by Amy Cook
“I know, I know!” Amiel hissed, eyes once again searching the darkness. And then, there it was, her salvation: a rickety fire escape lay silhouetted against the darkening sky on the abandoned building at the end of the alley. It sat there, silently taunting her from its three-story, entirely out-of-reach height. Biting her lip to keep the whimpering at bay, Amiel stumbled toward the building. If she could find a way up, if she could just get to it, she might have a chance at escape. The copious amounts of adrenaline helped to mask the pain in her body as she put her weight against a dumpster and pushed with every ounce of her waning strength. It wouldn’t budge. Amiel glanced at the end of the alleyway, a desperate sob escaping her bleeding lips.
“Come on! Please move!” The crooked and broken wheels squealed in protest, scraping along the cracked concrete until it jarred to a halt a full four feet away from her destination. It would have to do; she didn’t have the time or energy to wrestle it any closer. Examining the walls, she quickly assessed her next move.
The first-floor windows had all been bricked up years ago, probably when the outbreak had first begun. But the second-story windows were only barred. If she could gain enough height from the dumpster, perhaps she could jump the remaining distance. Amiel pulled herself atop the dumpster, crouching as she worked to gather the courage to make the jump.
“You can do this. It’s easy. Just like playing hopscotch, really. Simple.” Before she let herself think too deeply on the logic of that statement, she vaulted from the dumpster, fingers barely gripping the brick windowsill. More tears sprang free of their prison as three nails popped off of their fingers. Gritting her teeth against a sob of pain, Amiel shifted so that first one hand and then the other could grip the bars. She fought to move quickly, the free-flowing blood making her grip precarious. Pulling herself to a wobbly crouch in the thin space allotted to her on the sill, Amiel fixed her gaze on the next goal. The floor of the fire escape had been ripped free at some point, leaving behind only the jagged remains of a metal ladder. The distance this time would be more difficult to make, about a foot farther than the last jump. The first jump had been hard enough — this one felt nearly impossible.
Giving herself another pep talk, Amiel held her breath, jumped… and missed. Time seemed to hold still for the briefest of moments as a gasp lodged in her throat. Then it sped up, the dumpster seemingly flying upward to meet her with tense inevitability. Bouncing off of the edge of the metal lid with a deafening bang, she tumbled across the pavement.
Becoming acquainted with metal and pavement at a bone-jarring intensity had the unfailing tendency to do a lot of things to a person. For one, the little breath she had managed to collect before that moment was swiftly yanked from her lungs. Now breathing wasn’t just difficult, it was impossible. Her mind was momentarily sent into a panic, as though it were drowning with no water to blame. Then the pain overwhelmed all panic, slamming into her like a truck, lungs and ribs burning like a thousand fire pokers being stabbed into her at once. An eternity seemed to pass before the oxygen floodgates finally opened, air rushing down her throat to fill the barren voids within her chest. A gut-wrenching sob escaped before she could contain it, echoing down the alleyway like a beacon to those chasing her.
“Get up! Get up or die, Amiel!” The voice in her mind shouted warning once more. Amiel rolled to her side, sobbing out again as the pain wracked her body. “We’re not dying here. Get up!”
“I can’t!” Amiel gasped in defeat. She wanted nothing more than to ignore the voice, to roll over and allow whatever chased her to finish it. Seemingly in answer to her silent surrender, the sounds of her pursuers echoed toward her, so much closer now than before. They had found her trail. It wouldn’t be long now. This time, the voice came gentler, the tone entirely different from the one heard in her mind only moments before.
“Get up, Baby Girl.” As though encased in warmth after years of ice, the silent words soothed her in a way no other could.
“Jaron?” Amiel’s eyes opened, searching the night. The words had sounded so close, so like her brother, it was almost as though he were at her side, holding her in his protective grasp. But looking around, she saw no one, and the answering silence was deafening. “Jaron, come back! Please don’t leave me again,” Amiel whispered in raspy desperation. In reply, she heard only one word.
