by Anna Vera
“Jac will be, of course,” Mia replies, even though Rion didn’t ask her. “Six is usually the best number, given the capacity of our truck and the room we’ll need for supplies.”
“Who else, Mia?” Rion growls.
“Us.” I’m surprised to hear it’s Apollo speaking. “The four people in my group. Mabel’s made the generous offer of allowing this job to serve as our initiation.”
I feel my limbs freeze. If they’re harvesting us—planning to use us for a war, of some kind—why would they waste the time acting like there’s a point to this initiation? Should I defy Rion’s advice and tell the others? Should we run?
“And of course if your group decides not to initiate, that is perfectly acceptable,” Mia proceeds, eyeing me. “But please know we don’t spare medical supplies for anybody who isn’t a member of the quarantine.”
An open threat, then. Do it, or Lios dies.
“We’re in,” I blurt out.
“Excellent.” Mia starts walking off, waving for the others to follow as she heads up the path. “Why don’t you two join us for a quick breakfast? You’ll need the energy before you go.”
“I’m sure we will,” I mutter and go.
The bonfire is still burning. It’s always burning.
Sputtering to life is a small cooking fire, positioned under the vaulted ceilings of the three-story barn, nestled in what looks like a massive steel trashcan lid.
A malnourished individual I recognize as Silas crushes eggs in his fist, dropping the slippery contents onto a cast-iron skillet over an open flame.
Everybody is very quiet.
Rion drags up a pair of chairs, which scrape against a series of dry floorboards and a fluffy carpet of sawdust, before setting them to rest at the fire’s side.
I’m just taking my seat when I see Merope and Cyb coming.
The three of us exchange looks of warning—my glance an altogether different variety.
How will I ever get them to believe what I’ve learned?
Silas clears his throat, plopping a barely-cooked egg on what was once a kid’s plate: ridged and divided into seconds, a picture at the bottom that’s lost its color.
“I assume we should go over the game plan?” he suggests.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Jac chortles mirthlessly, snagging the plate before Apollo can snatch it first. “Grab as many supplies as you can carry and proceed to run for your life.”
“Two steps, eh?” Apollo eyes the food irritably.
“Well, that’s the simplified version, obviously,” Jac says with a mouthful of egg. “Outrunning starving Skims and the Muted at the same time is essentially my worst nightmare.”
Silas claps Jac on the shoulder. “A nightmare you’re forced to relive every quarter.”
“Poor baby,” Mia chimes in.
“Hey—I don’t see you helping, Mia,” Jac says, ripping off a glove to expose his hand, which is missing the first three fingers and most of his palm.
“God, put that away, we’re eating!” Silas begs, making a big show of hiding his eyes.
“Fuck yourself, Si,” Jac replies coolly, stuffing his fingerless hand back in his glove, as commanded. “Got this little souvenir on my first drop, four years ago. The Skims shot me right in the kneecap, so I couldn’t outrun a Mute.”
“Skims?” Merope asks, steepling her fingers—exposing her wrists on accident, which are encircled by a haze of yellow and purple bruises wrapped like bracelets.
I stare at her, openly concerned. Merope’s eyes snag mine, but are fast to look away—an edge of anger, of accusation, buried deep within her violet irises.
Jac tosses his plate back to Silas. “Skims are the people left without a quarantine. They fight for their own supplies, kill for their dinner, and are as ruthless as the Muted.”
“The Muted—with guns,” Silas adds gravely.
“So, we’re fighting them?” Cyb asks. I realize she’s fast to avoid my eyes too. “How does this all work?”
“A supply drop is made in a general location for the whole city to fight over. The supplies are usually scavenged in about three hours. The first hour is the most dangerous, because there are more people present to fight.”
“First run,” Silas interjects wisely, raising a spatula.
“Right—that’s first run.” Jac fumbles for a cigarette behind his ear, as though getting subconsciously worked up just talking about the chaos awaiting us.
Cyb’s lips purse. “So, first run means fighting?”
