The Corded Saga

by Alyssa Rose Ivy

  Darla cleared her throat. “I will show you to the bath wing.”

  “The bath wing?” Bolton quirked a brow.

  “Yes.” Darla used a match to light a tall white candle. “You are all filthy.”

  “We aren’t filthy.” Quinn bristled.

  “You are.” Darla wrinkled her nose. “Horribly filthy.”

  “Fine. We are.” Quinn rounded her shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean we are going to take baths.”

  “Why not? Do you enjoy being dirty?” Darla moved the candle from one hand to the other.

  “You must understand how stressful this is for us. How much we have been through.” I tried to keep my voice calm even though I was feeling anything but.

  “And what does that have to do with hygiene?” Darla’s small eyes zeroed in on me.

  “It means we are hesitant and being careful.” Hopefully that was enough of an explanation without outright admitting we were suspicious.

  “I’d be more concerned of the diseases you may have been exposed to. Or the hypothermia you would have had if we hadn’t found you in time.”

  “We are worried about everything.” Maverick moved closer to Quinn. “Everything.”

  “You can worry about everything after you are properly bathed.” She turned and started down a hallway.

  “Do we follow?” Quinn whispered.

  “Yes, you follow,” Darla called over her shoulder. The woman had incredible hearing.

  Faith held onto me tightly. Was she fearful too? Did she know more than she was letting on? And how had she known about the water? Of course, it could have been a lucky guess, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like she really knew. And we’d trusted her. That was just as significant. None of us had doubted her intuition.

  We followed Darla down the hallway and then turned down another one. These hallways were darker than the entryway as the sconces here were spaced much farther apart.

  Darla stopped short in front of a nondescript door. “This is the space for the women. I will show the men to their space next.”

  “We have to use separate bathing facilities?” Maverick put a hand on Quinn’s arm. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Of course, you do.” Darla frowned. “I don’t know where you were living before, but we have rules here.”

  “I am sure we can find a way to give each other privacy inside.” It was becoming harder and harder to keep my anger and annoyance in check.

  “Rules are rules. We believe in common decency here.” Darla wagged a finger at us.

  “And common decency would be to let us stay together. After everything we’d been through, we’d prefer not to separate.” Prefer wasn’t exactly the right word, but I was still determined to be polite.

  “Women and girls in this one.” Darla tapped the toe of her shoe on the worn tile floor. The grout was long gone, leaving holes between the tiles.

  “And how far away are the men’s facilities?” I asked.

  “Down that hallway.” Darla pointed into the dark. “Not far.”

  “Then maybe they can wait for us outside. Or we can wait for them first since they are bound to be faster.”

  “Both great suggestions.” Quinn nodded.

  “Ridiculous. At this hour of the night? Those children should be in bed.” She frowned again. This time it reached her forehead.

  “Yet you are making us shower first?”

  “They can’t go to bed filthy.” Darla sighed. “It is like talking to a wall with your lot.”

  “You are trying to separate us.” And the reason for that couldn’t be good. Everything about the situation was bad, but it was only going to get worse if we separated. “That’s not going to work.”

  “You have no choice. You are our guests here.”

  “So, treat us like guests. Shouldn’t it be our choice?” Bolton adjusted his pack.

  “Guests need to follow the rules of the place they are,” Darla continued on as if Bolton hadn’t said anything.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew I didn’t want our group to separate, but I wasn’t sure what this Darla was capable of if she got really angry. I wasn’t worried about my safety, but we had Faith and Bailey to worry about. If they tried to separate us from the girls it would be a whole new calculation.

  “There is no reason we can’t wait outside.” Bolton tried a different approach. “Go ahead, we will be right here.” Bolton gestured to the door.

  “No, you won’t.” Darla shook her head. “You are wasting time.”

  “Why are you so keen on separating us?” I asked. “Or do you not know? Do your superiors tell you anything?”

  “I have no superiors.” She raised her chin.

  “Everyone has a superior.” Bolton murmured. “Even if you don’t realize it.”

  “Not here.”

  “Oh? There are no leaders here?” Quinn rolled her eyes. Even in the dark, it was possible to read her expressions.

  “No. None. The Glen is different. Completely different.”

  “As we keep hearing.” And I was getting tired of hearing it because the words meant nothing.

  “Have a little trust.” Darla took a step toward us.

  “Trust isn’t something we will have ever.” In our world, it was one of the most dangerous things to have.

  “It is your children that won’t get to sleep if you keep putting this off.”

  “And they are our concern.” Quinn put a hand to her chest. “Not yours.”

  “Why would we hurt you?” Darla rubbed her temple.

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  That was the real question after all. I’d seen enough in my life to know it didn’t take much to push someone toward causing harm to another.

  “You and your children are precious.” Darla’s voice lilted.

  “Then why are you trying to separate our family?” I threw back.

  “Are you truly families?” She inclined her head to the side.

