The Arrivals

Chapter 23

By the time her part of the group had settled into the tavern at the Gulch House, Chloe had started to feel calmer, like the Verrot high was a quiet hum of energy inside of her rather than an ongoing urge to run-fight-explore-screw. The sensation was akin to an inferno shrinking to a small campfire. She could stir it back up, or she could let it burn steadily.

Being in a tavern was like being home for Chloe: drinking establishments had a feeling of sameness everywhere in the world she’d known at home, and that was holding true in the Wasteland. The low light, battered tables, and suspicious glances were a familiar sight—even if the faces of some of the creatures or people giving her the once-over were truly foreign. A waitress with a physique that would draw approving looks in either world had delivered a round of water and some sort of oblong cactus fruits a few minutes ago, and Chloe was studying the fruit to figure out how to handle it without injuring herself.

“Watch,” Hector directed as he withdrew a knife that looked reasonably clean from somewhere on his body. It wasn’t a throwing knife, but what looked to be a chef’s knife of some sort. He made two diagonal incisions in the fruit and flipped the two ends open with the tip of the blade, exposing the soft part of the fruit. Then he pointed with the blade. “There. That’s the edible part. Tell Jack you need a cutting blade.”

“Thank you.” Chloe took a piece of the fruit and ate it, buying herself a moment before looking at Melody, who had watched the whole process. The smiling woman had been studying her as they’d walked and then as they’d settled in at the tavern to await Jack, Kitty, and Edgar.

When Chloe finally lifted her gaze to meet Melody’s eyes, Melody asked, “What did you do at home? I was a wife and secretary.”

“I’m not married,” Chloe offered. Beyond that, she didn’t feel much like sharing. She also didn’t feel like getting into a pissing contest with the displaced, gun-loving, hostile ex-housewife. She tried for a friendly smile.

Melody matched the smile, but she tapped her perfectly arched fingernails on the table as she watched Chloe eat. Hector cut up some fruit for himself and Francis, who was holding a bloodstained cloth to one of his still-bleeding eyes. The two men seemed content to let the women sort out their relationship, and Chloe couldn’t blame them. Melody didn’t seem like someone most people would want to confront. She might look like someone’s vision of an average—if overgroomed—woman, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that there was a lot of crazy under that polished exterior.

Hector and Francis had moved on to discussing lodging arrangements; the bits of conversations Chloe had heard so far seemed to boil down to the fact that Jack would decide whether they stayed or went back to camp. Francis wasn’t going to ask to stay in Gallows. Clearly, the pecking order was pretty much Jack at the top, Kitty and Edgar as lieutenants of a sort, and then the rest of them. Maybe Melody was simply trying to decide where Chloe fell in the order of things.

“You shot that monk pretty easily,” Melody said conversationally.

Chloe nodded. “You did too. Different monk, same ease, from what I could see.”

Abruptly, Francis and Hector stopped talking; Melody’s nails tapped faster.

“You didn’t shoot him like it was new to you.” Melody paused, both in her words and her tapping, let the moment stretch, and then continued: “The shooting, I mean.”

With a shrug, Chloe allowed, “I’m comfortable with guns.”

The tension spiked, and Chloe wondered briefly if the men would get involved if the crazy woman attacked her. If they stayed out of it, she was pretty sure she could handle herself. I think. Melody had the added benefit of enjoying violence with a sort of cheeriness that Chloe didn’t get. On the other hand, Chloe was still feeling a pleasant excess of energy. She wouldn’t guarantee her success if it came down to a showdown, but she wasn’t ruling it out either. Bending to bullies wasn’t anywhere on her to-do list, not now, not ever again—even over something simple like answering questions she didn’t want to address.

“We’re all killers, Chloe.” Melody’s nails began tapping again on the table in rapid succession like tiny bullets. “Before you arrived here, you were already a killer.”

“So Jack said.” Chloe leaned back, purposely casual in her posture and tone.

The look Melody gave her was far from casual. “So how many people did you kill?”

“Melly.” Hector jammed his knife into the table. “Don’t go starting shit.”

“I’m just making conversation.” Melody’s gaze didn’t waver. “You show me yours; I’ll show you mine. How about it, Chloe?”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.” Chloe kept her voice light. Talking about that wasn’t something she did. Ever. She sure as hell wasn’t going to play a game of who’s-got-the-biggest-dick with the hostile housewife. “I’m more of a new-world, clean-slate sort of woman, you know?”

