by Tarah Benner
“Where did you go then?”
“I lived on the streets for a while, sleeping wherever I could. It wasn’t uncommon then. There were plenty of orphans bumming around, and the gangs took advantage of that.”
“Gangs?”
He nods. “One day, a guy called Freeman who I’d seen around came up to me and said I either had to come work for him or get the hell out of the neighborhood. I’d wandered into their territory without realizing it. I should have turned around and walked away right then, but . . .”
“You joined the gang?”
“I just didn’t want to be by myself anymore.” He shrugs. “It was nice at first. Freeman let me stay at his house, gave me plenty to eat. Most of the guys were older, so they’d just make me run errands for them and deliver messages. It wasn’t that bad.”
“And you stayed with them until you were fourteen?”
“N-No,” he says, averting his eyes. His next silence is the longest yet, and I start to wonder if the conversation is over.
“About a year after I joined them, they had me make my first kill. I don’t even know why I went along with it. I guess because, by then, I trusted those guys. They just pointed to a man on the street and said, ‘follow him home and kill him.’
“I figured they’d never ask me to do it unless it was really important — unless this guy was a real threat, you know?”
He drags a hand through his hair and tugs on it, which tells me this probably bothers him more than anything.
“I did follow him back to his apartment, but I chickened out. I was afraid to go inside and see where he lived. I thought seeing his apartment would somehow make it more real.”
I wait with bated breath, dreading the horrible conclusion.
“I shot him in the street and took his wallet. They needed proof he was dead. I opened it up. Inside, he had some credit cards, a driver’s license, and this picture of him, a woman, and a kid younger than me.
“He wasn’t some gangster who was shaking Freeman down. He was just a guy — some random guy they thought would be an easy mark for me. And I shot him right outside his apartment.”
“Eli . . .”
He glances up at me, and I’m startled by the pain in his eyes. “I never gave it to them. I never went back to Freeman’s house. I was so . . . ashamed.”
“I’m sorry.” It seems so inappropriate, so inadequate, but I have no idea what else to say.
Without thinking, I reach over and put my hand over his. He winces as though I startled him, and when he looks up, I’m not sure if he’s really seeing me. He’s looking at me so hard it feels as though he’s looking through me.
But then he seems to come to his senses, and I see him trying to put up his walls again. “I don’t know why I just told you all that,” he says, looking angry with himself. “I never tell anyone that stuff. There’s no point.”
“Sure there is.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t say I should talk about it because it makes me feel better.”
“Does it?”
“Yeah, but it’s not something I should ever feel better about.”
“Eli, you were just a kid.”
“I know that. I just . . . I just wish I could take it all back.”
I don’t know what to say to that. There’s no convincing Eli that he shouldn’t blame himself for his parents’ death or that he was put in an impossible situation.
“How did you end up in the compound?” I ask finally.
He bobs his head slowly, as though he’s trying to return to the present.
“That winter, I got pneumonia. There was a free clinic near where I was staying. A lot of people were dying of radiation poisoning.
“While I was waiting, this man showed up who seemed . . . off. He looked like military, but not any branch I’d ever seen before. He sat down next to me, and we got talking. He started asking me all these questions about my health . . . where I’d lived . . . my parents . . .
“When he found out I was on my own, he asked if I’d like a chance to live in one of the compounds. I didn’t really trust the guy, but I was tired and sick. At the time, I was squatting in some abandoned apartment with no heat, and he made the compounds sound like heaven. So I said I’d go with him.”
“He was Recon.”
“Yeah.”
I hesitate for a moment. “Are you glad you went?”
“Every day.”
He glances up at me and grins at my surprised expression. “Look. There’s a lot I hate about that place. But once you’ve been starving and cold without a place to sleep . . . you’ll take anything else.”
He bends his head and returns his attention to our forgotten food.
I realize there’s so much I don’t know about Eli — so much I wrote off as part of his personality. But he’s been through truly horrible things in his life, which makes the goodness in him even more remarkable.
We eat in silence. As the last scraps of light fade from the room, exhaustion hits me all at once, and Eli takes my yawn as a cue to clean up our dinner.
“You take the bed. I’ll take the couch,” he says.
I nod and start shuffling toward the room, still reeling from his story.
Halfway to the door, I stop and turn back to him. “I’m sorry about your parents . . . and Owen. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
He meets my gaze and tries to smile, not quite managing it.
I leave the door cracked and lie down on the bed. When I finally shut my eyes, I can’t banish the horrific images my mind conjures up.
I see a much younger and terrified Eli, hiding with his brother as his parents are shot. I see him falling onto his brother’s dead body . . . Eli shooting a man in the street. In my semiconsciousness, the man’s face morphs into the man I shot today. His eyes are blank and lifeless.
As exhaustion overtakes my body, my thoughts turn into nightmares, and I sink into a horrible, restless sleep.
six
Eli
Soft whimpers coming from the next room wake me in the middle of the night. I hadn’t planned on drifting off, but as soon as I sank down on the lumpy old couch to keep watch, my eyes drifted closed.
