The Bleeding Crowd (26 page)

“You’d take on a man as an apprentice?”

“Any reason you think I shouldn’t?”

Jack considered the matter. “He’d be lucky to
have you as a teacher.”

“You’re sweet.” She smiled. “There are better
doctors than me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” A long pause
followed.

Outside, Ben considered joining them. Then,
Dahlia spoke.

“Do you want to stay here tonight?” she said.
“I could use some company.”

Ben turned on his heel and left.

* * * *

“So we get into the tunnels.” Des drew in the
dirt. “Go to the capital–”

“Assuming the tunnels go to the capital,”
Dahlia said.

“They have to,” Des countered. “They did
back—”

“Is it where the head of government resides?”
Dahlia interjected. “If there’s another government pavilion
or...”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Des snapped.

“I know,” she said and sighed. “When Heather
gets back, but there’s no use in planning anything until we
know...”

“Hear that?” Des straightened.

“You know I hear jack squat out here.” Dahlia
shook her head

“Need to work on that.” Jack smiled, coming
around the trees.

She smiled in greeting and wrapped her arms
around his neck.

“Where are the others?” Des didn’t wait for
her to release Jack.

“They’re just a little behind,” Jack smiled,
leaving his arms around Dahlia’s waist.

She pulled back a little, touching his face.
“What happened to your eye?”

“Snuck up on me,” Ben said as he dropped a
bag, making Dahlia jump away. He gave the group a tight smile. “It
was a reflex.”

She looked between him and Jack before
realization hit her. “You hit him?”

“Not on purpose,” Ben said with
innocence.

Jack glared at him.

“Look at me,” she directed Jack, studying his
eye. “It doesn’t look bad. We don’t have any ice or anything to put
on it, though.”

“I’ll be fine.” He nodded before glaring at
Ben. “It was a pretty weak hit.”

“I’m going to put some arnica around the
edges.” Dahlia ignored the staring contest going on between the
men. “It’ll help it heal faster. Is anyone else hurt?”

Heather shook her head, standing next to Des.
“There are five other guards and nine more men. They’re waiting a
little ways off. I think they were worried about an ambush.”

“Of course.” Dahlia shook her head. “It’s a
culture of fear around here.”

“It has to be,” Des said.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t justified,” she
answered. “I was just saying it all makes perfect sense.”

“Why don’t you get them, Ben?” Heather
nodded. “It should be enough proof that we aren’t going to attack
them.”

Ben released a breath. “Fine.”

“I’ll get the other guys.” Dahlia pointed in
the opposite direction. “I seriously can’t take any more battle
planning. I’m useless at it anyway.”

“You’re the one that knows what happens in
those buildings,” Paul said.

“Back home, yes.” Dahlia nodded. “Not in New
Zealand.”

“I need food.” Jack slid his arm around
Dahlia’s waist. “Why don’t we get the other men and something to
eat?”

Dahlia nodded, smiling at Heather. “Glad
you’re home safe. Des was about to go insane if you didn’t get back
promptly and in one piece.”

Heather smiled. “Glad to be back.”

* * * *

Dahlia took the ember she had taken in a
small pot from the camp and lit a small fire by the pond they had
been getting their water from. She set it on some tinder and blew
lightly to make it catch.

“Getting the outdoorsy stuff down, huh?”

She didn’t so much as turn. “You keep doing
this, Ben, and it’s going to become a cliché.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against a
tree. “What are you doing?”

“Making it so I can boil some water.”

“Why?”

“To burn off any possible bacteria in it,”
Dahlia said. “I have no desire to reenact past events. Do you?”

“
So if you boil the water you won’t get
sick.”

“It’ll be less likely that I’ll get sick,
yes,” she said. “Nothing is ever one hundred percent certain. What
do you want?”

“What makes you think I want something?”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want
something.”

“Maybe I just want to talk.”

She turned at last, twisting at the waist to
look at him.

“What?” He frowned at her.

“You haven’t talked to me in over a
week.”

“And?”

“I don’t know how men settle fights, but
women don’t generally just ‘move on’ like nothing’s happened.”

