above ground: chapter 15

Chapter 15

“Sell her to the slavers,” Rae said immediately.  “That’ll get her off our hands and get us money.”

Everyone turned to look at Silver.  He didn’t seem pleased by the attention, and took his time before speaking.  “She needs to go home.”

The teenaged were was sat beside and slightly behind Silver. He looked pleased at Silver’s decision; unexpected, considering all he had done was glare at Lilith so far.

But the black were beside Rae shook his head, the golden hoop in his left ear glinting with the movement.  “They’ve blocked all communications.  There’s no way we’re getting your pet worm inside in time.”

In time for what? Lilith almost opened her mouth to speak, but Amber’s warning grasp on her knee stopped her.

“It’s been too long already.” That was the were next to Jake, the one with the nice smile. He looked regretful to be sharing bad news.  “The time limit’s been shortened to three days.  She’s as good as Affected in their eyes now.”

“She is Affected, Fang,” Rae interjected.

The words sent a cold shudder of fear through Lilith’s body. The cut on her leg seemed to twinge, but maybe it was her imagination. How could Rae know for sure? Maybe she was just bluffing, lying, anything to make Lilith’s life worse.

It seemed like Silver agreed with her assessment; he was glaring at Rae, the expression so severe there was a deep line between his eyebrows. Rae didn’t back down, though; she leant against the black were next to her and glared back. There was a tense pause, a sense of unspoken challenge.

Lilith’s nervousness increased when Silver looked away first.  “She needs to return underground regardless,” he muttered.

“And leave you like this?” Jake raised an eyebrow. “As funny as it is to see you behaving like an idiot, it will get tiring after a while.”

There were a couple nods from the group now, particularly from the were next to Jake—Fang?—whose placid smile never faltered. Amber was also nodding, her lips pursed in approval. Her hand was still wrapped tight around Lilith’s leg, so Lilith didn’t dare react.

“Jake is right.”  Al finally entered the discussion, hands on his hips.  “What she needs is to be sent to the Guild, where she can learn to undo what she’s done to Silver.”

“I don’t see why we have to burden ourselves with the worm,” Rae said, shooting Lilith a nasty glance.  “We’ve enough to deal with as it is.”

Al growled and leaned forward, his back stiff.  “Are you saying I’m ignoring the needs of the pack?”

Rae shrank behind the man next to her.  “Of course not.”

But the black were didn’t seem interested in protecting Rae now. He turned around, his expression also stern.  “Good.  Because Al always puts the pack before himself.  You should know that by now.”

Rae cowered away from him.  “I said I was sorry, Dev.”

Lilith couldn’t help but feel a thrill of triumph at the sight of Rae so subdued. She looked away from the scene, embarrassed by her reaction, only to meet Scar’s eyes, filled with the same hint of glee. She looked down at the ground quickly. Wasn’t Scar supposed to be on Rae’s side?

“The decision is made, then,” Al said, pointedly ignoring Rae. His gaze was fierce, brooking no refusal, not that—or so it seemed to Lilith—there was much. Rae looked too dispirited to argue. A few seconds passed, and the atmosphere relaxed.

“As it happens,” Al continued, “the Guild could be encouraged into rewarding us for the safe delivery of one of their own.”

Everything seemed to hinge on the Guild. If she survived the evening, Lilith needed to ask someone what exactly this Guild was.

Dev nodded in agreement. “Knowing the Guild, a generous reward. More than enough.”

There was a silence as everyone absorbed Dev’s words, and then most of the weres smiled, looking—oddly enough—relieved. Why did they need money so badly? Lilith wondered, briefly, whether she should tell them about her own stash, feeling the notes burn a hole in her pocket. But no, what if she needed it later?

“Any objection?” Al said, and everyone shook their heads. He nodded, stood. “Tomorrow we head into town, and I’ll speak to the Guild representative there. Then we’ll plan our next move.”

Everyone stood, then, and dispersed to different areas of the clearing, most of them making a point to ignore Lilith. She pushed herself to her feet as Amber did, feeling awkward, hoping to speak to Silver. But Silver stayed near Al, the boy at his side, talking too softly for her to hear, and she didn’t think it would be a good idea to interrupt.

Jake came straight up to them, a cocky grin on his face. “Going into town tomorrow,” he said to Amber, looking pleased. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“I hear you’re a big fan of the hotel there,” Amber replied, a sly look on his face.

He smirked.  “I’ve got some good memories of the place.”

Feeling a little left out, Lilith joined the conversation. She caught Jake’s eye, and tried to smile.  “Looks like I’m coming with you, after all.”

Jake looked at her, then grinned in apparent disbelief.  “Coming with us? Girl, we’re taking you.”

******

Later in the evening, Lilith was back in her corner of the clearing, sitting on a log Jake and the boy—Howl, his name was—had knocked down whilst play-fighting.  At least, they had said it was play-fighting; it had looked pretty violent to her.

Amber was sitting next to her, Silver on the ground across from them.  They were both tending to the small fire between them, working together in a companionable silence that Lilith couldn’t help but envy.

