Free Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3) by Harry Manners Page A

Presently, Jason crept from the fireside, his wolfish chops greasy with juices from the squirrel he had been devouring. His long curved knife was already unsheathed and ready.
    The man implored the woman, wringing his hands. “Let’s just go now.”
    She hissed into his face, mere inches from his nose. “I buried a husband by the road. My two boys. Am I just supposed to forget about them? I won’t let them get away with what they’ve done. They think they’re better than all of us, that they can take what they want, that protecting rubbish from before the End is more important than us right here and now. They all deserve to die!”
    The man’s voice broke. “I don’t want to kill anymore, Kelly. I just wanna go home.”
    She said nothing.
    Charlie looked to the green-eyed figure sat across the fire from him, the face thankfully veiled by a balaclava. A pigeon rested on his shoulder, and he fed it breadcrumbs with pensive tenderness. He didn’t glance up at Jason.
    “James,” Charlie said. “They’re just idiots.”
    James Chadwick said nothing, just kept feeding his pigeon one breadcrumb at a time.
    “Flog them, cut them, beat them bloody, and leave them as an example.”
    James stroked the bird’s head with his index finger, and it gave a contented little coo in response.
    Charlie glanced to Jason, now only feet away from the woman. She had her back to him. The fronds would screen him entirely from view. Not that they would have stood a chance if he had been in full view.
    “They don’t have to die,” Charlie said.
    James let the remaining breadcrumbs fall to the dirt and looked at the scene playing out behind the bluff. Nothing registered in his eyes, not a glimmer of joy nor note of interest.
    “If I have to punch you out and drag you, you’re coming with me, you stupid bitch,” the man said. He held the woman by the hair, grunting as she clawed at his fist. “I know you don’t want it to end like this.”
    “Let me go.” She was weeping, snot dripping down her chin. “Let me go, you bastard, let me go.” She collapsed onto him and sobbed, beating weakly at his chest.
    Suddenly they were in a gentle embrace, the man no longer yanking her hair, but caressing it.
    “They’re all gone,” she said.
    “I know. We can’t change that. All the killing, it won’t change anything.” He held her tight. “We have to go.”
    She nodded tearfully and sobbed yet again.
    Jason left the fronds and stepped into view, twirling his knife with a carnivorous snarl on his face.
    The man and woman closed their eyes, swaying to and fro.
    Charlie glanced between James and Jason. The childish part of him that believed in good and bad, black and white, light and dark, screamed for him to call out. His own father’s face floated before him, one he knew was now rotting somewhere far south of here in the forest, shot full of holes. His father’s voice, a beseeching whisper: Don’t let this happen. You’re a good boy, son.
    Maybe once, Dad , he thought.
    Charlie sent no warning. He watched Jason take the last step towards the couple swaying in each other’s grasp, and then he turned back to face the fire. A wet splatter rang out, followed by the briefest shrill scream.
    All the while, Charlie kept his eyes on James Chadwick, who stared into the fire, each flame mirrored in the vast emptiness of those emerald eyes.

FIRST INTERLUDE

     
1
    “It’s a strange thing, beauty. Men have spent fortunes, entire lifetimes, chasing it. Whole empires have knelt before it.”
    Beth Tarbuck held her breath and tried not to flinch as the knife-edge brushed her cheek.
    The slurred voice tickled her ear, uttered inches behind her head. “So fragile. Just one nick of the blade, and it’s gone forever.”
    Beth bit her lip, determined to hold Malverston’s gaze. The mayor’s hot stinking breath washed over her as his face drew to within an inch of hers, inhaling through furry nostrils, smelling her.
    She shivered, and the blade