by Katie French
The kiss is a riptide, pullin’ me out into deep water. The softness of her lips, the wetness of her mouth drowns me. When she opens her mouth and pulls me closer, I taste her. I groan and wrap my hand around the back of her neck. I kiss her chin, her throat, her collarbone. Mouth and tongue. Lips and hands. There’s never been such longin’. Such want. She’s here. She’s real.
“Clay,” she asks, still grippin’ the sides of my face, “where’s Ethan?”
I smile. “He’s okay. He’s just outside.”
Relief floods her face. “You took care of him. I knew you would. I can’t believe I’ve found you.”
I pull her to me, nestle my face into her neck, and smell her scent. “I won’t let anything separate us again.”
I expect her to agree, to pull me in, but instead, she goes rigid in my arms.
“Riley,” I say, nuzzlin’ my nose under her earlobe. “It’s so good to have you back.”
“Clay.” Her voice is strained. Like she’s hurt.
I pull back, a dread comin’ over me.
She looks down at her abdomen. When I see the blood, I still can’t believe my eyes. A blade tip has appeared through the skin of her stomach.
“What—?” I don’t understand. I whip my head up.
From the far corner, an old woman lets out a scream. “What have you done?”
Holding Riley, I look behind her. Hank stands at her back with his hand on a knife buried to the hilt in her flesh.
He was the sound I heard in the entryway. The presence I felt, but didn’t check out. He followed me here.
And he found the one thing I care about most in the world.
She falls on me, boneless. I catch her, easing her to the ground.
Jesus, no. How can this be happening?
The old woman comes in the far door and screams. “Oh, God. Riley!”
My eyes travel up to the figure slowly backin’ toward the door on this side, blood on his hands.
“Hank!” I start toward him, but Riley is in my arms.
The coward bolts out the door.
I’m gonna kill him.
I lay Riley on her side, careful with the knife. Oh Christ. The old woman grabs blankets, using one to cover Riley. “What can I do?” I ask, feelin’ helpless.
The old woman with the eye patch looks up at me. “You can kill the son of a bitch who did this.”
“I can’t leave her.”
“I have her.” She grips my arm harder than I’d have thought possible. “Make sure that bastard doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
My heart poundin’, I stand up. Red splashes across my vision until all I can hear is the awful thud of my heart. All I can see is Hank.
Hank.
His impish face was plastered with glee when he stabbed her. He followed me, thinkin’ he’d take me on, but saw his chance and went after Riley instead. Coward.
I run, slammin’ into the door. It thwacks open, hittin’ the back wall with a thud. In the dead silence of the compound, I hear him runnin’ and am on him in under a minute. He looks over his shoulder, sees me, and picks up the pace.
He looks like a devil in this red light.
And devils belong in hell.
I sprint, my gun in my hand. But shootin’ him in the back would be too quick. The bastard deserves somethin’ slow. I run until I’m right behind, raise the gun, and smash it down on his skull.
He goes flyin’ headfirst to the floor and rolls before comin’ to a stop with his legs splayed up against the hallway wall. Blood gushes from the top of his head, wettin’ his already-dark hair. I stand over him and aim at his ugly face.
“No, Clay. No!” he squeals, blinkin’ blood out of his eyes. He holds his hands up, squirmin’.
“Beg for your life,” I say, thumbin’ down the safety.
“Please, please. Don’t kill me. Mike is all I have. You were gonna take him. But you can have the job. I’ll leave. We’ll find Mike. He’ll reward you. He’s here somewhere—”
“Mike’s dead.”
He squeals like a piglet bein’ torn from his mother. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Okay, okay. I have money. Back at home. If you let me go, I’ll take you there.”
“You think I care about money?” I say.
“She’s probably not dead yet. You should go back and help her.”
I grit my teeth. “Not dead yet, you son of a bitch! Yet!”
“She’s not dead! Not dead!” He pinches his ugly face and covers his head.
