The Slave Series

by Laura Frances

  “I don’t think I can do it,” I say.

  Cash looks off too, toward the valley we can’t see yet. He slides his hand into mine.

  “Come on,” he says.

  The group parts when we approach. Some of them wear pale faces, the color drained from their cheeks. Others tighten their jaws, eyes hard and angry. All of them watch me with sideways glances.

  When my eyes touch the scene stretched in front of us, my heart sinks. I’d always known it was bad. Even with nothing to compare it to, I knew the life we lived was wrong. But this is more than I was ready to absorb. I want to take it in small doses, but my eyes are too wide, and it all comes in too fast. My hand slips free, and I step forward.

  Everywhere I look brings a pang of sadness. The chimneys that belch smoke and blot out the sky. The factories where weary Workers labor under threat of death. It is a tightly packed maze of crumbling buildings and dead dreams. The white peaks of the mountains surround the valley like jagged teeth. I can tell which factories are still active by the pillars of smoke rising from their pipes. My eyes are drawn to the living unit towers, and I’m taken back to a time when loneliness ate at me—when the memories of my parents haunted my nights. Fires rage, plumes of black pouring from structures. I strain to see what’s burning, but it’s too far, and my eyes are wet. This place is death. Snow has blanketed everything in white, and when I close my eyes, I see the blue lips of the Outcasts. They will die now. They will drift away, shivering in the cold air. We can’t possibly get them all in time.

  No one talks. There aren’t words for this. Around us, the Southern soldiers stare shocked. They couldn’t have known. I don’t blame them for being ignorant of the truth. They see it now, and that’s what matters. Now they can prepare, because the truth is laid out before them, and they’ll never be able to forget.

  The wind kicks up, and the scent of it burns my nose. I let my hair fly untamed—let the cold sting my eyes. I feel Cash near me, just a step back. His warmth reminds me that hope is alive. It would be easy to forget.

  Soldiers start moving, but I still can’t tear my eyes from it. The scene is so much worse from up here.

  “There,” someone says. “In the center. That has to be the barracks.”

  “That’s the air field just north of the largest building. See it?”

  “Here,” Cash says behind me. His hand appears at my side holding a device with two glass circles on either end.

  “Look through these,” he murmurs, tapping the smallest circles.

  I lift the glass to my eyes, and my vision enhances. The buildings appear to be only yards away. I lower the device for a second, curious. When I lift it again, I scan the valley for the barracks, then find the air field. That must be it, because it’s littered with helicopters. Soldiers rush in every direction. I try to focus on their faces, but I can’t make them out.

  “You’re right,” Cash says. “The barracks are in the center. The entire compound is bordered by a concrete wall.”

  When I turn to meet his eyes, they’re heavy.

  “It’s why they couldn’t get out,” he says quietly. “They couldn’t escape after they’d set off the explosions.”

  My eyes are stuck on his, and I try not to blink. If I close them for the shortest second, I’ll see Aspen: pinned against the fence, wide-eyed while the Watchers approach. I press my lips together hard and glare away the tears. I wonder if Jace suffered for what he did. Was he shaking, trembling in the face of death? Part of me hopes so. He led Aspen to her end. She was fourteen.

  Cash matches my hard look. He understands, so he doesn’t scold me for feeling the darker things. Maybe he should, and maybe at some point he’ll have to. I like to believe that my heart isn’t so far gone that I’d let the bitterness fester. Norma tried to soothe those tendencies out of me during my childhood. But when I see Aspen in my thoughts, bleeding on the ground, only a child…I think some things might be bad enough to break me.

  We don’t linger at the summit. For the first thirty minutes of our descent into the valley, no one says a word. I watch the others, but their faces are stony and impossible to read. Above us, birds weave in and out of branches, calling to one another. Perhaps they’re warning the beasts that we’re near. Maybe they fear us as much as we fear them. I want to shush them, tell them they’re giving us away.

  Cash walks near the front, but his head turns occasionally, his eyes finding mine. I walk near the middle with Meli and Drew. The trees block the harshness of the wind the farther down we hike, but I can’t feel my face.

