Alison, you’ll be playing the role of mother and girlfriend. Chase, you’re the boyfriend. Arie, the son. And, action!
“You don’t have to act like that,” I said. “We can just start over.”
“Act like what?” Chase asked.
My cheeks got warmer.
“Act like—you know—like you’re interested. Or something.”
My eyes darted to Arie. He was listening intently while trying to pretend not to be listening intently.
Chase chuckled. “Sorry, I’ll try to ignore you from now on.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I stammered. “What I meant was—”
“These two at it already?” it was Woolly. He’d sidled up and was standing behind Arie.
“Apparently, yeah,” said Arie.
Woolly shook his head, but then pulled some notebooks out of a bag. “I saved these when we had to leave the last camp. I knew you’d want them.” He passed a couple to each of us. “They’re diaries that Alison and Arie kept. It details a lot of the stuff you’ve forgotten. It’ll help you refresh your memories.”
Woolly kept one of the notebooks. It was red with a skull erased into it. “This one I’m going to keep hold of,” he said. “It was a project that Arie and I were working on, and well after you, uh, went away, I kept working on it on my own. It’s not quite ready, but I’ll give it to you when it’s done.”
Woolly went away then, leaving the three of us relaxing by the fire, reading the journals. When there was something particularly interesting, we read it aloud to share with the others.
“Alison, listen to this,” said Chase. He read from the journal: “There are several new people I’ve met who I’m working with. I’ve been working a lot with a man named Chase since he apparently doesn’t know how to drive a manual vehicle. He is cocky and stubborn. I hope I won’t have to work with him long.”
My mouth dropped open. “Oh, I didn’t actually write that, did I?”
Chase laughed, and I honestly wasn’t sure if he was making it up or not.
Later, Arie looked up from one of the notebooks and said, “Here are some entries from after this Agency group took me away and told you I was dead. Jeeze. That’s just evil.”
“What do I say about it?” I asked, without immediately realizing what an odd question that was to ask.
“You say that you miss me. You seem pretty broken up. It’s really touching. I mean, I can’t say it feels like me that this forgotten you is talking about, but the person who wrote this—they really cared, obviously.”
“I get what you mean,” I said, holding up the pages of the journal I was reading. “It’s one thing to read about it, but it’s different living the experiences. It’s crazy to be reading about things that happened to me. I mean, it’s insightful, I guess, but it doesn’t bring the memories back. I wish it did.”
A few weeks passed. Chase, Arie, and I spent a lot of time together. Maybe it was because we had all experienced the Agency prison together, or had been rescued together, or maybe it was because the journals told us that we were close. Whatever the reason, we felt bonded together in a way that was different even from how we felt about the people who’d rescued us and helped us out of that horrible place. It was almost like that experience had made a dark mark upon our hearts, a sensitive area that only other people who had gone through the experience could understand. The three of us acted passively in our actions, reserved, as though any loud noise or actions could trigger an Agency soldier to step out of the woods and beat us with a baton. Woolly said we were traumatized and that it would take a while to get past it.
“If you feel like your memories are upsetting you, just try to focus on the present,” said Woolly. “Try to notice the things around you—what you see, smell, hear. If you find you can’t stop thinking about something bad that happened to you, tell yourself, ‘I’m having a thought about something unpleasant.’ That will put some distance between you and the experience.”
We nodded. It made sense.
“Where did you come up with all this?” asked Arie.
“I didn’t,” said Woolly. “I read it in books.”
“My dreams are always about the prison,” I said.
Woolly nodded. “I’m sorry. That must be difficult. But I’m not surprised. You guys don’t have many memories, so it’s easy for you to get stuck in the few that you have. Focus on today, now. Stay with us here.”
Eventually, it felt like things were getting better, like it was easier to breathe.
I’d cry sometimes, for no clear reason. I’d just be sitting there doing something else, and a wave of fear or sorrow would wash over me, and I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears.
“I’m so sorry,” I’d always say to the people around me. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
The other people would always nod and pat my hand reassuringly, but I felt so embarrassed. There was something wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Or sometimes someone would move past me or go to hand me something and I would flinch and my hands would start shaking.
These were the internal scars left by the Agency.
Still, it felt manageable. It felt like I had it under control. Until one day, Woolly came to me. He had a strange look on his face and there was a heavy gloom between us.
“Woolly, what’s the matter?” I asked.
I was reclined in a chair, reading a book.
“Hey, Al,” he said, his voice heavy and low. “You know I am your friend, right? I’ll always be your friend.”
“Okay,” I said. “Why are you saying this?”
He kicked at a rock on the ground. It was about the size of a grapefruit and was embedded in the dirt. He kept kicking at it until it dislodged.
“Ruby wants to see you,” said Woolly. He said it without looking at me. My stomach fell.
Woolly walked me over to her tent in silence. Whatever it was, it was serious. I wondered if someone had died.
When we reached the tent, Woolly said, “You have to go in alone, Al. I’ll see you later.”