“Not really,” Melody said.

Before things could become even more confrontational, Jack, Edgar, and Kitty walked into the tavern. A small bit of worry that Chloe hadn’t realized she was holding evaporated at the sight of them. She felt instantly safer now that the gun-toting siblings were in the room. Francis seemed like an decent guy, but he was mostly blind. Melody was batshit crazy, and the jury was out on Hector.

Kitty said, “Ajani’s going to be here any minute now. A few of his lackeys were out there.”

“Take Francis to the room,” Jack ordered.

“We don’t have rooms,” Francis said.

“Get them.” Jack looked around the tavern and then at the others. “You three stay inside.”

Melody nodded; Francis shrugged. Hector walked away, calling to the waitress who’d brought their fruit. Edgar withdrew his gun and glanced at Kitty, who merely murmured, “You know the answer, so don’t bother asking. I’m with you.”

Jack stood staring at Chloe, and she tried not to squirm under his gaze. She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, but he was watching her in silence. Finally he said, “You should . . . come with us.”

“Okay.” Chloe didn’t know what was going on, but she figured she would stand beside the people who’d taken her in, especially as their group was three fighters down. With a comfort she wouldn’t have expected a couple of days ago when she was still back in the world that had been her home, she pushed aside the material of her skirt and slid her gun from the holster on her thigh.

“You won’t need that right now,” Jack said quietly. “Ajani’s here to talk . . . well, lie, really.”

Chloe pointedly looked at visibly armed Edgar and raised her brows in question.

“He’s protective of my sister,” Jack said.

A few of the patrons moved to the windows, but no one reacted much beyond that. Kitty bowed her head and whispered some words. Despite his earlier injuries, Hector looked longingly at them as he returned to help Melody steer Francis toward the stairs that led to the upper floors of the tavern. “If there’s shooting, I’m coming out,” he stated.

Melody smoothed back her hair. “I’ll be sighting down from the upstairs window even if there isn’t shooting.”

“There won’t be shooting,” Jack told them. “Go.”

He led the rest of their small group outside. They stopped on the small walkway in front of the inn. The walkway was made of some sort of stone or rock, and over the top was a small roof of what looked like dried cactus and hardened mud that created a shelter to protect them from the elements. In the street just in front of them a man sat in an ornately decorated sedan chair. The little bit of him that Chloe could see made her think of sweeping historical movies. At home, she would say that he was dressed from another era. Here, however, she couldn’t tell if he was in costume or if he was simply in the habitual dress of people who lived in another part of the Wasteland.

The sedan chair was the sort of conveyance that spoke of arrogance and wealth regardless of Ajani’s attire. It was a vehicle of sorts, like a carriage, but without wheels or horses. Instead, it had long poles so that servants could lift and carry it. Chloe couldn’t imagine how awkward she’d feel being carried around in a heavy enclosed chair, but maybe this mode of transportation was normal for some people here. She hadn’t been in this world long enough to know. All she’d seen of the Wasteland was a bit of desert and a little of the town of Gallows, which seemed to be teetering on the edge of wilderness. The desert town might be atypical. Perhaps there were more civilized cities farther away.

Ajani pulled back one of the white curtains of his vehicle and was unabashedly watching the group of Arrivals. He had light brown hair, blue eyes, and plain but attractive features. He wore a well-cut blue shirt in some sort of lightweight fabric. The buttons that lined it appeared to be gray stones. Nothing about his clothes or features was very striking, but with what she’d learned so far about the Wasteland, Chloe could surmise that he had more than a little money.

The servants had the slightly cagey look of criminals trying not to look as dangerous as they really were. There were about a dozen of them, mostly men, and all of them bedecked in gray trousers and jackets that appeared to be a cross between livery and a military uniform. Carefully tailored clothes didn’t do anything to hide attitudes, and as Chloe looked at the men and women surrounding the sedan chair, she wondered if there would be yet another altercation.

If today is typical of life in the Wasteland, I’m going to be exhausted all the time.

Ajani gestured to his entourage.

One of the servants opened the door, and the man stepped out of the enclosed box. “Jackson.” He nodded, and then he bowed to Katherine. “Miss Reed.” His gaze flicked to Edgar, but he neither nodded nor bowed. “Cordova.”

Chloe stilled, realizing that she hadn’t even known the surnames of the Arrivals. She’d fought next to them, killed with them, and she only knew their first names.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” Ajani said, drawing her attention back to him.