  “He’ll be so angry,” Drew says, breaking the silence. His jaw is clenched. He turns to Meli. “Did you get images?”

  Meli nods. “Soon as the weather clears, the signal should strengthen. I’ll send them then.”

  We continue in the quiet of the woods. The path is steep, but it’s easier going down. With my thigh muscles engaged for balance, I feel the place where the needle dug. I wonder what Titus feels when he sees the valley the way I just did. Can a scene like that fill a man with pride, knowing he and the other Council members are responsible for it? Maybe he only sees the factories—the wealth our labor brings. My eyes flick to Cash, and I remember the night on the roof, when he told me that he’d shot freezing Outcasts. My body heats, anger narrowing my eyes. I know Titus is a man; I’ve seen his face—smelled his breath when he threatened me. But the things he does, and the things he makes his soldiers do, has me questioning it.

  The pace is faster now: quick steps, heavy on the toes. It’s harder to keep upright this way. If I stop I’ll fall, so I lean back a little and let the speed carry me. At first I’m dragging in air, the cold burning my chest. But soon my body is warm, and I feel stronger. No…better than strong; I feel alive. I glance up, lifting my eyes from the rocky path long enough to get a glimpse of the soldiers around me. Packs bounce on their backs. Rifles rattle, and hands hover open-fingered in the air, all their muscles engaged in balancing. Cash leads us, his careful steps propelling our force down the mountain. I look around, and energy shoots through my body. I press my lips together and focus on my steps, each one surer than the last.

  7

  I twirl a tiny dry leaf, the stem spinning between my thumb and middle finger. My stomach is satisfied after a small meal, and now I sit on the edge of a clearing in a sunny spot, facing the woods. I lift my eyes from the dancing dead leaf and scan the trees for more creatures. Something small, with a bushy tail and tan fur, scrambles up the trunk of a tree. It doesn’t look dangerous, but I sit frozen, just in case. Its movements are jerky and quick. Footsteps crunch on sticks behind me, and the animal is gone as fast as it arrived.

  Cash lowers to the ground beside me and holds out a packaged energy bar that says: chocolate.

  “Heard you like these,” he says, lifting the edge of his lips. I grin.

  “Thanks,” I say, dropping the leaf and taking the bar after he wiggles it, teasing me. I put it in the pocket of my jacket for later.

  We sit quiet for a few minutes, my arm pressed to his. After thinking it over for too long, I lean my head to his shoulder. My heart drums harder when I do it, but as time passes it settles again. My eyes close, and I focus on the wind and rattling leaves. I remember a time, not very long ago, when Watchers were the monsters who haunted my dreams. They were all murderers and bullies, and not one was worthy of grace in my eyes. But now this one is home to me. He’s the safest place that exists. I bite my mouth against the nerves and slide my arm beneath his. His hand touches mine, the roughness of his fingertips brushing against my skin, avoiding the healing burns.

  “Edan told me about your parents,” Cash says quietly. I open my eyes but don’t move. I can’t keep them closed now, or I’ll be reliving the moment my parents were taken. I sense Cash’s hesitation.

  “He said they were killed. He didn’t know more than that.”

  An ache is rising again. I’ve mourned my parents for eleven years. I miss them, but in some ways I’ve accepted the
ir absence now. In this moment, it isn’t their memories that hurt me. It is Edan’s.

  “Yes,” I say. “I was a child.”

  He’s quiet for a moment.

  “Watchers?”

  I nod against his shoulder. “They came for my mother. But my father tried to fight them, so they took him too.”

  “You lived all those years alone.”

  “I had Norma,” I say. “And Albert.”

  He’s loading my burdens onto his own shoulders, trying to bear the things I’ve lived like it’s his fault somehow. It isn’t.

  “It made me stronger,” I say, meeting his eyes. “I did what I had to, and I’m better for it.”

  Cash glares off toward the trees. “You should never have had to live that way.”

  I turn until my body is facing him, my knee resting on his leg. It’s a bold move, and if I think about it too much I might shrink back. But I need him to look in my eyes.