My hazy brain tries to place the noise, but I don’t immediately remember where I am. Then the dark apartment comes into view, and I realize I’m on the Fringe with Harper.
Without thinking, I leap off the couch and barge into the bedroom. I don’t even realize I’ve pulled out my gun to scan the room for threats until I spot her.
She’s curled up in a ball on the bed with the covers wrapped around her legs. Her dark hair is everywhere, and her face is contorted in fear and anguish.
My heart clenches. She had a hell of a day. She made her first kill, and then I went and unloaded my entire fucked-up life story on her. No wonder she’s having nightmares.
I don’t know what to do, but my feet carry me toward her automatically.
“Hey. Harper. Wake up,” I whisper, sinking down beside her and tugging her shoulder gently. Her skin is burning hot from sunburn.
She wakes with a start and lets out a little cry.
“It’s okay. It’s just me.”
Her breaths are coming in short gasps. When she’s alert enough to recognize me, her tear-streaked face scrunches in confusion.
“Eli?”
“It’s okay. You were just having a nightmare.”
Before my brain can catch up with my body, I’m putting an arm around her and tucking her head into the crook of my neck. She shudders, and I squeeze her while her breathing returns to normal. She feels so good in my arms that I instantly feel guilty for holding her.
“What was it?” I ask.
“We were running from those men at the body shop,” she whispers. “They grabbed me and shot you . . . and Celdon was there. They made me watch while they tortured him. I’ve never seen him in so much pain.” She shivers. “It doesn’t even make any sense.”
“The things we’re scar
ed of don’t always make sense,” I murmur.
“In my dream, when I turned you over . . . you had this look on your face.” She stops and shakes her head. “Like it was my fault . . . like I could have stopped them.”
I tighten my grip on her, and she stiffens. “Is that what you think? That it’s your fault I’m out here?”
“It is my fault,” she says, as though I’m an idiot for asking. “You came out here with me.”
“That was my choice, Harper. None of this is your fault.”
She shakes her head a little. “It was just a dream.”
“It’s okay . . . I have nightmares, too, sometimes.”
She pulls her head back a little, looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “You do?”
“I see the men I killed and a lot of my old recruits — the ones who died out here. I had a lot of horrible dreams right after they bid on your class, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Was I ever in one?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
I have no idea why I keep blurting out the truth, but it’s going to get me into trouble.
“When was this?”
“Right after I met you.”
She falls silent, and for a moment, I wonder if she’s drifted back to sleep.
“Eli?” she asks finally.
“Hmm?”
“Will you . . . stay in here?”
Her voice is so quiet that I’m not immediately sure I heard right. But when she looks up, she’s giving me a raw, questioning look that says she just asked for something she shouldn’t have.
I can’t believe she just asked me that. After everything she watched me do today and everything I just told her, she shouldn’t even want to be in the same room with me.
But she does.
Since I can’t seem to unstick my throat, I just nod. She scoots down on the bed, giving me plenty of room to lie beside her.
I want to slap myself for being so careless. I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t want to leave her side.
Keeping plenty of distance between us, I move down so I’m half lying next to her, half propped against the headboard. I tell myself I’m still keeping watch, but I’m really just watching Harper.
When she rolls onto her side, we’re close enough to spoon, but I don’t reach for her. I don’t trust myself when her shoulders and back are exposed in that tank top, her scent is everywhere, and her face is flushed from the sun.
It feels wrong to be lying beside her without having her in my arms, but I force myself to do it.
With her just a few inches away, I fall asleep within minutes, and for once, I dream of good things.
I awake to the feeling of sunshine warming my body. Light is streaming in through the battered blinds, alerting me to the fact that I’m in bed with someone I shouldn’t be, and my body is responding . . . inappropriately.
Staring down at Harper’s unconscious form, I’m startled by my own happiness. In her sleep, she rolled even closer, turning onto her other side so her head could rest against my shoulder. She has an arm draped over my waist, and I smile a little at the sight of her lying there.
I’ve never seen Harper asleep, and I’m instantly captivated. Her normally fierce expression is relaxed, and her sleek dark hair is everywhere. It’s twisted around my forearm and spilling over my chest, as though I was running my fingers through it in my sleep.
Then the realization punches me in the stomach: We’re on the Fringe. This isn’t a lazy Sunday in bed. We shouldn’t even be in bed. God knows what time it is.
Pulling the covers back up to my waist, I nudge her arm. “Harper. Psst. Harper.”
She wakes with a start, and her eyes widen when she sees me lying next to her. She yanks her arm away as though I burned her and sits bolt upright in bed. “Uh . . . sorry about that.”
I hold the covers a little tighter to my midsection and clear my throat. “Uh . . . it’s fine. We should get going.”
She nods quickly, a little flustered, and reaches up to pull her hair into a ponytail. Watching her lift her silky hair off her flushed neck is doing nothing to alleviate the situation down south, so I leave the room while she gets dressed and pace around to try to clear my head.
