The Arrivals

Chapter 14

Jack didn’t stop to speak to Francis as he reached the guard point. He grabbed a couple of guns and one of the prepacked bags as Francis introduced himself to Chloe. If Jack stopped, he might think about what he was doing, but thinking wasn’t what either he or Chloe needed to do. He’d given her Verrot without even asking. He’d eased new Arrivals into this world for more than two decades. He wasn’t usually this careless.

Jack handed a shotgun to Chloe. Even someone with lousy aim could do some worthy damage with a shotgun. “Here.”

She accepted it, cracked the barrel with surprising familiarity, and snapped it shut. She didn’t speak—and Jack was glad. Mary was dead; Ajani was involved; and he was feeling as jittery as a cat in a house full of rockers. He’d thought that Garuda’s blood wouldn’t be too potent since it was filtered through the newborn bloedzuiger, but he was obviously wrong.

“Tell Katherine we went out when she comes around asking questions,” Jack told Francis. He grabbed a few more supplies and shoved them in the weapons bag he’d picked up. “Tell Edgar I said Katherine isn’t allowed to leave camp. No one is till I get back. If Hector and Melody return before me, tell them too.”

The need to move was growing, not abating, and Jack realized that he’d made a mistake. Not only had he given a new arrival Verrot, but he’d given her Verrot that was too pure. The newborn must also have drunk from Garuda before Jack arrived.

“Come on.” He tossed the bag over his shoulder and headed into the desert.

Chloe followed him. That she was able to keep pace with him so easily was only possible because he’d given her some of Garuda’s gift. Typically, the travel sickness took a few days to work itself out. In a few rare cases, he’d seen it take a week or more. Chloe, however, was far from sick. She sped up a little more, so she was in front of him rather than trailing him.

Mutely, Jack increased his pace.

She did the same.

In a few minutes, they were both running, racing across the not-yet-light desert with the sort of abandon that Jack rarely let himself enjoy. He steered their course, turning at the edge of a saguaro forest so they were racing down paths that wound among towering cactus. As far as the Gallows Desert went, it was safe enough.

Nowhere out here was truly safe, but there were a few creatures who hated the cactus forest. The biggest threats in this forest were the bloedzuigers and the two-natured, but for at least the next month, anyone with the blood of Garuda’s pack in them could count themselves as packmates to the bloedzuigers. Jack had no doubt that Garuda had left some of his young ones in the area should Jack need their aid. When he was bound this way to Garuda, the old bloedzuiger could track him. That meant he’d leave resources behind for Jack’s use, as well as potentially making an appearance if the threat was severe.

When they reached their destination, Jack grabbed Chloe’s hand and forced her to stop. The momentum spun her and propelled her into him. He instinctively dropped the weapons bag and put his hands on her hips to steady her.

For a moment, he thought she would step away, but she stared up at him, lips parted as if she’d speak. Instead, she kissed him, and he couldn’t think of any reason to stop her. His hands brushed the slits on her skirt, and it only made sense to slide his hands under the fabric. When he discovered that there were no undergarments between her skin and his hands, he cupped her ass in his hands and pulled her tighter to him.

They’d gone from running to touching, and somewhere in his mind, he realized that this wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had. They were in the desert at night. She was a stranger to this world. They’d both had near-pure Verrot.

Then she twined her arms around him and hitched a leg around him, and suddenly he couldn’t think of anything else.

They hadn’t stopping kissing yet, and in the distant, still-functioning part of his mind, it occurred to him again that it was a very bad idea to kiss her like this. Threads of reason tried to weave into his thoughts, but he was racing on the blood he’d ingested.

Chloe pushed harder against him, leaning her body into his so forcefully that he pulled his hands away and put them behind him to keep himself from crashing to the ground. He used his hands to steady their descent to the ground, but even so, he was grateful that he was fit and strengthened by Verrot.

As soon as they were on the ground, she was straddling him, and it seemed wrong to have so much clothing between them—especially when she ground down against him.

He tugged at the front panel of her skirt, and she lifted herself up, balancing on her knees and staring down at him with wide eyes as he pulled the material from between them. His thumb grazed her, and she stilled. In that moment clarity assailed him.

“No.” He jerked away from her.

In a bloedzuiger-quick move, she stood looking down at him. She was breathing as heavily as he was, and her lips were swollen from their harsh kisses.

“No,” she repeated in a whisper of a voice. She swallowed and tried again, slightly louder. “You’re right. No. That . . . I didn’t come out here for that. Maybe you did, but . . .”

“No. That wasn’t my plan either,” he agreed. “It’s a bad idea right now.”

Not trusting either one of them, Jack stayed prone on the ground. He watched her smooth down her skirt and then run her hands over her hair, as if straightening her appearance would change anything.

“Right. Bad idea.” Her words agreed, but they sounded like a question. “I’m not like that,” she added. “Maybe people around here are . . . like that, but I’m not.”

“People are the same here as at home.” Jack pushed himself up so he was on his knees, and he was suddenly very aware that he was eye level with Chloe’s thighs. He forced himself to look upward and meet her eyes. “Your lack of undergarments is mighty distracting, Chloe.”

She smoothed her skirt again. “I have a skirt on.”

He grinned. “One that’s cut up both sides high enough that if you were to walk over here, I could—”

“Bad idea,” she repeated shakily. “You said so yourself.”

“That I did.” He stood, but didn’t step any closer to her. “As a matter of accuracy, though, what I said was that it was a bad idea now. Once you get acclimated to the Wasteland, though, we maybe ought to discuss it again.”

Rather than reply, Chloe picked up the bag of weapons and opened it. “Guns. Guns are good. I haven’t practiced in a while. Gun laws in D.C. are crazy strict, but it’s like riding a—”

“Man?” he interjected, feeling more lighthearted than normal thanks to both the Verrot and Chloe’s kisses.

“Bicycle,” she said firmly, but her lips curved in a brief smile before she continued: “Or a horse, in your case, I’d suppose. You don’t forget how to shoot; it’s like riding a bicycle.”

The foul mood he’d been fighting earlier had vanished somewhere between running across the desert and thinking about burying his face between Chloe’s thighs. Jack grinned at her before saying, “Right. Well, there aren’t any gun laws in the Wasteland. Let’s see what you can do with a revolver.”