In Between Seasons (The Fall)

by Giovanni, Cassandra

  “I said shoot the gun Kate,” Hunter ordered, his face military, but his eyes smiling.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, gripping the gun in both hands as I held it up.

  “You can’t aim with your eyes closed.”

  I opened them staring down the straight line of the gun’s shaft, which was shaking with my hands.

  “If you keep shaking like that you’re never going to hit anything,” Hunter commented.

  The warmth of my anger from his antagonizing comments engulfed my senses and all I could see was the tree. The blast of the gun firing didn’t take me by surprise, but I had to pull the image of Trevor’s blood out of my mind.

  “Excellent,” Hunter’s his voice showed that he was impressed.

  I had shot the tree on target in a straight line from where I was standing.

  “Now you just need to be able to do that while running,” Hunter mocked me with a smirk.

  “You’re joking, right?” I replied as I lowered the gun. It was hard enough to shoot the thing, but to do it while running, and with my lack of coordination?

  Hunter walked forward and took the gun from my hands. He started running and shooting—every shot hit its target. It was impressive, and I knew my mouth was gapping open.

  He stopped and turned to face me as I forced my mouth shut, “Just like that darling.”

  “You’re lucky I don’t shoot you for that one,” I replied, jogging to catch up to him.

  “Fighting words,” he commented as he tossed the gun back at me.

  “Always,” I smiled, “I have a question though—I thought you said there weren’t many guns?”

  “It’s true we have limited resources as far as fire power. To be honest with you there are only a couple hundred guns in our armories and only about double the amount of ammunition. If we ran around shooting people we wouldn’t have anything left. Guns are just a more humane way to finish someone off. None of the tribes have really trained their people to use guns, so even when they’re used in battle they’re hardly accurate. A choice few are trained in gun wielding,” Hunter explained, and it was easy to accept. The part that worried me was the choice few.

  “Let’s hope we don’t run into any of those ones,” I said.

  “They usually protect the chief.”

  “How ironic,” I replied, looking up at the stars.

  “Trevor was one,” Hunter said.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself at the thought. They had sent one of the only ones trained to kill with a fatal weapon and still failed. What could be coming next?

  “Good to know. How did you figure that out?” I finally managed to ask.

  “He couldn’t fight worth shit.”

  Our eyes locked and we both shook our heads. It was funny, yet not funny all at the same time.

  Chapter 39

  The realization that I knew everything I could learn in order to kill showed that despite everything I had become a secret weapon. I knew that Hunter had always had a secret weapon that no one else had. It was a weapon that made him impossible to beat—he had a soul when the world around us was soulless. I was a secret weapon because he had helped me find mine. So why was I running and what from? My feet were stumbling again, like before I had met Hunter, struggling to find the right footing. The woods were moving too quickly around me, and there was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me want to vomit. Then I saw the dark shadow that was slowly beginning to move into the corner of my vision. I found my footing and lurched forward even faster. The woods became a blur, but the shadow of a person still moved slowly to the side of me. It moved slower than me, but still managed to conquer my speed. As it moved into the light in front of me the features became lucid. It was all I could do to keep from screaming at the face dripping with blood.

  Trevor cocked his head at me, “Running again? I knew it wouldn’t be long before you did.”

  “I’m not running away from anything,” I snapped with my hands in fists as I fought against the gravity that was pulling me towards him.

  The look on his face was of absolute satisfaction, “Come on Kate. You were always running scared. You never had the balls to really do anything despite the fact you saw it all too clear.”

  “I’m not scared of you,” I hissed, digging my feet into the ground.

  “Of course not—I’m dead. You know you’re not running from me,” Trevor’s voice mocked me.

  “I’m not running,” I repeated as I slammed my fists against the wall of air behind me.

  In a movement that I was unable to comprehend Trevor was behind me with his cold breath wafting into my ear, “Yes, you are.”

  “What am I running from then?” I demanded with my voice clipped.

  “The truth, love—the truth you’ve always known,” Trevor’s voice echoed in the thick of the air.

  His hands grabbed me and spun me around to face him, but instead there she was. Now I couldn’t escape the scream that grew from my lungs, up my throat and out of my mouth. It woke me, but I found that I wasn’t screaming anymore. I knew what was coming; what had come.

  “Sara,” I said out loud as I sat up, and the chenille blanket fell to the ground. I stood and went to the library window with my chest feeling as though it might explode. I could see shadows moving among the trees, but the darkness wasn’t enough to cover her arrogant swagger that I had never understood until now. In a patriarchal society what was the best secret weapon? A matriarch—a woman who was as skilled as a man at killing and even better if that was possible. That was the secret weapon. I knew why my father had chosen her. She was easy to brainwash; to make feel like she was number one. The epiphany had caught me off guard, and I realized why she was here—why they were here. They weren’t supposed to be here.

  “Where’s Hunter?” I yelled as I went into the common room with my hands tangled in my hair.

  “In the gym downstairs,” Amy replied, looking over the couch with her black eyebrows perked and her lips pursed.

  Mara’s eyes met mine and she jumped over the couch, rushing past me and down the stairs to her room.

