The Scavengers (8 page)

Kennedy and Seth had been wrong about Drake spending the day romancing Cya. The petite blonde was curled up in a miserable ball in the back seat of the bus when Kennedy and I got back from our strange trip down the soggy dirt road.

Drake was sitting on the hood of the bus, scowling viciously as he repeatedly sunk the tip of his knife into a soggy looking lump of cloth in his lap.

“I'm guessing you didn't have no luck?” Kennedy surmised as we emerged out of the woods.

Drake let out a choked laugh then looked directly at me. “I've been waiting for you to come back for an hour.”

“Me?” I blinked at him. “Why?”

“You have the most medical training. Go deal with that worthless, miserable girl. I think her leg is broken.” He jerked his thumb towards the bus. “We didn't make it a quarter of a mile before she started crying and screaming and moaning that her foot hurt too bad to go on. She screwed up our entire search today.” His golden eyes flashed with frustration and anger.

“I'll see what I can do,” I said with a sigh. “Time is the only thing that heals broken bones.”

“She doesn't have time,” Drake said. There was a cruelty to his tone that made me pause.

I desperately wanted to trust Drake, but my Dad hadn't raised an idiot. Seth's dislike of Drake was understandable, I supposed, even though I was clearly missing a very large piece of that particular puzzle. Kennedy's distrust was a bit harder to brush off. Kennedy had been a Scavenger for the better part of 3 years and he'd been on plenty of successful hunts with Drake.

Knowing Kennedy didn't trust Drake made me second guess my own feelings towards him. I chewed on my lip as I headed towards the door of the bus.

“Cya,” I called her name softly as I entered the bus.

“Go away.” Her voice was choked with tears and hoarse from crying.

“Drake asked me to check on you.” I kept walking down the aisle towards her even as she visibly curled into a tighter ball around her injured foot.

“I wanna go home,” she moaned. “Tell him to take me home.”

“Let me see your foot,” I said trying to speak as gently as possible.

“No,” she shook her head vigorously. “Hell no.”

“You're hurt, I may be able to help you.”

She stared up at me through bloodshot red eyes. “Don't lie to me. I know you're on his side. I saw you with him last night.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You're with Drake. You woke me up when y'all came back in to the bus. I saw him kissing you.” She glared at me with a look of pure hatred. “I want Drake so badly. He's the entire reason I signed up to become a Scavenger. I needed him to fall in love with me when he met me. I would do anything to be with him.”

“Just let me see your leg.” I tried not to sound as flustered as I felt. Too many people knew about what I had assumed had been a very private moment with Drake. I definitely didn't want to think about Cya's fantasies starring the same man. Those were too close to the daydreams Julie and I had once giggled about while lying in our beds.

“Why?” Cya had tears flowing down her chipmunk cheeks. “You're just trying to give him an excuse for killing me.”

“Killing you?” I repeated. “I don't know what you're talking about. He just asked me to check your leg and see how badly you're hurt.”

“Stop lying. Drake wants me dead. I'm worth more to him dead now than I am alive.”

“Cya.” I took another step towards her and put my hand on her shoulder.

She shoved me roughly backwards. “Get away from me!”

I stumbled and caught a hold of the bus seat to steady myself. She wasn't my first angry patient. “I'm here to help you,” I told her.

“He's going to sell me to them!” She wailed. Her tears were coming hard and fast now. “I can't walk. Conner's dead. The last hunt was a failure. He's not going to fail twice. The Scavengers aren't allowed to fail twice.”

“Sell you?” I was still stuck on her first sentence.

She nodded, still sobbing. “All Drake cares about are his damned drugs. He doesn't care about me and don't think he cares about you either. All that matters to him is getting his next fix. He'll trade me for rock candy.”

“Rock candy?” I repeated dumbly.

“It's a drug,” she practically spat the words at me.

“Drake is on drugs?” I was stunned. “He can't be. He's the captain of the Scavengers. The Powers that Be would never tolerate drugs.”

