by Liahona West
“I called called him an ass pastry.”
As Bannack looked at him, he saw a smile grow on Luke’s face.
“Ooh,” Sibyl said under her breath. “I need to remember that one.”
Luke gave a command to his dog in an unfamiliar language, then removed his hood to reveal a younger man, his lips tight, with shoulder length black hair. In the dark of the night, it was difficult to see his eyes. Bannack’s stomach knotted up. Sibyl seemed to know Luke well enough, but without being able to read his face, Bannack didn’t know if he could trust the man. Eloise’s life was too precious.
“Have a plan?” Bannack asked, speaking under his breath while he eyed Luke. The rain made him shiver. Sibyl shook, too. They all needed warmth.
Sibyl nodded. “Of course. We go with him. He can be trusted, even if he is beyond annoying.”
Luke huffed through his short beard. “You guys look like shit.” Luke lifted his hood and adjusted a rope onto his shoulder, a mass of something attached to it. “Mom would murder me if I didn’t help family. So, you should follow me.”
“Family?”
“Yeah.” Luke nodded in Eloise’s direction. “Eloise’s adoptive parent is my aunt.”
Bannack blinked, surprised by the connection.
Luke stalked off.
Bannack caught up to Sibyl as they followed him through the brush. “You know each other well, then?”
“I wouldn’t say well, but yes. I’ve traded with his father many times, but mostly he keeps himself scarce. You know Luke’s basically royalty, right? His mom’s the Rhondian clan leader.”
“No.” Bannack watched Luke’s back. Unshaven, tattered cloak, primitive hunting weapons. Nothing about him signaled his status.
“He doesn’t flaunt it, but he is. Between you and me,” Sibyl’s voice quieted, “I don’t think he even wants it.”
“Hmm.” Bannack contemplated the information for a moment. “A royal who doesn’t want to be royal. When have we heard that one?”
Sibyl’s eyes brightened. “I know, right? It’s like a living, breathing fantasy trope.”
Eloise moaned, falling into another coughing fit.
***
Inside a grove of hanging branches sat a cabin. The roof, covered by moss, curved low on one side and leaned so much that Luke had to slam his shoulder against the door to get it to open.
The dog burst through nearly knocking Bannack over in his rush.
Luke lifted the bundle he had been carrying since they ran into him. Rabbits. He attached them to a hook screwed into a support beam in the corner.
Sibyl stopped at the cabin entrance. “Oh,” she blurted, her hand on her mouth. “Don’t tell me you’re going to skin them in here!”
Luke glanced sideways at her and flicked the sheath of his blade across the room. “I remember you’ve skinned a deer with no problems.”
“Those poor bunnies.” A slight smile made Sibyl’s lips twitch, her eyes twinkle, and Bannack realized she was joking.
“What would you have me eat instead, Sibyl? Dandelion leaves? Or maybe,” Luke wiggled the knife in the air, “I’ll hop around the forest dressed in a bunny fur coat, sprinkling rabbit meat everywhere like a flower girl at a wedding and hope the air fills my belly.”
“You’re so morbid,” Sibyl snorted. “It’s disgusting.”
They bantered playfully in the background as Bannack laid Eloise on an open cot covered in animal furs. Her wet hair flopped over the edge.
Eloise’s teeth clattered, and she groaned out a single word. “Fire.”
He wiped her hair from her eyes. “Your clothes are destroyed, Eloise. I need to remove them.”
She nodded, her eyes closed.
Several thick blankets dropped beside him and his eyes followed Sibyl as she handed him a knife and began piling dry wood together.
“Why have the nanites not done anything yet?” Bannack aimed his question at Sibyl, doing his best to keep Eloise covered while cutting the rags from her body.
Her injuries were still raw. In the few times he witnessed the nanites healing properties, he had observed rapid healing. There should at least be new skin growing around the edges, but he saw no signs of healing.
“I have seen them work faster than this before.”
Sibyl shrugged. “As far as I know, Joy’s the only person to have achieved working nanites of this precision. There could be a number of reasons why they aren’t working faster. Maybe they don’t like water? I have no idea.”
