by Coralee June
"Mav sent a one-way distress signal," she replied while wiping snot and salty tears from her red face. “Tallis was with Claude when Lackley's street team ambushed you. He called me the moment he realized Claude sold you out," Jules began
"Claude sold us out?" I replied in shock.
"That slimy asshole sent word to Lackley's men the first chance he got," Jules said with disgust. "Luckily, Tallis took care of him, the rat bastard," Jules said with a hint of wistfulness. “Tallis was able to get a guard to give us blueprints of the building, as well as get a message back to you. Maverick followed through on his side of the plan and gave Tallis implicit instructions not to let you know that they were planning on staying behind, as well as guaranteed that my transgressions would be forgiven if I helped."
I cursed. Maverick was in serious trouble.
"Jules, stop the transport," I asserted in a firm voice.
"NO!" Jules howled in response. I racked my brain for options, but each thought fell short.
"Reroute us for the city-center. We can wait this out and try again," I pleaded.
"I don't think you heard me, Ash! Maverick promised that I could stop working in the gardens as well as have my crimes against Jacob forgiven. You can bet your little Walker ass that I'm not going to let you ruin that for me with some shitty attempt at a rescue," Jules lectured.
I placed my head in my hands and continued to brainstorm .
"Ash, I'd rather claw my eyes out with a rusty spoon than work with you, but I know when to tap out and regroup," Jules said in an oddly mature sentiment.
I didn't want to admit out loud that Jules was right. I cursed my Walker upbringing. What use were cooking skills and household training when the ones you cared for needed a warrior? I released the notion that we could somehow magically invade the Emperor's Lab to rescue them unscathed and agreed to reassemble then come up with a plan.
We traveled in silence, aside from the occasional huff from Jules. The further from everyone we got, the more my heart felt like lead. Worry threaded through the gaps in my soul, binding me together in a ball of anxiety and angst. Were we doing the right thing? Could I have done better?
"Isn't it peculiar how things never change?" Jules asked. She appeared calmer now, as she held her fingers against her forehead near the bridge of her nose.
"What do you mean?” I asked.
"I've chased those boys around since I was in diapers. I never once caught up. Even now, I'm chasing after their ghosts," Jules spoke with such a calm sadness that I worried for her sanity.
"I don't hate you because you're a Walker. Or even because you're ignorant and naive about this world. I hate you because you so effortlessly slipped into their group," Jules said while removing her hand from her face then slumping in her seat. She gave me a cold, calculating gaze. I thought of Jacob, he truly did care for Jules. I saw it in the way he agonized over his relationship with her. How he wished he saw her the way she saw him.
"Jacob cares for y—" I began.
"Don't you say his name to me! Don't pretend to know him better than I do. Jacob was the only one that let me in. I loved him," she rushed out, her words flowing in manic worry.
"Do you still love him?" I asked, I needed to know. I craved to understand their dynamic .
"I stopped loving Jacob when I almost killed him. A love like that is too destructive," she replied, and I agreed. Unrequited love made even the best of people toxic and bitter.
We made our way towards an abandoned building with boarded up windows and trash scattered along its red-brick exterior. I recognized that we were in one of the many towns that died when X hit, and I noticed a rusted sign that indicated the city was called Tombstone; a fitting name for such a ghostly place. We stopped the transport, and Jules cloaked the outside so that no one could easily find us. We made our way inside the abandoned building and were greeted with dusty mismatched furniture, rat droppings, and the smell of rotted food. Once Tallis saw us, he waltzed forward and grabbed Jules’ face. She looked distressed, and he examined every square inch of her.
“I’m fine, no need to make a big production of it,” she snarled in response, causing Tallis to smirk then look at me.
“It pleases me to see that you both survived the trip,” he said in his smoky voice. I noticed how close he stood to Jules.
“Please tell me you have a plan to get them back, Tallis,” I begged while pinching my thigh through the thick material of my Galla-style dress. I felt dirty and exhausted but was eager to rescue my guys, now. I lacked the know-how as well as the training to ambush a heavily guarded facility, but I felt reckless and desperate. I wanted my family back.
