Poison Princess

24

“Didn’t you tell me you had a good feeling about tonight?” Jackson muttered as he shot yet another Bagman straggler.

After he’d taken out the first trio, we’d holed up in a dense stand of dead and fallen trees, protected on three sides. Jackson was guarding the fourth.

“Damn, Evie, what kind of psychic are you?” he asked when he rose to collect his arrow.

Might not be one whatsoever, jury’s still out, I thought as I hurried to stay right behind him.

But I hesitated to approach the creature. Up close, it was even more revolting than in my drawings, with old blood running down its mouth and neck like a painted-on beard. Its mucousy-looking skin shed globs of reeking slime all around it.

If they were constantly excreting this stuff, no wonder they were always thirsty.

I could scarcely believe that this thing used to be a person. But it wore ragged jeans, a concert T-shirt, and one Timberland boot. A teenage boy.

Now Jackson’s arrow jutted from its eye. Did the Cajun never miss?

“Remember how it smells, girl,” he told me.

“It’s rotten.” When I was little, I’d had a dog who was addicted to rolling in the remains of dead animals. No amount of shampoo could erase the rancid scent. That was what I was smelling now.

“You grab the arrow, I’ll move the body,” he said, but still I hesitated. In the harsh tone he’d taken to using with me, Jackson snapped, “Over here, Evie. Now. I’ll be damned if I’m goan to let you be scared of a dead Bagman.”

Let me? Had he been so mean for days just to . . . toughen me up? Like a drill sergeant getting me ready for war?

Or possibly because I was getting on his last nerve. “Fine.” I plodded forward.

Holding my breath, I reached for the short arrow, tugging at the end, but it wouldn’t come out.

“Yank it, princess.”

With a glare, I yanked harder, until it came free with a bubbling rush of red goo.

As I shoved the back of my hand against my mouth, working not to vomit, Jackson said, “This one fed recently. Otherwise it’d be chalkier.”

I still couldn’t believe I’d been face to face with these things. I could’ve been bitten. Hell, I could’ve died in the wreck or been captured!

Of course, the night was still young. . . .

When he started dragging the corpse away from our hideout, I asked, “Why are you doing that?”

“Bagmen drink their fallen. Not goan to invite them to a happy hour.”

Learn something new from Jackson every day. “Are you certain their skin’s not contagious?”

“I know it ain’t with me. Just to be safe, you doan touch it, no.” Taking the arrow from me, Jackson wiped it on the sole of his boot, then returned it to his bow’s magazine clip.

Back in the dead-tree hideout, I said, “If I get bitten—”

“You will have my arrow in your brainpan directly, doan you worry,” he said without a nanosecond of hesitation.

“Well. Good to know.” I wondered if I could regenerate from a bite. May I never have to find out. “When the Bagmen go find shelter, will those men come for us?”

“Let’s hope a windstorm dusts up,” he said, never taking his alert gaze off the woods. “Their dog woan be able to track us.”

“They looked like regular people.” I could almost imagine they’d been part of a community watch on the trail of criminals, like I should’ve stopped and said, “They went thattaway!”

“Jackson, why’d they wreck all those cars?” And why’d they have to wreck ours? Right when we had some gas in the tank.

All our water, our seeds . . . gone.

“It’s an easy way to provision,” he said. “They’re probably wanting women, too. I think that’s half the problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me,” I insisted.

“Everywhere I go, I meet crazy-ass coo-yôns. I’ve only run into one or two solid characters since the Flash. You remember when you asked me how everything went bad so quick? I think the lack of women is fuel to the fire.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ohhh, men are now bad because they have, like, masculine ‘needs’ or some other crock?”

“I ain’t making excuses for ’em. Just think you women civilize us men. Without you around, we . . . devolve or something.”

Huh. His explanation made as much sense as anything I could come up with. “Jackson, I think you’re a lot smarter than I gave you credit for.”

He faced me with a scowl. When he realized I was serious, he said, “You’d keep me as a history podna now?”

Again, I thought that this was something he should’ve already forgotten. At least enough that it wasn’t worth a mention. Still I said, “Sans doute.” Without a doubt.

I could tell that pleased him. “You should try to rest up, ange.”

There was no chance of sleep. “I can help you keep watch.”

He gave a soft laugh. “I told you—nothing can get the drop on me. Nothing.”

“Wow. If only you felt confident on that score.”

“I spent my whole life watching my six.” At my frown, he said, “Watching my back.”