I stepped inside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside, but once they did, I saw Ruby sitting in a chair. There was another chair set up across from it.
“Have a seat, Alison,” she said.
I did, keeping my eyes on her while I sat. She looked sad, or maybe just tired, or maybe it was both.
Even though I hadn’t seen her much outside of the night I was rescued, she somehow seemed older than I had remembered her.
I liked Ruby. A lot. She rescued us. She had risked her life and her team for me.
She opened her mouth to speak, but then paused, before letting out a deep sigh.
“This is a lot harder for me than it is for you, you know,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “What is going on? Have I done something wrong?”
She exhaled with a kind of laugh, and then said, “That’s kind of an interesting question, innit?”
“Whatever it is, just tell me.”
Ruby nodded and took her glasses off and wiped them with the tail of her shirt.
“What I mean is you’re like a daughter to me. I care about you, which makes what I’m about to do really difficult. But you barely know me. From your perspective, we are essentially strangers.”
“That’s not true, Ruby. I feel very close to you.”
She sighed again.
“Alison, I’m moving the camp. After the Agency stormed our last site, we lost fifteen people. They were taken or killed. More were injured and the amount of supplies and resources we lost were substantial. We can’t risk another loss like that. It’d devastate us.”
I nodded. “No, of course not.”
“This time I’m going to move the camp far away from the Agency. Too far for them to give a rat’s ass about us.”
I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “That’s sounds like a great plan. Whatever I can do to help, I’ll be glad—”
&nb
sp; “Al, you’re not invited. Not this time.”
Her words fell on me like a tree. “I’m—not invited?”
“Al, I know you don’t remember, but I do and the other people do, too, and the fact of the matter is that you let us down. We’re at the point where we can’t be taking anymore risks. It’s not your fault and I’m not saying you’re a bad person, but frankly, you’re a liability for us. And I can't in good conscience bring you along. Not after what’s happened.”
I could only look at her, my mouth open.
“Al, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. Never. That’s why we rescued you from that prison. But now it’s time for us to go our separate ways. We’ll set you up with whatever supplies you need and we’ll take you where you want to go. Within reason, a’course. If you want to go find folks to stay with in the Zones, we’ll do that. If you want to meet up with another group in the mountains, you can’t wander too far around here without bumping into one of ’em. And if you want to just be on your own, that’s fine too. You just can’t be with us.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart beat rapidly. “But Ruby—”
“No ‘buts’ Alison. It’s already been decided.”
She looked away from me, and I heard her sniff. I wondered if she were crying.
“I wish you the best, Al. I really do. Woolly will help you gather up the things you need and then he’ll take you wherever you want.”
She stood up to go.
“Wait,” I said. “What about Arie? He’s my son.”
Ruby paused at the door without looking back at me. “He’s just about grown,” she said. “I don’t own him. He can do what he wants. If he wants to go with you, he can decide that for himself.”
CHAPTER 45
Arie didn’t want to come with me.
“I feel bad,” he said. “But it’s just—I don’t really know you. Not that I know anyone anymore, but I feel like my chances are better here with the group. I hope you understand.”
I understood. We were strangers, connected only by the finest of threads. Yet, when I’d read about him in both his journals and my own, and when I’d learned he was my son, something had changed. I’d already had an affinity for Arie before the journals, as we were spirited from the prison in the troop carrier. I’d attributed it to our shared experiences, but once I learned about our relationship, I wondered if it was more than that. If maybe the heart remembered, even when the mind forgot.
I wanted the chance to build a relationship. I wanted to be there to make sure he was okay. But he hadn’t picked me. Logically, it made complete sense.
Still, Arie’s choice stung more than expected, and I had to clench my jaw to avoid letting my disappointment show on my face. And after that, I didn’t want to stick around any longer than necessary. Every time someone asked how I was doing or why I was packing things up, my eyes welled with tears. I was so ashamed. I just wanted to gather my things and go.
That’s what I was doing when Chase appeared. He poked his head into the tent where I’d been staying, the tent I’d almost gotten ready to call home.
“You going somewhere?” he asked.
I glanced briefly at him, then returned to packing a large backpack that Woolly had given me.
“I can’t stay here,” I said tersely, flatly. “I, uh, I’m gonna, just, you know, go.” I couldn’t say more, couldn’t talk about it.
“Oh,” he said. Then he was quiet, his head still poked into my tent. After a long moment he said. “Okay.”
I said nothing in reply.
“So,” he said, “just to be clear, you’re leaving the camp?”
I didn’t turn in his direction. Just nodded.
“And you’re leaving now?”
“It’s as good a time as any.” Now my voice had a bite to it. An anger that I couldn’t keep back. I suppose I knew on some level that if I let in even a little vulnerability, I would fall apart and bawl my eyes out.
“Do you need help?” Chase asked.
“Woolly’s helping me,” I said.
“Is it all right if I come in?” he said. His voice betrayed his confusion.
