by Theresa Kay
“You do not have to do it alone,” Rym says. “My offer of help still stands.” He moves closer. “I realize that this is difficult for you, being without the link and not knowing whether I am trustworthy. But Jax trusted me enough to come with me, and her link, though damaged, is still functional.”
He is correct. She did not shy away from him. She did not appear to be bothered when he showed up and he delivered her safely into—and out of—the city. Had he wanted to break me further, he would not have come to warn us about the broadcast. Jax might have caught it, but by then it would have been too late.
My shaking hands are clear proof that I will not be able to accomplish anything on my own. I need an ally, and Rym is the only person I even remotely trust. And my only option.
“Whatever we do will be at great risk to ourselves,” I say.
“I know,” says Rym.
I shake my head and capture his gaze with mine. “No, you understand the concept, but you do not know the risks. My parents are both dead because my father stood up to him. He has tried to have me killed on at least one occasion that I know of, and he dangles my little sister’s safety in front of me as incentive for good behavior. Not only will any plan be risky, it will require delicacy.”
“I am prepared to do whatever is necessary. It would be one thing if I thought there was any hope of him doing things reasonably, but looking at what he has done to you turns my stomach. There should not be such violence here.” He paces across the room again. “Your father maintained the peace, but after only a few weeks with my father in charge… We cannot go on this way. It is only a matter of time before my father starts acting against the people, eliminating any factions that do not support him, any that have stood against him in the past. And once we turn on each other, we will be no better than the humans.”
“We have already turned on each other,” I add. “Advisor Brin and the others did not leave me out in the woods with a disabled kitu in order for me to take a hike. Once I made it clear that my father had convinced me we could settle the conflict with the humans peacefully, and that I was willing to put aside my own desire for vengeance for the greater good, they were more than eager to be rid of me.”
At the time, that day in the woods was the scariest thing I had ever experienced. It is astonishing how much can change in less than half a year. I boarded the ship that day after yet another heated discussion with my father about my hunt for Kov’s killer. The only thing different about that discussion was that he finally convinced me to see it his way. And that trip with Advisor Brin was going to be my last mission under Vitrad. Well, it ended up being my last mission anyway, just not quite in the way I expected it to be. How naive I was to think I could simply explain my change in views and be relieved of my duties.
“It all worked out for you in the end,” says Rym with a slight smile.
I return his smile. There is not much I can say in response, because he is entirely correct. I cannot be thankful enough for the strange combination of events that led them to drop me off in that particular clearing at that particular time. Though our appearance did not work to Jace’s advantage, it certainly worked to mine. I regret many of the subsequent events, but I do not regret meeting Jax. That meeting changed me. She changed me. And I would not give that up for anything.
MY PREVIOUS TRIP FROM Bridgelake to the city took over two weeks, because we were on foot and I purposely avoided anything that looked like civilization on the map, including any major roads. Taking the direct route by vehicle is much faster, and still it’s not quite as fast as any of us would like. We have to stop a few times to clear debris from our path and to navigate around some portions of road that are undriveable.
We’ve been on the road for nearly an hour when we reach the first town—if you can call it that anymore. For the most part, it appears to be pre-Collapse. No walls or fence. No farming fields. Just a bunch of houses and a store of some type. But the sidewalks aren’t completely overgrown, and unlike some of the other areas we’ve passed, the main road is clear. Someone’s been taking care of this place—or at least they were at some point recently. Probably sometime before that massive crater wiped out all the buildings on one side of the road.
The truck’s tires crunch through the snow. It’s still falling, and there are a couple inches on the ground already, but it’s no match for the truck. Flint drives down the street slowly, constantly scanning the area. Stu’s perked up too. He sits up straight and casts his gaze from one side of the road to the other. I can’t help the sense of unease trickling through me. It’s more than the feeling of eyes on me; it’s some deeper part of me screeching in alarm.
I reach down and pull my knife from my boot. Flint glances at me out of the corner of his eye and raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. Stu pulls a handgun from the glove box, checks to see if it’s loaded, then rests it on his lap. Apparently I’m not the only one feeling anxious.
As we pull closer to the crater, it becomes clear that we’re going to have to find another way around. In this section of the town, the hole extends over the road, and there’s no going around it.
Flint pulls to a gradual stop and extends his hand to me. “Map,” he says.
I lean across Stu, who tenses, and retrieve the map from the glove box. It’s the same pre-Collapse map I stole from Dane’s desk, and although it’s old, the roads haven’t changed much. We’ve used the map a few times already to find ways around obstacles, but this is the first time we’ll have to find a completely new route.
Flint keeps his attention on the area around the truck until he has the map in his hand. Then he quickly unfolds it and starts running his finger down the highway we’ve been following, pausing every few seconds to pick his head up and look around again. “We’ll have to backtrack,” he mutters. “About ten miles or so.” He looks up at the sky. “And we don’t have much light left. Once get out of here, we’ll need to stop for the night. This damn snow is really slowing us down.” He pounds a fist against the dashboard.
