by Laken Cane
I fell silent. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, and I didn’t care. I knew Sage—he didn’t.
“What happened to the mother,” Lila asked. “And the unborn mutant? You kill them?”
I couldn’t breathe for a moment.
“Teagan?” Caleb said. “What did—”
Lila stopped walking and held up a hand. “Shhh.”
I stuffed my earplugs in immediately. I tasted metal on my tongue as I listened, barely breathing. “Should we hide?”
“Hell no,” she said. “We didn’t come here to hide. We came here to kill.” Then she jerked up her gun, spun around, and began spraying something behind me.
“Shit,” I cried, and just that quickly, we were surrounded.
“Back to back,” Caleb said, calmly. “Keep your cool, Teagan, and aim for the face.”
We made a sort of triangle, and then, there was no time for anything but shooting and staying alive.
There were five of them in front of me, but I caught movement farther down the street and realized more of them were coming.
“Die, motherfuckers,” Lila screamed, and I could hear joy in her voice.
Lila loved what she did. Caleb might be scared every time he went hunting, but Lila wasn’t.
Someday I might be like her. Fearless.
But right then, I was scared out of my mind.
I shot in a spraying arc, but the mutants were fast.
“Is it my imagination,” Caleb asked, “or are they—”
“Faster,” Lila finished, breathless.
I would probably have screamed if I’d had the breath for it. The mutants kept coming, and as they died, they screamed.
And as they screamed, they brought more mutants.
We were outnumbered badly—every time we killed a mutant, two more took his place. And we were caught right in the middle of them all.
“We fucked up,” Lila screamed.
We were in hell. The mutants kept coming, despite the fact that they were burning, melting, and dying in agonizing pain. Their screams began to blend together into one earsplitting, brain scrambling shriek, and though my earplugs softened the sound, they could not shut them out.
But I couldn’t succumb to the screams. I had to fight. I had to kill.
Even if I didn’t want to. Even if I wanted to throw my gun down and rush to comfort the suffering mutants. It wasn’t me. Their screams were simply messing with my mind.
The streets were overflowing with the creatures—they hit us from all sides, and though I knew there couldn’t possibly be as many as my crazed mind perceived, there were still way too many of them.
Their faces loomed large in my tunneled vision. They looked too human, suddenly. Their eyes were wide and full of panic and rage and their bloodless faces were paler even than usual.
The dying writhed on the pavement, hands to their melting faces. Some of them lifted their scorched arms, reaching beseechingly for help. But there was no help.
Not for them.
Caleb, Lila, and I stood in our little circle, dousing the mutants until all around us they lay dead and dying—and finally, despite their rage and hunger, the living mutants began to fall back.
“We’ve got this,” Lila muttered.
“We need to get back home,” Caleb said. “Start walking. Slowly. Teagan, make us a path. Lila—”
“I know what to do.”
Breathing hard, I began sidling back down the street. I sent a jet of alcohol anytime a mutant got too close, but only two of them dared. “We’re low on alcohol,” I whispered.
“They don’t know that. Keep walking,” Lila said.
“They came from town,” Caleb murmured. “What are they doing out here?”
“Searching for humans,” Lila replied, calmly. “And now that they’ve found us, they’re not going to give up.”
“Then we’ll have to go after them,” I said. “Hunters hunt. We’re not going to sit around waiting for them to find us, are we?”
“No,” Caleb said, and I heard a smile in his voice. “No, we are not.”
“We need bigger tanks.” I picked up my speed just a little. We’d driven the mutants back, and though I caught occasional movements from the shadows of houses and behind parked cars, not one of the bastards came closer.
“We have them,” Lila said. “We just didn’t think we’d need them tonight.”
“If they start using guns…”
“They don’t want us dead,” he replied. “They can’t eat or use or knock up corpses.”
“But I’ve seen them kill people.”
“Yeah,” Lila said. “By eating them. They didn’t kill them and then eat them, did they?”
“No.”
“There aren’t enough of us left for them to throw away,” she said. “They won’t outright kill our asses.”
“Sage told me that the scouts aren’t allowed to eat us. They have rules, and they’re supposed to take us to the gods. Then the gods decide what to do with us.”
“The orphans kill,” Caleb said.
“Yeah, but the orphans are all dumb as rocks,” Lila told him. “They don’t have any impulse control, either.”
Finally we began jogging home, and halfway down my street I saw Richard waiting, his hands at his sides, watching us come.
I had a sudden feeling he’d known we were in trouble, and waited patiently to see if his hunters would survive the fight.
He’d had to have heard the death screams.
“Why didn’t he come to help?” I asked, looking at Caleb.
Caleb looked away, but Lila surprised me by answering.
“If you’re not strong enough to survive a fight, then Richard doesn’t believe you deserve to live,” she said, then sent me a smile that chilled me almost as much as her words had. “It’s a hard world. We have to be harder.”
“That’s…” I swallowed hard, then continued. “That’s insane. And that makes him an asshole.”
“Nope,” Lila said. “That makes him right. Only the strong survive. This is no place for the weak.”
