The Meeting (Emerge)

by Sunseri, Heather

  Twice during the night, I fell asleep in Cricket’s bed only to wake with a start at the image of that monster pinning Nina to the wall. I shuddered anytime I imagined what might have happened if I hadn’t walked by the alley.

  By nine o’clock the next morning, I was wide awake in a chair beside Nina’s bed, watching her sleep. Her shiny, black hair spread across her pillow. Her cheeks and lips had a rose tint to them. And her eyelashes were dark like her hair. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. When she stirred, I decided she would probably want some privacy, so I stood and was about to leave.

  “You’re going?”

  I turned and leaned against the door across the room.

  She pushed herself up to sit in the bed. When she did, she swayed slightly, immediately closing her eyes and raising a hand to the back of her head. “Ow,” she moaned.

  I returned to her side. “Lie back down.” I grabbed her arm and tried to guide her back to her pillow, but she stopped me.

  “Wait. I need a moment.” She swung her feet around to the side of her bed and started to stand. “This is quite embarrassing, but do you mind helping me. I’m a little bit dizzy.”

  I didn’t want her to be embarrassed, but I didn’t know what to say. I decided to go with, “Of course.” I let her grab onto my arm, and I helped her to the bathroom door.

  “I’ve got it from here.” I watched the blush form on her cheeks. “You won’t leave, will you?”

  I only shook my head. Never. I’d probably have agreed to do anything for her at that moment. After she disappeared behind the closed door, I glanced around their room. It was filled with things from their past. They’d grown up here. They were practically sisters. And though I was sure they probably had some sad tales to tell, they seemed happy.

  I pulled a picture from one of the bulletin boards decorated in bright, tropical fabric, crisscrossed with equally colorful ribbon. The bright colors told me that it had to belong to Nina. The picture was of a woman standing in front of a flowering tree. A small girl stood beside her, looking up at the woman.

  “That’s my mother.”

  Nina had exited the bathroom. Her hair was freshly brushed. It was then that I noticed what she’d been wearing the entire night—a black tank top and hot pint and white striped shorts. I glanced down at the picture I was still holding. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop.”

  She walked over and took the picture from me. Her fingers grazed my skin. “It’s okay.” She tucked the picture back in its place behind a piece of ribbon.

  “You still feeling dizzy? You should lie back down.”

  “No, I’m fine. Just a killer headache.” She kept her back to me while she messed with some stuff on her desk. “I was on my way to see you last night when…” Her voice dropped off. I’d do anything to wipe the attack from her memory.

  “Why?” When she didn’t answer, I lifted my palm to run a hand along her arm. Her skin felt warm and smooth against my calloused fingers. “Why were you coming to see me, Nina?” She trembled beneath my touch.

  She turned and stared up at me, her blue eyes searching mine for reassurances I couldn’t possibly give her.

  Or could I? What if Dax and I had been looking for a home all along, only to find one right here? It was possible. For the first time ever, Dax wasn’t demanding to keep moving. And no matter how hard I looked for a reason to move on, I kept finding myself face to face with the creature before me now.

  “Even though I knew you and Dax had decided to stay, I still wanted you to know that I would have been sad to see you go.”

  I traced the two lines that formed between her eyes when she furrowed her brows. “I knew that, but have you ever been kissed?”

  The slight shake of her head was all the invitation I needed.

  I slipped a hand to the small of her back and pressed her body gently to mine. My fingers played with the hem of her tank top, until I felt skin. When her fierce blue eyes found mine, I leaned in slowly and touched my lips lightly to hers, tasting the mint from recently brushed teeth, then pulled back.

  That was when she came alive. The spark in her eyes burst into a full flame, and she threw her arm around my neck, pulling my face back to hers and kissing me hard.

  And it wasn’t enough. The kiss, her taste wasn’t enough. The feel of her body in my hands wasn’t enough. I wasn’t sure it ever would be.

  Nina

  Cricket and I packed a picnic lunch in the settlement’s dining cafeteria. It was the first time we would venture out into the woods since Dax and Dylan had arrived. We didn’t know if we should ask them to go with us or not.

  I didn’t want anything to change between Cricket and me, and this had been our time together—our way of contributing to Boone Blackston. Sometimes we only explored, making sure nothing looked out of the ordinary in the direction of New Caelum—the big, bad city. Sometimes we hunted small game in order to add some much needed protein to our diets.

  “Where are you girls off to?” Dax asked, but only looked at Cricket. My eyes darted between them, smiling when I realized something was happening between them that Cricket hadn’t even come close to admitting to.

  I pointed toward the exit. “I’m just gonna go check on that… thing… I need to check on… Yeah.”

  Cricket cocked her head. “I’m coming with you.” She took a step in my direction, but Dax stepped in front of her.

  “You can fight this, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  I heard Dax’s words as I passed through the door, and I couldn’t help but wonder how long it might take for Dax to break through Cricket’s exterior shell. I’d be willing to bet it would take a long time.

  Outside, I found a bench to sit and wait. It was a cool, crisp early fall day, but the sun shone brightly. I leaned my head back and let the sun warm my face.

