The Bleeding Crowd (20 page)

Ben moved up the hill, pausing to make sure
Dahlia followed and took off towards camp.

* * * *

After an endless trek through the forest and
then into airport service tunnels, hiding from lazy security
personnel, and locating the right plane, they made it, a few at a
time, into the cargo hold of a plane headed to New Zealand. Jude
looked between his friend and Dahlia from the box he had taken as a
perch in the cargo hold of the plane. The animosity, which had been
so thick it that it was tangible between them, had dissolved for
some reason, leaving a sort of vacuum in its place which neither
party appeared able or willing to cross.

Ben continued to act remote and stoic. Dahlia
just looked sad. The anger holding her up had faded and now she
felt deflated. She had made herself a bed out of the blankets they
had found in one of the crates and a combination of that and simple
physical exhaustion had kept her asleep for the majority of the
flight. Even Abel knocking over the better part of a crate of
pewterware hadn’t made her stir in her little cocoon of blankets.
Then again, with the crown of her head barely peeking out from the
blankets, all the sound in the cargo hold would be muted.

Jude dropped off the crate, taking a seat
next to Ben on a lower box. “Hey.”

Ben nodded in recognition, not taking his
eyes off the far wall.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“We okay?” Jude glanced at him.

Ben let out a long breath. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Ben nodded and then sighed. “She’s hard to
turn down when she’s got her mind set on something.”

“You have no idea.” Jude ran a hand through
his hair.

Ben finally looked at him.

“Okay, probably you do,” Jude conceded.
“Seriously, it was the first time since Eileen—”

“Eileen.” Ben smiled to himself.

Jude shoved him. “I was seventeen. Let it
go.”

Ben shrugged.

“But yeah, first time since Eileen that I’ve
got to sleep with someone because I wanted to, not because I had
to.”

“Not our fault most legislators are in their
forties.”

“With the hot ones nearly always useless.”
Jude nodded.

“Universal constant.” Ben looked at the wall
across from them again.

Jude glanced at the patch of brown hair
peeking out from the blankets before looking at Ben. “You know I
can back off if you want. We get along well, but there’s no real
reason for us to sleep together again.”

“I need to be here for you to make this
decision because...?”

“Because you haven’t talked to me since—”

“I said we’re cool, didn’t I?” Ben stood. “If
she wants to...do whatever, it’s none of my business.”

Jude looked at him.

“What?”

He continued to focus on his friend.

“You stop that or I’m going to knock you off
that crate.”

Jude didn’t look away. Suddenly, he found
himself hitting the ground with a thud.

Heather got up. Dahlia’s head emerged the
rest of the way out of her nest.

“We’re trying to be quiet, you realize.”
Heather helped Jude up.

“Tell Jude not to be a klutz.” Ben crossed
his arms, taking a step to balance himself as Jude hit his arm.

“Yeah, I fell off on my own.”

“You deserved it,” Ben snapped.

“Jesus fucking...” Des sat up. “Dahlia, will
you just go over there and screw Ben already?”

“What?” Dahlia frowned through a yawn.

“Go back to sleep.” Heather waved Dahlia
away. “We’ll be landing soon. You’ll need to be on your feet
again.”

“I’m not a toddler,” Dahlia said. “I don’t
need to be told to take a nap.”

“Come on now little sis-in-law.” Des looked
at her. “You know how cranky you get if you stay up too late.”

“How did I become the baby here?” Dahlia
frowned. “Abel and Zechs are both younger than I am. David’s pretty
much my age to the day.”

“They’ve had more in their life to age them
than you,” Des replied. “You’re the youngest in terms of life
experience.”

“I hate you all.” Dahlia disappeared into her
cocoon of blankets.

Heather watched her and then turned back to
Ben and Jude. “Are we going to have to place you in opposite
corners from each other?”

“No, ma’am,” Ben’s voice dripped sarcasm. He
rubbed his arm where Jude hit him. “I think we’ve worked it
out.”

“Looks like it.” Heather frowned, her doubt
clear.

“You get us caught screwing around in here
and I’m going to make the whole sex issue completely moot for both
of you.” Des frowned. “Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ben and Jude said in
unison.

