Chapter 12
The next few weeks were hard, but Asha had built up enough strength that she was able to finish the drills, something she wouldn’t have accomplished just a month or so before.
True to his orders, Davy helped her through demonstration, and although the two of them were always last to finish, she felt like they were making significant progress.
Garett and Tom still hated her—they seemed to hold her responsible for their punishment and for the downgrade in respect they now enjoyed among the others—but other than that, most of the men seemed to tentatively accept her presence, even if they still didn’t entirely understand it.
At the start of June, they took her on her first scavenging mission, which was a strange experience for Asha.
They sought out a far-flung, long-abandoned hamlet, some way from the city.
They stayed on high alert for cannibals and for other gangs, but the village was so small and pitiful that Asha doubted there were any that would be interested in the place.
It was totally derelict, with nothing but old, empty buildings slowly crumbling into dust.
Cade was patient with her throughout, showing her how to search for things that others may have overlooked, like metal scraps, ammunition, and other weapons like knives or baseball bats. The others chimed in when they could, though Garett still refused to speak to Asha directly.
Whatever, asshole.
Seeing the ruins of civilization made Asha understand why they’d called it the Wasteland at home.
Searching the husks of old houses and businesses somehow felt like sorting through corpses.
There was an enormous, overwhelming sense of loss that she felt to her bones, and she wished that there was a way to return to that fragile world of glass that had once existed here, so peaceful compared to the desecrated carcass it had left behind.
“It’s sad,” she said to Cade, in a quiet moment. “I wish I’d lived back then. That I hadn’t lived to see this time.”
He considered. “The world always had problems. I’m not convinced that the choices they had back then were much better—or even that different—to the ones we have now.
Swim against the current, fight to survive in a hellscape populated mostly by dicks who don’t care about anything but themselves. Sounds the same to me.”
Asha snorted. “I wouldn’t hate going back to hot showers, though.”
“You got me there,” he replied with a small smile.
The sun had dropped lower in the sky, and the golden rays softened his sharp features, making him look gentler, less severe. Asha admired him, though she tried to hide it. He was still somewhat mysterious to her, his past incomplete, but he’d given her so much in such a short time.
Such an odd thought to have about a man who’d literally purchased her, yet it was true.
“I haven’t been too tough on you, have I?”
“What?” Asha said, surprised by the question.
“I know I’ve been demanding, these last few weeks,” Cade replied, a little regretfully. “Especially since you’re a civilian. It’s just that we’ve had so little time to prepare, and I couldn’t think of another way to keep you away from Angel—”
“It’s fine,” she cut in. “I’m used to your massive ego by now.”
He chuckled and moved closer to her, into her space, so they were barely a foot apart. She looked up into his eyes, and there was a strange, new affection in them.
“And I’m used to your big mouth,” he murmured, but it didn’t sound like an insult when he said it with that kind of warmth. He leaned closer, and for a wild second, Asha thought he might kiss her.
But then she panicked. She turned away and cleared her throat, saying, “Thanks for training me. You were tough, but not cruel.”
Cade gave a little sigh and looked off toward the horizon, probably judging that it was time to leave.
“I think that’s the closest you’ve ever come to giving me a compliment, darling.”
They didn’t recover much from the buildings on that trip, but on the way back, Asha discovered an empty campsite with a tent, sleeping bags, and a small cache of ammunition, hidden beneath the leaves of a shrub.
“Aren’t we stealing from someone who might need this stuff?” Asha asked after they’d left with the loot, wringing her hands. “The camp didn’t look that old.”
“It was unattended,” Cade replied, and his indifference struck her. “Out here, that means it’s ours.”
“But what if they need the sleeping bag to keep warm? Or—”
“Asha,” he said, short and irritated. “It’s survival. That’s it. There’s nothing personal about it. You need to learn that there are some things you can’t change.”
She fell silent, upset by his tone. She wasn’t used to him speaking to her like that, and the comment about things you can’t change sounded too close to a rebuke for the way she’d been disgusted by the social hierarchy at the Nest.
Well, I’m not going to accept it, Asha thought angrily. Not forever, anyway.
After they got back to the Nest, she decided to distance herself from Cade for the evening.
She instead asked Leo if she could help him prep medicines for their journey to Hillside, the first settlement they were to visit.
He let her tag along on his trip to Dom’s house, where he would collect medicinal plants for his kit.
“You can help harvest, if you like,” Leo said with a small smile. “Dom might have something for you to eat, too.”
“Eat?” Asha asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He maintains a vegetable garden.”
Asha wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of greenery that practically engulfed Dom’s small, modest home.
He had carefully maintained flowerbeds that wrapped around the entire building.
The shrubbery was impeccably trimmed, and the ivy that crawled up the walls was artfully arranged.
Leo had told her he was an avid gardener, but she still hadn’t been able to picture stoic, grumpy Dom as the type to fuss over delicate daffodils.
He answered the door exactly as she expected: with a short, clipped greeting, before stepping aside to admit them.
He led them out the back door and into the yard, where Asha was once again floored by the sheer number of plants.
He tended a large vegetable garden, but he also had a separate garden for what she assumed were the herbs and medicinal plants that Leo was after.
“You planted all this?” Asha dared to ask Dom, awestruck.
He grunted, then rubbed the back of his neck. “Yep.”
After a moment, it became clear that that was all she was going to get from him, so she knelt in the dirt next to Leo, who was examining various plants in the herb garden. Dom watched for a minute, then retreated back into the house.
“He likes plants more than people,” Leo confided in a low, confidential tone, his amusement palpable.