“Shh! Don't say it out loud or he'll kill us both. The Powers that Be don't care what Drake is on so long as he gets results. It doesn't matter how many girls he sells for drugs so long as he keeps bringing cans back to the Cube,” Cya whispered. “The drugs are all they care about. Drake was already pissed off before we even left the Cube because the last hunt we went on was a bust. We didn't find anything good enough for him to trade for more drugs in Ra-Shet. I heard him talking to Conner when they were getting the bus loaded. He kept saying how this hunt needed to go smoothly or they were going to run out of their special rock candy.”

“Drake isn't going to sell you or trade you for drugs,” I tried to sound as calm as possible.”

“Drake isn't the only one on drugs,” Cya said as she shook her head vigorously. “They all are. Him. Shayla. Kennedy. Conner was too. They carry them around in little brown fabric bags. Didn't you see Shayla get Conner's bag off of his body before they lit him on fire?”

I frowned, struggling to remember. I had seen Shayla searching Conner's body but I didn't remember what it was she had taken from him.

But I had just seen Drake holding a little brown sack just a few minutes ago when we'd walked up.

“Why would Drake want to take drugs?” I demanded, keeping my voice low. “Drugs make you slow and distort your ability to function. Drake needs to be at his best when he's on a hunt. Why would he take something that would make him weak?”

Cya sniffled and narrowed her eyes at me. “Because rock candy doesn't make them weak. It works by speeding up your perceptions so that everything else around you looks like it’s in slow motion. You see zombies coming but they're moving so slow that all you can do is laugh at them. Everything moves so slowly. Rock candy turns the hunts into a game. It turns this hellish world we live in into a violent playground for the sadistic.”

“You've taken it?”

“I already told you, I would do anything to make it as a Scavenger. I would do anything to be Drake's girl.” Her expression was hateful as she straightened her spine and looked me dead in the eye. “Conner offered a piece of rock candy to me on my second hunt. He said it would make me a real hunter. A real Scavenger. It was so awesome. I felt so incredible.”

“You like the drugs?” I had never felt more confused.

“I loved the drugs,” Cya emphasized. “But at the end of the hunt, Conner took the other three recruits who had come with us on the hunt and he sold them to a flesh broker out of Ra-Shet. He got an entire pound of rock candy per girl.”

“What is a flesh broker?” I asked.

Cya laughed bitterly. “By the time you find out, it'll be too late for you.”

“Cya, you really need to let me take a look at your leg,” I said as I tried to bring the conversation back on track. As much as I wanted to try to fit rock candy drugs and flesh brokers into the crazy puzzle of information I'd already gathered today, I didn't figure I had that much time before Drake boarded the bus and demanded a report on Cya's medical condition. I didn't want to have to explain to him that I'd been listening the patient accuse him of being a drug-addicted human trafficker.

“My leg doesn't matter,” Cya said as she wiped tears from her cheeks. She attempted to use her torso to shield the leg from my sight but her efforts were futile.

Walking on the injury clearly hadn't done it any favors. I hadn't seen an open wound on the leg yesterday but the massive swelling made me wonder if she was developing an infection. Her entire lower left leg was purplish black and swollen to easily four times the size of the right leg. “Shit,” I muttered.

“Go away.” Cya growled at me. “Leave me alone. We're both dead, Pilar. Don't you know that we're both already dead?”

“Your leg...”

“Are you deaf?” Cya snapped. “They're going to kill us and you're still talking about my leg.”

“No one is going to kill you,” I tried to sound comforting. Blood poisoning sometimes made people paranoid. Maybe I hadn't gotten her wounds clean enough yesterday when I bandaged them. The thought was worrisome. Cya's skin was red and splotchy from crying so I couldn't tell whether or not she was feverish. She wasn't about to let me touch her.

“If you only knew the truth,” Cya laughed bitterly. The sound was brittle like broken glass and ended with a miserable, choked sob. “Go away. Leave me alone. Tell Drake I'm fine.”