  “We’ve both lived lives that were wrong,” I say. “Both of us.” I touch behind his ear, my fingers finding the white feather drawn into his skin. It is meant to mark him as a coward, a message left by his father. Cash only nods. When his eyes darken, I know he’s thinking of Titus. He can’t escape the thing his father did, because I wear the evidence on my skin.

  Before I can second guess myself, I press my lips to his. At first my body is rigid, afraid that I’ve done something I shouldn’t. There are moments that I can’t shake who he is, and his nearness to me doesn’t make sense. But his hand slides across my back, and I relax, warmth replacing all the anxiety. After a few seconds, I back away and look at him. I just want to see him, to try to convince my brain that this good thing is happening to me…that it won’t be taken. His features have become familiar to me…my safe place. The freckles that dust his nose and below his eyes. The light color of his lashes. If I stay here, only inches between us, all the bad things fade away. Cash studies me too, his gaze sliding over my face, and energy is fluttering under my skin.

  “Chocolate, man. Works every time!”

  Drew’s voice cuts through the moment, and I can’t hold back the laugh that bubbles up. Cash shakes his head, color rising on his face. He groans.

  “Come on,” he says, standing and pulling me with him. Before we join the others, he leans down and brushes his lips to my cheek.

  “I’ve never known anyone braver,” he murmurs. I smile when his knuckles bump my chin.

  “Let’s go, you two,” Meli calls. I look to her, and she’s slinging a rifle across her back, watching us over her shoulder. She doesn’t smile, but there’s mischief in her eyes.

  We leave the clearing in the same hurry we arrived. Refueled and hydrated, our bodies are ready for the quick, careful steps as we run down the path. Even me, though I think I ache more than the others do. But I keep up, and that feels like a victory.

  8

  The sun is low, inching toward the ground. Structures are visible between the trees now. The closer we get, the tighter my stomach knots, until I’m breathing against the pain.

  “This is it,” Drew murmurs.

  The wind stirs the trees around us, and for a while that’s all I hear past the sounds of our boots. But as time passes, my ears catch on something else. There’s a dragging feeling in my chest.

  At the front, Cash raises his fist to the level of his ear. Everyone stops, standing frozen, listening.

  The popping of gunshots is unmistakable.

  “Move!” Cash calls back, and we take off running, faster than before. Hands are gripping weapons now, eyes locked on the path ahead. I grab the gun from my waistband, because I know it’s what I should do. But I leave the safety on. I don’t trust my instincts with it yet.

  At the base of the mountain, the tree line stops abruptly, opening to a small stretch of grass and a tall fence that goes on forever in both directions. Beyond it, three men in black fatigues stand staggered with their backs to us. Two bodies, rebel dressed, lie wounded near a door in the fence. The Watchers fire into the windows of an abandoned building. An object flies out of an open frame, and the Watchers scatter just before an explosion erupts in a flash of heat and light. We shield our heads from the debris.

  Cash pushes through the free-swinging door in the fence, and the rest of the group pours through after him. I try to keep up and match their movements.

  “Hands up!” Cash shouts, his rifle aimed at the Watchers. “Where I can see them! Let’s go!”

  It’s three of them, and nearly forty of us. The Watchers’ hands fly to their heads, and all three drop to their knees. Two of the men scowl at Cash. One of them, younger, watches with wide eyes as the group of Southern soldiers surrounds them. I hold my gun out, glancing at the others to make sure I’m doing it right. The safety is still on.

  Some of our men spread into the surrounding streets with their guns raised. Resistance soldiers emerge from the blown-out doorway of the building looming in front of us. There are five of them, mostly former-Workers from what I can see of their build and their pale skin. One of the men is noticeably stronger than the others. He makes his way to Cash in long strides.

  “Glad to see you, sir,” the man says, extending his hand. Cash shakes it, lowering his weapon.

  Behind me, someone moans. I shove my gun in my waistband and drop to my knees beside one of the fallen rebels by the fence. My hands hover over the bleeding wound in his side. Several feet away, the other rebel lies dead with a wound to his head.

