Night Resurrected Page 4

  Her steps hitched, but she recovered quickly and kept walking. “Oh. Uh, nature calls,” she said, and headed for a thicker part of the woods. Dantès followed her, hobbling off at a labored pace.

  When she returned, he said, “How’s your leg?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “I hope you put a bandage on it, otherwise your jeans will rub it and get lint in—”

  “Yes, I have a bandage on it.” She was speaking from behind a clenched jaw.

  “The other thing is . . . Dantès can’t travel yet. We’re going to be staying here for a day or two.”

  She relaxed, her shoulders literally sagging. “I’m glad you think so. I was afraid . . .” She shrugged, then said in that prim tone, “You don’t have to stay.”

  Wyatt didn’t even bother to respond. He merely shook his head and went back into the truck. He could spend his time cleaning out the place a little better since they were going to be here at least another day. Plus, the Jameson’s had sidetracked him and he hadn’t finished his exploration last night. Maybe he’d find another bottle.

  Or, better yet, more duct tape.

  Remy debated about whether to take Dantès with her. She wanted to find a place to wash herself and her clothes, and while she preferred to have him stand guard, she could see that every step he took was painful. He needed rest.

  So, she asked Wyatt to hand down her pack and help her get Dantès into the truck. There weren’t nearly as many threats during the daylight as at night. She’d be fine as long as she didn’t go too far and had the gun in her waistband.

  After all, she’d been alone since she left Yellow Mountain, and many times before. She knew how to take care of herself.

  To her surprise, Wyatt didn’t have one smart-ass comment about her going off alone. Nor did he give her a list of commonsense instructions she didn’t need. Instead, he obliged her request for help with Dantès, then disappeared back into the truck. Moments later a wad of garbage thwumped out of the window and onto the ground.

  Well, he was going to be busy for a while.

  With all her cross-terrain travel, Remy had become adept at finding water while not losing track of where her camp was. There were plenty of landmarks to help guide her, and less than two miles from the truck cab she found a small lake.

  After a quick look around, she stripped and waded in. She couldn’t help one last glance toward the direction of the truck. If she were in a DVD or a novel, her bath would be interrupted—accidentally or purposely—by her handsome companion, spying on her.

  She snorted. By all indication, Wyatt would rather have his hands cut off than come upon her or any female bathing. Maybe he was gay.

  Then, with a rush of heat, she remembered the one time a few weeks ago when he’d looked at her without that cold, angry expression. It was right after he’d helped her remove the burning crystal from her skin.

  If it were up to me, I could think of a few things to do with you, he’d said.

  No. The man was not gay. Angry, rude, arrogant . . . but not gay.

  The water was cool but refreshing, and it took only a moment for her to get used to it. She washed her clothes and laid them out on a bush to dry, then ducked underwater to wash her hair.

  When she finished with her ablutions, Remy floated around on her back. As often happened, her fingers settled over the slight curve of her belly, covering the crystal as if to assure herself it was safe—the small gemstone her grandfather, the first Remington Truth, had given her on his deathbed, making her promise to guard with her life.

  It’s the key. You’ll know what to do with it when the time comes.

  The crystal itself was a rosy orange color and hardly bigger than her thumbnail. After he first gave it to her, she carried it in a zippered pants pocket. But then, after almost losing it when those pants were carried away down a river while she washed them, Remy realized she had to do something else with the crystal. If it was that important, she had to hide and protect it.

  For a while, then, she wore it around her neck on a chain, having fashioned a setting for it. But then there was a chance it would get caught, and the chain snap and break. Or someone might see it, and ask about it or yank it off her neck.

  And so, nearly fifteen years ago, she thought of a better way. She painstakingly wrought an intricate silver and gold setting for the crystal, which not only obscured most of the stone itself but also had four small wires. She had help from an old jeweler, who thought she simply meant to have an unusual belly ring, and pierced her navel in four places to hold the crystal firmly in place. It was thus hidden, protected, and always with her. She hadn’t had occasion to remove the complicated ornament for years—simply flushing water behind and around it and bathing the piercings with alcohol on occasion—until a few days ago, when it started to glow and burn and she was forced to ask Wyatt to help her remove it.

