Chapter 1
Tiffany crept from the boardinghouse—the building which had more recently become her jail with the new curfews and restriction in place on the women.
Glancing warily up and down the street, she gripped the strap of her backpack so firmly in her hand that her knuckles had whitened around as she listened intently for any hint of sound.
It was ridiculous.
She was thirty-seven and forced to sneak away like a runaway child, but she had little choice.
Rumors of women being carried off by monsters had spread to town and people were panicking as a call went out among the men to seal the town.
For the safety of the women, they said, but she wasn’t fooled.
She could feel the cage descending and closing around her with every moment.
She had to get out of there before someone took notice.
She certainly didn’t have any desire to stay.
She wasn’t a young woman over whom the men competed—and thank the gods for that—but there had been more than one speculative look in her direction recently as the lay of the land became more apparent to them.
That was enough to tell her that it was time to get the hell out, especially not when the town seemed to be festering as it slowly declined.
The gates were barred as they hunkered within the ruins of houses that they attempted to repair and maintain—most poorly—while the townsmen seized all that they wanted under the claim that it was for everyone’s safety and welfare.
According to the entire town, she should be happy to have whatever she could get in the rundown ruins and submit to the authority of those around her since she was taken in.
And yet the creatures beyond the gates who passed freely stirred a yearning within her.
Inhuman, powerful and primal in appearance, she had watched them from afar as she wandered, desiring all that they represented.
While the people within the sad excuse for a town whispered fearfully of what such creatures could do to a human caught within their grasp, she was admittedly allured by the more carnal speculations of monsters hunting down innocent women to take as mates.
It certainly didn’t inspire her to hide gratefully within the confines of the boarding house.
Truthfully, it presented a more interesting prospect than anything offered behind the walls.
Tiffany’s lip curled contemptuously as she hurried stealthily toward the ramshackle gate.
Unlike some towns that possessed better fortifications, their gate was pitiful enough that she had been passing back and forth through it with ease for weeks.
It would serve as no obstacle to her now in her escape.
She really marveled how they thought it would keep anything out that was determined to get in.
It could neither hold her nor promise her safety.
Truth be told, the fact that none of the monsters passing made any effort to bypass their gate probably gave her more confidence than was wise, but she had long ago decided she would rather take her risks out there than among men whom she had to be on constant guard against.
In the early days, she’d seen the women scream and try to fight off men who’d snatched them up as unwilling brides.
She’d also walked in on the sight of her mother’s sister lying dead with a number of other women.
Poison, her parents had whispered late at night.
They had consumed poison together to escape that fate.
And within a few years of that event, she’d seen men who were killed by other men to gain possession of their women within just scant years of the same fate falling upon her parents when they tried to protect her.
There was now an illusion of civility within their town, but Tiffany had caught glimpses of that same hunger and desperation barely contained within the eyes of the men who’d recently begun to follow her.
It was a pity. The town had looked promising at first, but it was now definitely time to move on.
Approaching the gate at an angle, it only took Tiffany seconds to locate the loose board as she ran her fingers along the side of the gate.
With a quick yank, she pulled the nailed board completely free by hand as she’d done countless times and wiggled through the opening with ease.
Fortunately, being short and lean had helped her escape unwanted attention many times as it gave her a better ability to hide but also helped her get through small openings that others could not.
And they thought they could trap her? Ha! It only took her a matter of seconds to make her escape. She only hoped that some of the other women followed suit.
They would if they were smart.
She overheard it enough from some of the men when they thought no one was listening.
There were not enough women.
They needed women.
Each man should have a woman.
They deserved it.
Or so they insisted every month while they tried to make it sound reasonable that they wanted to send out parties to look for women on the road and bring them back to “safety.”
All of it sounded sickeningly too familiar.
At least she had escaped that fate.
Tiffany smiled secretly to herself as she straightened and stretched at the other side of the gate.
She allowed herself a moment to enjoy her freedom and the elation that came with it.
She doubted anyone could see her at all anyway since she blended in with the shadows of the equipment near the gate so well.
They wouldn’t know she escaped at all until morning and even then, the only thing that would mark her passage at all would be the gaping hole in the gate.
That would certainly give them a pause since, unlike other times, she wouldn’t be returning to nail the board back in place with the small rock she hid by the gate.
Although she knew it was really the same as the road that continued within the confines of the gate, it didn’t feel the same at that exact moment as she left the gated wall behind her and wound her way along the streets of the old town that extended beyond it.