Kitty let out a rude sound, and Chloe looked at her. Kitty rolled her eyes and tilted her chin toward Ajani, and Chloe felt some of her tension fade. Kitty’s disdain made the man in front of them seem less like the monster Chloe had expected.

She looked back at him, not yet speaking, and waited.

Ajani waited only another moment before prompting, “What do they call you?”

“Who’s asking?”

A flicker of amusement passed over his expression, but then he bowed from the waist. “I am Ajani, Miss . . . ?”

“Chloe.”

He nodded. “Thank you for allowing me to call you by your familiar name.”

For a moment she felt somehow tricked. At home, it was her surname she’d guarded. There were a lot of Chloes in the world, but there were fewer Chloe Mattisons. She’d kept the Mattison part of her name to herself when meeting strangers, better to prevent their looking up her address, number, e-mail, or any number of other things. The Internet was filled with information she’d rather not discuss, but plain old everyday “Chloe” was not as easy to research. She shrugged rather than reply to his implied question.

“Would you like to walk?” He gestured at the street behind him. “Or perhaps go for a ride? I suspect you’re exhausted from your journey.”

“Just say what you came here to say, Ajani,” Jack said. The hard edge in his voice shouldn’t have thrilled Chloe like it did, but she had a lifetime of bad choices in men to thank for that.

“Did Jackson explain that you have options?” Ajani didn’t look away from her. “I know you’ve only just arrived in this world, and it’s probably overwhelming. No doubt Jackson swept you up, took you to his merry band of misfits, and they’ve done their best to make themselves seem less . . . crude than they are. Let me show you another possibility.”

At this, Jack stepped up beside Chloe protectively, but he said nothing.

“A life of deprivation isn’t for you. I can offer you a better set of circumstances.” Ajani gestured at the servants standing near him, all of them attentive. “They all come from your world too, but they’ve chosen to work for me. I’d like you to do so as well.”

Kitty, apparently, wasn’t as willing as Jack to let the man say his piece. “What Ajani isn’t saying is that going with him means signing on as one of his thugs.”

“Ah, Miss Reed, as subtle as ever.” Ajani gave Kitty a look that was both patronizing and creepily affectionate, but he didn’t refute the accusation. “My offer for you to join me, my dear, still stands. You deserve a life of adoration, of being treated like a treasure.”

“Piss off, dear.” Kitty pointedly rested her hand on the butt of the revolver at her hip. “I’d rather be permanently dead than spend a minute alone with you.”

Ajani tsked at her and then caught Chloe’s gaze. “And you? Would you like to see what the rest of this world has to offer, or are you going to stay in the desert hiding behind Katherine and Jack’s skirts?”

Chloe didn’t feel like she knew enough about the Arrivals to make a forever decision, but she wasn’t particularly impressed with Ajani either. “I’m not sure I’m staying in the desert, but I’m not accepting your offer just now either. It seems doubtful that those are my only choices. Maybe I’ll become a seamstress.”

The look Ajani gave her was unreadable. “They’ll tell you horrible things, have you think that I’m a heartless wretch.” He stepped closer and leaned in. “I feel it only fair that I should be allowed to tell my side. Is that too much to ask, Chloe?”

“Today? Maybe.” Chloe didn’t back away. She tilted her head up and locked gazes with Ajani. “Today I’ve met cynanthropes, bloedzuigers, and the Blight. I’m tired to the bone.”

Ajani held her gaze for several moments before a wide smile came over his face, transforming his mildly attractive features into something alluring. “You lie well.”

“Excuse me?”

“You only just arrived, and you’re out fighting already. You should be so thoroughly exhausted that you can’t even walk into Gallows, much less quarrel in the streets with this rabble.” Ajani looked at Jack then. “Verrot, I presume?”

Jack shrugged.

Ajani returned his attention to Chloe. “You liked it. Everyone does. I can get it for you too, Chloe. You could have that and so much more.”

The very mention of unfettered access to Verrot made her hands curl into fists at her sides. She wondered if it was addictive, if she’d crave it, if she could enjoy it without consequences. It still coursed through her body, a longer high than anything she’d known in her life, but at the moment it was causing her to feel a lingering hum, not the all-encompassing rush she’d felt when she ran through the desert with Jack.