“Luke,” Bannack asked, “where do you keep your first aid and clothes?”
Without a word, Luke pointed at a chest underneath the only window and as Bannack rummaged through the chest Luke directed him to, he heard sobbing. He turned.
Eloise was sitting up and staring at her hand. “It’s not working. And it hurts!”
The scream yanked on Bannack, and he launched to his feet involuntarily. He snagged the bandages in his rush to her side and knelt down in front of her. The contortion of her face frightened him.
“My hand…” She gripped her wrist and shook so violently, Bannack thought for a moment she was seizing. “It’s numb and it burns. And where’s pieces of my skin?”
“Shh…” Bannack lifted her face to his, trying to remain calm as terror raged inside unchecked. “Sibyl’s going to get some ointment from the chest and we’re going to fix you up. We’ll wrap this, and it’ll start healing in no time.”
Eloise sobbed while Sibyl prepared the poultice. Bannack knew nothing of how to care for burns, and even though the nanites should speed up the healing process, he still wanted to avoid the risk of infection. She sobbed, her face contorting with each flinch as Sibyl spread the antiseptic blend on her palm and then wrapped it. Her eyes were heavy, puffy, and her breaths entered her body in wet hitches.
“Mason.” Eloise pulled her injured hand in. She looked at Bannack with hope he feared he could not give. “Did you see him? Is he okay?”
“I…”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I am not sure how to—”
“Oh, God!” She squeaked. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“No! No. I promise he’s alive. Soora’s taking care of him.” At his words, Eloise sighed. Bannack continued. “But he is…not the same.”
“What do you mean?”
His body crumbled under her gaze, and Bannack looked away from her.
This is it. This is the moment my past, my mistakes, catch up to me. I have to tell her, but if I do, it’ll be the end of everything for me.
Forcing himself to look, Bannack stared straight into Eloise’s beautiful eyes, and opened his mouth to blurt the words he knew would destroy him. But he loved her too much to—
Love? He…loved her?
The realization pounded into him and nearly knocked him over. Bannack looked at Eloise, really looked, and saw her dark red hair cascading around her face in muddy tendrils, eyes puffed, cracked scars across her chest and neck, and a bandaged hand. Despite all her injuries, her lips were soft, her eyes intense in their complexity, and her mind remained sharp. She was the most exhilarating, addictive woman, and he couldn’t stop the desires and feelings crashing into him. Perhaps it marked his demise, but he couldn’t not feel while around her. She emanated too much of it.
Don’t feel. They will get you killed. No feelings. You can do this. You can…No. I can’t. I have to feel. I want desperately to feel.
“What do you mean, Bannack?” She clutched the blanket to her as she stood, looming over him.
“It’s the serum. Joy’s. The symptoms: memory loss, confusion, inability to balance. All of them point to the same serum Joy used to keep people in line.”
There they were. The words that would incriminate him and seal his fate. He would lose the woman he just realized he loved. If he wanted to live up to the adinkra tattooed on his arm, he needed to admit it.
But the anger, hurt, and
yelling never came.
Eloise’s face contorted, and she inhaled as if to blow out some candles. The words that whispered from her mouth were not complex in their design, but the way she spoke them chilled Bannack to the bone. He almost shrunk away from her. “I’m going to peel the bitch’s skin off her skull, bit by bit, and then leave it hanging.”
“Joy is going to know you killed one of her men. I am unsure exactly what she will do, because I have never known her to get her hands dirty, but if she attacked Mason, then she is desperate. And desperate people do things they may not have otherwise.”
“Let her come. Tomorrow morning, we’ll leave here and go back to the Compound. We’re going to gather as many people to fight as we can, and then Joy will realize how wrong she was to hurt my family.”
While he admired her fight and raw anger, he attempted to reel her in. “And Mason? Do not forget he has lost his memory. We need answers and we will not find them in a fight with Joy.”
Eloise fluttered her eyelashes, and her lips drew together. “Are you suggesting we do nothing?”