  “We are all one big family.” Quinn put her hand over mine. “We will not be separated.”

  “Fine.” Darla wrung her free hand. “By all means. Violate our rules. But know for all actions in life that defy the rules, there are consequences.”

  “And staying together as a family is the most important priority,” Bolton added.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have used the term family, but it had the result I’d intended. Thankfully everyone else went along with it. I only hoped I hadn’t unintentionally put ideas in Bolton’s head. Not that it mattered. Survival was far more important than any of our feelings. Still, I felt a nudge of unease and guilt.

  I faced the door and pushed it open, part of me prepared for it to be something other than a bathing chamber. Something sinister. For all we knew the Glen was part of Central, and I knew Central was capable of horrible things.

  I looked around. At least it looked like a bathing chamber at first glance. It was almost entirely white. White walls. White tile. White baths and sinks. White towels were piled on one counter. The only deviation from the white was the pile of grey clothing on the far side of the counter.

  “I have no interest in bathing.” Quinn closed the door behind her. “Not that I don’t want to be clean, but I don’t want to be that vulnerable here.”

  “I feel the same way.” I wasn’t going to pretend to be fearless. That would do more harm than good. “Trust me.”

  “Let me check things out.” Bolton walked over to one of the sinks and turned on the tap. Clear water ran out. “Well, I don’t think it’s poison. At least not of the ordinary variety.”

  “Poison?” Quinn gasped. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

  “I had.” I’d thought of many horrible possibilities. Yet I was still there in the washroom. Life had become a series of choices. Each worse than the previous one.

  I eyed the tubs and then looked back at the others. “I say we use the sinks. No reason to chance anything that leaves us more vulnerable.”

  “And are w
e changing?” Quinn pointed to the pile of grey clothing.

  “Only what is too wet and dirty to salvage.” I don’t know why I was making the decisions. No one had actually put me in charge, but it came naturally enough. And someone had to make the decisions.

  We got to work cleaning. Starting with the girls. They were both exhausted. Faith was sound asleep nearly the entire time.

  Twenty minutes later we were ready to go. We stepped back out into the hallway. Darla was waiting there with a tall, bald man carrying a metal lantern. The outside of the lantern was etched with pictures of animals, so that as the light emulated out, it created images on the walls.

  Darla eyed us. “You haven’t fully changed.”

  “We changed what we needed to.” Was she really going to pull a fight about this? Couldn’t she make anything easy?

  “We do not want you bringing contaminants into the guest rooms.”

  “Contaminates?” Bolton bristled.

  “You were in dirty water.”

  “I think you are being a bit overly worried.” Quinn’s words may have been polite, but her tone was bordering on angry.

  “The Glen is a haven. We can’t allow germs to ruin that.” Darla blew out her candle, leaving us with just the eerie shadows and the few sconces further down the hall.

  “What about any potential germs that we are carrying in our bodies? Ever think of that?” Bolton angled himself so he was partially blocking Faith and me.

  “Why do you think you are quarantined to the guest house?” Darla snapped.

  “Then what do our clothes matter?” Did she realize she was talking in circles? It was getting later and later, and I was exhausted. I didn’t mind holding Faith, but when she slept she was like dead weight in my arms.

  “I see you have no respect for rules. That will have to change.” Darla straightened up.

  “We have no plans to remain here long.” I met her eyes. “None at all.”

  “Sometimes plans change.” She turned on her heel and started down the hall.

  The man pointed at us and then at her. He said nothing.

  We all exchanged glances. We would be leaving as soon as we possibly could.

  Mason

  The children spilled out from everywhere. Maybe a dozen. Maybe a dozen and a third. It was hard to tell because the shock of seeing them set me off balance. Children had become such a rarity that seeing even a few of them together seemed unnatural somehow. Like they were a mirage.

  “Look at them,” Addison spoke under her breath. “How are there so many? They did find a cure.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.” Denver wasn’t the only clone out there. Technically that might be what they were. But they were children, and we had to find out more.

  “Well, no matter what we have to engage them. Find out who they are.” Addison’s eyes were wide. “There has got to be some explanation.”

  “That’s why we’re here.” Benji adjusted his gear belt. “To find out. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t have our guns out.” Addison clasped her hands together in front of her. “Even without them out I think we scared them.”

  “We can’t train our guns on kids, no matter who they are.” Isin looked around at our group, as if making sure we all agreed.

  We each nodded. No matter how awful things were, we needed to hold onto a semblance of a moral code. Kids, clones or not, were innocents.

  We continued toward the kids. Slower now. Without asking, I knew I wasn’t the only one trying to process what we were seeing. How did this fit with all the dead bodies we had seen? Why were the kids living in the middle of the desert? The questions were endless.

  The kids for their part just stared at us, as though they’d never seen anything like us before. Or maybe it was just Addison. But if they existed there had to be women. Unless I was right and these were more clones.

