I honestly thought we were going to get away clean, especially after I’d squashed myself through the window, leaving behind some solid DNA samples. I heard Blossom whisper something to Cedar as they ran a bit ahead of me towards the gate. I was in charge of our reluctant addition and the boy was trying to dig in his heels, slowing me down. I elbowed him, none too gently and threw him over my shoulder like so much swag, as we made a run towards the alley. I could see the space between the abandoned houses and I wanted to make the gate before any alarm was sent out. We huddled between the buildings and I caught the last of what Blossom was saying to the other two.
“…why we have to go back.”
“Are you nuts?” I panted, dropping Silas like a load of laundry on to the ground. The kid let out a woof, indicating that I may have knocked the wind out of him. Good, that should keep him from making a run for it, at least for a little while.
“It’s the only thing I have left of my parents, I can’t leave without it.” I could see Jake staring at her, like some mystery had been explained.
“Like this, you mean?” he asked, pulling out the disc that was always with him. Obviously, I’d missed the part where she’d describe whatever it was she wanted to get back. Blossom’s face broke out in to a grin and she tried to grab the medallion from Jake.
“How did you get it?” she said, trying to punch him in the stomach. She obviously didn’t appreciate the game of keep away he seemed to be playing. He shook his head.
“This isn’t yours, it’s mine.” There was a bit of a pause and just when I opened my mouth to hurry things up he added, “My parents gave it to me.”
“So let me get this straight, both of your parents passed along the exact same thing to both of you?” Cedar sounded more than incredulous; she was down right sceptical. They nodded, not taking their eyes away from each other. “Who’s got your disc-y thing?” She added with a sigh.
“Silas’ mom has it; she was keeping it for me until after the ceremony. She said she’d keep it safe until I was allowed to have things of my own.” This was said with a bit of a smile and I was glad to discover that Blossom had come across some kindness in her brief captivity. “Her house is just down a bit; I know where she keeps it.”
“Show us the way,” said Cedar with a nod towards the street.
“We can’t drag this kid around with us, he’ll give us away,” I insisted joggling the kid around by his shoulder.
“No, he won’t, will you Silas?” asked Blossom. “You don’t really want to stick around here, do you?” Her voice was soft, but had some strange undertone that I couldn’t place. Silas shook his head to the negative and crossed his heart with a finger. “That’s what I thought.”
We headed back out in to the street, against my better judgement, and took a right towards a charming little yellow bungalow that smacked of a bad 1950’s cliché. The back door was unlocked and Blossom sidled through the opening leaving us to guard her exit. She only took a few minutes, but, to me, it felt like a lifetime and judging from the pinched looks on their faces, for Cedar and Jake as well. Silas was the only one that didn’t seem to be too worried about anyone giving us away. I kept a close eye on him, as we waited, but he didn’t seem intent on bolting. That being said, he didn’t seem to be all that glad to be in our custody either.
“Hey, kid, don’t worry,” offered Jake, “we’ll explain everything once we’re safe. We’re not going to hurt you.” Silas only shrugged and wiggled his hands behind his back where we had tied them. Blossom brandished the medallion as she came out the door and we turned back to make our getaway. Cedar had already turned the corner between the two houses when I heard someone yell for us to stop. I was lagging a bit behind, as I was hefting the kid over my shoulder again. We hadn’t taken the time to untie his hands and he’d already tripped twice. Not the most graceful kid I’d ever met; maybe it was a ruse to slow us down, I couldn’t be sure and I wasn’t willing to risk it.
The warning was a one time offer and I found myself dodging bullets as I ran. My semi automatic was trapped under Silas’ wriggling frame, so I untucked my Ruger from the waistband of my pants and shot behind me randomly, hoping to escape intact and with undamaged cargo. It struck me that I should probably be panicking, but I felt pretty calm as a few more bullets skimmed by me. At least they weren’t very good shots.
