Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(101)

“George was right,” Benny said. “I wish I’d met him. He sounds like a pretty great guy.”

Lilah gave Benny a slow up-and-down appraisal, perhaps re-evaluating him. Or maybe seeing him for the first time and getting who he was. She nodded, although Benny wasn’t sure if that was

an agreement with what he’d said or a confirmation of some unspoken thought.

“So you fought?” Nix said, perhaps a little more sharply than was absolutely necessary.

Lilah’s eyes lingered on Benny as she said, “Yes.”

“What did they do?” Nix asked, and this time there was more compassion in her voice.

“They beat me.” Lilah shrugged as if that was nothing, as if measured against all that she had endured, it was a small thing. Nix paled and Benny shivered. “Beat me a lot. No food.”

Nix cursed.

Lilah gave another shrug. “Made me tougher. Made me mad. Mad enough.”

“And Annie?”

“She … ran.”

They looked at her and saw a tear break from the corner of one hazel eye and roll down her tanned cheek. It glistened like a diamond in the lantern light.

“Ran?”

“Fought and ran. Stormy night, lots of rain. Annie ran, the ugly man chased her. Hammer. He chased. Annie tripped. Slipped on mud. She fell. Badly. Hit her head on a stone.”

“No …”

“I couldn’t do … anything.” Lilah shook her head in denial of the memory. “They left her there. Like trash out in the rain. Like she was nothing. I was already out of there, escaped two

days before, but came back. Sneaky, quiet. To get Annie. But … when I found her, Annie was gone. Already gone. Then she … came back.”

“Oh God, no …”

“Tried to bite.”

More tears fell from Lilah’s eyes. It was all that Lilah would say on the subject. Nix asked her what she’d done with her sister, but Lilah just shook her head. Benny matched this against

what Tom had told him, of the man Lilah has been trying to kill over and over again. The Motor City Hammer. All these long, frustrating years, Lilah had been killing the image of the Hammer

in the hopes that one day she’d get him within range to take revenge for what had been done to her and her little sister.

“I’m sorry,” said Nix.

Lilah turned to her, eyes cold, voice frosty. “Sorry? Does that bring Annie back?”

“Well, no, but I—”

“Save words like ‘sorry.’ Save for the dead. Living don’t need them.”

She snatched up her spoon and forcefully stirred the stew, slopping some bits into the fire. Benny reached out and took Nix’s hand.

“How can the world be this cruel?” Nix asked quietly.

There was no chance that Benny could answer that question, but there was something about the warmth and reality of the hand he held in his that made an argument that cruelty wasn’t the only

force at work in their world.

Nix said, “Lilah, will you come back to town with us?”

The Lost Girl looked up. “Why?”

“So you’ll be safe,” said Nix.

“Safe now.”

“It’s safer in town,” Nix said, but Lilah laughed.

“Charlie and the Hammer killed your mother in your town.” She pointed to Benny. “Killed his brother out here. Nowhere is safe.”

Before Benny or Nix could reply to that, Lilah added, “Out here—I kill. Walkers, bad men. I kill and I live. I’m safe here.”

That put an end to the conversation until after the stew was cooked. She dished out food, and Benny had to use real effort to maintain a straight face, because the one thing this wild girl

could not do was cook. The stew tasted like hot sewage. He noticed that Nix was pretending to enjoy it while not actually eating much.

“Lilah,” Benny said, “Charlie Pink-eye’s camp is up here, right? On the other side of the mountain?”

Lilah nodded.

“Nix, you heard him,” Benny said. “He has kids up there, right?”

“Yes,” Nix said with a shudder. “They’re taking them to Gameland. It’s where they were going to take me.”

“Gameland,” Lilah said, and she bared her teeth like a hunting cat. Her fist knotted around her fork until the tendons in her hand were as taut as fiddle strings. “Annie.”

“Gameland,” repeated Nix in a sick, flat voice.

“Charlie and the Hammer have destroyed all of our families. They’re worse than any zom out here in the Ruin. They’re worse than a world of zoms. At least the zoms don’t know that what

they’re doing is wrong. Charlie and the Hammer do. They’re evil.”

“Evil,” Lilah said, and the Nix echoed the word.

“Where are you going with this, Benny?” Nix asked.

He set down his dish and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Look,” he said, “I’m nobody’s idea of a hero, but I don’t think I want to go back to town just yet. In fact, I don’t think I

can go back to town, knowing that those other kids are up there.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Nix. “That we march into his camp and ask him to release those kids?”