by H. J. Lawson
I roll my lip up into my mouth, savoring the liquid of another human. Then I spit it back out into his face. I don’t want his poisoned blood running through my veins.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dax
“Trinity, where are you?” I whisper out into the darkness. She is not where I left her.
“I’m here,” her voice quietly replies. I walk toward the sound, but something stops me. It feels like I’m stepping in water. I look down. The water I’m stepping in has a dark red gloss to it … it's blood. And I can just make out a body.
“Trinity?” I whisper a little louder.
“I’m here,” she replies with a somber tone to her voice.
“Are you injured?” I ask, as I cautiously approach.
The whites of her eyes peer out in the darkness as she sits on top of a man. He’s not moving. It looks like she butchered the Caribe, and he has raw, gaping wounds over his face.
“Trinity, are you injured?” I repeat.
“No,” she mumbles.
“Put the knife down,” I tell her. She slowly lowers her hand from the attacking position. “I’m going to help you up,” I say, as I take her arm and lift her up. She’s trembling.
I take her back to where we were sitting earlier. “I should have never left you alone,” I say shamefully, as I prop her up against the wall. She has a blank, emotionless look on her face.
“Trinity, they’ve got the others … we need to help them.” I feel guilty asking her, but what choice do I have?
Trinity nods. Maybe she has a taste for killing after all.
*****
Trinity stays silent as we walk through the room of body pieces in jars, and down the tunnel.
“Arh…!” Screams of pain echo down the corridor … we are too late. I pick up the pace and run toward the glowing orange room.
“We’re here,” I tell Trinity.
She grabs hold of my arm, pulling me to a halt. “What’s the plan?”
Damn. What is the plan … what are we going to do? If they see us, we’ll be the next ones killed.
My shoulders slump down. “What weapons do you have?” Trinity asks in a matter-of-fact way. She hasn’t given up, and neither will I.
I stand firmly once again. “I have my gun,” I reply.
“I have my dagger,” she says, holding it up, then wipes it across her dress to remove her last victim’s blood. “We also have the elements of surprise and darkness,” she adds.
“Come on, let’s see what’s happening and then work out what we’re going to do,” I say.
Trinity nods, and we head toward the glowing orange light. Then we peer around the wall.
Reznor is strapped down to the table, not moving. Blood is dripping down off the side and into a bucket.
I squint my eyes for a better look … something is missing.
Oh no! They have cut off Reznor’s arm.
The Caribe’s leader has Reznor’s arm on a table with jars and is leaning over it. His arm moves up and then sideways, as he drops Reznor’s finger into a waiting jar. He’s pickling Reznor’s fingers. Trinity and I stare at each other, not knowing what to say.
I look back over to the bloody nightmare. Where are Hayden and Lowell? I scan the room and see that they are tied up in one of the corners, surrounded by men on both sides.
Trinity nudges me in the ribs and points toward the corner. It's their guns, thrown to the side. No one is interested in the weapons—their eyes are all eagerly watching their leader as they wait for their meal.
“We need the guns,” I say to Trinity. I turn to her, but she’s not there.
I look back into the room, and my eyes dart around … I can’t see her anywhere.
Staring into the darkness, I can see something moving. It's Trinity; she’s heading toward the guns … she really is crazy.
This nightmare is going to become a reality at any moment. I place my gun on the rocks and brace myself. Her body quickly moves out of the shadows, and she grabs hold of a gun.
Suddenly shots ring out, and everyone falls silent. Then I hear the sound of the glass jar containing Reznor’s fingers shattering as it hits the ground.
The Caribe’s leader's feet stumble as his legs give way underneath him. His body drops to the ground with a thud.
“No!” a female voice screams from the group.
Before they can react, we fire our guns into the crowd. I head over toward Trinity and pick up another gun. People run toward us, and one after another we fire off shots, ending their lives, but saving ours.
Hayden and Lowell start to fight the men holding them, and their fists fly in the air. Trinity and I head toward them and I shoot one of the captors in the back of the knee. He falls to the ground, screaming in pain.
We fire more toward them, and they duck out of the way. I throw Hayden his gun. He catches and instantly fires it. A bullet goes flying out of the back of one man’s head, covered in blood.
Trinity passes Lowell a gun and we fire at the remaining people.
“We need to get out of here, more will come,” Hayden states, as blood drips down from his face.
“Is Reznor alive?” I ask.
“Yeah … they cut off his arm when he was awake, and he passed out from the pain,” Hayden says, as he continues shooting.
Trinity heads over to Reznor and begins to cut through the rope with her blade.
“Dax, help me,” Trinity pleads, as she cuts off the lower section of her dress and ties it around what remains of Reznor’s arm.
“Cover us,” I tell the others, as I head toward Trinity. “Arh!” I cry out as my body slams to the uneven ground. A man jumps on top of me with anger burning through his eyes. His mouth is gaping open, revealing yellow, chiseled teeth. He swings his fist into my face.
I spin my body sideways, as Gavyn taught me, knocking the man off balance. Springing up on my feet, I turn my gun to his face. Bang…! The bullet rips through his skull and into his brain. He’s not going to get back up.
