by Tara Brown
Doc looks at it and shakes his head. “This is gonna hurt.”
I sigh. “When doesn’t the shit you have to fix hurt?”
Jake laces his fingers into my good hand, holding me tightly.
Doc sits across from the stump I’ve sat on a few times now and pats it. I slump into the chair with Jake still holding my good hand.
His slender, clean finger gently touches all the places. He sighs. “Well, I have good news and bad.”
“Bad first.” My dad always said get the bad outta the way so the last thing you remember is the good.
“It’s going to hurt really bad, in about…now” He snaps it back into place. I scream and Jakes pulls me off the stump. He holds me. “Calm down.”
I puff and give him a deadly stare. He chuckles. “Hey, I didn’t do it.”
I look at the doctor. “What the hell?”
He laughs. “The good news is it was only dislocated, not broken.”
It stings, but I can move it. I wiggle it and stomp out of the tent. I hear Jake tell him thank you.
I stalk over to where Anna is smiling at Bernie. When I get there she whispers, “Marshall is at Bernie’s, they think.”
My eyes narrow. “He stole your house?”
Bernie sighs. “I think he might have. I was just telling Anna here that we should just let him have it. Who cares? I don’t. It’s my house, and I don’t care. Why do we have to go to war with Marshall?”
Anna gives me the same smile she was giving Bernie. I grin at her. “What was your response to that?”
She shakes her head. “I wanna taste his goddamned blood in my teeth when I separate his head from his body.”
I nod. “Yeah, that’s about my feeling on the matter.”
Bernie looks defeated. “No. No. She’s gotten more intense this last couple weeks. She’s going to end up sick from the stress.”
I frown. “Who’s stressed? Besides you? She doesn’t get stressed. Who gets stressed in the world we live in? There’s no stress. It’s live or die. We just like to have some control over whichever one is gonna happen.”
I read that in one of Gramp’s books. It was a civil war book. I thought it would be like Gone with the Wind but it definitely wasn’t. It was more scary and harsh. I will say it suited the world I live in more than the romance ones. Although I’ve been finding those ones aren’t so far off either. Stomach flutters and boys who kiss girls who don’t belong to them, and men taking things they shouldn’t, and guys who are with more than one girl, and girls always losing their senses around boys.
I have a sneer on my face when I stumble upon Will. He sighs. “What did I do now?”
I shake my head at him and walk over to the ladies in the circle; Jake calls it the circle of doom. The Jake dog is there. He runs up, smiling and bounding all about. I drop to a knee. “Still here—hey there, golden Jake? You stayed?”
The one with the scar laughs. “Oh, he knows where his dinner is. He ain’t gone too far since he got here.”
I smile. “Sounds about right.” Him and Jake are so alike it’s frightening. I run my fingers through his fur and scratch his head. He slobbers and pants. Leo is there suddenly, giving me a traitorous look. It looks a lot like the one Will gives me. I smile and start to see the irony.
I stand and walk to Jake. I grab his arm. “Can I talk to you?”
He gives me a funny look, which I get. I never ask to talk to anyone, but it makes more sense to try to be humane.
He follows me into where Will is standing. I grab his arm like he always does mine and pull him with no explanation. We get into the cooler part of the woods, and I start to pace.
“What’s up, Em?” Jake gives me a look.
I sigh. “I’m sorry for liking you both the way I do. I don’t know how to not like you both. Jake, you’re so sweet and funny and you’re actually immature for your age, which is fun. No one has fun anymore. Everyone is so old and stodgy and annoyed and tired. The world is awful in a lot of ways, and yet, you’re always smiling and finding things that don’t make it awful. You laugh for no reason and remember the things we had before. I like all those things.” He smiles and gives Will a smug look.
I turn to face Will and press my lips together. “Will, you make me feel all the things I always daydreamed about. Granny had all those books, and when I got tired of the manuals and the survival guides, I started reading those books. They made me remember things, like old movies and the way my friend’s parents would look at each other. They made me wonder what it felt like to have someone look at me like that. Then I met you. You looked at me like that the minute you met me. Cocky and sarcastic and kinda mean but in a sexy sort of way. I like that. You made my heart race before you hurt me.”
