The Last True Hero (The Burned Lands Book 2) Read online

  That made Adam's gaze jerk back to her, but she was hastily polishing the clean counter again.

  The bounty hunter pulled up a chair at the bar and tossed his hat on the counter. He eyed Adam with hard eyes, but didn't seem particularly curious. "Mia, long time. How 'bout a drink?”

  "Sinclair." She tipped her head politely, pouring him a whiskey and sliding it his way.

  The man sipped it, arching a brow. "You know you can call me Jake," he said. "Now that I'm married to Sage."

  "I keep forgetting," Mia said, with a tight little smile. "Since you've been gone so long."

  That earned her a wry twist of the mouth. Adam sat very still. He still wasn't certain if he was reading things correctly, but there was tension here, and he didn't like leaving a woman behind to deal with a strange man who may or may not be dangerous.

  "Just as long as your sister doesn't forget," Sinclair replied firmly.

  "Oh, she doesn't. Sage always did think that men'd keep the promises they made." Mia looked dangerous. "I'm the one who knew better. That's why it was so easy for you to break her heart."

  "Well, I haven't missed that mouth," Sinclair said. "That's enough, Mia. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I don't enjoy walking into this war zone every time I ride in. Can't we just form a truce, for once in our lives?"

  "That depends," she said, "on how soon it will be until you ride out again?"

  "Not soon enough." Sinclair glanced again at Adam, clearly eager to talk to someone else. "You hunt?"

  "Yes."

  That earned him an appreciative look and a deeper perusal. "That bike out front yours?"

  Adam sat back. "Yeah."

  "Gas is hard to find out here."

  It wasn't quite a question. "An old friend of mine rigged it up for solar. Sunshine's the one thing we've got no problem finding here in the Badlands. That, and scavengers."

  "Man or beast." Sinclair grunted. "That's the truth. Catch anythin' lately?"

  "Just trouble." Certainly no sign of Johnny Colton, the warg he'd been hunting until the bastard vanished clean off the map. He spared Mia a faint smile, which only seemed to set her back up more. "You?"

  "Been north." The man raked a hand through his dark hair with a sigh. "Chasing rumors of some warg who'd been living in the heart of a town up there for well on eight years. Nobody even knew what was hiding in their midst. Hell of a strange story. Wouldn't tell me his name, wouldn't tell me where he went, or how he did it. Just clammed up real tight whenever I mentioned it. Let's just say I was encouraged to leave quietly."

  Hell. Adam froze. Those were his people. After they'd asked him to leave, he'd have expected them to sell his secrets for the price of a glass of whiskey. Eden. It had to be Eden, pleading for the town to spare her brother and keep his secrets. They might shun him, but they sure as hell wouldn't risk incurring the wrath of the only healer in that part of the Wastelands. Eden was worth her weight in gold for her doctoring.

  Mia's eyebrows shot up. "How in the seven hells did a warg hide in plain sight for so long?"

  "Don't know." The man looked troubled. "Makes me nervous. They're isolated hicks, but they're not stupid. Everyone knows the signs out here, and how the fuck did he hide his nightly rampages? That's the true question I want to know. 'Cause if one of them can do it, then how many of them are sitting here, right beneath our noses?"

  If only you knew.... Adam smiled grimly. The “hicks” comment put his back up. Wastelanders grew up hard and they were wary, but they weren't stupid. Down here in the Badlands, where it rained more and towns were closer together with more supplies running up from the borderlands down south, they grew too soft. Soft and arrogant. "Sounds like a tall tale to me."

  "That's what I thought when I first heard it." Sinclair leaned on the counter. "Found a reiver gang out there. Once I were done cutting them down, I got some time to ask the last survivor a few questions."

  "You trust a reiver?" Reivers were lawless, barely human scum who rode in gangs, stealing whatever they could lay their hands on, burning down settlements, and either raping, killing, or taking the people there for slaves.

  "I had good reason to believe what he was telling me," the man replied, and Adam knew exactly how he'd asked the questions. "He said he ran with a pack of wargs who wore some sort of medallion to keep their monster under wraps. A couple of others came looking for them, and killed his warg friends. That leaves two of them out there, wearing amulets, maybe three, if this warg at Absolution wasn't the one who came down on them reivers. What do you think of that?"

