Embrace The Night (23 page)

“A
man
?” She seemed to turn that over in her mind. “Hot damn. That makes total fucking sense. He’s a
man
.”

He reached over to the table next to the bed and scooped up a printout of Truth’s picture. “This is what he looks like. Ever see him?”

She took the photo. “No.”

“Why is it so important for them to find him?” It occurred to Quent that he didn’t know something very important about Zoë—like, which side she was on. For all he knew, she could be booty-calling Strangers till their crystals glowed. She could be on the wrong side of this equation…but probably not. After all, she hunted
gangas
with her bow and arrows.

“The Strangers are afraid of it—him.
Him.
” She was nodding, and he saw intelligence light her eyes. The moon had shifted to shine even more boldly now, and the room had taken on a light gray coloring that disclosed more nuances of her face and its expression. Her features settled in thought, and as if it were possible, it made her appear even more attractive. Softer.

Quent swallowed. His heart was pounding and his fingers itched to touch her. But he held back. For the moment. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

She shook her head. “But finding him would be a good thing. Before the Strangers do. Although if they haven’t found him after fifty years with an ass-crap army of
ganga
-zombies, how the damn hell is anyone else going to? I’ve only heard bits of conversation, from a distance…but they’re desperate. Remington Truth must hold some hella big-ass secret that would damage them. Or help them.”

Quent nodded. This was exactly what the Waxnickis had suspected, and why they were working so hard to find the man. Before the Strangers did. And Zoë had just confirmed their suspicions. “Want to help us find him? You could stay.”

Her eyes flashed to him, then zigzagged away. “I told you, I’m not fucking staying.” Then, her demeanor changed and her eyes took on a sly, smoldering look. “But I’d
stay
for another fuck.”

Quent’s belly dropped as she tossed away the picture of Remington Truth and leaned toward him.
Is that all I am? A good fuck?

But he didn’t say it. After all, that’s all she was to him.

He closed his eyes and drew her close…lost himself in the pleasure.

Because he hadn’t anything else.

At last, the searchers seemed to give up on their quest and accepted the fact that whatever had caused the railing to fall, it entailed no threat to them or their activities.

Sage allowed Simon to pull her to her feet, and she was careful not to bump into anything again. All they needed was to alert the men below again. But, wow.

She was completely weak-kneed. And even a little dizzy.

That kiss…wow. Wuh-
how
. Those beautiful lips…

She’d waited till Simon’s face disappeared before leaning forward, taking the chance. She’d figured she’d be assuaging her curiosity, and wanted the cover of invisibility in case he wasn’t…interested. Or was even revolted.

Because, after all, he’d made a point of absolutely not touching her since they’d left Envy, except to guide her tonight.

But once she fell into the kiss, Sage had forgotten everything. Literally everything.

The men could have stormed into the room, guns blazing, she wasn’t certain she’d have noticed.

She swallowed. He’d kissed her back. Oh, indeed. He’d kissed her back. Even now, as they slipped out into the hallway, his hand, as always, tight around hers—impersonal, guiding. Steady and strong. Just like the man himself. Even now, her belly fluttered and her breath caught.
He’d kissed her back.
And it had been so much more than
…nice.

At the top of the stairs, Simon gestured her to another flight. This one was not quite so grand and winding, and it led to a fourth floor, accessed through narrow steps beyond a small door. Some of the treads made soft creaks, and Sage froze, her heart in her throat every time she stepped on one. But Simon urged her on, and she realized that distance masked them from the other occupants of the house, which had returned to the basement.

By the time they reached the top, Sage felt her nose itch with dust and the grind of grit beneath her fingers from the stair’s railing. Obviously, this part of the house was never used and, as Simon had suggested earlier, would be a good place to install one of the Network Access Points that would allow Lou and Theo to extend their secret communications system.

The room into which Simon brought her was clearly an attic of some sort, and the half moon poured light through an octagonal window that had long been broken. Although not cluttered with trunks and wardrobes like the fascinating attics of fiction and film, the room did contain some furnishings. Light pooled onto a dusty wooden floor scattered with piles of debris and a few straggling plants.

