by Brindi Quinn
I cringed at the pain of impact, but pushed it from thought before coming at him with another assault. I’d always been a decent kicker. At University, we practiced weekly on threadbare hanging dummies in the back corner of the old gymnasium. Each kick to a dummy’s soft core sent a flurry of dust particles to the gymnasium floor. Our power was measured in bursts of powder.
But the dummies weren’t all. We’d also practiced on one another. I’d landed Karán at the medic’s on more than one occasion, and Othello even had a scar on her jaw where I’d hit her too hard.
That was before she was sentenced to the outlands, of course.
I would put the practice to good use. I wouldn’t let Karán’s agony be in vain. Picturing Crash like one of the limp, hanging dummies, my intent was to knock him off balance with a rounded kick to the side, one that would be followed by another, sharper kick.
However, in addition to being strong, the unholy one was also fast. He leaned out of the way at the last second, turned on heel and pummeled me off-balance with a similar kick.
I lent myself into the fall and crouched in landing to absorb the shock of the ground.
My shoulder smarted from that last hit, and there was wetness at the side of my face. Sweat or blood, it didn’t matter. My pulse was kicking in my neck and wrists. My muscle was shaking beneath my skin. I was going to kill him and it was going to be tonight.
And I was going to revel in it.
I bolted at him once more, swooping to the ground as I came, to collect a handful of dirt. I threw it at his face and used the momentary distraction to land a solid fist at the side of his mouth.
Crack!
When he brushed the dirt from his face, he was no longer grinning.
This time it was he, who charged me. With a flat palm he slashed at me once, twice, a third – and I dodged each in turn, but I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t notice that he was intentionally backing me against another of the fence posts. The fourth slash pushed me too far. The post rammed into my back, causing a sharp pain and another feeling of wetness.
Enough!
In a fury, I ripped its neighbor from the ground and came swinging at my challenger, landing at least one hit against him. I heard him cry out, and I inhaled in satisfaction. I would wear him down slowly if I had to. I would stay at it until the sun rose if I had to. I managed to land a second hit before he caught the end of the makeshift weapon, same as last time. But he had learned his lesson, and this time he thrust the pole in my direction – which shoved me off balance – before ripping it from my hand and swinging it high over his head. He came down sharp.
I didn’t have time to react.
I threw my wrists over my head in defense.
It was a thoughtless motion. The impact of metal against something as tender as wrists would only crush them.
Regardless, that was the position I took, and had Crash followed through with the swing, he would have injured me, to say the least. He might even have won.
But we would never know.
In that brief moment, while I took on an instinctive last pose, Crash abruptly halted his swing, instead flinging the pole against the silo – the latter of which clattered in response. My body was tensed. It took me a passing of seconds to realize what had happened.
I had been spared.
Confused, I dropped my hands from overhead and rose to standing.
Crash was bleeding from the mouth and both arms, and he was heaving great breaths of recovery. I was too. I hadn’t realized it until that moment.
In the sudden release of tension, my muscles loosened. My whole body ached.
My Marker was bent forward, hands to knees, yet he his eyes were still firmly on me.
Though I was wounded, I still had fight left in me, and all other emotions were quickly turning to anger.
There was nothing more offensive than pity, nothing.
“Don’t!” I shouted at Crash. “Don’t YOU DARE!”
I ran to him, pushed at his chest and shoulders, swatted at his face. He backhanded me with enough force to sting, but still I kept on, furious at myself for my lack of strategy; furious that he’d dropped the post, mid-strike; furious that he’d shown me mercy.
I clawed at him, leaving a trail of red down the side of his face.
That was when he caught me around the neck – and squeezed.
Using whatever might he had remaining, he took me by the throat and slammed me against the side of the silo, again making it shriek in metallic retaliation. I battered at him and twisted, but he ignored it all.
He watched me with a dead expression until he grew bored of it and neared his face to mine.
Welcome to Paradise, Zillow Stone.
With his cruel blue stare permeating into me, I half expected him to say it. But instead, his mouth lay flat and he whispered, “Do you want to die, prag?”
I wrung my hands around his wrist and attempted to wrench him away, but his grip was almost as stern as the metal silo at my back. My adrenaline-fueled pulse beat hard against his clutch. Being that close to him, locked by his choking grasp, I had nowhere to look but at my Marker. Sweat was collected at the base along the edge of his hair. The corner of his mouth dripped red. He licked it as he studied me, as I felt the air cut off from my lungs, as I felt my body reel for more.
For the first time I noticed: with the shape of his eyes like almonds, and that indent above his lip, he almost resembled a feline.
Before my eyes, his tattoos melted down his face and became whiskers. They blurred.
The oxygen was leaving my body, and I was beginning to see things that weren’t there.
Meanwhile, my hands were doing a laughable job of fighting back. I swung them in slow motion, but they felt numb and heavy at the same time and barely managed to make contact.
I was going to die and I knew it.
Crash knew it too. And for whatever reason–
“Enough.”
All at once, he released my neck.
