The General's Daughter (Snow and Ash #1) Read online

  “But—”

  I stride to my closet and yank out the warmest coat I own. It is also white, so it will blend in with the landscape. I toss it to her, and as she catches it, she gapes at me. I rummage around the floor of the closet until I find my fleece-lined UGG boots, then scavenge cashmere warmies—a hat, mittens, and scarf.

  Erin starts to cry.

  The door flies open, and Andy charges in. My mouth goes dry. His weapon is pointed right at me. That look on his face—he’s going to kill me. He’s known me, served as my guard for well over a year, but it won’t bother him an inch if it means saving his wife.

  “No!” Erin jumps between me and the weapon. Jesus. “She’s helping us.”

  He works his jaw as though holding back something violent and profane. “She’s not helping anyone. Trust me. Now get out of the way.”

  “That’s right,” I sneer. “Ilsa Balenchuk helps no one. So don’t you go telling anyone this shit.” I glare at him, daring him to pull the trigger and end it. I’ve been dead for years.

  He lowers his weapon, darts of confusion shooting from every pore.

  Erin shakes her head. “That’s what she always says.”

  The way she looks at me, it’s like she’s looking at her freakin’ guardian angel. No one has looked at me that way since I was fourteen. It really gets to me. My throat thickens.

  I narrow my eyes. “Do you ever wonder what happens to me when I disobey the general?”

  Both of them stare at me. Neither speaks.

  By now I’m shaking. “The last time I tried to help someone, Dad beat me with his belt until I fainted.”

  I’d given one of the camp whores a winter coat and some shoes. She’d said she couldn’t bear the endless string of men using her, and using her, and using her. She and a couple others wanted to run away, and back then I’d been reckless enough to want to help.

  Colonel Ernshaw sent a party out after them. They caught up to them just outside the boundaries of General Barry’s territory. Dad said if they would have gotten any farther, they could have betrayed some valuable information. Never in a million years would I have thought that by looking the other way, I was putting us all at risk.

  As far as Dad is concerned, undermining his authority cannot be tolerated. Any disobedience around here gets addressed swiftly and without mercy. Even when the culprit is me.

  Especially when it’s me.

  Andy Morey’s eyes widen, and Erin claps a hand over her mouth.

  “Now you two take this stuff and leave. The troops are heading out at five a.m. I suggest you leave by three and go nowhere near Beckley.”

  Morey clears his throat, his expression stiff. But the barrel of his gun is aimed at the floor.

  “I knew it! Nobody changes that much. It’s just like back in school. We’re still sisters.” Erin steps forward and moves as though she’s going to hug me.

  I retreat a step, my hand outstretched in the universal signal for stop.

  “I am no one’s friend. Do not forget that.”

  I am wide-awake when Dad fumbles his way through the darkness and out the door. I’m twitching when the last of the trucks pulls out onto the main access road and down the mountain. It’s only when I’m so angsty I think I’ll scream that I finally get up, wind my clock, and take my morning shower.

  The water is warm, hot actually, and I can’t stop thinking about Erin. She’s out there somewhere in all that snow and ice. She has Andy with her, but he’s just one person, and he won’t be able to protect her from the gangs that roam the countryside. Bands of ten, fifty, sometimes hundreds of the desperate are constantly on the move, looking for a safe place to stay, a meal to eat, or a pretty girl to steal, and very few of them are above a little cannibalism.

  It’s not that I don’t get it. I long for escape sometimes. It’s just that the world I want to go to no longer exists. I’ve heard there’s a town in Upstate New York that’s run something like ours, but I don’t know a whole lot about it. All I know is, if I want to be safe, I need to stay here. I need to keep my mouth shut, keep Dad happy, and accept that my sole purpose is to serve as loving daughter and willing PR tool. I don’t like being so…I don’t know…closely watched. But I’m fed well, I have plenty of warm clothes, and I have a safe place to sleep. Pretty much no other girl has what I have, and I know it. Erin didn’t have luxuries, but she had regular food and a safe place to live. I just wish she’d understood how good she had it, too.

