Still of Night (Dead of Night 3)

“Hell yeah, he did. Told us all about all ya’ll. That little shit is either Mince or Neeko. Probably Neeko. He’s a scout and you think you’re Queen Shit, am I right?” The woman seemed very happy and she beamed a great smile. “Dahlia the Pack Leader. Dahlia, the fat girl with a knife who thinks she’s the baddest bitch in the apocalypse.”

Dahlia’s heart was tearing loose from its moorings and sinking in her chest. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to kill Trash. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Instead she drew her knife.

It wasn’t the one she’d used to fight her way out of high school a million years ago. This was a heavy-bladed kukri knife, the signature weapon of the Ghurkas of Nepal, one of the fiercest fighting forces in history. Mr. Church had taught her how to use it, showing her how the weight of the blade could be used to generate a lot of whipping speed, and how it could be used to cleave through bone. Dahlia always liked knives, and that one seemed to want to be in her hand. It came alive when she drew it and maybe she did, too. What had the woman called her? Fat girl with a knife. Had those really been Trash’s words?

Dahlia was heartsick and terrified. Once the handle of the knife was seated into her fist, the blade curving outward with its graceful and deadly elegance, the fear seemed to recede.

“Get behind me,” she said to Neeko, and Dahlia barely even recognized her own voice.

Neeko didn’t move.

The five Rovers laughed. At her. At the fat girl with the weird knife.

And then she was among them.

— 27 —

THE WARRIOR WOMAN

The first thing Rachael was aware of was the wrongness.

She was in darkness and yet moving. She was not walking but her feet were moving. She was in pain.

A lot of pain.

Her head felt like it was broken. Cracked. Shattered. There was warmth on her cheeks and in her hair. Blood. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, but there was so much blood there, too, that for a time she was blinded.

“She’s coming out of it,” said a voice. Her traumatized brain tried to tie the voice to a name, a face, but there was something wrong with her memory. Pieces of it seemed to have been hammered into meaningless shapes or broken off entirely. She wasn’t entirely sure she could recall her own name. However, two other names floated through the churning waters of her thoughts.

Jason.

Claudia.

Who were they?

She wished the world would stop moving so she could pull the cracked pieces of herself together. If they would stop dragging her along she could figure it all out and . . .

Dragging.

Yes. She was being dragged. There were hands under her armpits. Strong hands. She understood now that two men were half carrying her and that the toes of her shoes were scraping along over dirt and grass.

Jason. Claudia.

Suddenly the question was no longer who they were, but how they were. And where. With that Rachael felt herself coming back. All at once she knew who she was.

She also knew how much trouble she was in. Happy Valley. The slave labor. The escape attempt. The kick to the head. All of it. Her eyes were still caked with blood, but from the sounds and the grunting effort of the men as they hauled her over rough terrain, she reckoned she was outside.

Why, though? What was going to happen out here? Were they going to kill her? Rape her? It had to be something serious, otherwise they’d have simply tossed her outside the walls, slammed the gate and be done with it. This wasn’t expulsion, it was . . .

What?

Abruptly she was released and falling. She landed hard and badly, and the impact with the ground tore a cry from her. One of the men laughed.

“Yeah,” he said, “she’s awake. Good.”

Rachael felt sick and weak and knew that was from the kick to the head. In the old movies the heroine could get knocked out and then wake up ready for the next big action scene. Not in the real world. Trauma severe enough to knock her out did damage. The muscles and tendons in her neck hurt abominably, and there was a persistent ringing in her ears. She lay where she’d been dropped and brought weak hands up to paw the muck from her eyes. The world emerged. Daylight. Blindingly bright; she winced and hissed as if scalded, turning her head to the side to avoid the glare.