Seduction (Curse of the Gods #3)(22)
“So you two have been working together?” I should have known. Dru had beady eyes, definitely evil.
Karyn, who was still melded to Dru like they were the same person, nodded. “Yep, Dru was Plan B, if Elowin and I couldn’t end you.” She tilted her head back and her face softened as she gazed into his eyes. She seemed to be showing her appreciation for him stepping up to the challenge of killing me. After I cleared my throat, she turned back to me with what looked like great reluctance. “He was going to take one for the team and pretend he had an iota of interest in a dirt-dweller like you,” she told me. “He would earn your trust, and then you would follow him wherever he wanted.”
Dru let out a frustrated sigh. “It took much longer than usual because you never do what I think. And you always had those five dumbasses around.”
Dumbasses? He was one to talk. Speaking of, I’d actually been surprised he could talk when we first met. The stringing of words together in coherent sentences seemed beyond him. It felt good to insult him, even if it was only in my head.
“Where are you taking me?”
Karyn’s creepy grin was back again, and I wished there was more space between us. “To a place where you can’t bother us ever again. We won’t have directly killed you. I’ll even let Dru help you out of the cart. All gentlemanly-like, if the gods are watching.” Her laughter was high-pitched and grating. “How are we to know if you can make it back on your own. Maybe someone has before.”
My eyes darted around the cart, trying to determine if I could jump out. The back was fully enclosed, so I had no idea where we were, but I would take my chances. I was faster and stronger, now that I was a beta-sol-dweller, so as I dived toward one of the zippered side panels, I managed to get my hand up under it, wrenching the opening free before either of the sols even moved.
I had half of my body through, wiggling in the small gap, when I felt hands on my legs. Thrusting myself forward, I kicked out with all of my strength. Connecting solidly, I felt the thump and heard the curse, which I ignored to continue freeing myself.
The cart came to a screeching halt. Bullsen could be heard pawing at the ground and making loud snuffing noises. I had just hit the ground and was scrambling to my feet, when three sols appeared.
Dru was very red-faced, his nose already looking swollen. Karyn was standing beside him, and next to her was a girl that I recognised as one of her friends back in Blesswood—she must have been the one who had been driving the cart. I was tensed, crouched low, waiting for them to attack me. Instead, they all exchanged a single happy look, tossed a bag at my feet, and then climbed back into the cart.
With a shout of laughter, the clicking on the ropes could be heard, and then the cart and bullsen were moving. I stood there frozen, watching them disappear into the distance, wondering why they had let me escape.
It wasn’t until I turned and looked around, taking in my surroundings, that the true horror and realisation hit me. They hadn’t cared about me escaping because this was where they had been planning on leaving me all along. The dirt beneath me was dried and cracked, a stale, arid taste to the air. There was barely any vegetation, and absolutely no civilisation in sight.
We were in a place so dead and desolate, that it could only be one area.
The abandoned rings. The dead zone.
I stared at the plume of red dust that was slowly settling back down to the ground, and then walked over to the cart tracks, nudging at the indentations with my boot. There were no other tracks around—there was nothing else around. Just dirt, and sun. A sun that was about to set … and I had no food, no water, and no map. Not that there were any landmarks to reference on the map.
“Cyrus!” I shouted again, turning my face up to the sky even though I knew that Topia wasn’t actually in the sky.
He didn’t answer, of course, so I ended up screaming out an incomprehensible sound of frustration instead, before marching off down the tracks left behind by the cart. I had no idea where I was going, but at least I was following some kind of direction.
I picked up the pace a little as the sun began to sink lower and lower. My legs were aching and there was dust in my eyes, but I couldn’t just stop and sit down under a tree. There weren’t any trees, and there were probably wild packs of animals that came out at night to snack on the bones of abandoned dweller-sol-betas. That was probably why nobody ever came back from the dead zone—other than Dru and Karyn, apparently.
I was almost running by the time something finally came into view. I pulled a hand up over my eyes, squinting against the horizon. It was only a blurry outline, backed by the sun, but it seemed to be moving. I halted, watching as what seemed like another cart approached me from the horizon. The cloud of dust rose behind it, gently obscuring the sun in a hazy red glow, and for a moment, I was reminded of my Chaos. Of the damage I had done to Evie’s face. It seemed as though my soul-link to the Abcurses had been keeping me from blacking out and leaking Chaos up until this point, but now I was on my own. Well … on my own with whatever version of me took over whenever I blacked out and leaked Chaos everywhere. So … not really on my own at all. I also still had the semanight stone, if that counted for anything.
I waited while the cart approached, unable to see the person steering it properly through the haze of dust. When it finally skidded to a halt, veering off to the side of me, I realised that it had been following on the exact same track as Dru and Karyn had left. Maybe they had changed their minds, and were back to kill me.