I place a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m sure we’ll still get there in plenty of time to warn them.”
Stu, his intense stare directed out the passenger side window, cocks his head to one side. “Do you guys notice anything funny about this snow?”
Leaning sideways toward the dash, I look out his window. “Like what?”
He raises one hand, complete with gun, and gestures toward the crater. “Like the fact that there’s hardly any in that hole.”
He’s right. Everywhere else there’s at least two inches of snow on the ground, but there’s hardly a dusting on the inside of the crater. Which means… “It’s recent. Really recent. We should—”
“Absolutely not,” says Flint. “We don’t have the time.”
“But—”
“No.” He points one finger directly at my face. “That is not an option.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” asks Stu.
“She wants to check for survivors.” Flint glares at me.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” says Stu. “What’s the problem?”
Flint’s head jerks up and I spin in my seat to face Stu. Who’d have thought we could agree on something?
“Are you serious?” asks Flint, his voice rising. “The problem is that, even if we weren’t in a hurry, and even if there are any survivors—and by the looks of that there aren’t”—he sweeps one hand across the front of the windshield—“we still have no idea what kind of people they are. This is Breeder territory.” His eyes turn to me, pleading. “This isn’t like back at home, Jax, where you can jaunt off into the woods and be relatively safe. We’re too close to the city and too far from any protection. There’s too much risk.”
I’ve never seen this cowardly side of Flint before, and it pokes at my anger. I shake my head and press my lips together in an attempt to hold in my coming outburst. It doesn’t work very well. “First of all”—this time it’s my finger in his f
ace—“Bridgelake is not my home. It’s yours. I get that you’re worried about it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to just ride off when there could be people here who need help. At this point it doesn’t matter what kind of people they are. Look around you!” I fling my arms out to the side. “There aren’t many of us left, and those that are…” My eyes slide to Stu. “Well, they aren’t necessarily all bad. How will we know if we don’t even try?”
Redness creeps up Flint’s neck and he curls his hands into fists before blowing a loud breath out through his mouth. His words are slow and controlled, filled with a poorly concealed condescension. “I get that you want to make up for…” He looks down at his hands. “… things. But putting yourself in danger is not the way to do that.”
I recoil from his words and my rage flares. “Is that what you think this is? Me ‘making up’ for the bad things I’ve done?”
“No!” He punctuates the shout with another slam of his fist on the dash, and he doesn’t bother to try to control the volume of his next words. “This is you putting yourself in danger for no goddamn reason!” His voice lowers. “I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with Peter, and I know he preaches all that selfless ‘love everybody’ stuff, but in case you haven’t noticed, that’s not the world we live in anymore.”
I have been spending a lot of time with Peter, and he does constantly chatter about being a good person and helping others, but my desire to help now is so much more than that. I spent over a year basically living in my own head, letting no one in, ignoring the people around me and generally being selfish. That’s not who I was before what happened, and that’s not who I want to be now.
Saying all that out loud would reassure Flint, at least a little—help him see what I’m trying to do—but irritation chokes me, and instead my stupid mouth comes up with, “Well, it should be.”
I lean over Stu again and yank on the door handle, and I’m on the ground before Flint can grab me. Ignoring Flint, I meet Stu’s eyes. “You coming?”
Not waiting for a response, I stomp off toward the house nearest to the damage. It’s one thing to have Jace constantly on me about staying safe and whatever, but it’s completely different to have Flint doing it. Sure, we’re close. He’s like a brother to me, but at the end of the day he’s not really my brother and…
I shake my head briskly; I was a total jerk to him. My steps falter, and I feel an impulse to turn back. But before I do, I hear footsteps crunching through the snow and Stu falls into step beside me. So instead of stopping I keep going, eyeing the man next to me. I’m about to head into an unknown situation with a guy who’s armed, a guy who’s already said he’d like to “put me down”… and for some reason it doesn’t bother me. If we’re going to be traveling together, trust is going to have to start somewhere.
And if he does decide to shoot me? I almost think I deserve it.
“What’s the plan?” His voice startles me out of my thoughts of my impending demise.
Plan? I almost laugh, and a loud puff of air actually makes it past my lips. I don’t do plans. Isn’t that how I got myself in this mess to begin with? But he’s staring at me expectantly and the urge to say something can’t be denied. “I guess we’ll comb through a couple of these houses, look for survivors, and then… well, I guess we hit the road if we don’t find any.”
Stu nods. We walk in silence for another few steps, and then he glances at me and says, “What you said back there… Did you really mean it?”
“Do you think I’d be out here tromping around if I didn’t? I’m a lot of things, but heartless isn’t one of them.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Despite what you may think.” As soon as it’s out, I regret it, but I can’t take it back, and now anxiety is buzzing in my limbs as the thundering sound of knife hitting flesh plays in my ears.
“I—”
I can’t face this confrontation right now, can’t face anything right now, so I interrupt him. “We should probably split up. We’ll cover more ground that way. Plus all this talking might drown out someone’s cry for help.” I laugh nervously. “I’ll go that way, you go the other, and we’ll meet back at the truck.” I veer away from him and take off running. “See you in a little while.”
