by Тахера Мафи
Adam.
I suck in my breath and move as stealthily as I can through the streets. I spot a particularly dark shadow on a stretch of the sidewalk ahead of me and make an effort to avoid it. But as I get closer I realize it’s not a shadow. It’s a stain.
Adam’s blood.
I squeeze my jaw shut until the pain scares away the screams. I take short, tiny, too-quick breaths. I need to focus. I need to use this information. I need to pay attention—
I need to follow the trail of blood.
Whoever dragged Adam away still hasn’t come back to clean the mess. There’s a steady spattered drip that leads away from the main roads and into the poorly lit side streets. The light is so dim I have to bend down to search for the spots on the ground. I’m losing sight of where they lead. There are fewer here. I think they’ve disappeared entirely. I don’t know if the dark spots I’m finding are blood or old gum pounded into the pavement or drops of life from another person’s flesh. Adam’s path has disappeared.
I back up several steps and retrace the line.
I have to do this 3 times before I realize they must’ve taken him inside. There’s an old steel structure with an older rusted door that looks like it’s never been opened. It looks like it hasn’t been used in years. I don’t see any other options.
I wiggle the handle. It’s locked.
I shift my entire weight into breaking it open, slamming it open, but I’ve only managed to bruise my body. I could shoot it down like I’ve seen Adam do, but I’m not certain of my aim nor my skill with this gun, and I’m not sure I can afford the noise. I can’t make my presence known.
There has to be another way into this building.
There is no other way into this building.
My frustration is escalating. My desperation is crippling.
My hysteria is threatening to break me and I want to scream until my lungs collapse. Adam is in this building. He has to be in this building.
I’m standing right outside this building and I can’t get inside.
This can’t be happening.
I clench my fists, try to beat back the maddening futility enveloping me in its embrace but I feel crazed. Wild. Insane. The adrenaline is slipping away, my focus is slipping away, the sun is setting on the horizon and I remember James and Kenji and Adam Adam Adam and Warner’s hands on my body and his lips on my mouth and his tongue tasting my neck and all the blood everywhere everywhere everywhere and I do something stupid.
I punch the door.
In one instant my mind catches up to my muscle and I brace myself for the impact of steel on skin, ready to feel the agony of shattering every bone in my right arm. But my fist flies through 12 inches of steel like it’s made of butter. I’m stunned. I harness the same volatile energy and kick my foot through the door. I use my hands to rip the steel to shreds, clawing my way through the metal like a wild animal.
It’s incredible. Exhilarating. Completely feral.
This must be how I broke through the concrete in Warner’s torture chamber. Which means I still have no idea how I broke through the concrete in Warner’s torture chamber.
I climb through the hole I’ve created and slip into the shadows. It’s not hard. The entire place is cloaked in darkness. There are no lights, no sounds of machines or electricity. Just another abandoned warehouse left to the elements.
I check the floors but there’s no sign of blood. My heart soars and plummets at the same time. I need him to be okay. I need him to be alive. Adam is not dead. He can’t be.
Adam promised James he’d come back for him.
He’d never break that promise.
I move slowly at first, wary, worried that there might be soldiers around, but it doesn’t take long for me to realize there’s no sound of life in this building. I decide to run.
I tuck caution in my pocket and hope I can reach for it if I need to. I’m flying through doors, spinning around turns, drinking in every detail. This building wasn’t just a warehouse. It was a factory.
Old machines clutter the walls, conveyor belts are frozen in place, thousands of boxes of inventory stacked precariously in tall heaps. I hear a small breath, a stifled cough.
I’m bolting through a set of swinging double doors, searching out the feeble sound, fighting to focus on the tiniest details. I strain my ears and hear it again.
Heavy, labored breathing.
The closer I get, the more clearly I can hear him. It has to be him. My gun is up and aimed to fire, my eyes careful now, anticipating attackers. My legs move swiftly, easily, silently. I nearly shoot a shadow the boxes have cast on the floor. I take a steadying breath. Round another corner.
And nearly collapse.
Adam is hanging from bound wrists, shirtless, bloodied and bruised everywhere. His head is bent, his neck limp, his left leg drenched in blood despite the tourniquet wrapped around his thigh. I don’t know how long the weight of his entire body has been hanging from his wrists. I’m surprised he hasn’t dislocated his shoulders. He must still be fighting to hold on.
The rope wrapped around his wrists is attached to some kind of metal rod running across the ceiling. I look more closely and realize the rod is a part of a conveyor belt. That Adam is on a conveyor belt.
That this isn’t just a factory.
It’s a slaughterhouse.
I’m too poor to afford the luxury of hysteria right now.
I need to find a way to get him down, but I’m afraid to approach. My eyes search the space, certain that there are guards around here somewhere, soldiers prepared for this kind of ambush. But then it occurs to me that perhaps I was never really considered a threat. Not if Warner managed to drag me away.
No one would expect to find me here.
I climb onto the conveyor belt and Adam tries to lift his head. I have to be careful not to look too closely at his wounds, not to let my imagination cripple me. Not here. Not now.