I force my eyes from him, because I can't finish the most important part of the speech if he’s looking at me.
I fight my nerves and my screaming brain and just blurt it out, “I love you both. I can't stop. So if I can't choose one, I choose none. I can't be with either of you. Family is more important than anything in the whole world now. If you don’t have family, you don’t have anything. I see that now because of meeting you. I want you both in my life and that means you have to be in my heart as brothers and nothing else. I won't come between you two.”
I don’t look at them. I walk away fast. Neither of them moves. I break into a run. I can't face them. I need time to let the red blush across my face and for the tears in my eyes to settle. I've never said so many things before. I never had anyone to say them to.
Thinking about them not liking or loving each other because of me breaks my heart. I never want Will to give Jake the look Leo gives the Jake dog.
Leo comes over, nuzzling against me. I run my fingers into his hot coat and nod. “We need to find a stream, buddy.” I walk to Star and nod. “Since I’m mending fences and all, I just want you to know I’m not mad you slept with them both.”
She gives me a strange look. “I never slept with Jake. He was strung out on you. When you and Will had sex, he got so mad. He said he can't sleep with girls who have sex with his brother. So I guess that rules us both out, huh?”
I frown. “Really?”
She nods. “Yeah, we only made out a bit. I thought it might go somewhere but it didn’t.” She shrugs and pats me on the arm. “Who you gonna pick?”
I shake my head. “Both and neither. It’s the only way it can be.”
She snorts. “Emma, you gotta calm down. You’ve just spent too much time alone, and you’ve never been around boys before. They mess with your head, your heart, and your hormones. They make you want and think things and sometimes your body doesn’t listen to you. Sometimes that means you make a little bit of love to a fun guy. Yeah, maybe it's not the right kind of love, but look where we are. God gave up on us a long time ago. Have some fun.” She laughs and walks away.
I don’t feel better. I don’t dare look behind me. I know if I see either of them I’ll fall to pieces. I walk to the edge of camp in the opposite way from where I left them. I pull out my knife and start to cut branches that will make excellent arrows. Leo lies on the ground beneath me and falls asleep.
Anna comes over with a bunch more. She drops them at my feet and pulls out her knife. She starts; she’s slower than I am, but she is getting good at it. She whispers, “You broke their hearts.”
I nod. “Yup.”
She nudges me like Leo always does. “You ever think that maybe they don’t know how to love you the right way either?”
I give her a sideways stare. “What?”
"Who have they ever liked as much as they like you? No one." A smile plays on her chapped lips. “You just don’t know how to be around boys, Em, and they don’t know how to be around girls.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “Says the girl who fell for the first guy she spent any time alone with.”
She laughs her high-pitch wheeze. “But I’ve been around boys my whole life. You never have.”
“I had Leo
.”
He raises his head, making us both laugh. She scratches his ears. “I think you think that loving my brothers is like loving a man how a woman should. But there are different kinds of love. You never know who you might fall in love with if you stop worrying so much about it. Just relax and let nature take its course.”
"I don’t wanna talk about it." I whittle and wonder how it’s all going to work.
She sighs, and I hate the sound of it. “You know Jake brought their guitars with him. I guess Will leaves them at the retreat. They’re too cumbersome to carry all the way here, but Jake brought them. He’s had them strung over his back the whole walk. He did it ‘cause he wants to get back to what him and Will used to be. They were best friends. Will was his hero. Two goofy brothers who spent their days playing and laughing.”
I frown. “I never even noticed them on his back.”
She laughs. “You never stopped for more than two minutes. We aren’t like you.”
I feel those words.
She nudges me. “You were made to survive this world, Em. We weren’t. You and Star were made to live through the bad, the worse, and now, the new regime. That’s what Will calls it, a regime.”