A beat of silence follows in the wake of her question, heavy as a black cloud bursting with rain. Rion surprises us by speaking up for the first time.
“No,” he says, accepting an egg. “First run means killing."
18
Everything moves quickly.
Silas starts cooking for the other quarantine members while the rest of us raid the barn, stocking up on supplies: weapons of all kinds, bullets, and jugs of water.
Apparently Jac and Rion have their own lockers, which they unlock and begin digging through, leaving Cyb, Merope, and I alone—all three of us together—for the first time in days.
“So,” I begin, loading a pistol. “What the hell is going on?”
“What do you mean?” Cyb barks too quickly, her fingers tangled up in Merope’s long hair, braiding it.
“What’s up with those bruises?” I point out, nodding at the bracelets of yellow and purple Merope’s wearing. “And what’s up with all the death glaring?”
Neither reply. Cyb fastens a rubber band at the base of the braid she’s just made down Merope’s scalp. I feel anger creep up my spine—a blooming, black heat.
I take a fast step to the right and grip Cyb’s arm, twisting it so she’s forced to face me. “Do we have a problem?”
“Maybe we do,” she says, jerking her hand out of my grasp.
“May I ask why?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask why,” Merope says, turning on her stool to face me, violet eyes edged like razors. “Maybe if you were around more, you wouldn’t have to.”
“Around more?” I crow.
“While you spend every night with Rion,” Cyb says, sniffing her way through Rion’s name, “Merope and I are staying up all night helping Lios recover!”
It feels like I’m choking on barbed wire. “You are?”
Merope examines her wrists. “Lios wasn’t himself when he gave me these bruises.”
Cyb finishes cleaning a gun and tosses the dirty rag angrily across the barn, where it falls in a heap of sawdust. “What really pisses me off is he asks for you—a lot.”
“But you’re never there,” Merope adds bitterly.
“Look, I didn’t know any of this,” I say, genuinely upset with myself, but apparently it isn’t enough of an apology.
Merope stands, brushing herself off.
Cyb offers her a gun. “Let’s just stay away from each other for a while, okay?”
“Great—can’t wait for the ride over,” I grumble as they walk away from where I am, sequestered in the far off corner. When I see Apollo slowly approach, I cringe.
Not him. Not now.
As usual, his lips are twisted in a smirk.
“It can’t be! The Three Musketeers, broken up!?”
“Get out of here, Apollo,” I hiss, lifting my gun so it’s aimed right at his genitals. “Or I fear I’ll be tempted to engage in a little friendly fire.”
“You wouldn’t dare ruin a thing of such beauty!”
“You’re disgusting.” I roll my eyes, grabbing my packed bag and a pistol, and begin trekking away—but he rounds on me, his expression altogether different.
Not smirking. Serious.
He grabs my arm, piloting me back to the corner. “But in all seriousness, Eos—we’ve got to talk.”
“Start talking, then,” I say.
“Have you told Rion anything?”
“Never,” I lie, pinned between his arms and the barn’s splintering wall. My eyes flit over his shoulder, where from across the room, Rion eyes us suspiciously.
Apollo’s nostrils flare. “He—he hasn’t told you?”
“Told me what?”
“Nothing.” Apollo exhales with relief, arms dropping. “You two just seem to talk a lot. I was left to consider—no, it doesn’t matter, if he hasn’t said anything.”
“Apollo,” I whisper, feeling suddenly fierce. “What are you babbling on about?”
“I’m just impressed,” he says, dragging a hand through his pitch-black hair absentmindedly. “Impressed the soldier didn’t say anything. Though, I’m sure the opportunity has presented itself to him, and yet he—”
I grip Apollo’s throat in my hand.
He holds perfectly still.
“Why did you just call Rion a soldier?” I growl, feeling the beat of his energy bleed over my palm like the pulse and swell of spilling blood—a skillset ability being called to action.
A skillset that’s my skillset.