“What do you care about, Hank?” I ask through my teeth. “Tell me so I can take it from you.”
Hank squints at me as blood runs from the cut into his eye. “I… I… cared about Mike. He’s dead, so we’re even, right?”
“You care only about yourself,” I say coldly, and then I pull the trigger.
The shot is clean, right to the heart. Hank lurches once and is gone before the blood begins to seep through his shirt. Too clean of an endin’ for such a vile thing. But I ain’t got time.
With the gun still smokin’, I turn and run back for Riley.
Chapter 34
Clay
I sprint like mad and get back to the dorm in seconds. I plow through the door and run to where she lies on the floor with the old woman hovering over her. Riley’s eyes are closed. Her face is pale.
I kneel down and inspect the wound, then the woman who’s applyin’ pressure to it. “How is she?”
The old woman looks half-crazy with her eye patch and ash all over her lined face. Still, she answers me kindly. “She needs help, Clay. Find Corra.”
“Who’s Corra?” I look around the room, but it’s empty. “Where is she?”
“Riley went off with her a few minutes ago. She can’t be far.” She puts an old hand on my arm. It’s stained with Riley’s blood. “Hurry.”
I jump up and run back out the door. “Corra! Corra, Riley needs your help!”
Footsteps thud in my direction. I raise my gun as a woman… no, a bender, comes into view. The same bender who spotted me before the bomb went off. She skids to a stop and stares into my face. “You!”
I hold my hands out. “No, listen. I didn’t mean—”
She rushes forward and tries to punch me in the face.
I duck just enough for her knuckles to graze the side of my jaw and clip my ear. Grabbin’ her arms, I pin her body to mine.
“Let me go, you bastard!” She wrestles against me. “You killed my friends.”
“Please,” I say, holdin’ her tight. “I did it because Mike made me. I didn’t know who I’d be hurtin’.”
She kicks back with one leg and smashes her boot heel into my shin, but I still hang on. “You blew up a dome of people. You had to know you’d be hurting someone!”
“I did. I do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The wetness on my cheeks surprises me. Am I crying? If my pa saw me cryin’, he’d punch me in the stomach to give me somethin’ to cry about. Still, hot tears run down my cheeks, and I can’t wipe ’em away.
“Please. You have to help Riley. She’s been stabbed. I can’t…” The words trail off. I can’t even speak.
Corra turns around and peers at my face. “Did you say Riley?”
“Please,” I repeat. I let go of her arms. This time, she doesn’t try to punch me.
Corra straightens her shirt. “Lead the way.”
Chapter 35
Riley
Darkness. The humming of a machine. My body. Pain.
I lurch upright, my eyes snapping open. Panicked, I stare around the candlelit room. The space is small, sparse, and cold. Glancing down, I see a white sheet with my body’s outline beneath it. When I whip the sheet back, my legs appear, covered by a fraying hospital gown. I locate the pain in my lower abdomen, both front and back. When I pull the gown up, I find a clean white bandage circling my body just below my belly button.
I was stabbed. That… boy stabbed me.
A noise.
I see someone hidden by shadow slump
ed over in a metal chair in the room’s corner.
Clay.
He looks exhausted. His chin rests on his chest, rising and falling with his breaths. There’s dried blood on his torn shirt and more in his hair. But, oh God, the sight of him makes me want to leap out of the bed and jump into his lap. Is he really here? Is he really back?
I slip out of the bed, the pain shooting out in all directions from my stab wound, but I pay it no mind. Walking the few steps to his chair, I lean down, taking in his face—the perfect lines of his jaw, the gentle slope of his noise, and the way his top lip forms a delicate M. Carefully, I trace my fingers down his cheek, feeling each rise of stubble against my fingertips.
He stirs. Eyelids flutter. When he sees me, he smiles, and my heart jumps into my throat.
“You’re awake,” he whispers.
I sit ginergly on his lap.
Big arms encircle me. He uses one hand to rub up and down my back while the other cups my hip. I put my face down and inhale the smell of his hair.
