Forager (9781771275606) Read online

  When we reached the last door on the right, the man grabbed the back of my neck with one hand and rapped the barrel of the shotgun against the door.

  “Come,” a woman’s voice said from the other side.

  I opened the door.

  Rasp, the beautiful, dark-haired leader of this gang, sat behind a desk. She held a pencil poised over a piece of clean, white paper. Where had she gotten that? Paper—clean, white, unused paper—was a luxury I’d only ever seen the mayor have.

  Rasp looked up. “What’s this?”

  “I caught him sneaking around behind the sheds,” the man with gun said.

  “Very well.” Rasp laid her pencil down. With both elbows on the desk, she clasped her hands together and rested her chin on her folded fingers.

  “Sit down.” She pointed to the two chairs in front of the desk. I chose the one on the left.

  She stared at me for what felt like forever. I met her gaze for a few heartbeats, but I couldn’t hold it. Her dark green eyes reminded me of grass right after a spring storm. Instead, I let my gaze wander around the room.

  It was a small corner room with two windows. Other than the desk and chairs, the only other item was a computer sitting in a tangle of wires in one corner. Strips of olive green wallpaper hung loose in several places, revealing the cream colored plaster beneath.

  “So,” she said, bringing my attention back to her. “You’re either here to case the place or to try and free the girl. You’re obviously not here to join up. You don’t have the look of a Banished.”

  She hadn’t asked me a question, but she sat their staring at me like I was supposed to say something. Was she expecting me to admit I was trying to gather information?

  “Did you come for the girl?” she asked.

  I sat there quietly, not quite making eye contact, staring to the right of her face.

  She studied me with her intense green eyes. I was a bug under her magnifying glass. She shook her head. “No, you’re not here on a rescue mission. That means you’re a spy. Not a very good one, and way too young, but still, a spy.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. Me, a spy? A spy was someone in a book or a movie. I was just trying to help Chane, but as I thought about it, a spy was exactly what the mayor and Frank had made me.

  She smiled at me like she’d read my mind. Then, she lifted her chin off of her fingers and sat back in her chair. She looked up at the man with the gun. “Mike, is our young spy alone?”

  “I didn’t see anyone else, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a look around. I brought him here as soon as I found him.”

  Rasp looked at me. “Are you alone?’

  Her eyes locked on mine as she read my expression. I tried to keep my face as calm as possible. If they didn’t know about Josh, there was a chance he might be able help. Sitting there, I tried to keep my hands from shaking. I wasn’t sure if she was as good as Sawyer at figuring out what I was thinking, but I didn’t want to let my body or my mouth give her any more clues.

  She nodded. “Mike, you better search the grounds. He’s not alone.”

  Closing my eyes, I let my head drop.

  Mike asked, “Are you sure?”

  “I am now,” she answered.

  I wanted to kick myself. She had been bluffing, and I had given Josh away with my reaction.

  She waved Mike out of the room and chuckled as the door shut. “You’re too young to play this game. Why not save yourself the aggravation and just tell me the answers?”

  There didn’t seem to be much point in refusing. If she was going to figure everything out anyway, I should try and use it to my advantage. “How about a deal? I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

  “Fine, but I go first. Let’s start with a question I can’t figure out by simply studying you. How did you find us?”

  I thought about lying, but I figured she was too observant for that. Keeping the details sparse, I told her about Sawyer, about foraging for the alternator, and how her guards shot at me. I faltered when I tried to recall how many days ago it happened.

  “That was yesterday morning,” Rasp said.

  I shook my head. It couldn’t have been. I put the last day in rewind. Josh and I leaving town, sleeping, the Infirmary, rushing into the surgery room, the night spent finding the medicine, hearing the news about Sawyer’s leg, giving the alternator to Charlie, riding into town, and finally mounted on Fred, desperately fleeing the smoking guns.

  “You must have had a busy couple of days.” She pursed her lips in thoughtfulness.

  “You could say that,” I answered.

  She held her hands out palms up. “It’s your question.”

  What did I most want to know? I could have asked her anything, from how many Scavengers were in her band, to the state of their stores, but there was only one question I really wanted answered. “How did you kidnap Chane?”

  Her face turned solemn. “We didn’t kidnap her, she came to us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “You’re…” I almost said lying. Too many loose ends suddenly knotted together. Chane’s desire to go somewhere new, her disappearance the day after the attack, the way she was so unafraid when she was mounted behind Rasp. Even her comment to her father, “Just give them what they want and they’ll let me go,” now made sense.

  I was a fool. I should have figured it out. It didn’t matter that no one else had. This was Chane, the girl I thought I knew.

  My shock turned to anger. How could she do this to me, to the town, to her family? I saw her movements like scenes from a movie—sneaking out of her mom’s house, meeting with the Scavengers, planning the ransom. The only thing I didn’t understand was how she’d found the Scavengers in the first place.

  Rasp let me think. Her green eyes watched as understanding flooded my brain.

  “She set the whole thing up, didn’t she?” I asked.