  The medallion burned as a cold reminder against his chest. Adam forced himself to relax, grateful that it was the kind of thing he kept hidden, beneath his shirt. I think there's four of us with medallions, a part of him whispered, and that you might just be a dangerous man to keep alive. But he wasn't a killer, no matter what others thought of him, and there were better ways to deal with this. "A single warg killed that many people? I think stories grow. That's what I think. Besides, if they're content to kill each other then let them."

  "Maybe. It's still troubling."

  "Damn right," Mia said, pouring them all a shot and throwing hers back before they could argue.

  "Hell, Mia," Sinclair said, leaning on the counter. He didn't take her hand, though a part of him clearly wanted to. "I didn't mean to remind you of the past."

  What past? Adam glanced at her from beneath his lashes, but she shook her head.

  "Just shut up, Jake."

  She was the wrong kind of woman. Or maybe he was the wrong kind of man. And he was just drawing this out. There was no point staying, especially now there was a bounty hunter in town, out to claim his scalp, and a woman who'd shoot him if she ever knew what he really was.

  And wasn't that the kicker, for he realized that a part of him would actually hurt to see that look of horror in her eyes. Idiot. He needed to get moving. He'd stayed here too long, started to feel something for the town. Or perhaps, for one stubborn woman.

  He couldn't do that again.

  "Well, thanks for the company—and the story." Adam slid his chair back, tossing a few coins on the bar to clear his account, and grabbed hold of his black Stetson. "Time for me to move on, I think."

  Mia looked startled, just for a second. Then she shuttered her emotions and nodded. "Good luck, McClain. I hope you find what you're looking for."

  "You too," he said, taking the time to look at her one last time, as if to imprint her image in his memory. Just one more lost dream. Adam swallowed hard, then turned for the door, giving Sinclair one last nod, bounty hunter to bounty hunter.

  Time to remember what he was.

  You don't belong here and you never did.

  You don't belong... anywhere.

  Two

  "DIDN'T THINK HE was your type," Jake said, tapping his fingers on the bar and watching as the doors swung shut behind McClain.

  "He's not." Mia pulled her mind out of wistful nothings, and gathered up the coins McClain left behind. They were stamped with New Merida symbols, no doubt paid out in blood money. She didn't particularly like that they came from the slave towns down south, but money was money, and it was far more than what he'd owed. Most of the time she was paid in Wasteland coppers—the square bits that were stamped with whatever the maker decided to put on them and worth only the metal that they were made out of. A good bar owner could tell when someone mixed too much metal with the copper. A good bar owner also knew when she was holding on to solid gold. She looked toward the fluttering doors and had a moment of doubt.

  That itch she couldn't scratch.

  Maybe she shouldn't have been so hardheaded, but McClain made her nervous, and she'd burned her fingers before. Indeed, she wouldn't be in this situation if she'd listened to that quieter, warier part of herself.

  "Yeah?" Heat darkened Jake's eyes, a mix of jealousy and something else—something he had no right in feeling. "I know what you look like when you want a man."

  "You would know." She tur
ned away, sliding the sticky glasses toward her. Once he'd been her best friend, her only ally. Now? "That doesn't mean that this is any of your business. And you heard him. He's leaving."

  Too late for her to do anything about her choices. Maybe it was for the best?

  "Hey." Jake caught her wrist, leaning forward. "It's not my place to say it, I know that, but he's not the type of man—"

  "You touch me again, and I will cut off that hand," she told him, staring him down.

  With a grimace, he let her go. "I'm trying to—"

  "You're married. To my sister." That hadn't stopped him once upon a time, when they'd been barely adults, though she'd been completely unaware of the promises he'd made to Sage just four fucking hours earlier. Four hours. Mia shut her eyes. All of it had been a mistake—telling Jake that she wanted something more than him, wanted to see the world, and him taking all that fury and rejection and asking her sister for something he shouldn't have.... And then later that night, for not telling her the truth of what he'd promised Sage when Mia changed her mind and went looking for him.

