by E. R. Arroyo
I feel Dylan turn toward me. He grabs my wrists and pries my hands from my face. I blink, and throw my head against his chest, wrapping both arms around him and squeezing as tightly as I can. So tightly it hurts the wounds on my chest, but I doubt it hurts him, so I don’t stop.
He runs his hand over the back of my head, whispering, “Shhh. It’s okay,” like I’m four-years-old again and just saw a savage for the first time.
It dawns on me that we haven’t come across a savage and I haven’t even considered the possibility that we might. And we never saw a single animal in the woods, only one insect. I know some animals still exist. But do savages?
“They’re gonna catch us,” I whimper. “What are we doing? What are we even thinking?”
He pulls me away from his chest to look at my face and for a split second it makes me angry to part with the contact. “We’re surviving, Cori,” he whispers. “We’re gonna be fine. Okay?”
“I don’t even know where we’re going. And they’re on our trail at every turn. And for the love of God, why do you keep cramming me into dark, tiny spaces?”
Dylan’s fingers drift to my face and he pushes my jagged bangs, tucking them behind my ear. “I want to make it. To survive this. Don’t you?”
“Of course, I do,” I answer, jarred by the question.
“Then let’s do it. Let’s make it. I’ve never known you to give up on something. So don’t.” He kisses my forehead, right between my eyebrows. “We’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
I soak in what he’s saying, but it just makes me realize, he never questioned me to begin with. He never asked where we were headed or why. I never even told him about the incident with the other colony, which is what we really are trying to find. But he never knew that, he just followed my lead blindly. He just trusted me. I haven’t earned that.
I speak as softly as I can. “They’ll kill us, I know they will. I watched them slaughter an entire convoy.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” He ponders for a moment, and hesitates to speak a few times. I meet his eyes, anxious to hear whatever it is he’s not saying. He rubs the tops of my arms, gently. “They wouldn’t kill you. Me, maybe, but not you.”
I furrow, confused, because this is exactly opposite what I thought. He has to be wrong. He’s just trying to comfort me.
“You’re important to them,” he whispers. Important? No. I’m a tangled mess of horrible, unstable, undesirable traits. What else could they possibly value? Nothing. Yes, he’s trying to comfort me.
I stare into the darkness of the closet, pondering things I’d rather have left behind in Antius. “Why?”
His hands leave my shoulders. One drops to his side, the other scratches his eyebrow. His face contorts, like he’s struggling with what to say. “I don’t know.” His jaw stays tight and his lips barely move.
I’m not the smartest person, but I’m nothing if not instinctual. And Dylan is lying.
I clear my throat. “What are you not telling me?”
“Cori, please.” Only inches separate us but he’s still not touching me. His hands just hover somewhere near my head.
“No. Tell me why I’m important to them. You seem to know something I don’t. Please.”
“Now is not the time for this conversation. I’ll tell you anything you want once we’re safe. For now, can you please just trust me?”
Trust is a funny thing, and it tends to come and go lately. I have plenty of reasons to trust him. He saved my life, for example, and he was always a loyal friend. I truly believe he cares for me. But all the while there’s a nagging in the back of my head, reminding me that this is Nathan Burke’s son. And maybe that’s why he always seems to know so much.
I can’t let myself think that way. Dylan is all I have.
“I trust you.”
After an eternity and a half of silence between us, his hands eventually find their way back to my shoulders, moving up and down as though warming me even though I’m not cold.
We crawl out of the closet, slowly, quietly. We pause at the door to listen. I assume he’s making sure none of the guards lingered here when the rest left.
We hear nothing, but he’s making me nervous, so I reach back and touch the gun to make sure it’s secure.
Dylan leads the way down the stairs, and I try my best to tread softly, which is tricky in boots. Once downstairs, we duck by the front windows. Dylan slides the fabric aside to look out.
“It’s probably safest for us to stay here.” He lets the fabric fall and looks at me. “They aren’t likely to come back since they already cleared this spot.”
“Okay. Should we hide anyway?”
“Just stay low, and quiet. If we can find some backpacks and something to hold water, we can get ready to move after the soldiers leave.”
I take a breath and start for the staircase when the ring of a gunshot stops me in my tracks.
Chapter Fifteen
Dylan pulls me down beside him and looks out the window. He reaches behind me and taps the gun in my waistband. I draw it before looking outside.
In the middle of the road, one of Nathan’s soldiers is on his knees, gun in hand, with a knife in his chest. A young man with light skin and black hair stands over him, retracting the blade.
Behind the young man is a small army, or maybe gang would be a better word. I take in the sight of them with my mouth hanging open. They wear dark clothing, vests and shirts cut off at the shoulder. Their hair is greasy and shaggy, and they have dark markings on their skin. Every single one has a blade in his hand. These men are not from the other colony.
In the direction they’re coming from, several homes in a row have doors busted in that weren’t like that this morning. Large piles of blankets and goods are stacked in the street as a few more straggle out with their hands full. When they see the confrontation unfolding in front of us, they drop their loads and pull their own knives.
The other four Antius soldiers emerge from the house across the street, their guns drawn. One soldier splits off toward the body in the street and I recognize him. He’s the gruff boss from the woods.