“No.” God, her words terrified him. “I am not suggesting we do nothing. What I am suggesting is we breathe, take a step back, and assess what is most important. Prioritize.”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes, and the anger dialed back. “Answers first.”
***
Eloise quietly slept with Luke’s dog Boatswain, as he was called, snuggled beside her.
Sibyl walked out of the cabin. The rain had stopped. Bannack stayed inside for a moment, then slipped out the door. He found Sibyl, a blanket wrapped around her, inside a lean-to greenhouse built up against the cabin, an extra handmade chair empty beside her. He sat with his knees awkwardly lifted higher than his hips.
“You are tall.” Bannack grunted. “How come you sit in this thing and look so comfortable?”
She didn’t respond, only stared at the ground.
“Are you okay?”
“Mmm. Not really.” Sibyl pulled the blanket closer to her body. “I thought she was going to die. She’s the only family I have, and if I lose her, I’ll have no one.” Sibyl sniffed. “I can’t live alone again.”
“Well, I got loads of experience with that.”
Sibyl chuckled, and she looked at him. “I’m sure you do. What was your experience like? Sunshine and rainbows, I bet.”
Bannack almost missed her wink. He smiled, trying to answer Sibyl without dimming the already dark mood settling around her, so he tilted his head sideways a bit and smiled as he nodded, hoping his expression would make her feel better. “Sunshine for days. I could pro’lly blind someone with how much sunshine I experienced.”
Sibyl laughed, leaning back as she did so. “You are one awkward dude. No wonder Eloise likes you.”
The chair creaked loudly and collapsed in a heap of wood, Sibyl landing on top. She screeched in surprise. Bannack jumped to his feet, but she waved him off, laughing. Between gasping breaths and wiping her tears, Sibyl said, “Remind me never to let Luke build any of my furniture.”
The shock wearing off, Bannack laughed with Sibyl. He helped her up, and she dusted off her backside.
“I may be awkward,” Bannack said, closing the door of the greenhouse behind him, “but I’m really good with my hands.”
Sibyl stopped mid wipe and snorted.
“I…that is not…we have not…” Bannack stumbled through his words, face heating to dangerous levels. Through hands covering his face, Bannack whispered, “That is not what I meant.”
“Relax. I wasn’t thinking that way.” She winked, laughed again. “You did it all on your own.”
Desperate to change the subject, Bannack asked, “Do you have family close? I did not see them at the Compound.”
“I don’t.” She hugged her body. “We’ve been separated since I was a kid. I’m not sure if they’re alive or dead.”
He knew the pain of losing loved ones and he softened his face. “Do you miss them?”
A shadow passed over Sibyl’s face and she stared at her feet, clicking her worn hiking boots together. The grass folded under the movement, then sprung straight again.
“Sometimes. When big things happen, I wish they were with me. I want them to be alive, but I haven’t looked for a long time. I still have the scar from when the building fell on me. See.”
On the outside of her forearm was a white, L shaped scar raised against her tan skin.
“A building?” Bannack’s mouth dropped open a bit. He’d never known anyone who survived a building collapse.
“Yeah. It was an earthquake from the bombs exploding a few cities over. I remember playing with some other kids inside without our parents, and so when it fell, I couldn’t get out in time. I never saw them again.” Sibyl stared at the ground. “When I woke up, I had a broken arm but was able to claw my way out.”
“Did anyone help you?” Bannack asked, his eyes wide, and leaned forward.
“Well,” Sibyl tucked a piece of black hair behind her ear. “A family found me wandering in the forest. The dad reset my arm and they watched after me until I healed, then I left, wandered for a bit, until, a few years ago, I found the Compound and decided to stay. I know my parents are out there. Somewhere. I did look for them, but after several years, I stopped looking.”
“Losing your family could not have been easy.”
“You lost people too, right?”
“Yes.” His heart twinged a bit. “Both my parents and my sister.”
“I wish I had a sister.” Sibyl looked down. “That would’ve been cool.”