  I stumbled down the stairs into basement yanking the gym door open. I was still screaming, “Hunter!”

  He looked up from the bench that he was sitting at and stood immediately, “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Sara,” I explained and he shook his head confused, “She’s the secret weapon.”

  Just then an alarm echoed off the concrete walls. It was the third time that noise had jarred into my brain, and this time I felt it was our last chance.

  “And she’s here,” I managed to yell over the siren.

  Hunter’s eyes flashed as he saw what was happening.

  “Shit,” he swore as he rushed past me and up the stairs.

  I followed him up as women rushed past me into the basement. Amy grabbed at a spot in the wall that I would never have realized was a door. By the time I had gotten up the stairs Hunter was standing in front of the men sending them out the front door.

  “Hunter,” I whispered, and he spun on his heel.

  “Hide Kate,” he insisted, his eyes flashing across my face.

  Gun shots were starting to echo through the air as Hunter pushed me down into the basement. He shook his head before turning and rushing out the front door. I watched him go and everything in my body went numb. There was no way I was going to let him do this alone. There was no way I was going to hide and wait to see if he came out alive. I needed a plan, but I had no clue where to start. I looked over my shoulder down the stairs, and Amy was still holding the door open with her face flushed in a fear that I wasn’t feeling. I was determined to survive.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, pointing to a door across from Amy.

  “Get in—otherwise I’m closing the door,” she snapped with her whole body shaking.

  “What’s in there?” I pushed.

  “I don’t know, now are you getting in here or not?” Amy replied panicked.

  I
hurried down the stairs and jiggled the knob of the door to find it was locked. When I turned around the door where Amy had been had vanished into the wall. I stood back and kicked the locked door once. The wood cracked allowing it to swing open, and I reached for the light cord dangling in my face and pulled. The room in front of me was filled to the brim with artillery. I grabbed two guns that looked powerful, but I had no idea what ammunition matched. It would have to do for now. I knew there was one thing Sara wasn’t counting on—me. This was our way out if we could survive long enough to leave. When I reached the open front door I couldn’t hear any guns going off and despite what it had sounded like there wasn’t many fallen. When my gun shot rang through the air all eyes turned to me, and I jumped down off the porch and landed like a panther ten feet behind Hunter. Our eyes met and I tossed him one of the guns as I took a running start towards him. I had the advantage of distraction as he turned and shot his current assailant.

  “Where’s Sara?” I asked.

  Hunter pointed to the side of him as he spoke, “I told you to hide.”

  “Since when do I listen?” I replied, running in the direction he had pointed. My eyes met Sara’s, and I saw the shock register as I picked off the people who had once been a part of my tribe.

  I was within feet of her now and she wasn’t running. She didn’t think I would do it, and I knew I would.

  “You wouldn’t shoot your own sister would you?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

  “That’s what you’re here to do isn’t it?” I snapped.

  “I’m here to save you,” she answered, but the glitter in her eyes said otherwise, and I had been gone long enough to know better.

  “Bullshit,” I retorted as I pulled the trigger on the gun, but all it did was make a hollow noise. I threw it to the ground, “I guess I’ll just have to kill you with my bare hands.”

  The laugh that echoed from her lips was gruesome and it made me stop dead, “Sure you will. Better chance that I’ll kill you before you even figure out how to fight me.”

  “So Dad sent you?” I asked.

  “Dad?” she smirked, “Ha, no he’s just a pawn in the game. Mom is the one who sent me—she’s the one who gives the orders. Dad just barks them because the men respect him more.”

  It all made sense now, and I could see it in her eyes that she thought her words would hurt me. She thought she was playing mind games, but I knew better than to be emotional during a fight.

  I shrugged keeping space between us in case she chose to attack at my words, “That doesn’t surprise me, but you know why she’ll fail? Because she’s too emotional; she’s too much of a woman.”

  Sara’s hands dropped from their defensive position as her face froze in confusion at my words.

  “She showed all the signs that you’d come. Sending Trevor was an ill thought out plan. She thought he would inflict the most damage even if he didn’t kill me because it would hurt me emotionally,” I shrugged again, “It didn’t work. She miscalculated my feelings for him, and she did the same by sending you—”

  “Why is that?” she asked, and before she could react I had kicked her legs out from under her.

  “I have a secret weapon too,” I explained, grabbing her hair and slamming her head into the ground.

  “What?”

  “Me.”

  “They’ll all be dead by the time you finish me,” Sara said using her knee to kick me forward off of her, “So what’s this about?”

  “Me,” I repeated, turning and blocking a kick to the head. My eyes searched behind her and I found Hunter. Our eyes met for a moment as I punched her in the stomach.

  “Who trained you?” she asked as she landed a kick into my ribs.

  The pain seared, but I ignored it and her question as I kicked at her stomach and punched at her face. She was able to block the kick, but took the brunt of my fist full in the mouth.

  “Who do you think?” I replied, grabbing her arm as I blocked a punch to my face and twisting her to the ground. I yanked her arm behind her head and crushed my knee into her back.

  “Pretty boy over there,” she croaked, her voice filled with pain as she watched him snap someone’s neck.

