Chapter 18
The Undercity the Scavs called it. Within a day, he hated it.
The only lighting was from the blue lightsticks and flashlight devices the Scavs brought with them. All were powered by waik crystals that apparently did not recharge well in the dark beneath a trillion tons of shattered and collapsed skyscrapers. He had nightmares about it going completely dark. Finding your way out by feel would be impossible – they’d had to worm through many passages of half-collapsed corridors.
After careful consultation with the primary scouts, JI had bashed his way through a few obstructions. His ragged gait – abnormal since the rocket attack – had turned into a dragging limp. If he’d repaired himself, the repair was failing, or he’d hurt himself again. His head often cracked into the ceilings and knocked pieces loose. Scavs threw him curses. If he buried himself, Sawyer was sure few of them would volunteer to dig him out.
There were some larger open spaces. They went through parking areas and warehouses – vast places occupied by the rusting heaps of long-abandoned vehicles and piles of rotted and rusted goods. Some vehicles were barely rusted. A few had occupants who’d killed themselves perhaps rather than face whatever disaster had been their current day problem. These were skeletons with skin and flesh turned to dried, paper-thin crap. Archaeologists would have fun with these. Had it been The Invasion of the Mekkers day? Or was it the Last Day of the War after that invasion, when the tide turned and the grounder armies lay stricken by superior weaponry – defeated, smoking and burning piles of refuse.
Or was it the day the swathes began their relentless consumption of the surface of this planet? Maybe they just got too many parking fines and decided to end it?
Whichever it was, they were dead.
Watching a column of Scavs fan out to traverse a new open area, not knowing what was ahead, even though they had mapped this path before... Scary. Cracks opened that fell into the foundations. Places had collapsed into rubble and slabs of whatever was used to construct this city. There were beams and struts, stalagmites composed mostly of flocks of some aerial animal that swooped past croaking when awakened. Not bats but their feet and ears glowed in the blueness of the lightsticks.
This was grim, dark, and gloomy as hell. He’d rather trek to the top of the toppled towers and skydive down than this. In the limited lighting, the ceilings seemed forever about to cave in.
He spent the days training Ari. Every stop gave him time to consider her next steps. To his surprise, she took to the commands as if born to it, as if she were a natural submissive just waiting to be taken.
Maybe she was.
The switch from viciously resisting to this was a little too abrupt.
But she learned the signals and words for kneeling, assuming positions, how to address him and how to behave so very well. She looked up at him with adoring, wide eyes, or tear-filled adoring eyes, even when he fucked her until she was gasping and limp. Perhaps it was the orgasms. A few of the Scav women, warriors and the unattached, had propositioned him. He’d taken notes but so far said no. Ari occupied him well enough.
Her one persistent rebellion was when he trained her ass to accept more of his fingers. Satisfaction was watching her plead for him not to squeeze that second finger into her asshole, plus the tip of the third, then making her come anyway. Taken to the brink of a climax, she’d grind her mound at his hand or strain toward his mouth. Tying her down or ordering her not to move while his fingers occupied her asshole and he licked her...the begging added to the fun.
To think she’d been his owner by proxy not long ago. He started to wonder if he should find out more about her past. That might trigger a new and nastier rebellion. He’d ask her when he was surer of her behavior.
Because trust was not something he’d yet bestowed on her, he kept her cuffed at night when he slept, and he leashed her to something heavy. It might make sleep difficult for her. For him, it made sleep more peaceful. He was sure he’d regret waking with a knife in his throat.
One day to go before they hit the next clearing, Dayne told him. One more sleep, one more walk.
There were still things Ari did that bothered him, such as this night, whatever night was down here in the everdark Undercity, when he cracked open an eyelid to find her beside him whispering to some creature he couldn’t see.
A distant lightstick illumined her, and some other thing, as silhouettes against the blue.
Something nipped him then ran across his shoulder, leaping off as he sat up and roared. “What the fuck?”
He grabbed for the knife he’d hung from a crisscross metal framework protruding from the floor to the right, and slid the knife from the sheath. The long gun would likely shoot someone else. A sea of people sat up all across this low space. They shouted questions.
“What is it?”
“Is there danger?”
“Not sure!” he yelled back.
The creature, or creatures, had scattered into the dark, though for a second he’d thought he’d seen a moving carpet of them, fleeing.
Ari winced as he took her cuffed wrist; her neck leash scraped on the stone floor when he towed her closer.
“What was that, girl?”
“Nothing.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “It was nothing! He sees things in the dark.”
His thumb slid in moisture on her wrist and he brought his hand to his nose. “You mock me? Is that blood?”
“I must have cut myself on something earlier, Sawyer.”
More lights flared and the scene became well-lit. There did seem to be nothing foreign but he knew his eyes had told the truth. Whereas her...
The lies were strong today...tonight.
“I’ll find out.” Angled up on his elbow, Sawyer took a last survey of the area. Nothing. The Scavs were muttering, laughing, settling into their bedding, though a few had set out to patrol the perimeter. “When we wake I’ll punish you, before breakfast, for lying. And you will go hungry until I hear more about this.”
He unfastened her cuffs and refastened them at her back – less comfortable but he’d sleep better.
“I need the truth. If not, you’ll be sleeping tied up like this.”
When she said nothing it only made him wonder more.
Her eyes stayed on him even after the lights had dimmed to almost nothing. He reached out and closed them. “Should I blindfold you?”
“No, Sawyer. I will sleep.”
Her quiet and obedient phase had drifted away. Why, was the question.
JI had lapsed into silence this last day. He was propped against the wall far to the right and his orange lights were on and dim but still he said nothing. The silence worried him. She’d said he might have only weeks left. No one had told Zarr.
He needed to prepare. Either get seen as an integral part of this warband ASAP, cure JI, or leave. Through narrowed eyes he regarded their current sleeping place.
Leaving was not an option.