The Aftermath

by Jen Alexander

  I want to hit Declan.

  A tingling sensation races through my head, from the center to my forehead. It’s been so long since Olivia’s actually managed to power me down that I’ve forgotten what it feels like. It’s not at all pleasant. My head jars forward, then back, like a rag doll. One moment I see Declan’s face and the next I see other faces—Dr. Coleman, the man with the moon-shaped scar, the group of men and women in suits from one of my first memories, the faces of people my hands are responsible for killing in the game. I press my fingertips to my temples, but it does nothing to stop the pain. “We should keep moving,” I pant.

  If I don’t walk away, I will hit Declan. And Olivia has nothing to do with my urge to do it.

  A strange sound hitches in his throat. He shakes his head. “Definitely not. Not until we—”

  I shove my sweaty palms into his chest. He staggers back. Stares at me with wide incredulous eyes as I scoop my bag off the ground and stalk past him toward the house. Every step makes me feel as if my brain is on the verge of blowing up. I have to pause several times to gather my bearings.

  “Wesley, Mia, we’re going!” I shout, glaring at them through squinted eyes.

  They’re sitting on a brown floral-patterned couch in the den. Both are holding CDS packages but neither has opened theirs. “Didn’t you hear me?” I ask. “We’re leaving.”

  Mia wrinkles her nose at me and stands up. She puts her food into the pocket of her shorts before walking silently past me and out the front door.

  Wesley gets up, too, and gestures toward the doorway with his chin. Declan is leaning against it, his face contorted and fists clenched. “Wouldn’t you rather resolve your issues with him first?” Wesley asks, concerned.

  I take a deep breath, and then I turn with my arms outstretched. Like I’m inviting Declan to take a shot at me. “Sure, why not.” I hand my gun to Wesley, glaring at Declan all the while. “But just so you know, there’s a psychotic gamer trying to get into my head at this very moment, and she’s really, really pissed off.” My words are slurred because the static current is creeping down my face. Declan takes a step closer when I drag my hands through my hair, screaming, but I back away from him.

  “Don’t touch me,” I growl.

  A muscle twitches in Declan’s jaw. He comes over anyway. He waves his fingers toward the door and Wesley leaves, glancing at me over his shoulder as he steps into the sunlight.

  This time, I call him the word that’s on my mind. “Coward.”

  Flesh-eating, overly friendly coward.

  “We’re alone now. So come on, moderator—I want to hear what you have to say.”

  “You didn’t have to lie to me,” Declan says.

  I shake my head, trying to let his words settle. They don’t. “You’re such a hypocrite. You knew who I was the moment you saw me. You evade the truth for weeks to get my help—you use me—and now you’re angry with me for keeping this from you.”

  He swallows hard. “What do you mean I knew who you were?”

  “I remember what happened back in the courthouse. I know you’re the one who hit me, who made it possible for me to be like this.”

  His expression hardens. “I was trying to hit the boy. Ethan. I was looking for my brother, and I thought you were flesh-eaters.” There’s something different about his voice when he says this—something that I can’t quite pinpoint—and I hug myself tightly.

  “Then why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Look, I—” But then he stops and shakes his head. “Claudia, there’s a lot that I haven’t been able to tell you... I hope you can understand.”

  He’s looking at me so intently, and I know he’s about to say something important. But the buzzing is back, starting in my skull and seeping down my spine. My hearing goes hazy, and my vision, too. I try to move my body, but I only manage to take two steps. I can’t walk or flick my hand or turn my head. I can’t do anything but stand perfectly still, with my fingers reaching out for something in front of me, and my lips parted. It’s as though someone has shoved a needle into my veins, injecting ice into my bloodstream, freezing me.

  Declan is by my side. He cups my face between his hands, says something. But I can’t hear him. All I hear is a loud hum, like flies inside my head. I stare helplessly at him. Before I go under, my hands reach for his throat and Olivia makes me say, “I’ll make you wish you were dead for betraying me.”

