Fear My Mortality

by Everly Frost

  He glared at me. “It used to be old people—like our granddad, and that old woman there—but we’ve seen things on the news. Homeless people, runaway kids.” He leaned in close and there were threads of blood in his eyes, but he smelled like cinnamon, clean. “Your friend took our granddad and now we don’t know where he is.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  The fire engine shrieked. A car horn blared and Jeremiah’s head snapped up. He shrugged and retreated. “You’re gonna have to figure it out for yourself.” As he spoke, he pulled his brother with him, backing away.

  Michael edged closer to me, turning his body just slightly, ready to jump in front of me if the gun went off. A scowl grew across the other guy’s face. Still moving backward, he lowered the gun, letting the tip slide down beside his muddy boots.

  Michael gave me a gentle push toward the road. I wasn’t about to protest. The sirens were at the end of the street and escape seemed like an impossible dream. The grass fled beneath my bare feet, faster as Michael propelled me away. Glancing back, Jeremiah had his arm around his brother, disappearing around the back of the house.

  “What was he talking about?”

  Michael shook his head as if he didn’t know, but I was sure he did. Now wasn’t the time to say so, as we ran for the vacant block.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We reached the path as the fire engines raced past us. Michael pulled me onward. There was no point stopping to see what happened. The further we got, the safer we would be. At least it seemed so. There was a part of me that wanted to run back—as though my world was normal again—and ask the firemen for help. They were meant to rescue people when they were trapped, get cats out of trees, put out fires, save things. Then again, so were the Hazards, but I didn’t know how many of them were working with Reid and how many weren’t, so for now I couldn’t trust any of them. I ran on.

  We made it through the park and beyond, and Michael whispered, “Stay cool,” as we came out into a busy street. I kept my head down. Just out for a jog, I told myself, trying to pretend that I wasn’t barefoot and wearing my pajamas.

  We ran past a café, slowing to a quick walk along the pathway with tables and chairs on either side and cars cruising the street next to it. The scent of coffee and fruit toast tormented me, but not as much as the gentle buzz of conversation, the people eating, chatting like normal, ignoring the image of my charred house playing on the air screen in the background. Was that Reid, disappearing from the corner of the footage? The screen showed firemen and Hazards everywhere and I couldn’t be sure it was him. Then, a picture of me appeared, and under it were written the words:

  Suspected Basher.

  Stunned, I ground to a halt as the newsreader’s voice registered. “Speculation rises as Ava Holland, sister of dead teenager, Joshua Holland, disappeared from her home this morning after a car bomb exploded … ”

  Michael was a few steps ahead of me, and I wanted to call him back, but my voice wouldn’t work. The newsreader continued. “After significant negotiations, we’ve acquired a still shot of the moment before Joshua Holland died, clearly showing him wearing a Basher uniform.” I couldn’t look, couldn’t see Josh’s face before his death, desperation turning to peace. “Which gives rise to questions about his family’s involvement with the gangs.”

  Michael had stopped. He reached back for my hand, his face pale, seeing the footage. “We have to go.” He inclined his head further down the road, keeping his voice low. “There’s a surveillance drone coming this way. We have to backtrack.”

  I didn’t breathe until we turned into a back alleyway. After a while, the streets blurred and mushed together. I tried not to look at other people as we passed. Michael seemed to know where he was going and sometimes we stopped jogging and walked, other times we flitted between buildings and down alleyways. We climbed a fire escape and crept over a roof. I tried not to think about what they were saying about me on the news or the possibility that Hannah was a Basher, but I heard her voice over and over, asking where I was.

  “We should check the news again tonight. We need to know what they’re saying.”

  He nodded but propelled me down an alleyway behind a set of shops. “If we can. Somehow.”

  Finally, my feet dragged. “I have to stop. Seriously. I’m starving.”

  He slowed, planting his hands on his waist and shaking out his shoulders as his chest heaved. “Yeah, me too. Let’s head down here first. There’s a park up ahead. Only the drug addicts go there.” He pointed to a nearby street and I realized that we’d left the nice side of town behind us. Hiding in a park with druggies didn’t seem safest to me, but then nowhere was safe anymore. The trees might give us some shelter from the drones and at least addicts were less likely to pay attention to our faces.

  Michael led me through a crumbling brick archway and into an overgrown area of trees and shrubs. “Park” seemed like the last thing this place was. I spied a filthy syringe left lying on the ground and asked, “Are those dangerous?”

  “For you? Probably.”

  Suddenly my bare feet were a problem. “I need shoes.”

  “We have to do something about that. This way.” He nudged me down the path into the heart of the wilderness and motioned toward a tree that was mostly obscured behind thick bushes. I sank down against it, rubbing my aching calves. It must have rained there recently—or else the sunlight never reached the ground—because the damp seeped through my pajama shorts straight away. I pulled my knees to my chest and tried to ignore it. “You’ve got food, right?”

  He dropped his duffel bag on the ground and laughed. “Because I think of everything?”

  “No. I mean … well, yes. At least … ”

  “Your belief in me is staggering, star girl. But, no, I don’t have more food. We ate it all last night.”

