by Z Brewer
“That’s why I have to go. Because if I don’t, more people will die.” There was a moment of silence in which she closed her eyes in search of something to say that would change my mind. But there was no way of changing it. I had no choice. People were counting on me.
“You’ve brought Brume to the brink of freedom, Quinn. That’s why we all follow you, why we trust you.”
A bitter feeling shot through my core—one for which I had an immediate dislike. “And Caleb? Why do his people follow him?”
“Apart from the fact that his father was the leader before he died?” She reached out and smoothed the front of my vest with her hands, keeping her palms on my chest as she replied. I wondered if she noticed the pack of cigarettes I’d tucked there. Her voice was calm and confident, with undertones of anger—but none of it toward me. “They follow him because he talks pretty, tells them what they want to hear, pretends to deliver, and makes the Resistance out to be the bad guys. Some people, no matter how much evidence they’re presented, simply want to follow blindly. It’s easier than searching for the truth.”
In that moment, I fell in love with her all over again. Brushing a strand of hair from her eyes, I said, “When did you get so smart?”
“I’ve always been smart.” A smile danced on her lips.
I kissed the tip of her nose and said, “I’m gonna step outside for a few. Do you wanna join me?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No way. I hate that you smoke.”
“Then I’ll quit.”
“You always say that and you never do.” She reached up and cradled my scruffy cheeks in her hands for a moment. We were okay. Better than okay. We were good. She nodded toward the door at the end of the hall. “Enjoy your so-called last cigarette.”
Again, a voice whispered inside my head—like a dream I’d had and forgotten.
“No thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“Oh, that’s right. Not here you don’t.”
As I pulled a cigarette from my pack and placed it between my lips, I tried to recall where I’d heard those words before, but nothing came to mind. Maybe I’d overheard the conversation somewhere. Maybe it really was just the remnants of some forgotten dream.
But if either of those things were true, then why did the words send a chill through me that I couldn’t shake?
18
I stepped outside and tried to ignore the sounds of gunfire in the distance. It sounded too small to be a skirmish. Probably a training exercise. I couldn’t escape reminders of the war, but I could tune them out for five minutes. Doing so used to make me feel selfish, but I quickly learned that five minutes here and there of forgetting the horrors of the world was enough to preserve my sanity. At least for the time being.
The park across the street was overgrown, but at least it was green. It was at the center of Resistance territory, which stretched six blocks in every direction. The outskirts were as well guarded as we could manage, while appearing just like any other part of town, so as not to let on where our base was located. Off to the right of my view of the park, about ten yards in, was the entrance to a small cave. Lia and I had shared our first kiss in that cave about a year before. Her lips had been softer than I’d imagined. Mine trembled. And when we really sank into the kiss, suddenly the rightness of the world came into sharp focus. Sometimes, when things felt unbearable, I’d close my eyes and take myself back to that perfect moment—when I’d fallen so hard for Lia that nothing else mattered. Guns, wounds, food, the enemy—all of it had disappeared during that first kiss.
Nothing I could ever do would pay her back for the peace, the joy, she’d instilled in me in that instant. But I’d keep trying. And, God willing, she’d keep kissing me.
The sun was setting, and if I blocked out the screams coming from the makeshift operating room Lia and the others had assembled in the gymnasium of the school, I could immerse myself in the beauty of the world, the way my mother had always encouraged me to do. It was brief, but another necessary escape. Lia wanted to know why I didn’t quit smoking. That was why. It was an escape. It was something I could give myself over to without planning or rationing or fighting. It was a terrible habit, but a vice I allowed myself on occasion. I wasn’t a full-time smoker. But when I returned from a mission, I needed something to erase from my mind the things I saw, the horrors I was part of.
“Got a light?”
Leaning against the school was the stranger in the trench coat I’d seen inside earlier.
The Stranger, a voice at the back of my mind whispered.
