Chapter 21
By the time Wendy woke, the sun was up and shining in her face. Her hands were tied and dangling a foot from the ground. She hung upside down by her ankles. Blood throbbed through her head, accentuating the lump she could feel on the back of her skull.
An involuntary groan escaped her lips.
“Well, look who's finally decided to join us.”
Wendy blinked and turned to locate the voice. The action sent unpleasant waves of nausea through her.
Kev's swollen face hung only a few feet away. A twist in the other direction showed her Cal. Arie must be behind her.
The Skinnies were still tied up to a tree nearby. Pelton and his goons sat on the far side of the fire, eating.
“How long have I been out?” Wendy asked.
“Just a few hours,” Kev said.
Guilt gnawed at her insides. “Why did you follow me?” Wendy asked
“Because Mike was mounting a manhunt to come after you. Jeff snuck us out before they left so we could find you first,” Kev said.
“Why?” Wendy asked again.
“We found Dennis.” That was Arie's voice.
A lump formed in Wendy's throat.
“Why did you leave?” Kev asked.
One of Pelton's goons glanced over and saw them. He motioned for Pelton's attention.
Wendy talked fast. “Because I thought Mike sent the Skinnies to destroy my compound.”
“Which isn't true.” Kev said.
Pelton rose and walked toward them. Wendy watched him come.
“No, Mike didn't. He did.” Her eyes bore into Pelton.
“The guy coming this way?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?” Arie asked.
“His name is Pelton. He was my trainer. I thought he was my friend.” She paused. “If any of you get the chance, kill him.”
The speed of his strides told Wendy that Pelton was either excited or upset. Probably both. He reached her and squatted down.
“Welcome back.”
She said nothing.
He pulled the bill of his baseball hat around to the back and cocked his head to the side. “So tell me, how long have you been lying to me? Because you've gotten pretty good at it.”
Wendy still said nothing. She wasn't surprised when his hand came out of nowhere to box her in the side of the head. The action sent her spinning as the little bones in her ears wailed in protest. She was suddenly glad she hadn't eaten anything recently.
A hand reached out and stopped Wendy's momentum, turning her toward Pelton.
“How much of your story was a lie?”
“All of it,” Wendy said.
He shook his head. “Now you are lying to me.” He hit her again, this time in the stomach.
A gurgle came out instead of a scream. Wendy wanted to curl up, but couldn't.
Pelton smiled. “Well, I see from the map that there's a big question mark where you say Mike's compound is. I'm going to say that that part of your story was true.”
Wendy began rubbing her hands together to get out of the ropes. No luck, they'd used some sort of plastic tie. She'd have to break her wrists to get out. And if she did that she probably wouldn't be able to get her feet free.
“Protocol says that we should kill you, but you have information the Primate is going to want.”
This was the second time she'd heard that term. “The what?” Wendy asked.
“The who,” Pelton said. “The Primate is a man.”
“Not a monkey?” Wendy asked.
Pelton's lips pressed together, and the look in his eye went more serious than Wendy had ever seen it.
Pelton had always been a jokester. He'd often told her to lighten up and laugh more. He said it would make her life better.
Now all of that joviality slid away, replaced by a combination of expressions she'd never seen on him before. Awe. Respect. Worship.
His hands suddenly launched for her neck, and before she could take a good breath, his fingers tightened around her throat.
It didn't take long to make someone pass out if you cut off the blood supply to their brain. Suffocating them was an entirely different, and a much more personal experience.
Pelton had taught her that. Now he finished his lesson with a practical example.
“One does not speak ill of the Primate,” he said in a harsh whisper. His voice broke. His eyes bulged.
Wendy's vision started to go black. She tried to knock Pelton's fingers away from her neck with her tied hands, but her muscles didn't have the strength to do it.
Pelton had choked her out loads of times during their practice sessions, but this was very, very different. He wasn't going to stop. Wendy could see it in his eyes and feel it in his muscles.
If she wanted to die, she could let him finish the job.
Wendy considered it. What did she have to live for?
But her dad's voice came into her mind, uttering the words he always asked her when she was having a hard time. “What, are you giving up already?”
He'd said them to her so many times she still remembered the inflection his voice made with each syllable. The look in his eyes as he provoked her to keep going.