  “Yes, after so many of ours were wounded and killed in the attack, her coming was a stroke of luck. I don’t deny we made the most of it. Unfortunately, her idiot brother ruined everything when he shot me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I overreacted. My demands were too high. No town has that much to spare. It’s no wonder they sent you.”

  I was about to ask what she was planning, when we were interrupted by a knock.

  “Come,” Rasp called.

  Mike, the man with the shotgun, led Josh through the door. Josh stepped toward my chair, cocked his fist, and did his best to make the right side of my jawbone meet the left. The impact of the punch knocked both me and the chair to the ground. Pain exploded in my face.

  “You idiot, you told her I was out there! Now they have both of us and the horses!”

  With slightly unfocused eyes, I saw Rasp stand from her desk and point a pistol at Josh. “You, you’re the one that shot me!”

  Mike stood at the door. The shotgun in his hand swayed between my crumpled form and Josh.

  My hazy head made it hard to focus, but this situation was one step away from going as far bad as it could. Crawling to my feet, I stood in front of Josh. I didn’t like having Rasp’s pistol pointed at my back, Mike’s shotgun at my front, and Josh’s cocked fists in my face. Of the three, I figured Josh was the most dangerous.

  “Calm down, Josh. I didn’t tell her anything. She figured it out on her own.” The short speech hurt. My jaw was already swelling.

  “It’s true. He never spoke a word about you. You’re lucky he didn’t. I’d have gone out there personally and shot you where you stood,” Rasp said in a voice cold enough to freeze the sun.

  Taking a deep breath, I slowly turned around so everyone stood in my circle of vision. “Can we all just calm down a bit here?” Keeping my movements slow and precise, I picked up the overturned chair. I didn’t want anyone thinking I might use it as a weapon.

  Mike looked at Rasp. She gave him a nod and he lowered the shotgun. Rasp took her own gun and placed it in a holster on her ankle. I pointed a
t Josh and gestured to the chair beside me.

  He shook his head. “I ain’t got nothing to say to these people.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “Josh. You’d better sit down. There’s something you don’t know.”

  “What?” he said, still standing. I motioned to the chair again. “Fine.” Josh plopped himself into the chair. “What don’t I know?”

  “Chane wasn’t kidnapped,” I blurted. “She came here on her own,”

  Her burst right back to his feet. “That’s the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard.”

  Mike leveled his shotgun at Josh. Rasp redrew her pistol.

  “Josh,” I said calmly, pointing at the armed pair. “You might want to think about controlling yourself. The way I see it, you’re lucky you haven’t already been shot.”

  Josh’s face turned a shade of purple rivaling his father’s worst coloring. “It ain’t true! They’re lying! Chane wouldn’t do that!”

  The rest of us stayed quiet. Josh looked at Rasp, then at Mike, and then to me. We all nodded.

  “No! It ain’t true!”

  “In the interests of time, let’s get Chane up here. Mike, do you mind?” Rasp asked.

  “What about these two? You gonna be all right?” Mike asked.

  “I’ll be fine.” Rasp gave her pistol a little wiggle.

  I sat in the chair, nursing my swollen, thick jaw.

  Rasp opened her desk drawer, pulled out a broken shard of mirror and handed it to me. “It’s already starting to bruise.”

  Looking in the mirror, I saw she was right. A big dark blotch was forming on the right side of my face. I handed the mirror back.

  “You still look better than him.” Rasp pointed at Josh, who still bore the marks from our scuffle in town. “Not that I mind seeing that insolent waste of space bruised. What happened?”

  Josh glared at me with hate. He looked back to Rasp and said, “I fell off a horse.”

  “I’d say there’s more to the story than that.”

  “Fine. Orphan Boy here pulled me off a horse. I wasn’t expecting it.”

  Rasp smiled. Her eyes turned into solid green crystals. The smile was so cruel and unforgiving that she looked like a different person. “I’d have missed a meal to see that.”

  We waited in silence after that until someone rapped on the door. “Come,” Rasp said.

  Mike led Chane into the room.

  My heart lost a beat. Chane’s deep brown eyes lit with a curious light when she saw her brother. She looked amazing. Yet all I saw was betrayal. I turned away. Everything I’d gone through to help her was for nothing. She’d fooled us all, but me more than the rest.

  Josh stood and pulled his sister into a rough hug. I heard him whisper, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Josh. I saw them bring you in. What are you doing here? And what happened to your face?” She didn’t bother to keep her voice down.

  Josh looked around nervously. “Never mind that. They’re telling us you’re here on your own, that they didn’t kidnap you. Is that true?”

  Chane’s cheeks flushed red. She tossed her long blond hair over her right shoulder. Her back stiffened and her shoulders tightened. “It’s true.” There was defiance and pride in those two words.

  Josh shook his head. His fists clenched. “Why?” The word came out as more of snarl than a question.

  “I’m tired of Dad always telling me what I can and can’t do. I wanted to get away from him, from the town. It was time to make my own decisions and try something different. Besides, I like it here. These people aren’t what you think.”

  “Do you know how much trouble you’re going to be in when we get home?” Josh asked. “Don’t you realize everyone’s worried about you? We risked our lives coming out here.”

  Chane looked past Josh to where I was sitting. I don’t think she had even noticed me before.