  “Good guess, darling,” I spat, twisting her neck dangerously close to snapping.

  “You won’t do it. You’re not a killer,” Sara mumbled and her voice was barely audible.

  “I think you just watched me shoot a few men dead,” I reminder her.

  “But they’re not your family,” she begged.

  “Neither are you,” I pushed my knee further into her back.

  “Yes I am Kate—I’m your flesh and blood. You won’t do it. I know you won’t,” her voice was choked as she gasped for air.

  “No, but I will,” Mara interrupted, and as I looked up she had a gun pointed at Sara’s chest. Mara nodded for me to move. I dropped Sara and lunged to the left just as the shot exploded into the air.

  “Why?” I asked as Mara grabbed my arms before I could turn to look at Sara’s lifeless body.

  “She’s your sister. I couldn’t let you do it, and I couldn’t let Hunter do it because neither of you could live with that on your chest,” Mara explained.

  “Why did you really come here?” I asked as the commotion continued around us. People were starting to run away as soon as they saw Sara had fallen.

  “Originally? Motives change Kate—if they didn’t you would be dead already,” Mara nodded over her shoulder, “There aren’t many left. I snuck out, and as far as I know you and Hunter are dead too.”

  “I’m so confused.”

  “I like you Kate. You’re real, you played our game because you love Hunter…that’s what we all want, to feel something real. Now there’s something real for me—freedom, and the same thing for you and Hunter. You saved him Kate, somehow you saved me too, and I know you’ve doubted it, but he loves you too,” Mara assured me. I was seeing her as she truly was for the first time. She had been playing her part in the play that we were trapped in.

  “Thank you,” I said because I had no idea what else to say, “Where will you go?”

  “Rumor has it if you run far enough East or West there’s freedom from this life…from war. I’m going East,” she replied with a sad smile, but there was a twinkle in her eye that made me think there was something more she wasn’t saying.

  “Don’t let her look at Sara,” Mara ordered as Hunter came running up beside us.

  “Thank you,” Hunter answered with his eyes showing Mara’s actions confused him as well.

  “To Freedom,” she toasted before taking off running. She looked over her shoulder one last time and winked as Hunter pulled me into his arms and took a deep breath. I smiled back at her as she faded into the woods where another figure joined her.

  “Where to?” Hunter asked, pulling me away from my sister’s body.

  “West, until we find somewhere that the only reality is the truth,” I suggested

  “Sounds good to me,” Hunter agreed.

  Chapter 40

  This time running felt different. There was a desperation that had not existed when we were heading to a location that we had known to be real. Now we ran away from the only thing we knew towards a future that we had only dreamt of. The only thing that remained the same was the uncertainty.

  “I need to stop—” I gasped as my legs collapsed beneath me, “Can we stop?”

  Hunter glanced over his shoulder, “I don’t see why not. There’s not going to be anyone coming after us.”

  “That’s what I said. Why wouldn’t your father send someone to look for us once he realizes your body isn’t there?” I asked.

  “Because he won’t realize my body isn’t there,” he replied with his jaw line tightened.

  “Why?” I pushed, staring up at him from the ground I was sitting on.

  “He’ll be looking for the living; the dead are useless to him and they can’t help him plot his retribution to the people who caused this,” Hunter rep
lied.

  “But you’re his son.”

  “And you were someone’s daughter,” he sat down on the ground and put his head on his knees, “I’m sorry that sounded much worse than it should have.”

  “It’s the truth,” I replied, leaning my head onto his shoulder. The truth couldn’t hurt me anymore because I wouldn’t let it.

  “Your family will get that revenge you were thinking about,” he finally said with a sigh.

  “They’re already dead to me, so I can’t let whatever happens to them bug me,” I explained as Hunter wrapped his arm around me.

  “It’s better to remember them for what they meant to you before this all happened. I keep trying to remember my dad before my mom died—”

  “It’s hard though isn’t it? To get past all this?” I interjected.

  He kissed my hair, “But I have you now. So it’s not all that bad.”

  “I see everything one second too late…”

  “What do you mean?” Hunter asked, looking down at me with his forehead creasing in worry.

  “I’m always two steps behind the truth—it was my mom Hunter—not my father. He was—is her puppet. I should have seen it before. The decisions that were made were too rash, too emotional to be that of my dad. She knew too little about me and knew far too little about who I have become to make the correct decisions in the first place,” I explained.

  Hunter was silent for a moment while his eyes searched mine then he spoke, “I don’t think it matters when we see the truth. It’s the fact that we see it that matters. The deceit we’ve known was too deep to fully understand until now and maybe we’ll never really understand its depth.”

  “But it doesn’t matter now…” I reminded myself.

  “Not at all,” he shook his head, “but there’s something else bugging you. It’s not just that.”

  I took a deep breath and pulled away from him, leaning against the tree next to me and picking at its bark. Hunter crossed his arms with his lips pursed.

  “I’m haunted by my memories. They’re shape shifting into the demons they are. The demons that created them now rob me of them,” I sighed, “I know you keep saying to forget…but everything has happened so quickly.”