The Uninvited (The Julianna Rae Chronicles Book 1) (16 page)

Julianna snapped her look away from the gun. Katherine’s tone apologized for the news, but a dead person never lied. Julianna was certain, and it reaffirmed what she’d pushed aside since her escape. Her mother’s words had held no loyalty for a daughter lost for so long. She was too cold, too detached. Katherine just said out loud what she’d denied.

She felt the weight of the gun in the caress of her hand. It sat large in her long fingers, but it was well-balanced, easy to use. The footsteps outside were unfamiliar to the grounds, the shoes too deliberate in their movement as they searched for something or someone.

The posts bellowed again; rasping snarls of full automatic fire ripped around and she ducked for cover. The camp was holding. 
For how long?
she wondered, as she peered through the door’s netting. Bas knelt behind the crates again, using them to steady his rifle. His empty pistol sat discarded on the ground beside him. He released a spray of bullets into the soldiers approaching.

Katherine’s hand stretched, pointing to the glass bottle on the table. She beckoned for it, reaching out and flexing her fingers until the strength abandoned her. Julianna’s heart sunk heavily and she felt sick. Katherine wanted to die because the pain Taris had inflicted was too much now. She’d lasted for as long as she could; she’d tried to hold on. Now, with Julianna by her side, she was ready to meet her maker.

Julianna rocked over on her haunches, kneeling over enough to reach it but she left the bottle where it sat.

‘Not your decision.’ Katherine’s bloodstained lips were dry.

The small bottle felt heavy. Julianna’s numb fingers fumbled with the lid, clumsily unscrewing it. The liquid held no decaying scent as Julianna thought it would. The liquid could be mistaken for clean water. Katherine reached again.

Julianna kept a tight grasp. ‘Are you sure?’ She despaired. What else could one say at the time of death to someone who had no tomorrow, someone who would never experience an unbroken body again? She thought of the eagle flapping helplessly on the ground at Taris’s whim, but Katherine’s icy touch against her hand called her back into the tent.

Julianna lifted Katherine’s head, helping her prop for the liquid to slide easily between her lips and down her throat. When Katherine finished, she rested back, her eyes already drifting.

‘Taris wants all of you for subjects in a drug trial. Don’t know why.’

Julianna nodded.

‘Tell Sarah I’m sorry.’

The footsteps shuffled again and this time she was sure they were standing at the front of the tent. They paused, knowingly forbidden to stand where they were. Julianna waited in terror as the boots of a solitary Militia officer peered at the opening, startled at what he saw. He burst through with a gun wielded in her direction. For now, she had to abandon her dying friend. She had to save herself.

1800 HOURS.

WEST CAMP
.

The rifle fire rang out a volley. The wind carried the echo to the tent where she rested, waking her from the deep sleep she visited. It rang out again in unison and on command.

Julianna sat in her cot. Caden’s voice shouted the order a final time. The crack of rifles came again, followed by eerie silence. She peered through the tent door. The stillness of the evening on a cool breeze found the sweat across her body and she shivered. They were burying their dead.

The crowds slowly dispersed into the dusky evening. The smell of gun smoke hung on the air and the crackle of a warm fire reached her ears. She stood, leaning her weight onto one foot, trying to beat away the throbbing she felt in her stomach. A biting pain with very sharp teeth still reached through to her back. 

Most walked towards the campfire. A young girl had Bas’s embrace and his jacket, and they walked by themselves, steering away from the others to sit alone by its warm glow in their own corner. He tightened the jacket around her shoulders and crouched beside her. He was being careful to keep some distance while offering comfort, and it worked. The girl moved into his space and Julianna watched as Bas raised an arm around her shoulder to accept her lean and hold her close.

The netting swayed when she stepped back into the center of the room. The ache was reaching up from her side. She remembered the officer on top of her, baring his grin and unbuckling his belt. Her knife had cut across his throat after the Sig had fallen beneath the cot in their struggle, but where had the day gone? Why had she been asleep in the cot? She held her head between her palms to search the emptiness in her mind. The bed she rested in was clean. It was a fresh bed, which offered no comfort. Katherine had died in the same corner.

The wind rattled the loose cord in the door and the netting tangled around it. She took in its swirling motion as she fumbled for the hazy details, but they were gone. Her fingertips twitched annoyingly the harder she pressed herself for an explanation. Without more rest, a migraine would surely appear after the shitty day she’d just had.

The screen billowed in. Caden was zipping the front door.

‘For Katherine?’She stood aside. He nodded silently and made his way to the map. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t do more.’

His lips pursed, taking in her words. His fingers slid across the map in contemplation. ‘You brought her home,’ he said. He leaned over the pins and pulled a blue one from its place, dropping it into a plastic container that held others. ‘We’re good with that.’

