Dead and Buryd: A Dystopian Action Adventure Novel (Out of Orbit Book 1) (27 page)

Nyah shook her head.

“Cancelled. He’s furious about it.”

Georgianna grimaced, but shook it off. They had to be quick.

“I had to see you. We’re doing it. Six days.”

Nyah checked through the crack of the open door.

“You can get us both out?”

“Yes,” Georgianna whispered. “You have to be ready to run, Nyah. Both of you. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Is Taye…”

Georgianna waved her hands, cutting Nyah off.

“He’s fine, Nyah, look, I have to go. I can’t be caught here.”

A voice echoed down the stairs, and Nyah pushed the door open again.

“Who is it?”

“Sales person, Volsonne,” she called sweetly.

“Get rid of them. Unless it’s the Volsonnar himself, get them the fuck off my land, girl.”

“Yes, Volsonne.”

Nyah glanced to Georgianna with an apologetic frown. Reaching forward, Georgianna squeezed Nyah’s hand.

“Six days, sun-high,” she reminded her in a whisper.

“CARTWRIGHT!”

Nyah almost had the door closed when Georgianna’s hand slammed into the wood, stopping her. They stared at each other as the call echoed around the house. Footsteps followed, and Georgianna stared through the gap, trying desperately to see up the stairs. Without stepping into the house, it was impossible.

Finally gathering her senses, Georgianna mouthed an apology to Nyah before hurrying away from the house, back towards Keiran. He watched her approach, falling into step with her as Georgianna didn’t even pause. He grasped her hand, pulling her into an alcove.

Georgianna’s breath was ragged. She should have known. She’d seen him in the compound, seen him standing in line to the podium in the drysta yard. That had only been a few days before Nyah had been sold.

Keiran manoeuvred her against the wall, letting her splutter and gather her breath.

“Did I hear right?” he asked finally. “Did he say…”

“Cartwright,” Georgianna breathed.

She looked up at Keiran, gulping.

“The Belsa in that house is Landon Cartwright,” she confirmed. “Alec’s little brother.”

 
28
Colourful Truths and Excuses

 
The day after learning the identity of the second drysta in Maarqyn’s house, Georgianna was unable to stop thinking about him, or about the brother who had left him behind. A variety of scenarios had played through her mind, of Maarqyn keeping him locked up, or of Landon being subjected to the most despicable torture while Nyah was forced to listen.

With Crisco closed until later that evening and Jaid watching over Medics’ Way, Georgianna slipped from the tunnels and her thoughts, walking the long path that led out to the camps. She was certain, yet again, that she would receive a strong word or ten from her father. Yet as she walked, she found she could not be concerned about it. It was better to meet his worries with silence than tell him into what she had got herself tangled. Georgianna could already imagine her father’s reaction. She could picture the way his eyes would bulge and the way he would keep an eerie calm as he ordered Halden and Braedon from the room. Once alone he would shout and get angry, only quietening when he had shouted himself out, a deadly calm resolution that was not to be argued with. It was smarter not to tell him.

The heat did little to keep the Veniche from the path, unlike the Adveni who were taking every opportunity to shield themselves from it. Out on the building constructions, Adveni forced to oversee their creations stripped to as little as possible in the hopes of cooling their burning skin in the breeze while the skilled Veniche workers kept themselves covered to avoid the harmful rays.

Out in the camps, trade and chores continued as usual and Georgianna was held up from her destination three times by those hoping that she would trade for medicines. By the time Georgianna reached the Lennox home, she had a supply of beans enough for three stews, and had picked up some hyliha leaves. Their seller had been most impressed with the price she offered for them.

Away from the open door, the house was dark with creeping shadows. It wasn’t until she had called twice that her brother appeared from the kitchen, a hide bag swollen with liquid dangling from his fist.

“Well, if it isn’t the girl I used to call sister,” he mocked, giving Georgianna a stern look that was more and more reminiscent of their father every day.

“I don’t know, brother. I remember you would give me far more colourful names.”

