The Offering

by E. R. Arroyo

  Perfect.

  “The cloth was a nice touch.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Great work. Now let’s have him wait a while. Then do it again.”

  “When do I have to start asking questions?” Eli seems leery.

  “Don’t be nervous, brother. Doin’ great,” Flex encourages him.

  “Do one more round without questions. The following time see if you can get him talking. Act curious.”

  Eli smiles at me, a conflicted expression. “‘Kay.”

  When Tyce and I return to Dylan, he doesn’t even seem to notice we’ve arrived. He’s muttering to himself, words I can’t understand. Nonsense. His fingers drift across the small panel on the desk, his eyes darting from screen to screen as he performs various functions, figuring out whatever it is he’s onto.

  “Hmm, maybe I can … And this…” he mumbles. “Yes.” He perks up, looking over his shoulder with bright eyes. “I … found…” He leans forward and presses a few buttons on the touch screen in the bottom left corner. Air whooshes behind me followed by metal groaning as a piece of the wall drags open, revealing a hidden steel door that is now open.

  Tyce gapes at it. “I searched every inch of this place. Never knew this was here.” Tyce scratches his chin. He wastes no time stepping up to look inside. I step closer too but it’s Dylan who actually walks in.

  “Incredible,” Dylan mumbles. “Why wouldn’t they have come back for this?”

  “What is it?” I join him. The small space is lined with glass cases filled with vials, jars, and bottles of various sizes.

  Dylan runs his hand along the edge of a case, gripping the handle and tugging. It’s locked.

  “Refrigerators,” he explains. “Obviously they don’t work, though, so the contents could be volatile or worthless.”

  “What do you think they are?” I step closer, touch his elbow.

  He takes my hand, giving a quick squeeze before going back to exploring the refrigerators with his hands. “If I had to guess, medicines, viruses, antidotes. Who knows. They’re all different.”

  “Can’t you just break the glass, eh?” I look back to see Tyce leaning partway through the door.

  Dylan considers him for a moment. “No, we can’t. Shouldn’t, rather. Remember the part where I said the contents could be volatile?”

  The corner of Tyce’s mouth tilts into a smirk but his jaw stays tight, eyes narrowed. “Right.”

  “What can we do?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” Dylan says. “If I can get through the locks safely, perhaps we could transport them to Wisdom. I think that’s the safest colony for something like this. We would need some way to keep them cool. It might even be best if we wait until the weather is colder to even attempt it.”

  “Great!” Tyce proclaims with false enthusiasm.

  I whisper to Dylan, “I think he’s bored.”

  He shrugs. “Simple minds…” Then he leans in for a quick peck on my cheek. “I have something to show you.”

  He takes my hand, leading me back to the computer monitors where he taps around until he finds what he’s looking for. He has me sit in the chair while he leans on the desk.

  “Many of the files were corrupted. But I found a few you might be interested in. This is from your father’s computer.”

  He pushes a button on the keyboard and the screen fills with an image of a little girl on a hospital bed in the lab I visited with Tyce. He taps the screen and the image animates. It’s a video feed. There’s a series of numbers counting upward as the video plays, date and time I guess.

  The little girl tosses in her sleep and a woman comes in to comfort her. She draws the child up into her arms then turns to look directly into the camera. A look of anger and despair on her face, as if she were scolding the camera. Blaming some unknown force behind it. I gasp, drawing my fingers to my lips. The woman is my mother. The little girl is me.

  The technician sitting at the computer across the room stands up to stretch, then walks out. My mother eyes the camera again, this time mouthing a word. I can’t be sure, but it looks like “now.”

  My mother disconnects all the wires and tubes I was connected to. She pulls out clothes that had been hidden under her coat and she begins taking off my hospital gown and dressing me. She has to roll up the sleeves and pant legs, drawing a belt around my waist and tying it tight. She pulls a backpack from under a pillow in the cabinet nearby and straps it on my shoulders, buckling it across my chest. She kisses my forehead.