  I’m dressed for my morning walk. I have to drag myself down the steps. I want to pretend last night was just a dream and the world will stay the way it is. That it’ll get better. I don’t want to open the door and find only Garrett.

  I leave the napkin-wrapped rolls on the foyer table for the housekeeper to find. The things I steal are always for her. She has such kind eyes, and she has that loose-skinned thing going on that tells me she used to be fat. Someone that loves food that much really shouldn’t have to stick to mushrooms, potatoes, and turkey.

  My muscles tense. It’s time for a cold blast of reality.

  When I step outside, I’m greeted by a complete stranger.

  “Corporal Roane, this is the general’s daughter.” Sgt. Garrett indicates me with a jerk of his head. “You will not speak to her, you will not touch her, and as long as it doesn’t violate the general’s orders, you will obey her.”

  I swallow. I hope the expression I give him screams confused. “Did Dad send Sgt. Morey out with the troops?”

  Cpl. Roane looks to Garrett. Garret shrugs. But there is something in his eyes. Anger? Mistrust? He’s definitely guarded.

  When his eyes slide away from mine, I realize he knows exactly what Erin and Andy Morey have done. I can only pray he knows nothing about my role in it.

  We set out. Dad wants me to stay active and he installed an indoor gym for me, but I hate it. I’m inside all day, every day, and the only time I get to leave is when he lets me go to the officers’ dining hall or when I go for my walks. These brief outings are the only times I get to feel free.

  We head out past the country club and across the main access road, then make for the wide creek that meanders in a series of waterfalls down the side of the mountain. It’s completely frozen over, but I like to pretend sometimes that there’s still something alive under all that ice, hibernating, just waiting for the day when the sun comes back.

  It’s only when we’re close to the ice’s edge that I see them. “Oh my gosh! Ducks!”

  My heart pounds, my lips spread, and I do something I haven’t done in a long time. I laugh.

  The birds waddle southward, and I skip along the creek’s edge and follow them. The heavy crunch of footsteps follows at a discreet distance. When I get to the woods, though, Garrett shouts something. He sounds angry.

  I turn. “They’re just ducks. I don’t think they’re plotting to kill me!”

  I don’t wait for his response but rather take up a slow jog. I want to catch up to my newfound friends. Wild ducks! If anyone sees them, they’ll be meat, for sure. Me, I just want to see something living, something happy and totally its own being. It’s kind of like if I can watch them, see them waddle around and peck their feathers, maybe hear a few quacks, then my life will be a little less small, a little less closed in. Ahead of me looms a twenty-foot-high boulder, and it’s totally in the way of my view.

  That’s when Garrett breaks protocol. “Please, Miss Balenchuk! This area hasn’t been scouted!”

  I turn and gape at him. He must be really desperate, speaking directly to me like that.

  “I didn’t hear you speak,” I tell him. I give him a teasing smile, and he blinks. I am completely out of character. “I’m just going to go a little farther. I promise. We’ll turn around in a couple minutes.”

  Sgt. Garrett and the new guy pick up their pace, half jogging to catch up to me as I round the side of the boulder and move out of their sight.

  I hear a grunt and then a thud, as though something large has fa
llen.

  I turn back and spot Cpl. Roane on the ground with his eyes wide open, an arrow sticking out of his chest. My muscles freeze, and sweat prickles my underarms as I spot a man the size of Mt. Everest standing over Sgt. Garrett’s lifeless body.

  My breath stutters in my chest, and I open my mouth to scream. That’s when a gloved hand claps over my mouth and an arm anchors me against a solid wall of muscle.

  “Gotcha,” he whispers in my ear.

  My lungs don’t work. That voice—I’d know it anywhere. It’s been four years, but I’d never forget him—the boy who changed my life forever.

  I’m being kidnapped by Talon Heinseman.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I wake up, or at least I come close to it. Wind splinters across my face and whips hair into my eyes. We are moving fast, and the engine is loud. A snowmobile? I’m too out of it to feel anything like fear. We stop, someone presses that cloth over my face again, and everything fades. This happens several times.