  “What can I do?” I say, hands shaking. I’m being taken back to a similar scene not long ago, when it was Edan lying this way. “What can I do to help you?”

  This man is older, perhaps the age my father might have been had he lived. His eyes are a gray color, and his light brown hair is long—to his shoulders.

  “There’s nothing,” he says, his voice shaking and fragile. Tears wet his face, but his eyes aren’t sad. Instead there is contentment—a willingness.

  “There has to be,” I say. But he’s right, there isn’t; I’ve been here before.

  “Look at me,” I whisper, leaning so that our gazes meet head on. “I’ll stay with you.”

  I sense that we aren’t alone. Others have gathered behind, and boots appear in the corner of my vision. But this is his moment, and I won’t be distracted from it.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alex,” he says, the sound a rasping breath. He’s trembling now, gritting his teeth against the violence of it.

  “Thank you, Alex,” I say. “For everything you’ve done.”

  Alex closes his eyes, groaning. He swallows several times, and for a few seconds his lips press tight.

  “I’ve done nothing good my whole life,” he says. His eyelids lift, and he stares at me. “Only this.”

  I smile at him gently. “Then thank you…for this.”

  His lips quirk up, a small smile that smooths away the stress of pain for just a moment. For what feels like a long time, he watches me, and I watch him. My fingers brush long strands of hair from his face. The snow starts again, thick flakes filling the air around us. Alex lifts his gaze to them and pushes out a long breath. When his eyes close, I don’t look away until his chest is still.

  Before standing, I press a kiss to his forehead. My eyes squeeze tight, and I think of the family he may have left behind.

  “What do we do with these guys?” someone says from several yards over.

  “Cover their eyes and get them to the barricade,” Cash says. His voice is close, just to my right. “Send them back.”

  I stand, wiping my eyes and taking in the shocked expressions of the others.

  “Send them back?” Drew says. “They killed those men!”

  “There’s blood on both sides,” Cash replies. “Send them back.”

  He approaches the three Watchers.

  “Tell your men they don’t have to fight us,” he says, his eyes stern. “The Council is the enemy. And I’m done being their puppet.”

  Cash wa
lks straight toward me. He stops a foot away and looks for a second toward Alex’s lifeless body. When he turns back to me, I’m surprised by the gratitude I see there. He kisses my forehead before we leave.

  “I’ll tell your dad you said hi!” one of the Watchers shouts over his shoulder as he’s led away. I glance at Cash, but he barely reacts—only a tightening of his jaw.

  Old habits kick in as we walk, and I focus on the sounds of footsteps. It wards off the fear that creeps up the farther we wind through the alleys. I glance back, watching the others scan the crumbling walls and broken glass. Drew steps over a pile of shattered window, and I wish I could save them from the grief that’s coming.

  Cash slips his hand into mine. I don’t look at him, and he doesn’t look at me. Instead we walk in silence, and I stare ahead, waiting for the factory to come in to view. The snow has started up again, and I’m thinking of the Outcasts in other corners of the valley; the ones who won’t escape this time.

  Can I take him my blanket? I’d asked my mother once. I can share yours, can’t I?

  I can still see the sadness she wore, dreading the answer she had to give.

  I’m sorry, Hannah, she said, lowering to my level and stroking my hair. I was four. I’m afraid that isn’t allowed.

  I don’t mind, I insisted. Please let me, Mother. He was shaking.

  She studied me for a long time. I thought perhaps I’d convinced her, but now I know there was nothing she could do.

  Promise me, my mother eventually said. Promise that when you grow up, you’ll remember the shaking man. She touched my hand, her eyes capturing mine. He’ll have to leave soon, she said. But let’s promise to never forget him.

  His face appears in my memory. His hair was dark and his skin graying. He was young, but his eyes were weary, and they aged him. I’d walked home with my mother after a clinic appointment, and his gaze had stuck on mine. Even at four, his pain had wounded me. I felt it deep, and doing nothing broke my heart.