“Adam . . . ?”
His head snaps up with a sudden burst of energy. His eyes find me. His face is almost unscathed; there are only minor cuts and bruises to account for. Focusing on the familiar gives me a modicum of calm.
“Juliette—?”
“I need to cut you down—”
“Jesus, Juliette—how did you find me?” He coughs. Wheezes. Takes a tight breath.
“Later.” I reach up to touch his face. “I’ll tell you everything later. First, I need to find a knife.”
“My pants—”
“What?”
“In”—he swallows—“in my pants—”
I reach for his pocket and he shakes his head. I look up.
“Where—”
“There’s an inside pocket in my pants—”
I practically rip his clothes off. There’s a small pocket sewn into the lining of his cargo pants. I slip my hand inside and retrieve a compact pocketknife. A butterfly knife. I’ve seen these before.
They’re illegal.
I start stacking boxes on the conveyor belt. Climb my way up and hope to God I know what I’m doing. The knife is extremely sharp, and it works quickly to undo the bindings. I realize a little belatedly that the rope holding him together is the same cord we used to escape.
Adam is cut free. I’m climbing down, refolding the knife and tucking it into my pocket. I don’t know how I’m going to get Adam out of here. His wrists are rubbed raw, bleeding, his body pounded into one piece of pain, his leg bloodied through with a bullet.
He nearly falls over.
I try to hold on as tenderly as possible, try to hold him close as best I can without hurting him. He doesn’t say a word about the pain, tries so hard to hide the fact that he’s having trouble breathing. He’s wincing against the torture of it all, but doesn’t whisper a word of complaint. “I can’t believe you found me,” is all he says.
And I know I shouldn’t. I know now isn’t the time. I know it’s impractical. But I kiss him anyway.
“You are not going to die,” I tell
him. “We are going to get out of here. We are going to steal a car. We are going to find James and Kenji. And then we’re going to get safe.”
He stares at me. “Kiss me again,” he says.
And I do.
It takes a lifetime to make it back to the door. Adam had been buried deep in the recesses of this building, and finding our way to the front is even more difficult than I expected. Adam is trying so hard, moving as fast as he can, but he still isn’t fast at all. “They said Warner wanted to kill me himself,” he explains. “That he shot me in the leg on purpose, just to disable me. It gave him a chance to drag you away and come back for me later. Apparently his plan was to torture me to death.” He winces. “He said he wanted to enjoy it. Didn’t want to rush through killing me.” A hard laugh. A short cough.
His hands on my body his hands on my body his hands on my body
“So they just tied you up and abandoned you here?”
“They said no one would ever find me. They said the building is made entirely of concrete and reinforced steel and no one can break in. Warner was supposed to come back for me when he was ready.” He stops. Looks at me. “God, I’m so happy you’re okay.”
I offer him a smile. Try to keep my organs from falling out. Hope the holes in my head aren’t showing.
He pauses when we reach the door. The metal is a mangled mess. It looks like a wild animal attacked it and lost. “How did you—”
“I don’t know,” I admit. Try to shrug, be indifferent. “I just punched it.”
“You just punched it.”
“And kicked it a little.”
He’s smiling and I want to sob into his arms. I have to focus on his face. I can’t let my eyes digest the travesty of his body.
“Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s go do something illegal.”
I leave Adam in the shadows and dart up to the edge of the main road, searching for abandoned vehicles. We have to travel up 3 different side streets until we finally find one.
“How are you holding up?” I ask him, afraid to hear the answer.
He presses his lips together. Does something that looks like a nod. “Okay.”
That’s not good.
“Wait here.”
It’s pitch-black, not a single street lamp in sight. This is good. Also bad. It gives me an extra edge, but makes me extra vulnerable to attack. I have to be careful. I tiptoe up to the car.
I’m fully prepared to smash the glass open, but check the handle first. Just in case.
The door is unlocked.
The keys are in the ignition.
There’s a bag of groceries in the backseat.
Someone must’ve panicked at the sound of the alarm and unexpected curfew. They must’ve dropped everything and run for cover. Unbelievable. This would be absolutely perfect if I had any idea how to drive.
I run back for Adam and help him hobble into the passenger side. As soon as he sits down I can tell just how much pain he’s in. Bending his body in any way at all. Putting pressure on his ribs. Straining his muscles. “It’s okay,” he tells me, he lies to me. “I can’t stand on my feet for much longer.”
I reach into the back and rummage through the grocery bags. There’s real food inside. Not just strange bouillon cubes designed to go into Automats, but fruit and vegetables. Even Warner never gave us bananas.
I hand the yellow fruit to Adam. “Eat this.”
“I don’t think I can eat—” He pauses. Stares at the form in his hands. “Is this what I think it is?”
“I think so.”
We don’t have time to process the impossibility. I peel it open for him. Encourage him to take a small bite. I hope it’s a good thing. I heard bananas have potassium. I hope he can keep it down.
I try to focus on the machine under my feet.
