up. What’s the matter, mayor? You realise just how much you need me? That I’m the only one who’s willing to stand your filth, because she had something to lose?”

  He gave her a long look-over, running his tongue along his teeth under his lip. “You are used up,” he muttered. “Tainted. I can see it in you. You always had spice; that was what made it worth putting up with your shit. But now…” He cocked his head to the side, and he pointed the knife at her, waggling it back and forth. “You’ve got that look in your eye.” He waddled closer, placing each foot menacingly before the other. “It’s that kid. That Chadwick.”

  Beth clamped her teeth together, desperate not to let anything show on her face. But she knew he’d seen her momentary shock by the glint that sparked in his eye.

  “I knew it,” he hissed. “That little bastard wheedled his way into my home, ate my food and drank my ale, and he thinks he can take my property from me. Oh, I know their type well, my dear. They t
alk of peace and rebuilding, traipsing around the country like it was theirs for the taking, treating the rest of us like we were helpless simpletons without their guidance.” He spat on the floorboard at her feet. “As though they were something special. Well let me tell you something,”—he stopped before her, hips thrust out at a disgusting angle towards her face as he reached out a liquor-soaked digit to caress a dangling lock of her hair—“you are mine, and you always will be. No little twerp from out east is going to come and steal from George Malverston.”

  Beth glowered up at him. “He’s going to kill you,” she said. “When he does, I’m going to be there, and I’ll be smiling.”

  Malverston grinned, a bare-toothed leer. “I suppose you think he’s going to swoop in here and take you away with him.”

  “He’s coming for you. They’ll all be coming.”

  Her voice almost wobbled for she knew nothing about James’s companions. In fact, what did she really know about him? Not much. She had never been much interested in his great mission. In fact, she hadn’t wanted to know. She had only wanted him.

  Would they come after her? Or would they stand back and watch for the sake of Cain’s precious Alliance? That was why those snotty goons had been there at the homestead anyway: to learn the ways of the Old World, in exchange for whatever it was Cain wanted with the lands around the Moon.

  No. He will come.

  Malverston was laughing. Did he see her doubt?

  “I’m counting on it!” he roared, whirling and striding towards the covered table. He laid a hand on the tarp, caressing it, as though relishing what might lie underneath. “I have a surprise for them,” he added, his voice falling to a feral growl.

  Beth swallowed. “Why can’t you just let us be?”

  “Because a man has a right to protect his property.”

  “No. No, that’s not it.” She willed herself to shut up, sensing he was close to the edge. But she couldn’t stop. That part of her that would never be a slave to him again kept her mouth running on a motor. “I know you, George. I’ve seen what you are.”

  He stilled, his back to her. The knife in his hand arced back and forth thoughtfully.

  Beth relinquished control to that part of herself. She was getting to him, she could feel it. Thrusting a knife into his heart would be all that she would settle for, in the end, but this would do for now.

  “You’re afraid. Of him, of all of them. The Moon would turn on a drop of a hat for them if it meant they could turn you into the gutter, and you know it. You might have a chokehold on this place, but you haven’t got it beaten. Now you’ve sent your goons to the enemy, and what, you’re hoping they’ll stay loyal? You’re a maggot, but you’re not stupid.” She hurled each word at him now, injecting as much venom as she could muster. “You’re just a sad, greedy little man in his fort on the hill. When you’re gone, nobody will miss you, and everyone will piss on your grave on their way to the fields. That’s why you’re doing this now. Because if I had stayed with them, you wouldn’t have anything left at all. Sooner or later, the Moon would tear you apart, or your own men would put a knife in your back.”

  Malverston inched around to face her, the bottle hanging limply by his side. There was fear in his eyes. Childish, volatile fear. Without a word, he took a long swing of the bottle and threw the tarp covering the cart aside.

  Beth almost fainted at the sight of what lay on the table. But she wouldn’t scream, she refused.

  “I’ll show those fools out there what happens when you cross me.” He put his knife down, which now seemed a blunt and primitive piece compared to the wicked glistening things laid out upon the cart. He picked up the first of them and held it up to the light. Liquor dribbled down his chin and dripped on the floor, but he paid it no mind. He only had eyes for the shimmering blade between his fingers. His eyes flitted in their sockets from the surgery-grade edge over to her, and he grinned.

  Beth’s mind grew numb. She could only stare as a single weak thought echoed through her head:

  James…

  2

  “You don’t have to do this, friend. I’m just passing through.” Alex spoke carefully, his hands raised, stepping slowly to one side.

  “Stop moving. One more step and I’ll do you,” snarled the kid in front of him. Ruddy and stout with a face like a bruised piece of fruit and clothes that reeked of meat turned bad, the boy had emerged from a lean-to amidst the rubble like an eel slithering from its hole in some coral.

