Poison Princess

22

DAY 230 A.F.

DEEP IN MISSISSIPPI

I sat in the parked car, surrounded by old corpses, watching Jackson fight through a windstorm. He had his bow at the ready, the shotgun slung over his shoulder, and a plastic gas tank tethered to his belt.

Empty, of course.

We hadn’t made it out of Louisiana before we’d started running on fumes. That’d been nine days ago. Since then, he’d been scrounging a gallon here or there and sourcing for car parts. Already we’d burned through three pairs of windshield-wiper blades and two air filters.

With the constant stops—and the unrelenting windstorms—we averaged less than twenty miles a day.

Today, he was sourcing fuel at a lawn mower repair shop. He thought the militia might’ve overlooked it.

Surely they’d gotten everything else. Just as Jackson predicted, food was scarce. We were running out of cans. Luckily, we were holding steady on water, sometimes finding leftovers inside water heaters.

Kneeling up on my seat with my forehead to the glass, I squinted, keeping Jackson in sight. Visibility was poor. The car rocked, ash swirling over the corpses splayed all around, like sand over windswept dunes.

When he encountered a body in his way, he didn’t veer his direction, just stepped right over it. He drove over corpses too.

At first I’d asked him to avoid them. After a couple of days, I’d realized how silly my request was. Without much moisture or insects, and few birds, the bodies had a lot of staying power, collecting over time.

He’d told me they were worse in the cities. I’d never imagined how many there could be.

Still, I was relieved to be out here on the road with Jackson, felt like some of the pressure of the last several months had been lifted.

Though my grief for my mom remained raw, it wasn’t as debilitating as it’d been in the beginning. At least now I could stem my tears. They seemed to really bother Jackson, like he took them as a personal insult.

But then, he spent most hours of the day irritated with me anyway. I had little clue why, barely able to keep up with his moods. . . .

The winds increased. A plastic Christmas tree tumbled by; a blackened clothes dryer inched down the road. Debris battered the car.

Jackson was out in that wasteland, exposed to danger. The militia had indeed cleared the roads, bulldozing wrecks. They’d piled them up along the sides, until the streets were like corrals. Like deadly wind chutes.

When he bent down beside a riding lawnmower parked on the small lot, I fretted my bottom lip. But Jackson seemed to possess no sense of fear, working steadily at his task.

I watched as he jammed a clear siphoning hose into the mower’s tank, swishing the tube around. He gave me a thumbs-up sign.

Clever, Jackson.

He’d turned out to be markedly different from how I’d remembered him at school. He was more hardened, and so possessed of himself that I sometimes forgot he was only a couple of years older than me.

Yet on very rare occasions, I caught a glimpse of an eighteen-year-old boy.

Some aspects of Jackson had remained the same. He was still dangerous, compelling, impossible to ignore—and confusing.

Though I wanted to be out there helping him, he always refused. Then he’d criticize me for not pulling my weight.

Sometimes I felt like I could never win with him, like he was purposely driving a wedge between us. But I didn’t know why.

After positioning the gas container beside the mower tank, he pulled down his bandanna, taking the hose between his teeth. I didn’t miss his hesitation to start the flow. Even if he was skilled enough not to get a mouthful of gas, he was still breathing the fumes—

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a piece of sheet metal zooming through the air toward him, shearing everything in its path like a giant razor blade. I screamed, “Look out!” He couldn’t possibly hear me.

He ducked all on his own.

I pressed my sweating palms against the window, exhaling a breath as he faced me. His sunglasses covered his eyes, but I knew we were sharing a Holy shit! look. Then he set right back to work.

Another gust shoved the car. More winds, more rocking, more ash. I was losing sight of him.

My heart dropped when he disappeared, swallowed by the haze.

Worry preyed on me. I hated this helplessness! Without him in sight, the voices threatened.

I tried to busy myself by studying the bodies around the car. Jackson had told me to pay attention to the newer corpses because “they give you the lay of the land.”

At my blank look, he’d explained, “A bullet between the eyes means militia victim. You can tell how recently armed men have passed by. A body that’s been beaten or strangled to death? Survival-of-the-fittest killing. Desperate folks are scrapping for resources, so you keep moving. Ain’t goan to be no food around. A stab wound to the back? In-house. Family or friends offing each other. Again, keep stepping.”

I could recognize the Bagman victims all on my own. Their faces were frozen in horror, their necks savaged. Apparently, a bite was contagious only if one lived through the attack.

I would forever keep salt in my hoodie pocket. . . .