I shake my head. “Maybe I can be like that fiery crow and burn up and be reborn from the ashes as one of you.”
“Why would you want to?”
I don’t have an answer. Not one I’m willing to say aloud.
I sigh and look at the pile of arrows. She smirks. “See, you are made for this.”
My pile is huge to her tiny one. The branches she brought are gone, too. I shake my head. “I feel just as lost as everyone else.”
I see a tear slide down her cheek in my peripheral. She smiles and starts filling my quiver with the arrows. “But you aren’t lost. Something is calling you all over these woods. Something is telling you what to do next to make it all end. You’ve been in the right place and the right time for everything so far. Maybe it’s like Meg says, maybe it’s God. Maybe he sees what your dad did, and he knows your heart is good.”
I look up into the dark-green canopy. “Maybe.” The image of Jesus in the room with me floods my mind. I haven’t thought about him much since.
She stands and offers me her hand. I look at the dark-brown of her skin and place mine in it. She wraps her hand around mine. Our skin almost blends, it's so dark. We look the same on the outside. I lift my bow and quiver, slinging them over my back. Leo stretches and follows us back to the camp. Star comes up. Anna sighs but I smile at Star. “Hey.”
Star gives me a look. I think she trusts Anna’s scowl more than my attempt at being civil. “What’s going on?” she asks dubiously.
"Nothing. Just wondering what the story is with Marshall."
She presses her lips together and looks back.
“Just level with me about this whole Marshall thing.”
She nods. “Okay.” I see a blush on her cheeks as she turns and points to a group of men. “They said that Marshall left with about twenty people. Mostly men. They knew we’d abandoned Bern’s house and decided they could fortify it and take it over. It’s self-sustaining. He fed the people here a bunch of lies about creating the work farm commune there. Said they would send word when it was ready for these poor saps. They actually believe him too. So, we’re good to fight twenty men?”
I nod. “I am. No one else fights.”
She gives me a look. “I’ll fight with you. Marshall trashed my brother’s house.” She grins. “Our brother’s house.”
I look at Anna. “I can't worry about Jake and Bernie. I know Will will be okay, but I can't risk it. Putting them in harm’s way makes me sick. Can you just stay here and cover for us, so we can get down the mountain to a truck?”
Anna gives me a look and shakes her head. “I have a better idea.”
I hate the look in her eyes.
It’s ambitious.
Chapter Two
I knew I hated the look in her eyes. She’s a scheming brat. I snarl and grumble as we make our run for it. Will and Jake were singing, and Jack, the real pain in the ass, was passed out. Anna had used guilt to get them to sing for the campfire. Bernie was chatting up another nerd about some crap to do with satellites. I don’t think he even noticed the sun went down. I sure did.
We run as fast as we can in the dim light of the rising moon. It’s brighter, not by much, than the other night. Star can run like me, and Anna is too damned stubborn not to run like us. We make it past the guards in the trees. I can hear Leo doing his running circles around us. We take turns tripping and stumbling but we finally make it to the road.
With hands on our hips and rapid heartbeats, we start the trek to Bernie’s house. Every one of us is out of breath and nearly dead. The run was brutal.
We jog lightly for a while before we hear it. I glance at Anna. She nods. I veer off into the woods. Star does the same but the other side of the hill. She has a handgun she managed to steal before we left. She could only hide one.
Anna slows her pace. When the headlights hit her, she breaks into a run. The truck comes to a stop. The men hop out and run her down too easily. They’re too dumb to realize that. She lets them take her and doesn’t fight. She makes a sniffle. It’s the only sound I hear until my arrow breaks through the neck of one of them. He screams and Anna kicks his feet out from under him. She pulls the arrow out and stabs him in the eye with it.
Star shoots the other guy. The driver leaps out, and I drop him. Anna runs around back; Leo is there with her. She opens the back as Star rounds the side of the van. She fires a single shot into the van. Screams fill the night air.