“I've been waiting to be alone with you all day,” Drake said as I finished burying the empty cans that had made up our meager dinner. He put his arms around my waist and leaned down so that his breath was hot on my ear. “You look good now that you've found some clothes that fit. Must have been a good hunt for you today.”

“I did alright.” I fingered the neckline of the fitted shirt I'd found amongst the clothes Seth had selected for me. I wondered what Drake would think if he knew he was complimenting Seth's taste, not mine. I'd been right about the kind of items I'd thought I would find in the bag. Everything was close fitting and practical. No loose fabric to snag on tree branches. No thin, fragile fabrics. And yet everything had been distinctly feminine. The shirt I was currently wearing was pink and interwoven with shiny, silver threads. It fit like a glove and left very little to the imagination.

Drake nibbled my ear.

“Not now, Drake. We can't.” I tried to ignore the shivers that his touch sent down my spine. I desperately wanted to trust Drake but it was rapidly becoming apparent that there was more to him than the hero that I'd worshiped from a distance since I was 12 years old.

“Now,” he told me. He leaned down until his lips were a fraction of an inch from mine. “Unless you've suddenly gotten shy on me?”

“I'm not shy,” I admitted as I put my hands on his chest and pushed him back a couple of inches. I gestured back towards the campsite that was a scant few yards away from the tree line where we were standing. “We need to talk about Cya.”

“I don't want to talk about Cya.” Drake's smile instantly faded into an irritated scowl. It wasn't the most flattering expression and the cruel cut of his brow made it easier for me to control my raging hormones. It was starting to disturb me how my hormones kicked into gear every time Drake came near me, even when the logical side of my brain was becoming increasingly aware that Drake Bledsoe simply wasn't the man I wanted to believe he was.

“She told me that everyone wants her dead, including you. And they may get their wish. Her leg looks awful. It’s definitely broken and I'm starting to wonder if it’s infected as well.”

“Fuck,” Drake cursed and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Did you disinfect it again?”

“No, she wouldn't let me touch it.” I frowned, trying to decide whether or not I should confront him about Cya's accusations.

“She wouldn't?”

“No,” I took a deep breath, unsure of what else to say.

“She was making accusations again, wasn't she?” Drake asked unexpectedly.

I didn't even try to hide my surprise. “You know?”

“I know everything about my Scavengers, Pilar. Everything. Don't ever think you could possibly keep a secret from me.” Drake reached for me again.

“She thinks you want to kill her,” I admitted after a moment. The pressure of his arms around my hips drew me against his broad chest and it took all the strength I had not to just melt against him. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally. I desperately wanted Drake to be the good guy in all this. He was so damn handsome and it just felt so good to be with him. I wanted nothing more than to trust that Drake was the hero and Seth was the villain. Seth deserved to be villain, with his badly scarred face and blank, dead eye.

“She'd deserve it if I did,” Drake said. “She's been on five hunts, counting this one. She's been a liability the entire time. She screwed up on her second hunt and got three other girls killed. When she was questioned about why she'd locked her fellow recruits in a warehouse full of zombies, she tried to blame it on Conner.”

“She did what?” I asked.

“She, Conner and three other girls who were all on their first or second hunts were down in a small grocery store warehouse we'd found. They were supposed to fill their bags with cans and then come back up to the bus. Simple pick up and deliver.”

“Something went wrong?”

“An entire family of zombies were in the basement. Conner was loading the bus when one of the girls inside the warehouse opened the basement door. Our girl Cya ran out of the warehouse and locked the front door behind her. The other three recruits were torn apart by ravenous zombies.”

“Oh god.” I sucked my breath through my teeth.

“Cya tried to tell the Powers That Be that we'd traded those girls for rock candy crystals,” Drake said. “Is that what she told you?”

“Yes,” I admitted after a moment of hesitation.

“I'm glad you told me.” Drake gently stroked my cheek and then gave me the tiniest peck kiss. “Thank you.”