  I’m frantic watching this, wishing I could hear whatever was being spoken. Why doesn’t this recording have sound!

  A younger version of my father bursts into the room. He picks me up, takes my mother’s hand. Turning to the door, he stops in his tracks. He holds up a hand, palm facing out, as if begging someone unseen from this camera angle.

  The feed glitches.

  “No,” I shout. Slamming my hand on the counter. I need to see this.

  “It’s okay,” Dylan whispers, right before the dancing lines on the screen straighten out and the image resumes.

  But now I can see the back of a person, the top half anyway. He’s wearing a brown coat and holding a gun. Words are being exchanged between the adults while my younger, terrified little self clings to my father, burying my head in his neck.

  Dylan double taps the screen to pause the recording. “Look away.”

  “No, I want to—”

  “Trust me.” He puts an arm around me, and I press my face to his chest. I hear him tapping the computer again. When Dylan moves my dad is no longer in the frame, neither am I. But there are now two men, the one that was already there plus someone new.

  Dylan resumes the recording. The two men seem to be yelling at one another, then suddenly red lights begin flashing from the corners of the room and a fog seeps from a vent in the wall. Both men look directly into the camera. The one in the brown coat is Nathan.

  Dylan points to the second man. “His name is Jacob.”

  “I know him.”

  The men say something to one another then step out of the frame revealing a bloodstained heap on the bed where I’d been lying. My mother.

  My lips tremble. “Did Nathan…?”

  “Yes.” Dylan puts his hand on my back. “I’m sorry.”

  The video sputters again, jagged lines zipping across the screen until eventually it goes completely black.

  “Whatever your father did to get you out, it compromised the facility and everyone had to evacuate.”

  “Oh.” I stare at the blank screen, my eyes unfocused.

  “How do you know Jacob?” he asks, kneeling beside me, his hand tenderly on my knee.

  “He was in charge of the trade convoy. The one that slaughtered the men from Mercy.”

  Dylan plugs a smaller device into the control panel and begins tinkering again. I think he’s transferring data. “I found dozens of videos. And, the real gem, I found all your case files. Every piece of data they collected on you before your dad took you away. Lab reports, x-rays, scans, microscopic images of body fluids. All of it’s here. Granted, it’s at least thirteen years old. Still, it might give us some insight.”

  “So you finally have proof I’m a freak of nature, eh?” I laugh.

  Dylan smiles at me, grazing my cheek with his thumb. “Not a freak. Incredibly, beautifully unique. Though I don’t believe any amount of data could ever fully illuminate who you are.”

  “I’m gonna hurl.” Tyce kicks off the wall where he’d been leaning and sees himself into the hall.

  I take the opportunity to kiss Dylan before he powers down all the equipment and unhooks the generator. We follow Tyce, computer data in Dylan’s pocket.

  As soon as Tyce locks up the Burke building a voice shouts at us from down the street. Flex jogs toward us. “He’s talking!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jayce’s body trembles, his face coated with sweat. He mumbles something to Eli who dabs his skin with a moist cloth.

  “What has
he said so far?” I whisper to Flex.

  “Said things are falling apart.”

  “In Antius?” I stand up, placing my hands on my hips.

  Flex rakes his fingers through his greasy hair. “Assume so. Said he don’t wanna go back.”

  I meet Tyce’s eyes and he shrugs. “What’s that supposed to mean though?”

  “Maybe it means they’re vulnerable. Dylan?” I glance up at him standing against the wall, his posture guarded with arms across his chest.

  “It could. But Tyce is right—we need more information. Honestly, after what we did to them I would assume it would be even harder to penetrate their security now.”

  “To what?” Flex asks, eyebrows raised.

  Tyce rolls his eyes. “To get inside.”

  “Oh.” Flex looks to Dylan, earnestly curious. “Security? Like guys with guns and stuff? Brick walls?”

  Dylan shakes his head. “Wish it were that simple. There’s nothing a bunch of kids with pocket knives can do to get past a force field, mines, and rifles.”

