by E. R. Arroyo
I brush past them to drop my kill in the cutting table. Eli plops his right alongside mine. The elder sorting the meat makes a subtle movement with his head that might be a nod. I nod back, giving him a polite smile.
Flex is the last to show up and understandably he isn’t holding any kill. He shoots a harsh look at Eli as soon as he realizes I’m in the room. That quickly I’m out of his graces.
“We’re heading out at sunrise to bury Maya,” he says to no one in particular, his voice thick with emotion. “The girls’re mourning her now and preparing her for burial.”
Eli throws his arm in the air before Flex has even finished his sentence. “I’ll come, brother.”
Nobody else says anything. In that case… “Me too.” I lift my hand, taking Eli’s cue.
I struggle to hide my surprise when Flex nods to acknowledge me before looking around at the others. “One more?” he asks. His eyes land on someone across the room. “Gav?”
“Of course,” the boy says, though I can’t see who he is.
Face drawn in a resigned sort of sadness, Flex picks up a few pieces of meat and heads for the door. He looks over his shoulder at me. “Stay here tonight.” There’s a deep ache in his dark eyes and I don’t dare respond with anything more than a simple nod.
Sleeping in a room full of dangerous young men and semi-feral elders is … well, it’s not ideal. But I make do. Eli stays close by for the rest of the evening and ends up crashing on the floor near my feet with his body positioned between myself and all the other men. He’s a sweet kid.
In the morning I join Flex, Eli, and a boy named Gavin. He’s taller than the rest of us and bulky too. His build alone would be enough to frighten any enemy, but the size of the knife in his sheath definitely drives home the point. As long as this guy is on the same side as me I feel pretty good about my safety.
We head out and walk a few blocks. The three men go into a building where I deduce the women are staying because they don’t let me come inside. They emerge with Maya’s body laid out on a spread of canvas attached to two long poles acting as handles. Avoiding eye contact, a girl hands off the fourth corner to me and hurries inside. Then Flex leads the way out of The City. It’s the opposite direction from the part of The City I’m familiar with. When we head down the side of the river bank we approach a narrow bridge, crude enough to convince me it was fashioned within the last several years. The planks are mismatched, nails driven in at all sorts of angles—some of them still sticking out. A few spots look too rotten to hold up. Thankfully those parts are closer to the edges.
More than once on the journey, I glance down at the outline of Maya’s body under the cloth. It looks like her clothes were removed, perhaps because they are valuable and needed. Or maybe burying her naked is some kind of ritual. I’m still surprised Flex let me come but I’m not about to start asking questions.
Carrying Maya uphill on the other side of the river is tricky but there are pieces of broken concrete pressed into the dirt that lay a well-traveled path for us. Several miles lead us to an open patch of earth on the far side of a ruined community. It was a cemetery long before the war, that much is clear, and it seems Tyce’s people still use it as one.
Eli retrieves a shovel from a hiding place near a large tomb and Flex directs him to an unoccupied space where Eli begins digging. He and Gavin take turns while Flex crouches wordlessly beside Maya’s body, his fingers mindlessly toying with the corner of the fabric covering. Not once has he antagonized anyone as he usually does, nor has he said much of anything at all. Just the same drawn look from last night. This look is different than when he found Nat injured though. Deeper. One thing is certain, Flex cared for Maya. In what capacity, I can’t guess.
He takes a long, deep breath then exhales slowly, looking into my eyes. “My sister…”
The intensity of his pained gaze sends a pang through my chest. I look down at my hands, watching them fidget as if I’m not controlling them at all. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” he mumbles. He slides his hand over to rest it on her head. “My beautiful sister.”
Despite the heavy hour we’re in, I can’t help but love the fact that no one here ever hides what he is feeling. Flex is not ashamed of his pain and sees no reason to pretend otherwise.
“Did she have any kids?” I ask. I don’t really know what else to say but he’s talking to me and I don’t want to waste it.
