I had put Jack, along with everyone else who had been in the president’s suite, under a strict gag order about the possibility of Leisel being my sister. Although I did confide in Doc and he offered to do a blood test to confirm it, but I said no. If it turned out we were sisters, I wouldn’t know what to do with that information. And I doubted Leisel wanted to know either. She preferred to maintain her superior role as the president’s orphaned daughter, which she would lose if it were discovered she was half urchin. And considering she had moved in with the West family—the Holts’ closest friends—being labeled an urchin might mean she would be out of a place to live.
My stomach growled and I looked in the fridge for something to eat. Well, not just something. I really wanted a tomato. I was pretty sure I ate the last one yesterday, but I looked just in case I was wrong. My mouth watered in anticipation of finding one. I didn’t.
“I have a protein shake here for you,” Jack said, handing me a glass of the vile stuff.
“Oh.” I shut the fridge door and took it from him—a poor consolation for the food I was really craving. “I was hoping there were tomatoes left. Anyone see any?” I asked hopefully.
Jack regarded me with a weird look. “You ate the entire box in three days. And I thought you hated tomatoes.”
I shrugged. “I like them now.” In fact I loved them. They were the best food on the planet. Biting back my extreme disappointment, and, yes, anger, at not having any more tomatoes in the house, I drank my shake. We were going to have to start buying two boxes per week. Period.
“Naoki’s probably waiting. We should get going,” Jack said.
Ted put his tablet away as I downed my shake and tried not to gag. It was better than going hungry.
There was still an hour before the sun came up. The air was cold and crisp. My breath fogged in front of me as I straddled the seat of the bike. Jack climbed on in front of me. He liked to do the driving, even though I could see better in the dark. I didn’t mind, though, especially when I was still tired. I was content to wrap my arms around his waist, lean my head on his shoulder, and try to get some more sleep. He also made an excellent windbreak.
Ted got on his bike, snapped the kickstand out of the way, and revved the bike to life. Jack shot him a dirty look. He was going to wake Summer and my mom. He switched to solar.
This was the first time we were going to the old city, which Jack pinpointed on a map as possibly being Front Royal, although he wasn’t positive. There were lots of settlements scattered throughout the valley before the war, most being homesteads and farms. The bigger, major cities were farther east, along the Atlantic Ocean. Those were also the areas the Nation referred to as the scorched lands.
That’s what I had decided to call the barangays—the Nation. And everyone who resided there: the People. I asked Jin-Sook how they referred to themselves and she said they didn’t. They believed part of the problem that led to a world war was that labels differentiated groups from each other, which led to segregation, which ultimately led to hate. The Nation’s philosophy was that people were essentially all the same. So they shunned labels. My way of thinking wasn’t nearly as advanced, as I found I needed to refer to them as something…a name that differentiated them from us. So, the Nation stuck.
The wind was cold as we raced across the valley and I tucked in more tightly behind Jack. It had been a long winter, but not entirely unwelcomed. The novelty of the first snowfall had everyone outside, playing in the foreign stuff. Someone even fashioned a sled and soon the entire town was searching for good sliding hills. It was a great day. It was a day when everyone forgot to hate. But soon enough, the novelty of snow wore off and they remembered their animosity. At least the bitterly cold winter kept most indoors for the season, so the fighting was kept to a minimum.
Naoki was already waiting on the outskirts of town with Ryan and someone he introduced as Talon.
Jack greeted Naoki with a brief man-hug. They had become good friends over the course of the last ten months. Jack and I spent as much time in Dena’s barangay as we could. It was the only place where we were accepted. No one saw us as bourge and urchin. We were just people. And thanks to water-filtering flasks and freeze-dried food packs that Doc invented, the creepy hotel room—the place where we first made love—had become our second home.
We parked the bikes amongst some bushes and hiked the rest of the way. Ted hung back with me, maybe feeling as out of place as I did. He had visited the Nation a few times with Jack but hadn’t really made any friends. I think he still felt like they were exotic foreigners…or maybe even heathens. I hoped the latter wasn’t true.
Melting snow and early morning ice combined to make for a treacherous hike, yet our companions from the mountains left no visible sign of their passing. Jack, Ted and I didn’t even bother to try. It was enough to walk without slipping.
The old city was everything Naoki had described and less. Most buildings were collapsed ruins. Bricks, pulverized mortar, and rusted-out steel frames littered either side of a road reclaimed by trees and roots. The trees were still leafless and I thought the city probably wouldn’t look as desolate in the summer with greenery and wild flowers adding a touch of life. But at this time of year, it had a ghostly feel, as if the few cement buildings still standing had eyes peering out at us from the glassless windows. I never understood my husband’s fascination with the old. I found it just plain eerie.
Jack was ahead of me, walking alongside Naoki, so I sidled closer to Ted. He gave me an understanding look. For a moment I wondered why Naoki and the others weren’t using their usual caution in trying to stay hidden, but realized the ghostly city didn’t provide much camouflage.
“That was the town library.” Naoki motioned toward what was probably once a cement basement, but was now filled-in with debris. “Or at least we’re pretty sure it was. We found a few books that had been wrapped in plastic, so they were still preserved. Nothing left there now, though.”
“Where did you find the old tablets?” asked Jack.
“Mostly in homes and apartment buildings,” Naoki said. “There’s a building farther up that we haven’t fully explored. We got lucky there a few times.”
As we walked along the deserted street, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I remembered feeling that way before—when the People were watching us after our escape from the bourge. I had been right then. I prayed I wasn’t right this time. Using only my peripheral vision, I scanned either side of the road along the crumbling buildings, but didn’t see any movement. I rested my hand on the grip of my pistol just in case.
