by Logan Keys
Out of all of the Unfree, I’m the most chained.
Thomas tries to help me stay innocent, but someday, and soon — oh, how I will hate this world and all of the humans in it…
I set down the diary, tears in my eyes. Such pain. Such disastrous feelings. I both understand and loathe them. Some of the entries are earlier, when Tommy’s friend would have been nothing more than a child, but then glimpses like these show the adult hiding inside, ready to burst out. Like Tommy, she’d carried something else, something that brought out a depressed maturity.
Entry thirty-three:
I am stronger than I ever imagined.
My weakness is light and hunger.
One of them grows every single day…
Hunger? She writes about this often — a deep, driving need. How I know this all too well. I eat constantly and thrive only if I have food nearby.
Entry fifty-two:
Though we’ve been tortured, we know ourselves better. Some of us recognize that we’re bad, others are good, and Thomas, most of all, won’t ever see the truth. He’s not loving, or in love, or using love as an action. Thomas is Love.
How do I know this?
Love is sacrifice.
Love is patient and kind.
It does not boast.
It does not speak poorly of people.
I’ve learned this all from my best friend.
Tom-tom and Love are the same thing.
Synonymous.
Entry seventy-seven
Tommy’s leaving me. I won’t let him. Where he goes, I will follow.
If I die, I die.
This is the last entry. How they must have loved one another; how she looked up to him. I tuck the diary beneath my pillow. What friends he’s had, willing to follow him to their deaths.
Am I unwittingly the same?
Is my fate … the same?
Synonymous.
-57-
I rush into the room, where Liza’s shaking in her bed, sounds erupting from her chest like she’s drowning. She’ll be the death of me with these terrors. She had a few on the road, though I’ve not brought them up. I don’t think she even remembers. I finally get her to wake, and she sits up, eyes bright enough to light the room. One minute, she’s so sure of the world, and the next, she’s a child afraid of the dark, smothering me with her contradictions.
She grips my shoulders. “Tommy. Our time is running out. Help them.”
Then she melts back into sleep.
It takes full moments for my heartbeat to slow, while her words haunt me.
Help who?
I gently lift her and set her away from the edge of her bed.
“Thomas,” she mumbles. “Tom-tom,” she murmurs, and the hair stands up along my nape. That nickname was buried along with the girl who’d used it.
Then I see it there, beneath her head: a book.
As I lift it up, she wakes. At the same time, my suspicion peaks.
“What is this?” I ask.
Liza stills.
It’s a book with flourished handwriting.
A diary…
Her guilty stare tells me it’s a secret. I first think it’s hers, until I realize that’s impossible. It’s too full for such a short time. So I pull it away before she can snatch it back, though she makes no move to do so.
Two lines into reading and the writing blurs with my tears. Joelle.
My chest compresses.
“Why?” I clear my throat. “Why do you have this?”
“Let me explain.”
She rises, but I grab her arms, shake her hard enough to make her teeth click together. “How did you get this?”
Liza keeps her eyes fixed on mine. “It fell out of a box in your room. I was going to put it back, but…”
She’s lying.
It’s like a kick in the gut. “So instead, you started reading it?”
I slam it shut, releasing her like she’s burning my hands. “How am I supposed to trust you? Is Ryker right? Is everyone right about you?”
Liza looks horrified.
She’s suddenly a stranger to me.
Then it dawns on me that she’s also wondered. “Maybe they’re right.” I push a hand through my hair. “Maybe this is too dangerous and you need — ”
“To be locked up.”
I close my eyes.
Her voice is small, defeated. “If you think … if you want me to, I’ll do it. I’ll turn myself in.”
This draws me away from my fire and anger, and more toward sadness. What’s wrong with me? Haven’t I seen enough of her goodwill? Even if she is evil, she doesn’t know it. Like a searching missile hitting the core, Joelle’s voice pings into my head: “Are we monsters, Tommy?”
Then something overcomes all of this and I turn away from the traitor, the spy, the girl who has no idea what she’ll do. I was right — she’s more dangerous to me than anything I’ve ever faced.
I crack the book open.
A line jumps out at me.
Tommy is Love.
My heart shatters, my knees buckle, and I let out a sound of pure animalistic pain.
Liza rushes forward.
“Why?” I ask her.
And she knows I don’t mean the book anymore.
-58-
Tommy comes apart in front of me. Although I’ve seen this man physically rip at the seams, his body literally shredding and giving way, this is different. This time, he mentally shatters, breaks, falls to the floor, huddled around the book like it’s the last thing in the world that matters, and to him, it just might be.
He stares up at me with such heartbreaking shock, until something edges across his face, a shadow that flits the plains of his broad slopes and valleys of bone.
Beyond all reason it stretches him, and then something changes. Denial, sadness, disbelief, anger, they all war together, but the last emotion … ah, there it is: grief.
Tommy hadn’t properly grieved for Joelle yet, unable to feel the loss. Now, it’s crashing down around him like bombs. She’s gone, and there’s no replacement for this special person. This hole in Tommy’s life will remain forever.
How I know these things so well is beyond me. I must have loved and lost, and lost greatly.