—Red of tooth and claw!—

—I’ll make a feast of your bones!—

I balled my hands into fists, struggling to tamp down the Arcana calls. It took exhausting effort. I’d grown to crave Jackson’s presence, just for the peace he brought.

Other kids whispered, new ones:

—I descend upon you like nightfall.—

—Woe to the bloody vanquished!—

I even thought I heard Matthew’s voice. —Crazy like a fox.—

So that was what he’d meant; the phrase was his own call. I’d thought he’d been spouting more gibberish.

And then Death spoke. —Come to me, Empress. I’ve waited so long.— I easily recognized him. He often talked directly to me, leaving my nerves frayed.

I rubbed my arms, hugging them around me miserably. Where was Jackson? What if he never returned? What if there was another piece of sheet metal . . . ?

I heard him just outside the car. Transferring fuel? Then he slammed the container into the back. After fighting to open the driver’s-side door, he wedged himself inside the opening and into the seat just before another gust flattened the door behind him.

“Jackson, I was so worried!”

He yanked down his soot-stained bandanna, catching his breath.

The voices faded to a whisper, then . . . gone. As I hurried to open a canteen for him, I wondered if he could tell I was trembling. “I couldn’t see you.”

He took his time situating the sawed-off shotgun between his seat and the console, then laid his bow close at hand in the backseat. He glowered at the canteen before taking it from me.

After a deep drink, he wiped his sleeve over his mouth. “I kept you in sight,” he said, his tone curt. He was mad, yet again?

“I’m just saying I was worried.”

“Your bodyguard returned in one piece. You might want to look for a better one though. I only got a few gallons. And no food.”

He turned on the engine. At once, the windshield wipers scraped the gritty glass, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“A few gallons is incredible!” I reached over and squeezed one of his gas-stained hands. “We can finally make it to Alabama on that. And we’ll find food tonight. I’ve got a good feeling.”

He softened somewhat, digging into his pocket. “Got you this. Might help with the hunger.” He offered me an opened pack of Juicy Fruit gum with three pieces left. The same brand my gran always loved.

Realization struck me. Every piece I enjoyed meant that there was one less in the world, never to be replenished. I met his gaze. “Thank you, Jackson.”

He shrugged uncomfortably, color flushing across his cheekbones. At that moment, he looked very much like an eighteen-year-old boy.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“It ain’t like we’re engaged or anything,” he muttered. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. Thought I saw a curtain flutter in a nearby house. We’re being watched.”

“There’re people?” I cried. Sometimes when we sourced for supplies, casing houses, I’d spy a door slamming shut or a figure running in the distance. Unlike Jackson, I didn’t believe that everyone was evil. But no one would show their faces. “Live people?”

He scowled at me. “Which are the worst kind.”

Still, I craned my head around.

“What’s your damned fixation with seeing others? I ain’t company enough for you?”

And again, he’s surly. “Of course you are, it’s just—”

“Before you go wishing for someone else to talk to, keep in mind that we’re about to drive near a big city—in other words, slaver territory. . . .”

Though we both hated backtracking, we were forced to retrace our route to get to the interstate. Jackson thought backtracking was a tactical error, and I had an OCD thing about it.

We traversed the same speed-bump corpses—buh-dunk buh-dunk—and passed the same spray-painted road sign. Someone had written Repent! in red. Beneath it, another person had painted in black Or WHAT?

Then, back on the interstate, quiet stretched between us. Blissful quiet. I pulled out a yellowing copy of Cosmopolitan from the glove compartment, but found my attention on Jackson instead.

He was lost in thought, holding the wheel with one hand, absently tracing the scars on his knuckles with the other.

Was he still angry that I’d hoped to see other people? Frustrated that we hadn’t scored food today?

How could he appear lost in thought and restless at the same time?

Over the last several days, I’d learned many new things about my Cajun bodyguard, but everything I’d discovered led to more questions.

I’d learned that he could go for long stretches in total silence. Whereas Brandon had been such an open book—thought to speech with no filter—Jackson kept his musings close to the vest.

What did a boy his age, an apocalypse survivor, think about over the course of the day? Why did he often trace the scars on his hands? Was he remembering old fights?

At other times, I suspected I was better off not knowing what went on in his mind.

I should just savor the quiet. The voices had been vanquished, which meant I was at peace. At least for a little while.

I rested my forehead against the window, staring out at the singed billboards advertising things we could never again buy—a trip to Hawaii, a new computer, permanent hair removal at a spa. Thank God Mel had made me go with her last year when she’d gotten herself lasered.