It felt like she had stepped into a new world that was once more opening in front of her.
This road could lead to a multitude of possibilities.
But she didn’t rush forward, no matter how that reckless freedom made her want to.
She was willing to take a risk, but she wasn’t stupid.
Although many in town pretended that everything was perfectly normal, she had been out in the world enough to know that there were dangers out there.
They knew it too, even if they wouldn’t admit it.
It was what made the men reluctant to stray far from the safety of the town despite the numerous arguments and protests at the meeting building that the town wasn’t doing enough to bring in more women.
“Maybe, not the road for me,”
she mumbled to herself as she took a quick glance around and reassessed her route. “No sense in making myself a clear target for them.”
It was a good time to leave the road if she was going to do it.
She was at the edge of the old town.
Her eyes flicked along the wide-open spaces that stretched ahead without a building in sight.
She shivered, imagining how easy it would be for anyone just to come upon her walking there.
Scavengers and other wandering people stuck to the roads as they moved from town to town and to the larger cities where dangers multiplied.
There was no knowing how many men had come up with similar ideas.
She gazed toward an open stretch of long grass and turned toward it, pausing at the edge of the road.
The faintest blush of early morning light made the waving grass visible enough and yet contained enough shadows for it to appear ominous.
She swallowed nervously.
Scavengers who came to town spoke of new dangers introduced into their world that were spoken in hushed voices among the townspeople and travelers she had met on the road.
Something about the forests...and deep mountain caverns. Gateways through which the monsters traveled and brought all manner of creatures and wildlife.
Tiffany turned slowly on the road in a circle, noting the spark of a lamp in the far distance as someone’s household slowly began to rouse.
She couldn’t waste any more time.
Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip hard enough that she tasted the sharp metallic bite of her blood, she spun back to the tall grass and ran forward into it.
The grass scraped along her boots and pants as she fled, her heart racing with a mingling of fear and excitement.
It was heady and some crazy part of her loved it.
Her smile widened and she giggled quietly to herself as she caught herself practically skipping as she pushed her way through the tall grass.
She could barely contain her gloating as she gave one last fleeting look over her shoulder at the dark shadow of the town before bounding deeper into the grass with an elated, inner cackle.
Keeping herself low in shelter of the grass—which was easy to do for a woman of her size—she moved as quietly as possible at first.
The further she got, however, the freer her movements became and the less concerned with remaining quiet she was.
She couldn’t have remained perpetually silent even if she wanted to as she hit upon a safe distance without signs of pursuit.
There was no helping it.
Her spirit lifted until she was humming happily to herself.
She would keep going for a distance until she found a safe place to hole up and sleep far enough away that it was unlikely that anyone from town would come across her.
The grass seemed to stretch on and on it, though it was frequently dotted with trees, their leaves rippling with the wind.
Tiffany stopped and set down her pack for what had to be the dozenth time since leaving the town, and lifted her hands above her head as she stretched her back with a groan of relief.
The summer sun was beating down on her, making sweat gather beneath her shirt and along the band of her bra.
Fanning herself with one hand, she sighed heavily as she removed her canteen and took a deep swallow of the lukewarm water.
The water was spit warm, but it still provided some relief to her parched throat.
She wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve and squinted at what looked like a line of trees.
Not a forest but a brief respite from the sun.
Her heart pounded with exhilaration, she shouldered her bag and set a quick pace for them, her pack bouncing on her back.
Fluffy clouds rode overhead and not a single one of the bastards decided to do her the favor of covering the sun.
Because of that, her hair was sticking to the sides of her neck and on her jaw when she finally reached the shade of the nearest tree, but it was worth it.
Wiping the sweat from her face, she peered down the neat line of the trees before her gaze fell upon what looked like an old, abandoned highway that had likely fallen into disuse even before the Ravening.
The pavement was rough and broken in some areas where grass was overtaking it and growing through the cracks, and so narrow that it wouldn’t have supported more than two cars even though the lines that had once been painted on it had disappeared completely with the passage of time.
It was hard to recall at times that even old roads like this had once been occupied by cars traveling at high speeds to reach their destination.
With the tree cover and the state of the road, it looked like a safer option than the main roads leading from town to town. She had no real idea where it would take her but that wasn’t particularly important at the moment. She would just keep going as far as her feet would carry her.
Adjusting the weight on her back, Tiffany headed down the side of the road, keeping close to the trees in their dappled sunlight.