“Survive.” Simple as it was, it was all that she needed. Jaron was still out there somewhere, keeping an eye on her. And right now he was telling her to survive. Rolling to her knees with a whimper, Amiel crawled to the dumpster. Pulling herself upward was difficult, and spots swirled in her vision by the time she was standing atop it. She winced at the noticeable dent in the metal, hoping that hadn’t been from the impact of her body. More tears poured down her cheeks as she removed her t-shirt, ribs screaming in agony.
Ripping the tattered remains of fabric, she wrapped a piece around each of her hands, hoping the additional layers would make her blood-soaked grip more sure than it had been last time. Blowing out a shallow breath, she ran and leapt toward the sill. The fabric did help her grip, but the slamming into the wall did nothing to help her ribs. The strain put on them from holding her weight sent such a sheer rift of pain through her body that she teetered on the edge of consciousness. She was pretty sure she lost another fingernail in the process as well. Yet the sounds of approaching voices and barking dogs spurred her onward and somehow she found herself crouched in the sill, once more readying herself for the next terrifying leap.
“You’ll make it. Go!” that inner voice assured her. Amiel had no time to doubt. Taking a few false starts, she finally forced her feet to leave the relative safety of the windowsill. For the second time that night, time slowed, the metal bars nearing her fingertips with a maddening leisure.
Somehow her hands closed around the bars, the metal saving her from what would have surely been a fatal fall; if not death from the fall, it would be death by her would-be captors. The voices were so near, Amiel dared not cry out in misery as her torso extended, the fiery torment leaving no doubt that most, if not all, of the ribs on her left side were broken. Her arms went numb from the shock of pain, fingers nearly losing their grip. Blood gushed into her mouth from where her teeth sank into flesh to subdue the cries of anguish that threatened to give away her location.
Shoving the pain to the side once more, she began the agonizing process of pulling herself upward. Her feet made contact with the cool metal landing just as the dogs turned the corner of the alleyway, darting forward with their noses to the ground. Moving as swiftly and silently as possible, Amiel climbed the stairs, making her way up the fire escape. She made it to the fourth floor before the men caught up to the animals below her and she dared not move another inch. Looking upward, she lamented the single floor that lay between her and the relative safety of the roof.
“Are you sure she came this way?” A voice drifted up to her ears.
“I’m sure it came this way, yeah.” The second voice corrected the first angrily. Something about it sounded hauntingly familiar. The dogs let out a howl as they sniffed at the ground, and the angry figure released a grunt of satisfaction.
“Blood! See, I told you!”
“Yeah, well, it’s a dead end. If that is its blood, exactly where did she… it go, then?” Flashlights moved about the alleyway, the dogs barking frantically as they hunted around the dumpster.
“There’s blood on the dumpster.” The voices suddenly came in a more cautiously hushed tone, and Amiel winced. One of the men tossed the lid of the dumpster upward with a loud clanging. They waited, guns at the ready, but when nothing immediately popped upward, they released frustrated groans.
“Nothing’s in there. Another dead end. So what now, fearless leader?” the first man grunted sarcastically. Amiel held a shaking hand to her mouth and nose in an effort to shield the ragged breaths that sounded unjustly loud in her ears. Go or stay, go or stay? Did she dare try to move? She rolled the deliberation about in her mind, ho
ping Jaron would give her more advice.
He stayed frustratingly silent, as did the internal voice of warning. Squeezing her eyes shut and breathing out a quietly pained breath, Amiel shifted to move onward. Five steps into her escape, the grate below her feet protested. She froze, huddling down on herself and waiting as the flash lights suddenly whisked upward.
“How about up there?”
“Up there? You’re kidding, right?”
“Why not?”
“It’s too high! No one could make it up there.”
“It could. Look, that’s gotta be blood on that windowsill,” the man argued stubbornly. Amiel squeezed her eyes shut, her body quaking from the cold and fear.
“That might be blood. Or it might just be the same grimy sludge the rest of this putrid alley is covered in,” the first man replied in a snarky, bored tone.
“I’ve seen them jump that high before.”
“Duane, you got no proof she was one of them.”