His hair parted like stringy, wet curtains to reveal a thin face and dark, sunken eyes. I hesitated for a moment before pulling the lighter from my pocket and handing it to him. He lit a cigarette and gave it back. My entire body tensed when his fingertips touched my hand. His skin was sticky, and it triggered a memory I couldn’t place. “Do I know you?”
“You may.” He sucked in a lungful of nicotine, tar, and a hundred other things that neither one of us should be inhaling, and eyed the cave in the park. “Beautiful view. But as is the case with everything, true beauty lies inside.”
Weirdo. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Its frame really is lovely. Inspired, even. Don’t you think?”
His words gave me pause. I never told anyone about what I’d seen the last time I was in the cave—not even Lia or Lloyd. I’d been trying to forget about it. Because it had to be a hallucination. There was no other way to explain it. And I wasn’t ready to think about what else it might mean if I was having hallucinations.
It had been dark, so I’d taken a flashlight with me. Something had compelled me to enter, but I couldn’t recall what. At the far end of the cave I’d found the impossible. An enormous mirror hanging in midair. No strings, no hooks, no wires. It was just . . . there.
The frame was black and twisted, with sharp points sticking out here and there, reminding me of snakes. My reflection had stared back at me, and when I’d reached out to touch the glass, my fingertips passed through the surface like it was fog.
If this stranger had seen it too, maybe it wasn’t a hallucination after all . . .
“Are you talking about the . . . mirror?”
He paused before answering, and I started to feel like maybe I was the weird one here. But then he said, “Perhaps.”
My throat felt somewhat drier than it had just seconds before. “Do you know what it is, exactly?”
“Everything. Nothing. It all depends.” He shrugged, holding the half-smoked cigarette just inches from his mouth with his yellow-stained fingers.
“On what?”
He turned to face me. “On you.”
I couldn’t stop looking at his fingers, his hands. The skin had a slight sheen, as if it had been wet recently and had never really dried. His fingers looked older than a man his age would normally have. The thought that perhaps he worked as a mechanic or a farmer passed through my thoughts and then out again. The sight of his hands was so familiar to me. If I could just grasp the wispy threads of familiarity and tie them together, maybe I could figure out—
My words grew hushed in sudden realization. “I remember you. We spoke before.”
“Perhaps we did.”
He’d been standing outside in the sunshine. Sweet-smelling roses had all but surrounded us. The sun had been bright, the grass green. It was here, but it wasn’t here. Not exactly. Where the hell was it? “You were . . . somewhere else. And so was I.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Perhaps we were.”
My jaw tensed in frustration. This man was testing the limits of my ability to keep my temper in check, for sure. “I’m not interested in riddles. I don’t have time for this.”
“That’s true.” A knowing smile stretched across his face.
I drew my shoulders back, ready for a fight. Narrowing my eyes, I growled, “Is that a warning?”
“Yes.” He lingered on the word. It came out sounding more like a hiss.
Bile rose up in my throat, but I choked it back down again. “Who are you?”
“The real question here is, who are you?” Tapping the ashes from his cigarette, he spoke without meeting my gaze. “Two down.”
Confusion filled me. Was this another riddle? He was going to give me answers if I had to beat them out of him. My subconscious whispered the words with my bat, but I shook them off. “Two down? What does that mean? I don’t under—”
“Two down!” A voice came over the comm in my ear with an air of urgency. “I repeat, we have two down! Request medics for immediate evac. Location Zulu Bravo.”
My chest tightened with the realization that the shots I’d heard hadn’t just been some training exercise. Guilt filled me. I hadn’t realized it was enemy fire. I should have. People were counting on me to keep them safe. I recognized the location by the assigned phonetic code. They were at the post office near the center of town, not three blocks from where I stood. Speaking into my comm, I said, “Zulu Bravo team, do you require an assist?”
The voice crackled over the comm in broken bits. “Nega . . . in hand . . . returning . . . wounded . . . ready.”
Furrowing my brow, I said, “Zulu Bravo team, you’re breaking up. Repeat message, please. Advise if you require an assist.”
