Poison Princess

Cou Rouge marched us past numerous RVs with their generators humming, scores of tents, and vehicles of all kinds. Cookout fires abounded, with men barbecuing what looked like small mammals. Despite the circumstances, the smell of grilled meat made my mouth water.

I also spotted plastic cans of gas everywhere. I’d decided this militia was rich with fuel—even before I saw an actual tanker. They safeguarded it in the center of the encampment like a golden idol.

And that wasn’t all. Near the tanker was a raised cistern, its iron sides dripping. Filled with water.

Cou Rouge stopped before an improvised jail cell, a cage made from wooden packing crates nailed together. Only one boy was within. At least Jackson and Selena remained free.

Shoving Matthew and me inside, Cou Rouge padlocked the door and posted three guards. “Don’t be leavin’ this spot,” he ordered them. “Not for any reason.”

The other prisoner was around our age, with freckles on his nose and chin-length dirty-blond hair. This boy was the card in the cage I was supposed to be listening for? The one we’d needed to find? He seemed so unremarkable.

“ ’S’up,” he said mildly as we sat on the cold, ashy ground. “Name’s Finneas. Call me Finn. . . .” He trailed off as he stared at me, then Matthew.

He was seeing our tableaus; I knew because I was beholding his. For a split second, Finn was clad in a red robe, holding a wand to the sky while pointing to the ground with his other hand. On a table before him lay a pentagram, a chalice, a sword, and a cane. A bed of roses and lilies grew at his feet, vines trailing above.

—Don’t look at this hand, look at that one. — Then his call grew silent. Was he hearing ours?

And was the boy associated with plants in some way? Matthew’s card also had a flower on it, a white rose!

Of course, so had Death’s card—an emblem on the black flag he carried.

While I was blinking, regaining my focus, Finn said, “Whoa. I think I just had an acid flashback.” He sounded as if he belonged on a beach in Cali.

“I-I’m Evie. This is Matthew.” I indicated him with a jerk of my chin.

Matthew met his gaze and said, “Card. Arcana. Secrets. Card.”

“Whatever, dude.”

“Um, Finn, I couldn’t help but notice that you seem really calm.”

Matthew, too, looked unaffected by our predicament. He began inspecting the grain on one of the boards.

“I am calm, blondie.”

“Even though these men are probably slavers or cannibals?”

“Nah, homeowners’ association gone awry.”

I frowned at his flippant tone. “What do they want with us?”

“They’re going to use me and your weird companion here as cistern diversion.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Bagman bait. The woods around here are thick with Baggers. At dusk, they advance on that cistern in this big wave of creep—unless live meat runs past and distracts them. Then the hicks pick them off. Oh, and while we’re out running for our lives, you’re going to be married off to, like, all of this militia. Mazel tov.”

Dread swept over me—for both Matthew and myself. “H-how many soldiers are there?”

“Hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” Even if Jackson managed to figure out what happened to us, I didn’t know if we could be rescued.

“They’re just waiting for nightfall. Then you’re s.o.l., sister. There’s only one other chick in the entire camp. But she’s the chief redneck’s daughter, so they consider her off-limits, kind of a Smurfette situation.” He exhaled, grinning up at the slats of the cage roof. “Smoking body on that one—but shy a few teeth. Still, I’d do Hickette with a flag over her face.”

“Excuse me?”

Matthew chuckled. “Do her for his country.”

“Matthew!” I cried, frowning at him. I’d thought of him as more . . . innocent.

Finn laughed with him, the two of them apparently fast friends.

Ugh. Teenage boys! Jackson had told me I didn’t understand them. I realized then that I probably never would. “You two are joking around, not concerned about this at all.”

“I just had a hot blonde dropped into a Caged Heat scenario with me.” Finn waggled his brows. “A chesty blonde—with all her teeth. As my Flash-fried redneck cousins used to say, ‘I’m happy as a pig in shit.’ ”

Plant association or not, this self-important, smirky boy was getting on my nerves.

When he relaxed back against the side of the cage, I said, “You probably have someone coming to save you?”

“I can get out of this at any time.”

“Really?”

“I only let them capture me so I could get close to that daughter. I’m a magician, hotness. Getting out of binds is what I do.”

“The Magician,” Matthew said.

Finn’s chest puffed out. “Damn straight, dude.”

If he was an Arcana, then he had powers of some sort. Still, I couldn’t buy his total lack of worry. “Well, we have friends who are coming for us,” I told him under my breath, my words full of assurance. “We’ll be rescued soon.”

But time kept passing. One hour. Another.

For afternoon amusement, some soldiers set up target practice nearby—three moaning Bagmen impaled on spikes. One Bagger looked freshly turned, one had no legs, and the other no arms.

The soldiers opened fire and the Bagmen writhed and gurgled. Chunks of slimy skin flew off the targets, plopping near the cage, fouling the air.

I held my arms over my head to block out the gunshots, the moans. . . .

By late afternoon, I caught myself wondering why Jackson and Selena—two hard-core survivors—would risk their necks against tremendously shitty odds to rescue their pair of deadweights?

How strong was Selena’s influence over Jackson?

As much as I wanted to believe in our rescue, my current predicament—freezing, huddled in a cage, starving—wasn’t boosting my optimism.

Much less my future predicament.

And Matthew would say nothing to help. Did he not understand what was about to happen to us?

By sunset, I was awash in doubt. Why wouldn’t Jackson and Selena just run off together and be happy, without all the hassle, without all the danger? How many times had Jackson told me I was more trouble than I was worth?

I wondered how I would recover if he’d truly abandoned me here.

I wondered how I’d feel if he got killed trying to save me from these ignorant militiamen.

My eyes watered. At that moment, I hit my limit of fear and confusion and . . . and people. I was sick of them! Sick of danger lurking around every corner.

“Is everybody evil now?” I murmured to no one.

I had the strangest urge to shove my fingers into the dirt and feel them . . . take root. What if I could tap the earth and become a soldier at attention? I wouldn’t even have to be a girl anymore, just a part of something so much bigger.

If I surrendered, there’d be no more worries about Jackson, no more fears about facing the red witch—or Death.

Such a seductive pull . . . as alluring as a ripe berry. I gazed at the sooty ground with contemplation.