Drastic Times (Book 3): Fierce Freedom

by Rock, R. A.

We didn’t know if they were or not.

  I decided to assume they weren’t. Because the alternative…

  But even if they weren’t dead, I had a feeling of dread in my guts about this. I looked down at the woman before us, she wasn’t dead yet, but she soon would be.

  I was so sick of all this craziness. I just wanted to go home.

  “We should try and make her comfortable. And stay with her until she…”

  “And then when she dies, we need to bury the body,” Shiv said, always practical.

  “And then,” Audrey added, rubbing her nose with the back of her sooty hand and leaving a black mark. “We get the hell out of here.”

  “Where did you come from?” Yumi said to Audrey who had appeared out of the shadows next to Shiv as Grace was doing her examination.

  She shrugged and shook her blonde hair, which was flowing down around her shoulders. She appeared natural and pretty — definitely not her usual look.

  “Just checking the place out,” she said, and apparently that was the only explanation for her absence that we were going to get.

  “I had hoped to say good-bye to Matt and Nessa and Zoe and Ernest.” Grace sighed, her face darker than I had seen it in a while. “But now, I guess it doesn’t matter. We should just get home. I’m pretty tired of this place.”

  “Home is this place,” Yumi pointed out.

  “Well, I’m getting tired of this time, then,” Grace said. “So much fighting and struggle. Is it whiny of me to say that I just want things to be easy again?”

  “It’s not whiny,” I said.

  “It is whiny,” Yumi contradicted. “But it’s also maybe nostalgic. Are you really implying that things back home are easy?”

  “She has a point,” Shiv said. “You do remember what our lives have been like the past year or two?”

  “I remember, but somehow…” Grace trailed off. “I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it’s that in our time, everything is a mess, but at least it’s our mess.”

  I nodded and then coughed hard.

  “We should get her out of here,” I said, glancing at Shiv and he gave one nod. We each went to one end.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Grace said, giving us a stormy look. “It will injure her more.”

  Audrey gave her an incredulous look.

  “Didn’t you just say she was nearly dead?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “We can’t stay here,” Yumi said, her tone flat. “If we’re going to make her comfortable, then it has to be somewhere else. This smoke is not good for those of us still among the living.”

  “She’s not dead yet,” Grace insisted.

  “And I don’t intend to die at all.”

  The voice coming from the body startled us again and I jumped, feeling a surge of adrenaline. Grace let out another shriek.

  “Get me to The Sanctuary,” the woman said.

  AFTER THE NEARLY-DEAD body spoke, I took several deep breaths to calm my racing heart. This resulted in my own body trying to cough up a lung as I inhaled a bunch of the dense black smoke coming from the Sipwesk buildings that were burning around us.

  It was full-on dark, even though it was only late afternoon, and shadows darted along the ground. The fire still roared behind us and Grace knelt quickly beside the woman again asking questions about how she felt — completely surprised that the woman was conscious.

  “I need you to take me to The Sanctuary,” the woman said, ignoring all of Grace’s questions. Her voice was gravelly and it sounded as though every word hurt. “Make a travois and take me there. They can heal me. Please.”

  A travois? One of those things made with poles covered with branches to drag a person — or stuff — through the forest? Being put on one of those probably prickly things and dragged across the bumpy forest on it while fatally injured sounded like the least pleasant way to get wherever she wanted to go.

  “I don’t think you can be moved,” Grace objected.

  “If I don’t move, I’ll be dead in a couple hours,” the woman said. “And that would be the end of the Resistance, wouldn’t it?”

  The Resistance?

  There was no government. Why would there be a resistance? What was this woman talking about? Was she crazy? Maybe delirious from her injuries?

  “But it will be very uncomfortable,” Grace said.

  “Listen,” the woman said, lifting her head a little, her blue eyes burning brighter than the fires around us. “I am tougher than I look and I will live. I’ve survived much worse, trust me. But you need to get me to The Sanctuary. You must. Or all our efforts will have been wasted.”

