Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

like him, with a great black hat like his, with teeth filed down like knives.

Then I wake up.

SIX

I sit up in my tent, terrified. Something’s wrong, I know it. Something awful has happened. I can feel it all over me like fever sweat.

But when I run out into the sunlight, all seems well. I slept late. Judging by the sun, it’s almost ten. That’s okay, everyone seems to be a slow riser today anyhow. The boys are taking their time with the pack-up, wore out and tired of moving all the time. Leebo stokes the fire. Gruff stretches out. One of the boys is still passed out down by the fire. There’s a gray line of cloud off in the distance, like rain is coming soon.

A cat walks up to me, a long, slinking orange thing. It licks its paw and stares up at me, one ear missing a chunk, like it got in a fight or something.

“What secret do you know, kitty cat?” I say.

A cardinal lands on a twig above me, its little harp song short and scared. Then comes another. It lands on the same branch, and they whistle at me. Two more, three, like a speckle of blood drops dripping from the tree limbs. I’ve never seen so many in one place before, such pretty birds. They take flight all at once, a big red heart that hangs in the sky a moment before vanishing off into the woods. It’s beautiful.

Something snaps like a twig in my heart, and I know it’s too late.

They come through the trees dressed in black, with long black cloaks dragging like shadows. Like giant wicked spiders they come sneaking out of the woods. Tall men, short men, some Townies and some not. Their faces stern and grimacing. They have knives, they have guns, they’re all around us. At least a dozen men. I see them first.

“Gruff!” I scream.

But they’re already coming. The boys aren’t ready. Most of them are still half asleep, or messing with the tents. I scream and I scream and I scream. They’re all over Gruff’s boys like maggots, men in black cloaks all alike streaming from the forest, a deranged army of them. The taller men have torches, they set the tents on fire. I can’t do anything to fix it. I can only stand here and watch.

Leebo drops the stew and gets moving on his crutch, headed for the woods. Gruff ducks a shot and it shatters a tree limb behind him. I want to run to him, but there are men in cloaks, six at least, between us. I know I’d never make it.

“Goldy!” he hollers. “Get out of here!”

“I can’t leave you,” I say.

“Don’t you worry about me,” he says. “Come find me. You know where. I’ll be waiting on you.”

And I do. I know exactly where to go.

I take one more look back toward Gruff and drop to my belly. I crawl my way to the trees until the sounds of rifles and men screaming seem far away. When I get up to run something hits me in the head and I fall flat. I roll over and one-eyed Pugh stands over me. He’s got his knife out, the long, fanged one.

“You did this,” he says. “I knew you were up to something. I knew it all along. See, Gruff trusted you, but I didn’t. And now I’m gonna make you suffer.”

Another shot fires so loud it hurts my ears and Pugh slumps over on top of me. I try to push him off, but Pugh’s body is too heavy, I can’t move him. I hear a pistol cock and I figure I’m done for.

“Wait,” a voice says. “We’re supposed to get her alive. Boss said so.”

I’m yanked off the ground by my shoulders. I bite the man’s wrist and I kick and he drops me. He’s a Townie. I’ve seen him. These are Templeton men. I growl at him.

“Easy now,” he says.

I jump at him like a wolf girl. I want to bite his throat off. Another man whacks me with the butt of his gun and my face hits the dirt.

“She’s a demon,” says the Townie. He’s got blond hair in a ponytail. I think he is a lawyer back in Templeton.

“Boss says to take her. He promised the kid. They made a deal.”

The kid? Does he mean Tommy?

They tie my hands with rope. I kick and I fight but they’re too strong for me. One of them, a huge man, slaps me so hard I wonder if I haven’t lost a tooth. I wonder if I got one less fang to fix on his throat when he lets me go.

“He didn’t say we couldn’t do that,” he says, and they both laugh.

Behind me I hear gunfire, and I’m scared for all Gruff’s boys. When people die they just become dog food, spoiled meat for scavengers, bones for the grass to swallow. It doesn’t matter that you love them. Love doesn’t do anybody any good, it can’t protect you from a bullet or a knife, it can’t keep you from just becoming a body. I hope some of Gruff’s boys made it free to the woods. I hope anyone escaped. But mostly what I don’t see is Gruff, and my heart goes soft for a second. He’s not dead or captured. He got away. And as soon as I can get out of here, I’m going to go and meet him.

The two men drag me, hands behind my back, pulling me back into their world, their town, and no one I love left to fight it with. Around me the birds and bugs call my name, the whir of mosquitoes in the coming dark of a storm, the sad fury of faraway lightning. Off we go toward the main road, where God knows what terror is right there waiting on me.

SEVEN

The men bash through the path, hacking and tearing, ripping a highway through my quiet, secret