“Are we fighting?”

“It’s what I’d call it.” The fire caught and
she put on some dry wood before standing. “I mean, neither of us
has given the other a black eye, but...”

“That was his fault for sneaking up on me
like that.”

“Since when have you ever not heard someone
coming up behind you?” She cocked an eyebrow. “You aren’t me and
Jack doesn’t exactly walk softly. If you need someone to sneak
around I’d be a better candidate. I don’t stomp like the rest of
you do, and you’ve always heard me.”

“Maybe that’s because I was listening for
you.”

She didn’t respond for a moment. “What?”

“Well, it’s my fault you’re out here, even if
you deny that, and you’re the one who came out here without many
survival skills...”

She poured some water into the pot and set up
a crude spit on which to hang the bucket.

“I don’t mean anything by it,” he clarified.
“It’s just that, in all likelihood, if anyone was going to get
hurt, it would most likely be you.”

“I’m a completely rational human being, Ben.
I’ve managed to keep myself alive this long. Besides, it isn’t your
fault. If you had listened to me—”

“It’s not the point of me not intellectually
grasping that, Lia,” he said. “It doesn’t stop the fact that
there’s that lingering voice in the back of my head that says ‘If
you hadn’t needed to be rescued. If you hadn’t been caught. If she
hadn’t gone to the hospital before getting us...’”

“It wasn’t your choice, it was mine. I hardly
see how you made me go to the hospital.”

He dropped his gaze.

“What’s that?” Dahlia frowned. “Why do you
feel guilty about that?”

He didn’t look up, “You needed supplies
before you came to help us. If I hadn’t taken some of your
things...”

“You...you stole my medical supplies?” Her
eyebrows furrowed.

“Well, you were so upset and I figured I was
never going to see you again. We didn’t have any other place to get
supplies...”

“So you were spying and stealing.”

“Just that once.” He looked up at last.
“Well, and those maps I took from your desk, but—”

She shook her head, seeming less than
involved in the conversation. “You’re sort of despicable, you know
that?”

“I came to that realization a while ago,
actually,” Ben said.

“Could you stop treating this like a joke and
have a normal conversation for once?”

“I was completely serious,” he said. “Did you
want a yes or no answer? Or was that just rhetorical and I didn’t
actually have to answer at all?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, released a
breath, and then finally started again. “Just...you know, I don’t
think I’ve ever understood you. I’m really starting to think I
never will. There’s just always another layer when it comes to you,
isn’t there? There’s always something else that you won’t or maybe
just can’t let other people know about. Or maybe you just can’t let
me know about.”

“Dahlia...” He sighed.

“No, Ben.” She sat back down. “I can’t do
this anymore. This constant lying and fighting. All these
secrets... Perhaps the past week has been for the best. Maybe if
things were different, this could have been something, something
would have worked itself out, but you have greater goals you need
to focus on and I...I need someone who will actually think of me
first once in a while.”

“I—”

“You are a great leader, Ben,” she cut him
off. “You’re just a lousy friend.”

“Dahlia, I...”

She let out a tense breath, closing her eyes
for a long moment. “You know what you have to do, and I understand.
I can admire you for that even. I just can’t keep thinking that
somewhere at some point in the future that I’m finally going to
figure out who you are. You’ve got that buried down away from
everyone else in the world deeper than I have the energy to try to
force out of you. Let’s just stop pretending like....like whatever
this is, is going to find its way to being something even remotely
stable. I think it’s time to step back and accept things the way
they are. Stop fighting, stop lying, stop...hurting one another,
and just accept what we are.”

“And that is?” Ben waited.

“We’re acquaintances. We have the ability to
get along for short stretches of time. We can be congenial when we
have to be, and we can get along with our lives.”

Ben bit the inside of his lip. “That’s what
you want? To be acquaintances?”

“That’s all I think we can handle if we want
to get through this without killing each other,” she said.

He nodded slowly, turning to go before
pausing again. “Stable?”

“What?” Her voice shook slightly.

