Poison Princess

Three monsters, dropped like carnival targets. I’d seen his skill at fighting, but I’d never seen him shoot.

Yet as I was staring up at him with undisguised awe, he was frowning down at me. “Evie, what’s on your face?”

“I don’t know, ash? Did those men follow?”

He blinked his eyes. “No. But there’ll be more Baggers in the hours till dawn. I need those arrows.” He started for the ones he’d killed, but murmured over his shoulder, “You stick to me like a shadow, you.”

Before, I’d bristled when he gave me that order. Now I whispered, “Not a problem, Jackson.”

24

“Didn’t you tell me you had a good feeling about tonight?” Jackson muttered as he shot yet another Bagman straggler.

After he’d taken out the first trio, we’d holed up in a dense stand of dead and fallen trees, protected on three sides. Jackson was guarding the fourth.

“Damn, Evie, what kind of psychic are you?” he asked when he rose to collect his arrow.

Might not be one whatsoever, jury’s still out, I thought as I hurried to stay right behind him.

But I hesitated to approach the creature. Up close, it was even more revolting than in my drawings, with old blood running down its mouth and neck like a painted-on beard. Its mucousy-looking skin shed globs of reeking slime all around it.

If they were constantly excreting this stuff, no wonder they were always thirsty.

I could scarcely believe that this thing used to be a person. But it wore ragged jeans, a concert T-shirt, and one Timberland boot. A teenage boy.

Now Jackson’s arrow jutted from its eye. Did the Cajun never miss?

“Remember how it smells, girl,” he told me.

“It’s rotten.” When I was little, I’d had a dog who was addicted to rolling in the remains of dead animals. No amount of shampoo could erase the rancid scent. That was what I was smelling now.

“You grab the arrow, I’ll move the body,” he said, but still I hesitated. In the harsh tone he’d taken to using with me, Jackson snapped, “Over here, Evie. Now. I’ll be damned if I’m goan to let you be scared of a dead Bagman.”

Let me? Had he been so mean for days just to . . . toughen me up? Like a drill sergeant getting me ready for war?

Or possibly because I was getting on his last nerve. “Fine.” I plodded forward.

Holding my breath, I reached for the short arrow, tugging at the end, but it wouldn’t come out.

“Yank it, princess.”

With a glare, I yanked harder, until it came free with a bubbling rush of red goo.

As I shoved the back of my hand against my mouth, working not to vomit, Jackson said, “This one fed recently. Otherwise it’d be chalkier.”

I still couldn’t believe I’d been face to face with these things. I could’ve been bitten. Hell, I could’ve died in the wreck or been captured!

Of course, the night was still young. . . .

When he started dragging the corpse away from our hideout, I asked, “Why are you doing that?”

“Bagmen drink their fallen. Not goan to invite them to a happy hour.”

Learn something new from Jackson every day. “Are you certain their skin’s not contagious?”

“I know it ain’t with me. Just to be safe, you doan touch it, no.” Taking the arrow from me, Jackson wiped it on the sole of his boot, then returned it to his bow’s magazine clip.

Back in the dead-tree hideout, I said, “If I get bitten—”

“You will have my arrow in your brainpan directly, doan you worry,” he said without a nanosecond of hesitation.

“Well. Good to know.” I wondered if I could regenerate from a bite. May I never have to find out. “When the Bagmen go find shelter, will those men come for us?”

“Let’s hope a windstorm dusts up,” he said, never taking his alert gaze off the woods. “Their dog woan be able to track us.”

“They looked like regular people.” I could almost imagine they’d been part of a community watch on the trail of criminals, like I should’ve stopped and said, “They went thattaway!”

“Jackson, why’d they wreck all those cars?” And why’d they have to wreck ours? Right when we had some gas in the tank.

All our water, our seeds . . . gone.

“It’s an easy way to provision,” he said. “They’re probably wanting women, too. I think that’s half the problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me,” I insisted.

“Everywhere I go, I meet crazy-ass coo-yôns. I’ve only run into one or two solid characters since the Flash. You remember when you asked me how everything went bad so quick? I think the lack of women is fuel to the fire.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ohhh, men are now bad because they have, like, masculine ‘needs’ or some other crock?”

“I ain’t making excuses for ’em. Just think you women civilize us men. Without you around, we . . . devolve or something.”

Huh. His explanation made as much sense as anything I could come up with. “Jackson, I think you’re a lot smarter than I gave you credit for.”

He faced me with a scowl. When he realized I was serious, he said, “You’d keep me as a history podna now?”

Again, I thought that this was something he should’ve already forgotten. At least enough that it wasn’t worth a mention. Still I said, “Sans doute.” Without a doubt.

I could tell that pleased him. “You should try to rest up, ange.”

There was no chance of sleep. “I can help you keep watch.”

He gave a soft laugh. “I told you—nothing can get the drop on me. Nothing.”

“Wow. If only you felt confident on that score.”

“I spent my whole life watching my six.” At my frown, he said, “Watching my back.”

I recalled that drunk man barreling into Jackson’s house, a threat coming out of the blue. Had others come quietly? “I sleep with one eye open,” Jackson had once said.

And his comment about crawling to the hospital on Sunday mornings after being kicked in the ribs? I’d just assumed he was referring to injuries from his wild Saturday night bar brawls.

Or had he been talking about an earlier time in his life, when he’d been a scared little boy, beaten by his mother’s drunken . . . dates?

Maybe that was why he traced his scars. They might be records of near misses or hard-earned victories. No wonder he could be so brutal.

I felt a spike of shame that I’d judged him for thrashing that man in his home. No more.

“Evie, bed down.” Scanning the dark, he murmured, “You doan have to be scared. I’ve got you.”

You do, don’t you? Here we were in the Bagmen’s lair, and I wasn’t terrified for my life. Jackson would kill any that strayed too close. In fact, they should fear him.

I was with the boy that monsters should fear.

The idea was liberating. We were carless, with nearly zero supplies, fresh from a wreck and trapped in a swamp filled with bloodthirsty zombies—and yet I was beginning to feel optimistic.