“I didn’t see a tattoo,” a timid third voice added to the conversation. Amiel wondered just how many of them were down there, masked in the shadows, and how many had guns. Mostly she wondered how long this fire escape would continue to hold her weight.
“She took down five of them!”
“We didn’t see it,” the third man replied quietly.
“Yeah. That’s right. None of us saw it but you, Duane. That’s not proof.”
“I seen what I seen! No one can fight Rabids like that and not be one of them!” Duane spit on the ground in disgust. Sudden recognition floored Amiel. Duane! The Cutthroat that had tried to rape and/or kill her the night she met Harley. Oh, this was not going to end well. If the thug got his hands on her, Amiel had no doubt as to the outcome of her well-being this time around. And if Harley got ahold of Duane? Well, she had no doubts as to how that would end, either.
“If she took down five of them, why would she be running from us?”
“I don’t know,” Duane grumbled. “But, look at all this blood. Obviously it got hurt when I hit it with the bus. Maybe it’s too hurt to fight back.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. Look, they only put bars on the second floor and up. If Rabids couldn’t jump that high, neither could a Halfer.”
“Where else could it go, Drake!” Duane shouted wildly. “Like you said, it’s a dead end and there’s nowhere else it coulda gone. If a Halfer and Rabid couldn’t jump that high, a Clean wouldn’t be able to, either! So, where is it? Besides, look at the damned dogs. They smell it everywhere. It was here!”
“Fine, if you can make it up there, be my guest — go find it.”
“I ain’t climbing that thing. There’s got to be a door around here somewhere. We break it down, me and the dogs head up while you three stay down here.”
Amiel winced again. She hadn’t thought about a door. It was more than likely barricaded somehow, but if they made it through, she would be a sitting duck stuck between two sets of enemies.
“Fine, let’s find a freakin’ door, then,” the first man grumbled. The flashlights swept over the walls of the alleys, searching for a way in, and Amiel took her chance. Moving as quietly as she could, she scaled the last bits of fire escape, breathing a slight sigh of relief when she touched foot on the graveled rooftop without alerting those below. Squinting into the dark, Amiel found her target. The neighboring rooftop looked to be the same distance away as the fire escape had been. If she did it once, she could do it again. She hoped. Excited shouts met her ears below. They’d found a way in.
Gritting her teeth, Amiel sprinted across the rooftop, pushing off at the last minute. Soaring through the air for the third time that night, she touched down inches from missing the ledge. Lurching forward, she rolled several feet before rolling back toward the ledge and lying flat. The ledge was just high enough that she could remain hidden if she lay very still. Battered and bruised, she shivered in the night, staring up at the shimmering stars, ears straining to pick up every sound. Duane burst onto the roof, and Amiel could hear the dogs scrambling across the gravel in search of her, followed by their confused whines when the scent simply disappeared.
“Well! What did you find?” a distant voice shouted.
“It’s here somewhere! It has to be. Maybe it jumped to another roof,” Duane grumbled in reply. Frustrated shouts immediately came back his way.
“If you’re thinking about tossing my dogs across the rooftops, I’ll kick your ass!” There was a long pause.
“It’s up here, I know it is.”
“You know what? Screw you, Duane. I’m tired and cold. You want to keep looking, freeze your own ass off. We’re going home.” A long whistle sounded, and the dogs barked, quickly obeying their owner’s call to return. Duane cursed to himself, clearly disliking the idea that they’d taken away his backup. Amiel closed her eyes, fighting to keep her breathing calm as she listened and waited.
“Damn it. I’m not done with you, freak! You and I got unfinished business,” Duane promised the darkness, clearly knowing she was still around somewhere, but having lost his backbone with his backup. The rooftop door slammed as he left.
Amiel stared up at the stars, their glimmering surfaces marred by the puffs of mist from her shaky breath. She stared until she was forced to blink, tears slipping down her temples and into her hair. The adrenaline ebbed away, and with its loss came everything else she’d been ignoring. The cold night air seeped into her bones, wracking her body with jerky shivers that jarred her to the core. With the jerking movements came the pain: her fingers throbbed with each pulse; the ribs on her side screamed with burning intensity.