He reached the half-empty bottle of whiskey resting on the table and held it high. 

‘I’m not sure I am,’ she said, and nodded at his offer for a drink.

He moved around to his chair and slumped heavily. The bottle rested on the edge of each glass as he poured, spilling some of the liquid onto the map. She didn’t react. He wiped it away with his sleeve held under his thumb. He didn’t care; he was spent. The cleaner glass was pushed in her direction and he raised his in silence, not waiting for a response before he swallowed it quickly.

Books randomly lined a shelf made from a thick tree branch and rock. It looked ornate and precise. Underneath sat a box with a standard-issue uniform folded and tucked neatly away. Blankets rested on the thin mattress on his cot and were barely disturbed. He slept in his clothes, much easier for an attack. She’d seen it before in other camps, nothing new, but the tent was clean. Very, very clean, and when she did another quick survey, the initial thought didn’t change.

His lips smacked together, savoring the taste rolling in his mouth, and he poured another glass. His gestured noises pulled her attention from the books and she glanced over her shoulder. He was taking in her every move, waiting for her while his lips parted for another drink.

‘Katherine the only one buried?’

He nodded. ‘Would have been more if it weren’t for you.’ He swirled the whiskey in his glass, watching it ripple. ‘Whacha’ doing here, J Rae?’

‘In the neighborhood,’ she said.

Her side pinched and she looked down at the glass waiting for her on the table. She did a double-take at the clean black singlet she was wearing, too; it wasn’t hers and explained the chill she felt, but sweat continued to run down her back. Again, she tugged at the singlet in his view with a
what’s this
expression, and he shrugged.

‘We found you underneath a rather large soldier with his throat slit. Hope you don’t mind me undressing you without the formal introductions, but you were covered in his blood.’ He pointed outside. ‘Your clothes are outside somewhere.’

The pendant was noticeably heavy against her chest. The low singlet didn’t hide it, but her hand clasped protectively around the metallic disc all the same, and when she looked he was lingering over her grip.

‘Surprised you’re standing. You bumped your head good and proper.’ He kicked a chair out for her benefit. ‘Should be resting.’

She struggled with his offer. The pain in her side stabbed her again, and she lifted herself from the chair a few times before she could settle.

‘Then there’s the gunshot wound. I took as much as I could, but fragments were left. Had to close you up while you were out, bled too much. Can’t heal a gunshot wound.’

She lifted her singlet to look. The biting sensation was coming from a thick, bloodstained rag taped tightly against her skin. He nodded to the small tear in the tent wall where the stray bullet had found its way through to her body. She peeled the rag’s corner back.

‘Keep it covered,’ he said. ‘High chance of infection out here. Let’s try to minimize it.’

She ignored his protest and ran a finger over the reddened skin pinched together with black thread. It was warm to touch. She pressed at the dressing and the tape hastily clasped onto the surrounding skin again. He was pouring his third drink and screwing the cap on the bottle. The singlet draped down.

‘So, if you hate camping, why are you here?’ he teased.  He took the whiskey to his lips. His foot scraped against the rough base of the tent when he stretched out, and he was starring again.

‘A girl can change her mind,’ she said. He was watching her over his glass and she moved from under his glare, attracting his attention to the acoustic guitar perched in the corner by his bed. ‘You play?’

He pointed his finger past his glass. ‘That wasn’t there the other night, and needs to go before we bug out. I’m not risking another attack.’

She touched the silver disc on the black leather string. ‘I’ll be gone in the morning. Just came to warn you about the skirmish and the comms failure.’

‘We knew the comms were down.’ He eyed her suspiciously. ‘It’s a dead giveaway, don’t you think, when you can’t contact anyone?’

‘You don’t know about the three he found, or the reason for communications going down was to intentionally isolate your camp and Isis. He cut the power to the city.’

‘Which three comms did he get, J Rae?’ he asked. He already knew the answer. She felt his intrusion, but he also expected her to speak. She wasn’t getting out of it so easily.

She fingered the disc. ‘He arrived at the club after you left.’

He reached for the bottle. The cap unscrewed again and the bottle emptied its last to fill his glass. Another bottle sat unopened by his bed and he was glancing back at it.

‘I was arrested and taken to Sector One; there was nothing I could do that I didn’t try doing.’

‘You’re lucky you escaped with just a scrambler around your neck. Katie help you?’

She shrugged and lifted her glass. Drinking the lot in one mouthful wasn’t easy. It burned her throat and she shivered with its fumes. She gave him the nod he was waiting for and he leaned back into his seat, thin-lipped. The unopened bottle was out of his reach, and without leaving his chair, he extended his hand for it to sail into his grasp.