“I have a plan, but you’re not going to like it,” Tallis said while rolling up his sleeves, revealing his forearms. I noticed Jules swallow in appreciation. There was definitely something between them. I could almost feel the sparks cracking throughout the room. “Maverick briefly explained emperorLackley's purpose for abducting them, and I think our best move is to let the rest of the world know,” Tallis explained. He poured me a glass of water and handed it to me .
“Who is going to believe a Walker and a Scavenger?” Jules scoffed while crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. “If emperorLackley even thinks there's a rebellion on his doorstep, he’ll go on a killing spree.”
“I don’t think so. I think he’ll be too busy worrying about the mass of people wanting to kill him,” Tallis said with a mischievous grin. “And it won't be a Walker and a Scavenger telling the world, it will be the beautiful, tear-stained face of Cyler and Maverick Black’s baby sister,” Tallis said with a smirk.
"You want to put my face on a rebellion?" Jules shrieked, evidently not fond of this idea.
"It'll provide the distraction we need to keep emperorLackley busy; it might even get him killed, there will be a lot of angry people at his doorstep. Once all hell breaks loose we'll swoop in to rescue them," Tallis argued.
"I . . . don't think I'm the right person to do this," Jules countered. I watched their battle with interest.
Tallis moved even closer to Jules, and I blushed at the intensity that burned between them. "If you want to be the person you're destined to become, you must decide on what kind of person you want to be, Agapimenos." The nickname rolled off his tongue, and I wondered what it meant. "You are the person that's going to be strong and stand up for what’s right. You are going to save your family," he whispered. Jules' eyes wavered in exhaustion.
"I don't want to be anything," Jules argued. "I'm here to get my life back."
"Whatever you say," Tallis replied with a knowing grin as if he saw Jules as wholly for the broken, grieving mess she truly was.
"Fine, so, what now?" Jules questioned while shrugging off Tallis’ intense gaze.
"Now we tell the world," I answered, and both of them turned towards me.
Jules brushed her hair but didn't remove the evidence of her tears; she smudged dirt creatively on her cheek that made her look like she just came out of battle. Tallis was right, Jules was dramatic and manipulative enough to pull this off. The entire Empire would feel sympathetic towards her.
I made quick work of manufacturing a dark backdrop to our video, furthering the dismal tone we wanted to evoke. "You'll need to show fierce anger while juggling vulnerability, Agapimenos ," Tallis said while getting his tablet ready.
"Whatever," Jules replied. Fear rippled through her facade.
I wondered if we could pull this off, if she would be strong enough to tell the world of emperorLackley's evil past and inspire the world to take revenge. Tallis noticed her fear, too, and he eyed her before smiling mischievously. He waltzed over to her with determined strides, grabbed her face, and then kissed her. Hard. She rose up on her tiptoes to meet the force of his crushing kiss. After a brief moment, I realized I was staring at their passionate display, so I coughed and averted my eyes.
Tallis walked back over towards me while licking his lips. He looked ruffled and winked at me before o
rdering “And, NOW," while turning on the tablet.
"Masters and Mistresses of the Empire," Jules began. "I am Jules Black, sister of Maverick and Cyler Black, the humble and kind leaders of Dormas. I come to you from a hiding post within the Empire." She looked down at her arm before dramatically raising her chin and giving an icy glare to Tallis who was behind the camera. "I have recently learned some grave news that could impact the very fabric of our Empire's existence. In a drastic and inhumane attempt at controlling our population, emperorLackley commissioned the creation of Influenza X. He is responsible for the murder of our friends, our brothers, our sisters, our parents, and our neighbors. He destroyed entire cities. Enslaved the peoples of this empire with his vaccine. Divided our Empire. Broke our families. Killed our loved ones. emperorLackley is a murderer and a fraud," Jules proclaimed. Goosebumps erupted on my arms.
