by Talis Jones
He shoves me first under the simple wire fencing and I roll out of the way as Win takes a running slide with his rifle in one hand. Remi scurries after us then rushes to disconnect whatever contraption he’d set up to defuse the fence and shove it in his bag before yelling at us to run. We make it maybe a hundred yards before a sizzling shriek knocks me to my knees in horror.
Remi grabs me under the arm and pulls me back up into a run. “Come on. Nothing you can do for them. It’s them or us.”
Eventually we slow to a jog and then to a walk that soon turns into an exhausted shuffle. In the middle of nowhere as far as I can tell, we collapse to the ground and make camp which just means grabbing a blanket and getting some shallow rest while we take turns keeping watch though the cousins don’t expect the townies will leave the Alliance even if they know how.
Sixteen
At first light we force our worn bodies to keep moving. Even though the Alliance won’t normally cross its own border, we know I’m not just any prisoner and we can’t risk them making an exception. I suck on a piece of jerky while Remi snacks on a bag of mixed nuts and Win bemoans his lack of soda.
“We should probably go ahead and toss these uniforms,” I suggest. Panic had driven us long and hard, but surely we’ve enough time for that. Besides, the sooner we toss the overt garb, the better.
“Yeah,” Win nods, his throat sounding dry. “Yeah, we’d better do that.”
Remi hands his cousin a canteen that sounds horribly low on water while I begin to strip off the much-abused fabric clinging to my sweat. When you live for so long with no privacy, you get over things like people seeing you in your underwear. They hiss in sympathy at my exposed scars. Ignoring them, I swap my uniform for denim and cotton, tying the button down around my waist, in quick, efficient movements. Lifting my arms I scoop up my hair before realizing I don’t have anything to tie it with.
“Here,” Remi offers.
I accept the rubber band and quickly secure my hair off of my neck. I notice Win has one around his wrist though his hair is short and his fingers snap it in a fidgety habit.
“What about you?” I question. Surely he wants his own long hair pulled back in this heat.
“I grabbed a handful,” he shrugs, reaching into his bag to prove just that before tossing a set of clothes at his cousin. “Quit gawking and hurry up.”
“Damn, Horseman,” Win whistles appreciatively. “You look good for…how old are you supposed to be? Forty? Fifty?”
Remi smacks the back of Win’s head in chastisement.
“What?” he protests, rubbing his head. “She does! And I saw that picture of you on that guy’s tablet, you were hot when you were young.”
I raise an eyebrow at his flirtatious impertinence.
“Not that you aren’t a sight for sore eyes now,” he stumbles quickly. “I mean, if that’s not enough to prove it…” he gestures up and down at my body and I shake my head.
“You’re going to get yourself killed, cuz,” Remi growls. “You treat a lady with respect and you damn sure treat one with the power to kick your sorry ass with respect.”
A part of me preens at Win’s compliments, but more of me wants to emphasize Remi’s advice by smacking Win’s face so hard he blacks out for a minute or two in time out.
Win’s stripped out of his uniform and he holds his arms out. “Fine, she can check me out in kind,” he snaps. “I won’t judge if you drool a little,” he winks.
I take my time raking my eyes from his cocky face to his chiseled abs to his toes and back up his perfectly proportioned body, allowing no thoughts to show in my face. “Well, at least everything is in the right place,” I allow and his grin drops.
“You’re just trying to hurt my feelings,” he accuses with narrowed eyes.
“You think a Horseman would waste her time on something as petty as that?” I ask dubiously. Turning to Remi I say, “Your cousin’s arrogance knows no bounds.”
“Why d’you think he could never get a girlfriend in the Clan?” he snorts.
“Hey!” Win shouts in offense.
“Let’s go, cuz,” Remi sighs. “We’ve got a long way to go and I’d rather have you alive and at my back than dead over an ego trip.”
I laugh and it feels so good it shocks me back into silence. When did these two idiots start feeling like friends? Of course, the levity only lasts so long. We hike through a field, through forests, past carcasses of times gone by. Win bounds up an abandoned SUV peppered with bullet holes to scope the landscape from a higher vantage point. I kneel beside the vehicle, brushing my fingers over a few of the holes concluding that they’re more recent than the car’s abandonment. Target practice? Bandits? Authorities?
