“I have a plan.”
“I’m waiting.”
“You’re not going to like it,” he warns me.
“Will I like it any better than being bid on by a bunch of men who only got out of prison because the world ended?”
“When you put it like that…” Maverick gives me a crooked grin that makes him look a little younger than usual. “I’m going to win you.”
I’m gonna hurl.
“I hope that’s not all.” I close my eyes. “Please tell me there’s more to your brilliant plan than that.”
There has to be. While I don’t want to be won byanyone, it’s definitely better if Maverick can be my “husband”; at least I can hope that he won’t suddenly decide he wants to climb into bed with me and fuck me. The other guys? I’m betting that’s the first thing they’ll try to do.
But this is Darryl’s town. Darryl’s rules. And he certainly does like having many wives… who is to say he won’t decidehe’s the winner?
Maverick seems certain that his plan will work. “I have something that Darryl will want. I met him before, remember? I offer it up, he calls me the winner, and we’ll be out of here before you know it. Trust me. The women in East Jersey do what their husbands tell them. If I say we have to go to New York…”
A frisson of hope fills me. “Darryl’s rules will say that I have to go with you.”
I don’t know what Maverick has that will be worth it for Darryl to give up on fucking with me—or the idea of actually fucking me. I have to hope he’s right because I’m pretty sure that’s as much as I’m getting out of the tight-lipped cop about this brilliant plan of his.
Still, I have to ask, “But what if it doesn’t work?”
“Ithasto work.”
I highly doubt it will.
“Why go through all that? Why not just leave? You got out before, right?” Don’t think I haven’t noticed that he completely blew past the fact that he hasn’t acknowledgedwhyhe’d been in East Jersey before. “You have to know how. Fuck his rules. You can lead me out of here now.”
“I do know the way. And I can leave whenever I want. It’s just…youcan’t.”
That’s the wrong thing to say to me at the moment.
“Oh? I’d like to see them try to stop me,” I seethe, crossing the room in five strides and tugging at the doorknob. It doesn’t even turn a little bit. A rush of panic makes my hand slip off the knob, my heart racing a mile a minute. Grabbing it with both hands, I yank and I pull and I try to rip the handle right off the door, but it doesn’t give at all.
Are you kidding me? We’ve beenlockedin!
“Xandra,” and his voice is low yet urgent, “I need you to calm down. Think about it… do you really want Darryl changing his mind and barging in here right now? Because, I tell you, it’s only because he knows my face that he’s giving us any semblance of privacy at all. Would you rather be with Darryl? You saw him. You met his?—”
I whirl around, pointing at him. “Don’t even say it,” I warn.
“—you’ve met the women he believes are his. He likes his collection. If you weren’t in here with me, I have no doubt that you’d be up there with him.”
My stomach flip-flops. I managed to control it when they sentenced that poor guy to the lurker, but it’s definitely queasy now. Maverick’s meaning isn’t lost on me. I met Darryl’s wives. At least two of them were younger than me—and one was visibly pregnant which means he wasted no time after the Turning in knocking her up.
Oh, God.
I’m trembling as I march across the room, moving past Maverick so that I can drop down on the bed. “Fine. But you’re still sleeping on the floor.”
It isn’t long before his muffled snores fill the room. Me? I’m still wide awake, and more than a little frustrated that Maverick was able to drift off so easily. Anxiety is a bitch, and despite the fact that I’m sleeping in an actual bed for the first time in days, all I do is stare up at the ceiling and hope like hell that this prison town has as good of a handle on their borders as they claim they do.
They’ll need to. If they’re in the habit of feeding their people to lurkers to keep the rest in line, they probably have more of the monsters nearby than we do in the Grave. It’s like feeding stray cats. Once they know where food is, you can’t shake them.
Is that dark-haired man already gone? His screams as two of the other ex-cons dragged him away will haunt me for the rest of my life. He could be lurker chow, or if he managed to get away with only one chunk taken out of him, he could be a lurker himself.
What are the odds he’s another lone survivor, a rogue out in the world on his own?