  Yes, she'd kissed him. She'd done a hell of a lot more than that. But he'd had his chances to tell her he'd proposed to Sage, and he hadn't. Now Mia had to feel that crawl of guilt every time she looked at her oblivious sister.

  Sage had been so happy to marry the man they'd both loved, that she'd never even known what was in her sister's heart. Maybe it was Mia's fault, for not telling her how she felt about Jake? Love wasn't something to hide, but she'd been wary, even then.

  She didn't know how to fix this. Sage's heart broke every time Jake rode out of town, but he couldn't stay here with everything that lay between them. They just kept cutting at each other, and Sage didn't know why.

  "I've been thinking," Jake said. "About... this."

  Mia buried her hands in the sink. She just wanted him to go. It had been seven years since that disastrous night and she felt sick every time she saw him.

  "Mia, are you listening?"

  "Only occasionally." She sounded weary. "You should go home," she said. "To your wife. She misses you."

  "I know." Jake's hesitation lingered. "I'm thinking of taking her north."

  "What?" Mia smacked her head on the shelf above the sink. Her heart plummeted into her feet. "You can't take her away. This is our home."

  "But it's not mine," he said firmly. "I can't keep doing this. I care for your sister, and you're the one who keeps throwing it in my face about the promises I made her. How do I fix this? You want me to make her happy, but you don't want me around." He let out a sigh. "I know you don't want to see her go, but she and I could make a life together, away from all of... this."

  Her was what he meant. "And what about me? You're going to take away the one piece of family I have left? Haven't you done enough damage?"

  "I care for your sister, Mia. Really care. Sometimes I think there could be more between her and I, if we gave it a chance. I don't want to see her hurt any more than you do. Maybe she'd be happy? I could divorce her and leave forever, but you know what she was like after she lost the baby." His voice dropped. "I'm a fool who's made a lot of bad decisions, but I'm not a bad man, Mia. I hate being the villain in all of this. I fucked up. I fucked up badly. But I don't want to drive my wife back into that walking-zombie state by leaving her, and I can't see any other way out of it."

  That hurt. Mia didn't love him, not anymore, and he didn't love her. There was too much bitterness between them for that to have lasted. But why did she have to be the one who kept missing out?

  "I owe her better than what I've given her," Jake said. "I owe you better, but I can't change the past. The only thing I have left is to change the future."

  Tears sprang to Mia's eyes. She knew what he was saying was the truth, but that didn't make her feel any better. Sage was her only... anything. "You bastard."

  "I'll wear that," he said in a roughened voice. "Let me pay my dues, Mia. Please."

  Swallowing hard, she brushed her wet cheek against her shoulder. Enough of that nonsense. "Where will you take her?"

  "Thank you," he whispered, as if she'd given him her blessing. "I don't know. It's a hard land up north, but there'd be plenty of work for me and Sage would fit into the communities up there. They don't take to strangers easily, but when they do it's forever, and Sage's talent in salvaging electronics makes her valuable."

  "When?"

  "I don't know. I'll have to ask her first." He hesitated. "It would help if she knew she had your blessing."

  Mia smiled bitterly. "More lies I have to tell my sister. Don't you ever get sick of it? I do."

  "I—"

  A commotion sounded outside, engines roaring and tires squealing. She'd probably have noticed it earlier, if not for her absorption in their argument.

  Jake found his feet, his body tense. Salvation Creek was a quiet town, and no commotion was ever a good omen. "Stay there," he said, with a sharp cutting motion of his hand, then turned toward the door, one hand on the pistol holstered at his hip.

  "Like hell I will," Mia grumbled, grabbing her shotgun from under the bar and then leaping over the counter.

  Outside, dust hung in the air as four vehicles jerked to a halt in the street. Three of them were salvaged from scrap with different-colored doors, but one of them was whole, a dull red that had once been shiny.

  Her heart dropped through her boots again as she saw it. "Thwaites," she whispered, pausing at Jake's side. The rancher owned a good portion of the land near Salvation Creek.

