Page 168 of Scavenger's Oath

Another blow. Then another. I don’t know which one is a fist, and which is a knee. It’s all a blur of red and ringing and fire in my body.

The smell of blood and the squeak of the mattress are the only things that ground me as I succumb to the pain.

He grabs my hair again, lifting my head just to slam it backdown.

“You’re gonna learn your place, Ivy,” he pants, breath hot against my cheek. “You’re not special. You ain’t nobody. Just a hole to fuck, and that’s all you are.”

I can’t fight anymore. My body’s trembling, wet with blood and sweat and spit. My lips are swollen, my limbs too weak to move anymore.

Derek kneels over me, panting like a dog, while I cower beneath him. Wiping blood from his shoulder, he glares at the deep wound. “You need more training,” he mutters. “Benny was too soft on you. I’ll talk to him. We’ll fix you. We’ll fix this.”

He climbs off the bed and backs up, wiping his mouth, breathing hard.

Spitting blood on the floor, he opens the door and walks out, slamming it behind him and locking it. I just lie here, barely breathing.

I’m broken.

But not defeated.

Although maybe it doesn’t matter anyway.

They’re not coming.

Chapter 55

Zane

The sun’s slowly sinking like a dying animal.

It bleeds red across the sky, staining the clouds the same colour as the blood on my hands.

We’ve been combing the area two hours west of the town since she was taken yesterday. We loaded up the truck, spent the night on the road and have been at each other’s throats.

Phoenix has done his best trying to keep us together but when he caught Myles carving Ivy’s name into his own chest last night, he realised none of us would be getting any rest.

This has taken too long. The dried blood on my chest itches, but I’ll keep adding to it with every kill I make until we get her back.

Her scent ghosts across my mind—soap and something sweet. The way her hair feels on my throat when I hold her body in my arms. I cling to it like oxygen, because men are going to die for it.

We’ve burnt every shack down, covered a lot of ground but found nothing.

This morning, we ambushed some scavengers hoping they were part of Bennett’s cult.

They weren’t.

But they weren’t totally useless. We beat them until they spilled information about a farm nearby that grows food and keeps chickens. They claimed it was home to a group of around fifteen men. Then when we asked if they’d seen any women there… they said, “not for a while”.

So now, we’re crouched behind a collapsed stone wall on the edge of the farm, swallowed by moss and time. The field ahead of us is tall with weeds, wind sighing through it like breath over a grave.

The chainsaw on my thigh smells like pine sap and iron. I don’t wipe it anymore. I want them to smell their future before it happens. My fingers stroke the trigger guard like a rosary—a promise to whatever god is still watching.

I’ve already dropped one of their scouts, but it wasn’t enough to blunt the hunger gnawing inside me.

Now I’ve counted seven men, maybe more.

They move like they’ve had no training, guns slung lazily, bourbon bottles in hand, smoke curling into the air like they haven’t got a fucking care in the world. Didn’t even notice the parasites feeding off them.

Men like this wouldn’t have survived without banding together. I want to kill them slowly, drag it out so they realise how powerless they really are.