For years she hadn't realized he had been manipulating her. When she had figured it out, she had been grateful to him. That determination had saved her life more than once. It had brought her to Pelton's fighting classes two years early. And even now, as the darkness closed in and she was about to die at the hand of her teacher, she didn't regret it.
Her life had had meaning, even after she'd killed her mother. All because her dad had taught her not to give up.
Her stomach lurched as her feet slid in her boots. Her heart leaped into her throat.
They'd tied her up with her shoes on. The boots that were too big for her feet.
Pelton was getting sloppy.
Wendy let a spasm shake her whole body. Her feet slipped again.
She could get away. But not if she was dead.
So she started to flail and tried to talk. Tried to pull his hands away again. Her eyes met his as she did her best to plead for him to let her go, swearing she would tell him everything.
“Pelton,” Nara said from behind Wendy.
Wendy had never seen Pelton obey anyone before. His face remained enraged, but he loosened his grip.
The black that had gathered in front of Wendy's eyes received a whisper of oxygen. Wendy inhaled, and the dark retreated. Slowly.
Pelton took a couple of deep breaths before he let go completely and stepped back.
Pride didn't keep Wendy's eyes from watering or her lungs from gasping for breath.
“We need information out of her,” Nara said.
Pelton nodded.
Wendy decided to start the ball rolling as she tried to discretely wiggle her feet free. “Who is the Primate? You've never mentioned him before. He must be important.”
His answer surprised her. Stupid was never a word Wendy would have associated with Pelton. On the contrary, he was one of the brightest people she'd ever met.
“He's everything.”
“Everything?”
“He's going to save us all,” Pelton said. He still had that strange light in his eye.
“From what?”
“Ourselves.”
Wendy took a minute to digest that. Had Pelton eaten bad food? Was he in the beginning stages of the Starvation?
“Why do we need saving?”
Pelton cocked his head to the side again. “Because, we are weak. We need to be pure. The Primate purifies us.” He moved so his face was just inches from hers. His breath, which had never smelled before, filled Wendy's nostrils with the stench of death. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to join us.”
“Join you?”
“That's why I tried to save you.”
In the tunnels. Pelton had shoved her in that crate.
“You didn't just want the map?”
“The map is for the Primate. I wa
nted to save you. You're the only person who might understand.”
“Understand what?” The blood in Wendy's head continued to pound. She started to feel nauseous again, but she kept wiggling.
“That together we can be more than we can be apart. And that the Primate can make us even more than that.”
Wendy mentally shook her head. “I don't understand. Who is the Primate and why does he want the map?”
Pelton licked his lips. “So he can lead everyone to his destiny.”
At that moment she knew the Primate was behind the attack on her compound. He may have used Pelton to carry it out, but this Primate, whoever he was, was the one who had organized it. His idea of destiny included slaughtering everyone who...what? Didn't follow him?
Pelton studied Wendy, his eyes darting back and forth between hers. The look of hope on his face quickly dwindled away. “You're not a believer.”
“I certainly don't believe in this Primate,” Wendy said. She almost had one foot free. “Can I meet him?”
The fanatical gleam in Pelton's eye had been replaced by his normal, shrewd expression.
“I need you to tell me where this complex is.”
“Why, so you can kill everyone there too?”
“Yes.”
The blunt answer caught Wendy off guard.
Pelton continued. “Unless they believe.” He brushed her cheek with his fingers. “You're not going to tell me. I can see it in your eyes.”
“You have the map, find it yourself.”
“Oh, I think I can persuade one of them to tell me.”
Wendy's friends had been silent throughout the exchange, and the urge to kill Pelton had driven them from her mind. Desperate, she dredged up the religious lessons her mother used to teach her.
“If this Primate is some sort of savior, why doesn't he know where the unbelievers are?”
Wendy's last comment got to him. Pelton's hand once again came out and whacked her on the side of the head—she may never be able to hear out of that ear again.
The spinning returned. Wendy thrashed and cried out, as if she were truly hurt.
Wendy's feet finally came free, and she fell.
The ground rushed up faster than she had been anticipating. Wendy didn't quite get curled into a ball before she hit. The landing knocked the wind out of her, but at least she didn't land on her head. Just her shoulder. Which popped.
Wendy rolled into Pelton, taking him to the ground. She grabbed his knife and kept rolling into Nara whom Pelton had obeyed so completely. In a move she had performed a thousand times, Wendy rolled on top of the woman and pressed the knife to her throat.
“One move, and she dies.”