* * * *

The plane landed in the dark, providing a
chance to escape Des insisted they take. The group slipped out of
the cargo bay, and one by one, evading lights, and workers, edged
into the first patch of trees they came across to head away from
town. They made camp only after Des found they were a satisfactory
distance away from any other sign of civilization.

“Are we in New Zealand?” Abel finally
asked.

No one spoke.

“Hopefully,” Heather said.

“If we are,” Zechs said, “where are we
going?”

“North, I would imagine.” Dahlia looked
around at the trees. It was a forest no doubt, much like the one
they had just left, but the trees looked different. She touched the
bark, found a leaf, a conifer perhaps, but something altogether
unfamiliar.

“What?” Zechs asked.

She snapped out of her examination. “Assuming
we got on the right plane, which I believe we did, we’d have landed
on the South Island. Capital is Wellington on the North
Island.”

“How far?” Isaac frowned.

“You all really didn’t think this through,
did you?” Dahlia frowned.

“How far?” Isaac repeated.

“From cargo entry point?” Dahlia considered.
“I don’t know, something like eight-hundred kilometers.”

“Is New Zealand even that big?” Jude
frowned.

“It’s why they have a high-speed train
linking pretty much everything,” Dahlia said.

“Well, it’s not like we can take that.”
Heather sighed.

“If we walked twenty-four hours a day, it
would take us at least a week to get up there,” Des said.

“We could steal a car,” Dahlia suggested.

“The camps have cars,” David said.

“We’re not going anywhere near a camp.” Ben
shook his head.

“You might have supporters in other camps,”
Dahlia said.

He glanced at her before looking away. “We
aren’t going to a camp.”

“So what? We’re going to walk eight-hundred
kilometers?”

“At a fair pace is should only take...” Des
did the math in the dirt. “Sixteen days, give or take.”

Dahlia laughed. “You can’t be serious.”

“Three miles an hour for ten hours a
day?”

“You think she could do three miles an hour
for ten hours every day?” David gave Dahlia a doubtful look.

“That’s what?” Dahlia looked at Heather,
“Five kilometers an hour?”

“About that.” Heather nodded. “A little
less.”

“Going five kilometers an hour for ten hours
a day?” Dahlia repeated. “Ten hours a day for over two weeks? How
about I just wait here for all of you?”

“You’re going to sit in the forest for over a
month waiting for us?” Jude frowned.

“If you haven’t gotten it yet, I’m not really
good with the whole hiking thing.”

“You hide it so well,” Ben mumbled.

Dahlia sent him a look, but didn’t take the
bait. “Four days almost killed me. I don’t think I can make it for
another sixteen.”

“We weren’t pulling three miles an hour
then,” Isaac said.

“Should we steal horses?” Abel looked to Des
and then to Ben.

“I think stealing in general would be a good
idea,” Heather added. “We’re running low on supplies.”

“I’m going to find a place to wash up.”
Dahlia moved in the direction they had been going, away from the
group. “I’m all grimy again.”

“You haven’t moved in at least ten hours.”
David looked at her.

“Well, what can I say? I maintain a higher
standard of cleanliness.”

Ben sat. “I say let her. Just make sure you
have a rope around her waist to pull her back when she gets
lost.”

“Maybe I should just take Jude with me,”
Dahlia said to annoy Ben. “He has a good sense of...direction.”

Jude’s eyes widened as he watched Ben.

Ben took a breath and relaxed again. “Maybe
you should. Would save the rest of us from having to spend time
looking for you out in the middle of the forest.”

“Maybe I will then.” Dahlia looked at Jude.
“Care to make sure I don’t wander too far away from the group?”

Jude looked at her, and then Ben, and then
back again.

“Go on,” Ben urged.

Jude didn’t move, as if he could disappear by
being still.

Dahlia sighed and turned to the other men.
“Someone else willing to babysit me, since Ben is
so
worried?”

“I will,” Zechs said eagerly, before freezing
and looking at Ben. “I mean-”

“Come on.” Dahlia took him by the wrist
before Ben had a chance to respond.