  A solid thunk awakens me. I’m lying on the floor in utter darkness, and at first I do nothing. Then memory slams me. I shrink backward—instinct, I suppose. I don’t get very far before something rigid digs into my ankle. I reach down and discover that one foot is cuffed.

  Everything stills—my breath, my heart, my thoughts—and a chill settles in my chest. Oh God.

  I try to remember what happened, how I got here, but my thoughts twist and writhe and it feels like my head is going to explode. Garrett. Is he dead?

  My coat is gone. My shoes, too. I touch my hair, and I find it greasy and limp. It’s been several days, at least. A scream bubbles at the back of my throat, and it’s all I can do to keep it to a whimper.

  Are they going to kill me? I squeeze my eyes shut and take in fluttering breaths. If they were planning to kill me, they’d have done that already. Wouldn’t they?

  My shoulders relax ever so slightly as reason creeps back. I focus hard, and this makes my eyes hurt. I’m glaring into the darkness as though it holds the answers. Shit, I have to think.

  Think.

  Talon Heinseman. The old ache cramps my chest.

  It was the ducks. How stupid could I be? There are no wild animals running around anymore. Not after three solid years of winter. Talon would know I’m a sucker for animals—the smaller, the cuter, the better.

  Because of me, two men are dead. My hands tremble, and a sob escapes my throat. That’s when the door swings open.

  The light of an LED lantern reveals that I am in a space the size of a walk-in closet, only there’s nothing in here but me, a bucket, a blanket, and a plywood-covered window. In less time than it takes to blink, I take in the wrecked remains of a tiny closet to my left. The doors are gone. The rest of the room is paneled. Then my captor raises the lantern, and I see his face. Talon smiles, but his eyes narrow as though he’s looking at something loathsome.

  “He’ll find me,” I say. My core shakes, and I wrap my arms around my knees.

  He raises his chin. “That’s the point.”

  I wince. My dad has exactly one weak spot, and that’s me. That’s why I have bodyguards. That’s why I never leave the approved areas.

  He leans over and sets down a plate. Then he steps back, closes the door, and I’m once again in the dark.

  No-no-no-no-no! I scramble forward, and my right hand lands in peanut butter. I feel around until I find the handle, but of course the knob doesn’t turn.

  I am locked in a closet-sized room with nothing but a bucket and a peanut-butter-covered doorknob. Out there is the guy who’s hated me for years.

  The reality of my situation punches me in the gut, and I collapse against the wall.

  I lie on the floor for hours, ignoring the food, ignoring the muffled voices in the out there. How did I let this happen? Talon Heinseman, of all people.

  I close my eyes and let the memories squeeze through the cracks.

  He’d been several years ahead of me in school. I really didn’t know him that well, although apparently he’d known all about me. His family was trash. His mom was a waitress at the local diner, and his dad had been a coal miner until this big cave-in a few years back. After that his dad started cooking meth, and not very well if you judged by the fact that he still lived in a trailer.

  Talon was never handsome in the traditional sense. He’d always worn this bitter, tough look, though, that made everyone a little afraid of him. I used to go tingly and confused at the sight of him. He’d graduated that past spring and was already helping his dad in the family business.

  I knew his sister better. Misty was a grade behind me, a pretty enough girl but poorly dressed and always so shy. She was continually trying to kiss up to me, to join everything I joined, duplicate the clothes I wore. Creepy, I’d thought then. So freaking annoying, and a real threat to my social standing if anyone got it into their heads that we were friends. Right at the beginning of ninth grade, my friends and I came up with an idea of how to get rid of her for good. We pretended we were having a party and invited her. She was so excited. I cringe now, remembering the tragic shine in her eyes. At the time all I’d felt was an ego-feeding thrill of nastiness. When she’d showed up, we’d lured her to the basement, pelted her with eggs and mustard, and locked her there for the night. She’d cried. She’d begged. She hadn’t stopped until we’d shoved pillows in front of the door and turned the music up high.

