Dead of Winter (The Arcana Chronicles #3)(52)

“Some are calling it the Rage Cage Program ’cause the inmates are still beating the living tar out of each other—just learning new ways to do it.”

I want to show him the ways I’ve already learned. “Doan do me no goddamned favors.”

He squints his bloodshot gaze. “As your lawyer, I’m going to enlighten you on a few matters. I’ve seen your type over and over, and I can spot a future lifer. When you’re old, staring at the bars, you’ll remember this talk. You’ll remember how right I was. Unless you get shivved before then.” He swerves out the door.

I slam my fist into the mirror, fracturing the glass, reopening every scar on my hand.

Over and over, blood-spattered shards reflect the pain in Jack’s eyes.

Because part of him believed the man.





26


DAY 375 A.F.

We heard their agony long before the misty rain allowed us to see it.

For hours today, Jack, Aric, and I had ridden hard, slowing only for this: the plague colony Jack had warned of.

Before us, a valley was filled with the dying, hundreds of men. Blood poured from each one’s eyes, nose, and mouth. The disease had contorted their bodies at the joints—as if their bones had been fractured.

Their screams merged into a din as loud as a stadium of fans. Jack had to raise his voice to say, “They’re calling it bonebreak fever. Because of how it makes folks look—and because the pain is supposed to be unbearable.”

“There are so many of them.” The sight dumbfounded me. All day I’d been unsettled by my dream of Jack, but this . . .

“The colony’s grown,” he said. “It used to be tucked into a corner.” Rows of haphazard tents spanned the clearing. “Some say this place’ll keep expanding, like a tick, till there are no Flash survivors left.”

Along the perimeter, bodies had been discarded in piles. They differed from the corpses we occasionally passed—or rode over. Plague bodies were so misshapen they wouldn’t lie flat. “How does it spread?”

“Par le sang.” Through the blood. “Maybe the air too. I’d planned for us to ride past this—not through it.”

“Have all these men been abandoned here?” I didn’t see women or children. “With no one to take care of them?”

Aric lifted his visor. “It’s too contagious.” Death had no worries about infection. “Once there’s a blood show, they’re doomed to a harrowing demise. No cure, no survival. I imagine the pain is nearly in league with your poison.”

“Or your Touch of Death?” I’d spoken little to Aric today. I vaguely remembered him returning, finding me just waking, rising from Jack’s side. He’d scanned my face, then given me a nod of satisfaction. —You kept your promise.—

“Just so, Empress.”

“If it’s spreading, when does it stop?” Would it reach Fort Arcana?

Jack parted his lips to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “We’ll figure that out in the future, bébé. One thing at a time, non?”

“How do we avoid this valley?”

“We doan, or we’ll never make it to Dolor in time. We’d have to backtrack a dozen miles to the last mountain pass. The slavers must have figured out a detour, maybe through a mine. But I doan know of it.”

Of all the ways to die in this new world, bonebreak fever would rate among the worst. “Let’s play it safe and go back.”

“Look, I’ll wear a bandanna, me.” Jack pulled one from his bug-out bag, letting the rain soak the material. “There’s a trail skirting the west edge.” He pointed out a narrow stretch between the outermost row of tents and a rushing stream. “We haul ass along it, getting through in minutes.”

“Only room for one at a time,” Aric observed.

I turned to him. “I won’t agree to this, not unless Jack rides behind you.”

Amusement. “I smooth the way for your squire?”

“You won’t get sick, right? Neither will I.” I thought. “You go, then Jack, then me. This makes the most sense.”

Aric bowed his head in that cocky way. “Then by all means. Let my sacrifice be noted.”

“Evie, you doan stop for any reason,” Jack said. “This is not the time to help a victim or show mercy.”

“I actually concur.” Aric lowered his visor. “We’re closing in on the Lovers. You need to conserve your powers.”

“So doan do it,” Jack added.

“I heard you two loud and clear.”

“Good.” Aric spurred his horse and descended. Jack reined around right behind him, glancing over his shoulder to make sure I stayed close.

Down in the valley, the yells boomed. For long, tense minutes, we sped along that trail, hooves kicking up dirt.

Almost across!

At the other end of the valley, Jack and Aric ascended the rise. I wasn’t far behind —

A man lumbered in front of my horse.

With a cry, I yanked hard on the reins. The mare whipped her head and straightened her legs, skidding to a stop. A few more inches, and I would have run the man over!

Eyes seeping red, jaws stretched open, he yelled in pain, as if trying to communicate like that. More of the sick limped toward me, closing in. Beside me, one man vomited a rush of blood into a small runnel of water. The mare sidestepped with wide eyes, her nose flaring.