“I keep thinking this is a dream,” I whisper.
“Me, too.”
“But you’re real.”
“I’m real.” His thumb runs circles around my back.
“All this time, I really thought…” The words catch in my throat. “So many weeks. I thought you were”
“Dead,” he says. “Sometimes, I thought I was gonna be dead, too. But here I am.” He leans his head back and looks up at me. “And here you are.”
I lean my face down until our lips meet. The kiss is sweet, the gentle press of flesh on flesh. Then it builds. His mouth opens with mine. I grip his shoulder and run a hand down his chest as his hand moves up my thigh. My heart pounds as I repeat the words in my head over and over.
He’s real. He’s real. He’s real.
When the door creaks open, we pull apart. Corra stands in the doorway, smirking.
“That’s hot,” she says, eying us. “But this patient still needs her rest. No heavy petting until she’s fully recovered.” She shakes a naughty finger at Clay.
He blushes, moving his hand off my leg. “Sorry, Doc.”
I gasp. “Doc! Is he back yet?”
Corra nods. “Came in the night you were hurt. He was a huge help.”
I get off Clay, walk over, and sit on the bed. “How long until I’m healed?”
Corra lifts up my gown and examines my bandages front and back. “The blade missed most vital organs. It nicked part of your lower intestine, which I repaired surgically. The uterus got the worst of it.”
I touch the bandage. “What’s a uterus?”
Corra’s expression clouds. “It’s the part of a woman that houses a baby while it’s growing.” She looks down at my stomach and then back at my face. “I’m sorry, Riley.”
I stare at Corra for quite some time as my brain takes this in. Her face says it all. I was pregnant. My baby. Clay’s baby.
“It’s gone?” I ask Corra.
She nods, her eyes sad.
I can’t speak.
Clay stands up, putting a hand on my shoulder. “So Riley can’t have children,” he says. “That’s probably a good thing. Means the Breeders won’t want her.” He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “But I still do.”
I take his hand, but I can’t look at him. He never knew I was pregnant. He doesn’t know what we lost.
“It’s a good thing,” I mutter. I stare at the blanket for a long time. Finally, I say, “I’m tired. Can I be alone for a while?”
Corra backs out of the room. Clay leans down and kisses my cheek. “You’re gonna be okay.” He tucks the blanket around me.
“Thanks,” I mouth.
I don’t allow myself to cry until I know he’s gone.
Chapter 36
Riley
I hug Ethan until he begs for mercy.
“You’re smushing my head!” he yells from beneath my bear hug.
“I’ll smush it forever,” I say. Tears of joy stream down my face as my baby brother tries to pry himself from my grip.
When he pops free, he staggers back from my bed and smoothes his hair out of his eyes.
“You look older,” I say. “What’re you, like, twelve now?”
“It was just a couple of months, dummy,” he says, smiling. “I’m still nine.”
“You look older than nine.” I gesture for him to come closer. He settles for standing by my little hospital bed and letting me hold his hand. In the flickering candlelight, he really does look older. His face has thinned out a little and his jaw looks sharper. Or maybe I’m just remembering him as the chubby baby I carried around the yard. Either way, I want to keep holding him. And he keeps slipping away.
He looks down at my hospital gown. “You gonna be okay? Auntie says you are, and I know she won’t lie.”
“She won’t lie,” I repeat. “We should be able to hit the road in a couple of days. Any sign of Mike’s men or the Breeders?”
Ethan shakes his head. “Corra’s been posting a watch. I took a turn.” He puffs up his chest. “There’s been nobody.”
“Good. And she’s still willing to give us a solar car?”
He nods. “That’s what Clay says.”
I squeeze his hand. “Thanks for taking care of Clay.”
His smile is shy. “He kinda took care of me.”
“I know you took care of him, too. He didn’t remember anything.”
Ethan frowns. “Still doesn’t. He calls me Cole a lot.”