With a sigh I push back up onto my feet and follow Remi and Win as they head towards a stream Win spotted from the roof. My mouth feels filled with dust and my skin itches from sweat and filth. At least we’d changed into fresh clothing though I wish we could have bathed first.
“You don’t think those people back there are going to follow us?” I ask not for the first time. I can’t help it, the paranoia grips my throat.
Remi looks at me with a reassuring expression. “Nah,” he promises. “Not worth the effort.”
I can’t help the incredulous look upon my face.
“Win and I are small potatoes being transferred back over here anyway,” he explains. “The Alliance figures we’re the Coalition’s problem now.”
“And me?”
“You…” Remi thinks a moment then shrugs. “Someone was getting you out, someone powerful with pull, and so if they wanted you hunted down by the authorities then you’d already be caught. My guess is once they got wind of your runner they decided to handle it themselves.”
“But why wouldn’t they want the Alliance to capture me?” I press. “Especially if you believe they’d have caught me by now.”
Win sighs. “Because they’re from the Coalition,” he points out, “and now you’re on their turf.”
I shake my head. “How could they know that? How could they know where I’d go, what I’d do, that I would survive at all?”
Remi stops walking and fixes me with a thoughtful look. “Maybe it’s a test. Who knows what you’ve become after twenty-seven years locked away?”
Flinging my arms out, my voice drips with sarcasm. “I don’t see anyone around to witness.”
“Someone gifted like Remi could be helping them,” Win suggests.
A shudder runs down my spine at the thought of being watched anywhere, anytime. I was under constant surveillance in prison, but at least I could see the eyes, the cameras.
The gentle sound of a creek reaches our ears and Win lets out a Whoop! “Quit your worrying, Horseman,” he shouts sprinting away, “or your hair will turn gray.”
“Ha. Ha,” I laugh dryly. Remi clasps a bolstering hand on my shoulder before taking off after his cousin and my feet fly soon after.
I squat by the winding band of water and immediately dunk my hands in, relishing the coolness. Cupping water in my hands I splash my neck then wash my face and just that small act has me feeling wildly refreshed. Scooping up more I bring it to my mouth before pausing.
“Do you think it’s okay to drink?” I ask, hope coloring my question. My body doesn’t care, only craving to quench my thirst, but my brain reminds me sternly about my severe lack of survival skills.
Win looks up and down the stream before shrugging. “Think so. I don’t see any dead animals lying in it and there’s certainly no farm nearby with animals to toilet in here. Can’t account for squirrels, bird baths, ya know, that sort of thing, but it’s probably okay.”
Disgust twists my lips. “Delightful.”
Remi laughs as he combs through his hair with his fingers before tying it back once more. “There could be a million things in this stream, but right now it’s either take the risk or die of thirst.”
“We could boil it?”
“In what?”
With
a sigh, part reluctance and part relief, I drink from my hands and the fresh, cool water running down my throat is an exquisite sensation difficult to describe. After drinking our fill, we make sure to fill the canteens to the brim. As tempted as we are, we decide not to linger. I’m still anxious to find Van and the boys feel bound to their promise to get me there.
“D’you ever consider just not going?” Win asks as we push on through the sparse forest.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you could easily disappear in the S.C. You could go wherever, do whatever, be whatever and never be found,” he says. “Python offered to spring you from your cell, but now that you’re out and in limbo you could choose something else. You don’t need them anymore.”
My jaw drops open to answer, but I snap it shut. He’s right. I needed Van’s offer to leave my cell, but even his promise was not freedom. This, what I have now, though miserable, is freedom. I chew over the possibilities, but can’t make myself swallow.
“No,” I decide. “I have to go. Regardless of how it was arranged, they still need me. Innocent people need my help. How could I live knowing I’d willingly denied them that?”
