We Are Always Forever

by Campbell, Jamie

  “Kalinda, do you have any water?” I asked, interrupting the new pep talk Jet was instilling.

  They both craned their necks to look at me. Kalinda’s head nodded toward the door leading away from the small room. It was enough permission to go exploring.

  I had no choice except to walk through the female spirit to get around the mess. The chill rushed through my spine and made a home at the base.

  For a crazy girl, Kalinda kept her kitchen fastidiously tidy. There wasn’t one item out of place on the counter, no dishes in the sink, and you could eat off the floor if you really wanted to. If she was capable of this kind of cleanliness, how did she live with the mess in the other room? It was a mystery to me.

  The spirits followed, just like I had hoped.

  “You can see us?” the male asked. His forehead was wrinkled, making him look older than he had before. I would place them both in their sixties, maybe even seventies. They couldn’t be Kalinda’s parents.

  Grandparents?

  Maybe.

  “Yes, I can see you both,” I replied. “Did you see the book the girl had?”

  “It upset our Kalinda,” the woman said, a little angry. Fair enough.

  “I’m sorry about that, we didn’t mean to. We’re only trying to help all the spirits and she is our best hope right now.”

  “You’re trying to help us?” The man again.

  “Yes, I am. I know you’re all stuck here.”

  They both nodded slowly like a pair of bobble heads. “We can’t leave. No matter what we do.”

  I’d only heard that story a million times already.

  “I’m working on it,” I said, a little more tersely than I had intended. I lowered my voice so it didn’t sound like I was the crazy one talking to myself. “Kalinda said the book is written in an old language. Did you understand anything?”

  They exchanged a glance before the woman spoke. “She is correct. The book must be very old because it is written in the oldest form of our language. Not even our great-great-great-grandparents would have written like that.”

  “So you can read it?”

  “I taught Kalinda everything she knows about the language. We used to have regular weekly lessons from when she was only a tiny little girl.”

  “She’s your granddaughter?” I had to know, even if only out of sheer curiosity.

  “She is,” the woman confirmed.

  I kept going while I was on a roll. “Will you read the book with her? Try to work out how to kill a demon?”

  “Why’s it so important to kill a demon?” She looked at me exactly as her granddaughter had done at the door – suspiciously, like perhaps I was the devil himself.

  “Because it’s a demon keeping you here and preventing you from crossing over. His name is Kostucha and I need to kill him if you want to rest in peace.”

  Another exchanged glance.

  Another hesitation.

  These people trusted no-one. Perhaps I should have had Jet talk to the spirits. He might not be able to see them, but they probably wouldn’t care.

  It was the man who eventually replied. “Yes, we will help.”

  Those four words were music to my ears. I thanked them and promised we would return in a few days before heading back to join the others.

  Kalinda and Jet were still touching, his arm was around her shoulders as he comforted her through some crisis she was having. I wondered if she was always like this or just since the Event.

  The Event was enough to send anyone crazy.

  Jet gave me a questioning look when I resumed my seat but didn’t ask me outright what I was up to. Kalinda didn’t have to know about the ghosts of her grandparents haunting her tiny shack. They wouldn’t hurt her.

  I sat patiently until Kalinda agreed to read the book and Jet agreed to check in on her so they could discuss it some more. I didn’t need her to read the book now, all I needed was for her to turn the pages for her grandparents. I trusted their translation much more than hers.

  Chapter Eight

  “Is there anyone in the city you don’t know?” I asked on the way back. I had to almost yell over the rattle of the Crain. The question was burning on the tip of my tongue. It had to be let out.

  Jet’s lips quirked into an easy grin as he stole a glance my way. “Jealous?”

  “No. It’s just… convenient, that’s all. You said you didn’t have much of a life before the Event and now everyone is your best friend. A year isn’t a long time to get to know everyone.”

  He laughed, it lit up his entire face. “Maybe I’m just very social.”

  “Maybe you’re lying.”

  “Fine. You want to know the truth?” He waited long enough for me to nod my head before continuing. “There were three little girls living next door to my house when it happened. They knocked on my door, asking when their parents were going to wake up. I felt sorry for them and started looking after the three.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  “Yeah, it was. The trouble was the three girls turned into a group and just kept getting bigger and bigger. Before I realized it, kids were telling their friends and they all started coming to me for help. I really had no choice.”

  “You could still have turned them away,” I pointed out. Just because Jet hadn’t actively chosen his new way of life, it didn’t make what he was doing any less noble.

  He could have walked away at any time.

  It had been his choice to stay.

  “Turning them away was never really an option,” he said quietly, under his breath. I wouldn’t have heard him at all if the Crain wasn’t going down a hill and mercifully quiet.

  “So you know all these people because they came to you for help?” I continued, moving on.

  “Yep. People can be really nice when they want something.”

  He pretended to be jaded about the whole thing, but it was just an act. Jet couldn’t fool me like he could the others. I simply wasn’t buying it.