I hide my worry behind a smile. “Corra says memory is a funny thing. It comes and goes. But she thinks it’ll all come back with time.” What I don’t tell him is Corra thinks that Nessa could’ve done permanent damage to Clay’s brain. Damage she can’t fix. I push the thought away. I can’t deal with that right now.
“Haven’t seen Doc much lately,” I say. “How’s he?”
Ethan smiles. “I like him. He calls me chief. Let me help him fix up the busted Jeep.”
I nod. I wondered how it would be when Clay got back. He must be dealing with it by not dealing with it.
“What about Betsy?” Ethan asks. “She says she wants to see you.”
I sit back on my pillows and sigh. “Why would she want to see me? From everything Clay tells me, she’s wanted me dead for a long time.”
Ethan shrugs, tossing long hair out of his eyes. “I think she’s kinda sorry. Miss Nessa messed with her brain, too.”
“She was never right in the first place.”
Ethan picks at the little lint balls on my blanket. “What are we gonna do with her?”
“I think she should stay here. Corra needs help with the place.”
“And with Peanut,” Ethan says. “Betsy’s been helping Corra take care of her.”
I flinch at mention of the baby. “How is Peanut?”
“She’s weird,” Ethan says, wrinkling up his nose. “She’s, like, part monkey and part human.”
“More human than you’d think.”
He shakes his head. “She threw poop at me. I’d say more monkey.”
I bite my lip and say no more. “How’s Auntie?”
“Fine,” he says. “Ready to leave.”
“Me, too.” I stare at a sputtering candle, watching as the wax leaves its hot puddle and runs down the candlestick, growing firmer, more solid the farther it gets from the flame. “We need to get the hell away from here. Get us somewhere safe.”
“Where’s that?” Ethan asks.
I continue to stare at the wax. “Far, far, away.”
I tighten the straps on the backpack, careful with the contents, and walk out into the sunshine. On the pad outside the compound’s main entrance sits the solar car Corra promised us, along with our Jeep that Clay and Doc pieced back together. Even with two cars, it’s gonna be tight with the six of us, so we’ve been forced to pack light, just the barest necessities like guns, ammo, water, and medicine. Corra has been more than generous.
In the end, Corra only found two of her
men alive in the compound. The three of them plan to continue their genetic research as best they can. And she didn’t take me up on keeping Betsy. A few days of her whining, and Corra said I was stuck with her. And, crazy as she is, how can I leave behind a girl who gave up her brain to save me? I know that Nessa used her as an experiment because Betsy helped me at the hospital. I can’t leave her to die.
From here, I can see Doc’s frown. He’s sitting in the driver’s side of the Jeep next to chatterbox Betsy. He’s the only one she hasn’t conspired to help kill besides Auntie, and she can’t stand her. Doc is patient and kind, but he rolls his eyes at me as she runs her mouth non-stop. I’m gonna owe him big time.
Clay walks out of the entrance’s open concrete doors, followed by Corra and her two comrades, the one Auntie calls Pudgy and another named Burroughs. They’ve all come to see us off.
Clay walks to me, running a hand down my arm. “You ready?”
I nod. “Seems like we’re always driving out of somewhere like this.”
“Are we? Can’t remember.” He smirks. It’s a joke we have. Our way of dealing with something so huge that if we stared it in the face, it would crush us. “Want me to drive?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m gonna have my hands full.”
He glances at the solar car and the three people in the back seat. “Keeping all them in line is a big job. You sure you’re up for it?”
I grip the straps of my pack, holding it tight. “I take care of my own.”
He smiles, gives me a peck. I hand him my pack. “Take this to the car for me. And be careful with it; it’s got precious cargo.”
He looks at it, frowning. “What?”
“Guns. Ammo. You know. Delicates.”
He takes it without asking any more questions, one more thing I love about him.
Thank God he’s back.
Corra strides out, her men flanking her. They nod at me, friendly but reserved. They don’t know us and are probably sad to see one of their precious solar cars go. But Corra has kept her end of the bargain. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.