His face shifts into a mask of rage, and pain, and despair.
When I draw near, he turns away, hiding it.
Somehow, this is familiar, too — pain that winds a person into a ball, a shuddering mistake upon the Earth, afraid to show your face. He’s fighting, but losing, and a keening slips between his ragged breaths. I suck back like I’ve been hit in the chest. Such a wounded sound — a noise of defeat.
My knees fold, slam the ground to share in his pain while my hands find his cheeks.
Still, he holds back, steely eyed. Even glistening, they hold earthy depths.
And that’s what it reminds me of now: freshly turned soil, ready for new growth. Tommy’s a beacon of what’s still good about this place, and I can’t let him go toward the darkness — the blackness at the fringes of his irises battle to overcome the good, the war inside him, and the monster who’s ever-present.
“No,” I say with a firmness I didn’t know I possessed. “Fight him. But you let those tears come. They’re a tribute. Better than flowers are these tears, so don’t hide them, not from me.”
And in a whoosh of hot breath on my face, he caves, falling against me, clutching his small book in a crying heap.
I hold the weight of double myself. Like a woman who needs to lift a car from her child, I’ll do what I must in this crisis as the flood begins. When it’ll end, no one knows.
For hours I stay like this, until his face returns to granite. He won’t read the diary — somehow I know that — but he reveres it. Petting the outer shell, he threatens to break down all over again. “J + T” it says, with hearts drawn across the cover.
“Joelle” it reads. Tommy’s girl, who loved him more than anything, it seems.
And I feel privil
eged to know her thoughts.
His gaze finds mine in thankfulness. Traitor or not, if I’m near, Tommy will never feel alone when he’s weak. That’s all I can offer.
-59-
Morning dawns with more new things — new people, new surroundings, new bed. We’re the talk of the town, as it were, and Tommy hasn’t slept. I, on the other hand, have slept straight through. I feel terrible, but he won’t hear it. He keeps looking off into the distance, as if he’ll bolt at any moment.
I thought he’d love being back with his army. I wonder instead, though, if he’s a wanderer, and I question the same about myself. The road was fraught with danger, but now it calls to us, because in those peace-filled times between the undead, we were able to listen to the quiet of our souls.
Through all of the military personnel, and across the way, I spot my attacker from the previous night. Bradford appears in warning. He’s still waiting for his chance.
Luckily for me, Tommy’s never far away. He knows the danger without my even saying it.
We check out the city. Again I’m in a navy outfit, but I braided my hair and rolled it at the crown into a hair-made headband that looks rather nice.
We pass the commissary, and along the way is a clothing store. My hands itch to pick through and find any color but navy. Other places are farther in — a restaurant, which is the most surprising, and an exchange of goods and services, a barbershop and bar.
It boggles the mind.
“Look,” I say. “In the middle. Two towers.”
“But we don’t go there,” someone interjects.
We turn to find we have two tailers: a muscular, dark-skinned man — the one who spoke — and an Asian woman, glowing in a yellow dress made of gauzy perfection. Her black hair is slightly sun-tinted at the crown, mussed so it floats in the wind.
She strides over gracefully, refined, bones light enough for a bird.
“I’m Baby,” she says. “This is Leo.” Even her voice is silky.
When neither of us answer, her teeth bare in a smile that’s semi-violent. Her shrewd once-over assesses that we don’t fit in.
“Travelers,” Leo says, sharing a look with his small companion.
“Hmm …” she practically purrs, prompting for someone to speak. “From where?”
Tommy shrugs off the question, and I try to mimic him in a clumsy, “little sister” kind of way.
Baby steps forward, suddenly very interested in us both. “Have either of you seen Anthem?”
I look up at Tommy, which basically answers “yes,” but we remain mute.
“What was it like?” she demands, gripping my arm with excitement. “Tell me every little detail.”
“Grey,” I say, mesmerized by her dark eyes laced with thick lashes. “Everything was grey.” She smells like cinnamon, and her lips are pursed into a pink rosebud. This close to Baby is like seeing a work of art.
Seems she’s used to this type of inspection. Baby smiles like the Cheshire cat, letting me gawk.
I open my mouth again, and she hisses almost imperceptibly, shaking her head. “Not here,” she mouths, and I freeze.
Friend or foe, this is the start of my first confirmation. We’re not safe in this place.
“I’m Thomas, and this is Liza,” Tommy says reluctantly.
“How are you liking your stay in La La Land?” Leo asks.
“La La Land?” I repeat.
Leo nods. “Here, things aren’t what they seem. Like … a rabbit hole.”
I turn back to the two tall towers, shading my eyes to peer up and up.
With a tight look, Baby follows my gaze. “You’d do well to stay away from there.”
We walk on, and although our new friends want to know everything about us, they don’t dare speak on certain things, so our conversation’s stilted and we learn more about them instead. They don’t live in the city; they live on the beach. They’re not Specials; they refused treatment. They’re ambiguous about their relationship, but quite verbose about their dislike of all things Underground and Authority.