A sob escaped her lips and she bit down, once more opening the earlier wound in her mouth. How much time had passed since the men left? Had it been hours, like it felt, or only minutes? She found herself frozen with more than just the cold. Fear kept her rigidly in place; despite the cold, despite the near-unbearable pain, Amiel couldn’t move. She lay there shaking in her bra and pajama pants, gravel digging into her battered and broken body, blood seeping through the rags on her fingers, dripping in rivulets from other wounds on her body.
One fact kept repeating in her head. She’d nearly died. She had nearly died, half-naked in the darkness-enshrouded streets, and she had no idea what had led her to this moment in time. She had found herself bloodied, with shredded clothes, sprawled on the ground. Her bike was crushed beneath a bus; there was a pile of dead Rabids nearby, and distant, angry shouts of humans who made it very clear that they wanted her dead.
Her frazzled, foggy mind had tried to run through every self-defense move taught to her by Harley… and come up completely blank. Amiel could remember only a debilitating sense of conflict, a battle being waged within that left her staring dumbly at the blurry men that prowled toward her with menace in their hearts. And in the face of the one enemy that she found herself defenseless against, Amiel had run for her life.
Over the last few months, Amiel had felt herself growing in courage, confidence and strength. She sucked at fighting still, she knew that. But she had hoped if push came to shove, her instincts would kick in and she could protect herself. Yet when the time came to put those new skills to use, Amiel found herself shrinking, lost and terrified. And so, like the coward she apparently still was, Amiel ran. She ran and hid, just like she was still doing now. She was freezing, half naked on a rooftop, one of the greatest weapons known to humankind hanging around her neck, and she was hiding like a complete wuss, afraid the men would come back to finish the job.
Self-loathing and anger rose to the surface, lending more force behind the flow of tears and her body’s shaking. She should get off of this rooftop; she should find out what had happened to her jacket, her bike, find a phone and call for help. Something, anything but what she was doing now. Yet she didn’t, for so many complicated and stupid reasons. Because she didn’t know if the men were still out there. Because she didn’t know where to start. Because she had no idea what had happened before the moment wit
h the Rabids, no idea where she was.
And mostly because she was afraid of finding the answers, facing the most frightening fact of all: this hadn’t been just another blackout exorcist episode. The last clear memory she held resided in her apartment. Amiel closed her eyes, a ragged sob escaping her bleeding lips. She’d done it all in her sleep.
Chapter 11
Harley
Harley stared at the clock, gnawing on one fingernail. Realizing what he was doing, he yanked the nail from his mouth, quickly grabbing a piece of gum and munching on that instead.
The kid was late. She’d been late several times over the last few weeks, which seemed out of character for her. He’d pegged her as the type that hated being late for anything, almost like it was programmed into her DNA. But in the last few weeks she’d started showing up fifteen, twenty minutes late. Today it was forty. Maybe she’d decided to just skip it and concentrate on work? Only, if she had, the kid probably would have texted to let him know. And she had promised that she wouldn’t be late anymore…
Harley picked up his phone, which he’d already looked at more often than he’d care to admit in the last fifteen minutes. The screen was blank — no new messages or calls. His eyes returned to the clock, once again facing his internal dilemma. What was the course of action here? Did he call her to double-check? Friends did that, right? Or maybe he should just drive by and see if her bike was gone, so he didn’t call and sound like a complete creeper? He frowned. He wouldn’t sound like one, but he’d sure look like one.
Sighing in frustration, Harley tossed the phone back on the counter. This babysitting gig with Amiel was getting more complicated. One would think, after doing it for so long, he would start to get the hang of it. Instead, he found himself tripping over new dilemmas, complications growing rather than diminishing. Was he smothering her with protectiveness? He tried to ensure that he gave her a respectful distance so that his presence didn’t overwhelm or crush the delicate freedom allowed in this world. But, at times, he wondered if that was the wrong choice. Because in this world, a single misstep could lead to your death, and there was no coming back from dying.