The pack scatters, anticipating attacks of the soldiers. One of the soldiers boldly steps out front with his gun trained on his attackers. He tries to pull the trigger, but his gun jams. In the moment it takes him to register the problem, he’s swarmed by the dark-clothed men and I can’t see what happens to him next.
The remaining soldiers manage to take down three of the black-clothed men before a knife flies through the air and into the soldier’s chest.
Another guy attacks a soldier from behind and knocks his gun from his grip. The soldier throws a punch, but it’s futile, the guy stabs him in the back, and then the chest. When he pulls the blade away, the body slumps to the ground.
The other two soldiers fire more rounds until their guns are out.
Four of the dark-clothed guys approach the boss, who has taken his fallen comrade’s weapon. I thought he was seeing to his fallen soldier, but he was just taking his gun. Boss turns toward the approaching attackers and fires his own gun and the one he took. He hits a shoulder here, a thigh there, but more guys come his direction. Two different guys snatch the guns from his hands and simultaneously shoot him in the head.
A squeal escapes me and I cover my mouth with my hand, breathing hard. Tears blur my vision as I watch them drop the guns on the ground and walk away.
I didn’t see what happened to the other soldiers, but I count all five bodies on the ground.
With my hand still pressed to my mouth, I listen to the thumping of footsteps on the street. I finally dare another peek, and there are even more men out there than I thought. I see the young men again, talking amongst themselves and a few cleaning their blades on their pants. But in the back of the procession I finally see older men. Compared to the physiques and muscles of the younger ones, these men look weak. But they barely look like men at all. Their eyes are sunken in and dark, their heads
are bald, and there are muzzles strapped across their faces. Apart from the muzzles, I recognize them.
Savages.
They are far more terrifying in person than they were in my nightmares. As I start to tremble, Dylan scoops me up and runs up the stairs. I think for a moment that maybe he’s taking me to the room with the giant bed so I can fall asleep--or wake up, I’m not sure which--and end this nightmare.
When he ducks into the boy’s bedroom, I realize I’m wrong--it’s back into the closet we go. I hate this closet.
For the longest time, my heartbeat and both our heavy breathing, and the blood beating against my temples are the only things I can hear. I will myself to calm down, to focus, to listen, but it’s no use.
Before I have any clue that anyone has come up the stairs and into this room, Dylan is jerked out of the closet. A dull thud and something slumping to the floor in the hall makes my stomach sink.
Two hands wrap around me, snatch me from the closet, and toss me to the floor. I see something whipping through the air, and then I see nothing at all.
Two lights shine on me. With my eyes squinting to adjust, my mind races trying to figure out where I am. I remember being struck, but nothing after that. Wherever I am now, I don’t recall the journey.
Everything inside the room is black or gray, mostly made of metal. On the far wall is a line of windows that are blacked out and nearly thirty feet up. Not a viable escape.
A man clears his throat. I look up, my head aching. The black-haired young man from the street attack sits backwards in a chair facing me. My fingers drift to my forehead and find something crusty on my skin. I reach into my hairline and wince when I touch the wound. I roll onto my side before sitting up to face him.
“Hello, lovely.” The young man winks at me. He led the attack on those soldiers, so I take him to be important, though he hardly looks old enough to lead anyone.
Across the room, Dylan coughs, getting my attention. I glance sidelong at him, but keep the young leader in clear view. From what I can tell, Dylan is unharmed and he’s not being restrained. He’s simply sitting with his back against a wall and his knees drawn in front of him.
“My name is Tyce.” He looks me over with an eyebrow cocked.
“Good for you.”
He laughs so loud it echoes through the hollow sounding room. Grinning, he scratches his top lip and shakes his head. He glances over his shoulder at Dylan. “She’s feisty, man. Love it.” Dylan nods, but doesn’t return the grin. Tyce returns his attention to me. “I thought you might introduce yourself. It would be the civilized thing to do.”
“You run with savages, I didn’t think civil was a trait you’d care for.”
“Is that what they call us?” He still smiles despite the subject matter.
I feel stupid and hope the blush in my cheeks doesn’t show in this dark room.
“Hmm.” He runs his hand through his shaggy, black hair, which is wet, I presume from a recent shower. I almost laugh at the thought of savages bathing. “So. I’m sure you know we killed a group of soldiers in front of the house where we found you. I don’t have any good reason not to kill you, too, just for association. But I have a gut feeling about you.”
He flashes me a pensive look put on for show it seems, as I can still see a hint of a smirk. Regardless of his taunting, he’s describing instinct, and that I understand. There’s a chance he won’t kill us. After all, they could have killed us back in that house.
“Did you know them?” he asks.
I could lie, to avoid the association with them, but he won’t believe me. And I don’t know what Dylan has already said, so I opt for the truth. I meet Dylan’s eyes to confirm it, and he nods, assuring me.
“They were chasing us.”
“Good girl.” He smiles. “Honesty is good for our relationship, kiddo.” Kid? He can’t be a year older than me. “And what did they want from you?”
“I’m not sure, but probably to kill me. I have a knack for pissing off their leader.”