I rounded the corner as Cedar flung herself through the gate and positioned herself neatly to protect our escape. She fired a few times and I heard a muffled grunt behind me followed by another muffled sound from the kid. I hope we hadn’t killed someone he liked. It would make the whole ‘cooperating with us’ thing more difficult. Jake and Blossom passed through the gate, followed by Pipkin, who’d finally powered up and was at full hover, covering my retreat. I was only a few steps from the gate and though I was winded from hefting the boy around, I made a final push to clear the door, slamming it as I passed through. Pipkin fired up his lasers and melted the opening into the fence that surrounded the community. It wouldn’t take them long to bring a ladder or something else that would get them over the wall, so we raced across the empty space between the gated community and the rest of the town and disappeared in to the shadows of the surrounding buildings.
We took a circuitous route back towards our hiding place in the old gas station and had to stop several times to let Blossom catch her wind. She’d only been in the compound for a few days, but they’d barely let her move off the bed, so her muscles were screaming and her feet were a mess due to her lack of shoes. Every time I put Silas down, I set him with my very best ‘you’d better behave or else’ teacher glare, which seemed to work for the most part; or it might have been that Jake kept his weapon on the kid the whole time.
Pip ran multiple scans, tracking the Sand Walkers and their progress. They were smart, I’d give them that. They spread out in a fan pattern, trying to find us in a systematic way, but there weren’t enough of them to cover the ground adequately, so they missed us and we managed to keep out of their line of sight. The little spots on the rendered map hovered on the perimeter of the town for a minute, but reluctantly returned covering the spaces they’d missed on the way out.
We didn’t leave the refuge of our hiding spot in an old water tower until the last body had slipped off the map’s range and then we headed out in to the dessert and back to the car shop. Thankfully Silas agreed to walk on his own, as long as we untied his hands, so I didn’t have to carry the kid the whole way.
We were all exhausted when we settled in to the snug supply room of the gas station, but none of us were ready to sleep until all the necessary information had been exchanged. Blossom dug through the stack of clothes while she caught us up on her captivity. The Sand Walkers had grabbed her from behind, put something over her mouth and knocked her unconscious. When she passed out, she figured she had hit her head on a rock, which is what caused the blood. She rubbed the lump ruefully. For the most part, she told us that she’d been treated fairly well, if you excluded being chained to a bed.
“But we heard you scream on the first day,” said Jake, trying to reconcile his rampant imagination against her rather innocuous story.
“Oh, that, yeah, they were trying to give me some sort of drug, but they wouldn’t tell me what it was or why they were giving it to me, so I screamed bloody murder and then bit the chick with the needle.” She smiled smugly as she shared this little bit of information, and then continued. “I never did get that shot. Silas’ mom, Hannah, said that upsetting me would make it harder to conceive a baby.” We all turned to look at the kid.
“Uh, she’s not my real mom,” mumbled the boy, his fist covering his mouth.
“No, sweetie, she isn’t,” encouraged Cedar, putting her arm around her nephew. The kid tensed, but then relaxed a little before shimmying out of her grasp. Cedar’s brow furrowed and she turned to Blossom. “So, can you explain why it was so easy to get Silas to come with us?”
“Hannah was originally an Outcast, bu
t her family had been captured and split up among the Brotherhood. That’s what they call themselves,” she added as an aside. “She lost her baby when it was born, but a few days later, some woman named Mary brought her Silas and told her that the baby’s mother was dead and it was her baby now. Not long after that she was sent to this camp, traded for a woman with female children. At least that’s what she told me.” She paused again, finally pulling out a satisfactory outfit from amongst the stash, and turned back to Cedar. “Now, you tell me why you wanted to bring Silas with us.”
Cedar gave me a strained look and taking the hint, I said simply “Silas’ real mom was Cedar’s little sister.” The kid’s head jerked towards Cedar, his face rife with surprise and even Blossom was stunned, her mouth gaping open and closed, in her search for words. It made me smile a little, but I could see the questions welling up in both their faces and wanted to nip it in the bud. “Let’s get some rest. I’ll take first watch.” I said it firmly, making it clear that further discussion was out of the question, at least for now. I was satisfied when both Blossom and Silas nodded and settled down to sleep.
