His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby

by Martuneac, Peter

  “You’re getting better at those fighting games, you know,” Hiamovi said.

  “What?”

  “The fighting games. At the arcade.”

  “Oh. Thanks,” Abby replied.

  “And, of course, your real righting is getting even better too.”

  Abby smirked, but did not reply. Hiamovi saw the vacant, sad look in her eyes, like clouds on the verge of rain. He sighed; he couldn’t bear to see Abby like this anymore. Against his better judgment, he decided to try to get Abby to open up about whatever was bothering her.

  “Abby, you know I respect your privacy, but I just have to ask if there’s something wrong,” he said quietly as he scooted over next to Abby.

  “Everything is fine,” Abby said, forcing a small smile. “I’m just tired from work, that’s all.”

  “You’re not a good liar, Abby,” Hiamovi said. “It’s just not who you are.”

  “You don’t know who I am,” Abby said with annoyance.

  “How can I when you keep so much of your life a secret?” Hiamovi asked, keeping his tone soft and non-accusatory.

  “I’ve told you all I can.”

  “And yet at least once a day I say something or you see something that triggers some kind of flashback for you. That’s just not healthy, Abby.”

  Abby turned her back to Hiamovi and pulled legs up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. She hoped that Hiamovi would get the message and back off, but for once he pressed on. He got up and walked around Abby, sitting down again right in front of her. She narrowed her eyes as soon as he met her gaze, but Hiamovi knew this look well by now. It was all bark and no bite.

  “Abby. Please let me help you,” Hiamovi whispered.

  The look in Hiamovi’s sable eyes made Abby want to melt into his arms. She wanted to tell him about that day at the Marshall farm, two years ago this very month. It was such a gigantic weight on her chest, and she thought that if she could just get one sentence into the story, then the rest would follow. But she could not work up the nerve to do even that simple task.

  After waiting for several seconds in silence, Hiamovi tried a new tactic. She just needed a little nudge, he thought. He put his hands on her wrists and gently pulled her arms down to her sides. Abby did not even try to resist. He took her ankles and adjusted her legs down so that she now sat cross-legged. He again scooched closer to her, close enough so that their legs were touching. He hesitated, then put his hand on her cheek, leaned in, and kissed her.

  Abby had been expecting a kiss, but when it finally came she was surprised by how much it relieved her. Her heart fluttered and the breathlessness in her chest was now at least partly a good feeling. Abby rested her hands on his legs and kissed him back. Maybe it was finally time. Time to tell someone she loved about everything that had happened to her. And not just with Henry, but everything.

  In the heat of the moment, Hiamovi moved his hand to Abby’s bare thigh and gave a subtle squeeze.

  And that changed everything.

  As quickly as his kiss had given Abby courage, this touch summoned up her nightmares with astonishing affect. In an instant, Abby was transplanted from her apartment with Hiamovi to a dark, musty garage with… Henry.

  A putrid smell from nowhere made her want to vomit. Hiamovi’s touch had been innocent, but it brought back the feeling of when Henry had squeezed her thigh as she lay in his garage, bound by her wrists and ankles and naked from the waist down. The rain that tapped at the window, sounding just like the rain tapping against the tin roof of Henry’s garage, completed the picture as Abby felt her grip on reality weaken.

  “Just hold still, you might even enjoy it.”

  Henry’s words echoed in Abby’s ears again, sounding too real to be just a memory. All of her fear, guilt, and sorrow rushed back all at once, and whereas moments ago she had felt such security in Hiamovi’s embrace, she now felt only contempt. Who the hell was he to awaken all these emotions in her? She just wasn’t ready to let someone into her heart, to be intimate with someone, and she might never be. Henry had beat her. Even in death, he made her afraid and kept her from being happy, from being in love.

  She would never be free of his dark hold on her soul, Abby realized, and that thought was enough to break her heart.