Then she ran on ahead, whooping as she gave Richard a high five and hurried on to the house.
I couldn’t meet his eyes when I walked by him. Neither of us said a word. When he held up a hand for me to slap, I pretended not to see it and left him standing on the street with Caleb, his heavy stare burning holes into my back.
Chapter Fifteen
I lay awake, my arms under my head, staring into the darkness. I couldn’t sleep. I was still keyed up over the close call we’d had a few hours earlier and worry over Sage ate at me. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her face.
She’d been trying to get me a dog. She’d wanted to do something sweet for me and some asshole had taken her. I couldn’t bear to think about her in the hands of the mutants once again.
The horrible, terrifying mutants.
The others sloughed off the encounter like it was nothing to worry about. Just another day in a world of mutant fighting.
It had rattled me.
Richard seemed to think I’d get used to it, and I know they were all amused by my lack of experience and my fear. I’d been sheltered.
I got that.
But ever since I’d met Sage, things had gotten rough—starting with me killing her mother. My life had changed.
And not for the better. Except I wasn’t alone. That was better.
The others slept soundly—Richard and Caleb bedded down in thick sleeping bags on the kitchen floor, and Lila took over the couch. Just until Sage came back—then Lila could get her own sleeping bag.
“What are you over there blubbering about?”
I lifted my head from my pillow, peering into the shadowy darkness at the couch. I’d left two battery powered lights on—they were small but gave enough light so that we wouldn’t kill ourselves if we had to get up in the middle of the night.
Sometimes the darkness was so oppressive it smothered me, and my fondest wish was for the day
s when lamps and ceiling lights were the norm. I would never take something like that for granted again.
“I thought you were asleep.” I winced when my voice came out nasally and thick.
“Who can sleep with you over there moaning and sobbing? What’d you do, run out of eyeshadow?”
I sniffed, wiped my face, then grinned. “You’re a bitch.”
“Go to sleep, Teagan.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Then be quiet so I can.”
I turned to my side and closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come.
“I’m scared,” I said, ten minutes later. “I’m afraid I’ll never find Sage. I’m afraid to spend the rest of my life fighting mutants. I’m afraid they’ll catch me.”
She sat up. “There’s a big possibility you won’t find the kid, that you will spend the rest of your life fighting, and that the mutants will catch you. There’s also a big possibility that you will find her, that you’ll spend your life fighting the bastards and saving people who can’t save themselves, and that if they do catch you, you’ll make them regret it.”
I stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine what it’d be like to be Lila Stone.
“It’s all in how you look at it.” The cot rattled when she jumped onto it. She crossed her legs and then patted my arm. “So until you lose the fear and learn how to live in this strange new world, I’ll help protect you from the big bad muties.”
I sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I was like you once.”
I squinted at her. “I don’t believe you were ever afraid.”
She scratched her nose, pursed her lips, and looked away. “Oh, I’ve known fear. But I realized that no matter how afraid I might be, shit’s going to happen anyway. So I decided to be a badass instead.” She grinned and spread her hands. “And here I am.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not that easy,” I said, dryly.
“Fake it. Before you know it, you’ll be pushing yourself into sick situations just to get that delicious little thrill of fear. It lets you know you’re alive.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“Sleep now. If you wake me up again, I’m gagging you and locking you in the bathroom.”
I slid back down in the bed and turned to face the wall. “Goodnight, Lila.”
I drifted to sleep sometime later, smiling.
The dog’s barking shattered the silence, jarring me out of a dream I couldn’t quite grasp but I knew it’d involved Robin—her laughter seemed to hang in the room when I jerked awake.
In the next second, something shattered upstairs, and I realized it was the sound of glass breaking. At almost the same time, I heard sounds like wood splintering, then thumps—and then the house was on fire.
Smoke began to roll in from the kitchen, and Richard, Caleb, and the dog rushed into the living room.
“They’ve found us,” Richard said. There was no panic in his voice, but his movements were sure and quick. “We need to get out of here now.”
“The hell?” Lila asked, thickly. She jumped from the couch, grabbed her weapons, and then ran to help Richard yank the plywood off the living room window. Going through the door would have taken too much time—not only were thick boards nailed over it, but I’d shoved a heavy wardrobe in front of it, and the wardrobe was now filled with clothing.
And they’d be waiting at the back.
I yanked on my jeans, shoved my feet into my boots, then grabbed my water gun off the coffee table.
The dog’s barks became excited yips, and I heard Richard’s calm voice giving quiet orders to Lila and Caleb.
The house was on fire. Smoke billowed in from the kitchen, the upstairs—even though I’d boarded it up, there were cracks.
“Grab what you can,” Lila yelled. “Hurry.”
I grabbed my belt and buckled it around my hips, then yanked my bag from where it hung over the back of a chair. I held my breath as I shoved two tanks into it, then slung it over my shoulder, and ran to the window.
Richard smashed through the glass with a hammer, then motioned us through. “Let’s get out of here.” His voice was cold, but even so, I could hear his despair.
The supplies. The kitchen, the cellar.