  His touch had been efficient and impersonal, but the memory of those long, confident fingers skating over her belly made Remy feel unsettled and warm even now. She chalked it up to the awkwardness of intimacy with a stranger and turned her thoughts firmly away, giving a powerful frog-kick in the lake. The water surged over her as she shot through the waves, still floating on her back, looking up at the blue sky from behind the filter of tree branches. Still remembering.

  Hide yourself, Remy. Don’t let them find you. Don’t . . . let . . . them . . . find you.

  She’d done what her grandfather bid, hiding from everyone, getting to know no one, disdaining long-term relationships and friendships. A lonely existence. And in the beginning it had been a frightening one. She had no idea when or if someone would be searching for her, hunting her down . . . and what they would do to her if they found her.

  But after years of nomadlike behavior, Remy found herself relaxing a little. She stayed in one place for months at a time, then moved and resettled. The closest she’d come to having a permanent home was her three years in Redlo, where she’d had a small business making pottery. She’d begun to feel safe. She had Dantès. She had friends. She had a pleasant life. For a time she’d even had a boyfriend.

  But that idyll had been interrupted by the arrival of Wyatt and his friends. They’d been searching for Remington Truth, and for some reason she’d never know, the words had popped from her mouth: I’m Remington Truth.

  How many times since then had she berated herself for being so stupid? How could that have just spilled from her lips so readily, after so many years of secrecy?

  Maybe it was because no one had actually said the name Remington Truth for so long? Caught off-guard, had her response been automatic?

  Or maybe her grandfather was right . . . She’d know what to do when the time came. Maybe the time had come. Maybe somehow she sensed it. Had she somehow known she could trust Wyatt and his group of friends? That they were the ones who could help her?

  Remy happened to glance over the trees lining the edge of the pond at that moment, and stopped paddling. Flipping into an upright position in the water, she shielded her eyes against the sun, squinting as she looked at the circle of birds. Large birds, like vultures. Circling. Diving.

  Definitely something worth investigating—it could be someone or some animal, injured.

  She splashed out of the water and dressed quickly. Her clothes were still damp, but she had clean underthings and they were dry. Stuffing everything into her pack, she put her shoes on and started off to where the birds of prey were gathered.

  As she walked, she reoriented herself. The truck cab was to her right, to the south—near an old highway signpost that still thrust up above the trees; an excellent landmark—and the birds were ahead, to the east. By the time Remy found her way, she estimated she was no more than three miles from her camp.

  When she came upon it, as she expected, the sight wasn’t a pretty one. Whoever it was had been dead long enough for maggots to hatch and other insects to find their way to fresh meat. But not more than a day or two.

  She ch
ased the birds away, her stomach roiling a little as she came close enough to see the corpse. A man. What was left of his skin was pale and bloated, but his hair was dark. His feet were bare, his clothing half picked away by creatures trying to get to flesh.

  Remy looked around the area. It wasn’t a clearing so much as a space beneath three trees. It didn’t appear to be a campsite, per se. But a pair of decrepit hiking boots sitting to the side caught her attention, and, setting her pack down, she went over to them.

  As she knelt to pick them up, her breath caught. She knew these boots. One of the laces was twine, the other had no laces at all but were held closed at the top by a piece of wire. They were easy to recognize because they’d been slit over the toes on the left foot and the soles were trashed, hardly wearable anymore. He’d been complaining about them for a while.

  Ian Marck’s boots.

  In her haste to examine the body again, Remy tripped, nearly tumbling back to the ground when she launched herself to her feet. But she righted herself and went back over, slowing a few steps away—just as hesitant to approach this time. Her heart thudded in her chest.

  She knew it wasn’t her former lover’s body lying there, picked away like carrion. No, but she had to assure herself of it anyway.