  My shoulders sagged to the mushy earth and he smiled again. “But I do have money.”

  “Yeah?”

  He dropped to his knees beside me and rummaged in the bag, withdrawing a clump of paper notes. “I raided my college fund; a.k.a my dad’s safe.”

  “But … college is important.”

  “College is for normal people. There’s no way I can have a normal life now.”

  I touched his shoulder. “I can’t have a normal life, Michael. You could go home and explain … ”

  His expression was sharp, determined. “I’m not leaving you.” He sighed and his voice softened. “Ava, if I went home right now, the first thing they’d do is pump me for information. They’d use me to find you. And then my dad would pack me up and send me someplace people don’t know who I am. I can live the next few hundred years hoping nobody recognizes me. The Attorney-General was right: I killed someone—there’s no normal for me anymore.” He studied the notes in his hand, as though there was nothing more to say.

  Inside his partly open duffel bag, I caught sight of a red cross. “You have a medical kit.”

  He followed my gaze. “I’m sorry, it’s way more basic than the one we lost in the explosion, but there are bandages and plaster.” He chewed his lip. “And methylated spirits.”

  I withdrew as he pulled his bag shut.

  He shoved the money into his pocket. “What size shoe are you?”

  My voice was small. “Six, but I didn’t see any shoe shops along the way.”

  “I’ll figure something out. I won’t be long.”

  He jogged away before I had the chance to say anything else. A half hour later, I was starting to worry. My stomach growled and it sounded too loud in the quiet park.

  I jumped at the sound of someone coming along the path, but it was the smell of food that brought me to my feet. Michael appeared with two paper bags full of fries and burgers. I wasn’t sure what I was happiest to see—him or the food—especially when he drew a pair of sneakers out of a plastic bag and said, “There’s a second-hand shop back there. Sorry it took so long. I had to keep a low profile.”


  “Thanks.” I pulled the shoes onto my dirty feet. I didn’t care that they used to be somebody else’s if it meant protection from a sharp syringe.

  He waited for me to stand up again and handed me the bag. “I got you some clothes too.”

  I pulled out the jeans and t-shirt and checked the sizes. “Nice guess. For someone without sisters, you seem pretty good at buying girl’s stuff.”

  He shrugged and passed me some food. “Eat first. Try on clothes later.”

  I crammed the food into my mouth before he’d even finished the sentence. I ignored the growing buzz in my head. I was tired, that was all. When my stomach was full again, I put away the wrappers and tapped his arm. “Where will we go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase: Where can we go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But—”

  “Again with the staggering belief.” He shook his head, and I noticed that his hair looked longer than the day before. It cast shadows across his face and his eyes, creating dark pools, making me wonder what was behind them.

  “You must have some idea.”

  “Actually, no. Well … ” He ran a hand across his forehead. “I was kind of thinking—”

  His words blurred as I peered at his head. The dark strands of his hair looked like threads of ink splattered across his cheekbones. I balanced against the tree as my field of view suddenly swam. So did my stomach. “How fast does your hair grow?”

  He stopped and gave me a strange look. “Same as everyone else, but each time I regenerate, it grows a few inches all at once.”

  “Wow, you must have to cut it all the time.”

  “Are we really talking about hair right now?”

  I held up my free hand, hardly noticing that it trembled. “Hey, you’re the one who bought me clothes without even having to ask my size. These shoes fit, too. Kind of amazing really because everyone has different feet, you know. Some people have really narrow feet and some people—like me—they have wide feet, and some people hate having their toes squished. You know those pixie shoes everyone was wearing a while ago. I hated them! Did you hate them? You must have. Actually, you probably didn’t wear them because you’re a guy. Why am I talking so much right now?”

  I tried to breathe, but my chest constricted.

  Michael put down his food, rattling the paper bag, and it screeched in my head. I clamped my hands over my ears, sliding to the ground and ducking my head toward my knees.

  “Ava?”

  “Stop shouting.”

  “I’m not shouting.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, really tight. I tried to take a deep breath and failed. Something bad rose inside my chest, and my hands shook so much they clattered next to my head. “Something’s wrong.”

  I sensed him move around me and come back. Between the cracks in my fingers, I made out the shape of a jacket. He sat down beside me so slowly and quietly that it barely registered in my throbbing head. He didn’t say anything as he lowered the jacket over my shoulders and put his arm around me. I didn’t feel any zap when he touched me and that made me shudder.

  “You’re freezing.”

  I moved a finger to see a patch of his face—one eye and the corner of his mouth, worried, his lips all pressed together. He said, “I’m sorry I gave you so much nectar today. I wish I’d had another choice, I really do, but you were going to die.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “I don’t know, some kind of reaction. You can get through it. I’ll help you.”

  I said the first thing that came into my head. “We have to get moving.”

  “We’re not going anywhere right now. We can stay here for tonight. But … ” He pulled away a little. “We need more food.”

  “Don’t. Don’t go anywhere. I don’t know what will happen while you’re gone.”

  “All right, but our dinner will have to be apples and oat bars.”

  I giggled, and it was a wretched sound. “We can pretend to be horses.”

