by Amy Braun
I didn’t know which was sadder– that he got away with it, or that the survivors simply assumed this was the best they could hope for now.
The lean-tos were built around the edges of the tunnel intersection, and each one had a specific task. Survivors bustled through the colony, doing everything from blacksmithing, engineering, food drying or cooking, sewing, nursing, schooling, to weapons training. Illuminated by stuttering electric string lights crisscrossing over their heads, women held bundles of fabrics to be sewn into new clothes. Men sharpened blades and cleaned guns. Teenagers carefully tended the cooking fires, which smelled like the usual charred rat meat. Younger children ran around with bare feet and dirty clothes. Babies cried, hungry for the milk of mothers just as starved as they were.
Along the back wall was one lean-to larger than the rest. Garnet’s tent. It spanned almost the entire length of the back wall, its tattered, patchy roof seeking elegance it would never have. Black wires snaked down the walls and slipped into Garnet’s tent, powering all his tools and generators. He barely worked any more, throwing down-on-their luck people like me into the fray so he could bask in fake luxury.
But those wires going into his tent were a reminder that Garnet literally held the power. He could shut it off any time he wanted to, leaving the rest of us to go cold, starve, and die.
The four guards from the door and the dirty one surrounded me. They were all big bruisers that had no problem hitting an eighteen year old girl nearly a foot shorter than them and half their weight. I marched with them through the intersection. The busy workers and traders all darted out of their path. Garnet’s men were known for roughing up anyone who didn’t give them exactly what they wanted, exactly when they wanted it.
Sometimes they even did it for fun.
I turned my face toward the ground, but was looking for Abby out of the corner of my eye. She knew that she was safest in our lean-to while I was above ground working, but she never liked being far from my side. I’d raised her in this world. She’d never known our mother.
Some days I wasn’t sure I had either. Or maybe I was just feeling bitter because she’d left us.
Garnet’s two personal bodyguards– bald, dark skinned twins named Tyson and Malik– stood up from the plastic crates they’d been using as chairs on the porch of the Garnet’s lean-to. They looked at me with cold dark eyes, then glanced over my head.
“Where’s the escort?”
“Dead,” the dirty guard answered for me. “She left ’em behind.”
I wanted to protest that there was nothing I could have done, that it happened too fast, but he wasn’t the person I needed to believe me.
Tyson and Malik glared at me. Gordon and Kevin had been their friends, and they were going to look for any chance they could take to punish me for their deaths. The twins stomped forward, each of them roughly grabbing one of my arms and dragging me out of the circle. I stumbled to follow them as Malik (who I think was the one on my right), yanked open the curtain door of Garnet’s abode.
Most of the lean-tos were crammed with the most basic items. Between the one crate for food, one crate for clothes, a dented metal basin for bathing and collecting water, a chamber pot, and one or two thin cots, there was barely enough room to move in your home.
Garnet didn’t have that problem. A chunky metal generator powered the string lights sewn into the ceiling, casting the worn carpets and patchwork quilts in pale saffron tones. Across from the generator was a wide metal worktable with various wire strippers, pliers, gauges, hammers, and wrenches. It looked more like a torturer’s desk than an Electrician’s.
Crates filled with handmade clothes and dried meats sat in the far corners next to a wide metal bathing tub and a tank of purified water. Next to them was a hand-built throne. Or what Garnet probably assumed was a throne. Really it was just a very tall, very wide chair covered in red fleece resting on a metal slab. In front of it was another wooden desk with maps of Westraven and Aon spread across it. Garnet was by neither. He wasn’t in the main tent at all.
At least not that I could see. Though I could hear him.
Behind the throne was another curtain that led to Garnet’s bedroom. I’d never been inside, and never wanted to be. Beyond it, I could hear soft smacks and grunts, often followed by a painful squeal. I cringed and looked at my feet.
Garnet believed in repopulation. He insisted on being at the forefront for it. He took great pride in picking the prettiest girls in the colony to be his one-night brides, then expecting them to take care of his child when it was born. If they failed to carry the child to term, he beat the girls before giving them to his men to try again.
The only reason I escaped Garnet’s hands was because I was an engineer, and he didn’t want to burden me with being a mother when I could fix and create things for him. But Abby was eight years old, and had dreams of being a nurse instead of an engineer. We needed nurses, but not as much as we did engineers. In Garnet’s eyes, anyone could use a needle and thread to sew a wound. Repairing a broken machine to give us light or heat was much more difficult.
If I didn’t escape Garnet before Abby turned twelve…
I stopped that horrifying thought when a sharp yell and another painful cry came from behind the curtain. After a muffled but sharp conversation that ended with a young girl sobbing, Garnet pulled back the door to his bedroom and stepped out.