Her face flushed at the memory of kissing Jack. If Jack hadn’t put a stop to what was happening, she’d have been naked in the desert with him. Very carefully, she didn’t look at him or at anyone else. Let Ajani think she was flushing because they were talking about Verrot. She licked her lips before saying, “It sounds like you’re trying to bribe me.”

Ajani laughed a little, but even in this he was controlled. “No. I’m trying to entice you to choose a better life.”

“And they’re all letting you do it, although it seems pretty obvious that they don’t like you.” Chloe looked over at Edgar, who was the most murderous looking of the group; Kitty was a close second. Jack was the only one who seemed relatively calm about the whole thing.

Then Chloe added, “Here’s the thing, Ajani: I don’t know you or them or much of anything. All I can say for certain is that I’m not making any decisions today other than whether to sleep first or eat first. Later, you’re welcome to convince me or bribe me, and they’re free to spin tales of your flaws. Right now I don’t care.”

For a moment she thought he might press to continue the discussion, or that the others would. Jack tensed as Ajani looked to his servants, but despite the spike in tension, no one did more than glare.

After several seconds, Ajani stepped away and bowed. “Until another day, then, Chloe.” He looked at Kitty and bowed to her as well. “Miss Reed . . . Jackson. Cordova.”

Then he returned to his sedan chair, and Chloe watched as he and his servants left. Theirs was a strange, slow procession through the town compared to the bloedzuigers’ and cynanthropes’ impossible speeds.

Once he was several buildings away, Kitty turned to Chloe. “You don’t have to trust us, Chloe. It’s good to be suspicious, but I’ll tell you that there are a few truths you’ll learn in the Wasteland. One of the ones I figured out well over two decades ago is that trusting Ajani is deadly. He might not look like a monster, but he’s the one thing in this world I would call unredeemably evil.”

Chloe tried to weigh her answer carefully. Kitty had nursed her, and the group had been nothing but kind to her. “I’m not inclined to believe him, but like I said, right now I need to rest.”

After a terse nod, Kitty and Edgar went inside the Gulch House, leaving Chloe outside with Jack. He leaned against the wall, and she stepped a little closer to him so she didn’t have to raise her voice to be heard.

“Rest?” His tone was doubtful, and his gaze was fixed on the departing sedan chair rather than on her.

She didn’t reply.

“Verrot isn’t usually as strong as what we had last night or yesterday or whatever day that really was, but unless you’re used to it, the odds of sleep this soon after taking it aren’t good. And after taking Verrot that strong . . . ?” Jack turned his head and gave her a wry smile.

Chloe nodded. “I don’t know that I could sleep, but a little downtime would be good.”

“Alone or with company?”

More than a few times in her life, Chloe had made drink-influenced choices that, luckily, hadn’t resulted in anything worse than hazy memories. She was lucky that she’d avoided sexually transmitted diseases or assault. When she’d gotten sober she’d promised herself not to end up in situations where drinks influenced her decisions. She didn’t think Jack posed any kind of physical threat, but he had the potential to be a very bad decision of another sort.

“I don’t know you, or much about this world,” she hedged.

“True.” Jack motioned toward the tavern. “If you want some of those questions answered, I’m willing to answer them. Hector hired out a few rooms.”

Chloe glanced at Ajani’s increasingly distant figure and then at Jack. “Is that what you meant? Just talking?”

The look Jack gave her spoke more clearly than words. “You seem a lot more clearheaded now than you were in the desert.”

“Enough so that I’m not going into a room with just the two of us.”

He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if she’d offended him. She was on the verge of clarifying that it wasn’t that she thought ill of him at all when he stepped closer to her.

“Sometimes all I want is to have a few hours when I don’t have to think about monsters, including Ajani, or wonder why we all ended up here,” Jack said in a low voice. The dangerous undertone that she’d heard in his voice earlier was nowhere to be heard now, but what was there instead—raw honesty—was even more tempting.

“I get it,” Chloe admitted. She’d lost herself in various ways over the years. Unfortunately, bottles and bodies only delayed fears; they didn’t provide answers. At the same time she couldn’t shake that sense of instinctual protectiveness she’d felt in the street. She liked Jackson Reed, trusted him more than she could explain, and she wanted to spend time with him. Maybe it was a latent cowboy fixation or just a response to the way he looked. Regardless of the reason, she wanted to find out more about him, but she wasn’t about to let herself tumble into bed that easily, so she gave him the only answer she could just then.

“Talking would be good.”