Seeking Atonement

“Ian, get your ass up,” a voice hissed, cutting through the screams ringing in my ears. 

The all-too-familiar nightmare that plagued me every time I slept dissolved, and my eyes popped open. The sight of a boot hovering over my chest greeted me, and my hand slid under my pillow to grab my gun.

I shoved the boot away, sat up, and placed my gun in the holster around my chest. “What do you want?”

Margarette’s scarred face twisted into its usual expression of bitchy annoyance. “Move.”

Had it been four years earlier, I’d have told her to stuff it and get the hell away from me, but I no longer had that luxury. No human did. We had to take what we got, even if the person had a lousy attitude and entitlement issues. At least she was a crack shot and knew how to set traps for game.

I yawned and ran fingers through my disheveled, choppily cut hair. Emma had tried her best, but she was far from being a hairstylist. Not that it mattered much to me. The uglier my appearance, the safer I’d be.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on patrol?” Irritation shadowed my words.

“I’ve been up for hours, and I’m about to pass out. I want to sleep.”

“It hasn’t been eight hours yet.”

Margarette shrugged. “Close enough.”

I could kick myself. Why had I agreed to take the patrol shift after her?

“I hate you,” I muttered as I rose to my feet. I stretched until my back popped and then slipped on my hole-covered jacket.

Margarette hopped into the spot I’d left. She snuggled up with the pillow and clamped her eyes shut. “Oh, poor baby.”

“Did you wake Edward?”

“He’s been up. Reya went into labor in the middle of the night, and he’s been by her side like the dutiful husband he is.”

No help there.

“What about Oscar?”

“Emma needs the second pair of hands.”

Great.

Hooray for another day of working by myself.

I sighed. At least Edward had a legitimate reason. I couldn’t ask the guy to miss his kid’s birth. I wasn’t a dickhead like some people.

“How’s it out there?”

“Nothing has changed in the shithole we know and love.”

“All right.”

Margarette made loud snoring noises.

I glared at her and wondered if a single look would rid her of her horrible nature. I’d been trying for the past two years with no luck. Perhaps I needed something stronger, like fire.

Gazing at her, I suspected someone had already tried. At some point, she’d been a gorgeous girl. She had the body of a goddess, sculpted cheekbones, and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Margarette’s golden-blond hair was long and thick despite our lack of hygiene, and Emma’s clumsy, well-meaning hands had never butchered it.

The twisted map of damaged, bumpy skin that started at her neck and stopped just above her eyebrows distracted from her appealing qualities. The strange black-red color of the scars looked otherworldly, and I suspected non-human hands had delivered them. Margarette presented a sad sight that made her demeanor much harder to deal with.

I left the living room of the house my group had claimed as our own a week and a half ago. My shoes left imprints in the mountain of dirt that remained even after Emma’s attempts at cleaning the carpet. Dust swirled up into my nose and mouth, and I sneezed and gagged. I hurried into the kitchen as I struggled to breathe.

“Here,” Annie said as soon as I entered. She held out an open bottle of water.

I took it and sipped. “Thank you,” I muttered when I could talk.

Annie waved a wrapper in my face. “Want the other half of my breakfast bar?”

I shook my head and drank more water.

“She’s really loud.”

Annie spoke as she nibbled on the food I had refused. She ate like a starving, nervous bird, complete with a shifting gaze and a hunched back.

“Who?”

Annie’s sapphire-blue eyes shifted to the ceiling. “Reya.”

“Well, she’s trying to push a potato through a straw. I’m assuming that’s quite the painful feat.”

“If it takes much longer, Reya won’t see the sunset,” Annie said with such conviction that I had to wonder (not for the first time) if she saw the future. The things she blurted unnerved me, especially when her eyes glazed over and she shook as she spoke.

She wasn’t doing that now. Thank God for small mercies.

The loudest scream of pain I’d ever heard shook the walls of the house. A cheer followed, and the tense expression Annie wore fell off her pinched, pixie-like face.

“Do you think Reya will let me hold the little girl?”

“It’s a girl?”

Emma hadn’t mentioned her suspicions, though maybe she thought I didn’t care about the sex of Reya’s baby.

“Yes, it’s a girl.”

“Good for Reya.”

“Will I be able to hold her?” Annie repeated, her tone almost angry.

I shrugged. “Possibly.”

I lied. I knew for sure that Reya would never let Annie near her baby. There was something wrong with Annie. I didn’t know her life story; I had never asked. It wasn’t my place to make her relive the awful things that kept her from sleeping for more than a couple of hours every few days.

But whatever her past was, it had made the girl (she couldn’t be older than fifteen) unstable. If I were Reya, I would be afraid of Annie dropping the baby or leaving it somewhere and forgetting it.

“Baby girls are so sweet. So special.”

Annie’s gaze had turned soft. A smile turned up her chapped, blood-caked lips (Emma and I had tried everything to make her stop biting them), and she sighed.

I gazed at her, surprised to see her so happy. What did she remember?

“Yeah,” I coughed after a long moment. “Well, I’m going to go on patrol. You find something… you know.”

“You’re never careful out there.” Annie’s expression crumbled back into the one I’d grown accustomed to seeing on her face for the past year. “You don’t do things to jeopardize us, but you aren’t careful.”

“I’m careful enough.”

Annie closed the short distance between us and reached out. For a fleeting moment, I thought she would hit me, though she was incapable of swatting a fly. Instead, she grabbed the chain around my neck and tugged out the tiny pink plastic ring I always wore from underneath my shirt. She fingered the ring, and tears glistened in her eyes.

“You won’t solve anything by being reckless.”

My heart thudded as I tore the ring out of her grasp and returned it to its spot. “I’m not trying to solve anything.”

“Ian, antagonizing them won’t—”

“I’m leaving,” I announced, and I not-so-gently moved her out of my way. “Tell the others when they come down that I’m going to bring home food. I don’t know what it’ll be, but it’ll be something.”

I started for the back door.

“Wait, Ian. I’m coming with.”

I stopped mid-step and faced her. “Excuse me?”

“I’m coming—”

“No, you’re not.”

“I have to come with you today.”

“Why?”

Annie shrugged. “I just have to. You need me.”

“You can’t even shoot a gun!”

“Please, Ian. You need me.”

I opened my mouth to disagree, but something kept me from saying anything. What if this was one of those occasions when she was right? What would I do if, by some miracle, Annie came in handy? Did I really want to risk whatever unpleasant things could happen if she wasn’t around?

And even if nothing out of the ordinary happened, she could help carry whatever supplies I found.

I relented. “I’m in charge. Whatever I say goes, and you will stay beside me. Do you understand?”

Annie nodded.

I’m going to regret this.

I opened the back door and gestured to the outside. “Come on.”

Annie scrambled past me. “You won’t regret it.”

I stared at her for a minute. This was a terrible idea. I should make her stay. It would be better—

“Are we going?”

I sighed as I repositioned my gun. “Yeah.”

I followed her.