  * * *

  I hover somewhere between delusion and reality for a few endless moments before I’m sucked completely into the dream—one where I’m standing in the middle of a playground, the one from The Aftermath that Declan had taken me to. There’s nobody else around, and the only noise comes from the swings as the wind rattles the chains, making a sound that reminds me of chimes.

  It makes me feel cold.

  Tentatively, I sit down on one of the swings and grasp the chain with both hands. “Wake up, Virtue,” I whisper in a furious voice. “Wake up now.”

  A firm but gentle hand clamps over my shoulder. My heart feels as if it’s jumped into my throat, and I jolt up off the swing. Stumbling around, I look at the girl standing behind me.

  I’m staring at myself. The person I would be if I never entered The Aftermath. My face is filled out—there’s color in my cheeks and the dark circles that have become a permanent fixture beneath my eyes are gone. My ear is whole, too, and my hair is long and brown, just like it was when the last memory hit me while I was here. Mesmerized, I take a step forward toward myself, expecting the hallucination to disappear.

  It doesn’t.

  “Wake up now,” she orders. “You have got to wake up.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  She shakes her head in frustration. “You’re not trying anything. Get up. Break free. You’ve got to help yourself or they’ll kill you first and ask questions later.”

  “Then help me,” I plead. “You’re me— You get me out of this.”

  “This is something you have to do yourself.” There’s a strange smile on her face as she says this. “Use that anger, that violence that got you here in the first place.”

  Even though I know this is nothing but a dream, I lunge forward. “I am not violent,” I growl. I punch her as hard as I can, but my fist goes right through her body, banging into a metal post instead. Pain shoots through my arm, and I hug it to my chest.

  The corners of the other Claudia’s mouth lift up as she turns to me. “Yes, you are. We all are. So focus that energy and wake up right now.”

  “Claudia.” I hear Declan’s voice. It sounds far away and fuzzy, like a bad cell phone connection.

  The hallucination grabs my chin, turning my face to hers. “Go back now!” she snaps. “If you stay here, you won’t be able to leave and they will delete you. Is that what you want?”

  “Claudia, come back.” Declan’s voice is a fraction closer this time. A hundred miles away instead of a thousand.

  “You’re taking too long,” the other Claudia whispers. “And we’re not getting killed. Not today. I’m so sorry about this—about everything.”

  “Sorry about—” But my words are cut off when her fist slams into my head.

  Then my world goes dark.

  * * *

  I wake up on a couch with Declan hovering over me, shaking my shoulders. My breath comes rushing into me, and I gasp.

  He presses an open water bottle to my lips. I drink it greedily, choking and coughing when I squeeze the plastic too hard. “Careful,” he warns. He helps me sit up.

  My brain is blurry, as though there’s static humming through my head—in one ear and out the other.

  “I thought you were—” he swallows hard, pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a tremulous breath “—dying. You stopped breathing a few times. And you kept swinging out at nothi
ng. I didn’t know wha—”

  “A dream. A horrible dream of myself.”

  He sinks down onto his knees in front of me. Clasping my hands between his, he leans his forehead against mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I see strands of his dark hair intermingling with mine. “And what did she—or you—say to yourself?”

  “I tried to punch her.” I don’t tell him that I actually wanted to hit him for all the lies, that I was taking all that aggression out where it was safe to let my anger loose. Because I’m still angry.

  He gives my hands a tiny reassuring squeeze, and then he laughs. This is a good sound because it’s the first genuine one I’ve heard from him in a while. I feel it vibrating through my entire body. “You can’t hit what’s not there, Virtue.”

  I clench my right hand, but the pain that raced through it on the playground is gone. “Look, before we leave I want to say I’m sorry,” I say. “About before.”

  “Don’t apologize for Olivia.”