Pack of gum in hand, I closed my eyes. With each reprieve from the voices, I’d been able to center my thoughts, remembering more of my life before the clinic. During today’s lull, I smelled the familiar sweet scent of the gum, my mind drifting to that fateful drive with Gran. . . .

“I’ll return you to Haven well before your sixteenth birthday,” she said. “Once you’ve been prepared for your destiny.”

My destiny? Mint chocolate chip or butter pecan.

“There’s a Tarot pack in my pocketbook,” Gran said. “I want you to look at the cards. Really look at them.”

“Okay.” I rooted through her huge purse, past her gardenia lotion, but I got distracted by bubblegum—

“Evie, the deck.”

I nodded, pulling the cards out, slipping some off the top.

“The most elegant cards are the trump cards, the Major Arcana.”

“Major whatta?”

“Major Ar-kay-nah. It’s Latin for greater secrets. You and I will have our share.” She looked sad all of the sudden. “It’s the way of our line.” Shaking it off, she said, “The details of the images are important. They’re to be read like a map.”

I saw one card with a winged angel, one with an old man in a robe, one with a lion. A couple of cards had dogs on them.

I was struck by one picture of a fair-haired woman dressed in a poppy-red gown. She had a crown atop her head with twelve stars. Behind her, green and red hills rolled on and on.

Her arms were opened wide as if she wanted a hug, but her gaze looked mean.

Gran changed lanes, peering down at the card. “That’s you, Evie. You’re the Empress. One day, you’ll control all things that root or bloom. You’ll smell like them, and they’ll recognize your scent.”

I half frowned/half grinned up at her. Sometimes Gran said the strangest things. Then I shuffled through another couple of cards . . . until I saw him—a knight in black armor atop a creamy-white mount. The poor horse had bloodshot eyes. I loved horses—

“The details, Evie,” Gran said in a sterner voice, checking her rearview mirror again.

People were kneeling before the knight, crying and pleading. He raised some kind of stick over their heads, and they were scared.

“That one of Death frightens you, doesn’t it, sweetheart?” Gran asked. “Or maybe you get really angry when you look at it . . . ?”

“Evie, you awake?” Jackson asked me.

I blinked open my eyes, the memory fading. “Yeah, what’s up?” God, I could hardly wait to see Gran once more! At last all my maddening questions would be answered.

Jackson opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Opened it. “Forget it,” he finally said.

I shrugged, gazing out the window once more. It hadn’t escaped me that Jackson was in the same situation that I was. Once we reached the Outer Banks, he’d have his puzzles solved too.

My secrets were driving him crazy. He’d continued to interrogate me about the crops and the visions. Yesterday he’d said, “If we do make it to North Carolina and we can camp somewhere for a time, what would I need to get for you? So you could make our seeds grow?”

“I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get to my grandmother’s. Until then, we need to be sourcing for silver bells and cockleshells.”

Now he asked me, “Why are you always so quiet around me? You were a chatterbox with other people.”

Chatterbox? “How can you say that? You hardly knew me.” Oh, wait. Except for the fact that he’d once possessed the source of all-things-Evie.

Brandon’s phone. How much had Jackson seen, read, heard? “In any case, I wanted to let you concentrate on driving.”

“Uh-huh. You cried out again last night, mumbled some things in your sleep. What’d you dream of? And if you answer ‘this and that’ one more time, I’m slamming on the brakes.”

“I don’t remember,” I said, even as I recollected my latest nightmare of the witch. All of them seemed to be from the same day, from nearly the same location. In this one, she’d been traveling the countryside with a besotted young admirer. He’d angered her over something. So—of course—she’d decided on murder.

“Come. Touch,” she’d murmured to him. When he’d tripped over his feet to reach her, she’d opened up her palm and a flower had grown—from her skin. With a sensual wink, she’d blown him a kiss across the bloom, releasing deadly spores.

He’d started choking, dropping to her feet. His skin had swelled until it split open in places. Putrid boils welled and spurted. She’d gazed on, cheerfully telling him, “How artfully we plants beckon; how perfectly we punish. . . .”

Each day, I hated her more. Then I frowned. “Jackson, what did you hear me mumble in my sleep?”

“You said, ‘Come touch.’ I thought this was a fine idea, until you added, ‘But you’ll pay a price.’ What was that about?”

The admirable deviousness of briars. “I can’t imagine.”