“Drake, is rock candy real?”

Drake smirked. He released his grip on my waist and reached into one of his back pockets to extract the little burlap sack I'd seen earlier. “Can you keep a secret, Pilar?”

“Depends on the secret,” I told him.

He reached for my hand, pried my fingers open and dropped the little bag into my hand. “Rock candy is real.”

“Do you have to sell people to get it?” I pulled away from him.

“Absolutely not.” Drake pulled me back. “Have a little faith in me, Pilar. I'm the captain of the Scavengers, not a murderer.”

“I'm sorry. Her story just freaked me out.” I allowed Drake to wrap his arms back around me.

“I wish you'd come to me right away,” he said as he stroked my frizzy curls. “Rock candy is an asset to us but it's not something I would kill for.”

“Does it work the way she said it worked?” I asked.

“Depends on what she said.” Drake shrugged his broad shoulders at me. He was still smiling. “Cya doesn't seem able to grasp rock candy's true value, but I think you'll be able to understand a little bit better. I mean, this isn't your first job where you needed to stay on your A-game all the time, is it?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You ever work an 18 hour shift at the hospital ward?”

“I've worked a 72 hour shift,” I admitted, recalling gritty exhaustion and sticky hands covered in salves that rarely worked the way we needed them to.

“Exactly.” Drake opened the bag I was holding. I hesitated for a moment and then peered inside. A small, hard lump of bright green crystals were bunched together at the bottom of the sack. When I shook the bag, they bounced against one another and rolled to the side.

“What do they do?” I asked.

“Take one.”

“What?” I eyed the contents of the bag skeptically.

“It’s too hard to explain. You wouldn't understand unless you tried one.”

“Explain anyway,” I allowed my hips to slide against his. “Then maybe I'll take one.”

Drake shook his head at me but he was smiling. I loved the way his amber eyes sparkled when he was happy. It was so hard to imagine him being anything but the hero I'd always been told he was. Right this moment I was willing to brush all the criticism I'd heard about him away as jealousy. Unfortunately it did appear that Cya had been telling the truth about the drug usage.

“You don't get tired anymore,” Drake told me. “You take one of these babies and you'll be more awake then you've ever been in your life. You can see better, hear better, hell, you can smell better than you ever have. If there's a zombie within 1000 yards you'll know it. It’s like being yourself, only 400 times better.”

“It heightens your senses.” I gave the bag another thoughtful shake.

“Basically,” Drake shrugged easily. “It makes you like a superhero. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.”

“Cya said all of you take them.”

“All of us?”

“You. Kennedy. Shayla. Conner.”

“Ah, yeah. Well, not Conner anymore. You know, if he'd taken a rock candy yesterday he'd still be alive right now.” Drake frowned, obviously disturbed by the thought.

“Why didn't he?”

“They're expensive. It’s best to save them for when we really need them.”

“When you really need them?”

“Yeah. Like tomorrow, we're going to need them. Kennedy thinks we might be able to find a radiator for the bus in the junkyard in Mylon, but Mylon is full of zombies. Bad. We go into Mylon, we can't make a single mistake. Not one.” He reached for the sack in my hand and held it up thoughtfully. “These little beauties are the difference between life and death out here sometimes.”

“What are you going to do about Cya?” I asked him. “She's not going to be walking anywhere tomorrow.”

“I'll deal with Cya,” Drake told me. I didn't miss the grim expression in his eyes.

“Drake, don't hurt her.” I wrapped my fingers around his wrist.

“I won't have to hurt her, Pilar. She'll hurt herself.” Drake's golden eyes settled hard on mine. “Never forget that you're not safe outside the Cube. No one survives for long without a protector.”

“You're going to stop protecting her?” I asked.

“She's made her choices,” he said firmly. “I advise you take note of the mistakes she's made and be careful not to make the same ones. I don't take kindly to betrayal.”

The cruel look in his golden eyes sent an entirely unpleasant shiver down my spine as he kissed me.