  The next morning, we’d told her to get lost and never bother us again. It was a Sunday.

  Shit.

  I knock my head back against the paneling.

  Shit. Shit.

  Just as school let out the following day, my friends and I were hanging outside by the flagpole waiting for our rides to show when Talon pulled up in a bright red Mustang. He killed the motor, slammed the car door, and stalked over, his stare glued on me. The look in his eyes. God.

  That was my last day of high school.

  I squeeze my eyes shut now and pull my knees to my chest. I want to sleep. Anything to drive the memories away.

  I wake to an insistent pressure in my bladder. It takes a moment for me to remember that I am in a strange place with only a bucket to pee in. I don’t want the room to smell of piss—especially mine. Will someone come to carry it away, and if so, who? The thought humiliates me, so I turn to my side and try to will away the need.

  The next time the door opens, Talon takes a look at the uneaten food and raises an eyebrow. “Not good enough for you?”

  I sit up. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  He grins. “See that bucket over there?”

  I flick it a glance, frown, and look away.

  “You’re not daddy’s little princess anymore.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. I haven’t been daddy’s little princess in years. At least, not his willing princess. Our gazes lock, and the longer I stare, the more I see the anger, the determination, the power of him. I’m the first to look away.

  Talon sets an old plastic bottle onto the floor and retrieves the plate.

  The pressure on my bladder increases, and I wonder then if I’ve gone at all while I was unconscious, and if so, if I did it in my pants, or if someone… “Please, Talon. I need to pee.”

  I wish I didn’t sound so pathetic.

  His eyes flare, and I swear he’s enjoying this. He looks me up and down, and I am instantly reminded of how dirty I am, of how I must smell. He gives the bottle a nudge, sending it rolling out of the small circle of light.

  This time when he leaves, I don’t chase after him. I know I’ll find the door locked, and anyway my ankle is bruised and aching where the cuff digs in.

  I squeeze my legs together and try to remember a better time. I can’t. I am thirsty, really thirsty, but drinking anything is unthinkable. It’ll make the problem worse, and as the hours pass, the ache in my bladder gets so bad that I’m afraid to go to sleep. I might have that dream you get where you’re on the toilet peeing. I’m afraid I’ll wake and find it’s not a dream. />
  Does Dad know I’m gone yet? Did someone race out afterward and call him back to town, or did he do his duty and head off General Barry first? It’s a toss which one he’ll choose. The only thing Dad loves more than me is power. I try to imagine him recalling his troops, having them scour the countryside looking for me, but the truth is, I can’t. He’ll protect the mountain first.

  Bluefield always comes first.

  Every time I hear footsteps outside my door or the muffled voices of others, I jump to my feet. But no one comes for me.

  It aches so bad now that every second feels like twenty. If I’m not holding my muscles, pee will shoot out. It is all I can think about.

  When the door finally opens again, Talon takes one look at me, half bent, bracing myself against the wall with one hand. “What the fuck?”

  He sweeps up the bottle of water and strides over.

  “Please,” I say. “I’ll do anything you want. Just let me use the bathroom, okay?”

  Talon dumps the lantern, unscrews the lid on the bottle, and fists the back of my hair.

  When I gasp, he tilts the bottle and begins pouring water down my throat.

  I choke.

  I shove against him, I strain backward, but I can’t move, can’t go anywhere. When I squeeze my lips together and the water spills over my face, Talon stops.

  “You will drink.” He backs me up against the wall, and I discover he is solid muscle. He lets go of my hair only to pinch my nose shut.

  I shake my head back and forth, but it is useless. I think my lungs are going to burst like a balloon. Talon presses harder against me, and that’s when I fail. I open my mouth and wheeze in a deep breath. Instantly water pours down my throat.

  And my bladder lets loose.

  Talon backs up a fraction, enough so he won’t get wet himself. Only when I’ve chugged the entire bottle does he release me.

  “I’m in charge,” he says. “Not you. You want to live? Eat what I give you, drink what I leave you, and do what I tell you. You have to piss? Use the bucket.”