‘You said
he
. I assume we’re talking about my illustrious, overly-ambitious asshole of a cousin.’

She frowned at his nonchalance for the man who had caused mayhem in his camp, the same man who had callously tortured one of his crew. Her head swirled. The second glass he was pouring for her would be the last.

‘He hurt you at all?’ Their eyes met.

He raised his glass to her again for a salute. She kept her glass on the table.

‘He loves his women. His penchant for them makes me wonder. You’re in good shape for someone who escaped Sector One.’ He leaned forward, over the desk. They’d touch if she leaned with him. ‘Almost too good. I wonder how that’s at all possible,’ he said. ‘That, and I can still smell him on you.’

Julianna caught the quick flicker of black in his eyes; if she had blinked, she would’ve missed his change.

‘Katherine made it possible,’ Julianna locked her gaze onto his. ‘I was only in there for a few hours.’

He sat back. Her sharpness hadn’t hurt, but it stunned. She knew he knew, too. The risks she’d taken during the day, everything she had done with risk – he was reading her again and she reached for a mental bitch slap.

Not about to put up with your shit either.

He looked into his glass. ‘And you found this camp how?’

‘I had help. Now the Militia have him.’

‘Don’t think for a second I’m helping you get
him
,’ he said. ‘Let’s get that fact straight. Not a fucking hope after what he’s done.’

His eyes strayed. Bas unzipped the door and Julianna watched the casual amble past the table to the last glass beside the row of books. The bottle was pulled from his brother’s grasp and a generous amount was poured.  

Bas raised his glass to acknowledge Julianna, his silence drawing her in. He had his own pull and it may very well have been stronger but for the distraction around his wrist and hand that her eyes continued to visit.

‘Taris has our last comms. No need to wait for a bugout now. We need to leave first light.’

‘We should be leaving now, then,’ Bas said. He stared at her.

‘They’d be here by now if the location was made. We hit fast enough no one called it in,’ Caden said.

‘Arrogance,’ Bas disagreed.

A young boy peered in. ‘Commander, can we borrow your guitar?’

Caden leaned back, grabbing the neck of the guitar, unapologetically swinging it over the table making Julianna lean back. The young boy, barely eighteen by her guess, reached over to take it, and left as quickly as he came.

Bas released a long sigh. ‘Devo’s only hit the bed.’

‘Let her sleep, then. J Rae needs to lose the IDM chip anyway.’

Julianna listened while looking into the glass, only to see a single tired eye staring back at her. Stillness reached the inside of the tent and singing echoed to the strumming of his guitar. She leaned back on her chair. The fire lit the stage for those dancing to the song. For a death in the camp they sure knew how to party.

Bas interrupted her thoughts. ‘We always sing after a death. The tradition helps the kids move on faster.’

She nodded slowly and took the glass to her lips. Whiskey was hard to come by past Sector Four, and she dared not waste a drop for fear of insulting them. Besides, the sharp ache was dulling and the twitching in her fingers was leaving her alone for another night. She rubbed against the bandage taped to her stomach. She pressed her fingers against it and a lump moved beneath the skin.

Her stomach turned.

The matter of the IDM chip was another thing altogether.

Put me on a hook and gut me while you’re at it, boys. Here I am. Come and get me.

She rested the empty glass on the table. ‘I need some air.’

Julianna stood too quickly, dragging her injured side against the edge of the table. The rag caught beneath the singlet, her skin pulled and she felt a fresh line of blood roll down into her pants. She bit hard on her lip and grasped the back of her chair. Caden stood to help her.

‘I’m good,’ she said through gritted teeth.
Fuck no, I’m not.
‘It’s good.’ She straightened.
No, no it’s not.

‘Shouldn’t be walking anywhere,’ Caden called after her, but she pushed past the netting anyway.

The stars twinkled above to the singing and dancing around the fire. Outside was clearer. The night was perfect but for the pain she was feeling and for the grief lingering. Each slow step eased into the next along the narrow river, away from the rows of tents. The camp residents stopped singing. Their eyes watched her for a moment, the music dying down to a strum on the guitar. Whispers churned amongst them.

Julianna’s glance in their direction stopped their gossip and they turned their sad eyes away, strumming again and finding their tempo. The tall grass licked its dampness against her pants when she left the defined trail near the water’s edge. She was far enough out of sight to listen to the mournful lyrics without their mournful stares. For now, she needed the solitude in order to settle her own mind. Trying to rest in a room full of watchers reading her thoughts had the opposite effect.

She dragged her sore body a little farther along the river’s edge, to the gritty shore to watch the river. Far enough from the crowd but close enough to enjoy the celebration for Katherine’s life.