Only static came through. I turned back to the Stranger, but no one was there. No cigarette butt on the ground. No shoe prints in the earth. It was as if he hadn’t been there in the first place. So maybe the mirror was a hallucination after all. Maybe the Stranger was too.
Hours later, the smell of tobacco hung in my office like a cloud. Until that moment, I’d made it a point to keep my smoking outdoors. But my nerves were beyond frayed—and not just because Zulu Bravo team had suffered injuries. That man, that Stranger, had really gotten to me. Hallucination or no, I had seen him before. But where? Here . . . but not here. Doing what I could to keep my shit together, I took another drag and blew it out with my words. “An ambush. A goddamn ambush.”
Lloyd sat in the chair across from my desk, favoring his left wrist. “There was no way of knowing. It should’ve been a milk run.”
“It should’ve been reported to me before they even left.” I was pissed, and by the look on his face, he knew it. Not just because my men had made a really stupid move without clearing it with me first, but because the Allegiance had known more about their movements than I had. Lloyd dropped his eyes to the floor for a moment. He should have told me they’d been planning a supply run. If I’d been told, I’d have informed them that there wasn’t anything at the post office left to grab. “How did the Allegiance know the location?”
Lloyd frowned. “Maybe they have someone else on the inside.”
My head began to throb with the beginnings of a migraine.
“Christ. That’s all we need.” With no ashtray in sight, I stabbed my cigarette out on the desktop and slumped forward, running my hands through my hair. I was letting a lot of people down if I didn’t get some supplies . . . and fast. I drew air into my lungs and blew it out in a heavy sigh. Then, reluctantly, I said, “We’re going to the shipping yard at twenty-hundred hours. Tell no one but the team we took to Allegiance HQ.”
Forgetting all about his wrist for the moment, Lloyd sat forward. He looked as if he wanted to question what had changed my mind, but instead he said, “I’ll inform the team immediately.”
I sat back in my chair in contemplation. “If you were Caleb, would you think the Resistance would be stupid enough to try to hit the shipping yard head-on?”
He paused before looking at me pointedly. “Not a chance.”
It was an insane mission, and could easily be our last, if things didn’t go our way. Part of me wanted to talk to Lloyd about the feelings I’d been having about being Other, while I still could. Because, odds were, we weren’t all going to make it out of there alive. Maybe none of us. But the fear of anyone knowing was just so strong. If Lloyd didn’t react well, I could face a different kind of violence than the kind I was used to. War was scary, but somehow it didn’t make the idea of being faced with bigotry and rejection from your friends any less scary. But if I could tell anyone that I was questioning what gender I identified with, it was Lloyd. He’d have some supportive advice. He always did. “Lloyd, can I ask you something that might seem a bit . . . strange?”
“Never stopped you before.”
He was right. It never had. So why was this subject so damn difficult to discuss with him? We’d always shared everything. Why did this feel like something I had to keep secret, even from my best friend? The man had saved my life countless times. He had my back in a way that no one ever had. I took in a breath and readied my resolve. “Does it bother you that the Resistance shares certain prejudices with the Allegiance? Like, maybe the Resistance’s version of freedom isn’t entirely equal to everyone across the board?”
“What are you getting at, Quinn?” His brow had creased in curiosity. From outside the door came the sounds of soldiers performing an ammunition count. We weren’t as alone as I’d hoped. For fear someone might overhear, the conversation would have to wait.
“Nothing. Never mind.” Gesturing to his wrist with a nod, I said, “What happened to you?”
“When I heard the call, I hurried over to Zulu Bravo to assist. Damn Allegiance soldier hit me with the butt of his gun while he was turning tail. No big deal. I’ve had worse.” He shrugged. His expression shifted to a concerned look that I knew well. “Do you plan to tell Lia about the shipping yard?”