The fire didn’t provide much light, but it was warm, and in any case the combined light of all the small fires dotted around the clearing made it easy enough to see where the others were. Now that they were all spread out, there was even less chance for her to escape, but Lilith was starting to think that escaping was not the best choice. They hadn’t decided to kill her, after all, and she was far safer with a pack of wolves than travelling alone.

Eventually Silver leant away from the fire, then looked behind him, to the centre of the clearing, where the biggest fire was, carefully supervised by Scar and one other.  Cooking smells drifted towards them, and the scent made Lilith’s stomach cramp uncomfortably.

Silver stood, as if he had received some unspoken signal. “Stay here.  I’ll grab us some food.”  He loped off without a backward glance.

Lilith glanced at Amber, hoping to start up a conversation, but the were was staring into the flames, lost in thought. Feeling a little awkward, she glanced around the clearing.

Dev and Rae were kissing enthusiastically, Rae straddled over his lap.  Lilith looked away, a little embarrassed by the scene, wondering just what Dev saw in Rae.  But then, it didn’t seem like Rae would go around trying to strangle Dev, although by the way she was attached to him, perhaps she was trying to choke him instead.

The thought reminded Lilith of a time she and Emma had gone out to a classmate’s house party, where a girl had claimed she could swallow objects the size of a pigeon. She smiled to herself.

Then Lilith remembered: Emma was dead. She turned back to face the fire and closed her eyes, trying to maintain her composure.

She looked up only to find Amber watching her, a sympathetic smile on her face.  “Your poor parents must be frantic with worry.”

The topic surprised Lilith.  She shrugged, a little happy to be talking, but uncomfortable with the topic.  “Yeah, I guess.” She couldn’t stop herself from following the comment with a rather bitter, “Well, my mother is, at least.”

“Not your father?”

Lilith looked away.  “I haven’t seen him since I was eight.”  It was a lie, but a small one; the last time she’d seen him she’d been four days away from her eighth birthday.

“Oh.”  Amber shifted uncomfortably.  “Sorry.” The fire crackled at them, and Amber leaned forward to tend to it.

Lilith watched her, took her time to reply, feeling her mood darken with each passing moment. “It doesn’t matter.”

There was another awkward silence, and then Amber shot her a quick glance.  “Can I ask what happened?”  She was slightly cringing, expecting the worst.

“He’s not dead or anything like that,” Lilith replied bluntly, feeling a vicious twist of satisfaction at Amber’s embarrassed look.  “The day after my eighth birthday, my father called to tell me he wouldn’t be coming back anymore.  He’d met someone else.”

Her father had been gone for the weekend for a business trip—a common occurrence for him—and had called to wish Lilith a happy birthday.  Never mind that he was a day late, Lilith had been surprised he’d remembered her birthday in the first place.  It was one of the few times he’d remembered without prompting from her mother.

She remembered her father being forcefully cheery on the phone.  He was in Spain, he explained, with a lady friend.  He wasn’t coming home.

The words made very little sense to Lilith at the time.  She had pictured him on the swings, next to an unknown woman with blonde hair.  The woman’s face was a soft blur, a question mark.

“Like my girlfriend Emma?”  Lilith had asked, knowing somewhere inside of her eight year old heart that dad wasn’t talking about a simple friend.

“No, honey,” he had said gently.  “Not quite.”

Lilith hadn’t had the chance to ask him when she would see him again.  Her mother had walked in and snatched the phone away from her.  Then her mother had hung up the phone very, very gently, an odd, concentrated look on her face.

She never saw her father again.  The calls petered out slowly, until all that was left was a dull ache and a growing stack of half-hearted birthday cards covered with pink ponies and pictures she had outgrown years before.

Lilith shook herself out of her memories and stared morosely at the fire.  Now that she wasn’t on the move, the full extent of the situation hit her.  She was never going home.  She held back the tears, struggling to swallow against the sudden lump in her throat.

“You okay?” Amber asked.  “Sorry about asking about your parents.”

“I’m fine.  Don’t worry.”  She forced a smile, and it made her feel even sadder.  She kept her face tilted to the ground when Amber excused herself and walked away to chat to some other weres.

The sight of other people bothered her.  Lilith slid her legs on to the other side of the log, moving to sit with her back to the fire, facing the edge of the clearing.  She wrapped her arms around herself, hunched her shoulders together.

Dev and Rae walked by her, hand in hand, heading into the forest.  Her heart ached heavily at the sight of them.  She rubbed her cheeks and looked up.  The sky was a yawning emptiness over her head, a frightening reflection of how she pictured the rest of her life.  She longed for the narrow streets of Etal, the familiar press of walls on either side, like a motherly hug, all-encompassing and safe.  How pitiful her dreams for open space now seemed!  She’d been so in awe of the AYP’s offices, but it was nothing, nothing compared to this.

The log shifted alarmingly underneath her.  She looked up as Silver sat down on the log next to her, facing the fire, and passed her a plate piled high with food.  He didn’t say a word, but his thigh was a line of warmth against hers.