  “How did the tunnels all come about then?” I asked. The curiosity was burning away in my brain and it was a rare event for Jet to be so eager to answer my questions.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got time, right?”

  Jet shot me a look before he sighed. I thought he might clam up then and there.

  But he didn’t.

  He opened his mouth and began. “I heard there were a bunch of kids that had run into the underground to live. The report I got was that they were terrified and had formed some sort of secret society down there. I also heard they were starving and were barely more than animals.”

  Those poor kids, my heart went out to them. I knew what the new world could do to someone and it didn’t surprise me in the slightest that their desperation had forced them underground.

  Jet continued. “I started hanging around the tunnel entrance until they accepted my help. Eventually they allowed me to come down into the cavern with them. That’s when I first saw the adults and what kind of conditions they were all living in. It was horrible, you have no idea how these kids lived.”

  “So it was you that turned them into a functioning group?”

  He nodded with a quiet sense of pride. “Yeah. I fed them – which helped a lot. After they felt more human, they acted more human. They were actually a really cool bunch of people after that and they invited me to live in one of the rooms. I’ve been there ever since.”

  “Was Perry underground the whole time?” I couldn’t imagine her living in subhuman conditions – not unless she was the leader of the pack, anyway.

  “She was. She had been looking after the younger kids. She was fiercely protective of them. Almost killed me the first time I met her.”

  I snorted with laughter before I could stop myself. “You’re not the only one.” My shoulder twanged with the memory of Perry dislocating it.

  “Maybe it’s her way of welcoming people,” Jet said with a cheeky sparkle in his eyes.

  “Did you know Ka
linda before the Event?”

  “No. She came to me one day when she was starving. Some kids had beat her up and she was in a pretty bad way. I cleaned her up and she stuck around for a while after.”

  I wonder why that was.

  My tongue was pressed between my teeth so I didn’t say it out loud.

  “So you don’t know if she was crazy before the Event then?” I pressed.

  “She’s not crazy,” he said sternly, harsh enough for me to recoil and want to take all my words back.

  “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  Jet sighed. “No, I didn’t mean that. It’s just… she gets upset easily and doesn’t know how to cope with things. But she’s not crazy.”

  I made a mental note not to question Kalinda’s mental situation anymore. It was clearly a touchy subject.

  “Okay, she’s not crazy,” I conceded. There was a serious change of subject needed. “I’m sure she was very grateful for your help. Along with everyone else.”

  His grin made a return. “It turns out helping people is actually something I’m good at.”

  “So you had a master plan?”

  “Something like that.”

  I remembered how I had met Jet. It was when his gang of boys kidnapped me while I was hopelessly lost chasing after my sister – or who I thought was my sister.

  He definitely wasn’t helping anyone then.

  “So how was kidnapping girls part of your helping people thing?”

  Silence.

  A part of me was still scared of Jet because of that kidnapping. I still had nightmares about it every so often. I had convinced myself they were going to kill me and the boys did nothing to allay those fears.

  Trying to reconcile that Jet with the one sitting beside me now was impossible. They were like two different people.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” he finally replied. “I wish I could go back and change things. I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  “Why were you doing it?” I needed to know, I needed to know how he had changed in the few months I had known him.

  “I didn’t tell them to take you. Or anybody. I was looking after the boys, kidnapping was never supposed to be in the plan.”

  “But they took me.”

  “Yeah, and I’m surprised you didn’t hear the way I went off at them about it. We only took supplies, that’s all. People were never meant to get hurt.”

  “But the raids…”

  “We raided warehouses for supplies. You saw the stockpiles. We didn’t hurt kids.”

  His boys had hurt me. They had inflicted some serious damage on me but I had no intention of bringing that up now. The words were all stuck in my throat anyway.

  But Jet had never hurt me.

  The realization hit me strong and hard. Everything that had happened while I was tied to a chair and at his gang’s mercy didn’t involve him. He had tried to protect me from them. Even while trying to keep face in front of the others.

  He mistook my silence as admonishment. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you go when you were first taken. I knew if I did, they would try to go after you. It would only get worse. You know I would never hurt you, right?”

  Did I know that?

  Call me foolish, but I did.

  One day it might be my downfall. But not today. Despite the questionable safety aspects of the Crain, I felt safe with Jet. Even though it didn’t make sense.

  “I know,” I whispered. “I forgive you.”

  He nodded, I hoped he believed me. “Thank you.” His shoulders sagged like he had been relieved of a thousand pound weight sitting around his neck.

  We drove in silence until Jet had to stop to change the railway track in the other direction. When he climbed back into the Crain, he had a big smile on his face. “I couldn’t believe it when you escaped, you know. All the boys blamed me, said I had let you go.”

  “Why would you have let me go?” I asked, genuinely curious. I was never going to understand the male population.