They call themselves “Neutrals,” independent souls who’ve seemingly latched on to us, hearing we sort of fit that bill, as well.
“Can we trust them?” I ask when they leave.
Tommy shrugs, sighs. “We have bigger fish to fry. Any allies we can find might be good.”
-60-
At first I think it’s a dream, I’d been having them so often. They come for me at midnight, just after Tommy has retired to his room next door. But it might as well be a million miles away because, like wraiths surrounding me, they rise as mere shadows. These aren’t shadows, though, and this is not a dream. This is a man and woman who’ve come to take me away. They tape my mouth shut, threaten to suffocate me if I try to scream through my gag.
I keep eyes on Tommy’s door as they tow me along, speaking under their breath, blurry in the darkness. I watch his door, praying it’ll open — willing it to open — until it disappears. And just like that, I’m brought down the city streets and placed into a boat at the moat we crossed on the night we arrived. A soft motoring begins, rushing us toward the opposite shore.
Halfway, I finally stop looking back and start looking forward.
The man finally speaks, uncovering his face. “I’ll take that off your mouth now. No one can hear you anyway.”
Bradford.
“Where are you taking me?”
When the moon pierces the fog, I recognize the person at the front of the boat: Wise, I think it was. The woman who’d been with him.
“Where are you taking me!” I demand.
“Do you know what we do with spies here in the Underground?” Bradford says.
“Throw them out?” I ask hopefully.
“Noooo…” He lifts a rope. “We hang ’em. That way, the Authority’s guards can see their fate and will report it back to your base. You’re a girl, so at least you’ll avoid being turned into stone.”
The “turned to stone” part gets lost in the hazy fear overcoming my senses.
As we motor on, shock settles in as a cold trickle down my spine, and I hang on to sadness and regret. Doubly sad, because Tommy will have to retrieve my swinging body tomorrow. Maybe he’ll even have to cut me down himself. What will he think? I hope he’ll assume there was proof of my treason and hate me. Because to care about me, to see a friend there, eyes bulged and tongue out — something I most definitely had seen at some point to get the idea in my head — might end him.
The boat moors, and they grab my arms. I bravely walk a few steps, but the big cherry tree they’ve chosen is closer than I thought, looming right near the water.
My heels dig in, crushing pink blossoms. “Wait! Wait!”
But they drag me onward.
“I’m not a spy! I swear!”
They toss the rope over a sturdy branch, then secure the noose around my throat.
I scream at them. “Where’s the proof! What about my trial!” I appeal to Wise. “My accuser won’t face me? How is that even legal?”
Bradford laughs.
The glimmer of a memory blinks through, but Bradford’s already pulling the noose tighter. He playfully slaps my cheeks, and I headbutt him hard enough to make him recoil with a yell.
Before I can do anything else, Wise shoves her gun under my chin.
Soon, Bradford stands tall again, and he yanks on the rope. Apparently, I’m light enough they’re going to hoist me up instead of letting me drop.
I look out over the moat, hoping Tommy will sense I’m missing and come save me, but it’s a blank, watery canvas.
As they lift me, I dig my hands under the rope, but they don’t seem to care, and after my toes leave earth, I realize why. Hands between the rope or not my air’s been sufficiently cut off and the struggle’s futile.
I grab the branch above my head, pull myself up an inch.
“Go ahead,” Bradford says, like I’m a dangling piñata, “we plan to do this for a while.”
&nb
sp; He eases me down until my feet scrape the dirt, and I wheeze out, “Tort — ture.”
“Yep.” He leans back, the rope tied around his waist, and I fly upward.
My mouth gapes, but it lets in no air until I hoist up my own body. My neck muscles scream in agony, and I shudder as my arms give out and I drop down, full-weight, back onto the noose.
They watch me, deadpan, letting me down again and again to beg for my life until my eyes feel like they’ll pop out of my skull.
“Tell us who sent you, and what information they want.”
“Please,” I cry the next time I can breathe, “I … don’t … know … anything. I can’t remember!”
He pulls me high once again. “Tell us who sent you. What have you told them about the Underground?” Then they drop me back down, and I suck in precious breath, before I plead some more.
And it goes on like this for what seems like forever, with consciousness slowly slipping away. Next time my feet hit the ground, I see something — two tiny dots glowing next to some trees. Eyes? Wolves?
No, they float too high to be wolves.
“Help!” I scrape out before they lift me again.
The glow follows my movement, watching, impossibly bright in the dark night.
Those strange eyes remind me of another set locked deep within my mind — words on a train, purple eyes between them; a speech, writing on my hand; blood, pain, death, life, sleep, awake; Tommy’s there, and then another, smaller, but no less imposing, figure.
My feet touch down, and I rasp out, “Against.”
The next time I land: “All.”
And the last time, before the world goes black: “Authority.”
-61-
This time, Toby was ready for them, just as I suspected. He and his men stormed the gate, loosing arrows in rapid succession — one line firing, then the next, and the next. Even if the vampires didn’t take one in the heart, they were gravely wounded by the wood.
Amazing to watch, for once, the retreat of the creatures, rather than us fighting and bleeding, and then burning our own.