"People of the Empire, emperorLackley must be stopped. He recently learned that his precious vaccine is malfunctioning, so now he is holding my brilliant, helpless brother and the rest of the Dormas leaders hostage in a vicious attempt to further his powerful reign and control us. I implore you. Help me save my brothers. Help me save our Empire." As she ended her speech, a small, timid tear danced perfectly down her porcelain cheeks.
Tallis cut the feed then began furiously sending the video to as many contacts across the Empire as he could, praying that the announcement would go viral and we'd get reactions within twenty-four hours. Emperor Lackley had control over the airwaves, but Tallis ensured us that the video would find its way into the right hands, hands that could get Jules' speech heard.
"So, what now?" I asked.
"Now we send a message to Maverick and the others, warning them," Tallis said. Jules nodded in agreement.
"How do we do that?" I asked.
"I'll send another note through the Guard that got a note to you. He thinks I have his sister held captive; she's an old . . . uh . . . friend of mine," Tallis said while rubbing the back of his neck, causing Jules to groan.
"Disgusting," she sneered while looking at Tallis with a mixture of frustration and desire.
"I'll write the note," I replied automatically while jumping up from my seat. I was overly eager to grasp at whatever contact I could.
"Keep it ambiguous, so if intercepted we can’t be traced. I can get it to him by nightfall,” he added before going over to a table full of knives and sharpening them.
M,
The rest of your life starts tomorrow.
— A
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kemper
The fluorescent light in the right corner of our makeshift jail cell kept flickering in a systematic sequence. If my right eye wasn’t swollen shut, and my left not blurred from all the rogue punches I just endured, maybe I could make sense of them. We kept pushing the boundaries of the Guards. Spitting in their eyes. Kicking them during bathroom breaks. In turn, they kept pushing back. Just enough to keep us hurting and down.
Perhaps I was grasping for straws. Trying to find a pattern where there wasn’t one. But sitting here while Ash and Maverick were off in danger made me desperate to make sense of something. Anything.
Cyler groaned out. “How long do you think it’s been?”
“Ten days and six hours. Give or take,” I replied instantly. I counted the seconds between guard shift-changes and determined that we got a new guard every four hours.
“Do we have a plan yet?” Huxley asked.
We both eyed our snoozing guard. His overgrown belly made his weapon belt look like twine tightly wound on raw meat. He would be easy to take down.
Hux was probably the most beat up out of all of us. He needed medical attention soon. Kicking a guard in the groin would do that. My eye drifted to the flashing light again. On. Off. On on. Off.
“Mia,” I began. She had been meditating in eerie silence since our capture, only speaking up to yell at us when we talked about escaping. “Does that light flashing seem strange to you?” She casually looked at the light, and I saw her busted lip grin.
“It’s Morse code. Some of the camps use it. Someone must be trying to send a message,” Mia said methodically.
“Well, what does it say?!” Jacob pleaded. He was the least calm out of all of us. I noticed blood seeping down his hands from his rubbed-raw wrists.
“A—S—H—I—S—S—A—F—E—" Mia spelled out slowly. “Well fuck, they could have at least told us a way to get out of here,” she joked. The rest of us, even Huxley, collectively sighed in relief. The only person smart enough to hack into the light controls would be Maverick. Leave it to him to come up with a way to communicate with us using a language only Scavengers understood.
“At least you know lover girl is safe,” Mia said with a sigh before closing her eyes and going back into her meditative state. I wondered how she kept so calm. How she could just sit there.
“Thank God for that,” I muttered as Patrick groaned while spitting up blood. I’m pretty sure he bit the hell out of his tongue when the last guard punched him in the jaw.
“For the record, when we get out of here, I’m courting her,” I said definitively. I wasn’t dancing around this anymore. Ash deserved to be loved and cherished. I wasn’t going to waste another second not doing so.
“Get in line, Kemp,” Patrick chuckled.
“So we’re doing this? Really doing this?” Jacob asked. I knew that he would be the least secure out of all of us in this new adventure. We’d have to make sure we were careful. Intentional.
“We’re doing this,” Cyler answered firmly.
We all remained silent, waiting for Huxley to speak up. To confirm what we already knew .