“Yes well, were Da’ here, I’m sure he would think of something colourful for you.”

“He’s not here then?”

“Luckily for you, no.”

Georgianna smiled and slipped past Halden into the kitchen. Dropping her bag into the corner and the beans into the trunk, she turned to her brother, glancing down at the hide in his hand.

“You have a foal?”

Halden didn’t use the hide for anything but foals, though he had not had one to tend for a long time, even considering that it was the wrong time of year for it.

“Yeah, got him a few days ago. Ikal was in no place to take a foal, promised him to me soon as he knew the mare was carrying.”

Georgianna’s eyes widened. Foals fetched a hefty price, and Halden reared the best. It would easily keep them fed down the trail. That was, if they were planning on making it. She had shared her wish with Keiran to go, but it only occurred to her now that she had not asked her family. While the south would be much more manageable than Adlai once the freeze set in, they may already have chosen to stay where work was more readily available.

“Come out,” Halden said, moving to the back door. “He still needs the rest of this.”

She followed him to the back door, taking a seat on the step as she watched Halden urge the bandy-legged foal back to the hide. The gentle sound of the foal suckling lulled them into silence, Halden carefully brushing the foal’s neck while Georgianna picked absently at the grass between her feet.

“What’s the excuse this time?” Halden asked, with the same smirk as Georgianna offered when she chose to mock someone.

“What excuse?”

“The one you’re going to tell Da’ to cover why you’ve not been home.”

Georgianna rolled her eyes, taking a blade of grass between her fingers and carefully pulling it into two.

“No excuse. Work.”

“It is a classic,” he answered. “But you’ve used it far too often to be considered truthful.”

It wouldn’t matter whether she really was in Medics’ Way every day and the Rion every night, she knew her father would assume something different. She had been absent too many times before with too many different excuses. Plus, she figured she could probably have been a little more secretive about her off-work hours. It was just that she had always been close to her father, especially after her mother’s death. She didn’t want to lie to him.

“How about you tell me what you’ve really been up to and I’ll help you find a suitable cover?”

Georgianna glanced up at Halden, her dismissive smile faltering. As much as she hated lying to her father, she hated keeping things from Halden even more. Halden had always been there and had always told her the truth, even when he had told her before their parents that he was in love with Nequiel. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she was risking her neck after what had happened to his partner. Maybe Keiran had been right after all: she should have thought of her family before this all became so messy.

“I wasn’t lying, Hal,” Georgianna insisted slowly. “I’ve had work in the Rion, and Keinah is too big to cover the Way much anymore, so I’m covering her shifts.”

Halden looked suspicious and she knew he was trying to sniff the lies out. However, having not been underground except in the main lines, there was no way for him to know. He frowned, weighing the hide in his hand, giving the foal another distracted pat on the neck.

“Jaid also had a thing,” Georgianna added quickly. “Si got caught out in the heat. Three days. He was pretty bad, so she’s been looking after him.”

Halden’s suspicion faltered as he let the hide hang by his side. He frowned, keeping his gaze on his feet.

“That’s bad. Is he doing okay?”

Georgianna shrugged. Si had improved since his return, but Jaid had been right, he wasn’t the same man who came to check if she wanted dinner. The glimmer in his eyes had faded and the transformation was taking its toll on Jaid too. She was more serious, less likely to share a joke. Her husband had gone, and in some ways, had taken a part of her with it.

“It’ll get better,” Halden said. “Everything else is good though?”

She probably shouldn’t, not before the escape when so much could still go wrong, but Halden had been friends with Alec, the two had grown up together. Landon was a younger brother to Halden almost as much as Alec. She felt it was wrong to keep that news from him.

“Halden… I found out that, uh…”

“Out with it Gianna,” he chastised. “I promise it won’t be nearly as awkward as telling me you’d had sex.”

Georgianna grimaced, but was grateful for the intervention. He was right, there was no reason this should be awkward. She had told Halden far worse things. As he’d rightly pointed out, telling him that she had lost her virginity had been far more daunting a conversation.

“You know how I told you… I said about Nyah?”