“You said stable,” he repeated. “Is that what
Jack is? Stable?”

The silence hung uncomfortably between
them.

“I know where I stand with him from one day
to the next,” she said at last.

Ben nodded, turning to leave again. “Don’t
stay out here too long. Heather will worry.”

* * * *

“All right.” Des looked around the circle of
almost fifty men and women who had pushed in enough to see each
other around the trees.

No one in the circle spoke.

“Now,” Des continued. “We have a good number
of people here, but not nearly enough to take the capital head on."
Thanks to Maria and the other wonderful new guards’ information,
“There’s a ‘secret service’ of sorts who protects Patience.”

“From what?” Dahlia said.

“Assassination, I would imagine,” Ben
answered. “I mean, Patience came to power through assassination.
It’s understandable that whoever replaced her is worried about
losing power because of an assassination.”

“Replaced her?” Dahlia frowned.

“It isn’t the original Patience over there,
Lia,” Heather said. “She’d be three, four hundred years old.”

“Then what about her birthday addresses?”
Dahlia said. “People have seen her.”

“So they’re replaying tapes,” Ben suggested.
“That or replaced her with someone who looks a lot like her. A
daughter maybe.”

“
Anyway.” Des looked at the trio. “Back
to the point. We can’t just march up there and ask to see Patience.
However, with the proper force, if we’re already in, we could take
over.”

“Do we have weapons?” Abel looked around.
“Last I knew we had the guns the guards had and some shivs.”

“There’s a weapons store not far from here,”
Christina, a redheaded guard, said. “We’re going to send some
people to see if we can get them.”

“Some people,” Ben repeated.

“Well, the others need to focus on
Wellington.”

Ben frowned. “Are we going to have to force
it out of you? Let’s get moving.”

“Okay.” Des sighed. “Basically we have a
three part plan of attack. We need about half of us heading out for
the weapons cache. People who can fight well enough to, well, not
die when or if we come up against resistance and who are strong
enough to carry back what supplies we get.”

“You can just say ‘not Dahlia’.” She rolled
her eyes.

“Or some of the younger guys,” Heather
said.

“Anyway.” Des looked at Dahlia. “We know what
we need you to do.”

“Do tell.”

“We’re going to get you another ID card and
get you into the capital.”

“What?” Ben’s face changed into some show of
emotion for the first time in days.

Des kept looking at Dahlia. “You don’t have
to talk to anyone there, you just need to walk in and find exactly
where Patience is.”

“Oh, that simple?” she scoffed.

“We’ll make it as safe as we can,” Heather
said, “I promise.”

“And how safe is that?” Ben stared at
Des.

“How safe are any of us?” Dahlia said before
looking back at Des. “What am I supposed to do when I find
her?”

“We’ll leave some of the guards nearby so you
can give them a message.”

Dahlia nodded. “So, as long as no one figures
out I’m not supposed to be there...”

“You’ll be fine,” Des said. “It’s not the
trickiest job.”

“I’m scared to ask.” Dahlia waited for Des to
continue.

“We need someone to find more of a
following.”

“For what?” Jack crossed his arms.

“We want a complete uprising. We need to get
word around to every camp in the area, in the country. We create an
uprising.”

“How did you do it last time?” Dahlia asked.
“That’s what all that smoke was, wasn’t it?”

“Me,” Ben said. “Sounds like my
specialty.”

“You mean what ended up with you in prison?”
Dahlia frowned.

“Only because Eli sold me out.” Ben met her
eyes. “You said it yourself. I’m a good leader.”

“If you run into someone...if I had just
found you on the street I would have had guards on you before you
could have said a word to me. If you get caught this time—”

“If you’re caught wondering around the
capital with a fake ID?”

“Not fake.” Des nodded at Heather, taking the
card Heather pulled out of her pocket, the name Mia emblazoned on
it. “Mia, she’s a legislator, twenty-two, brunette, a little
shorter than you, but that’ll be easy enough to cover. Best of all,
she has a room inside the capital complex. That card should get you
around with no problem.”

“Okay.” Dahlia looked at it. “One
question.”