  His farmhands spilled out of the vehicles, two of them carrying another. Then Thwaites himself appeared. There was blood smeared up his face, and his shirt was soaked with it.

  Mia's heart twisted as she searched through the faces. No. No. She darted forward, shoving through the men, searching for the one face she didn't see. "Sage? Sage!"

  Ethan Thwaites turned toward her, his arm hanging bloody at his side and his face smeared with dirt and sweat. Normally a big man with a hearty laugh and a booming voice, he'd never looked so beaten down, so small. "Mia," he breathed. "I'm so sorry."

  "What happened? Where is everyone? Where's my sister?" Sage worked on retainer for Thwaites, and the last Mia had seen of her sister, she'd taken the old jeep out toward his place last night to see to some problem with Thwaites's water pump. Sage had planned to stay the night there.

  She barely felt Jake's presence at her back. All she could do was cling to Ethan Thwaites's coat.

  "Reivers," he said. "A good forty of them. They hit us this morning, just before dawn. Came in quiet-like with no cars or bikes. One minute I was eating breakfast, the next they were there shooting at us. Jesus." He scraped his good hand over his face. "They dropped Maggie in the kitchen whilst I still had a fucking spoon of porridge in my hand. If I hadn't reacted as quickly as I did, then this"—he gestured to his limp arm—"wouldn't be my worst problem."

  "What about the outposts?" Jake asked, his voice hard. "How'd they come in so quietly? The men on duty should have seen something."

  "Don't know," Thwaites replied dully. His eyes were glassy with pain. "No word from them."

  "Those men had radios." Jake searched Thwaites's eyes.

  "Then maybe they didn't see the reivers coming either? I gathered those I could and came here. The rest of them I left at the ranch, to bury the dead."

  Dead. "What happened to Sage?" Mia demanded.

  Thwaites wouldn't meet her eyes. "They took all of the women they could, Mia. Those that didn't die in the first attack. We were holed up in the barn trying to keep them at bay, but most of the household staff were trapped inside the main house. I don't know where Sage is—maybe she got free, maybe she ran—but I didn't see her body anywhere."

  Her breath caught in a half sob. "You left them in the main house, defenseless?"

  Thwaites flinched as if she'd struck him. "All of the women, Mia. You don't see my wife here, do you?" he demanded. "Or my daughters. I was trying to gather the men to fight th
em off. We were trapped like fucking rats."

  "Mia," Jake warned, grabbing her arm.

  "I'm sorry." This couldn't be happening. She clapped a hand over her mouth. She'd lost both parents to a shadow-cat attack when she was only fifteen. Her aunt Jenny had taken her and Sage in, but Mia had always known that it was just the pair of them now against the world. Maybe it was the fact they'd both been adopted and had no one else, but Sage was her entire world.

  She'd sat in the dirt at her parents’ grave and promised them she'd look out for her little sister. No matter what happened.

  "What are we going to do?" Jake asked, low and soft.

  "I'm riding after them," Thwaites said. "I need men though. And guns. Are you with me?"

  "Never any doubt." Jake's lips thinned. "That's my wife out there. I know what reivers do to women, Ethan. If we don't get them back and soon, there might not be much left to get back."

  Tears shone bright in the old rancher's eyes. "I know."

  "And I'll be riding with you," Mia declared, daring either of them to say no.

  Three

  ADAM SLID HIS shotgun into the holster on his modified motorbike. The word Yamaha had once stretched across the tank, but now it was bleached clean. He didn't even know what the word meant. A lot had been lost in the years of the Darkening, when the skies blackened with dust from the meteor impact and ash from the wildfires it set off, and the temperatures dropped a few degrees. The only ones who survived were those who had access to underground bunkers or storage sheds, where they'd stayed for nearly six years before the ash cloud settled. Wasn't much left alive then, but food was running scarce, and so the survivors had to adapt.

  They said that people showed their true selves then. Some banded together and struck out west across the Great Divide, where there was land to settle after the wildfires swept through and destroyed everything; others stayed in the east under the harsh thumb of the Confederacy that was starting to rise—there were still cities there in the east, some said, though his mind couldn't even conjure what that meant; and others became scavengers.