Page 69

Behind a tipped table, he comes to a stop, staring down at something.

Curiosity compels me toward him, and I’m greeted by two skeletal figures lying on the floor, their bony arms clutching each other in a morbid display. The ratted hair scattered about their decaying skulls, and tattered, frayed dresses, tell me it might’ve been two females. A mother and daughter, given the difference in sizes. Or sisters. A black hole in their skulls mark the path of a bullet.

“They were murdered.” The words slip out of me as I study their corpses.

“Yes.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“In the beginning, Legion only took the males. That was before they realized how useful the females would be.”

“Legion?” I rear back and frown at him, the audacity of his response rendering me momentarily confused. “What are you talking about? Legion defended the hives. They fought the marauders that killed and raped.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know quite a bit, actually. My father was Legion. He told me stories of hunting down the marauders and Alphas.”

Holding a stuffed animal he picked up from the rubble, he glances back at me, before tossing it away. “Is that so? Then, perhaps he forgot to tell you the stories of how he’d rip children from their mothers. How the women were raped. The men and boys were forced into experiments at Calico.”

“The hospital?”

Still rifling through the piles of destruction, he produces a pair of boots, which he knocks on the ground, emptying the sand inside, and slides them over his bare feet. “Is that what they called it in Szolen?” He tosses me a daintier pair of shoes, I’m guessing, ones that belonged to the now-dead woman.

I don’t answer him while my mind zips through all of the stories my father told me of his travels to the different hives. “My father …. He said they picked up families from hives. They tried to help them.” The shoes are a bit snug when I slip them on, but worn enough that I suspect they’ll stretch.

“Is that right? You should go back and ask your father what really happened.”

Mouth twisting, I swallow back the flare of anger that rises to my eyes and burns with the threat of tears. “My father is dead. Killed by an Alpha.”

“Then, someone was probably saved in return.”

I barrel into his stomach, shoving as hard as I can against his unmovable body in an effort to stave off the tears. “I don’t give a damn what you say! My father was a good man!”

“So were the fathers he killed. The mothers. The daughters.”

“And how many good people have you killed, huh, Titus?”

Brows flickering with a frown, he looks away.

“Will was good, too.” At the sound of my voice cracking, I inwardly chide myself for nearly coming to tears in front of him, and turn to walk away.

“I didn’t want to kill him,” he says after me. “I tried to make it quick and painless.”

I can’t stop the tears, anymore. Probably due to exhaustion. Weakness from hunger and thirst, as well. If I don’t change the subject, I’ll surely crack soon, and neither of us can afford that. “Where would we find water?”

Instead of answering, Titus strides past me, out of the building, and after another glance back to where the bodies lay, I follow after him.

Chapter 25

It doesn’t take long before the ground turns soft and the quiet trickle of running water brings us to the edge of a creek. Crouching beside it, Titus rinses out the canteen he found back at the abandoned hive and fills it up, offering it to me before he’s even taken a sip himself.

I guzzle back the cool fluids, finishing off what he’s filled, and as he dips it again, I kneel down alongside him to scoop up a handful, which I splash over my face and rub across the back of my neck.

“God, this feels so good.” Another splash of water to my face, and I open my eyes to find Titus staring at me, mid-sip.

As if catching himself, he goes back to drinking the water, before filling the canteen again and capping it.

“I’ll just put this out there now. That, if you get any ideas, I happen to be well-versed in the plants that leave the nastiest rashes.”