I fell into the silo. There, I coughed and heaved and swayed under my own weight, but he took my cheeks in his hands and lifted my face to his. He continued to stare at me with a flattened mouth. I wanted to retaliate, but my body was focused on oxygen recovery and nothing more.
“How do you feel, Zillow Stone?”
I glared up at him venomously. Again, he’d had my life in his grasp and again he’d allowed me to win. How did I feel? If I had a weapon, I would plunge it into the softest part of his stomach.
“Argh!”
Throwing his hands from my face, I turned my back to him.
I was strongest and fastest in my class, and had I been paired with someone like Theo or Chloe or even Kipper, winning this game would have been simple.
Instead, I’d been paired with him. Him, who was able to counter most of my attacks. Him, who was able to stay hot on my trail. Him, who smirked so loathedly.
“What do you want with me?” I demanded.
He didn’t answer right away. He was gearing up for something sadistic.
“Help me bandage this.” He pointed to the backside of his ribs, where I’d nailed him with the post. I couldn’t see the wound through his jumpsuit, but the fabric clung grossly to the place where I’d struck.
Good.
And I wasn’t about to help him fix it.
“Do it,” he said again. “I will give you glue for your shoulder.”
“Glue?”
He nodded. “Mediglue. There isn’t any out here. I took it with me from Angeles – the place you know as Western City.”
“Wh–”
I nearly fell into the trap of conversation. My mouth wanted to ask what Western City was like. It wanted to ask where the great generator was. It wanted to know about the upbringing of demons.
Crash realized this. His mouth curled up disgustingly at the corner. “I will tell you about it if you help me bandage this.”
Again, he motioned to his back, which was darkening quickly. His reque
st was suspicious. His whole manner was. What was his game?
He didn’t wait for an answer, just proceeded to unzip the front of his jumpsuit.
I watched him slip his arms from the sleeves and tie the extra fabric around his waist. His shoulders, chest and stomach were bare. They were pronounced, like one who’d trained hard for the chase, like me. But unlike me, his body was tan. The wound on his back was wet with fresh blood.
“Stay here.” Without waiting for my consent, he left, around the side of the silo, giving me the perfect opportunity to run. I didn’t, though. I didn’t even try. I was tired. But I wasn’t too tired. I also needed my belongings. But I didn’t need them that badly. The truth was that I was interested. I was suspicious about why the unholy one hadn’t killed me, when he’d had ample opportunities. I was even more curious about the land from which he hailed. That aside, he was injured and willing to let down his guard. If there was ever a better time to strike . . .
He returned a moment later with a clump of items in his holding. He tossed my backpack to me, but not my katar. That, I assumed, he was keeping as leverage.
I hadn’t realized just how dependent I was on weaponed fighting until now. My katar was an extension of my arm. Without it, every punch felt light and every strike fell short. From now on, I would train equally without it, so that next time I had to fight unarmed, I’d be prepared.
Not that I expected there to be a next time.
I would get him tonight, one way or another.
Crash rustled around in his pack a moment before pausing to look at me. No, that wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t capable of merely looking at a person. Every time his eyes hit me, they seared.
Saying nothing, he continued to sear at me. What the hell was he looking at?
Giving no explanation, he eventually flicked his eyes to his pack and pulled out a small tube.
“I’ll do you first,” he said.
Like hell. I wasn’t about to let him touch me.
He read my expression – “Fine. Bleed to death.” – and shrugged. Then, he unscrewed the cap of the tube, felt for the scratches on his face, and squeezed out a messy line of clearish, bluish paste over them. The paste turned pink with the mixing of his blood.
And then something incredible happened.
As Crash smeared the mixture away, blood and all, he was no longer bleeding. In fact, the wound was hardly visible.
Whatever that paste was, it had fused his opened flesh together in a matter of seconds, whilst leaving the healthy parts of him alone.
I couldn’t help myself. “Let me try.”
Eyes dark with amusement, Crash summoned me over with his index finger. I didn’t even care. The healing qualities of the paste were amazing. I wanted to know its composition. Something like that would be a great aid out here in the wilderness, if only one could find a way to replicate it.
I slipped the shoulder of my shirt down just far enough to expose the gash. It was trickling more than was healthy.
I watched as Crash drew a much neater line, now that he could see what he was doing. He covered the full extent of the wound, and then pursed his lips together and blew on it gently. The blowing was unnecessary, for he hadn’t needed to blow on the ones on his face. I scowled at him, but quickly lifted the scowl after he smeared the paste away with his thumb.
My skin was closed.
“Amazing!”
I snatched the tube from his fingers and squinted at it, disappointed to see that it was lacking an ingredients list. That was fine. Given enough time I would discern the ingredients and replicate the paste.
“Why didn’t you use this when you tore your leg before?” I asked, turning the tube over in my hand.
“What?”
“When we encountered that mecha-beast, you only used bandage.”
“Oh. I’d lent it to a friend.” Something about it seemed untruthful. I studied him. “My turn,” he said.
The tattooed boy turned his back to me and bent sideways. I hesitated. The request was an odd one, given the circumstances. To be fair, the wound on his ribs was at an awkward reach for him, and a great deal of paste would have been wasted, had he done it himself.
