Red Queen Read Online Free Page A

but my father had ever thought it would come to serve its purpose.
    Denny stood down the end of the cabin with her hands on her knees and vomited in the dirt. I walked to the end of the veranda and stood beside Rohan; we looked down at her, guns across our bodies and legs parted, with matching deadpan expressions as she retched and spat. Rohan was probably thinking of the wasted food.
    I hated moments like these, when the changes were caught in one shocking still frame, sickening and thrilling all at once. I realised that I’d become resigned to all the defective moments two brothers might create alone in a cabin in the bush, but now Denny had arrived she’d torn something open. And, like a boy, I ached in my chest for some kind of tenderness, words or a touch to tell me it would be all right; odd how I got the impression Denny didn’t need or want softness, yet I did.
    Rohan called the chooks as she straightened; they came in a flapping rush, their feet thumping in the dust. She stepped back to give them room to fight over her vomit.

    ‘You came over from the top, right?’
    I’d given up my chair in front of the fire to Denny; she sat to one side of it, leaning away from us with one elbow on the armrest, her knees tight together and her hands clasped as if they were cold. Rohan stood beside me, in front of the fire, blocking most of the heat.
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘How did you know we were here?’
    She looked confused.
    ‘How did you know the cabin was here?’
    ‘I saw you fishing along the river.’
    ‘You followed me.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You were alone at the farmhouse?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Rohan rubbed a hand under his chin. ‘This is gunna take a while if you’re stuck on these one-word responses. How about you talk, and I’ll tell you when to stop?’
    She nodded, but vaguely. Rohan sat down opposite her and leaned forward on his knees. ‘How did you get up here? Where did you come from – did you come over Mount Tassie, or from the coast? Did you drive or walk?’
    ‘I did … um … both.’
    ‘What’s both?’
    ‘I drove until the fuel ran out, and then I walked.’
    She put a hand to her throat and swallowed. She made a soft humming noise, or a sigh, and looked over Rohan with sudden interest, as if just noticing him. She studied his arms and his legs, down to his boots. After some time of this she turned her attention to me. I couldn’t look at her like Rohan had while she surveyed every bit of me. Rohan lifted his gaze impatiently to the ceiling, and we waited out her settling in, or reconnection, or whatever it was she was doing.
    ‘There are things I want to go and get,’ she said, and closed herself in again.
    Rohan shook his head. ‘You don’t leave here now. The yard is as far as you go. I’m the only one who goes out, and I’m not going anywhere near the farmhouse.’
    ‘But I have shoes and clothes. I have to —’
    ‘No.’
    Her eyes widened and her face changed – it opened up, and I saw that this was her. I could properly see her small nose and well-spaced dark-brown eyes, and that her skin was fine-pored but quite thick, smooth over her bones. Her teeth were wide and white. It was hard to say why the overall effect of her broad face and shoulders, strong limbs, and hacked-off hair should be strikingly feminine. But it was.
    ‘I have things I’ve got to get,’ she said.
    ‘No,’ Rohan said.
    ‘Things you could use —’
    ‘No.’
    ‘But I would just go once.’
    ‘You don’t leave. It’s a rule. Get used to them.’ Rohan stared at her. ‘What was happening when you left?’ he asked. ‘We’ve been here almost eight months. No radio. Nothing.’
    ‘You mean overseas?’
    ‘Local, anywhere; we left after the city lockdown.’
    She frowned. ‘Well … everyone’s very scattered. Any large metropolitan area is deserted. I think it’s like that all over, it’s hard to say. From what I heard the worst of it is in the cities – not just because of the virus,