  “What efforts?” I said.

  “The Resistance,” she said. “The only hope our world has.”

  “The Resistance?” Chad said, glancing at Shiv.

  “Please,” the woman said, dropping her head back to the ground, exhausted.

  “Okay,” I said, answering for all of us. The others gaped at me. “We’ll take you to The Sanctuary.”

  “This woman is going to die,” I broadcast to the others. “It’s her dying request. What choice do we have?”

  And I saw the acceptance on their faces.

  “And then we go home,” Audrey added. “No more delays.”

  There were four mental nods and it was decided. I stepped forward and leaned over the woman so I could look her in the eyes.

  “We’ll help you. Where is this Sanctuary?”

  THE RAIN was thickening and we put on the winter clothes Grace and I had brought with us when we left New Winnipeg. I snuggled into my winter coat, the warmth a relief from the biting cold that had descended as the sun went down.

  The mystery woman wouldn’t give us exact directions, just told us that it was several hour’s walk and that we could be there by midnight. We were to head south on the highway.

  We argued with her that if she was unconscious we wouldn’t be able to find it but she wouldn’t give us any more information. We didn’t want to upset her, so we let it go, hoping for the best.

  We built a quick travois, making it as comfortable as we could by covering it with soft moss. But even so, it looked incredibly uncomfortable.

  Grace wanted to teleport her but it’s difficult to do when you don’t have a clear idea in your mind of where you’re going. Grace either needs to have been to the place or have images that she can look at. And even then it can be dangerous because something might not be where she expects it to be and one of us could end up in the middle of a tree or some other object.

  Yeah. Not something that any of us wanted.

  So we were walking.

  But at least Grace took most of her weight, holding her kinetically, so that she wasn’t bumped around as much as she would have been. Grace didn’t completely levitate her because that would have been way too obvious and aroused suspicion if anyone saw us. But at least she could make the injured woman more comfortable.

  We took turns pulling her on the travois as we headed down the old asphalt highway that was crumbling and cracked. It wasn’t completely deteriorated because it had only been a few years since it had stopped being maintained but even so, there were already signs of decay.

  As we walked, the rain turned to snow. It was the first we had seen of the white stuff even though it was late December. The temperature was still above zero — but barely — and I was glad of the warm clothes we had brought with us from New Winnipeg when Grace and I had made our escape. Grace was the one who had thought of it and though I had argued against the idea at the time, I was now ready to admit that I had been wrong.

  My argument had been that we would be back at Sipwesk soon and we could get winter clothes there.

  So much for that idea.

  And anyways, I was glad to have taken the clothes from people who, first of all, didn’t need them, and second of all had plenty. Matt and Nessa’s community probably couldn’t have spared the clothes for us anyways. So, Grace had been right that we should bring them. And as I p
ulled the warm hood up over my head, I was sure thankful for the winter clothing.

  The snow fell, sticking to the wet road. Shiv and Chad took off the extra layers that they wore under their coats to cover the woman, who was shivering constantly.

  I wondered for the millionth time who she was, what this Resistance was that she spoke of with a capital R, and what The Sanctuary was that she wanted us to take her to — also with capital letters.

  When I glanced at her dark, still form on the travois, I was dubious as to whether she could actually survive this trip. But then I remembered the look in her eyes when she had said she needed us to bring her to The Sanctuary. She meant it when she said she had survived worse and I wondered what her story was, It seemed that I was going to find out whether I wanted to or not, seeing as we were being pulled into it against our will.

  The woman was in her early forties, with black hair and dark eyes. She looked to be at least part aboriginal, maybe with the other half of European descent — those blue eyes had to come from somewhere. She hadn’t even told us her name and after what she had said about The Resistance, I couldn’t help but think that that had been on purpose.