Still, to expose himself in that way . . .
For a split second, I imagined myself hitting him in that tender spot with a nearby rock.
But something about it felt unsportsmanlike. I, Zillow Stone, was above cheap shots. I’d beat him, and I would do it fairly.
I placed the nozzle along his wound and he winced. I pressed the tip just a little harder against him than I should have. Next, I squeezed the tube, drawing a thin line of glue that gleamed unnaturally in the night.
The air was silent, until, out of nowhere, Crash said, “What’s in it for them?”
I stopped mid-line to study him. “What?”
“We beat the shit out of each other. Do you think the presidents ever so much as stand up?”
I assumed he was talking about the Directors.
It was strange to hear it put that way, especially from a Marker. I hadn’t really give thought to what the Directors got out of the game – at least not since realizing the trap in the retrect was staged. University teaching was that Markers were the ones with something to gain. This chase was their amusement. They got sick pleasure from watching us squirm. They were hunters and we were the ultimate game.
Then again, what proof did I have of that?
The first Marker I’d encountered had offered me assistance, by directing me to the secret prag markings. The yellow-haired Marker outside of Zelpha hadn’t so much as stopped to bother with me. And to top it off, I strongly suspected that Chloe felt some kind of infatuation for Theo. Even my Marker . . . even Crash had spared me several times now. He’d saved me from the mammoth. He was sealing my wounds.
It’s a trick. Don’t fall for it.
I needed to remain on guard, just in case.
“That’s enough.” Crash pushed the tip of the tube away. “This one is too deep. The glue is just to get it started.” He pulled from his pack a roll of gauze and began wrapping it under his arms, around his body, paste and all.
When he was finished, he brushed off his hands and nodded to the tube. “Use as much as you need.” Then, as I set about repairing any remaining wounds inflicted in the fight, the unholy boy drew from his bag a small clear container that held a stack of opaque discs. He gave them a shake.
“And now, Zillow Stone, you have a choice.”
Rather abruptly, his smile took on an evil glint, one that made me halt what I was doing and clutch at the dirt of the ground in defense. Looking increasingly more devilish, the unholy one came sauntering over.
“Option one:” he said, “RUN.” – The stipulation being that he would keep my katar and that the next time we met, we would fight to the death.
He planted his feet next to mine and leaned over me.
“Option two: FIGHT.” – Which I had a hard time mustering for, as I’d just been pitifully let live.
“And option three?” Crash was leering over me dangerously, extending the small container pinched between his fingers. “Why, option three’s a whole mess of fun, Zillow Stone.”
Chapter 11: Unholier than Thou
I fled through a field of scorched grass.
I was farther west than I’d ever been. The sun was more visible than it had ever been. It beat down, into my hair, heating the whole top of my head. I wondered if it was turning me bronze like my Marker.
It was tempting to waste a day’s worth of water dousing myself.
Thud, thud, thud!
There was someone streaking through the brush behind me, and my strongest desire was to outrun him, as if keeping ahead of him would prove my worth. I could hear my pursuer close behind me, his breath at my neck, his feet propelling through the grass. My Marker was in hot pursuit.
I would never let him catch me. I ran with my all, losing myself in the feeling of winning, until–
“Stop her
e,” Crash said.
I stopped in my tracks. I had no choice but to comply. He and I had stricken a deal.
Back at the silo, I’d been given three options.
I’d chosen option three. Not willing to give up my katar, and too worn down to fight properly, it seemed the most logical decision.
Within Crash’s container of fun, he’d offered me a selection of gambits. Naturally, the Poi-7 was there, along with a gambit that would zap its mark with paralyzing electricity every time water was ingested. The third gambit was similar. Its design was to electrocute its mark every time they traveled faster than a walk. The last, most obvious choice was a prolonged tracker – one that would allow Crash to know my location for two days straight.
I had already come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to kill me. At least not yet. But he did want me – to serve some purpose I had yet to discover. We agreed to two days of peace if I would use the gambit and accompany him to a place out west.
I didn’t know his motives, but I had my own. Running away was pointless, as the tracker would lead him right to me, so instead, I would stay with him. I would study my enemy. I would learn his stalking gait and his manners, and then when the time came, I would spring on him when he least expected it. If I couldn’t beat him with strength and speed, I would beat him with wit.
For the entire morning, we hadn’t spoken much at all. We had simply run, in the direction he instructed.
Each time he ordered me to stop so that he could check his map, he did so with smug satisfaction, and each time, it plagued me with annoyance. I wanted to know where we were going. I wanted to know about Western City. I wanted to know about life as an unholy one. Crash had promised to tell me about his homeland if I helped him seal is wound, but that had yet to happen and I was too proud to ask, so we ran in silence mostly.
I was surprised how much I noticed Theo’s absence. I caught myself wondering if he was dead. I also caught myself hoping that he wasn’t. And each time I thought of him, I felt a pang in my chest. For all of his deception, this was my first time in the wasteland without him.