  I don’t have the energy to tell him I’m not apologizing for what Olivia said or did—I’m saying sorry for my own words and actions. So I give him a tiny ghost of a smile. He leans away from me, so that we are still eye to eye, and brushes damp strands of hair from my face.

  “We had better go,” I say.

  “Claudia.”

  “It doesn’t matter if Olivia knows. Or if she tries to get into my head every twenty minutes. I’m stronger than it—than her—I think. We can get out.” Part of me still believes this. Another part knows I’m better off staying put, saving every ounce of my strength for the fight that’s bound to happen.

  “Claudia,” he says.

  “Where are Wesley and Mia? Where’s my backpack? Where—”

  He presses his mouth to mine, drowning my words. Drowning my thoughts. Consuming me. His lips are soft, warm, but I shiver nonetheless. He moves his body close again, running his fingers up my neck and entwining them into my hair. And I decide something. I will stay in this smoldering room in this strange, uncomfortable position all day if it means he won’t let me go.

  But then there are several raps on the window, and I open my eyes. Wesley presses his face to the glass. He’s grinning, saying something, but I’m too dazed to understand. I pull away and press my back into the corner of the couch. Shift my eyes to a large rip in the fabric.

  Declan puts something heavy on my lap. My bag. “Claudia, I have to tell you something else. Something that—”

  “No,” I say. Because that something is probably just more lies. And right now I can’t take not knowing if he’s telling me the truth. I avoid his eyes. “Forget it, Declan. Let’s just do this, get out, okay?”

  “But—”

  “Just leave it alone,” I snap, and our intimate moment is gone. I stalk out of the brick house, into the open air. Declan follows, reluctantly, yelling for Wesley and Mia to join us.

  And as we walk together, away toward the hazy horizon, my anger melts away. Declan looks at me and smiles questioningly, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m smiling back. His fingertips find mine. Gentle and hesitant. And I know this is as safe as I’ll ever feel within The Aftermath—hunted by my gamer and probably by mods very soon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I don’t trust myself with Declan—hell, I still don’t trust him after all the lies he’s told me—so I break apart from him after a few minutes and walk next to Mia. Every couple hundred yards, she catches my eye and grins.

  “I’m guessing you two will continue that once we’re out?” she says, jumping up and tapping a low-hanging tree branch with the palm of her hand. “And don’t make that face. Wesley told me what he saw.”

  When I turn my head to glare at him, Wesley waves cheerfully. We’re in more danger than ever before, and they’re all grins and laughter. But I suppose it makes dealing with the threat of capture a little less crushing. I shake my head. “I doubt Declan and I will see much of one another after this.”

  He can tell me a million times that he has no plan to disappear on me within the next twenty-four hours, but I’ve prepared for the worst. Once The Aftermath is behind us, there are no promises binding him to me. And as much as I want to kiss him again, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I’m starting to think that I need to start over, away from his lies. Alone.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “Everybody needs someone. I have my brother.”

  I pick up a rock and skip it along the forest floor. My stomach churns. Sooner or later I’ll have to tell her the truth and prepare her for the worst. I feel guilty. I’ve been so angry at Declan for lying to me for so long, and I’m doing the same thing right now, to Mia.

  “Look, there’s something I have to—”

  “What the hell is that?” Wesley runs past us, maneuvering through the trees until he disappears. The rest of us race after him. I’m terrified, and my heart lodges in my throat. Twigs snag my hair and clothing and rake across bare areas of skin. At last I break through the canopy of trees with Mia close behind.

  Towering piles of rocks and stones, every texture and color, lie in front of us. “You scared me like that because you saw a rock yard?” I hiss at Wesley.

  He shrugs. Bouncing on his toes, he points behind the labyrinth of stones. “There’s a building, too. If we’re going to make it to the border before the mods start showing up, we’d better get rid of anything we don’t need.” He has a good point, but I scowl at him anyway. Declan slams his bag into his brother’s chest.

  “Don’t run off like that again.”