Coming out here with her was a bad idea. I pushed her away that night on the observation deck because it was the best thing for both of us.
Harper is still my cadet, and it’s inappropriate for me to be having the thoughts that are running through my head. More importantly, they’re a distraction from our mission, and distractions get you killed.
When I hear the bedroom door open, I begin rummaging around for some energy bars to eat for breakfast. Harper wanders out fully dressed, watching me as though she wants to say something.
I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is will just make this even more awkward, so I hand her one of the bars and start chugging my water. We’ll need to replenish our supply today before we return to the restaurant to poke around.
“Ready?”
She looks slightly alarmed. “For what?”
“We need to swing by the nearest checkpoint to get more water.”
“O-kay,” she says, biting into the energy bar and watching me carefully.
She knows why I’m acting weird, which just makes it worse.
I make myself busy rearranging the supplies in my pack as she eats. Then I make the bed and get rid of our trash to erase any evidence of our presence here.
Once there’s nothing left for me to clean or organize, I pull on my mask. Harper doesn’t say anything, but she follows my lead and tucks the last empty wrapper into her pocket. If any drifters wander up here, they’ll never know we’re using the apartment as our safe house.
I raise my rifle to check the street for drifters before leading us outside. We slept later than we should have, which means the sun is already oppressively hot.
Still, this morning doesn’t seem as bad as yesterday. Maybe it’s because we got a full night’s sleep, or maybe the lightness of my shoulders is from waking up next to Harper.
She seems to be in slightly better spirits today, too. She no longer looks dead inside, which is something.
I lead us around the perimeter of town, charting a careful path between buildings and ducking behind cars in case we’re ambushed. Harper follows my every move, mirroring my watchful stance as though she’s been doing this for years.
We reach the edge of a residential area, where a few small houses are spaced at uneven intervals along a dusty road. They’re surrounded by burnt-looking grass, sun-faded swing sets, and rusty chain-link fences.
Down the road, a large, expensive-looking facility occupies almost an entire block — some kind of manufacturing plant, by the looks of it. Beyond that, there’s nothing but empty desert.
Staring out at the wide expanse of land gives me a slight prickle on the back of my neck, but I shove that feeling aside and focus on reaching the checkpoint.
It’s about a mile outside the town — in the opposite direction of the compound — which puts a mile of desert between us and fresh water. I don’t like the exposure, but without any rock formations or buildings to hide behind, the drifters have an equal disadvantage.
Since there are no landmarks, I flip on my interface and pull up a map of all the Recon checkpoints in the area. It shows me and Harper as moving green dots and the checkpoint as a larger, pulsating blue beacon.
I beam the map to Harper, and she moves a fraction of an inch closer to me as the empty landscape unfolds around us. She doesn’t like the lack of cover any more than I do, and she keeps glancing over her shoulder to make sure we aren’t being followed.
Every moment we walk, the sun seems to grow hotter and hotter. I yank off my overshirt and imagine us gorging ourselves on water after this. It has to be the longest mile I’ve ever walked.
As we shuffle along, the blinking blue dot expands slightly. It’s the only sign that we’re getting closer. Every square
foot of desert looks exactly the same to me — every crack in the earth, every dried-up little bush — and the sun doesn’t seem to have moved at all from its position.
Suddenly, the dot starts blinking furiously, letting me know we’re right on top of the water source. I drop my gaze to the ground, looking for the protruding spigot.
There seems to be a higher than normal concentration of desert grass, so I push it aside to look for the pipe.
Nothing.
The dot is still blinking furiously on my interface, so I pace a small circle around the area. I don’t see anything at all.
Frustrated, I get down on my hands and knees and feel along the ground. Harper is watching me with a puzzled expression, but if she thinks I led her out to the middle of the desert on a wild-goose chase, she doesn’t say so.
Then my hand hits something solid. I push aside the brush and run my hand over a tiny piece of pipe sticking out of the ground.
My heart sinks. Where there should have been two feet of pipe and a handle for pumping water, there’s only the stump of a pipe that someone has welded shut.
“No,” I growl, feeling desperately in the dirt next to it. My fingers graze hot metal, and I hurriedly brush the dirt away.
“Help me out with this,” I say.
Harper bends down and starts clawing at the dirt with me. Between the two of us, it only takes a few minutes to reveal the metal trapdoor. I brace my fingers under the lip and pull, but it doesn’t budge.
I try again — putting my back into it — but the door stays shut. I keep pulling with everything I have, as if I can somehow wear it down. I just can’t look up and face Harper’s confused expression.
Finally I stop and run my hand along the edge of the door. That’s when the realization sets in: The drifters broke our spigot and welded the trapdoor shut. They purposely cut us off from our supplies so we wouldn’t be able to stay here.
But they couldn’t have found it by accident. This location would be impossible to stumble upon, and they have no reason to be out here in the first place.
They must have followed us last time. Either that, or someone from the compound gave up the location.