“I said cover me!” I snap at them. “Reznor, get up!”
He doesn’t respond, so I slap him hard across his face. His arm reaches up and his fingers wrap around my throat … he’s trying to squeeze the life out of me.
I gasp for air as I try to push him off me. I can feel my eyes bulging.
Hayden appears in front of me in a blur, and I struggle to breathe. Hayden pushes Reznor back onto the table, but Reznor is too strong for him. His grip doesn’t loosen … it’s getting tighter.
Lowell helps Hayden, and they both push down on Reznor as they yell out for help.
“Arh!” I gasp for air, as Reznor’s fingers finally release the grip.
I stagger backwards as I try to fill my lungs with air. The sound of gunfire brings me back from the brink of death.
Lowell and Hayden lift Reznor off the table.
“Get back upstairs,” I yell to them, as Trinity and I fire at the remaining people.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dax
We sprint through the tunnels and the body jar room, and back up into the room I wish we’d all stayed in.
There is no choice but to leave here.
“Reznor, can you ride?” I ask him. He waves his injured arm up to me; it's double the size of a normal person’s arm. Even with only one arm, he’s still stronger than any of us.
Reznor nods in response.
“Trinity, open the doors,” I say, as I jump on my bike.
We race out from one dangerous situation and into another … but I know that the Purenet soldiers will not try to eat or pickle us. They are the lesser of two evils.
“Get on,” I tell Trinity. She jumps onto the back of the bike and holds on tightly.
“Ready?” I shout.
“Ready!” the others answer, with pure hatred in their voices.
Reznor leads the charge; clearly he wants to get as far away from this building as possible.
His bike flies into the air as he launches it
down the stairs. He turns quickly and rides off.
Hayden goes next, followed by Lowell.
Trinity grips me tighter … too tight. “Get off me … help me!” she screams in terror. Then her grip loosens, and her body flies backward. Someone has dragged her off the bike.
I turn around to see a man dragging her toward the stairs we just came from. Other Caribes are in the room, but it’s as though they cannot see what is happening. Their eyes are fixed on their next meal.
They are gathered around the people that Trinity killed, and they are ripping the flesh off them with their chiseled teeth.
Bang … bang. I fire the gun toward the man dragging Trinity across the floor. He doesn’t stop, and the bullets just bounce off him. He’s wearing Purenet body armor; it’s no longer shiny-white like the soldiers. This is covered in dirt, and what looks like dried blood.
The Caribes start to fight over the bodies as they drag them toward the doorway, making it hard to see where Trinity is.
“Dax, help me!” Trinity screams. They are right by the doorway, and her fingers are gripping the floor for dear life.
I take in a deep breath, and as I exhale I fire the gun toward the Caribe who has Trinity. He stops moving … got him! She springs up to her feet, as the Caribe’s body falls backwards.
She scrambles toward me, weaving in and out of the Caribes and bodies on the ground, and straight into my arms.
“Get on,” I tell her. She jumps on with her arms still wrapped around me, refusing to let go.
This time I don’t hesitate. I would rather the Purenet soldiers get me than the Caribes.
We fly out of the building and onto the main street. I can see the others in the swirling sand from the wind as it shapes the landscape coming toward us.
They must have realized we weren’t following. I ride toward them; there are no planes or drones in sight. Hopefully they’ve left this twisted city.
I can make out Hayden waving his hand in the air. I wave back, so he knows I’ve seen him.
They speed closer toward us, and now Lowell is waving fanatically toward us. They are warning me….
The swirling sand stops for a moment, and the tiny fragments drop to the ground. I finally realize what they are running from….
The plane has landed, and the doors open, and I turn my bike away. I know soon this city will be overrun with Purenet soldiers.
Within moments, the others are by my side. “What took you so long?” Hayden looks back with raised eyebrows toward Trinity, as if we've been up to no good.
“Will you always be a jerk?” I ask him, as I shake my head.
“I’m sorry about everything,” Hayden says. I almost believe him.
“Now is not the time,” I reply, as we ride past the building we were just in.
Quickly we swerve our bikes out of the way of oncoming Caribes … they are not giving up that easily. They start to chase the bikes.
If we were on flat ground, there would be no way they could catch us. But on the sand we are barely moving.
“We need to find a street with less sand,” I yell out over our engines.
I can feel Trinity’s hands roaming down to my waist, toward my gun, and I move to stop her. Then I reconsider. “Get them!” I yell to her. I just hope we don’t run out of ammo.
Shot after shot rings out in the night, followed by screams of pain.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see she got a few of the Caribes. More are coming—it looks as though the whole city has come out and is running toward us.
We riding until we find one empty street. “This one,” Lowell yells from the front.
I follow him, and the others do the same. Finally, we get some space between us and the Caribes.
“We need to hide,” Trinity whispers into my ear.
I look back at her. “That wasn’t a good idea last time.”
“Trust me … if we hide, we’ll be safe,” she says wisely.
I think for a moment. She is from the Enlighten tribe; maybe there is some truth in what she says.