I kept packing.
“Al?” he said. “Can I come in?”
I nodded, again without looking at him. He stepped inside. I stole a glance at him. His brows were knitted and he was blinking rapidly. He removed his ball cap and scratched his head.
“Where will you go? Kinda risky to wander around on your own, you know.”
I stopped shoving things into the rucksack. Where would I go?
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I need some alone time.”
He nodded. “Well, good luck then.” He went out.
As he walked away, I went to the tent door and called his name. He turned around, took a few steps toward me.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For, I guess, you know, everything. The things they told us about. For tricking you and involving you in my stuff that got us captured.”
“You remember doing that?”
“No,” I said, “but it sounds like me.”
“I don’t think you need to go apologizing for things neither one of us remembers,” said Chase.
“The others remember.”
“So apologize to them. Besides, they don’t know how we got captured and neither do you. You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
I started crying and looked at my hands. “I’ve messed up,” I said. “I’m messed up.”
Chase was quiet for a moment. He looked at his shoes. “Well, who hasn’t? Who isn’t?”
“Not like this,” I said. “People died. And everything’s ruined. And I can’t be here anymore.” I rubbed my eyes.
“Do you think you meant for people to get hurt?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“No, answer me,” he said. “The woman who didn’t want to hit a goon with a bat—you’re saying that woman wanted people to get hurt? To die?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Look, things might have gone south, but I don’t believe for one second you intended for that to be the outcome. You may have been negligent. You’re paying for that. You may have made a terrible choice. You’re paying for that. But you didn’t shoot anyone and I know you didn’t want that to happen. In fact, I’m willing to bet what you were going for was the exact opposite. You wanted to help. I’ll bet you anything. Bet me right now. Name your stakes.”
He stepped up to me and put his hand out to shake on it. I smiled a little, then shook my head.
“No bet, huh? I thought so. Al, you’re not the one who put us in this horrible situation. The pandemic, the Agency, this life on the run, living in the forest. There’s evil at work here, some kind of incomprehensible evil machine, and we’re just being ground up in the gears. So. Yeah. Don’t apologize to me. From where I stand, you were just trying to help people. You just weren’t very good at it.”
I chuckled then. And sniffed and wiped my eyes.
“Chin up, huh?” he said.
I nodded glumly and watched him go. Again, he was there just when I needed him, first tapping on a pipe, now making a bet with me that maybe I wasn’t the most terrible person in the world. It didn’t surprise me to know what they said about Chase and me—it was more than just his rugged looks and his easy confidence. Turns out he was a decent person, too. Even now I wanted to go to him. But losing him was a price I had to pay for my mistakes.
CHAPTER 46
Woolly wasn’t melancholy as we bounced along the old logging roads. Now and then he turned his head to me, as though he might say something. But after an hour of driving, we had said little. Then the road narrowed and became very rough.
“I’m taking you to a spot I know,” he said. “It was a candidate site for our own campsite, but we thought it might be too small. It’ll be perfect for just one person. There’s a spring nearby, lots of deadfall for firewood, good cover and concealment. Plus, it’s just a beautiful area. You’ll see what I
mean.” He gave me a searching glance.
I nodded.
“If you decide you want to join one of the other camps,” he added, “there are at least a couple that are close to here. You should be able to find them, no problem. Then again, if you want to keep your solitude, you can do that, too.”
I nodded again.
Woolly had asked me the night before where I wanted him to take me. I’d told him I didn’t care. One place was as good as another. I felt like maybe I was in shock. Like my mind wasn’t ready to comprehend the fact that I was being removed from my place of safety and thrust into the world all on my own. I was being abandoned by the only people who, to my knowledge, had ever treated me with decency. And so there was some anger, resentment, because although I’d been told what I’d done and why I deserved this sentence, I didn’t remember it. I was the whipping boy for someone else’s crime, and even though the someone else was an earlier version of myself, it felt unfair.
We bounced on down the road.
“So,” said Woolly, “what do you think you’re going to do?”
“What do you care?” I said. Woolly didn’t deserve that, but as my banishment drew closer, the hurt became more than I could handle.
“Don’t be that way, Al. I didn’t want you to leave.”
“And you didn’t try to stop it, either?”
“How do you know what I did? I gave my opinion, I cast my vote. It wasn’t up to just me.”
I stared straight ahead.
“Who put Ruby in charge, anyway?” I asked. “Why’s she so important?”
“Alison, I was hoping that you and I could have a nice drive, spend some time together as friends. Make a good memory. And maybe if you told me your plans, I could come back and visit you sometime.”
“My exile. What a fond memory it will be.”
“Al.”
“I’ll probably be dead within a week.”
Woolly stopped the truck. The tires hissed in the dirt and gravel.
“Alison, please stop. I’m going to miss you. I am. We can mope and whine about what’s happened. Or we can move forward. What’s it going to be?”
I clenched my jaw and folded my arms.
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 21