“I would imagine that’s true,” he winks again, seeming pleased. “So. What, my dear, brings you to my neck of the woods? Or more accurately, The City?”
Dylan clears his throat. When I look at him, he shakes his head.
“We didn’t know where to go, so we just started walking.”
Tyce’s fingers toy restlessly over the handle of the blade attached to his hip. “Unlucky that they tracked you so easily.” He stands, and I reach for a gun that isn’t there, sighing when I realize it.
“All right, sit tight. I’ll be back.” He seems to constantly switch between smiling and scowling, and I can’t see which sticks once he turns his back to me.
When he leaves the room, Dylan comes to me. I start to stand, but realize I’m bound to the wall by my ankle.
“Why am I chained up and you’re not?”
“On the way here you woke up and attacked one of them. You tried to claw his eyes out.” He sits beside me.
I find blood under my fingernails and can’t help but smile just a little. “I don’t remember.”
“They hit you again.”
I lean my head against the wall.
“I don’t think they want to hurt us,” he says, sitting down beside me. He leans against the wall with his head cocked back, like mine. One of his legs--the one farther from me--is bent with his knee toward the ceiling, and his hand draped over it, casually. The other leg sticks straight out from his body. The other hand is flat on the floor between his hip and mine.
His breaths grow steady, but when I glance at him, his eyes are wide open.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I assure him, probably unconvincingly. My head is a flurry of thoughts. Savages still exist, and they slaughtered Antius soldiers. And the kicker--Dylan lied to me.
I look down at his hand on the floor thinking that I like that hand better when it’s touching me. And maybe if he was touching me, I could understand what’s going on in his head. I consider grazing the top of his hand with my fingertip.
“Is now a better time for that talk?”
He releases a deep exhale suddenly, “Not really.”
I scoot closer, and when I do, he opens up his posture toward me just a little, the set in his jaw relaxing. I lay my head on his shoulder and cock my hips toward him, so my knees rest against his thigh.
I should be angry. I should feel betrayed because he’s keeping something from me. I try to tell myself it’s probably not a big deal, which is why he’s not speaking up, but he was too nervous, too agitated for it to be nothing. I should back up and pull my head away from his shoulder. But now, after all he’s done to break down my guard, I don’t think I can rebuild it. Or maybe I’m just too exhausted to do so. And too exhausted to stay angry.
I’ve touched Dylan a lot lately, and a lot of the time it was for him, but I think this time is for me. We almost got killed today. We could get killed at any moment. Something in knowing that gives me a greater sense of urgency, like I have to keep him close. Dylan trusted me and my escape plan blindly--if one can even call it a plan--and now it’s my turn to trust. And I want to, but I don’t think I can let it go. This is important.
Dylan finally picks up his hand from the floor and lays it on my knee, letting his forearm lie against my leg. I realize, seeing them side-by-side, that his forearm is almost as large as my thigh. It makes me want to laugh, but my head hurts too much.
I loop one arm underneath his and settle in with both hands around his bicep, and press my forehead against his shoulder, hiding my face from him. He squeezes my knee a little tighter, with his forearm pressing into my leg.
I kiss his shoulder, and even through his shirt I can feel his warmth on my lips. That’s when he grabs me and pulls me close to his chest. He keeps one hand on my head and wraps the other around my back, squeezing me. I don’t know that I’ll ever grow tired of his embrace.
I tilt my head up to see his face, and what’s lef
t of the tension I saw in his expression before melts away when I kiss the edge of his jaw. The hardness in his eyes is gone. The softness in his lips has returned. And now my Dylan is back.
His lips find mine like they were never meant to be apart. No one ever showed us how to do this, our lips just know. I’m awed by the fact that growing up in a place controlled with laws and rules, mind-altering drugs, and cruelty hasn’t changed in us what is natural to the human race. What resilient creatures we are.
And what a remarkable creature Dylan is.
For the first time I realize that my humanity might be more important than my freedom. I built myself up, with all my boundaries, to operate like a machine. I was no more human than Nathan’s drones, I just happened to have a rebellious streak.
“What does Nathan want with me?”
“You’re not going to let it go, are you?”
“I can’t.” I sit up straighter, but allow my hands to linger on his arm. “Please. Just tell me.”
He rakes his hand through his hair, mussing it. It’s not normally long enough to do anything to, but it’s grown out a little, which is unusual of Antius males. I wonder if anyone noticed he was overdue for a haircut; I certainly didn’t. I kind of like it this way, though.
“They took fluid from your brain, something only your brain produces. They don’t know why yours does, but they found out about it when you first arrived. They use it in several of their drugs.”
I back away from him, not really meaning to, I just don’t know how to react.
“What?” I knew I was different, but I did not know that. How could I not know?
“I’m sorry I never told you. I wanted you to get out of there, and I was worried your curiosity would get the better of you. It’s over now. We left all that behind.”
“I was a science project?” I stare at the floor, trying to recall the memories of my time in the lab. Trying to remember when they could have gotten this fluid from me. Maybe on my annual check ups? I don’t remember getting put under that many times. I reach to the chip in my neck, wondering if they took some when they installed it. The thought of a needle in my head makes me sick.