  “No.” Michael’s arm tightened. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend. You have to think about what’s real. Do you understand? What’s real. You’re not an angel. You’re not made of light. You’re Ava. You’re the girl who dances and builds walls. You’re the girl who picked up the knife. You have to think about all that. Focus on that.”

  I didn’t understand, but I listened anyway. “Tell me.”

  “You’re Josh’s sister. You walk to dance class. You’re the girl who can die.” His voice got all raw and he said only one more thing before he stopped talking. “You scare me.”

  I kept my head down as his arms remained around me in a solid circle, the only thing that wasn’t shaking. I tried to focus on the calm of his words, soak up the new silence. I squeezed my arms against my knees, pulling them into my chest, and smothered my own breathing. He said I was the girl who built walls, so that’s what I did.

  For the next ten minutes, I built a wall, one block at a time, until it was eye height in my mind. The pressure on my brain lifted a fraction. It was enough for more of his words to register because something struck me as really strange. I unfurled to find him watching me, his arm still resting across my shoulders.

  I bit down hard on my lip, not sure if the words would come out straight. “How did you know about the walls?”

  It was clearly not what he was expecting, but a small measure of relief passed across his face. “Get better and I’ll tell you.”

  “Tell me how to get better.”

  “Believe in yourself.”

  That was it? I tried to shake my head, but it was already shaking, so that seemed pretty pointless. “I have to get moving.”

  He took my shoulders as if he was going to wrestle me if he had to. “We can’t go anywhere while you’re like this.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” I struggled to make him understand. “Back there. After the explosion, I jogged up and down the street and the nectar started to go away—the effects of it, I mean. Then when we were running, before we got here, I felt okay. Now that we’ve stopped, it’s getting worse. I have to move. I have to shake it off.”

  “Well, you can’t go running laps around here. You’ll stir up the addicts.” He shot a hand through his hair. The look on his face was scared and worried at the same time. Then his expression cleared. “You could dance for me.”

  I choked back a laugh that came out as half a sob. “Yeah, sorry, I left my pole back at my burned-down house.”

  “No, I’m serious. I never saw you dance.” He pulled me upward. I dropped his jacket next to the tree as my body lifted, weightless in his arms. He spun me outward, and then back again, as though he’d had dance lessons himself.

  I smiled despite myself. “You’re kidding.”

  “What’s that look for?” He paused, before taking hold of my waist and moving me backward to the rhythm of a ballroom waltz. “A guy isn’t supposed to know how to dance?”

  “You’re not supposed to know how to dance.”

  “Why not?” He shrugged as he spun me around again. “Mom taught me.” He pulled me back against him, but now his face was pensive, the lightness gone. “That was before she left.”

  His body was warm against mine, his hands as strong as any trained dancer, strong enough to crush me, but his hold was so gentle it brought tears to my eyes. If only I could go back to the moment his hands held the knife and step between him and my brother.

  He reached out to stroke the side of my face and I realized that he was wiping a tear from my cheek, his expression as drawn and damaged as I felt. Dancing with him had dulled the buzzing of every cell, the movement lulling me into thinking there was nothing wrong with me.

  I pushed away from him. “I can’t dance anymore. Why don’t you just let me run laps around this tree or something?”

  He was back to wary and removed. “Who says you can’t dance?”


  I scrunched up my shoulders. “Everybody. Ms. White. If I hurt myself … ”

  He laughed so loudly that it hurt my ears. “Hurt yourself? Ava, your legs were blown off today. I don’t think it gets any worse than that.”

  I looked down at the ground—at my new feet encased in second-hand shoes. They wanted to move, to dance, to breathe.

  Michael didn’t touch me, but his voice was a whisper against my heart. “Nobody can tell you to stop dancing. It’s your choice.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “If I end up with a syringe stuck in my hands, it will be your fault.”

  “What are you talking about—your hands? You’ve got shoes on.”

  “Hah! You were right when you said you’d never seen me dance.” Just to show him, I did a standing backflip. It was a stupid thing to do without stretching first, but my body didn’t seem to mind. Instead, it felt good, the rush of air and the sense of space—the illusion of control. I expected to wobble and crash on the landing, but I didn’t. So I tried another one. It worked and I smiled.

  I started to run through one of my old routines—one of the really technical ones where I had to get everything right. I didn’t though. I stopped every time I got something wrong and ran over the moves, step by step, again and again. The repetition soothed, the movement calmed. I focused on every bend, every stretch, the finest point of my feet and the broadest span of my arms, the quickest spin, the slowest split. I lost count of the number of times I tempted death-by-diseased-syringe when I planted a part of my body on the ground. I leaped, spun, extended, kicked and twisted my body into a glorious pretzel, only to slide out of it, jump and spin again, sliding through the murky grass as if it was the smoothest dance floor. My lungs pounded out air, but my heart beat slower than I thought possible. I forgot all about nectar and the agitation of running and the horror of losing my legs. I even forgot Michael was there.

  I came to a quiet stop and found him leaning up against the tree. I was suddenly transported back to the Terminal, to the Mirror Room. Except this time Michael didn’t look bored.