  “Dillon? Why you? I mean…”

  Words can be funny things. Combine them with the right tone, the right expression, and they can make you smile…or cry. I’d never have doubts again about Chane’s feelings for me.

  She knew me, she’d called me by name, but the pureness of her confusion, and the blank look on her face, finished tearing my dreams apart.

  Swallowing hard, I tried to keep the tears out of my eyes. She’d endangered our town, and she’d killed my dreams of us being together. She wasn’t the girl I’d made her out to be. In truth, she never had been. I was too caught up in her looks to see the cold, selfish person underneath. I didn’t bother to answer but looked to Rasp.

  With the way she could read people, I’m sure Rasp understood.

  She spoke to Josh. “Are you satisfied that your sister is here by her own choice?”

  Josh bit his bottom lip, closed his eyes, and nodded.

  “Chane, return to your work.”

  I didn’t even watch as she left the room.

  “Mike, take this one,” she pointed at Josh, “and put him to work while I decide what to do.”

  “I ain’t gonna work for you!” Josh yelled.

  “You can work or you can be hogtied. It makes no difference to me,” she said.

  Her indifference astonished me. She honestly didn’t care what Josh chose. I think he realized it too, because he said, “Fine, I’ll work.”

  Mike led him out of the room.

  Rasp gazed at me, and then at the ceiling. “This has turned into a mess. It was supposed to be a quick ransom. Now I’ve put everyone in danger.”

  “How so?” I asked

  “You and that good-for-nothing were sent out here as scouts. That means your mayor is planning an attack. Normally, I’d pack everyone up and move on. I can’t do that this time.”

  “Because of the wounded?” I asked.

  “Exactly. I can’t just send Chane back, either. My followers wouldn’t allow it. They’d rather fight than give her up without compensation. I could overrule them, but if I did, I’d lose their respect. It would only be a matter of time before someone tried to replace me.”

  I liked her honesty, and that she was trusting me with it, but it gave me the opportunity to gather more information. “You couldn’t just admit that you made a mistake?”

  “It’s the same thing. Leaders don’t make mistakes. No one respects you. If I lose their respect, I’m done.”

  An idea began to worm its way into my brain. “You said you needed compensation for Chane. Does it have to be supplies?”

  “What are you getting at?” she asked.

  “What if I could get you a doctor and some medicine for your wounded?”

  Her eyes flickered. I took it for a telltale sign of interest. “Medicine? You can get real medicine, and a real doctor?”

  I was confident Dr. White would be willing to trade his services to secure our release. What I didn’t know was whether or not the medicines would work. I decided it didn’t matter. I wasn’t promising they would, only that I could get them.

  “Yes,” I answered with as much confidence as I could.

  “In that case, I can send Chane on one of your horses and keep you and her brother here as hostages.”

  That wouldn’t work. I was the only one who knew the location of the medicines. I didn’t want to tell her that, though. If she knew our town didn’t have most of the medicines, I’d lose half of my bargaining power.

  “You could do that,” I said. “But wouldn’t it make your position stronger if you held on to Josh and let me take Chane back?”

  “Don’t try and get clever with me. I saw how you looked at him. You could care less what happens to him.”

  “True, but if Chane and I go back, you still have Josh. The mayor will be so happy to see his daughter that he’ll be more likely to agree to the terms.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you have to go. I could send Chane by herself.”

  Quickly, I tried to think. What could I tell her that would allow me to get back to town without having to reveal the cache of medicines? My mind went bl
ank.

  “You’re hiding something. Out with it.”

  It was no good to lie to her. “I’m the only one who knows where the medicines are.”

  Rasp studied me, her deep green eyes searching every detail of my face. “Ah, you found the medicines while you were Foraging. Where are they?”

  If I gave up the location of the cache, she’d take everything. The mayor would kill me, but what choice did I have?

  “If I tell you where they are, you have to let us all go free, right now.”

  “No. Even with the medicines, no one here knows anything about them. We’d still need a doctor.”

  With no leverage against us, there would be no reason for Dr. White to come. He, like the rest of the town, had no love for Scavengers.

  “Here’s what I’m willing to do,” Rasp said. “You will lead a small party to the medicines. When we find them, Chane will be released to you. Chane’s brother will remain here until your doctor has treated the wounded. Do we have a deal?”

  “One thing,” I said. “It won’t be pretty, but Josh needs to know. He’s not going to be happy about being left behind.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  Rasp led me back through the house, past the wounded again. Their moans and cries were easier to tolerate now that I might be able to help them. My whole life I’d been taught that Scavengers were lower than animals, that they were a plague on our town. Now, after seeing them, talking with Rasp, and feeling the pain of their wounded, I wondered why.

  Josh called me an idiot three times and only threatened to beat my face in twice when I told him our plan. All in all, he took the news surprisingly well.

  We met up with Chane over where Fred and a horse for Rasp were waiting.

  “I don’t want to go back to town. I like it here,” Chane said when Rasp told her she had to leave.

  “There won’t be a here if you don’t go back. Your father and all the townsfolk are preparing an attack. We can’t stand against them. If you stay, it will only be to watch the rest of us die.”