  When someone stood over me, shading my face, I opened one eye to find Dylan. He leaned down, stopping just as his face hovered close to mine. “I’ve missed you.” He touched his lips to mine.

  “You saw me this morning at breakfast,” I laughed.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t get to touch you or act like I liked you in any way, since you’ve managed to still keep our kissing relationship from your father.”

  This was true. I hadn’t been the least bit terrified of starting something with Dylan, but telling my father just seemed… trickier.

  “Stop being an idiot, Cricket!” Dax yelled as they exited the building.

  Dylan and I turned to watch Cricket marching toward us, Dax on her heels.

  “I don’t want you going with us.” Cricket smiled at me. “You ready?”

  “Where are you going?” Dylan moved to stand between me and Cricket.

  “Oh, brother,” Cricket breathed.

  “Cricket and I are going exploring. We might camp.”

  “What? Why would you go without us?” Dylan grabbed my shoulders.

  “Exactly,” Dax said.

  “Here we go.” Cricket paced. “We save your ass from dying, and now you think you get to tag along every where we go?”

  “Why can’t you just admit that it’s safer for Dylan and me to go with you?” Dax sat on the bench. He knew he had numbers on his side now.

  “Were you even going to tell me you were heading off into he forest? You know creepers hang out in the woods.”

  I laughed. “You mean, like you two?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re the first two people we’ve run into in over a year.” I crossed my arms.

  “But we could have killed you.”

  I leaned around Dylan to eye Cricket.

  When we made eye contact, she squeezed the bridge of her nose and threw her head back, looking up at the sky. “Not you, too!”

  “It could be fun,” I said.

  She looked from me to Dylan and finally to Dax. “Fine. But you better not slow us down with that stupid leg of yours.”

  Dax smiled. “I think you’re falling for m
e, princess.”

  I slid my hand into Dylan’s and squeezed as I stared at my best friend. Our world had been virus free for four years, but this was the first time I could remember that I had felt true joy and like I belonged somewhere.

  Keep Reading for an Excerpt from Emerge

  Thank you for reading this short story. This is just a tiny glimpse into the Emerge world—a world destroyed by a deadly virus years ago. Keep reading for a sneak peek into the first three chapters of Emerge.

  Emerge - Book Description

  Six years ago, a highly contagious virus wiped out more than ninety-nine percent of the country’s population. The only person to contract the virus and survive, Cricket fled her identity and the safety of New Caelum, an airtight city. Now eighteen, she watches the city where the wealthy cocooned from the devastating outbreak. When the city’s rumbling incinerator wakes her one night while she and her friends are camping just beyond the city walls, she alone knows what the fiery machine means: the lethal virus is back.

  Only eighteen, Westlin Layne is already being groomed to succeed his mother as New Caelum’s next president. Suddenly West’s sister develops symptoms of the deadly virus thought to be eradicated years ago. Placed under quarantine, the president confesses to West a long-held secret: Christina Black, West’s childhood friend and first love, survived the virus, and her body alone holds the precious antibodies to save his sister.

  Now West must leave the city to find Christina. But Cricket has no intention of being found.

  EMERGE

  Chapter One

  Cricket

  Life first began to disintegrate, for me anyway, on the day the president of New Caelum suspended all travel in and out of the United States, thereby closing off the last bit of hope that my parents would ever return to me.

  I developed a fever two days later.

  Three weeks after that, I became the first and only person out of millions to survive the disease that decimated the population.

  I ran from the president, all of her people, and the city that should have kept me safe.

  Not to be heard from again.