  Because if it wasn’t Ian’s body, but his boots were here . . . that meant Ian was still alive. He’d somehow survived the beating from Seattle’s friends, and the fall over a cliff.

  He’d been here. He’d probably exchanged boots with the dead man. He could have killed the dead man.

  He could still be around.

  As if she conjured him up, there was a sharp crackle in the woods behind her. Remy whirled, grabbing for her gun.

  Chapter 3

  “This is the third time you’ve pointed a weapon at me,” Wyatt said, stepping into view. “It’s starting to get old.”

  Remy lowered the gun. “Then don’t keep sneaking up on me.”

  “I didn’t sneak up on you the first time. When you shot at me.” He walked over to the dead body. “What do we have here?”

  “I warned you not to move, and you did. And for the last time, I didn’t shoot at you. I shot above your shoulder. Just where I aimed.”

  “Someday,” he said, crouching next to the body, “I’m going to have you prove what a sharpshooter you claim to be.”

  “I’m not going to waste my ammunition in order to soothe your ruffled man feathers,” she replied, tucking the gun back into her jeans.

  “If you’re as good as you claim, it would only be a single bullet. Right?”

  Remy rolled her eyes and gestured to the body. “Any idea what killed him?” If it had been Ian, it would be something quick and efficient: a neat twist of the neck, a single bullet to the head, a well-placed slit at the neck.”

  “Could be that cut at the neck, but the body’s too wrecked to tell for sure. And . . .” Wyatt picked up a stick and used it to move away the tatters of the man’s shirt at the throat and shoulders. “No sign of a crystal.”

  Not a Stranger, then. Remy hadn’t thought to look to see whether there was—or had been—a crystal embedded in the man’s flesh. The Strangers had once been mortal humans just like her, but they’d implanted special, living crystals in their skin, just below the collarbone. The bluish gems grew, rooting themselves by spreading delicate tentacles throughout the body. Once implanted with a crystal, a Stranger would die if it was removed. But with it, he or she would live forever, never aging or growing ill. The only way to kill a Stranger, as far as she knew, was to remove the crystal. Hack it out of the flesh of which it had become a living part.

  Still staring down, Remy asked, “Anyone you know?”

  “No.” Wyatt stood and scanned the clearing, appearing to notice the discarded boots. Then he settled his attention back on her. “You?”

  “No.” Remy didn’t look at the boots or at Wyatt. She wasn’t certain whether she wanted to tell him Ian Marck was still alive.

  After all, Ian was a bounty hunter who worked for the Strangers—the people who were, according to Wyatt and his friends Theo and Elliott, the cause of the Change that had destroyed the world. Aside from that, Ian and his father, Raul, had a reputation of terror, violence, and greed. The Marcks were dangerous and hovered on the fringe between the Strangers and the rest of human civilization. But she knew another side of Ian . . . one that wasn’t quite so harsh or violent. And she also knew there had been a sort of truce in the past between Ian and Wyatt’s friend Elliott.

  Raul was dead, but Ian had continued the family tradition, so to speak, as a ruthless bounty hunter. Working for the Strangers, he raided settlements, looking for and taking into custody anyone or anything that could be considered a threat to the control and repression they had over the mortal humans: electronic devices, communication equipment, gas-powered vehicles, or anything that could help build infrastructure.

  Remy knew about the work of the bounty hunters firsthand. She’d participated in more than one raid. She wasn’t proud of it. But she hadn’t had a choice. And she’d never hurt anyone.

  And her relationship with Ian . . . well, complicated didn’t begin to describe it. Yes, they’d been lovers. But they hadn’t been intimate. She’d never understood the difference until she hooked up with Ian.

  She realized Wyatt was looking at her as she stared down at the body. “Let’s go back,” she said. “Unless you want to—uh—wash up. There’s a lake that way.”

  “I’ll meet you back at the truck rig,” he said, still looking at her with speculation. “Dantès is resting. Keep him quiet.”

  So ready to escape his serious, sharp eyes, she took off without comment. As if she needed to be told how to take care of her own dog.