Impossible, I still think to myself, despite the flare of energy exploding through my fingertips like bolts of lightning and the thrill of sputtering static. Apollo’s song sings—vastly different than Rion’s sensation, which is like that of a free fall.
The whites of Apollo’s eyes glow in the shadowed corner.
Gasping, he says, “Eos, stop what you’re doing—now.”
I rise up on my toes to look at his eyes. “Why did you just call Rion a soldier?” I echo, grip tightening wildly. “And why would you lie to me about my skillset?”
“Eos,” Apollo begs—a warning.
“Answer my questions, Apollo, or I’ll siphon them from—”
“Children, children!” I hear somebody say. I release my hold on Apollo’s throat immediately, turning to see Jac walking forth with a shotgun slung over his shoulder.
I step away from Apollo.
Jac taps an invisible watch on his wrist. “We’re on a tight schedule, I’m afraid. Let’s get going.”
A few steps away, Rion holds the barn door open, allowing both Cyb and Merope to file out. He keeps his gaze trained on me and Apollo, though.
“Of course.” I grab my backpack and trudge off, my fingers itching to pull my pistol. What does Apollo know? What else does Rion know?
All along, I’ve had a skillset. The reality of it strikes harder and fiercer every time it swings, pendulum-like, in my wild thoughts—and yet Apollo and Onyx kept it from me?
I dip under Rion’s arm, holding the door open, bursting out of the barn and into a day draped in a silver sky—heavy and pale with ready-to-fall snow.
“What was all that about?” Rion inquires dryly.
“Nothing.” I grit my teeth, facing him. “Soldier.”
Rion’s brows raise in question.
“Ask him,” I bark and traipse off, rubbing my arms in the attempt to keep warm. It’s absolutely frigid out here. I stand by my league. None of them speak to me.
Stay calm, Eos, I beg myself, palm resting on the freezing handle of my pistol. Don’t do anything brash.
“This way,” Jac says with a smile, a freshly-rolled cigarette pinned behind his ear. He indicates the quarantine’s primary entryway, a mouth that spits us into Mute territory.
My body feels stiff and robotic as I stray through the door and slip back into unregulated lands. Gunfire sounds from a few miles off, and Jac says, “We’ve expanded the perimeter and kept it secure. A handful of volunteers are staving off the Muted until we have fully left the compound.”
More gunfire, a rapid enfilade this time.
“Let’s keep up the pace,” Rion suggests, walking ahead of the group, a rifle hanging by a strap on his shoulder. I see a pistol in his waistband and a machete glinting from its sheath somewhere on his back. These weapons . . . are they for the Muted, or are they for other people, for the Skims?
There’s a biting chill in the air carrying the scent of danger.
My league walks quickly, trying to catch up to Rion and Jac at the head of the line—but before Merope can join them, I find myself tugging her sleeve hard, holding her back.
She whirls, violet eyes hostile. “Yes?”
“Did you know?” I’m shocked by the hostility laced in my own demeanor, a hostility challenging hers. “If you’ve ever loved me like a sister, tell me the truth.”
“Know what?”
“That I’ve got a skillset.” The words tumble off the edge of my tongue like an accident—a trip, a fall. “That all along I’ve had a skillset ability, but Onyx deliberately kept it from me.”
Merope’s complexion blanches.
“You—you did? You knew?” I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face without warning. Snowflakes fall, catching in Merope’s chocolate hair, dangling like stars.
But her fading complexion isn’t a result of my question, it’s a result of what’s lurking at my back.
“Get out of the way,” she says, older-sister-like, as she shoves me aside forcefully and raises her pistol at two of the Muted staring at us with gaping, eyeless faces.
We glance ahead. The group is out of sight. We’re alone.
The sight of the Muted, alone, is debilitating—their lips so worn down by perpetually fighting and feasting, there is hardly any flesh left. Their weathered faces are so startling, it’s as if the mere sight of them is a physical assault—a slap that echoes its way to the marrow of my bones.