I kept a wary eye on the kid, something wasn’t jiving with me. It had been too easy to get the boy to come with us. If he’d been raised an Outcast or dome dweller, I might understand it, but this kid had been indoctrinated in the survivalist culture. As a boy, he’d have the most privileges available to anyone in the society and if that were so, why was he so eager to leave? I was missing something but my tired brain just wouldn’t make the necessary connections. I was lulled in to complacency by the dull whir of Pipkin’s sensors. It was good to have him back at full strength, but it was going to take more than just actuarial calculations to get us to the East coast and beyond. There were so many variables that it was no wonder that my dreams were fraught with mazes and dead ends. It wasn’t the most restful night.
Chapter 22 – On the Road Again
It seemed like lunacy, at least on the face of it, but Cedar and I returned to the outskirts of the compound, just to make sure that the supply team had returned and we wouldn’t come across them as we fled the area. Pip’s scans showed a full body count inside the compound and a lot of activity. It looked like they were planning on coming after us right away. We made our way back to the gas station, hiding our tracks as we went. The kids were still slumbering soundly and I took a moment to mourn the loss of my ability to sleep like the dead. We’d taken the precaution of securing Silas before we bedded down for the night, but it hadn’t been necessary; the boy was still dead to the world. I don’t think he’d so much as twitched in the night. I wondered why he was so exhausted, but wrote it off to the stress of being snatched from everything he knew and possibly loved.
We shook them awake, urging silence and quickly packed up the car. I could tell from their faces that unasked questions were practically choking them and I knew the feeling. There were about a thousand things running rampant through my head, making it difficult to discuss our next options.
The early afternoon passed quickly and quietly. We were forced to track North West in an attempt to lose the Sand Walkers. They were smart enough to figure out which direction we’d been heading originally, so we had no other choice. Pipkin assured us that we could loop around, and heading North had us avoiding all the known survivalist compounds. It was the word ‘known’ that put a knot in my gut, but what else could we do?
We camped out in a sheltered area near a dry river bed. We’d been off road for several hours in hopes that our trail would disappear in the soughing winds that wafted through the hills of the Laurentians. Historically, I knew the area had been mostly forest; covered in evergreens and deciduous trees fed by brooks, rivers and rain runoff. It was hard to imagine, even though I’d seen pictures. If I’d known my great grandfather, he likely could have told me stories about it all. Even my grandfather used to mumble about how we widened highways, slowly cutting further and further in to the forest, damming and rerouting rivers and completely disconnecting from the land. I shook my head, wondering what it would have been like if humanity had been smarter, if lobby groups and the almighty dollar hadn’t been as important. It was a useless exercise. As I came out of my muddled thoughts, I realized that everyone else was finally taking time to assess our situation and share more details about what had gone down while we were separated. Blossom wept to hear the details of Amethyst, hugging each of us in gratitude. A block of ice settled in my stomach thinking about what might have happened to her, if we hadn’t been successful. I looked at Silas and noticed he’d paled considerably as Cedar had retold the story. I knew the kid was supposedly Amethyst’s, so I guess I could understand his shock, but I was struck again by the thought that something was off with him.
“Okay Kid, so what’s with you?” I prodded. He only looked at me blankly and I was forced to rephrase my questions. “How come you came with us so easily?”
“Hannah, that’s my Mom,” he paused and then corrected himself, “I mean, my adopted Mom told me that one day, I’d have to leave the camp. She said that some’un would come for me and I had ta go with ‘em.” His words came out slowly and grudgingly, like it was somehow my fault.
“Yeah, but you totally don’t want to be here,” added Jake, taking in the boy’s slumped shoulders and pained face.
“Come on you two,” chastised Blossom, “Silas has just left everything he knows and is probably terrified. Cut him some slack.”
I scrutinized her features; something in her voice gave me pause. Her features softened a little when she looked at the kid; it was a far cry from her usual disaffected mien.