“Liar.” He glanced into the rearview mirror. “What’s it goan to take to get you to trust me, huh?”

“Don’t know,” I said honestly. I wished I did. How badly I yearned to be able to confide in another! Maybe just to have a friend again? At least, one who was physically present.

But I didn’t need to give Jackson more reason to ditch me. Though he’d accepted the visions easily enough, my hearing voices was a different matter altogether. My repeated nightmares of cold-blooded murder . . .

“You’re always scouting for other folks, but you doan talk to the one you’re with,” he said. “Guess I ain’t worth the bother.”

“Maybe I’d talk to you more, if you weren’t mean to me all the time.”

“Mean? When? Is this because of the sunglasses?”

My old Coach ones were so scratched I could barely see through them. I’d sourced aviator glasses—still on a body. Again and again, I’d circled the stabbed corpse—definitely in-house—wanting those glasses so badly. Jackson had ordered, “You get your ass over there, Evangeline, and you pluck those off! Right now!”

“Yes, mean,” I insisted. “How about when I forgot my bug-out bag that one time. You went off!”

“If I doan treat you with kid gloves, it’s for good reason.”

Kid gloves? Please. In the early days of our trip, he’d been decent but distant. But as the worst of my grief ebbed, his surliness increased.

If he ever came upon me sniffling with sadness or not eating when we did have food or not sleeping, he took it as a personal affront. “Bed not soft enough for you, princess?” he’d sneer, though I’d never complained. “Food not up to your standards?”

He especially didn’t like it when I was quiet or lost in thought. Even though he was often the same.

Recalling all the times he’d appeared restless, I figured that he simply hated being cooped up in a car with me, being saddled with me. We were stuck together, watching the windshield wipers scrape, listening to the same iPod songs over and over.

Most of the tracks were from Mel’s playlists. Oddly, Jackson didn’t enjoy endless rap remixes of Alanis Morissette.

God, I miss that girl like an ache, like I miss Mom. . . .

Still stewing over my accusation of meanness, Jackson said, “You ain’t perfect yourself, peekôn. You get your feelings hurt like this”—he snapped his fingers—“and you woan tell me anything about you. Most close-lipped girl I ever knew.”

“Why am I always the one getting interrogated? You’ve rarely talked about yourself since we’ve been on the road.” Yes, I had secrets, but he had such a huge advantage over me—Brandon’s phone!

“Ask me something,” Jackson said, though his grip on the steering wheel tightened, as if he were bracing for a punch.

“Okay. Was the cage-the-rage rumor true? Did you really go to prison?” If so, he might understand some of what my experience at CLC had been like.

Anger flared in his expression. “You got to go for the slam at every opportunity.”

“What are you talking about? I asked for a reason.”

“Which is to remind me of my place!”

“Jackson, I’m astonished you can walk upright with that chip on your shoulder.”

“How about asking what my favorite book is? Or what class I liked best?”

“I figured you liked English a lot, and I thought Robinson Crusoe was your favorite book.”

In a menacingly low voice, he said, “Sometimes I forget, me, that you were in my house.”

“Fine, I’ll try again. So, Jackson, what had you planned to do after high school?”

He slid me a narrowed glance. “Open a chop shop. Steal cars for parts. Isn’t that what you expect me to say?”

“Forget I asked.”

“What were you goan to do, then?”

“Marry Brandon, have a couple of rich brats, play tennis all day. Isn’t that what you expected me to say?”

He seemed to be strangling the steering wheel. At least his hands had healed. When I’d insisted on cleaning and bandaging them last week, he’d been gruff, but I thought he secretly liked someone fussing over him.

Because it was such a rarity?

When I’d finished dressing them, he’d grumbled, “Surprised you didn’t kiss ’em better.” So I did, pressing a quick kiss to each bandage, just to shock him. Instead, his voice had grown husky as he’d called me “ma belle infirmière.” My pretty nurse . . .

His moods were so changeable. That night he’d been flirtatious. Now he was brooding, filled with tension.

It seemed like the harder I tried to be nice to him, to make him happy, the more it backfired on me.

Silence stretched between us again. Until my stomach growled.

Jackson cast me another scowl. I’d also learned that the sound of my hunger really bothered him, as if I were pestering him for food.

“We’re not eating for hours yet, princess.” He knew I hated it when he called me that. “We agreed to keep heading for Atlanta, Evie. And we knew it’d be lean.”

“I’m not complaining. I have never complained.”

“No, but that stomach of yours is. I almost wish you’d start bitching at me.” His knuckles were now white on the wheel.