Ben began to push himself up before catching
himself and dropping back down.

Des sighed. “Would you just swallow your
pride and tell her you love her already? She’s going to work her
way through all of your friends at this rate. I don’t think she’s
buying the whole ‘I don’t care’ routine’, if you haven’t
noticed.”

Ben glared at Des.

She sighed and looked at Heather. “Why did we
agree to work with them again?”

“They were perfectly sane beings until we got
the straight girl involved.”

“Your sister you mean.”

Heather sighed.

“I’m going to see if there’s anything around
to eat.” Ben scrambled to his feet.

* * * *

A small pond sat not far from where they had
stopped. Dahlia sat looking at it. Some old knowledge about
standing water tried to surface, didn’t make it. She pulled off her
shirt and jeans, happy to feel warm this time, letting Zechs
stared, bug-eyed.

“No, that’s the entire issue.” She rubbed the
shirt with the pebbles at the bottom of the small pond. “Five
kilometers an hour, three miles an hour, is a pretty quick pace. I
could probably keep it up for a little while, but not for two
weeks.”

“It doesn’t sound like fun, I’ll admit.”
Zechs stood behind her, staring at the ground.

“I don’t think any of this experience has
been fun.” Dahlia shook her head, shaking the shirt out and
frowning at the wear marks she had caused under the arms from the
scrubbing.

“Zechs.” Ben crossed his arms. “They need you
back at camp.”

Zechs started, looking at Ben sheepishly.

Ben nodded towards the camp. Zechs glanced at
Dahlia and back to Ben, his leader. Rolling his eyes, Ben shoved
the boy towards the forest. “Get.”

“Need something?” Dahlia laid the shirt out
and undid her bra.

He caught her under the arm, forcing her
between him and a tree.

“Stop it goddamn it!” She rubbed her arms as
he let go. “I’m not a damn doll. I have legs that work perfectly
well, even—”

He kissed her.

She let him for a moment, frozen by surprise,
before stepping back. The trunk of the tree stopped her retreat.
His placement of her suddenly made sense.

He looked at her. “What?”

“What??” she repeated shrilly. “You can’t
just all of a sudden decide to come manhandle me and expect me to
be all right with you sticking your tongue down my throat!”

“I hadn’t gotten to that part.”

“You know what I mean, damn it.”

“Maybe I don’t.” He boxed her in with his
arms.

She frowned. “What do you want?”

“You haven’t worked that one out yet?” He
looked down at where her unhooked bra gaped enough to expose her
breasts.

“You don’t seriously think I’m going to have
sex with you right now, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Seriously?”

“You brought Zechs out here.”

“If you didn’t notice, I wasn’t having sex
with him.”

“Not when I got here.”

“Back up before I hurt you, Ben.”

He scoffed “Right.”

“You may not have that chip, but my knee is
in a very opportune place,” she threatened.

He looked down, sidestepped so her leg wasn’t
in between his, looked back up.

She released a tense breath. “Are you
jealous?”

He didn’t answer.

“If you are, I don’t see what you gain from
denying it.”

“You want to have sex,” he said. “Does it
matter if it’s me or anyone else?”

“When did I say I wanted to have sex?”

He frowned. “Zechs—”

“I never said we were going to do anything,”
Dahlia said. “He’d probably be too shy to anyway. He wouldn’t stand
within a meter of me as soon as I took my shirt off.”

“So you were or were not going to sleep with
him?”

“Why do you care?”

“Just wanted to check if you were only trying
to be suggestive enough to make everyone think that’s what you were
planning on or what.”

“Everyone? Or you?”

“Everyone I would think.”

“If you say so.” She forced the bra straps up
and crossed her arms to create a barrier between them.

He pressed himself tighter against her
anyway. “So why did you wander all the way down here?”

“Why do you think?” She leaned back as much
as she could. “I came to find water to wash up.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m so
wishy-washy that I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

His gaze wandered over her.

“Back up, Ben,” she said, the words low in
her throat.

“What if I don’t want to?”

“I think the fact that I want you to is a
little more important.”

“Because you’re so much more important than
me.”

“Maybe I am.”