Eagle.
Eagle. Eagle.Eagle.
His name beat a steady rhythm through my muddled memories.
“Just breathe,” he said, his voice a low rumble through the darkness. “It’s too early for this shit.”
I did as he said and took a slow breath, attempting to calm my raging heart. I played his unsympathetic words, and his voice, over and over in my head, letting them take hold of me. Eventually I calmed some, and with that calmness came the realization that I felt better than I had before. My body still ached, still riddled with various aches and pains, but nothing like before.
“How long?” I asked, my voice a raw scratch against the silence. “How long have I been sleeping?”
Although I couldn’t see him, I could plainly hear his frustration in his voice. “Two days. Three if you’d let me sleep.”
Three days.
Almost three days I had been here with him, hidden inside his home, safe and protected from the others. He’d looked after me, I realized uncomfortably, andcleaned me. How long had it been since someone had looked after me? How long had it been since I had been protected, since I’d slept without fear? This man had given me three days of peace and protection.
I stared into the darkness, wondering what had happened to the howling bird, and thinking of my father. He told me to never trust anyone, not one single person, but especially men. Thinking of the man in the room with me, somewhere in the darkness, I wondered if that was true anymore.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why did you help me?”
He never replied, and somewhere between the rising morning and the night slipping away, I forgot that I’d asked. Maybe I never did; maybe, like the howling bird, it was just another product of my imagination.
Chapter Nine
Eagle
“What are you up to?” Grannie demanded, her wrinkled hands sitting on her wide hips, her sharp blue eyes crinkled at the corners, staring daggers into me.
In the middle of the marketplace, inside Grannie’s tent, I glared right back at the old broad, purposely crossing my arms over my chest in an effort to refrain from sending my fist into her face. “You don’t get to ask me that,” I gritted out.
“You come here demanding antibiotics,” she shouted, not at all cowed by my aggressive demeanor. “And expect me to just hand ’em over.” Tutting at me, she shook her head. “I’m not afraid of you, Mister E. You do your worst if you have to, but you’ll never find them pills you want.”
The elderly were usually never afraid of me, nor were the very young. The young were too stupid to know better, or looking to prove something. And the old ones knew they were already knocking on death’s door, so they simply didn’t care one way or the other what I threatened to do to them.
“I’ll trade you whatever the fuck you want,” I spat out. “Name your price, old woman, and it’s yours.”
Surprising me, she merely shook her head, her eyes now tiny slits of fury, angrier than I’d ever seen her before. She was usually a batty sort of woman, always talking too much and far too friendly for my liking, so I’d made a point to only do business with her when it was absolutely necessary.
Grannie was the go-to woman for clothing, bedding, and shoes; she’d mend, create, or somehow obtain whatever you needed of the fabric or footwear variety. And since I’d never had the need to special request a goddamn thing, I hadn’t had all that much interaction with her. Still, knowing what I knew about her, I hadn’t expected this level of hostility from a past-her-prime hippie with a proclivity for gossip.
“You’re not sick,” she said, her tone accusatory. “And those are rare gems you’re asking me for, E. What about the people who really need ’em?”
“You shouldn’t have them to begin with,” I countered. “You know the damn rules. You come across something like that, you hand it over to the doctor.” Baring my teeth, I gave her a nasty grin. “And now I’m done playing this fucking game. You give them to me and I don’t turn you in for breaking the rules. We clear?”
The infuriating woman only snorted in response. “First,” she said haughtily, “you’d have to prove I have them. And good luck with that. No one but me knows where they are.”
My nostrils flared as my breaths slowed and deepened. I couldn’t trust her, not knowing the way she ran her mouth all over Purgatory. If I spilled and told her I had the girl the guards were looking for stashed inside my house, everyone would know within the space of thirty minutes. But the girl’s stab wound was still a nasty red and oozing, even this many days later. She was weak, still feverish at times, and no longer able to hold anything down.
And then what will you do with her?the voice asked.Keep her as a pet?
Ignoring the voice, I continued to glare at Grannie. “Woman, I will make your life a living hell. I will follow you wherever you go, night and day, until I get those pills.” Taking a threatening step forward, now towering over her shorter frame, I leaned into her personal space. “And Adam’s death will be on your hands.”
Grannie’s narrowed eyes widened and the hands at her hips began to fumble, clenching and twisting in the material of her long skirt. It had been Adam who’d given me the heads-up on the antibiotics, pointing me in Grannie’s direction, and everyone around here liked Adam. Surely Grannie wouldn’t risk his life? Not that I would actually kill one of the very few people I still trusted in this world. At least, not if I didn’t have to. But Grannie didn’t need to know that.
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered, her reedy voice suddenly tinged with fear.
A grin twisted my lips. “I would and I will. You know that.”