I round the corner of a building and then pause to rest my back against the wall. The absence of footsteps lets me know he’s chosen to listen, or at least not to follow. A deep breath explodes past my lips. I let myself dwell for a moment, my eyes squeezed shut as I count my breaths and let some of the anxiety drain out of me. It wouldn’t be the best time to have a panic attack.
Once I’m fully under control again, I continue walking in the space between two houses until I’m on the next block over. It’s a residential area, ten or twenty total houses spaced out in a circle with a common area in the middle. Only one side of the neighborhood edges up to the crater, but there’s no movement anywhere.
The explosion couldn’t have happened that long ago. Debris should be settling, there should be smoke, there should be… something. But there’s nothing. Just the softly falling snow.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
There’s no answer to my quiet call, so I try again, louder.
“We’re here to help.”
A whimper comes from a shadowy corner of one yard and I run over. It’s a kid, a little boy who looks around five or six, and he’s sitting underneath a window planter with his back against the brick. He pulls his shoulders in and hunches down, shrinking away from me with his head bowed and one arm cradled against his body.
I crouch down. “Hey there. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“That’s what they said too,” he whispers as he looks up at me. Behind the shaggy brown hair hanging over his face, two eyes shine back at me—deep brown eyes with a silver starburst in the center. I don’t bother to cover the gasp that comes out of my mouth. At my reaction, he curls even further into himself and begins to shake, rocking slightly back and forth.
NOT ONLY AM I completely thrown by what can only be E’rikon eyes on this otherwise human-looking child, I also have zero experience with children in general. Am I supposed to reach out to him? Comfort him? I smile nervously, but since he’s not even looking at me anymore, there’s no way he can see it. I scoot forward, reaching one hand out to… pat him on the head or something. But as soon as I touch him, he jerks away, and so do I, awkwardly falling back and landing on my butt.
Okay, so maybe I’m more scared of him than he is of me. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? I chuckle softly at the ridiculousness of it all and try for another smile. “Look, kid, I—”
A flash of movement in the corner of my eye has me pulling my knife, rising to my feet, and dropping into a protective stance in front of the kid before I can finish my second half-baked attempt at reassurance. But it’s only Stu, and my white-knuckled grip loosens.
Stu narrows his eyes and glances back and forth between me and the kid. I take a step to the side, hiding the child from his view until I can be sure how he’ll react to the child’s… heritage.
“What are you doing?” Stu asks.
I avert my eyes and shrug. “I have no clue. I don’t really know much about kids.”
He snorts and crouches down in front of the boy. “Hey little man. My friend and I just want to help. What’s your name?”
While my mind reels over Stu calling me a friend, I notice the boy perk up a little.
“Ethan,” he says in a soft voice. He sniffles and his eyes dart up for a moment. “What’s yours?”
“Well, my name’s Stu, and this is Jax.” He jerks his thumb in my direction and uses an exaggerated whisper for his next words, as if he’s telling the boy a secret. “Girls are weird, huh?”
Ethan giggles and nods, finally raising his head long enough to meet Stu’s eyes. If Stu notices anything off about the kid, he doesn’t mention it. For that I’m incredibly grateful. I’m not sure what the kid’s story is, but if Stu had reacted with anything other than
open acceptance… well, I don’t know what I would have done, but my renewed grip on the knife leads me to believe it wouldn’t have been very nice.
Stu moves closer to the boy and rests his hands on his knees with his palms up. His voice is slow and soothing. “It looks like that arm’s hurting. Can I see it?”
Ethan shakes his head quickly and pulls his arm closer to his side.
Inching forward a bit more, Stu reaches one hand out and wiggles his fingers in Ethan’s face. “Can you do this?”
Ethan nods and copies the movement.
“What about this?” Stu waves his arm back and forth at the elbow.
When Ethan mimics that movement too, though in a much smaller way, Stu raises his arm straight up over his head. “And this?”
The boy lifts his arm slightly, then flinches and shakes his head.
Stu raises his hands up and wiggles his fingers again. “I’m going to touch your shoulder to see if I can tell what’s wrong, okay?”
His eyes glued to Stu, Ethan nods.
Stu’s fingers wrap around the top of Ethan’s shoulder and press gently. A tiny whimper makes its way past Ethan’s lips, and Stu pulls his hand back and turns to me. “I don’t think anything’s broken, but it’s probably dislocated.”
My response is stuck in my throat. Seeing Stu with this little boy, hearing the soft and caring tone of voice, watching the gentle movements… it’s like a punch in the stomach. Lenny clearly wasn’t much of a father, so Stu must have taken care of his younger brother. I cough past the guilt and nod. “So what do we do?”
He presses his lips together and slides his eyes to the side nervously. “We need to get it back into joint. It’s already swelling, and the longer we let it go, the harder it will be to get back in.”
“How—?”