  Alex scanned his surroundings without moving his head. They were alone so far as he could see. The kid barely looked nourished enough to hold the pigeon gun in his hands steady. But he also looked young enough and mean enough to be the kind who shot first and didn’t bother asking questions. Those kinds littered the North, remnants of families shattered in endless power struggles and massacres as the lords squabbled over their fiefdoms. This little town outside Nottingham was the typical place for them to take refuge.

  Alex should have been on the lookout. In the back of his mind, he realised he had been, but he had been too focused on searching for it to register.

  “I’m not looking for trouble. All I want is to be on my way.”

  The kid’s eyes trained on his pack.

  Alex flicked his head over his shoulder. “There’s nothing much in there, but it’s yours. Token of good faith. What do you say?”

  “You got a horse. I saw it. And a gun. You think I’m stupid?”

  “No.”

  “Uh huh. Well I’m not. I’m smart. How else do you think I’m not dead like the others?”

  “I’m sure you’re the smartest. That’s why I know you’re going to do the smart thing, and let me leave my pack, and be on my way.”

  He made to step back, but the kid took a firmer grip on the pigeon gun, starting forwards. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “Like I said, I don’t have much.” Alex kept his face even, but any hope of getting out of this easily was fading fast.

  He’s either fresh out into the wilds, or he’s lost somebody who used to protect him. Damn.

  He was pretty sure now that no matter what happened, the kid was liable to do something stupid.

  “Stay there! Don’t you move.” The kid muttered under his breath, “I got you. I got you good. You’re mine.”

  “That’s right, you got me. Congratulations. But like I said, I’m not looking for trouble—”

  “Who were you calling for?” the kid said, his eyes narrowing.

  Alex closed his mouth slowly and said nothing.

  The kid’s face paled as his lips drew back from his gums. “I heard you. You were calling for somebody. But there’s nobody here but me.” His eyes widened. “That means you’re crazy. You’re nutty nut nuts, just like all the others. You’re here to kill me—”

  “I’m not here to kill you,” Alex said tightly, preparing his legs to run.

  Crap.

  “Yes, you are. You’re crazy! Just like the others. They all tried to kill me, so I killed them first. I got them, I got them all good!” He laughed as tears sprung into his eyes. “I got them all, pew pew, all gone! Just like I’m going to get you, because you’re not going to get me, no, no, no, not little old me. I’m going to get you first, hehe!”

  “I’m not going to hurt you!” Alex yelled, fists bunched, ready to dive. He would have one chance, assuming the kid missed.

  He might not miss.

  The kid’s eyes bugged at his raised voice. “That’s what they all said, but they lied. They all lied and they tried to kill me. But I got them ALL, like I’m going to get YOU.” He held the gun clumsily out in front of him like a cannon. “Die, die, die!—”

  His finger never made it to the trigger. His skull seemed to blow out above his left eyebrow, spurting the grimy brick wall beside them with crimson and gristle. The pigeon gun fell to the gravel, and the kid crumpled into a shuddering pile, jerking and twitching.

  Alex dropped his hands, blinking.

 
Behind the kid’s body, standing in the middle of the street, James Chadwick slowly lowered his rifle.

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” Alex said, looking to the twitching carcass before him.

  “He was going to shoot,” James said.

  Alex frowned. “He was just a kid.”

  James blinked. Not a trace of recognition registered on his face as though the two of them were utter strangers instead of brothers. “He was going to shoot.” He shook his head, balancing his rifle upon his shoulder. “Stop following me.”

  He made to turn away, but Alex held out a hand. “Wait! Just… wait. Hear me out.”

  James rounded on him. “There’s nothing to listen to. I don’t want to see your face, I don’t want your help, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  “I’m sorry for what I did.”

  “You’re a lot of things, Alex, but you’ve never been sorry, not for anything.”

  Alex stepped over the kid’s body, desperate to hold James for a little while longer. Three days he had chased James south, away from Radden Moor, searching for him in the northern wilderness. In the endless hundreds of square miles between them and their home, finding one person had been a daunting task. His only hope had been to trust his gut. They both had to rest their horses, and Alex had most of their food. He knew James would have to scavenge from some bigger settlements on his way back.

  It had paid off this once. But what had it cost him?

  Almost his life.

  And if he lost James now, he might never find him again. Now that James knew he was on his trail, he would probably make sure of it.

  “Please, just listen to me.”

  “There’s nothing you can say that I want to hear,” James said, backing away. His face was taut and emotionless, but Alex knew he was lying. It was written into his gaze. Alex knew those eyes better than anyone; he had looked into them every day since the End when James had been but a blue-faced baby in an abandoned crib.

  “You know I’d never do anything to hurt you. You know that.”

  “You don’t care about anything but your precious mission,” James spat. “That’s always the way of it.”