“I’ll tell her after we get back. I don’t want her to worry.” Though it was subdued by fear and dread, the prickle of anticipation that I felt before any mission crackled up my spine, quieting my mind about the Stranger, the mirror, and all the things I wasn’t telling Lloyd or Lia, at least for the time being. “Get the maps. We have to be precise. Hit ’em hard and fast so they won’t know what’s going on till we’re on our way out.”
He grabbed two of the rolled maps from the shelf in the corner, and as he handed them to me, he said, “Lia is going to kill you when she finds out.”
I unrolled one of the maps on my desktop and scanned it. “Let’s give the Allegiance a shot at it first.”
17
We’d waited as long as we could that night, hoping for the cover of darkness, but the moon and the clouds had refused to cooperate. As we hoofed it across town, moving toward the rendezvous point, we watched the stars twinkling above, as if they were mocking us. We passed a stop sign before turning and heading into the overgrown grass that led to the hills outside of town. On top of the sign were two street signs I knew well. One read Taylor Drive. The other was Oaks Avenue.
It was still pretty bright out when we reached our destination—the grove of trees just two clicks from the shipping yard’s southernmost point—and after waiting for what felt like ages, my team and I had decided that it didn’t matter—this couldn’t wait.
Lloyd lowered his binoculars and sighed. “Ten guards surrounding, and looks like maybe forty more inside.”
Fifty men against my ten. It sure would keep things interesting. “How confident are you in that count?”
“Very, sir.”
A couple of members of my team were having a quiet conversation. I didn’t catch most of it, but for the tail end of Jack saying, “—bunch of fags anyway, so who cares?”
I care, I thought. Why don’t you? Suddenly I didn’t feel like the person in charge of the mission. I felt ostracized. I felt discounted.
Bullshit. It was all bullshit.
But then, what I was doing was bullshit too. We were about to embark on a dangerous mission, where the odds we’d all get out alive were thin, and I hadn’t had the balls to share my deepest secret with my best friend or my girlfriend. I owed them that at least, and now . . . now it was too late.
With a heavy heart, I held up my fist to signal silence and stillness to my troops, waiting for Lloyd to get himself and his team ready to go. The night was cool.
Fireflies blinked on and off, and the stars mirrored them above, their constant cousins. Any other time, in any other place, it would have been a lovely night. But shit was about to go down, and I was going to unleash hell.
I made eye contact with Lloyd. He had his people in place. My heart hammered in my chest, my muscles tensed, ready for action. But my thoughts were scattered. I was losing focus again.
With one last glance at the stars all around me, I dropped my fist, signaling both teams to advance. We moved in fast, our feet almost silent as we approached the shipping containers. A quick count told me there were about thirty of them. Considering how many supplies each could hold, I was sure the Allegiance could spare a few boxes of bandages and a couple of crates of food.
Leading my team through the long grass, darting around trees and underbrush, I brought them to a halt beside a container on the southwestern edge of the facility. We pressed our backs against the cool metal—shadows among shadows. Lloyd and his team disappeared between two of the shipping containers on the eastern side, unlit Molotov cocktails in hand.
Moments later, I heard panicked voices in the distance.
Just as we’d strategized, members of Lloyd’s team had tossed the Molotov cocktails into a couple of full, open containers as a distraction. While they were keeping the guards busy, my team and I would sweep in, grab supplies, and disappear into the night, rejoining Lloyd and his team at the designated rendezvous point. It was a solid plan.
So why were my hands trembling?
I scanned the area, but there was no longer any sign of Lloyd or his team—which was good. If I couldn’t pick them out in the myriad of containers, neither could the enemy. I could, however, spot the two guards standing nearest the opening we’d planned to enter through.
Two pops tore through the silence and the guards dropped like stones. My eyes shot to Davies and Randall in a glare. If we survived this, they were going to get an earful. I’d made it a point to stress to the men that they were to take no lives during this mission unless their lives depended on it. And now, against my orders, two people were dead. Pushing down my anger, I waited and watched, but the shots hadn’t alerted anyone. We were in the clear. For now, anyway.
