I stared at him blankly. “What do you mean, it was you? That doesn’t make sense. You know where I am.”
The bounty offered ten thousand dollars for verifiable information on my whereabouts. It jumped to twenty-five thousand if successfully captured and returned, unharmed. Many clans were cash poor. I didn’t know of any who could resist an offer like that. Word would spread and soon, even noninfected cities wouldn’t be safe for me. My only hope was to get to Canada, and from there, fly to Europe or some other country.
Noah gazed at me with an inscrutable expression. “How did you know about the bounty? It’s only been posted a few hours.”
I hesitated, debating. In the end, I decided there was no harm in telling him. “I’m a hacker. I know how to access and navigate the dark web.”
Noah pursed his lips. “That’s a handy talent to have.”
Inclining my head, I acknowledged, “It’s saved my hide a time or two, and helped me to stay one step ahead of my father. I thought he’d gotten impatient and upped the ante.” My mother had been the first to teach me computer skills. After several women had escaped, Hiram had locked the computers away, eliminating all contact with the outside world. It was a miracle that she’d been able to get me out.
The lights flickered, and we both glanced at the lamp I’d turned on earlier to combat the shadows.
“We might lose power,” Noah warned. “If we do, the furnace will go. I need to fill the wood boxes.”
“I’ll help,” I said as I stood.
Noah visibly hesitated, as though he might refuse. I would help regardless.
“All right,” he finally agreed. “There are wood boxes in here, in the kitchen, den, and library. You fill the ones on the first level, and I’ll get the ones upstairs.”
Noah paused to slide on his jacket before leading me to the back door. There were cords of wood lining the wall of the porch on either side of the door, waiting to be brought in. Hopefully, nothing else waited with them, like snakes.
I halted by the nearest stack. The angle of the roof and the direction of the wind had kept them relatively dry. Noah continued to the railing, and I paused to see what he was doing. Beyond him and through the trees, the gray of the sea and sky blended together. I hadn’t realized we were literally on the coast.
Noah lifted a piece of material and pinned it in place, forming a wind barrier and blocking the view.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Insulated tarps I use to minimize the amount of wind and snow that blow onto the porch during the winter season,” he said.
As he got each one in place, the wind chill dropped considerably.
I stopped staring like a ninny and began gathering armfuls of wood. Moving quickly, I filled the wood boxes in the downstairs rooms, familiarizing myself with the layout of the house and noting the exits in case I needed to make a quick escape. Since I didn’t have to walk as far, I finished before Noah and wandered into the library.
Books had always held a fascination for me. Perhaps because as a child it had been the one source of entertainment never banned. Print books were rare, but during my travels across the country I’d managed to find and purchase a few for my private collection. The noninfected, with their love of everything digital, mostly read books from their tablets and phones, boasting of how they lessened their carbon footprint and saved the environment.
I strolled along the bookshelves, not really seeing anything. The last few days had been stressful, and I was still trying to deal. I’d almost been caught twice. It had shaken me more than I realized. On some level, I trusted Noah, or I wouldn’t have agreed to come with him. However, the revelation that he’d placed a bounty on my head had rocked me. It didn’t make sense. Being an intelligent woman, I was sure I could puzzle it out.
Coming to a stop near a window, I pushed open the curtain and gazed out. Noah didn’t strike me as a man who did things without a reason. So what reason would he have for posting a bounty? More importantly, what would Hiram’s reaction be to the knowledge that someone else actively hunted me for their own purposes?
At home, everything revolved around Hiram. He was the center, and it was his wants and needs that mattered most. Hiram was the all-knowing, charismatic, self-appointed leader who’d positioned himself and his mercenaries to protect the rest of us from the evils of this world. In Hiram’s mind, my mother and I were his to do with as he pleased. Most women were, but we were his personal property.
I sensed Noah enter the room and turned. He’d taken off his jacket and changed into a button down, long-sleeved plaid shirt in shades of blue. It was a good look for him.
“You want to stay in here or return to the living room as we finish our conversation?” he asked.
That’s another thing I liked about Noah, though I’d never tell him. He didn’t dictate. He asked. He gave options and then waited for me to decide.
“Here is good. I like this room. It’s cozy,” I volunteered.
He studied me with a quizzical expression.
“What?” I said, wary.
“That’s the most information you’ve volunteered since I met you. This room happens to be my favorite, as well. I’ve read every book in here,” Noah said.