I recalled that drunk man barreling into Jackson’s house, a threat coming out of the blue. Had others come quietly? “I sleep with one eye open,” Jackson had once said.

And his comment about crawling to the hospital on Sunday mornings after being kicked in the ribs? I’d just assumed he was referring to injuries from his wild Saturday night bar brawls.

Or had he been talking about an earlier time in his life, when he’d been a scared little boy, beaten by his mother’s drunken . . . dates?

Maybe that was why he traced his scars. They might be records of near misses or hard-earned victories. No wonder he could be so brutal.

I felt a spike of shame that I’d judged him for thrashing that man in his home. No more.

“Evie, bed down.” Scanning the dark, he murmured, “You doan have to be scared. I’ve got you.”

You do, don’t you? Here we were in the Bagmen’s lair, and I wasn’t terrified for my life. Jackson would kill any that strayed too close. In fact, they should fear him.

I was with the boy that monsters should fear.

The idea was liberating. We were carless, with nearly zero supplies, fresh from a wreck and trapped in a swamp filled with bloodthirsty zombies—and yet I was beginning to feel optimistic.

As long as he had that bow, maybe we were the bogeymen.

I shrugged off my bug-out bag, marveling at how relieved I was to have it now. Because of Jackson riding my ass, I still had my flash drive, a full canteen, my jewelry, another change of clothes, some energy gel-packs and more. “I’m actually not scared. Can you believe it? If there was ever a time for me to be . . .”

“Maybe you’re in shock.”

“Maybe I’m safe with you.” Grinning softly, I told him, “Thank you, Jackson, it’s great to be alive.”

“Smart-ass,” he grated, but the corners of his lips quirked.

Curling up in the ashy leaves, using my bag as a pillow, I watched him. I’d always found him physically attractive, but not to the degree that girls like Catherine had.

Tonight I was starting to see why she’d sighed over him.

The moonlight illuminated his chiseled cheekbones and his black, black hair. His gorgeous eyes gleamed. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, but the stubble only added to his looks.

When he turned his head, listening for something, I admired his profile, his strong chin and straight nose.

He was focused and ruthless, and seeing him like this made me want to sigh.

Never in a million years could I have imagined that Jackson Deveaux would end up being my protector, a refuge from the voices, and a . . . friend.

If I wasn’t careful, I’d do something incredibly stupid, like fall for him.

He must have noticed me regarding him so closely. “Get some sleep.”

“I’m too keyed up from the wreck. Never been in one before. Have you?”

“Motorcycle wrecks all the time. Hell, you almost made me crash.”

“Me?”

Again his lips curled. “That first morning I saw you, I could barely take my eyes off your ass in that little dress.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, as if he was remembering the sight even now.

Which made my breath hitch. I couldn’t tell if I was flattered, embarrassed, or excited.

“Then I got a gander of that face of yours. Nearly hit a pothole and took a header over the handlebars, me.” He shot me a glance, looking like he regretted saying so much.

Definitely flattered and excited—

He suddenly tensed. In an instant, he’d taken aim and shot his bow.

When I heard a thud in the distance, I swallowed. “You move the body, I’ll get the arrow.”

He helped me to my feet. “Now, Evangeline, I know you ain’t about to leave that bag behind.”

Once we’d returned from our tasks and settled back in again, I told him, “Jackson, I meant what I said earlier. Thank you for saving me tonight.”

Another sideways glance to see if I was serious. “If you truly want to thank me, you’ll tell me a secret.”

Part of me did feel like I owed it to him, but on the other hand . . . “You already know so much more about me than I do about you. You investigated my room, all my belongings—down to my panty drawer.”

He made a low ooom sound of agreement. “That I did.”

“And you had Brandon’s cell phone. Did you go through it?”

“Why would I?” he muttered, not denying either.

“I’m embarrassed by what you were able to see and read.” And hear.

He just stared out into the night, sharing nothing of what was going on in that mysterious mind of his. But I could feel the tension rolling off him.

Finally he said, “Did you . . . did you really want to get hitched to Radcliffe? Have kids and play tennis?”

“I’d planned to leave Sterling as soon as possible,” I said honestly. “Go to college at Vandy or UT Austin.”

“Leave that boy behind?” At once, Jackson’s mood seemed to improve.

“I was getting out, one way or another.”

“Then maybe it wasn’t true love on your part, no?”

I kind of wished it had been. I felt guilty that I hadn’t been in love with Brandon, as if I hadn’t appreciated how good our lives were, at least before I’d been sent away. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

“Then tell me where you really were last summer, when you dropped off the face of the earth. You weren’t at a special school, were you?”