The pair charge simultaneously, just as a series of gunshots explode in the distance, accompanied by shouts to “Retreat! Tell the others—pull back!”
Merope fires, pegging each Mute in the skull.
They fall in snow, steaming heaps of flesh.
“Let’s go,” she barks before taking off, leaving me to sprint in her wake like a madwoman. Merope’s gunfire got the attention of Jac and Apollo, who round the circular perimeter ahead of us and are visible yet again.
“Let’s go, ladies!” Jac shouts, waving us over.
Merope sprints, raising her pistol perpendicular to her body as she runs, firing off rounds one-handed. I rip a large dagger out of a sheath strapped to my thigh and rake it down the chest of a nearby Mute—effectively flaying it—as we spill around the far off corner of the quarantine and find the vehicles. Rion is filling up a truck with fuel, a task I’m guessing we didn’t think we’d need to rush through.
Jac fires off rounds alongside Cyb and Apollo, all guarding the truck as Rion works.
“Save your ammo!” I bark as I rush to Rion’s side and yank his machete off his back for my own use—just in time to slash it through the throat of a Mute clamoring wildly over to us, having slipped through the ranks of the others.
Rion chucks the fuel can, recapping the tank. “Go!”
Jac flies, leaping into the truck, jamming the keys into the ignition and revving the engine. The engine is loud, growling like an angry beast, drawing the attention of every Mute in the forest.
Apollo launches into the truck bed, dragging aboard Cyb and Merope, calling for me—but I’m too busy firing off rounds at the influx of the Muted drawn forth by the engine’s noise. I can’t even follow my own advice about saving ammo. There are too many of them, all coming at once.
Fingers grip my jacket. I whirl to face my assailant, gun poised to shoot, and realize it’s Rion. “What’re you doing?”
“Holding them off,” I bark.
Rion doesn’t dignify my justification with a response, and instead tows me back to the truck. I’m piloted to the truck-bed, while he gets behind the wheel and slams the door shut, revving the engine even louder.
When I settle into place, I see Merope has wilted up against the crook of
Apollo’s arm, her face as white as a ghost.
Cyb’s voice is hardly audible over the roar of the truck’s old engine as she shouts, “How many are there!?”
Merope looks like if she opens her mouth to speak, she’s at risk of projectile vomiting. “Thousands,” she manages with a dry swallow, looking more and more ill by the second. “Thousands of them are coming to the supply drop.”
“To the people,” I interject, ignoring the petty stare I get from Cyb—who obviously is still upset with me. “The Muted are drawn to crowds, to masses.”
“And we’re heading right into it.” Apollo’s dark eyes flash, strikingly foreboding. He leans sideways, careful with Merope under his arm, as he fishes for his revolver. “I caution you all to remember why we’re here. It’s not to harm the people.”
“The Skims are dangerous,” Cyb notes bluntly.
“That's an understatement,” Apollo retorts, jaw tight, and I think of the memory I siphoned from his thoughts: Apollo as a boy, his whole family dead, their corpses littering an abandoned house . . .
A house they didn’t inhabit, but found accidentally.
A house for temporary use.
Were they Skims?
The truck gasps, choking as we crest a hill. The wind’s icy fingers rake through my hair. Then, suddenly, the bumps under us are gone. We’re on pavement—the highway, cruising toward the city where the drop’s being held.
Rion slams on the acceleration, but it doesn’t do much. The road is coated in a thick sheet of black-ice, causing the truck to spin wildly before catching and propelling us forward.
We speed along the highway. Totally alone.
Cyb’s jaw drops, lips parted. “Wow,” she breathes.
We look out over rows of crippled houses strung along the highway, rooftops sagging and drooped. Front doors left slightly ajar and eerily welcoming, as though soliciting new families to inhabit them, saying, See? We’re empty. Please, fill us.
My chest aches. The full impact of what’s happened—of the lives this world has lost, the lives it has yet to lose—really, truly hits us all, possibly for the first time.
