Chapter 1
Cade
Fuck Bradford. Fuck Jenna. Fuck Turner.
And fuck Ben Knight.
All these assholes thought they’d help me, fix me, save me. You know what they did? They made it all worse. They didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done.
So now, I have to do it myself.
And no one is going to get in my goddamn way.
I’m already moving when the sun finally cracks over the rim of the basin, my boots hammering against the caliche and my skin slicked raw with sweat.
My blond hair sticks to my damp neck, while my mouth is as dry as the fucking ground.
There’s a bullet groove along my left ribs that still leaks a little every time I twist, but it’s scabbed enough that the blood is more rust than red.
I run one hand under my shirt and feel the grit and the heat coming off me in waves.
I smell like a body bag left too long in the sun.
I hate this place. It’s a killing ground stretched out so far you forget there was ever anything else.
The dirt is cracked into a thousand hexagons, sun-blasted flat where runoff stripped everything but the pale bones underneath.
A vulture rides a spiral pattern above me, maybe three hundred feet up, shadow tracking my line with the lazy patience of something that knows it’s only a matter of time.
Just keep following, buddy. It’s bound to happen soon.
The horizon is nothing but distance and bad ideas.
My shirt’s been cut to hell somehow—by reasons I can’t seem to recall—and my hands keep trembling, little aftershocks of adrenaline or an episode, I don’t know which.
Maybe both.
My thoughts keep coming in strange patterns. Sometimes it’s Bradford’s voice, ticking off my deficiencies like he’s teaching a fucking class. Sometimes it’s Turner, his jaw all tight with that mute, dog-loyal panic, not able to look me in the eyes as he binds my wrists.
And sometimes it’s my mother, her voice all squeaky as she turns the deadbolt on our old cellar door, her voice not matching her face.
I love you, Cade. This is for your own good.
Liars, all of them. Self-preserving, lying pieces of shit.
But honestly, Ben’s name is the splinter that works the deepest. He’s the real reason I’m out here. The man behind the charges, the man who I thought was my friend, my fucking brother. I picture his face the way I last saw it, immaculately shaven, his penetrating blue eyes fucking empty.
And if I don’t die of a heat stroke, I know he’ll find me.
Ben’s not the kind of man to leave things unfinished. Bradford, Jenna, and Turner will never dupe him. They think they can, but they won’t. He’ll know.
Ben always knows.
A sick and sad breath slips from my lips as I cast my eyes up to the sky. There’s a bruise building above the mesa, a greenish-yellow smear, storm clouds stacking on top of each other. Wind picks up in gusts, rattling the dry weeds and blowing shit into my mouth.
I force myself to take inventory of my body—the way they taught me in training. My left calf is starting to seize, probably dehydration. Something is wrong with my hands, and they ache when I try to make a fist. I test my vision by holding my finger out, track it left, then right.
Peripheral is smudged, like looking through a heat ripple.
“Oh well,” I mumble under my breath, squeezing them shut and opening them again.
Every few steps I scan the arc from nine to three, horizon to horizon, looking for movement, smoke, glint.
It’s muscle memory from what feels like is a different life, but it’s the only thing that ever made sense to me.
I see nothing but shimmer and mirage, the world bled out to the color of old newsprint.
When you’re just trying to find the bare necessities of survival, it’s hard to lose your mind.
Or maybe I already have. I don’t know.
The terrain slowly changes, and rock shelves replace dirt. I crouch there, forcing myself to breathe slow, waiting for the ache in my ribs to settle as my vision swims. The vulture does another lazy circle above, then drifts off to the west.
He’s giving up. But only because of the storm coming.
Movement hits at the edge of my sight—a lizard, or maybe a snake, darting for cover. I pause, but don’t investigate it.
Waste of energy. Keep going, Kellan.
The bullet wound itches like fire, but I keep my hands at my sides. Stopping to check it would only give my body an excuse to quit. Pain means you’re still in the game.
That’s what Ben always screamed in my ear at training.
Up ahead, there’s a dip in the land, almost invisible unless you know what to look for. Some idiot probably tried to plow this once, since scrub rows are still visible as thin lines cut across the wild. If there’s going to be water, it’ll be here.
Or a pit trap. There could be a trap.
“Paranoia,” I label it out loud.
But even if it’s not, I head for it.
Sucking in a breath, the scent of the impending storm hits my lungs. I risk a glance behind. Still nothing. No headlights, no dust, no shadows. But I don’t believe in luck, and I sure as hell don’t believe in mercy.
It’s never been offered to me. Bradford tried to be a bigger man, but he was just covering. He sent someone else to do the dirty work. Maybe Turner showed me mercy.
Maybe.
I press forward. Every muscle wants to shut down, but I dig in. I remember what it’s like to be hunted, to know your name is written down on a clipboard somewhere with an expiration date next to it. I wonder what Ben wrote for me.
I wonder if Jenna will cry when they show her the photo of my dead body.
Probably not. She’ll think it’s for the best, too. Just like Mom.
She always pretended to be worried about me. But she never even returned my calls or letters.
Bile shoots up the back of my throat, and I stumble forward, my hands finding my knees to brace against as I dry heave.
There’s nothing fucking left in me.
The thought of me visibly rotting alive gives me a twisted little jolt of energy.