“I couldn’t tell,” Asha replied wryly. “He’s seriously talented. I couldn’t do all this.”
“I know. Best not to tell him, though. He’ll get all awkward about it.”
She giggled, forgetting all about her earlier annoyance with Cade.
Leo opened his medical bag, and Asha recognized it as the basic kit that paramedics used at the compound.
The top had holders for syringes, scissors, surgical tools, a small flashlight, a blood pressure cuff, and a stethoscope.
The rest was filled with typical supplies like bandages, as well as various jars and bottles of medicine.
What made Asha stop dead, however, was a small, red-labeled auto-injector of clear liquid strapped to the top of the bag.
“Is that Regenerex?” she asked in wonder.
“It is,” Leo replied as he trimmed peppermint leaves off the plant.
Her brow furrowed. She’d only seen the distinctive packaging once before: in the nurse’s office at the school where she worked.
It had incredibly rapid regenerative healing abilities and was capable of healing even serious wounds in hours.
A teenage boy had had a bad fall in the early days of her working there, and the drug had saved his life.
“It’s standard in every military doctor’s kit,” Leo continued, stashing leaves in a pouch from his pack. “Just the one shot, though. It’s not easy to manufacture, so we’d use it only for cases that’d be truly terminal otherwise.”
“I’m surprised you still have it, with everything.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t use it on just anyone, frankly. It’s pretty much irreplaceable now, so I’d save it for Cade, Dom, or myself.”
At Cade’s name, Asha flinched. She was beginning to regret how she’d left things with him. Her anger may have been disproportionate, but it came from what she realized was a real need to tell him something important: that she wasn’t willing to put up with gang life forever.
She spotted some of the other medicines Leo had: long-life antibiotics, morphine, and a cluster of other drugs that she didn’t know the use for.
“You have so much compound medicine left,” Asha said. “How?”
“Why do you think we’re harvesting plants right now?” Leo replied, as though it were obvious. “I use herbal medicine for minor to moderate complaints. I save the good stuff for situations where it’s truly needed.”
“Like when Angel…” She trailed off, but he nodded solemnly. It explained why having her tooth pulled hadn’t hurt nearly as much as expected. She felt oddly touched that he’d given her a hit from his precious supply of morphine.
She finished helping Leo with the plants, said an awkward goodbye to Dom, and returned home. Night had fallen by then, and the house was dark except for flickering light coming from the bedroom.
Cade was lying on the bed, fully clothed, reading a book by candlelight. He looked up when she entered, and she flopped down next to him, suddenly very tired.
“Are you still mad at me?” he asked, his tone careful.
Asha sighed. “I guess not. I probably overreacted. I just…”
He waited patiently, setting his book aside.
“You said that I need to accept the things I can’t change, but I don’t want to live this way forever,” she managed to get out.
“I don’t want to live in this gang forever.
I don’t want to be technically someone’s property forever.
I want…more than this, you know? Maybe you’ll say I’m being spoiled, but—”
“No,” Cade said softly. “I get it. The compound’s far from perfect, but not worrying about basic survival every day is a major perk.”
“But it’s different for you,” she continued, a little frustrated. “You’re a man in this world. Not only do you have the physical advantage, but you have all the power in this place, too. If you wanted to, you could kill me on a whim and who would do anything about it?”
He was silent. Then, “I would never hurt you.”
“That’s not the point, Cade. The point is that you could, and because of who you are and because, let’s face it, they see me as little more than your whore—an accessory that you can put on and take off whenever you like—there would be zero consequences.
So, my entire well-being hinges on my own ability to fight off someone bigger, stronger, and inherently more powerful than I am.
My only value comes in my attachment to you.
You don’t understand how powerless that makes me feel. ”
“But I do,” he said, and he enveloped her hand in his. “It’s why I wanted to offer you something more with the Blackguard. Give you the tools to defend yourself.”
“I know, but sometimes…sometimes, we have to change the things we can’t accept. For now, I accept that this is my new home, but one day…I’ll be done with this place. I hope when that day comes…”
She paused, swallowing back what she was afraid to say, fidgeting with the furs on the bed. Cade waited again, but when it became clear she wouldn’t continue, he prompted her with, “What?”
Asha took a deep breath and finally replied, “That you’ll come with me.”
His expression softened, and before she knew what was happening, he’d pulled her into his arms. Unsure what to do, Asha rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the slow, reassuring thump of his heartbeat.
She was surprised that her instinct was to sink into him, that his warmth was comforting.
“You’d really want me to go with you?” Cade murmured into her hair.
“I have no one else,” she said without thinking about how it sounded.
Nonetheless, he chuckled. “Just when I think we’re about to have a moment, darling.”
She laughed too. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean…I…”
She felt suddenly unbearably awkward. She was bad at this. She still didn’t know exactly how she felt about Cade, other than that she preferred him to anyone else here.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to require her to sort through it.
“It’s alright, little viper,” he teased, giving her a squeeze before releasing her. “And even though right now, I think we’re best served by staying here… when the day to leave comes, I’ll go with you. I’m not going to leave you twisting in the wind.”
Asha smiled. “Thank you.” A thought occurred to her. “Have you ever thought about going back to Ashburn one day?”
Cade’s smile faltered, and he looked serious again. “I don’t know. It’s a long way, and it’d need some significant TLC after being empty for—”
“I know all that. I just mean…one day, I’d like to think we could do that. Have a place where we can make our own rules. Where I could…have a say.”
He touched her cheek. “Maybe one day.”
Sensing that was all she was going to get for now, Asha got ready for bed.