“You’re awfully noble considering all that’s been done to you,” Win sighs. “I bet Python knows who was really behind it all and didn’t lift a finger to say so. Even if not, they’re going to wring your brain for answers and claim all the money and credit.” Win begins shaking his head, anger coating his throat. “And those innocent people? They’d stone you if they could. You were innocent and they convicted you. Even if you make this vaccine to save them, they will spit on your grave. People are easier to hurt than they are to forgive.”
Sorrow cradles my heart and the truth of his words sparks a twinge of love at Win’s defense of me. “You believe me though,” I say gratefully. “You and Remi and my sister, my niece, my brother-in-law if they’re still out there…You all believe me and so I’m not alone. More important than that, God knows the truth so who else really matters?”
“God gonna keep your neck from a rope?” he growls dubiously.
“No, maybe not,” I admit. “But He’s given us all a purpose and we ought to fight to serve it before lying down to die. Don’t be afraid of death, Win. It isn’t the end, only the end of this.”
Win mumbles something under his breath and I ignore him, my focus returning to the tree roots that love to try and catch my feet.
“Is that how you lasted so long without losing your soul?” Remi asks suddenly, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, Remi,” I nod. “It is. I could’ve sold it for temporary comfort and false forgiveness, but I’m not a cheat, not even to myself. Besides, it’s hard to give in when you have the power of God thrumming in your heart. It’s like this oasis of peace you can retreat to any time. I have no shortage of fear, but hope…faith…it’s a powerful thing and I never quite understood that until my life counted on it. I lived paralyzed in fear at first, then it hit me and suddenly, though the fear was still there, it had lost its power over me. I experienced a lot of pain over the years. Emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual…but this something kept me going, wouldn’t let me give in even when I cried myself to sleep begging for it to be over.”
I’m quiet for a minute and a bird chirps prettily in the silence. “I could’ve done it, I could’ve finally called it quits, I yearned to…but I wasn’t done yet and when Van showed up I finally knew why.”
“How’d you end up there anyway?” Remi wonders aloud. “You told us a bit, something about playing God and greed, but I wanna know. How could they get it so wrong? Gan was intimidating as hell, but Morgan…Morgan is just a nice, normal person.”
A heavy sigh tugs my chest. “It began with a single post.”
Remi’s brow furrows, not quite understanding.
“I guess you don’t have the internet out here?”
He shrugs. “Not much need for it. Or maybe there could be, but we don’t bother. Simpler times, simpler lives…that sort of thing though some Corral towns and Ranger bases have the tech.”
“Well, then maybe you won’t quite understand, but it was as essential to life as blood in our veins, as integrated to thinking as the synapses in our brains. In a twisted way, we’d turned ourselves into cyborgs so dependent and one with it all. It’s a miraculous, world-changing tool, and yet…well, everything in moderation, right?”
Win shudders and Remi’s frown turns thoughtful.
“Anyway,” I push on. “I’d discovered the plot and told my friends and my brother-in-law who worked with me. There was chaos as people responded to the emergency evacuation notice Fitz had put out but I was seen heading towards Xi’s private labs where the bomb was planted, then I was spotted leaving the building suspiciously alone. Everyone else had already fled yet there I was sprinting away right before it blew. A single post, a single suspicion, a single ignorant accusation, and suddenly I’m trending in the media and the prime suspect in the case. One moment I’m anonymous and the next I’m villainized. Society hopped on a bandwagon that shipped me to Hell.
“That digital riot paired with evidence of the lab tech’s stolen badge with my fingerprints on it, cameras capturing the break in and auto-uploading the footage to an online server before it was too late, testimonies of my confrontation with Dr. Xi and my odd sudden shift in behavior… Maybe it shouldn’t have been enough,” I muse ruefully. “But how could they begin to restore order until the terrorist was caught?”
It’s not as if Xi’s private lab contained any cameras to capture our evil deed, just the hall. No, instead they’d have seen us frantically searching rather than scheming. For the thousandth time I wonder what happened to Fitz. Was he killed? Gagged? Or did he simply betray us to save himself? I wonder also about that man Connors and what he thinks of my trial. Could he have won it? Did he even follow it? What about Dr. Convici? She was there that day and a known rival. Did they question her? What did she say?