I run down to the van, stopping when I see what it is. It’s not what I expect at all. A man lies dead with a gun in his hand. Behind him are small children. Lots of them. Star gives me a look. I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Where are you from?” she asks.
They narrow their gaze at us.
I mutter, “Gen babies.”
She nods. Anna sighs.
I climb inside with Leo. “This wolf eats little kids.” They scramble back into each other. I look at the disapproving looks from Star and Anna. I point. “Hurry up. Drive. Star, you know the way.”
She points. “What about them?”
I shrug. “Is there a town along the way?”
She nods. “Yeah, it’s a cross-town.”
I shrug. “Supply towns have to have people willing to help a group of kids.”
She gives me a look and slams the door. I hear her cussing. We sit in the dark.
I don’t talk to them. I don’t have anything to say. I don’t know how to talk to kids. They’re all little and scowling.
“I have to pee,” a small voice finally breaks the silence.
I think it’s a trap and then I remember they’re five-years old. “Bang on the wall behind you all. She’ll stop the truck.”
One of them thumps and the truck skids to a stop. I hear the driver's door and then squint as the light blinds me. It makes me scared when I see the light. Bad memories flood my mind. Instead of terror and survival staring me in the face, I see Star giving me a shitty look.
“They gotta pee.”
She rolls her eyes. “Let’s go. Make it fast.” She clearly likes kids as much as I do. I like one kid in the whole world. One little blonde.
Star points at them when they don’t budge. “We saved you from the bad guys. We’re going to free you so you can find your moms again.”
One kid makes a snarl-like cat noise. It's almost like a hiss. I climb out and pat my hand against my thigh. Leo follows me out and then they leave, hesitantly.
I give her a grim look. “Forgot I told them he eats kids.”
She laughs. “Oh yeah.”
They run into the bushes. We stand there until we hear the passenger door. Anna gives us a look. I frown. “What?”
She walks over and points at the bushes. “They ran away—seriously. You going to stand here all day?”
> I look at the woods, confused. “Well, I guess that was probably what I woulda done.”
Star nods. “Yup.”
I don’t know what to do. They’re little kids alone in the woods. I glance at Star. “Should we go get them?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
We wait a few minutes, and I shake my head. “Let’s go. We won't be doing them any favors if we go drag them from the woods.” I take the lazy, coward’s path. I don’t want a dozen children to take care of.
Star nods but Anna looks confused. "Leave them?"
"Yes!" I climb back into the back of the truck and close the doors again. I hear Star start it and then we drive for what feels like forever. I’m passed out in the back, leaning on Leo, when the truck makes a weird stop. Anna opens the door. “Out of gas,” she whispers.
I yawn, grabbing my bow and quiver. We stretch and sit on the back of the truck, eating the dried meats we stole.
“You worried about this?” I ask.
Star looks at the road and sighs. “Nope.”
Anna gives me a cautionary look.
“Why not?”
She grins over at me. “Because Bern has a giant weapons store for just this moment. It’s in the woods, down the bomb path.”
“The bomb path?”
She laughs. “I know the way through.”
That doesn’t make me feel better.
We walk until I feel sick. I can't imagine how Anna feels. I pull an arrow. “Go find some water to refill the skins, and I’ll find some dinner. Anna, make a fire and a spit.”
They leave in opposite directions. They will never like each other. I can't even imagine how uncomfortable it was in the front seat. I’m grateful I sat in the back with the weird little kids. Leo and I hike for a few minutes before I find a good tree. I press my body against it and wait. I close my eyes to listen.
I hear a branch break. It doesn’t sound huge, but when I look for the animal, I'm excited to see a massive hare. I haven’t had hare since Jake dang near killed us by under cooking it.
I pull back the arrow, lining it up. I feel the wind on my face and take a breath. When I release the arrow, it misses. I frown and pull another as the hare tries to hop away. I hit him in the neck. Leo pounces, grabbing him and giving him the death shake. I skin and gut him quickly, wondering if the gutless cleaning works on hares too?