We’d lose them all.
And that was almost more than Richard could bear.
I breathed past the sudden lightheadedness. “The alcohol on the back porch?”
“It’ll burn. It’s lost. Everything is lost.”
“They’ll be out there, waiting,” Lila said.
He nodded. “Yes.”
I buried my fingers in the now quiet dog’s fur. “Let’s go, boy.”
Caleb went through first, then stood outside the window with his gun up, waiting for the attack that was coming.
“Go, Teagan,” Richard said.
I kicked the shards of glass from the bottom of the old window, then picked up the dog and sent him through before following him out.
The street was on fire. Smoke poured from two of the homes directly across from my house, as well as the ones on either side of us. Flames shot into the sky from houses farther down the street. The night was painted orange and gray and black, and sounds I hadn’t heard in two years—crashes, bangs, explosions—added to the confusion. It was too loud. All of it. The sights, the sounds, the smells…
The fear…
It was all too loud and my brain wasn’t quite sure how to process it. Over the last two years, I’d been exposed to quiet sounds and the same everyday scenes. The vividness of my surroundings at that moment was extreme and overloaded my senses.
Richard, Lila, and Caleb jumped off the porch, ready to fight, watching for the enemy we knew was lurking.
Waiting.
And then, almost before I could bring my gun up, the mutants attacked.
But not just the scouts or the orphans.
It was much worse than that.
The gods had come.
Chapter Sixteen
The enormous gods emerged suddenly from the gray smoke, visions of doom atop wild, screaming horses. They shouted their wrath with thunderous voices, their faces hidden behind silver masks, long hair flying.
The huge mounts seemed to exhale smoke when they raced toward us, and the ground shook beneath my feet as I stood there, filled with dread, shock, and wonder.
I’d never in my life seen or imagined anything so beautiful.
The gods were not like the scouts or orphans, and they had come prepared. What seemed like dozens of them was, in reality, six—some part of my mind registered their numbers, even as I noted their armor.
Streams and sprays of alcohol would not hurt them.
“Run,” Lila screamed, her cry louder, even, than the shrieks of the horses. The gods had leveled the playing field.
We scattered, and I thought I heard Caleb yell as I raced down the street, intent only upon escape.
I held my gun. There would be vulnerable spots in the recently created armor.
There had to be.
The dog stayed at my side for a moment as we ran, then he swerved off, raced through a yard, and was gone. I hoped he’d stay safe.
I hoped I’d see him again.
One of the gods crossed the street in front of me, and as I stumbled to a halt, his horse reared, pawing the air.
I turned around to run but found my way blocked by a dozen scouts—they spilled over the yards and then stood on the street, jumping with excitement.
Clicking, whispering.
Unlike the gods, they wore no armor, and without a second’s hesitation I began shooting. I had no earplugs to help muffle their agony.
I could barely pump the trigger—it was like a thousand pound weight I had to move with one cold, slow finger. But alcohol shot from the barrel and the mutants fell back, some of them screaming, some of them running away.
One of them—a female; a tiny part of my mind fixated on the fact that she was female because female muta
nts weren’t as numerous as males—stared over my shoulder, her stare wide and questioning. Not of me, though.
She was asking the god if it was okay to run from me.
I realized that fact a millisecond before the god grabbed the back of my shirt and plucked me from the ground.
I didn’t drop my gun. I might have, such was my fear, but my fingers were locked in a death grip on the toy, and I couldn’t have opened my hand had it saved my life.
A god had me.
I shot him. Alcohol ran in rivulets down his mask, but he didn’t so much as flinch. I couldn’t even shoot him in the eye—he was simply too fast.
They had learned.
Absorbed.
And they were protected.
I, however, was not.
He twisted the gun, almost breaking my wrist before he wrenched it from my grip. He tossed it to a scout, then turned his attention back to me.
He held me with one massive arm, easily, almost gently. To him, I was a puny, weak human, and he had my kind for breakfast.
Literally.
At that thought, I went a little crazy.
Screaming, I began to struggle. Biting, kicking, punching, I did everything I could to fight him. To break his hold.
If I didn’t escape him, I would die, or I would become one of his pregnant, tormented prisoners.
I had to escape.
He held me with one hand and with the other, he grabbed my throat. Hard.
“Stop struggling or I will kill you,” he said. Then, as I redoubled my efforts, despite him tightening his grip on my throat, he muttered, “Butcher.”
I raked my nails down his hand, then grabbed his fingers and tried to pry them loose. I had a squirt gun in my belt—it was tiny, but it was full. If I could yank it out, I could at least spray his bare hands.
Every other part of his body was covered. I heard the crackle of plastic when I hit his arm. The gods had either sewn plastic—thick contractor bags, maybe—into their clothing or had simply taped the plastic around their bodies before donning their clothes.
My fingertips slid through the warm slickness of his blood as I continued to desperately claw his hand, but he seemed not to notice.
Facing him wasn’t like facing a mutant—it was like facing a strange, unfeeling machine that would slowly squeeze the life from me as I struggled.