  “No!” Abby whimpered as she broke away from Hiamovi. She stood up and wrapped her arms around herself. Hers were the only arms she could trust now. “Get out,” she whispered.

  “What?” Hiamovi asked as he too stood up, taken aback by Abby’s sudden outburst.

  “Go!” Abby repeated, shoving Hiamovi in the chest. “Get the fuck out! I don’t need your help! I don’t need your love! I don’t need anyone! So just go!” Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to cry. She refused to show weakness, especially not in front of Hiamovi. He was already retreating towards the door, but Abby was so angry that she followed him, continuing her tirade. “And don’t you even think about coming back here! Ever!”

  “Okay,” Hiamovi whispered, now standing just outside the door with tears on his cheeks. Abby looked at him, and for just a moment she considered taking everything back and inviting Hiamovi back in. Maybe they could work through her outburst and move past it. But then lightning flashed behind her, followed quickly by thunder, drawing Abby back into Henry’s garage. She drew her lips to a line and slammed her door closed.

  Abby turned around, leaned against the door, and slid to the ground. She hugged her knees to her chest and hung her head down. She wanted to cry, but she still would not let herself. She needed to be stronger than that.

  Meanwhile, Hiamovi still stood outside her door, quietly listening. He could hear Abby sniffling. He had feared that his plan to kiss her would backfire, but he never imagined it going that badly. “You really blew it this time. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” he mused to himself, and then he trudged away from Abby’s apartment.

  Abby stayed sitting where she was for a long time after Hiamovi left, staring at her floor. She had thought she was getting better, that her relationship with Hiamovi had forced her demons away for good. But in a single moment of passion, they all came crashing back down on her, stronger than ever. She’d quite literally pushed Hiamovi out of her life, and if Hiamovi couldn’t help her, who could?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “He didn’t even do anything wrong, I just freaked out,” said Abby, confiding in her silent martial arts tutor while following his movements in a kata. Bob, of course, said nothing. They continued moving about the large blue mat inside the largely empty martial arts gym.

  “I shouldn’t still be like this. I mean, it was two years ago that… certain things happened to me. I should be over them, right?”

  They finished their kata, and Bob looked at Abby with the look she knew by now to be the disapproving look, the look she got when she had not performed to Bob’s standards. He began the same kata again, and Abby followed suit.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I want to get back with Hiamovi,” Abby continued. “But I’ve made things too weird by now, haven’t I? It’s been weeks since that night, and if we ever happen to see each other, it’s just weird. We pretend not to notice each other. He doesn’t come around the diner anymore and every time I go home I feel like I’m breaking in, what with all the sneaking and glancing around to check for Hiamovi. I just feel like I’ve blown past the point of no return.”

  “I even told Hector I’d still help out with ‘you-know-what’, despite my situation with Hiamovi. But what am I even good for if I’m not on speaking terms with the guy who’s supposed to work with me? I’ve really gone and fucked everything up, huh Bob?”

  Another fluid motion by Bob, mimicked by Abby, and the kata was finished again. Bob turned and looked at Abby with his typical, ambiguous smile, the smile that could convey a thousand different meanings.

  “I know, I know, my head’s totally out of it today,” Abby said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Bob. I’m wasting your time.”


  Abby bowed to Bob, in keeping with the ancient tradition of martial arts, and headed for the door. She looked over her shoulder once to see Bob still standing in the center of the blue mat, still smiling. He hadn’t returned her bow, which of course meant the lesson was not over.

  “Alright then,” Abby said, returning to Bob. “Let’s go again.”

  ***

  Abby woke up on September 5th, the morning after her 17th birthday, with a massive hangover. Yesterday had been one of her bad days. She took a cold shower and got dressed. She did not have to work today, so her only plans were to exercise at some point and maybe go buy a new book. Going out and about was risky these days. In the months since their big ambush, Hector stepped up resistance activity around the country and even in the capital. As a response, DAS agents were being more proactive, cracking down on any dissent, and beginning to recruit new agents again.