“Do you need light?” he asked in a quiet voice, and gestured to the shadowy shapes of the two packs on the floor.

“Would it be all right?” she asked. “It’d be faster. I’ve only done this twice.”

Simon pulled the packs over and they settled on the floor together, then he turned on a small flashlight powered by a hand crank. Keeping the illumination low would hide the light from the windows.

Sage set to work as Simon angled the light for her.

“This will run on solar power,” she told him, showing him the box that would capture the network signals. “So we have to find a place where it will soak up the sun for a good portion of the day, but also be somewhat protected from the elements. Even though Lou designed it to be waterproof, we want to protect it as much as possible.”

“Right there,” Simon said, pointing toward the octagonal window nestled in a small, jutting dormer. “Outside there’s an overhang that will protect it from rain, but it’s a southeasterly window, so it will still capture a lot of rays. Unless you want to put it out on the roof itself.”

Sage nodded, pleased, and said, “All right. Let’s try it out, and hope that it still has some power.”

He took the box over to the little alcove beneath the window and positioned it on a table. The long antennas veed out like two long tails and Sage clambered to her feet to check it out. A little flip of the switch and the unobtrusive lights, designed for the bottom of the unit so as not to draw attention, illuminated. “We have power,” she said with satisfaction. “Now let’s hope it connects to the rest of the network.”

Pulling out the small computer Theo had built for her, she sat down and powered it on. This would be the first time she’d had the chance to send a message back to Envy since they’d arrived two days ago. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much news to report back other than the hopefully successful installation of the
NAP
.

Simon sat down in the small space as well, folding his legs to fit, angling his knees up. One thin strand of glossy dark hair had escaped from his neat tail, making Sage wonder if it had happened during their kiss.

He leaned against the wall facing her and she felt his eyes on her as she bent to the keyboard. A little shiver sprinkled over her shoulders when she thought about the fact that they would soon be back in their room…sharing a bed.

She had to retype her password three times before her clumsy fingers got it right, and then she settled back against her side of the dormer space. “Now we have to wait and see if the network connects.”

“Tell me about these Strangers coming tomorrow night,” he said without preamble. He must have been waiting since dinner to ask.

“When we first got here to Envy, I started to tell you about Hell’s Wall,” she said.

“Yeah. I wondered why anyone who survived the Change would build a settlement beneath something that looked as if an avalanche could destroy it at any time. You mentioned something about protection.”

She nodded. “I don’t really know all the details, but I’ve known since I was a kid—and everyone here understands—that the Corrigan brothers made some sort of arrangement with the Strangers—well, three of them. Three of the Strangers have created a crystal-powered guard, like a fence, to protect the city if there should be an avalanche or rockslide.”

Simon watched her, disbelief and question in his face. “Why would they do that? Why would they care? A crystal-powered guard?”

“My understanding is that the Strangers get some of our—Falling Creek’s, I mean—yield, a portion of the crops and food and cattle. In return, they protect us from the cliff. And…if you look very closely at Hell’s Wall at night, you can see the faint glow of blue crystal light. Very faint, but very powerful. I guess it’s like a shield that would stop anything from falling onto the city.”

“So they protect the settlement in exchange for food that you raise?” Simon’s brows knit together. “Very medieval.”

She nodded. “Classic feudal system. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

He shrugged. “I guess if it’s been working for fifty years, there’s nothing wrong with it. It seems like a fair exchange.” Then he looked at her steadily. “Unless the Strangers require other commodities as part of their compensation. Like…people.”

Sage blinked. “Like…slaves?” The thought hadn’t ever crossed her mind. Not when she was living here before. But now, years later, after seeing what she’d seen, and hearing from Jade about her experiences and observations in regards to the Strangers…“Oh my God. Simon, that could be true.” All of a sudden, her stomach felt like a ball of lead had settled in it.

“Do you ever remember people disappearing?”

That leaden ball sat heavy and hard in her belly. “Yes,” she whispered. “Once a year…usually about the time the Strangers came to visit. Oh, Simon.” Her gaze flew to his. “They come once a year like this and I remember when I was eleven, three girls ran away shortly after.”