Nodding, he gazed at her suspiciously. She looked down at her feet, scuffing her toe into the dry grass.

“I took the note into the compound.”

Halden looked back at her, silent. Georgianna wondered, if like Keiran, he had expected it of her all along.

“She had been sold, so I… I went to the house of the Adveni…”

“Oh, Gianna, what were you…”

“Landon was there.”

He frowned, but didn’t reply, his accusation dead in the air. Well, it was pretty much as she had expected. She had not exactly been a gaggle of words at the news either.

“He’s a drysta.”

“You’re sure it was him? You saw him?”

She shook her head.

“Then Gianna, you can’t be…”

“I heard his name. There is no one else, Halden.”

He didn’t answer her. He rubbed his hand over the foal’s head and down its neck. Georgianna leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees.

“What were you even doing there?”

She watched the foal instead of her brother. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye as she lied.

“I was checking on Nyah, nothing more.”

“Taye made you?”

Halden’s voice was restrained, but she could hear the anger in his tone, the accusation. She shook her head.

“He wasn’t there.”

“Then who, Gianna? Who are you doing this for?”

“For myself, Halden. I want to make sure that she is safe.”

“She’s a drysta! She isn’t safe and you know it, so why go?” he demanded. “If you were caught…”

“I wasn’t.”

“That isn’t the point.”

Halden sighed. With his free hand, he reached up, scratching behind his ear, his gaze settled on something far more distant than his sister or the open doorway. Picking at a blade of grass from between her feet, Georgianna began pulling it into ever thinner strips.

“I don’t want to make you worry,” she said.

“You make me worry every time you step into those tunnels.”

She watched him as he pulled the hide from the foal. He tipped the hide, feeling the weight.

“You know why I do that.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“About?”

“Whether if it is more about that man you’re seeing than it is about the work. Wanting to be close to him.”

“What? No, I was there long before I met him.”

“I never said you didn’t begin it with the best intentions,” Halden assured her. “But you could do the same work out here.”

“I know, but…”

“You don’t need to associate with the Belsa, Gianna, you choose to,” he argued. “This new man, Keiran? He is more than a friend, isn’t he?”

Georgianna sat up straight again, stretching her legs out in front of her.

“No,” she answered, regretting it immediately. “I’m not sure.”

She didn’t know where the regret came from. It had lodged itself in her chest and refused to budge. Knowing that Landon was suffering had thrown her emotions into the air. She felt a responsibility to help the boy after she’d been so entangled with his brother. However, with it came guilt telling her that she shouldn’t feel so strongly about helping Landon while she was with Keiran. Had Alec been nothing more than a friend like she had always said he was, like she had always told herself he was, she wouldn’t have felt this way. She’d still not dared tell Keiran about her connection to the other Belsa, which only fuelled the guilt more.

The foal whinnied and skittered slightly on its bandy legs. Halden brought the hide back down, offering it to the young animal. It took it cautiously, gaining in confidence when it once again discovered the sustenance inside.

“You say you’re not sure if he’s a friend, but what if he ended it? Right now, said he couldn’t see you anymore because he’d found someone else.”

A spasm clenched in her stomach, and staring at the grass, Georgianna couldn’t answer him.

“Would you just move on to a new guy, or would you maybe be upset about it because you, oh, I don’t know… like him?”

Georgianna frowned and kept her gaze fixed as far from Halden as she could manage without turning away like a stubborn child. She wasn’t ready to make commitments, but Halden was right in some respects. She would be upset if Keiran suddenly cut all ties. What was worse, as she sat there, trying to think of something to say, she realised that it wasn’t the physical stuff that she would miss the most, it was everything else.

Alec had never been like that. While Liliah had once accused Keiran of using her for his own benefit, Georgianna knew that Alec had been far the worse offender. He had cared about her, she knew that, but her uses to him had outweighed the things he had given her. As she thought about it, even their arguments seemed more about his own loss than her safety. He had lost his wife to the Adveni, and no matter what Georgianna had done, he would never have let go of that.