  Someone knocked on her door, and Abby answered it after looking through the peephole.

  “Hello, dear,” Hector said. Abby nodded once in reply.

  “If you don’t have any plans today, I have a little plan of my own I was hoping you’d partake in,” he said as he walked into Abby’s apartment. He glanced over at the kitchen, saw the empty bottle on the counter, and shook his head.

  “What is it?” Abby asked after closing the door.

  “Come sit,” Hector said as he helped himself to Abby’s couch. She did as she was told and sat next to him, pulling one leg up to her chest and resting her hands on that knee. Hector did not speak for several seconds. He stared straight ahead, and then at Abby, his dark eyes piercing through her.

  “I’ve a mission tailored just for you,” he finally said, his voice somber. “But it will be extremely dangerous. If it did not have such enormous, unprecedented potential for our movement, I would not dream of asking you to do it.”

  “What is it?” Abby repeated.

  Hector took a deep breath and licked his lips before answering. “We have a unique opportunity for one of us to go undercover in the DAS, and it must be you.”

  “Why me?” Abby asked. “Don’t you have other people who’ve done this kind of thing before?”

  “Not like this,” Hector answered. “This is the DAS. They thoroughly vet their recruits, and they don’t take applicants. They make selections, and only from among the wealthy and the political elite.”

  “So how am I supposed to get in?”

  “I have a connection in Denver. A very old friend, actually. He had a daughter who just turned eighteen years old last fall and, by sheer coincidence, is also named Abby.”

  “Had?” Abby asked, confused by the past tense.

  “Soon to be,” Hector replied, nodding his head. “Her father, my friend, he was an excellent doctor. Recently, his daughter fell very ill without any warning and has not gotten any better. He’s been watching her and doing some tests on his own time and… he’s certain she’s got a brain tumor. She doesn’t have long to live, and we just don’t have the technology anymore to do anything about that, not even in the elite circles.”

  “Oh,” Abby said.

  Hector nodded his head, looking forlorn. “I knew her well. To see her die so young, well, it’s almost too much to take,” he whispered.

  He lapsed back into silence again. Abby watched him, unsure of what to do or say. After giving him a respectful minute or so, she finally said, “Hector, I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to do this mission.”

  “Right, forgive me,” he said, running the back of his hand across his left eye. “She was a very brave young woman, and she and her parents had been in communication with me. She had volunteered to go undercover in the DAS, to work as a double-agent for us here in the capital. Her father pulled some strings, greased some palms, and he got her a spot in the upcoming recruitment cycle. That was before they knew that she was dying.”

  “Despite their impending loss, my friends remain committed to the mission. They don’t want this valuable spot to be wasted, and they asked if there was anything I could do.”

  “So I’m to assume her identity,” Abby said.

  “Yes,” Hector responded. “If you agree to this, my friend will travel here with his daughter. They’ve been concealing her sickness, telling everyone she’s simply too busy training for recruitment to do anything else. Once here, they will give you her identification and the sealed selection letter that all DAS recruits must have to begin training. Their daughter will remain in hiding here, until the end.”

  “I’ll do it,” Abby said.

  Hector looked up, his eyebrows arched up in shock. “Abby, you shouldn’t decide so quickly. This will be a very dangerous mission that could go on for months. Years, maybe.”

  “I already thought about it,” Abby replied. The danger didn’t scare her, truth be told. Not because she was brave, but because the prospect of death didn’t bother her at all. She’d almost welcome a bullet at this point.

  “Well, alright then,” Hector said as he slowly raised himself up from the couch. Abby offered a helping hand but he refused. “I will send word to my friend that the plan will continue. In two months, you will begin your mission. Make whatever preparations you must before then. Oh, and I’m sure this goes without saying, but we’re playing this one very close to the vest. At present, you, me, and my friend’s family are the only ones who know about this. We’d prefer to keep it that way.”

