Tithe by Claire Vale

Author:Claire Vale [Vale, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-13T22:00:00+00:00

18

THE MINES ARE AS bleak and unappealing as I always imagined. If there’s a bustling village nearby, we must have missed it while blinded by canvas in the back of the jeep.

We’re deposited in a dusty camp of tin shanties and clapboard units, the main thoroughfare a rutted, unpaved road. The rise and fall of undulating hills surround us, nothing spectacular, not much more than mounds covered in rocky sand and weeds and eroded by excavated gashes.

Five guards emerge from a unit to take possession of us. I can’t help but notice the batons hanging at their thighs, the tough exteriors of brawn and attitude. One has black ink spiraling up his neck. They’re like a whole other species from the ones I’m more familiar with.

Heedless to the grim faces of our new guards, Gabe rushes to my side, pulling me into his arms for a quick hug and an even quicker peck on my forehead. “Hey, you.”

“Hey.” I smile, turning out of his hug but not yet ready to let go. My hand links into his.

One of the guards, the beefy one with his head shaved and muscle where his throat should be, drills a look into me as he greets us, “Welcome to camp hell.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes at his lack of creativity.

“Over there…” He points to a clapboard that hasn’t weathered the last hundred or so seasons very well. “That’s the mess. The breakfast gong goes off in ten minutes—make that the end of breakfast gong. When you hear it, you stop eating, you stop chewing, you spit out whatever’s in your mouth. Do you understand?”

We all eye each other. Chris and Kadin take a step forward, starting toward the mess.

“Did I release you?” the muscle-throated guard barks, stopping them dead in their tracks. “You don’t move without my say-so. You don’t speak unless asked a direct question. When I ask a question, you nod your damn heads because the answer is never no.”

The other four guards hang back, but they look ready to intervene if and when required.

“Now, where was I…? Ah, yes, when you hear the breakfast gong, you stop chewing, you spit out whatever’s in your mouth. Do you understand?” He waits for our heads to nod, his cruel eyes picking over us, coming to a hard landing on where my hand is linked in Gabe’s. “Time is ticking, I know, I know, but let me repeat it for the benefit of our lovebirds here. All that passion rushing through your blood, makes it hard to hear, don’t it?”

He starts from the beginning, word for word except now the breakfast gong is going off in eight minutes. About halfway through, I get the message and move apart from Gabe.

Once muscle-throat finally releases us, we scramble for the decrepit mess like we’re starved animals. I’m not the least bit hungry, but I have a feeling my body’s going to need the fuel.

The ‘mess’ is an empty shell with a long table that holds some wicker baskets and tin canteens, and we’re not alone in there.

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