Two realizations struck me—Jackson was one of the most perceptive people I’d ever met. And he’d studied every byte of data on that phone.

Surely he would notice that my text messages to Brandon had gone from countless to zero overnight—until the rare texts began to arrive over the summer. On the exact same days of the month, at the same time.

Though I’d told no one where I was, a clever boy could figure out that I’d been locked up somewhere. “No way I’m talking about that, Jackson. Not until you divvy.”

He looked to be growing uneasy again, like he’d prefer facing an army of Bagmen over talking about himself.

“We don’t have to do this,” I assured him. “We don’t have to get to know each other—even though we’re on the road together and we might die tomorrow. As soon as we get to North Carolina, I’ll tell you all my deepest, darkest secrets, and you can leave, still a stranger to me. If that’s what you want.”

He exhaled a gust of breath. “Ask, then.” He dragged his flask out of his own bag, as if in readiness.

Surprised he was cooperating, I sat up. “What did you really want to do after school?”

“A podna of mine worked on an oil rig off the coast of Mexico. Eight-week stints. Great money.” He flashed me a rueful grin. “No girls. I was goan to send money to Clotile, and she’d look after my mère.” In a more somber tone, he added, “We had it all figured out.”

A boy with hopes, dreams, and a Spanish for Beginners book. Just as I’d wondered all those months ago, he had planned on getting out of that hellhole. “You said Clotile . . . that she might be your sister. Do you know who your father was?”

“I knew of him, more like. Only met him once.”

“Why?”

“He was too busy spoiling his legitimate son to spend time with me—or to send a single dime to ma mère. Told her he wouldn’t admit culpability or some bullshit.”

“Sounds like a lawyer.”

With a contemplative swig of his flask, Jackson muttered, “Heh.” Cajun for Huh. You think so? “By the time I learned I could nail his ass with a paternity suit, I was more concerned with telling him where to shove his money.” His hand tightened around the bow stock. “I knew who my père was, but Clotile could only narrow hers down to three or so. My father made the short list. Blood or no, she was a sister to me.”

“I’m sorry you lost her.”

“And what about your dad?” he asked, changing the subject.

Another thing I’d learned about the Cajun? He didn’t like messy emotions. His go-to response for just about every situation tended to be pure anger, with a side of action.

“I never knew my father,” I said. “He disappeared when I was young. Went into the bayou on a fishing trip and never came back.”

Jackson looked like he had an opinion on that, but wisely kept it to himself. “Am I done now?”

“Please tell me why you were on parole.”

Another shrug. “One of my ex-stepfathers wouldn’t take non for an answer. He terrified ma mère. And he paid for it.” The fierce protectiveness in his gaze was staggering.

So Clotile hadn’t been the only woman he cared about who’d been abused?

“I did to him what you saw me do to that other man—and then some.”

“Bagasse?”

He nodded. “Knew I’d get sentenced; didn’t care. He somehow pulled through, but he’d never be able to hurt another woman.”

As I wondered what that meant, Jackson said, “Now can we get back to your summer away?”

He’d shared so much with me that I supposed I could at least tell him this. And hadn’t I yearned to talk to someone about these things? But I didn’t want him to look at me like those docs had. Because at some point in the last nine days, Jackson’s opinion of me had become important—

“You went to a nuthouse, didn’t you?”

“Wh-why would you guess that?”

“If anybody else saw that journal of yours, you’d have been sent up for true.”

I glared. “Or maybe you guessed that because you saw my texts to Brandon, and put things together.”

“You told me there was a reason you’d asked about me going to prison. I think it was ’cause you got locked up too, only you were with all the fous.” Lunatics.

“Ugh! You are such a dick!”

“Shh.” His gaze darted, body tensing before he gradually settled down once more.

I never should have sidled around this subject with him! Now he thought I was mental.

“You go in for the visions—or the voices?”

I just stifled a gasp. “What . . . how did you know about the voices?” Why was I bothering to hide anything from this boy?

“I’m not stupid, Evie. I’ve caught you talking to yourself. A lot. Muttering for someone to leave you alone or begging them to shut up.”

“I don’t . . . it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

“Why should I tell you anything? You’ll just make fun of me again,” I pointed out, even as I was nearly shaking with the need to unload. “You’ll call me a lunatic.”

“I never called you a lunatic. I’m not making fun.”

Did I dare confide this to him? I bit my bottom lip. “I’m not talking to myself—I’m talking to others. I do hear voices, tons of them. They all sound like they’re kids our age.”