  He bowed his head to Abby, and she returned the gesture as she too rose from the couch, then he saw himself out, closing Abby’s door behind him as he left.

  Abby stayed standing where she was for several minutes, reflecting on her momentous decision. Maybe she was being overly dramatic, taking on such a deadly responsibility just to get away from her current life, and a certain boy in particular.

  “No, it’s perfectly reasonable,” she told herself. “This is a huge opportunity for the resistance movement. It’d be selfish of me to decline the offer.”

  She wasn’t sure what she was going to do in the interim between now and when she’d be going undercover. She already worked out almost every day, so she was in very good shape. And she still trained with Bob at the gym, but only when she was sure that Hiamovi wouldn’t be there. And speaking of Hiamovi, should she even tell him about what she was going to do? Hector made it seem like he didn’t know, and maybe he didn’t want him to know at all. Secrets become less secret with each new person who knows, and this secret would cost Abby her life if it got to the wrong ears.

  But part of Abby couldn’t fathom leaving Hiamovi in the dark like that. Since her outburst that night, when she not quite fairly took her past frustrations and trauma out on Hiamovi, she’d regretted slamming that door in his face, and she wanted to try to patch things up. But her pride stood in the way. She just couldn’t bring herself to go crawling back to him.

  “Probably wouldn’t take me back anyway,” she thought.

  ***

  Abby watched the news from her couch. They were talking about San Diego and the rebuilding process still going on over there. Apparently there had been an outbreak in the city the shortly after the outbreak in Chicago, and it spiraled out of control just as quickly. But the response there was swift and brutal. Immediately after being sworn in as President, Arthur communicated orders to the military: the only way to avoid being caught between two major outbreaks was to level San Diego. The U.S. Navy hammered the city with a naval barrage the likes of which had not been seen since the Second World War. Dozens of B-52 bombers carpet-bombed the city for hours, dropping tens of thousands of pounds of heavy ordnance.

  Even more shocking than Arthur’s response to the San Diego outbreak was people’s response to this devastation. In the immediate aftermath, most people praised the president for having the courage to make a hard choice. People made a show of regret for all the lives lost there, but insisted that the alternative would have been far worse. After all, it wasn’t them and their families caught in the bombardment. They were
all safer now, and that’s what mattered most to them. It’s difficult to say how many people felt a change of heart as the months wore on and the panic of The Crisis subsided, but suffice it to say that no one really talked about what happened to San Diego anymore except on the news.

  Abby shook her head at the wanton destruction and turned the TV off. But who was she to judge? She too had left a trail of bodies in her wake as she trekked across the nation. Her body count may not match Arthur’s, but that didn’t make them all that different.

  With only two weeks before her undercover mission was set to begin, Abby figured it was time to make one last trip to the market. She grabbed a blue ink pen and small notebook and began making a list of food she needed to buy. She needed bread for sure, and eggs. Peanut butter too. Wait. Abby stood up and padded across the living room floor and into the kitchen. She swung open a tall, narrow door and glanced at the shelves inside. She picked up the plastic jar of peanut butter in front of her and felt the weight. That should be plenty for two more weeks, she thought as she scratched that last entry off of her list before adding a few new ones.

  She put her boots on her feet and tied them up the way Zach had taught her, taking both the laces, wrapping them around the top of the boot, then pulling them under each other and tucking the ends into the boot, pulling it tight. Then she grabbed her pocket knife and slid it into her right front pocket. Last of all, she grabbed her gun and holster, clipping this to the waistband of her pants, making sure it was concealed by her hoodie.

  Before leaving her apartment, Abby grabbed some money that she kept stashed in the pages of an old, hardcover copy of Ivanhoe she had bought shortly after first arriving here. She stuffed the bills into her back pocket and grabbed her key, and then she left, locking the door behind her. She grabbed the door knob and shoved against the door once, making sure it was secure, then headed down the hall towards the near stairwell.