“No.” He releases a jaded laugh, shaking his head. “No, she didn’t have a mate. I mighta had a hand in that.”
I smile back because he seems to be studying me.
“Nat is my mate. She’s having my little one.” Suddenly, it makes sense why he sent his boys after Maya instead of going himself. What an impossible decision to make.
“Is she all right?”
He nods, a grateful gleam in his eye, though I still feel the edge in his prior instructions to steer clear of women and kids in his city.
When the grave has been dug, Flex and I remove Maya from her stretcher. We lower her into Eli and Gavin’s arms, then the two of us crawl in replacing them. I help situate her body into a peaceful position, then Flex tucks the cloth in around her. He whispers a few words I can’t make out then he kisses his fingertips, touches them to her head, and climbs out of the grave.
I glance down at her a last time, sad for Flex, who, despite everything, I’m starting to think of as a friend.
After Eli helps me out, he and Gavin cover Maya with dirt. Gavin lays his hand on Flex’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, brother.”
I notice Eli does the same, also calling him brother. And I don’t think they mean it in a literal sense.
We leave the cemetery. On the way back to The City, I’m not preoccupied with Maya’s body. I notice the concrete ruin as far as I can see with wild plant life growing up from the cracks and crevices.
I spot The City’s buildings some time before we near the river, but once we’re close, Flex takes deep, calming breaths to steady himself. I’m impressed he hasn’t broken down yet because it’s clear he’s fighting off his sadness. He’s holding it together, though. I respect him for it. I haven’t fared as well when I’ve lost people. Especially not my father. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to have a sibling, much less to lose one. I can’t help but admire Flex’s strength.
Somehow I end up in front as we top the riverbank and begin to descend. Searching for a moment to locate the small bridge, I spot a person sprawled out in the dirt with an arm across his face. Instantly my hand darts to my hip and as soon as the boys see my knife out they pull their own and the lot of us crouch by the barrier.
Eli is the first to act, tossing a rock in that direction but the man doesn’t move. Gavin passes the three of us and moves down. As he nears the person’s head he raises his knife then takes the final steps to close the gap between himself and the man. He taps the person with his foot and the man’s arm falls aside. When Gavin sees the person’s face he drops to his knees, sheathing his blade.
Immediately the other two rush to join him, picking up on some unspoken cue. Following, I jog to keep up. When I see the unconscious face of the body sprawled in the dirt I drop to my knees as well.
“Tyce,” I breathe, fighting the lump in my throat as I attempt to determine if he’s even alive. My hand on his chest moves ever so slightly with his shallow breaths. “He’s alive.” I look to Flex, hoping he’ll tell me what to do.
“Up,” Flex demands, his eyes wide. Gavin and Eli respond, hefting Tyce onto Maya’s stretcher. We rush back across the narrow bridge and into The City. He leads us to the nearest safe building. Flex even breaks a window to get us in quicker.
Eli runs ahead, retrieving medical supplies. I was too frantic to even notice Tyce’s injuries, but they’re quite visible now that Gavin has sliced his shirt up the middle revealing two small wounds and one large one on his torso. Two are gunshots. I’m not sure on the other but it doesn’t look good. One bullet hit on the right side of his
chest, the other about six inches below that. On his left side there’s a huge slash with a mess of dried blood matting his shirt to his skin.
He’s still unconscious.
Eli pulls out a bottle of water from his bag that’s dirty enough to make me cringe, but we don’t have any other option. Using as little of the water as possible, he moistens the blood enough to pull the fabric free, fully exposing the gash on Tyce’s abdomen. I bite back a gasp when I see it and kneel beside him, offering to help Eli. Eli keeps himself together far better than the rest of us.
Flex paces the room mumbling, “C’mon, brother,” and looking at Tyce every few steps. Gavin stands still, watching Eli intently with his arms across his chest, his eyebrows pulled together tightly.
“What can I do?” I ask as Eli continues to rinse Tyce’s wound with water and dab the blood away with a cloth.