“What good would that do?”

“It’s better than you sitting here seething all day.”

“Seething? Hardly!” He didn’t understand. I could roll with a lot of punches now that the voices were quieted. “I was in a great mood earlier.”

“Bullshit! Over what? You’re exhausted, starving, and you doan know where your next meal’s coming from.”

“You didn’t get decapitated by sheet metal and we scored some fuel. Win!”

“But no food.” The wipers scraped louder across the windshield. Grate, grate, grate . . .

I threw my hands up. “All right, you talked me into it. I’m officially in a pissy mood.”

“Damn it, you doan need to miss meals.” Early on, he’d been giving me the lion’s share, calling me a “growing girl.”

As he’d explained: “Hell, Evie, I like where you’re goan with this”—he’d motioned to indicate my chest—“I want to see where you end up.”

Now he muttered, “Thought I’d be shooting some game.” On occasion, we’d see a bird or a rabbit. “And you ain’t exactly contributing to the pot.”

No, but I could. If things got really bad, I’d grow food from the seeds in the back. Refusing to rise to the bait, I said, “It’s getting late.” The winds were dying down as the sun set. The ash started to settle, revealing a waxing moon. “Shouldn’t we be looking for a place to overnight?”

“We need to get past this area. The gas took longer than I thought.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back to the road, picking up speed. “Sick of these storms.”

“What about the Bagmen? You said we can never drive past sundown.” This afternoon, we’d crossed bridge after bridge. If they flocked to old bodies of water, at night . . .

“I’m changing the rule, adding: unless we’re in slaver territory. We got to make up some time anyway.”

My stomach growled more insistently.

“Suck it up, Evie! We can’t risk looking for food right now. If anything happens to me, you’re screwed.”

“One more time, I’m not arguing with you about food, I’m not complaining, and I might surprise you by actually surviving without you.”

“You can’t hunt or ferret out supplies. You’re a resource-suck. You’re hopeless in the kitchen—”

“Here we go again.” I could deny nothing. I was awful at cooking, couldn’t seem to heat a can of ravioli without screwing it up.

“You should end each and every day with a ‘Thank you, Jack. It’s great to be alive.’ ” Another glance over his shoulder, another increase in speed.

“Clearly, I’m just a nuisance to you, a ball and chain around your ankle. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten sick of me and dumped me already. I keep waiting for you to say, ‘Screw this,’ and ditch on North Carolina.”

“I doan let puzzles go unsolved.”

Which is why I won’t tell you about the crops until you’ve gotten me where I need to go.

“Besides”—he flashed me a wolfish grin—“I ain’t even slept with you yet.”

My lips parted. “You’re talking about having . . . sex. With me?”

I should have known this conversation would arise soon enough. It seemed like each night together, Jackson and I had grown less comfortable with each other.

If he felt relatively secure with our overnight, he’d sleep without a shirt. Those tantalizing glimpses of his chest—I always looked away—flustered me, making it difficult to sleep.

At other times, I’d cast wary glances at the bed, while he cast hungry looks at me.

“Sex is what you sit in this car thinking about?” Just as I’d suspected, I was better off not knowing.

His expression was bored, as if to say Grow up. “Why wouldn’t I? I’m a red-blooded male, and you’re the only game in town. Tell me you doan think about it.”

I had. I’d fantasized about what might have happened at the sugar mill if we’d kissed, if we’d explored that sizzling chemistry between us. Then I would feel guilty and out of sorts. “I-I’m not having sex with you!” I finally answered. “I can’t believe you would just put it out there like that.”

Though I knew the world was different now, I still held on to the naïve idea that losing my virginity should be special—something I did with my boyfriend.

Not something I did solely because the guy with me was red-blooded.

He flashed me a knowing look, with a wicked glint in his eyes. “So you doan deny thinking about it?”

I sputtered. “That’s the main reason you volunteered to help me—because you wanted to make me one of your gaiennes, one of your doe tags!”

“De bon cœur.” Wholeheartedly.

“All that bullshit about remembering the bayou and Why-whoever-will-I-talk-Cajun-to? was just lip service. You couldn’t care less if we speak the same language or share a history!”

“I told you the truth. It’s not my fault all that comes in a pretty blond package that I want to take to bed—”

BOOM! BOOM! Explosions sounded just outside.

The car careened out of control. He stomped the brakes, but we rushed toward an embankment.

My hands shot forward to grip the dashboard. “Jackson!”