  Back at the truck Remy did a little organizing of her own and made something for Dantès to eat. She had an apple and one of the last pieces of bread she’d taken from Yellow Mountain. Then she considered ideas for dinner as she sat next to him, alternately scratching her pet behind the ears and patching up the tear in her pants. Thanks to Wyatt’s earlier attention, the small homelike space was clean and comfortable. She had to give him credit for that, at least, and so she figured she’d make dinner. She wasn’t bad at trapping rabbits, and she knew how to find wild potatoes and strawberries . . .

  Dantès sensed Wyatt’s approach before Remy did, his ears snapping upright. He leapt to his paws faster than was probably healthy, too excited to see his secondary master to let pain affect him. Before she could stop him, he bounded up onto one of the bucket seats in the front of the truck and stuck his head out the window, giving a short bark.

  Remy wouldn’t have even acknowledged the man’s return if she hadn’t been worried Dantès would try and launch himself down through the window to greet him—and Wyatt would probably blame her for not keeping him quiet—so she moved to the front to hold him back just as the man appeared.

  Whoa.

  Wyatt came into view with long, loping strides that seemed easy but covered ground rapidly. His black hair was wet, winging every which way around his temples, ears, and jaw. It looked like he’d even shaved. As she’d noticed before, he wore the hell out of his dark blue jeans: beltless, they rode low on his hips, loose in all the right places, showing off the shape of his long legs without being too tight, bunching up a little over his sturdy boots at the ankle. But what had her mouth going dry was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. And . . . yeah.

  She’d suspected he was nicely built, but seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, was a shock. A pleasant shock. Yet, knowing she had to share such a small space with him, it was a little disconcerting. He looked so very male. His shoulders were broad and square, his arms well-defined with large, sleek biceps and sturdy forearms. The sunlight gleamed off the droplets of water that fell from his wet head and trickled down through the expanse of dark hair on his chest and over flat, slightly ridged abs. His skin was a rich golden-bronze, and she could see the hint of a tan line as his jeans slipped with the rhythm
of his steps.

  Remy realized she’d gone hot and completely breathless. She ducked away, into the back of the truck, before he could look up and see her gawking. I hope to hell he puts a shirt on before he climbs up in here.

  She heard Dantès’s enthusiastic greetings, then Wyatt’s reply as he helped the dog clamber down safely. Amazing how he always spoke to Dantès in such a pleasant tone, so friendly and warm . . . but to her and everyone else, it seemed as if he could hardly bear to be civil.

  Remy shook her head, tying off the thread on her mended pants. It was just as well he was a jerk. With a body like that . . . She put the trousers aside—they still needed to have the blood washed out of them—and was just about to take inventory of her waning food supplies when a shadow appeared at the front of the truck.

  “You are here.”

  She looked up to see Wyatt, bare-shouldered, suddenly taking up all the space in the truck as he poked his head into the back. He sounded surprised and maybe a little irritated.

  “I was just going through some of the—I mean, I was sewing up my pants. Why, did you expect me to be watching for you? I have plenty of things to be doing besides waiting around for you to come back.”

  His lips flattened into a thin line. “No. I brought back some wild asparagus and potatoes. I was going to cook them up for dinner. For both of us. I found some cans of beans along with other canned food—I put them in one of the cupboards.”

  Remy took a calming breath, already regretting her sharp words. Just because he was a dick didn’t mean she had to be one too. And she’d been so distracted by the sight of his bare chest, she hadn’t even noticed that he was carrying anything. “That was nice of you. I’ll be happy to cook.”

  “Deal.” He climbed all the way into the truck and brushed past her so closely a droplet of water, warm from his hair, fell on her arm. “I found something you might want to see. In the woods.”

  “All right.”

  He dug through his pack, and to her relief, pulled out a shirt and shrugged into it, buttoning it quickly down the front, leaving a small vee of dark hair showing at the top. Then he emptied his pack, dug in the plastic tub and pulled out several things and shoved them into the pack.