“Hold him down.” Eli twists the cap off a smaller bottle and hovers over Tyce, taking deep breaths.
“What?” I lean in, confused.
Eli shoots me a sharp look, his eyes begging me to obey. So I do. Leaning forward, I put my hands on Tyce’s shoulders and peer down at his too-pale face, hoping to gaze into his blue eyes—to see the smile that used to light them up. Glancing down, I realize Gavin is bracing Tyce’s legs. Before I know what’s actually happening, Eli scrunches his face and pours clear liquid on Tyce’s wound.
The moment the liquid touches flesh, Tyce’s body jerks, his legs pull upward fighting Gavin’s grip, and his hands land on Eli, taking up fistfuls of his shirt. Still pressing his shoulders, I look down at him again to find his eyes and mouth wide open as if he were screaming but no sound is coming out. Too many long moments later he finally gasps, taking in long, labored breaths. He releases a sound that seems comprised of a scream and a growl combined.
My heart races as I watch him lie there and pant. And I can’t think of a single thing to say to his wide eyes as he does nothing but breathe, ache, and stare at me. There’s no smile lighting his eyes now. No joy to be found anywhere. Only agony. Pure agony.
“It’s passing brother, just breathe,” Eli encourages him, keeping Tyce’s hands away from his burning wound.
“I’m here,” I finally say. As if that means something.
Tyce presses his eyes closed and tries to curl up on his side, but the three of us hold him still on his back though he groans in complaint.
Flex kneels by his head. “We’re fixing you up, brother. Keep still. The pain’ll pass.”
When Tyce stops fighting us, Flex nods for Eli to continue. Eli reluctantly releases Tyce’s wrists and cleans up the new blood around the gash. Over the next fifteen minutes, Eli determines there are no foreign objects in the wound and stitches the cut. Flex paces the room. No one says a word. Tyce makes a lot of noise but none of it counts as speaking. Aside from the occasional curse.
All the while I keep one hand across Tyce’s chest, and with the other I smooth the sweat-soaked, black hair away from his pallid face, pressing a wet cloth to his forehead. He opens his eyes for a moment, looking directly at me, his face still drawn with pain. I don’t know what it means, but it’s enough to make me uncomfortable. I stop touching his hair which I’d begun idly stroking out of sheer anxiety.
He closes his eyes again and turns his head away from me, working his jaw to manage the pain from Eli’s crude stitching. His work is nothing compared to Dylan’s, that’s for sure. I can’t help wishing Dylan were here to help us.
When the stitches are done, Eli tends to the gunshot wounds, which don’t seem to cause near as much trouble.
Since no one else asks I decide to. “Where are the others?”
Tyce squeezes his fists. “There’s no one else.” Flex doesn’t look surprised in the least, but Eli pauses, disheartened for a moment before getting back to work. Gavin is unreadable. I give Tyce a drink of water from Flex’s canteen.
After Eli is done torturing him, Tyce falls asleep. Exhaustion wearing at me, I lie down on my stomach a few feet away. Flex stands in the doorway with his arms over his chest and he’s the last thing I see before I follow Tyce into oblivion.
In the darkness I jolt awake. I don’t sit up, but my senses sharpen as I recall where I am and try to figure out what woke me. Then my hand is squeezed and instinctively I squeeze back, only to realize it isn’t Dylan’s hand—the one I’m used to. It’s rougher. Calloused. And there’s an ever so subtle tremble to it.
My eyes adjust to the dark just enough for me to tell Tyce’s head is tilted in my direction, though I’d imagine he can’t see me any better than I see him. Moments come and go like that but he never says a word, and eventually his breaths come heavy and even again.
In the morning he whispers, “What are you doing here?” A couple feet still separate us but I’m on my side facing him, my eyes still closed.
I tuck my hands beneath my cheek and clear my throat. “How do you feel?”
“If you knew what a loaded question that was, I don’t think you’d be askin’ it.” My eyes open to find him staring at the dusty, old ceiling.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s fine. I’m just in pain.” He sighs.