  I watched as Chad switched seamlessly with Shiv. Then Shiv dropped back beside me and gave me a look that I could barely see and hardly interpret. It was dark as the inside of a black hole out here tonight.

  “So, what do you make of all this?” he said, his voice lower than usual and rough from the smoke.

  I shrugged and shook my head, not sure what to say. The wind was keening in the treetops — an eerie sound in the darkness.

  “I don’t know. But she seems to be important, or at least she considers herself important to this so-called Resistance.”

  “Yeah,” he said, thinking. “I wonder what The Sanctuary is that she’s talking about.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, peering at the woman bumping along in front of us and seeing nothing in the heavy darkness. “But I hope it exists and that we’re not going to end up in the middle of a snowstorm with no shelter and no sign of this alleged Sanctuary.

  “Good point,” he said. “But you guys know how to make a shelter and a fire anyways, right?”

  He sounded so worried I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Shiv, we have a manifestor with us. I’m pretty sure you can pull some matches out of the air if we need them.”

  “We’re out of matches already?” he said. “I just manifested them only…”

  He stopped and gave an annoyed grunt as he realized that I was just making a point. I chuckled.

  “I only meant that we have the five of us and even if we were naked in the middle of the bush in a blizzard, I’m pretty sure we’d be okay. We’re pretty competent, plus we’ve got amazing mental powers to go with those regular survival skills.”

  He gave a snort.

  “I guess you’re right. Still, this snow makes me nervous. It’s the first sign of winter we’ve seen. And I don’t want to be caught unprepared.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “But I think it’s going to be alright. Hopefully the people at this place will give us shelter for at least one night. Then we can come back here and go home.”

  “It’s all I think about, Yumi,” he said, and in his voice I heard the echo of my own yearning for our proper time and place. “All the time.”

  “You and me both, Shiv,” I said, taking his mittened hand in mine and giving it a squeeze. “You and me both.”

  “CHAD, WE HAVE to stop,” Yumi said from behind me. I had my head down, walking as fast as I could through the snow that was getting deeper, the farther we went. The snow had started out wet but the temperature had been steadily dropping and now the flakes were hitting my face like tiny beads of glass, hence the need to keep my head down.

  I didn’t know where we were but we must be getting close to The Sanctuary. The woman had said it was several hours walk and we had definitely been trudging through the heavy, wet snow for that long.

  “We can’t stop,” I said, turning to look at her as she came up beside me. Yumi was nothing but another shadow, it was so damn dark. I took a deep breath of cold, fresh air and kept moving ahead as she spoke.

  “We have to. It’s late. Probably close to midnight,” she said, putting a hand on my arm. “And she’s stopped shivering.”

  That made me pause. I twisted and looked back, still unable to see a damn thing because of the darkness. We had piled as much extra clothing over the woman as we could but obviously it wasn’t enough. With her injuries, she would be in shock, which would make her colder. And if she had stopped shivering, there was a serious danger of hypothermia.

  “Shit,” I said, looking around. I couldn’t see any particular part of the forest that was better than any other — mostly because I couldn’t see anything at all — but the trees would have more shelter than out here on the road, so I turned the travois carefully and headed straight for the treeline. Yumi went ahead of me, calling for Grace, Shiv and Audrey.

  By the time I pulled the travois with the injured woman to where they had begun to set up camp, Grace had melted the snow down to the ground and dried the earth with her kinetic powers. Audrey and Yumi had gathered wood and Shiv had manifested dry tinder and kindling, which was hard to come by in a forest that had seen a lot of rain.

  Shiv’s powers were still not back in his full control but if it was a simple object and didn’t require him to manifest it in a specific area, then he was doing the occasional manifestation. I shuddered as I thought of the time he had manifested a knife in Yumi’s forearm. Shiv’s powers could be deadly if he couldn’t control them, so he was using his abilities sparingly.

