Free The Wilds: The Wilds Book One by Donna Augustine Page B

seen a man without a shirt on in person and now I had one in close range.
    I had a feeling most of them didn’t look the way he did. There was a handful of scars scattered about his front and sides, but nothing that detracted from him. It might have even added to his appeal.
    This was what I’d sensed earlier. He was a fighter. He was hardened and didn’t take any shit and it showed. It was strange but I felt like he appeared to the world the way I was inside. Like we were the same, he was just inside out.
    He shoved the shirt at me. “Put this on so you can take your dress off and lay it in the sun for a few minutes.”
    I took it from him and he turned his back without being asked.
    I shimmied out of the wet dress and threw his shirt on. “So, why’d you break me out?”
    “Because I need what you can do.”
    “Which is what?” I asked, thinking he’d messed up royally. I didn’t have any known skills other than a larger-than-life thirst for freedom, and couldn’t figure out how that would benefit anyone but me.
    “I’ve been searching for a Plaguer for a while. I need to know what you see.”
    “You mean the stuff we make up?” I asked, wanting to hear him say he believed what I saw wasn’t just stories. I’d spent so many years aware of how Plaguers were discredited that I found the idea of a stranger I’d just met believing me impossible.
    “We both know that isn’t the truth.”
    I moved past him to where the sweatshirt was laid out across the log and laid the white dress beside it, mimicking what he’d done. This was stuff I’d need to know, like how the sun could dry my clothes.
    The simple action brought me a weird feeling of satisfaction. At the Cement Giant, we’d been given a set of clothes after we showered every day. I didn’t own a white dress but had shared them with all the other girls my size in the compound. But that was my dress lying there. Mine. I still hated it and what it represented, but it was mine . I owned it.
    “How does my thing help you?” Now the very thing that had landed me in the Cement Giant was the thing that had freed me.
    “I don’t know if it can but I’m looking for something and I’ve reached a dead end.”
    “What are you looking for?”
    “You don’t need to know that.”
    “Fine. I don’t really care anyway, to be honest.” I shrugged. I had enough on my plate and this Dax guy could handle his own affairs. “All you want from me is to tell you what I pick up off people?”
    “Yes.”
    What would Moobie do in this situation if he had some leverage? “And if I help you? What’s in it for me? Will you help me in return? I’ve got to go back there and get my friends out.”
    “You’ve already been paid. I broke you out. After you help me, we go our own way. Never see each other again. That’s what you get.”
    I put my hands on my hips. “I didn’t need you to get me out.”
    He had the nerve to roll his eyes. “So you were there by choice?”
    I straightened my shoulders and lifted my head. “I was waiting for my opening. Thing is, I didn’t ask for your help. Why should I pay for it?”
    “I think you’ve misunderstood. This is not a negotiation.”
    “And if I refuse? Then what?”
    “There’s ways, but much less pleasant.”
    I huffed out a half laugh. Did he really think that was going to work? “You did notice that I was strapped to a chair with electrical leads when you came, did you not? You should go ask them how much cooperation they got from me.”
    “You’ve got balls. I’ll give you that. I know about those places and I know their methods. Trust me when I tell you they’re amateurs. The way I see it, you need me more than I need you right now. I cut you loose and you’re dead in under a week, or worse.”
    “What’s worse than dead? Is there a new ranking system in the Wilds I’m unaware of?”
    “There is worse. You’ve got a strong will but you’re weak as a kitten and you don’t know the first thing