I push myself up and move closer, looking to his wounded side. “Where does it hurt?”
He tilts his head toward me, his blue eyes harboring so much pain. “Inside out, doll. And all the way through.” He grabs my wrist to keep me from touching his bandage. “Why are you here?” There’s a grit to his voice—a deeper, more serious tone than I’ve ever heard him use. There’s ache. And anger.
“They sent for help after you left.”
“And you’re all they sent?” he scoffs. He finally lets my wrist go and I sit back, pulling away and not liking the sting of his words.
“Mercy has a lot of its own problems at the moment.” After a long time of nothing but Tyce’s heavy, painful breaths filling the room, I ask, “Tyce, what happened out there?”
“She’s gone, Cori….” His eyes squeeze closed and he turns onto his side so his back is to me.
“Who is?” I ask, but I already know.
“My daughter.”
Chapter Seven
I can’t speak. Tyce and I sit by the door in the building where the others left us sometime during the night. Our backs are propped against the old metal framework and it’s weighing on me heavier each passing moment that I haven’t said anything since he dropped the bomb about his daughter—his implication that she was taken by Antius.
I hope so much that she’s alive. If my assumptions about Antius’s reasons for kidnapping people from The City are correct, she is alive. She has to be.
Whatever they’re up to might explain why they haven’t come after Mercy yet. Though, if they chose to, they could bring a deadly battle to the place I was hoping to think of as home. The place where Dylan is trying to help people. The place I left because he asked me something I couldn’t bring myself to even consider. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it straight in my head and I almost hate myself for it. And for letting it come between Dylan and me. I want to help people, but even the mention of running tests and withdrawing fluid sets a sense of despair in my gut. I can’t separate the simple act from the memory of being violated. And I can’t reconcile the idea that I could freely give what has been stolen so many times before.
I swallow hard, wondering briefly how long I can pretend I don’t miss Dylan even though I was the one who got angry and ended things. And I wonder, too, how he became so inherently good, and I became so … something else. Maybe the truth is it never would’ve worked anyway.
Tyce clears his throat finally, pulling me back to the present and my eyes dart in his direction. “Let’s get out of here,” he says.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m starvin’ and thirsty so … yeah.”
I rush to him as he struggles to get to his feet. Pulling his arm across my shoulder I reach for the door and he stops me. Being so close to my ear I gue
ss he figures he can save the strain of talking, instead opting for a whisper. “Thank you for being here. Even if you’re lying about why.”
“How do you think you know me well enough to say I’m lying?” I adjust his weight because he’s leaning on me so heavily.
“The same way you know why I don’t believe you.” It’s Tyce that reaches for the door this time, not quite letting his words sink in before we’re moving down the sidewalk of Tyce’s home, his city. In the same way it felt hollow when he was away, it’s now so full of him. If only he weren’t so tragically wounded the energy he can’t help but exude would be even more alive.
I’m torn because I don’t like being this close to him.
But I’m so glad to be close to him. Relieved, even.
And I still haven’t said anything about his daughter. What would I even say? That I’m sorry? His people probably already blame me for what happened, judging by the things Flex said to me when Max and I visited. The last thing I need is for Tyce to agree. And if he already does I’m not ready to know.
The farther we walk, the more Tyce leans on me for support. We have to stop more than once for him to rest and he stays down longer each time. He seems to know where he’s going though, because he makes all the decisions on where to turn and which direction to go. After an hour and a half of this we finally stop. He looks up at one of the taller buildings.
“What is this place?” I ask as Tyce takes a step toward the alley where there is probably a more inconspicuous entrance.
“One of the places we keep girls. Hopin’ somebody’s home.”
I stop moving. He almost stumbles from my sudden halt.
“What?” he asks defensively.
“I can’t go in there.” I scratch my forehead, embarrassed that I’ve managed to get myself in trouble with his people in such a short time.