“It was. But I miss her a lot.” Bannack pulled Malikah’s locket out from underneath his shirt collar. Since getting it back the night he rescued Eloise, he never took the locket off. “This is hers.”
Sibyl touched the jewelry. “It’s beautiful.” Then she looked up at Bannack. “Us orphans gotta stick together.”
Bannack laughed and nodded.
“Welp,” Sibyl pulled her blanket around her shoulders. “Better go check on Eloise.”
She yanked open the door of the cabin.
“Sir!” A frantic voice made Bannack pause with his hand on the doorknob and turn to a young boy, no more than ten, running toward him covered in soot. He stopped, bent over to recover, then straightened. “It’s my mother’s barn. Struck by lightning. Help us.”
“Come in,” Bannack said.
Minutes passed from the time the boy, named Pete, relayed his tale of he and his single mother fighting to free the animals from the flames that engulfed the barn, hence the reason for the soot. They lived close by, a little over two miles, and Pete had exhausted himself to gasps in his sprint for the closest help. Both Luke and Sibyl pulled on coats, grabbed some cloth and rope for the animals still in danger.
“Back soon,” Luke had said to his dog before giving his jowls a good ruffle. “G-guard the books.”
It was an odd comment to leave a dog, Bannack reflected, and wondered if it were in jest. Luke did have many books. A shelf filled with them lined the far-left wall. It framed the fireplace mantle and the sweet, musky scent of the old books reminded him of the hole-in-the-wall bookstore that used to be in his hometown.
As he spread his fingers over the handmade shelves, he read the titles of the books. Worn and ripped classics like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo filled a shelf. Then came rippled fantasies, burned edges of romances, and stained spines of science fiction.
“I feel so lost,” Eloise said. She watched him with a dangerous tempest of sadness. Her eyes blazed into him. “I hate Joy for what she did to us and I hate her even more for hurting Mason and breaking their agreement. I should have expected it. Then I ran off during a lightning storm…” She shook her head. “That makes me angry most of all.”
Bannack was no stranger to helplessness. It was a pain on the same level as a bull goring a matador.
“You did what you knew best.” B
annack watched her chew on her bottom lip. He moved closer to her. “You are not completely helpless, though.”
“What?”
“You fought for Mason. You killed with that knife.” He pointed to the boot knife, clean from blood, sitting on the table. “I understand feeling helpless, weak and powerless, but you are not. In this moment, perhaps you feel that way and that is okay, so embrace it. Then rise up and fight against it.”
Eloise smiled, tears dripping off her lips, then she looked at her hands. “Why did you save me back at the lab?”
“I guess…I wanted an excuse. To be mad. To get back at Joy, even though I did not know it then. But mostly it was my mom.”
“Your mom?”
“Well…her voice. She always told me my whole life, we do not leave those we love behind, and I always despised it. In the moment when I realized it was you, I wanted to leave and turn my back. I wanted to run as I had before. Then her voice turned on, and I couldn’t deny her.”
She didn’t speak for a few moments. “Because you are capable of great kindness. I won’t say I told you so, but…”
They shared a laugh, his with a note of sadness. He desperately missed his mom. She would offer advice, wrap her arms around him, and give him a place to belong. Bannack glanced down at Eloise’s fingers peeking out from the blankets. He touched her pinky in a silent request to hold her hand and Eloise wound her fingers with his.
Without realizing, he had found his belonging and his mom still had every single part in it. With Eloise. He could feel Maame smile.
Eloise sighed. She leaned against his arm. “I can’t keep going like this forever. One of these days, she’s going to win. Whether she succeeds or not…I’m still broken.”
“Eloise,” Bannack turned, “I care not if you are broken.”
She blinked. “Why?”
Her frustration was intoxicating. Her eyes glinted with a brilliance and zest for life, and a subtle vein appeared on her neck when she became angry.
“Because,” the hand he placed on her cheek made her eyelashes flutter, “I need you to understand I ain’t leavin’. I am gonna hold on to you with everything I have.”