“Ran away? Or were taken away?” Simon asked. But he didn’t really need to, because she read comprehension in his eyes. The same understanding that was rising in her own gaze.

“One of them was my half sister Gina. I remember being so upset with her for leaving. Running away, I thought. And never saying good-bye. And Bennie said five of our other sisters ran away over the years.” Sage’s belly churned. “And…the following year after Gina disappeared, when I was twelve…my mother…” Her voice trailed off.

The arguments. The shouts and crying and pleading from behind closed doors. The desperation in her mother’s face—desperation that Sage believed was weakness. Desperation that had caused her death.

Was it possible? Or was she jumping to conclusions?

“What is it?”

“I think…I think she might have been trying to keep them from taking me.” Sage’s mouth felt tight and worn. She could hardly say the words, could barely comprehend the possibility. “I was her only daughter. She made me wake up in the middle of the night, the night before the Strangers were supposed to come. We were trying to leave the compound and I thought
she
was trying to escape, but really, she was helping
me
. Maybe. They ran her down and the
gangas
came swarming in.”

Her heart was pounding hard and sickeningly in her chest. It was possible her mother had been trying to get her out of Falling Creek. And Sage, as an adolescent, had been focused on herself and her desire to see the Strangers—not what her mother wanted.

“I’m sorry.” Simon’s voice held a stronger hint of that accent, that intriguing inflection she noticed. “Losing a parent is hard, but to see it happen…that makes it worse.” He sounded as if he spoke from experience.

“I don’t know for sure…but I do know she died. And that when the Strangers came, I was effectively out of sight because I was grieving for her. So I never saw them.”

“And they never saw you.”

Sage shook her head. “No.”

“Any idea how they pick the girls they want to take?”

The nausea still heavy in her middle, she refocused her thoughts. “I don’t know. It could be random or it could be some negotiation with the Strangers. Or maybe the Strangers came and scoped out the girls they wanted and then they were later delivered.”

Glancing at the computer, she saw that there were status bars showing a good connection—which made sense, since the network access point was right next to the computer. She clicked on the message client that Lou and Theo had created—called WaxNotes—and waited to see if anything downloaded.

“How did you get out of Falling Creek, then? You must have left shortly after.”

“They wanted to marry me to a man who was fifty. He already had three other wives, and his hands…” She shuddered at the memory. “They were large and really hairy, with lots of black hair, and he looked at me funny and I knew I didn’t want to marry him. I didn’t want him to touch me.”

“And?” His voice was very low. Barely a breath.

“I hid in a crate that belonged to a traveling scavenger—someone who brought goods from other settlements and traded here anything he might find on the way, or anywhere else. Clothes, DVDs, books, anything he found that was usable. I was lucky he was a nice man, or I could have found myself in a much worse situation. And I was too dumb to know that at the time. Turned out he was married to Flo, from Envy, and when he found me huddled in there—you have to understand, I was still in shock from losing my mother, and I was a Corrigan, you know…but he took me back and let Flo mother me.”

“Lucky for you Flo was the mothering type.” Simon’s voice carried that accent, and a deeper inflection. Maybe regret?

“I never realized how lucky—at least for a long time.”

“And then you got to know Lou and Theo and Jade.”

She nodded, and looked down to check the computer screen. “Lou and Theo at first. Jade didn’t come to Envy until she escaped from Preston, almost four years ago. But Flo took her under her wing too.”

“And you’ve been friends with Lou…and Theo…ever since.”

Sage looked up and found his eyes heavy on her. “Yes.” Then looked back down, uncertain why that heavy ball in her belly had settled deeper. “We’re in,” she said, seeing the messages on her screen. “We’re connected!”

Simon settled back, extending his long legs and crossing them at the ankles as she skimmed through the messages. Several from Lou and Theo checking in with her, adding last-minute instructions for setting up the access point (although how they thought she’d be able to access them if she couldn’t get the
NAP
to work, she wasn’t sure), and then a final email from Theo sent earlier today. This last one had no subject header—an oddity that, for some reason, made her chest tighten. She waited to open it.