“Do we have to talk about this right now?” Hux complained.
“Yes or no, Hux. It’s not that fucking hard,” Patrick said through clenched teeth, shocking us all. He was the last person I’d ever expect to force Hux into deciding.
“Shut up!” Mia yelled, and the authority of it shocked us into silence. I had almost forgot she was here with us. “Hear that boys?” Mia asked with a grin. I strained to listen but heard nothing. “A bomb just hit the north corner of the building, and sirens are going off in the East wing,” she murmured while closing her eyes.
“How can you even hear that? This room is concrete!” Patrick exclaimed.
“I’ve got good ears,” she replied with a shrug. “And while you were comparing dick sizes and fighting about whether or not you’re going to court Ash, I was conserving energy and figuring out a way to get out of this hell hole.”
I strained my ear to hear what she was talking about. A faint, low boom erupted, and I widened my eyes in surprise. She was right. Something was happening. I looked up at the flashing light and saw that it had taken on a new sequence.
“Mia—quick. What is the light saying now?” I asked.
Jacob started rubbing against his chains again.
“G—E—T—O—U—T—N—O—W,” she spelled out. “Well boys, what do you say we jump this joint?” Mia shimmied out of her cuffs with ease, and if my eyes weren’t swollen and my head wasn’t throbbing, I would have thrown her an incredulous look.
“How?” Cyler asked while she uncuffed him using the guard’s tablet.
“No time, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Mia said before hitting the snoozing guard across the head with a pipe and stealing his electric gun.
We shuffled down the hall on high alert. I could now hear an alarm going off in the distance as the lights overhead flickered. I sniffed and noticed that the air smelled like an electrical fire and a hint of burnt plastic .
“We don’t even know where we’re going,” Jacob complained. His broad hands touched the ceramic-tiled walls, as if trying to prevent them from closing in on him.
“We follow the sounds of the bombs,” Mia whispered. “Where there are bombs, there’s bound to be a hole in the wall—an opening to get out of here,” she explained.
“Sound logic, but where there are bom
bs, there’s also—well—bombs ,” Cyler bit out sarcastically. I think he hated that he didn’t have all the answers this time.
Huxley coughed, and I noticed blood splatter on his arm and clothes. Fuck. We needed to get him to a doctor. We turned the corner, following Mia’s intuition as to where we should go.
“Where are the guards?” Huxley whispered while crouching low and clutching his stomach.
“Probably all responding to the bombs on the other side of the building,” I suggested.
“Surely there would be some sort of commotion? Someone here?” Patrick asked.
“It’s like they all abandoned this place,” Huxley said with a furrowed brow before covering his mouth.
We were all conditioned to know that abandoned places meant disease. Meant X.
We made a sharp turn left at the end of the hall and the lights went out. My vision was already bad, but now I felt defenseless. The only guide I had was Mia’s labored breathing as she led us. I took small steps.
“Maverick?” Mia’s voice whisper-shouted. “Is that you? Why are you holding a body?” she asked, and the world as I knew it collapsed.
Ash. Oh god what happened to Ash? I wanted to crumble to the ground. I wanted to murder Lackley. I felt Huxley tense beside me, and Jacob sucked in a breath. All I could think of was all the time I wasted.
“It’s Josiah,” Maverick’s low voice scratched out. A brief, blinding relief consumed me. “Look, I don’t have time to explain. Ash is safe with Tallis. We need to get out of here. He’s lost use of his legs . . .” he trailed off.
“Just fucking leave him here,” Huxley said incredulously before checking my shoulder and walking ahead of us.
“I’ll help you,” I said to Maverick, and together we continued towards the bombs. I wanted to leave Josiah behind, too, but knew Maverick probably had a good reason for bringing him.
A bright light at the end of the darkened hallway acted like a beacon to us. White smoke and zipping fuses blasted around us. I kept straining to hear the sound of footsteps, but there were none. We were all that was left. As we walked I noticed something like sand on the floor, with bits and pieces of clothing. Surely we weren’t . . . .