Garnet Dayton’s stomach spilled overtop of his drawstring pants, sheens of sweat plastering his hair to his shirtless body. One of his arms was the size of both of my thighs. Pockmarks lined his fleshy cheeks, dark red stubble growing out of them like bloody grass. His head was shaved, though I could still see the bald spot growing near the back of his head. Bushy auburn eyebrows pulled together as he glowered at me. Olive green eyes were filled with impatience.
I was in a lot of trouble.
“Did you get it done?” he grunted.
I nodded and glanced at the lights strung through the tent. “Looks like the power’s already back, but is it missing in any other areas?”
Garnet didn’t answer me. He walked over to the crates by his throne, opened one of the smaller ones up, and took out a glass bottle. I stared at it with a parched throat. I needed food, water, and rest. In any order.
“What happened to your escorts?”
“The Hellions caught them,” I reported sadly, wondering how many more times I would have to repeat that. I wouldn’t forget it, but I wanted to move on from it. We were all accustomed to loss, though the pain never lessened, no matter who was taken. “There was nothing I could do.”
Garnet opened the bottle and took a long swig. I gritted my teeth and balled my fists, fighting the urge to rush him, grab the bottle, and either drain it dry, or smash it over Garnet’s head. I would have indulged in the fantasy, if I didn’t think that Malik and Tyson would grab me and pummel me before I got within five feet of their boss.
The fat warlord finished his drink, put the cork in the bottle, and set it back into the crate. He started walking toward me.
“That’s what you said last time, Claire,” he told me.
My heart rate began to pick up. “It’s not my fault,” I defended. “Everyone knows the risks aboveground. The Hellions could show up at any time on a mission, and you told me not to come back until it was completed. I was following your orders, getting the job done. Just like I always do.”
Garnet stopped in front of me, so close his bulging gut brushed against my stomach. I stood my ground, when all I really wanted to do was run.
“I don’t have many men to spare, Clairy. The bastards running around out the colony are barely old enough to hold their own dicks, let alone a gun. How am I supposed to keep my people alive when you get them all killed?”
“It’s not my–”
Pain exploded across my cheek, wrenching my head to the side. For a fat, lazy warlord, Garnet was shockingly quick and strong. My weak legs couldn’t support the sudden hit, so I toppled onto the ground, ca
tching myself on my hands and knees. Garnet said something, but I couldn’t hear it past the ringing in my head.
Large arms crushed my biceps and hauled me onto my feet. I stumbled, but the twin guards jerked me into place. Garnet was in front of me again, so close I could smell the sour wine on his breath and rancid sweat on his body.
“Not your fault, I think you were trying to say?” Garnet taunted. “I don’t think that’s the case, Clairy. See, it was your parents who failed to close the Breach. They didn’t stop the Hellions from coming through and dropping the barricades, trapping us in these piss and shit holes. I was there. I remember. And now you’re doing the same thing. Getting my men– my friends– killed because you just think about yourself. That’s not something I’ll allow, Clairy. I own you, and I will not let you fail my people the same way your parents failed all of us.”
My face flushed with heat, and not just from the forming bruise. Anger boiled in my veins, pushing my temper to the breaking point. It was barely under my control. The last ten years of my life had been nothing but pointed fingers and hateful whispers. Blame for something I didn’t have any involvement with. Blame for something I couldn’t change.
If there was a solution, I would have found it and done something, but I couldn’t get into the sky and fight the Hellions. I wouldn’t have any allies, and no reason to attempt suicide.
I wasn’t going to escape the hatred, or Garnet’s grasp.
He saw all of this on my face, and knew he had won. He stepped back, a smug smirk on his face. He walked back to the crates.
“Leave her face. Don’t want her to get brain damage when she’s still useful.”
One of the twins, the larger one, Tyson, stepped in front of me. He was so big he took up my entire frame of vision.
“This is for Gordon.”
Tyson’s fist slammed into my left side like a brick. The force of it had me stumbling to the right, but Malik dragged me back to center. I swayed on my knees, my entire left side throbbing with pain.
“This is for Kevin.”
The next punch went into my right side. I gasped and sagged again, certain that something had cracked. I whimpered and tried to slide out of Malik’s grip, but he easily dragged me up again. He pulled my arms back, pushing out my chest and straining the bruises on my ribs. I groaned and hoped it was over.
“This is for Mr. Garnet.”
I never said I was lucky.
More fists pounded into my stomach, forcing all the air from my lungs. The beating couldn’t have lasted longer than a couple seconds, but Tyson didn’t hold back. He used his considerable strength to hit vulnerable parts of me. My body felt like it had been thrown into a wall multiple times. I was coughing and dry heaving by the time he was finished.
“Get her out of here before she pukes,” Garnet ordered. “I don’t want her staining my carpet.”
Tyson and Malik dragged me out of the tent, then threw me onto the street. I landed hard on my arching ribs, rolling to a stop and crying out in pain. I turned again and curled into myself. I looked up just as Malik kicked me hard in the stomach.
That time I almost did throw up. I coughed and gasped, but couldn’t breathe.