  Yumi knelt down and with small precise movements, tore the moss and plants from a good sized circle on the ground till it was bare. Then she put the tinder on the ground, piling the kindling carefully on top. Finally she set the wood standing in a tent shape over the smaller pieces. I picked up the woman and brought her as close to where Yumi was making the fire as I dared, setting her gently on the ground, which was dry and actually warm from Grace’s powers.

  “Grace?” Yumi said, gesturing to the fire.

  I watched as Grace closed her eyes and stood very still. A moment later, the tinder caught fire, a tiny flame licking up towards the kindling. Guess we were saving matches, since we had our very own fire starter amongst us. Soon the flames were curling around the wood, popping and snapping and making the dark woods bright.

  It was warm in the clearing and I pulled off my coat and piled it on the stranger, as well. The others did the same, except Audrey who was always cold, even when it was nice weather.

  “You think she’s going to be okay?” Shiv said to Grace.

  Grace shook her head.

  “I don’t know. But we need to get her warmed up or there’s no chance at all.”

  She laid down beside the woman, back to back to provide some body heat. Everyone settled in the small clearing, finding a spot to warm up and rest. It had been one hell of a long day but I couldn’t sit yet, I was still too wound up.

  “You think there really is a Sanctuary?” Yumi said and I frowned, stepping closer to the fire and holding out my hands.

  “Of course there is.”

  “How do you know? She could be delusional from her injuries.”

  “You remember I’m a human lie detector, right?” I said, referring to my training at The Agency that had taught me to pick up on subtle cues in a person’s physical and mental being that would tell me whether they were telling the truth or lying. “She was telling the truth.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said. “Well, what about where the damn place is? How can we get her there if she’s unconscious? She won’t be able to tell us where it is.”

  “You’ll have to go in her mind, Chad,” Shiv said.

  “I won’t unless warming her up doesn’t help,” I said quickly, not sure I could get into the mind of the stranger, even if I wanted to.

  Repressing a grimace
so I wouldn’t make Yumi feel any worse than she already did, I couldn’t help but remember the moment when Yumi had saved me by fusing all the bricks in my mind. She had kept me from going insane but in the process she had taken away my power.

  The two of us had gone into my mind and found Shiv, Grace, Audrey, and Yumi’s bricks and opened them but I still couldn’t hear anyone else’s mind. And I wasn’t sure when that was going to change. It killed me to even consider it and I pushed the thought away, making up any excuse not to have to try to use my power.

  “We’ve walked several hours like she told us,” I said. “We must be almost there. If she warms up and regains consciousness, then she can tell us where we have to go next.”

  Shiv accepted that explanation but when I glanced at Yumi, she was studying me with a serious expression on her face as if she knew exactly what was going on in my head.

  Of course, she probably did know exactly what I was thinking. We were once as close as two people could get but now… well, now we weren’t. But she still knew how I thought.

  It had been my idea to just be friends after all the drama of the past year. And it was a good idea. I still stood by that. We needed to get our individual shit together before we could even consider being a couple again. But I had no idea how I was supposed to do that. How I was supposed to figure out what I needed to change in order to be with her again.

  The fire crackled and danced cheerfully, nothing like the blazing inferno we had left behind us at Sipwesk. I sat down gazing into it feeling as moody as a teenager when I thought about Yumi.

  Because the thing was, I needed to be with her again. Someday. Somehow. I had loved her my whole life and I couldn’t seem to stop. No matter how much she pushed me away. No matter how much we hurt each other.

  My guts ached, I wanted it so badly.

  I needed to figure this shit out so that we could be together, without all the pain. But I didn’t know what to do. What to change. Who to become… so that that could happen.

  And I wasn’t sure I ever would.

  IT WAS THE last watch of the night and everyone was sleeping, except me. I sat on the toasty ground, which Grace had kept dry and thawed by waking periodically throughout the night to warm it again. My knife lay on the moss beside me and I held a bow and arrow loosely in my hands, as dawn peeked over the edge of the world.