Noah was also a reader. That gave us something in common, besides being infected. The men I’d grown up around wouldn’t pick up a book unless it was about weapons or warfare. Noah rose a few notches in my esteem.
Taking off my jacket, I laid it on the floor next to an overstuffed, oversized brown leather chair with a high winged back. I sat and bent over to unlace my boots while Noah built a fire in the fireplace. The house had either a fireplace or a woodstove in each room. From what I could see, the fireplaces had been modified so that more of its warmth was retained in the room. Unlike the original fireplaces of a few centuries ago, which were often drafty.
“You asked why I put a bounty on your head?” Noah said as he settled in the seat next to mine. Both chairs faced the fire and were separated by a small table large enough to hold a reading lamp and a few books.
I stretched out my legs and angled my feet closer to the flames, before drawing them up under me. I’d never been this comfortable with a man. Since my escape from the brutes I’d grown up around, I’d made it a point to stay away from men in general and infected men in particular.
“You did it to get a reaction from Hiram.” I never called him my father. He’d never been father-like in his manner toward me. Before I hit puberty, I was a nuisance to be avoided. After puberty, I hadn’t liked the gleam in his eye when he saw me and had evaded him whenever possible.
Noah gave me a pleased but surprised smile. “The best way to catch a spider is to lure it out of its web. Until now, he’s been the one calling the shots. He spun his webs and waited for you to blunder into one of them and be caught.”
“Now he has competition,” I said.
“Yes.”
I was missing something. “Other than piss him off, I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish.”
“Angry men make mistakes.”
Shaking my head, I drummed my fingers on the armrest as I stared into the fire. “You put a price tag on my head. Every bounty hunter in the country will be hunting me.”
There were unscrupulous people in the world. Even more since the pandemic. It never failed to amaze me. As we recovered from one of the most devastating outbreaks of our century, scammers and charlatans had come out of the woodwork, ready to take what little survivors had left. They offered fake cures and vaccines for a hefty price. Worse were the extremists who considered every infected to be impure and was more than happy to cleanse the world of them. It was in reaction to groups like those that made Hiram so powerful. He’d taken their hate and used it to grow his cult.
Noah reached out and briefly placed his hand on top of mine in a comforting gesture. I froze instantly at the feel of his calloused fingers and a zing traveled up my arm.
“Don’t worry. There’s a method to my madness,” he said.
I let out the breath I’d been holding as he retreated, once more putting distance between us. My reactions to Noah were complicated and confusing. I forced myself to concentrate on the conversation and puzzle out this weird attraction later. “Care to explain to the class?”
He grinned and it lit up his whole face, giving him the look of a mischievous boy. “Cute. I’ll have to remember and use it.” Then he sobered. “I have friends in various parts of the country who will feed the site bogus information. In addition, the description I gave for you was rather generic. The sightings,” he made air quotes with his fingers, “will further dilute and confuse the issue. That should eliminate random strangers hoping to cash in.”
“That takes care of them. How does this eliminate the threat from Hiram?” I asked, still not understanding.
“I’ll seed in a few sightings in areas you might have stopped in Maine, working your way here. Since your father knew your last location, he’ll zero in on those,” Noah said.
“Big deal. He’ll just send his henchmen like he did before,” I argued.
“Not when I post that I’ve caught you and am holding you to collect the bounty,” he said.
“You think he’ll drop everything and come running, hoping to get to me before the unknown person who posted the bounty does,” I speculated.
Noah pointed a finger at me. “Bingo, and when he does, we’ll have him.”
I had my doubts about the successfulness of his plan, but Noah seemed confident. It was better than anything I’d come up with. Short of killing Hiram, my only option had been to run and keep running. If his plan didn’t work, I could always fall back on plan B—Canada.
“I want to help,” I said.
Noah frowned.
“It’s my life. My freedom. I have the necessary skills. Let me help lay a false trail. Who better than I knows my running patterns? I can bounce the signal all over hell and back so that he doesn’t track it to here,” I said.
“Does this mean you’re staying?” Noah asked.
I glanced out the window. “That’s a full-blown blizzard blowing out there. I may be crazy, but I’m not suicidal.”
“Oh.” Was that disappointment I heard in Noah’s voice?
Even as I questioned why I felt the need, I added, “Besides, I promised to let you help. I try to be a woman of my word.”
The smile Noah gave me was blinding.