And I laugh. It echoes across the flatlands of hell.
I clear the rise and see the low swale up ahead.
The ground here is damp, which means the clay holds water underneath.
I kneel and dig with my hands, peeling back the crust until I hit mud.
I cup it, let it run into my mouth. It tastes like salt and grime, but I swallow what moisture I can get, and spit the rest of it out onto the ground.
Glancing down, I notice my hands are caked now. It resembles dried blood. “Hmm,” the hum slips from my lips as I shrug, wipe them on my jeans, and keep moving.
By now, the storm has grown to a wall, edges lit up by distant forks of lightning. I count the beats between flash and rumble—three, then two, then one. It’s coming on fast, and I can smell the static baking the air. My skin prickles with every pulse of my rotten but beating heart.
And I just keep going.
By the time I crest the next rise, the light is gone from the land. Everything is shades of blue and black, broken only by the flat white of lightning stitching the sky open.
I want to die on my feet.
If it comes to that. Maybe that’s the only thing I ever wanted. If I have to fucking do it myself, then I will. On my feet.
I pick my path along the high points, staying off the obvious lines, making sure there’s no silhouette for someone tracking me.
No one is tracking me. No one is following me. No one gives a shit.
I let the rain soak through me and let the cold do what it wants.
I walk until I can’t feel my feet, and then I walk farther. The world narrows down to the next step, the next breath, the next bolt of lightning to show me the way. I’m nothing but forward motion, and nothing will stop me.
Well… until it does. And damn, does it.
The snake doesn’t rattle until my boot heel lands six inches from its head.
“Fuck!” I explode, but my reflexes aren’t alive anymore. My feet don’t even budge.
A dry, papery sound buzzes, the coil appears blurry in my periphery, and then it’s just two points of fire punching into my right calf through my jeans.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I finally backpedal, adrenaline dumping so hard I barely feel the dirt as I trip and my knee slams down. “Goddammit,” I groan, as I lift my head up, bracing for another hit.
But instead, the bastard slithers back into the rock shadow, fat and slow, tail buzzing one last time just to say, Fuck you, too, Cade.
I force myself back onto my ass and go for the leg of my jeans, rolling up the stiff material. Please just be a dry bite. I need a dry bite.
It’s not.
The marks are clean and close. I push my thumb around the holes, already darkening, already swelling up like something ugly. The skin balloons, blood welling with a weird, syrupy slowness. My head starts to ring.
Okay. Okay. Breathe. Keep your head.
I pull the knife from my belt and cut two Xs, neat and shallow, over each puncture. Maybe I can bleed it out? Not too much. The blood looks almost black in the twilight. What now?
I dig into my back pocket and pull out my bandana. I wrap the thing below the knee and knot it off. My hands are suddenly steady, but it won’t last. I know what’s coming. It’s going to start swelling much worse, and I’m not going to be able to walk.
So I gotta while I can.
I put weight on the leg, feel the muscle clench up, a deep burning that spreads like a strip of magnesium lit up in my thigh.
Each step, the leather of my boot bites deeper, squeezing the balloon of my calf until it feels like something’s going to burst. I try to keep my gait even, favoring the left side, but it just throws everything else out of alignment.
Within five hundred steps, the burning is up to my hip. Within a thousand, my vision is splitting—two horizons, double shadows. Rain comes in fits, wetting my back and then drying off in the wind. The taste in my mouth feels wrong, worse than before.
Fuck. My stomach seizes, and this time when I vomit, a long, skinny string of mucus comes out. I wipe it away and sling it toward the ground with my index finger.
Keep moving. Just keep moving.
But somehow, my mind is the only thing that picks up the pace past a crawl.
My life starts playing like a movie before my eyes, but it’s blurry and I can’t make any of it out. I’m a broken piece of shit now, going out by a damn rattlesnake.
“Fuck you for this, Jen,” I mumble, my words slurring. “Fuck you, Dad. Fuck you, Dylan. Fuck you, Laney. Fuck you, Ben. Especially you.”
The wind comes up suddenly, taking out my words with a force strong enough to lean on.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Every step jars the bite, shooting a new pulse of fire up my spine. I don’t look down. There’s nothing to see except flesh turning the color of a bad bruise.
I glance back up and shake my head. I’m slowing down too much. I know it because the horizon isn’t changing, but even as I try, I can’t make my feet go faster. The land tilts and tilts until it’s all downhill, then suddenly I’m at the bottom of a draw and there’s a building in the hollow.
Wait… A building?
I squint into the distance at the smudge through the rain. It’s a fucking barn, collapsed at one end, but the roof is still mostly there.
Shelter. A place to fucking die in peace.
My boots are drowned out by the rain, but somehow, I make it. I hit the doorframe with my shoulder, stagger inside, the smell of hay and mouse shit and something old and oily hitting me. The darkness is soothing, and I lurch forward three steps before my leg finally gives out for good.
I go down on the packed dirt, flat on my back, the world flickering between light and dark as the storm rolls over.
There’s a crack in the roof, straight overhead.
I watch the rain coming in through the boards, little spears of water finding the path of least resistance, soaking my shirt and stinging the skin beneath.
My hands open and close on the dirt. There’s grit under my fingernails, blood on my palm.
“You fucking win,” I whisper to the ceiling, just as it all goes black.