  He shrugged one shoulder, using it to answer the question instead of actually answering it. We settled back into silence, the click click click of the wheels on the tracks setting a steady rhythm. I wasn’t sure if it was the previous conversation or the long day but I was suddenly way too tired to still be upright.

  I rested my head on the back of the seat and closed my eyes for just a moment. The rest of the world melted away, leaving the constant noise from the Crain to sing me a lullaby.

  Until Jet asked the question I had hoped would not come up. “I missed you this morning. How come you left so early?”

  Would shrugging one shoulder be enough to answer that?

  Probably not.

  “I had stuff to do.” Not a lie, just not the absolute truth either. I guessed I was already going to Hell, may as well make the trip worthwhile.

  Jet’s eyes found their way over to study my face. His gaze danced between me and the railway tracks. “Stuff so important you didn’t want to wake me up first?”

  “I wanted an early start in the library.”

  “Right.” There was nothing I could read in that single word. He gave me nothing to be able to gauge his thoughts. Was he angry? Annoyed? Sad? Grateful he didn’t have to wake up with me? Deal with my problems?

  I didn’t know.

  I would probably never know.

  But it felt like an apology was needed anyway. If the tables were reversed, I would have been upset about Jet leaving without saying goodbye.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t wake you. You were sleeping peacefully, I thought it kinder to let you go on,” I said quickly and then held my breath.

  The whole conversation was beyond awkward.

  If the Crain was moving slower, it might have been a better option to jump out than have to talk about it.

  “I get it,” he said. One more glance my way and his dark brown eyes burned right into my soul. He could see through whatever I was saying, I just knew it.

  “There’s nothing really to get,” I replied, trying to shake off the guilt creeping through my veins. “I wanted to start at the library early.”

  “No, there is. You’re scared about making friends, I understand. People tend to die, a lot. But everyone that lives in the tunnels are probably the most protected in the city. They’re not going anywhere.”

  A rush a relief washed over me. He didn’t think I left because of him, he thought I left so I didn’t have to face everyone else underground.

  All I could do was go along with it.

  Let him believe that so neither of us had to face the truth.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied, purposefully looking everywhere except at him.

  The silence never got another chance to creep up on us. Someone was yelling, someone else was screaming, multiple people were crying out.

  Jet almost broke the brakes as we screeched to a halt, the steel railway made its unhappiness known. “Stay here,” he directed as he jumped from his seat.

  I let him get far enough away so he thought I was obeying his command before following him. My feet stomped as they pounded on the ground, following the noise drawing us like bees to honey.

  Except there was nothing sweet here.

  At least two dozen people were fighting. Fists flew everywhere as the slap of skin on skin colliding rose above every other noise in the space.

  We were between buildings, nestled into what would have once been a sophisticated courtyard for the surrounding office buildings. The fountain had long dried up, the fancy outdoor settings looted or broken months ago.

  Some of the kids couldn’t have been older than ten years old as they scuffled and fought for their lives. Or their territory. Or their dignity. Or simply for food. It was hard to tell.

  Blood flew from one kid’s nose as he copped a whack to the face. Another boy’s fist recoiled, shaking out the pain he felt too. It was senseless. Violence without thought. Evil without compassion.

  They were all going to kill each other. />
  The kid pounced back, launching himself at his attacker with the wild eyes of an animal that had been cooped up in a tiny cage and poked with a stick for too long. His hands found his opponent’s neck and started squeezing the life from him.

  He was thrown off only a moment later, his head hitting the pavement.

  The kid didn’t get up again.

  It took Jet exactly eight seconds to take in the scene before his feet sprung into action. He jumped through the group like a rabbit in a field of carrots.

  He was going to get killed.

  “Jet, no!” someone screamed.

  I realized it was me two seconds later.

  My heart made a leap into my throat as I watched the scene play out like it was in a movie. Like I wasn’t standing on the edge about to see someone that had been kind to me get obliterated.

  Grunts joined in the symphony of madness as the fighting escalated. I couldn’t keep track of whose fist belonged to whom. Blood started to cloak the ground like a river was trying to form in the center of the courtyard.

  My eyes searched for Jet, desperate to catch even a glimpse of him still standing. The boys that fell were trampled, their significance reduced down to nothing.

  His brown hair was barely a blur, but he was there. It took all my sensibilities to stay where I was and not rush into the crowd. I wanted to grab Jet by the scruff of his collar and pull him away from them all.

  If anything happened to him…

  He had to be alright.

  Jet’s hands remained open, not clenched in anger or fighting back. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t trying to get into the fray, he was trying to stop it. He stood obstinately in front of the smaller boys, even though they pushed at him to get out of their way.

  He was protecting them even when they didn’t want to be protected.

  He was a ridiculous idiot getting involved. We should have still been on the way to the tunnels, minding our own business. We would probably have been there by now.

  Instead, he was going to get himself killed and it would all be because of his stupid sense of what was right. He didn’t have to be that noble. These kids weren’t his responsibility. If they wanted to kill each other, that was their choice.