  We were within a few feet of them. It was immediately apparent that these children were wearing rags for clothing, as if they were poor and had nothing. Dirt clung to their clothing and skin. It looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks or even longer.

  “Where are your parents?” Addison asked, still using a soft voice. “Or other adults?”

  The kids said nothing. They only stared.

  “Aren’t there any adults here?” I asked, trying to model my voice on Addison—I didn’t want to scare them any more than they already were.

  The first boy nodded. “There was one.”

  Was? As in past tense?

  “Can we see him?” Thomas stepped forward in front of the rest of us.

  The boy shook his head. “He isn’t here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He left and never came back.”

  “How long ago was that?” Addison asked.

  “A long time.”

  “And you have been here all alone since?” Addison’s voice cracked.

  “Together.” He nodded and stretched out his arms to refer to the other kids.

  “Do you live in there?” I pointed to the thatched roof building.

  He nodded. “Yes. And others like it.”

  “Okay.” I thought fast. Finding a colony of unsupervised children had been the farthest thing from my expectations when we climbed over the wall. “May we come inside? We have been traveling for a long time.”

  “Do you have food? Water?” The boy asked. So far he was the only one who spoke.

  “These poor children.” Addison froze beside me.

  “We can’t leave them here. That is clear.” Benji pulled out a canteen and walked toward the spokesman. “We have some water and food. And we can find more.”

  The boy nodded again.

  Benji held out his canteen. The boy stared at it for a moment before he took it. I waited for him to take a sip, but he didn’t. Instead, he walked over to the smallest of the children, a boy that looked barely old enough to be walking. The first boy placed the canteen in the young boy’s hands and helped him drink.

  Something broke in me. Or maybe something was born. Here was a kid left to die in the desert. He was finally given water and instead of keeping it for himself he gave it to the youngest of his group. I’d never seen such selfless behavior before. Well, besides Kayla sacrificing her freedom for her sister, but my guess was these boys weren’t related. This wasn’t about familial bonds. It was something else entirely.

  We all pulled out our canteens and started to distribute. It was risky. We might run out of water before we could make it a new water source. These children might be sick, and we might be opening ourselves up to disease. But none of that mattered.

  “Come.” The boy gestured for us to head to the thatched building. I exchanged glances with Thomas. He nodded. We headed toward the building.

  He pushed open the door, and we stepped inside.

  The one large room was filthy. Scraps of clothing and what was probably once food riddled the floor. There were a few large pillows on the floor and a table top without legs, but otherwise there was no furniture.

  “These children are living this way?” Addison walked further into the room. “This is horrible. I thought kids had it bad back home.”

  “Where did the man go?” I turned back to the original boy. “Why did he leave?”

  “What’s your name?” Addison asked him. It was the question we probably should have asked in the beginning, but we’d all been in such a state of shock.

  “Name?” The boy narrowed his eyes.

  “What are you called?” I tried to explain in a different way.

  The boy shrugged.

  “What about you?” Addison walked up to a young girl. “What is your name?”

  The girl took several large steps away from her.

  “Do any of you have names?” Thomas asked. “How do you refer to each other?”

  The kids exchanged looks but said nothing.

  “They live out here alone in squalor and have no names. This is getti
ng weirder and weirder.”

  “No kidding.” Benji flipped through some of the mess on the ground. “There has to be more to this place.”

  We walked to the back of the room and saw nothing else. I turned back to the original boy. “Where are the other buildings?”

  He nodded. “Come.” He ran outside. I followed behind, assuming the others would follow.

  He led the way across the sand before coming to a stop in front of a building that looked entirely different from the first. It was made of stone. He pointed to the door. “Open.”

  “Okay.” I met Thomas’s eye before I pulled on the door handle.

  The door didn’t budge. I pulled on it harder, and this time the door nudged slightly. I tried it even harder, this time it moved enough for me to get a look inside.

  “A lab.” I slipped my hands between the door and the frame and pried it open.

  “Not just any lab.” Benji moved next to me.

  “This is Central’s work.”

  “Central? What are they doing on this side of the wall?” Addison asked. “It makes no sense. Why have a wall at all?”

  “One of these days we’re going to stop expecting anything to make sense.” Thomas pushed passed us and entered the room.

  Maverick

  We were in danger. There was no question about that. And that meant I’d failed somehow. I’d failed to protect the woman I loved. I’d also broken my promise to Mason. For the second part, I was doubtful he’d ever know, but the guilt was still there. Promises were still promises even if the person you made them to was dead.

  I had to find a way to get us all out of the Glen and to a safer place. If a safer place even existed. As hard as I tried to hold onto hope, it was slipping away as the days ticked by. I was beginning to wonder if our entire lives would be spent on the run. But I knew those thoughts wouldn’t help us. I needed to stay strong and alert.

  “We will be sleeping in one room.” I didn’t blink as I stared down Darla. “I don’t care what excuses you give.”

  “Is it impossible for you to have some trust?” The woman’s face was stern, and heavy bags hung below her eyes.