Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

Sharon coughed a laugh. Alex had known used gym socks with better breath. “That’s horseshit,” Sharon said. “I got eyes. So does that boyfriend of yours.”

“Christ,” Ray said. Once a fleshy man, his gut now sagged like an empty paper bag. Putting an arm around his wife’s shoulders, he hugged Ruby closer. “Aren’t things bad enough?”

“I’m just saying what we’re all thinking,” Sharon snapped.

From his perch, Acne turned to look at them, and Sharon brayed, “Hey, you son of a bitch, when you gonna feed us?”

“Sharon.” Ruby’s voice quivered like the string of a bow drawn to the breaking point. “Don’t provoke them.”

Sharon glowered. “Well, I wouldn’t, except we’re hungry. We need food, unless you want us all skin and bones, ya ass**les!” Given that Sharon had more ink per square inch than anyone Alex had ever known and that the Changed had a distinctive taste for, ah, unusual accessories like tattooed skin-kerchiefs and bandanas, Alex had a sneaking suspicion the Changed would be just as happy if Sharon was nothing but skin. Easier to peel. A mean thought, but then again, Sharon wasn’t her favorite person.

“You know why they haven’t fed us, Sharon,” Ruby said.

“Because they haven’t found anyone else. It’s just . . . bad luck.”

“Luck? Got nothing to do with it. We’re all going to end up stew meat, except maybe little Miss Alex here.” Sharon squinted.

“Don’t think I don’t see the way you and that wolf-boy keep making googly eyes at each other. That’s one itch he’s got that I’m thinking only you can scratch.”

“Sharon,” Ray said, without much heat. “Put a cork in it.”

“It’s all right, Ray,” Alex said.

“Yeah, Ray,” Sharon said. “Me and Alex are just talking while we all sit on our butts, waiting to die.”

“But must you be so hateful?” Ruby forked hair from her face with a hand that was all brittle bone tented with frail skin. “We’re all in the same boat.”

“Wanna bet? I think one of us has got herself a pretty nice little life raft. So where you think your boyfriend’s got himself to, Alex?” Sharon grinned, not a pleasant sight. Her mouth was a gaptoothed tangle of discolored, off-kilter pegs. “Think maybe he ran out, got hisself a new girlfriend? Or maybe him and that blonde are—”

Alex zoned out. This was a tune she knew by heart. Turning aside, she carefully teased flannel and gauze from her shoulder.

Her left arm throbbed and she could almost see the heat shimmers. Although she kept the wound as clean as possible, the shakes had started up a little after noon, if Mickey could be trusted. God, not an infection. If that happened, she might as well lie down in the snow right now. As she unwound the last strip, she had to bite down on her lower lip to corral a whimper. That whiff of spoilage was unmistakable. Patches of her muscle were a soupy snot-green. Okay, try not to panic. Clean it, maybe scrounge up some alcohol and antibiotics if they let you. That’s a nice house. There’s got to be a medicine cabinet somewhere.

“Oooohhhh.” Sharon’s tongue wormed over the ruins that passed for her teeth. “That looks pretty bad. You know, you could leave it rot. Get like Brian there and they’ll only kill you.”

Oh, well, that made her feel so much better. She wished she could think of something pithy, but her hunger clawed her stomach and her mind was dried up as a prune with hunger. So all she said was, “Just go to hell, okay?”

“Too late.” But the wind seemed to have gone out of Sharon’s proverbial sails because she turned away from Alex to Ruby. “Here’s what I’m thinking,” she said, confidentially. “I’m thinking the reason those little monsters ain’t come back with anyone in the last couple days? It’s because there was nobody waiting, which means the others aren’t honoring the agreement anymore.”

“Either that, or there’s no one left to send out,” Ray said. “What are you talking about?” Nobody waiting? She’d never heard them talk this way, and Alex was curious, almost despite herself. They all might share food, but she really didn’t know much about the others. Understandable: no one wanted to get too chummy with someone they’d then have to watch get turned into hamburger. “What agreement? What do you mean, no one left to send out?”

“Well, you know.” Ray lobbed a puzzled look at Ruby and then back to Alex. “Sent out the way you were. The same way we’ve all been sent.”

“I ran away. I escaped. I wasn’t sent,” Alex said, but then she recalled that, given the circumstances, she had been told exactly where to go—and Jess’s shotgun had been nothing if not persuasive. Then she felt her brain catch up to the words Ray and the others had actually used. “Sent . . . you mean, turned out? On purpose? Why? Did you do something wrong?” That would be the most likely explanation, she imagined. Rule probably wasn’t the only village that meted out expulsions for bad behavior.

“Course not,” Sharon put in. She sounded genuinely insulted. “Just drew the short straw is all.”

“The short . . .” Alex gaped. “You had a lottery?”

“That’s how we did it,” Ray said, with a shrug. “It’s up to each village or group to decide how they go about it, of course.”

“But you could’ve stayed,” Ruby said, quietly. “You shouldn’t have come, Ray.”

Ray’s jaws worked. “You’re my wife. You go, I go.”

“Neither of you had to do anything!” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Acne’s head turn for a look, but she was too appalled by what Ray was saying—what they were all suggesting—to care.

“Of course we did. It’s for the greater good,” Ruby said.

“You’ve been around Sharon too long,” Alex said.

“Watch it,” Sharon said.

Alex ignored her. “What good does it serve for you to die? To voluntarily walk out of town to get eaten? Why would you even cooperate with something like that? Why would you ever agree?”

“You’re from Rule,” Sharon said. Her voice was suddenly low and shaky with anger. “You’re from that goddamned village, and you’re lecturing us? You’re the ones came up with the idea in the first—” She broke off when she saw the look on Alex’s face. “What?”