  “Here, take mine, too,” I say, hanging my strap on Wesley’s wrist. He frowns at us, then trudges off toward the building. Mia catches up to him and takes my backpack, slinging it onto her back. I glance over at Declan. My lips tingle when our eyes connect. “I need to...check on Olivia.”

  “I’ll wait with you... Besides, I need to talk to you.”

  But I shake my head. “Not now, Declan. This is something I have to do alone,” I say. So far I’ve done a good job keeping her out of my brain, but I don’t want to risk her taking control of me again with anybody nearby. I won’t let them jeopardize their lives for me.

  “You don’t have to face this by yourself, you know. There are people who care about you. More people than you think.”

  Hearing him say that only puts more pressure on me. It leaves me feeling weighed down, as though there are ten tons sitting atop my shoulders right now. I feel as if I’m going to be sick. “I know,” I say. “That’s why I’m asking you to leave.”

  He touches his lips to my forehead. “If you need me—”

  “I will,” I whisper.

  “Okay. But we’re going to have to talk sooner or later, Claudia.”

  I wait until he disappears inside the building to lean back against a pile of rocks and try to access Olivia’s brain. My head still hurts from the hallucination, but I manage to slip in just a bit. Even though I can’t get a clear image of what she sees, I hear snippets of conversations.

  “I can find her myself,” Olivia growls. “I don’t need your help.”

  “We’re dispatching guards to—”

  “She’s my character! I’m responsible for her!”

  I float halfway between my brain and hers, so when I hear the shuffle of footsteps, I’m not sure where it’s coming from. But then I recognize the noise—Declan’s boots. I release my grip on her mind and turn to him. “I told you—”

  But this isn’t Declan. It’s a dark-haired man who’s dressed like him. A real moderator.

  The punch to my face literally sweeps me off my feet. I fall hard, my entire backside a dartboard for the jagged gravel. Getting hit doesn’t daunt me. I’m so used to being knocked around, I don’t feel the pain. He rushes me again, but I roll over and scramble to my feet. I swoop up one of the larger r
ocks—it’s as big as my shoe—and hurl it at him. It hits him square in the forehead. Sends him collapsing into a bed of stone.

  I don’t have time to savor this small victory. Another mod with floppy blond hair comes at me, this time with a fist to my stomach. The air whooshes from my lungs. My body convulses. Dust flies into my face, sticking to my eyelashes and clogging my nostrils, and I realize I’m on the ground. Again.

  The blond man digs rough fingers into my shoulders and yanks me up into a sitting position. He shakes me back and forth until my teeth clack together violently. Maybe he’ll shake the block in my head loose. Or maybe he’ll simply kill me now. “You’ll be deleted for this,” he growls. “Probably a public deletion. And I hope I’m there when they fry your brain to ashes.”

  I bring my knee to my chest to kick him, but he slams me back, pinning my wrists to the ground. Grinning, he sits on top of my stomach. I dry heave. When I catch my breath, I rasp, “Why wait? Why not kill me now?”

  Olivia has corrupted me, made me into a stupid, reckless girl.

  He chuckles and shakes his head. “After the stunt your boyfriend pulled last year when he escaped, you really think you deserve anything but a broadcasted deletion?” He leans in close to me and adds, “Besides, there’s a bonus for whoever bags you and brings you in alive.”

  “What do you mean there’s a bonus?” My words come out choppy and hoarse.

  “Don’t play stupid. You’re a big deal to Lancaster and you know it,” he says. When I draw in a sharp breath, he presses his face so close to mine our foreheads nearly touch. “You’re sending me on vacation early this year.”

  This is not the first time that I’ve heard that I was a big deal. Hadn’t Jeremy said those exact words to April when they were talking about Olivia and me weeks ago? I swallow hard. “Why?” I demand. “I’m just a character. I’m nobody.”

  The man snorts. “Maybe you really are stupid.”

  I writhe and struggle against the blond man. He squeezes my wrists harder, digging his nails into my skin until I shriek.