“So that’s it? You just came with us because your mom told you to?” I didn’t even bother to try keeping the wariness out of my voice. I’d gone from being a puppet of a corrupt system to a conspiracy theorist in a very short amount of time and I wasn’t sure I liked the new me any better than the old one. All Silas did was nod and curl up a bit tighter, like he was trying to make himself disappear. All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. I’d known a lot of different types of kids; abused, bullies, athletes and the like, but I couldn’t pin this one down and it rattled me. “So what aren’t you telling us?” I hadn’t planned on being so direct, but the words popped out before I thought it over. A shadow of fear reflected in Silas’ eyes, but he lifted his chin, squared his thin shoulders and stared at me defiantly. I might have gotten more forceful, except for the slight tremble in his lower lip. It made me soften a little. He was just a scared kid like Blossom said. I could see two bright red spots rising on his cheeks and suddenly his voice erupted from his throat.
“Nothing! I ain’t hiding nothin’! Leave me alone!” With that he rolled over, pulled a blanket over himself and proceeded to cry like his life was over. I was dumbfounded and I caught a chastising glare from Cedar. She went over to the boy and patted his shoulder.
“You’re not alone, you know. I’m your Auntie and I’m here to protect you. No one here is going to hurt you and we’re going to a place where we can be safe and not have to worry about things.” She sent me another hard look, daring me to contradict her. All I could do was nod in understanding and silently wonder what was really in store for us. The boy turned to her, wiping his nose on his sleeve, his pupils large in the fading light.
“Will you tell me ‘bout my real mother?” There was hope, fear and a jumble of other emotions glowing in those eyes which made Cedar smile gently. This was a side of her I’d never seen; of course I hadn’t been around her much except when she was little more than the impetuous kid. There were still vestiges of that; I’d seen them in rare moments during our adventure, but more often I’d seen a serious woman, driven by something so fierce that it often scared me, because I didn’t understand its source. The gentle, caring creature in front of me was strange, but somehow comforting. It made me think of family and possibilities in a way I hadn’t before. I listened as Cedar extolled the virtues of her dead sister and laughed when she told stories about Amethyst�
�s stubborn and playful nature, about her bravery and even something about her fledgling dreams, which were never to be. It surprised me to see the tears rolling down Silas’ cheeks, even though my own eyes were blurry. I hadn’t expected that a boy, no, really nearly a man by Bee Zee standards, would show so much emotion. Silas threw himself into Cedar’s arms and hugged her tightly.
“Thanks. It’s just like my mom said; I mean just like Hannah said, and I’m right happy ‘bout it.” I could see the wheels turning in the kid’s head, trying to piece together something that was baffling about Cedar’s story. “So, you lived out in the Bee Zee all alone, just the two of you?”
“Yeah, why?” Cedar’s brow furrowed, trying to read the meaning behind the words.
“But…but you’re girls!” This was said in a tone of protest and disbelief. Silas turned to me. “You protected ‘em, right? You and him over there.” He thrust his chin toward Jake. I knew he knew Jake’s name, but I sensed unexplained resentment aimed in Jake’s direction.
“Nope, hate to break it to you, but Cedar’s actually looking after us. Without her, we wouldn’t be alive right now.” It might have been a slight stretch of the truth, but without her, we wouldn’t have come across the cache nor had as much information about the Sand Walkers and we certainly wouldn’t have rescued Blossom as easily. I ignored a point that had been nagging at me for a bit; that we might not have lost her in the first place, if Cedar wasn’t with us, but that was a philosophical question, depending on whether I believed in fatalism or free will. I drop the internal debate and watched the kid’s reaction; I know it was childish, but that hadn’t stopped me from trying to shake him up and shift his paradigm a little.
“Really?” His eyes were wide with disbelief, but then narrowed quickly, assessing me. I didn’t like the feeling it gave me.
“Yeah, Cedar’s lived out in the Bee Zee most of her life, we’ve only been out here for a few days,” added Jake, standing up and flicking his hair off his forehead. There was a long pause, like it was painful for him to admit, but he finally added “Where we come from girls can do everything that guys can.”
Last Farmer: Last Farmer Series - Book 1 Page 20