“How long do you think we’ll have until Warner finds us?” Adam asks.
I take a few bites of oxygen. “I don’t know.”
A pause. “How did you get away from him . . . ?”
I’m staring straight out the windshield when I answer. “I shot him.”
“No.” Surprise. Awe. Amazement.
I show him Warner’s gun. It has a special engraving in the hilt.
Adam is stunned. “So he’s . . . dead?”
“I don’t know,” I finally admit, ashamed. I drop my eyes, study the grooves in the steering wheel. “I don’t know for sure.” I took too long to pull the trigger. It was stiffer than I expected it to be. Harder to hold the gun between my hands than I’d imagined. Warner was already dropping me when the bullet flew into his body. I was aiming for his heart.
I hope to God I didn’t miss.
We’re both too quiet.
“Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know how to drive.”
FORTY-ONE
“You’re lucky this isn’t a stick shift.” He tries to laugh.
“Stick shift?”
“Manual transmission.”
“What’s that?”
“A little more complicated.”
I bite my lip. “Do you remember where we left James and Kenji?” I don’t even want to consider the possibility that they’ve moved. Been discovered. Anything. I can’t fathom the idea.
“Yes.” I know he’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking.
“How do I get there?”
Adam tells me the right pedal is for gas. The left is to brake. I have to shift into D for drive. I use the steering wheel to turn. There are mirrors to help see behind me. I can’t turn on my headlights and will have to rely on the moon to light my way.
I turn on the ignition, press the brake, shift into drive. Adam’s voice is the only navigation system I need. I release the brake. Press the gas. Nearly crash into a wall.
This is how we finally get back to the abandoned building.
Gas. Brake. Gas. Brake. Too much gas. Too much brake. Adam doesn’t complain and it’s almost worse. I can only imagine what my driving is doing for his injuries. I’m grateful that at least we’re not dead, not yet.
I don’t know why no one has spotted us. I wonder if maybe Warner really is dead. I wonder if everything is in chaos. I wonder if that’s why there are no soldiers in this city. They’ve all disappeared.
I think.
I almost forget to put the car in park when we reach the vaguely familiar broken building. Adam has to reach over and do it for me. I help him transition into the backseat, and he asks me why.
“Because I’m making Kenji drive, and I don’t want your brother to have to see you like this. It’s dark enough that he won’t see your body. I don’t think he should have to see you hurt.”
He nods after an infinite moment. “Thank you.”
And I’m running toward the broken building. Pulling the door open. I can only barely make out two figures in the dark. I blink and they come into focus. James is asleep with his head in Kenji’s lap. The duffel bags are open, cans of food discarded on the floor. They’re okay.
Thank God they’re okay.
I could die of relief.
Kenji pulls James up and into his arms, struggling a little under the weight. His face is smooth, serious, unflinching. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t say anything stupid. He studies my eyes like he already knows, like he already understands why it took us so long to get back, like there’s only one reason why I must look like hell right now, why I have blood all over my shirt. Probably on my face. All over my hands. “How is he?”
And I nearly lose it right there. “I need you to drive.”
He takes a tight breath. Nods several times. “My right leg is still good,” he says to me, but I don’t think I’d care even if it weren’t. We need to get to his safe place, and my driving isn’t going to get us anywhere.
Kenji settles a sleeping James into the passenger side, and I’m so happy he’s not awake for this moment.
I grab the duffel bags and carry them to the backseat. Kenji slides in front. Looks in the
rearview mirror. “Good to see you alive, Kent.”
Adam almost smiles. Shakes his head. “Thank you for taking care of James.”
“You trust me now?”
A small sigh. “Maybe.”
“I’ll take a maybe.” He grins. Turns on the car. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Adam is shaking.
His bare body is finally cracking under the cold weather, the hours of torture, the strain of holding himself together for so long. I’m scrambling through the duffel bags, searching for a coat, but all I find are shirts and sweaters. I don’t know how to get them on his body without causing him pain.
I decide to cut them up. I take the butterfly knife to a few of his sweaters and slice them open, draping them around his figure like a blanket. I glance up. “Kenji—does this car have a heater?”
“It’s on, but it’s pretty crappy. It’s not working very well.”
“How much longer until we get there?”
“Not too much.”
“Have you seen anyone that might be following us?”
“No.” He pauses. “It’s weird. I don’t understand why no one has noticed a car flying through these streets after curfew. Something’s not right.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t know what it is, but obviously my tracker serum isn’t working. Either they really just don’t give a shit about me, or it’s legit not working, and I don’t know why.”
A tiny detail sits on the outskirts of my consciousness. I examine it. “Didn’t you say you slept in a shed? That night you ran away?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Where was it . . . ?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Some huge field. It was weird. Crazy shit growing in that place. I almost ate something I thought was fruit before I realized it smelled like ass.”
My breath catches. “It was an empty field? Barren? Totally abandoned?”
“Yeah.”
“The nuclear field,” Adam says, a dawning realization in his voice.
“What nuclear field?” Kenji asks.
