Chapter 76: Taran
"We'll stop here."
I don't respond to Talon's comment. Just continue to stare out the side window of Grayson's car. I haven't spoken a word to Talon for over a day, since I realized he wasn't going to give me anything. No information to help me figure out where we're going or what's going to happen when we get there. He doesn't seem to care about my lack of conversation. Talks regardless of my response.
"I know a place we can grab some fuel here. We'll stop for the night too, I need to get some sleep."
I'm not surprised by this revelation. We've been driving for more than twenty-four hours and he hasn't had any opportunity to rest. Though he looks tired, he doesn't look much worse for the wear for staying awake that long. Unable to stay awake, I'd drifted in and out of a light slumber while he continued to drive through the night, only stopping long enough to use the fuel reserves in Grayson's trunk before pushing on.
Finally, I unbend enough to ask, "Where is here?"
Talon glances over at me, before turning his gaze back to the road. "She speaks."
I glare straight ahead. "Fine, don't tell me. It's not like it makes a difference anyway."
"True enough," he says. "But to assuage your curiosity, we're heading out to an old pre-Great Fall farmstead. It's out of the way, not easily accessible unless a person knows where it is and the zombies don't bother with it anymore, since it's deserted."
"How do you know where it is, if it's so out of the way?"
He doesn't speak for a long moment and I think he's going to ignore the question, then, "It belonged to my grandfather. Belonged to my family for generations before the Fall."
He had a family. Of course, he did. This shouldn't be shocking, everyone has origins. But somehow, this guy, this Outsider, feels like a lone maverick. Like nothing shaped him but the world we live in and his disdain for it.
"What happened to the farm?" I ask, curiosity getting the better of my desire to stay silent around this deadly man. Before leaving old Canada my family had lived off the land, avoiding the worst of the Great Fall by moving constantly. My family had been farmers for generations, giving them an edge in survival. Or that's what I like to I think, anyway.
"My grandfather and his kin tried to hold out, continue to produce, but irrigation was one of the first things to go, and farmers in this region need water to survive. It was a pointless cause anyway, the Primitives were making their way across the country, toppling cities, infrastructure, farms, everything. A few years after the Fall, most of my family was attacked and driven out of the area, forced to abandon the homestead."
I want to feel nothing, want to continue treating him with disdain, but his story is similar to so many others, similar to mine, it makes him more human. I remind myself that he killed Manuel and fully intended to murder Grayson too. And I'm far from safe. But still, his story should be told, it probably shaped him into the remorseless killer he's become.
"Most of your family?" I ask, picking up on his careful wording. "But not all."
"No," he says shortly.
I can read between the lines. The family members that stayed behind would've died or turned. "I'm sorry."
He gives me a sharp look as we turn off what used to be a major highway and head down a dirt road. Most of the gravel is still intact, shaping a road that's almost better than the cracked and abandoned highways.
"I don't want your sympathy," he says, his voice bland.
"You'll get it anyway," I persist stubbornly. "We all come from somewhere and there's tragedy in all of our backgrounds. You are no better than anyone else, but you are also no less. You're a survivor and that means something."
He watches me, his startling blue eyes tracing over my face, as if really seeing me for the first time. For a moment, I think he'll relent, allow his human side to reach out and touch mine in a moment of shared understanding. Instead, he says, "You're special little Wren. You'll make me a rich man."
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