  Flex completely loses his cool, bouncing up from his crouch while swiftly drawing his blade and putting it to Dylan’s throat. “Pocket knife, eh?”

  Tyce grabs Flex by the back of his shirt and jerks him away from Dylan, the knife leaving a small nick on Dylan’s skin. “Cool it, brother” Tyce tells him.

  Flex puffs up his chest. “He needs to show some respect. I ain’t playin’ around with this Antius punk.”

  “Guys! Can we focus, please?” Nobody bothers to look my way, but I know they heard me. “Dylan and I should go to Mercy and ask for help. They have gun power—”

  “We have nothing to go on. They aren’t going to help,” Dylan tells me, wiping the small amount of blood from his cut.

  “Nothing? We’ve got their spy and Antius has hostages. Right is still right and wrong is still wrong. Isn’t it? Isn’t that how this started?” I begin pacing the small space.

  “It’s not that simple. Things are different now. They didn’t even want to send you out here to begin with. You did that against their wishes. Mercy has already taken on more than they can handle. They’re lucky Antius hasn’t already hunted them down and blown the colony to pieces.”

  I cover my weary face with my hands. It takes only a moment to gather my resolve. “I can’t give up on this. This is about innocence, whether it’s Antius citizens or little girls from The City who were ripped from their fathers’ arms.” I try hard not to look, but I sense Tyce’s tension at my words. I glance at his fists, trembling at his side. I get the feeling he’d like to punch something right now. I touch his wrist, a silent apology for being so blunt.

  Dylan’s eyes are on Tyce. His face softens. He looks at me for confirmation. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Tyce’s lips twitch like he wants to say something, but he just walks off.

  Eli steps into the hall, wide-eyed and smiling when he meets my gaze, but he senses the tension right away. His smile turns into a deep frown as he looks back and forth between all of us.

  No one speaks.

  So I go after Tyce. Heavy footsteps follow me. Dylan catches me by the elbow.

  “What?” I look up at him.

  “We’re going to need more than guns.”

  I stare at him. “We?”

  “Yes, we. Turns out the Burkes manufactured more than just pharmaceuticals. They engineered weapons too. And they left behind a bomb.”

  I give him a little shove, a small smile breaking across my face. “Are you serious?”

  He’s stunned, his eyes wide, and I realize he’s not used to the aggression I’ve picked up in The City. “Very serious,” he recovers. “But we can’t take this lightly. And we’re still going to need way more manpower than these City boys alone.”

  “What do we do then?”

  “Only thing we can do. Appeal to Mercy. And the other Refuge colonies if need be.”

  I reach up to hug his neck. I squeeze him tightly, grateful to know I’m not going to be alone in this. Dylan will be there every step of the way and there’s something about knowing it that makes me feel more confident. “Thank you,” I whisper. “I’ll get Tyce on board.”

  “We should leave in the morning,” he says, releasing me.

  I jog to catch up with Tyce. He’s sitting on the curb with his elbows propped on his knees.

  “You were right,” I tell him. “About Burke making weapons. Dylan found one. He thinks we can use it against Antius.”

  He looks up at me from the sidewalk. “Is it possible, doll? Can we really do this?”

  I sit beside him. “We can certainly try.”

  “So the big guy’s on board now?” He glances sidelong at me.

  “He is.” I pat Tyce on the shoulder.

  “Good of him.”

  “Well, he’s a good guy.” I try not to smile but can’t help myself.

  Tyce laughs, more to himself than for my benefit.

  “What?”

  “When I said you would regret kissing me I really thought I’d have more time to deal with it. Then lover boy shows up. Sorta beautiful, ain’t it?” Tyce stands up, then reaches for me. I slap my hand in his and he pulls me up roughly.

  “I don’t regret it.” I prepare myself to have a real conversation because Tyce and I are friends and he deserves it, but he interrupts me before I start.

  “Let’s get movin’ then, Cori.” He cocks his head back toward the others and we start in that direction.

  And something tells me I’ll never see the vulnerable side of Tyce again.