I release my musings in a practiced sweep. “Society was collapsing and they needed someone to blame. I was there, just sitting in their crosshairs. And then they identified the remains of my best friend in the ashes and, our close friendship being well known, he was condemned with me. A single accusation that buried me before I could scream and suddenly I’m locked in a cage and they’re dancing on his grave.”
Silence clings to our throats, thick and vile.
“What was his name?” Remi asks softly. “I don’t remember hearing it…”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I laugh darkly. “It’s more fun to torture the living than to scorn the dead.” A shuddering breath rattles in my lungs threatening to reopen that tide of grief I’d packed away long ago. “Jez,” I whisper. “His name was Jezriel Knight. He was trying to disarm the bomb and he’d locked me out so I couldn’t help. Instead, I ran and he…he…”
“And that Fitz guy? What happened to him?”
I blow out a heavy breath. “Fitzwilliam Rochester III. I don’t know what happened to him other than the Alliance taking on his family’s name. I never saw him during the trial and I don’t know if it was because he refused to help me or because he couldn’t.” I’m silent for a moment. “He never visited me in prison either. No one did. Or could, maybe.”
The sun is setting and so we decide to make camp. Our progress has been slow and we aren’t entirely sure how on-course we are, but right now I don’t care. I can’t. Win stomps around, pulling out blankets and building a small fire, his eyes angry with a dampness that glistens in the dying light. I sit in the dirt crying over wounds I’ve held shut for years while Remi holds me and sings some sort of lullaby softly for my heart.
Full grief, proper mourning, neither had been an option at the time. I’d been in shock, coursing with fear and worry over myself, my friends, my family, the city…and then I was suddenly alone in a cell and I knew from the hatred in every pair of eyes I passed that I could not cry there. So I didn’t and now those bottled up tears threaten to dr
own me in their ceaseless torrent. How could it be that these two wild boys would cross my path and hold my hands? How could it be? And yet as my breathing slowly begins to steady, as my pulse begins to calm, and my heart at last begins to mend, I send my gaze to the knowing heavens and smile.
There is a time for everything…
Seventeen
We don’t talk about my break down last night, instead Win and Remi go about our routine as usual. No pity in their gazes, just the occasional flash of concern. I yearn for their levity, feeling a touch guilty for having dampened it.
“You guys do know where we’re going, right?” I ask in a teasing tone. “Or are we going to wander in circles for forty years?”
“As if you’d be alive in forty years,” Win snorts. “And if you are, don’t look at me to carry you.”
“Why not?” I challenge. “It’s not as if you’ll have anything better to do.”
“Uh, excuse me, but I fully plan on being married by then,” he huffs.
A laugh bubbles up my throat causing Remi to do the same. “Oh yeah? To who?”
Win’s cheeks redden. “Well, I haven’t met her yet.”
“Mhm, well, I hope you’re not planning on relying on your subpar physique to reel her in.”
“My body is hot as hell!” he fumes, jabbing an angry finger in my direction.
Remi and I can’t hold it in any longer, we practically roll with laughter at Win’s indignation.
“I don’t see you with anybody,” he growls. “And you’ve got less time than me.”
“Oh I dunno, cuz,” Remi shrugs. “Wasn’t it you, a man half her age, who was checking her out the other day? I’d say she’s doing just fine.”
I send Win an arrogant grin and sling my bag over my shoulder. His eyes narrow and his lips pout, but he decides to let it go with a muttered, “Horseman.”
The day passes much the same as the previous, with a leafy green landscape occasionally littered with junk and banter on the breeze. I drink in each moment between blinks, eager for anything besides the dreary, sterile confines of prison walls, and constantly pry stories from Win and Remi about everything I’ve missed. Their stories are mostly about growing up in their Clan or some wild (sometimes illegal) antics they got up to, and I try my best to store them all in my memory. In turn I tell them what it was like growing up in the Alliance before and all of the plans I’d once had for myself. We’re like an odd little family and I have to remind myself that I’ve only known them for a handful of days and within a handful more we’ll be parting ways.