“We need to hide. They parked the plane at the city boundaries; there is no chance of us getting out ... not yet anyway. The Caribes and the Purenet soldiers will start to kill each other off. Once they are weak, then we can escape,” she explains.
Everyone looks toward Reznor. His face is pale from losing so much blood. Trinity’s bandage is no longer white—blood covers it.
Reznor nods in agreement. He knows he needs help.
“Where shall we hide?” Hayden asks. We look up and down the streets. There is an old building like the church we were in earlier. I wonder if that’s where the tunnel leads. Is there a whole underground world under our feet? I shudder at the thought.
“We’re not going back in one of those crazy buildings,” Hayden says, as we ride past the white-washed church.
“I second that,” Lowell states.
“There,” Trinity says, as she points toward a tiny house. It’s the smallest on the street, and has light pink paint peeling off the sides.
“We need to go in there,” she says. She leans her body toward the building as though it is drawing her in.
“Will our bikes even fit inside?” Hayden asks.
“We’ll see,” I say, as I turn off the engine and roll toward the house.
I hope Trinity isn’t wrong … and we aren’t walking into another trap.
The sand isn’t blocking the doorway, and Trinity opens it as if she’s coming home. “There is no one in here; we will be safe,” she informs us. She walks into the house without even checking to see if anyone is there. She’s starting to freak me out … I don’t like the idea of Death following her, but I feel it is my duty to keep her safe and take her back to her tribe. After all, it is my father’s fault she’s here.
I follow Trinity, and the others take my lead.
The headlight from my bike leads the way into the house, and I almost feel bad that I’ll be dragging the sand into it. The place looks like it has hasn’t been touched or lived in for hundreds of years, and just a musty smell lingers as if it's been abandoned since the World War started.
It feels homey … and eerie at the same time.
I wheel the bike through a small room, but judging by the size of the house, this must have been the main room. It's so tiny; I’ve never seen what homes were like before the wars. By the others’ silence, I think they haven’t either.
“Back here,” Trinity calls from the back. “We can park the bikes here. This door leads to an alley out back if we need to escape.”
The room looks like a kitchen. The once-silver sink is rusty, and the cupboards above it are open and empty.
We all leave our bikes in the kitchen, squeezing next to one another. I don’t know how people used to live like this, on top of each other all the time.
The whole ground floor is smaller than my father’s quarters in the palace.
Lowell is the last person to enter the empty main room. Wooden panels have been ripped up from the floor … I guess for firewood. Now all that remains is uneven cement.
“Let’s check out the upstairs and downstairs,” Hayden says to me.
I look around, and Trinity is sitting up against the bare wall. She’s rubbing her finger across the back of her hand, as she tries to remove the bar code. Reznor is staring out the window, looking for any potential danger. Lowell seems the most awake of all of us. He’s the best person to watch over Trinity and Reznor now.
“I will go with you,” I say to Hayden. No one replies; the others are grateful that they will not be joining us.
“Trinity, see if there is anything in my bag that you can use as a bandage for Reznor,” I tell her. She stops rubbing her hand and instantly gets up, as though she’s used to having to respond quickly.
“If we are not back in a few moments, you'd better come looking for us,” I add.
“I’ve got your back,” Lowell says. The others remain silent, lost in their own worlds.
&nbs
p; Chapter Thirty-eight
Skylier
“Madison,” I scream, but nothing comes out. My chest tightens. I’m drowning. I cough frantically into my hands, trying to release what’s in my lungs. Dry clumps of dust pour from my mouth, ripping my throat raw.
“Madison,” I try again to scream, the words bellowing out of my body. Black crows croak back at me in response as they fly off the naked tree into the sky, turning it black.
I can see the white of Madison’s eyes as she turns to face me. The whiteness is drowned by red as her eyes fill with bloody tears, and then she turns away from me.
“Stop, wait,” I yell as I run towards her, but I’m not getting any closer. The wasteland beneath my feet is holding me hostage, not allowing me to move from the spot.
Shades on the horizon move closer to Madison. Sweat pours from my body as I fight the wasteland. “Get away from her,” I scream at the shades approaching Madison.
The wasteland releases me from its grip, and the sudden release knocks me down to the ground with a thud.
“Callie?” She stands in front of me as I scramble to get off the ground. Her skin is gray, and her eyes look lost.
“You left me,” Callie accuses me.
“Why are you here? Where is mother?” I frantically look around the dark wasteland.
“You left me,” she repeats.
“I’m sorry, Callie, I’m sorry,” I say as I place my arms around my little sister. She’s so cold. As my arms touch her body, it goes limp, lifeless. It dissolves into dry fragments that float up in front of me. She’s turning into dust. “No… no,” I beg as I try to capture the fragments of my little sister. A gust of wind sweeps across my pleading arms, and Callie is gone.
“Skylier,” a blood-curdling scream comes from Madison on the horizon as the black matter swirls around her greedily, like a black tornado eating up everything in its path.
Then, as if time itself has frozen, the blackness turns hard and drops to the floor of the wasteland, and I’m alone. The wasteland has absorbed all that I love.