“That’s because I didn’t get a shot in before, bitch.”
The guard stalked off, leaving me whimpering and groaning on the cold concrete.
I thought about staying where I was. Consciousness flickered on and off in my head. If I didn’t think I’d be trampled or robbed, I wouldn’t have moved. But I had to get back to Abby. It wasn’t past Garnet to hurt my sister while I was battered, just to prove he could.
Every motion hurt, but I finally turned onto my knees and pushed myself up. Sharp pain cut through my stomach as I straightened, making me collapse. I caught myself with one hand and wrapped the other around my middle. I stood up again, staggered once, but kept my footing this time. I shuffled toward my lean-to, trying to remember where it was.
No one helped me. Hardly anyone even looked at me. I didn’t have many friends in the colony. Almost all of them blamed me for my parents being unable to lock the Hellions in their world beyond the Breach, and the others were too afraid to be my friend lest they become victims of Garnet’s wrath. It made living here hard, and walking to my little shelter next to impossible.
Somehow I managed. My insides were raw and bruised, but nothing felt broken. I almost laughed at the thought. Of course Garnet wouldn’t permanently damage me when he needed my skills. But I would be in constant pain until he decided I screwed up some other way and he could hurt me again.
As soon as I slipped under the curtain, I saw my only friend. The only person I cared about.
A little girl with curly blonde hair and bright green eyes stared up at me from her cot. Dirt was smeared across her face, and the tattered clothes she wore hung over her too thin frame. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she wasn’t hurt. I would have sighed with relief if I didn’t feel like it would hurt me even more.
“Hey, Abby,” I mumbled out.
My eight year old sister choked out a sob and launched herself at me. I nearly fell again when I caught her and winced when she wrapped her arms around me, but I let her do it. I closed my eyes and smelled the sugary scent of her hair.
Abby had never known a world that was safe, where monsters didn’t exist and above and below ground. I couldn’t hold onto the hope that she ever would. The Hellions controlled the skies, and Garnet made living a torture. I didn’t imagine either animal would give up their superiority any time soon.
“I need to lie down, Abby,” I told her, stroking her oily blonde curls.
My sister pulled her head back from my chest and looked at me with luminous eyes. I wondered how she saw me, ten years older than her with straight, lifeless blonde hair and tired green eyes, battered and bruised, wearing a stained black blouse, scuffed boots, and grey work pants with a brown utility belt stuffed with tools. I probably looked as strong as I felt.
Abby peeled off of me and stepped back, hurrying to make my cot as comfortable as she could, pushing off my spare tools and fluffing the pile of shirts I used for a pillow. Tiny sparkles of white sugar dusted the cot as she moved. I smiled. Abby had gotten into one of the sugar bags again. I should have known by the smell in her hair.
I sat down on the creaking cot and rolled onto my back, groaning as I stretched out. The top of my head and entirety of my feet dangled off the edges of the cot, but at least I could sleep like this.
While I was shifting and getting as close to comfortable as I could, Abby was scurrying around the lean-to, bundling foods and blankets and water into her little arms. She hurried back to me, kicking over a crate since there was too much in her hands. She set the food on the crate and unfolded the blanket that was bigger than her. She tossed it over my body, most of it landing on me. Then Abby took out a strip of meat and reached into a small burlap sack. She opened the sack and sprinkled it with miniscule crystals. She grabbed a flask of filtered water and handed it to me with a strip of dried rat meat. I took both from her gratefully, draining the flask and chewing the meat that tasted like tree bark. The crystal seasoning she placed on it wasn’t salt. It was sugar. It didn’t enhance the flavor of the meat at all, but I was so hungry I didn’t even care.
Besides, my sister put sugar on everything.
Abby watched me, wringing her hands nervously. “How much do you hurt?” she asked shakily.
I closed my eyes. “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I just need to rest.”
“You can’t keep doing this, Claire. You’ll get killed.”
There was no point in denying that. If the Hellions didn’t slaughter me for food, Garnet would let his thugs beat me to death. Neither option was appealing, but I couldn’t take care of Abby on the surface. After our father died and our mother left us, we had nowhere to run. Any friends who might have taken in a ten year old girl and a baby were dead or missing. Going underground was the only way I knew she would live, and where I coul
d use my skills to keep her that way.
I didn’t think my parent’s mistakes would follow me into the earth.
“I’ll get us out of here, Abigail,” I said. “I promise. Nothing will happen to you.”
I meant the last part with every cell in my aching body. But the first half of the promise wasn’t one I could see an end to. I would run if I knew we could get past the Westraven barricades. I’d offer my engineering skills to someone else if I knew they wouldn’t treat us worse than Garnet. I would kill every Hellion I could if I thought for one second I would have a chance.
Instead, I trapped myself in a deal that was sure to end in my death and leave Abby in a worse position than she was now.
“Get some sleep, Abby,” I told her.