“Do you think they’re real?” he asked in a neutral tone.

I sighed, nodding. “And I feel like I’m connected to them somehow. Like we share a hive mind or something.”

“Pardon?”

“Hive mind. Like how bees communicate.”

“You’re starting to confuse and unsettle me, Evangeline,” he said, but strangely, he didn’t look either at all. Did nothing faze him? “What they say to you?”

“Sometimes nothing but gibberish. Sometimes I hear these phrases repeated over and over. A girl says, ‘Behold the Bringer of Doubt.’ This Irish kid always says, ‘Eyes to the skies, lads, I strike from above.’ It gives me chills.”

Jackson studied my expression, probably reading me like a book, while I gleaned nothing from him. Would he be even more likely to cut his losses now, to ditch the mental girl? “Why do you think it’s happening?”

“I don’t know. That’s the reason I have to get to Gran. She will have all the answers.”

“Is she psychic?”

Good question. “I honestly don’t know. She could be.” Or maybe she’d learned all this Arcana stuff from her own mother, information handed down through the generations.

Hadn’t Gran told me she herself was a chronicler? Matthew had mentioned something about it as well.

“If your grandmother knows so much, then why the hell didn’t she teach you before she packed up for the beach?” Jackson said. “Let me guess: There was some secret passing-down-the-baton ceremony on your sixteenth birthday that never came about—”

“She was sent away when I was eight. Everybody said she was insane. I was forbidden to talk about what she’d taught me.”

“You have to remember something.”

“Not enough. I was forbidden even to think about her.”

“Nobody can control what you think about,” Jackson said.

I gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, but they can.” I recalled sitting at a cold metal table with my primary shrink. I’d glanced down, confused to see a puddle of saliva pooling. Even when dosed so heavily—with a billion milligrams of don’t-give-a-shit drugs pumping through me—I’d been humiliated to realize the drool was coming from me. He’d asked, “Evie, do you understand why you must reject your grandmother’s teachings . . . ?”

Jackson slid his gaze to me. “They get into that head of yours?”

How to tell him I’d been drugged to within an inch of my life in an echoing ward, then hypnotized until I could barely remember my name?

No, not hypnotized—that might’ve been beneficial. Hypnosis that made things worse? That was called brainwashing.

“Yes,” I said simply. Let’s see how he likes that for an answer.

He let it drop. “So, do you hear voices right now?” When I eventually nodded, he did a double take. “Like right now?”

“Don’t look at me like I’m a freak, Jackson. I hate that look!” I squeezed my eyes shut, mortified. His nuthouse and fous cracks hadn’t helped things.

Why had I revealed so much to him?

Oh yeah, because he’d shared with me. One difference: I didn’t judge him.

“Did you just get your feelings hurt again? Damn, cher, I doan know my way around this with you.”

I opened my eyes but wouldn’t look at him. “Around what?”

“Being with a girl like you.” Now I had to raise my brows at him. “Yeah, with your bebins and your girly ways. You got soft hands, and you’re . . . soft. But I doan think you’re a freak.”

“How could you not?” I imagined what Brandon’s reaction might have been if he were the one here with me tonight. Would he be able to handle my confession? Then I remembered that I probably wouldn’t have survived this long without Jackson.

“Look, Evie, I saw some things before the Flash, things that couldn’t be explained. Hell, my grandmère was rumored to be a traiteuse.”

A kind of Cajun medicine woman. “Really?”

He nodded. “After the Flash, I’m ready to believe just about anything. Do these voices make me uneasy? Mais yeah. Am I itching to know what causes them? Ouais. But that doan mean I think less of you for hearing them.” He curled his forefinger under my chin, until our eyes met—and I could see he was telling the truth. “Just glad you told me a secret.” He canted his head. “Though you got a thousand more, non?”

So many more.

One of those voices belongs to Death on a pale horse, and he wants to kill me. I communicate “clairaudiently” with a crazy boy who gives me nosebleeds when he thinks I’m not listening hard enough. Just about every morning, I wake up to the scent of blood and the sound of agonized screams.

My gaze dropped, and he lowered his hand.

“What’re the voices saying now?”

“They’re quiet enough to ignore,” I said. “When I’m around others, they pipe down.” I peered up at him from under a lock of hair and admitted, “But never as much as they’ve done around you.”

“Evangeline,” he sighed. “It ain’t ever goan to be easy with you, is it?”

Though I feared more and more that he would get sick of me and leave one day, I answered honestly, “Nope.”