  I was twelve.

  ~~~~~

  The sound of the incinerator jolted me from sleep. It took little more than a second for the low rumble of the machine to register in my brain, and it took less than a millisecond after that for me to register what the sound meant.

  I nudged Dax. “There it is again. That’s three nights in a row.” I quickly threw dirt over the remaining ashes of the campfire.

  “Shit, Cricket. They’re just burning trash.” Dax was tucked in the sleeping bag next to mine, his arm bent over his head trying to drown out any and everything that might disturb him from a few hours of sleep. “Get some sleep.” He rolled over and burrowed his head further under the covers.

  Nina rose on her elbows across the fire pit that had now been reduced to nothing more than a pile of charred logs and a thick ribbon of smoke. She shook her head. “It’s going to get cold quickly.” She lay back down and closed her eyes.

  At least no one would track us by the smoke of a burning fire. I pushed back my covers and began pulling on my boots, not bothering with the laces. “I know. I’m sorry.” Nina Snow deserved better than the paranoid, crazy person she got for a best friend.

  She snuggled in closer to Dylan, who had zipped a couple of sleeping bags together for the two of them to share—the power of body heat and all. Dylan was Dax’s identical twin brother, and the nicer of the two siblings.

  It had gotten colder the last few days. Dylan, Dax, Nina, and I had been making plans to move south soon. To explore, maybe. Search for other settlements. Or, at the very least, discover that there were no other settlements in the southeast, forcing us once and for all to remain at Boone Blackston, the settlement I’d called home off and on for six years.

  Grabbing my thin jacket—much too lightweight for the weather moving in—I stood to witness the smoke billowing from the twin towers in the distance. Puffs of white, like clouds, rose from the sleek steel smokestacks of the incinerator and glowed against the midnight blue sky. I stared at the disappearing shapes, remembering how my mom and I once lay on a blanket in the middle of the park, identifying animals in the cloud formations.

  Giving my head a quick shake at the memory, I secured a sheath to my leg, allowing my cargo pants to cover the knife.

  “Where are you going?” Dax grabbed my forearm. I hadn’t even heard him rise.

  I let my line of sight drift from the distant smoke, down my arm, to Dax’s fingers as they slowly traced a direct path to my hand, linking with mine. “I’m just going to get a little closer. I’ll be back before morning. You don’t need to come.”

  “You think I’m just going to let you wander off toward that place? Alone?”

  I rotated my shoulders back and took a step closer to him. “You don’t have a choice. I don’t want you to come. I’ll check it out on my own, and I’ll be back before you’re even awake.”

  “When are you going to stop trying to save everyone?”

  “As soon as everyone’s saved, I guess.” I met his stare. I knew my face remained expressionless, whereas Dax’s chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, his nostrils flared, and his cheeks burned red. And that had nothing to do with the campfire I had just extinguished.

  “Fine. Have it your way. But when you get yourself captured by the goons behind those walls,” he pointed toward the city in the distance, “don’t expect me to save your ass.”

  I bit my lower lip for a second, pretending to consider what Dax was saying, then answered, “I understand.”

  I turned and began making my way closer to the city of New Caelum. I didn’t expect Dax, or anyone else, to “save my ass.” If what I suspected was happening inside those incinerators was actually occurring? I’d be the one doing the saving.

  Chapter Two

  West

  The virus was gone from our world. That’s what the experts inside New Caelum thought. Everyone who’d contracted the illness all those years ago had died. Everyone but one.

  A girl.

  Only one person knew the identity of this girl. I didn’t even know her name.

  I knew she would have been protected though, just like I was, inside this city.

  But she ran away.

  ~~~~~

  The alarm sounded on a Thursday night. And not just any Thursday night—the eve of the election that would decide the fate of my family going forward. Would my mother remain president of the city, or would the council decide that the citizens of New Caelum needed a new leader?

  If Mother lost, we’d have to move from the private wing at the top of the city to a lower level with other people in our social class.

  I knew that the alarms that sounded now were not part of a drill. If this were a drill, then as a member of leadership, I’d have been notified on my PulsePoint. I lifted the device from my waist. No messages.

  Medics dressed in red hazmat suits jogged past me like trained military. They were headed straight for the leadership residence wing—my home.

  Ryder, my best friend since we were two years old, rounded the corner, followed closely by Key, his girlfriend. They stopped in front of me.

  “Where are they going?” Ryder proudly wore charcoal gray and black—the colors of government—a societal promotion that meant he would serve the city’s leaders and eventually be eligible to hold an elected position.

  Key bent over at the waist, attempting to catch her breath. Her pale blue lab coat covered her royal blue pantsuit, both colors carrying significant meaning. The pale blue told everyone she was of age and chosen for the medical profession within New Caelum. She’d keep the pale blue forever, a respectable color in its own right, or she would graduate to white when she became a doctor.

  What the royal blue signified was arguably of much greater importance.

  I touched her arm, prompting her to look up at me. “You’ve been matched? You’re wearing royal blue.�
�

  She smiled, then traded an uneasy glance with Ryder. “You didn’t tell him? Come on, Ryder!” She lightly punched him in the shoulder, causing him to stumble. “Must I do everything?”

  Ryder sidled up to Key and threw his arm around her. “Dude. If you’d check your messages? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you since late last night.”

  I pulled them both into a hug, rubbing Ryder’s black curly hair and doing my level best to mess it up. “What am I going to do with you two? That’s fantastic.”

  He pulled away. “Stop it, man. She hasn’t married me yet. I might still need my good looks.”

  Key rolled her eyes.

  My smile faded and turned more severe. “What do you know about the medics?” I asked Key. “Is it a drill? I didn’t get word of any drill.”

  “I don’t know,” Key answered. “I don’t think so. I was working in the lab when the call came in. The senior medics dropped everything and convened in the emergency lab next door. I heard them say ‘Code 51.’”

  I grabbed Key by her arms and forced her to face me. “Are you sure?”

  She tried to wriggle from my hold. “Chill out, West. You’re hurting me.”

  “Just tell me. Is that what they said? Code 51?”

  Ryder stepped between us and shoved me backward. “Get off her, man. What is with you?”

  Key’s eyes remained fixed on mine. “Yes, I’m sure. Why? What does that mean?”

  I stood tall and faced them both. “I want you both to listen to me very closely. Turn around and go back to your daily tasks. Key, go back to the lab. Pretend you never left the medical sector. Neither of you are to tell anyone you’ve seen me or been in the leadership wing today. Okay?”

  “What is it?” Ryder asked.

  “Code 51 means Bad Sam is back.”

  Key gasped. “And if they’re running toward the leadership wing—”