  * * *

  The trip to Mercy takes nearly three days on foot. Max’s arms stretch wide as soon as he lays eyes on me, as does his smile. I let him fold his arms around me and I’m a little surprised it doesn’t bother me at all. “Good to see you again, kid.”

  And that nickname doesn’t bother me anymore either.

  “This is Tyce. Tyce, Max.” They shake hands.

  “Good to meet you,” Max says.

  “Likewise.” Tyce smiles then adjusts his shirt when Max turns back to me.

  “How’s Jason?” I ask.

  Max throws his arm around my shoulder and ushers me toward the main building. “He’s hanging in there. Thanks.”

  “And Marsiana?”

  “Oh, she’s doing okay too. She hobbles around all sick like, usually not getting too far from the medical house. She tries to do work but it’s just for her own sake.”

  “She’s not a prisoner anymore?” I smile a little, glad for her.

  “No, they cleared her. But people still keep an eye on her. Even if she gets better nobody will let her have a weapon.”

  “Let’s hope she can cook.”

  Max chuckles at that. I look over my shoulder to where the boys both follow us silently. When he notices I’m looking, Dylan hooks his thumb toward medical. “I’m going to check on things.”

  “We need to talk,” I tell Max.

  “Right down to business, then?” Max opens the door to the main building and I walk inside followed closely by Tyce.

  I glance around to see if we’re alone, and here in the entrance, at least, it seems we are. “I want to go to Antius again.”

  Max props his hands on his hips, taking in a long breath of air, and releasing it in a puff. Cracks his neck. “The logistical probability of us standing a decent chance against them again is slim. We got lucky the first time. We could’ve all been killed. Too many of us were killed.”

  I start to speak but he holds up his hand.

  “I’m not saying no. But they will.” He nods toward the conference room where I first convinced Mercy and the other Refuge colonies to invade Antius.

  “You would support me?”

  “Of course.” He shrugs, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

  “You didn’t even ask why I want to go back.”

  “You’re welcome to tell me anyway.” His resolute devotion to me—which I realize is because of his friend
ship with my father—takes me aback. In a wonderful way.

  I tell him about Tyce’s daughter and what I suspect they are doing with her in Antius. As well as the things we discovered in the Burke building, bomb included. Tyce seems nervous about me divulging so much, but I trust Max and he’s my best advocate if we’re going to pull this off.

  Movement down the hall catches my eye. Karen looks up at the same moment and her face brightens. I meet her halfway and completely adore how easy it is to fall into her embrace.

  “Corinne Cole, how I’ve missed you! I’ve been so worried.”

  I smile, thinking maybe this place isn’t as bad as I thought when I left for the Pitt. The warm welcome is nice.

  “Are you back for good?” She props her hands on her lower back.

  “Not exactly.” I glance back as Max and Tyce make their way toward us.

  “Have you gotten yourself into some kind of trouble?” She notices the two men moving our way. When they reach us, Tyce’s face twists, his eyebrows furrowed.

  I start to introduce them. “Karen, this is—”

  “Tyce,” she says softly. She steps toward him and welcomes him into her arms just as she had me. “Young man, young man. How are you?”

  “You know him?” I ask, trying not to gawk.

  “I sure do, sweetie,” she says without taking her eyes off Tyce. “What a handsome man you’ve grown into.” She pats his cheek.

  He blushes. Actually blushes! I wouldn’t have thought him capable of that. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says. “I thought something happened to you.” He looks relieved and I notice he has straightened his shoulders. “Cori, this is the woman I was telling you about,” he beams.

  “Karen taught you how to read?” I push his arm, but not as hard as I would if we were alone in Pitt City.

  “And walk and speak and, oh—” she laughs. “I’ve missed you kids.”

  With youth and innocence I would never expect from him, he asks, “Why’d you stop coming?”

  “That, sweet dear, is a long and complicated story. The short version is my husband didn’t want me in danger anymore.” She hugs him again, then me. “Come on, I’ll make you two some tea.”

  “You’re married?” I ask her, shocked that I didn’t know.