Naoki and Jack were deep in conversation, but Talon’s head snapped up and he was suddenly alert. That had my heart racing. Now I knew it wasn’t just me. Talon and I made eye contact for a split second before we both turned around to look behind us.
There was a group of men coming up behind us, arrows pointed at our backs.
“Recruiters!” Talon yelled, just as the first arrow flew.
We all dove out of the way of the deadly missile, splitting our group in half. I pushed myself off the ground and someone grabbed my arm to pull me toward cover. I ran, thinking it was Jack, but it turned out to be Ted. I wrenched my arm away from him.
“Where’s Jack?” I looked around wildly for him.
Two more arrows flew toward us. “Come on!”
He grabbed me again just as I felt a hot stabbing in my side and I faltered. Ted stopped to yank me with him, looked at my side, cursed, and picked me up. The feel of his hands on my side was excruciating.
“Put me down!” I ordered. But he didn’t listen. He kept running toward the crumbling building.
Cramps gripped my abdomen, pushing me beyond the limits of my pain threshold. The world went black.
I floated along on a hazy dream, the w
orld spinning ever so slightly. The cramps in my abdomen were still there but less intense. The burning pain in my side was gone. My mouth felt dry, as if someone had deliberately sopped up my spit with a cloth. I smacked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and my eyes fluttered open.
I was in a hospital room. Mom was sitting in a chair to my left, reading a tablet. Ted was sitting in a chair to my right, bent over his lap with his head resting in his hands. I searched the room for Jack, but we were the only three.
“Mom?” I asked.
She dropped her tablet on the bedside table and stood, smoothing the hair away from my forehead. Ted’s face shot up from his hands, his mouth slightly open.
A smile lit my mother’s tired face. “You’re finally awake.”
“Was I asleep for long?” I asked. “Where’s Jack?”
My mother’s lips turned down for a split second before she pulled them into a tight line. “You just concentrate on getting better. Doc says you’re pregnant. You need your rest.”
Pregnant? I wasn’t pregnant. I turned away from her. “Ted? Where’s Jack?”
Ted frowned, his eyes red and swollen. A cold shiver gripped me. “Where’s Jack?” I demanded again.
“Sunny…” he said.
I looked at my mother and grabbed her hand. “Where’s my husband?”
“Sunny, don’t get upset. The baby…”
I dug my fingers into her hand. “Tell me!”
“He’s gone,” Ted said, his voice cracking. “They have him.”
My entire body went numb. Time seemed suspended. I heard the silence of the room, Ted’s intake of breath after his confession, my mother’s hands shifting to cover mine.
I’m not sure how long I stayed that way. I think they talked to me, but my brain was still processing the information. They couldn’t just tell me something like that and expect me to believe it. Start having a conversation about it as if it were really true. As if Jack were actually gone.
“Who has him?” I asked Ted.
“The heathens called them recruiters.” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I think I saw them kill him. I think my brother’s dead.”
I leapt off the bed and pulled his hands away from his eyes. “You think you saw, or you really did see it? Which is it?”
“I don’t know, Sunny!” Tears streamed down his face. “I went back to look for him, but I couldn’t find him. Not even his body.”
The cramping in my abdomen was getting worse. “That must mean he’s still alive. Why aren’t you out looking for him?”
“We have been!” Ted snapped.
“Sunny, Doc says you can’t get up.”
I brushed her away, ignoring the pain. “I’ll get dressed and go with you.” I looked around the room for clothes. My cramps were getting really severe.
“Sunny, you’re bleeding again,” Mom said.
I looked down at the patch of blood on my hospital gown. It wasn’t that much. Certainly not enough to stop me. I started toward the closet to look for clothes when something trickled down my leg and splattered on the floor. Blood. The room started tilting at an odd angle. I heard my mother’s distant scream. I reached out for something to steady myself, but there was nothing to grab on to. My head hit the floor.
The next thing I knew, the sun was warming my face. The hospital bed I was lying in was parked beside a window. It was a beautiful day outside. The sky was blue with only a few white fluffy clouds chasing each other. From my vantage point, I could see people walking down the street, sweaters tied around their waists. It was a warm spring day.
Someone cleared her throat.
“Summer?” I asked. I looked around the room. She was sitting in a chair by my bed.
“I’m here,” she said. She stood and reached over the bed to hug me. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
“I was never asleep.”
“Sunny…it’s been a few days since they told you that Jack…”
“That the recruiters have him.”
“That he’s dead,” she said, thinking she was correcting me.
But she wasn’t, because I knew better. I knew Jack was strong, a good fighter, and smart enough to get himself out of trouble. I knew he wasn’t alone—Naoki, Ryan and Talon had been taken as well. They would look after each other. And I remembered after the battle with the bourge how quickly his wound had healed.
Most of all I knew Jack wasn’t dead because I’d know if he wasn’t in this world anymore.
My heart would feel it.
End of Book Two
Copyright © 2014 by S. M. McEachern
Published by Clownfish Publishing
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express prior permission of the copyright owner.
Summary:
The continuing story of Sunny O’Donnell and Jack Kenner and their
quest to free the Pit.
Young Adult (16+) Science Fiction/Dystopian
Cover Art and Design: Nathália Suellen
Edited by: Joann Dominik, Red Adept Editing
Proofreader: Christina Galvez
Special thanks to Dr. Adam Johan Bergren, National Institute of Nanotechnology
Author’s blog site: http://smmceachern.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smmceachern
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20427668-worlds-collide
ISBN: 978-0-9917330-4-0
Kindle Edition March 2014
Worlds Collide: Sunset Rising, Book Two Page 37
