“Something that apparently pisses you off.”
Gwendoline swipes the silver strands of hair from her face. “I beg your pardon?”
I breathe and put myself out there, because it’s evident, it’s her and Napoleon who are the implants she speaks of. “We all have feelings and access to feelings and emotions. It’s our responsibility to ignore them and not to put ourselves in situations where they may be employed. Our humanity wasn’t stripped of us. We were just brought up without knowledge of our feelings, conditioned to ignore them. However, when they put us in the world, and we’re exposed to displays of intimacy and affection, it would draw on anyone’s curiosity. We’d be doing ourselves a disservice to ignore that. Those who fight the hardest to ignore them are the ones who have something to hide.”
She inhales deeply and exhales slowly. “Each of us do not possess the same types of feelings.”
I lower my voice to a whisper, “Then that would imply you and your twin are implants, Gwendoline.”
She stiffens. Her gaze pins me, eyes growing wider the longer she holds her breath.
I back to the wall across from her and cross my arms. I wait.
Gwendoline stammers over her words until she whispers, “I never said that.”
“And you aren’t denying it.” I look down the empty tunnel, lit by the light from the outer area. The chatter from the entry bunker is lessening by the minute as the commotion settles. “I won’t mention it. I’m familiar with a similar situation of a girl who was born a Creation. She knew love and recently lost her twin.”
Gwendoline rolls her eyes and scoffs, “Well, she’s like Haley who has no problem with someone giving up their twin for her. She’s giving up nothing and gaining everything and doesn’t care about what Napoleon has chosen to sacrifice.” She clears her throat. “Um, not Napoleon, but whoever is her person.” Her voice cracks as she says, “Honestly, it’s not that he loves her. I’m okay with that, I think even Creations should have that privilege because we are technically humans too, just better. But it’s that I didn’t matter enough for him to love me too.”
“To love you more,” I correct her.
She looks at her palm and mutters, “Right,” and utters, “To love me more.” She brushes her palms together. “You slice it the exact way on each hand, breaking the union with your twin. Then, align the palms,” she presses her palms together, “mixing the blood and regenerative genes. And because of the healing ability, the imperfect bodies get confused and begin to bind with one another. From then on, the body is convinced the lover is the twin.” She looks back at her palm. “Napoleon’s palms will never align with mine again.”
I rub my hand over my beard, seeing distress cloud her dark eyes. “Could you not find another solo Creation and request their allegiance to you?”
Her nose wrinkles in distaste, and the words leak with disgust as she says, “Would you slice yourself open and mix your bodily fluids for someone who wasn’t your twin?”
I pull myself from the wall and turn away from her question to head back down the tunnel. “Thanks for talking to me, Gwendoline. I hope everything works out for you. And I mean that genuinely.”
“Wait.”
I pivot.
“What happened to the girl?”
I breathe. “I don’t know yet.”
Chapter Twenty-One
*Marc*
“Marc,” Sean yells for me, meeting me as I exit the tunnel.
He just makes it in before me as I say, “What?”
He tosses me a vest. “We’re loading up. Let’s go kill some Zombies.”
I pull the vest on and follow behind him.
“You’ve been quiet since we made it in here. You’re okay?” he asks.
I smack away the hand he tries to lay on my forehead. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
As Sean and I come up on Jord and Napoleon, Jord’s stuffing a roll of paper into his back pocket and shaking hands with Napoleon.
I pull Sean to slow down and say low, “They’re implants.”
Sean smacks his lips. “Dammit. I was already growing skeptical after finding out they miraculously escaped Creations coming to kill them. If they’re that good, why are they not killers instead of the ones hunted to be killed?”
I glance over the room, checking for eyes on us. If they were fighter-made Creations, at least one would be watching, plotting. But there’s nothing. Everyone minds their own. “I don’t know, Sean. What do you think?”
“Pfft. We use your knowledge, not mine.” He jabs his finger against my temple. “I am for whatever you want to do as long as it’s not finding Kylie and saving her from the Guidance because you think they’re going to kill her. Anything but that, and I got you.”
I press my lips into a line and look at him with lifted brows. “You know me so well.” I pat his back and continue toward General Jord.
“Marc!” Sean’s right behind me. “I’m not helping you find Kylie. You’re not leaving me in the world defenseless. It’s not right. I’m supposed to come first, and you’ve proven a few too many times that I don’t. I don’t trust you anymore.”
He’s quiet enough to not be heard by anyone, but that’s not my concern. I grab him by the back of his head and look him in his eyes. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. Know that you’ll come first after we find Ky.” I pat the side of his head and let him go. “I’ll make it work.”
“Hey.” Sean grabs my shoulder and pulls me back. “If I have an inkling of doubt, I’ll kill her, Marcain. Seriously.” He passes me and walks over to the general.
I cover the impact of his verbal blow with a cough. There’s no doubt that he means it. And I don’t have a solid plan as to what I’d do if the worst was to come. But I’ll have it figured out by then. First thing I need to do is know that she’s okay. Even if she still chooses to not leave with me, she at least needs to know what we found out.
I don’t know how she did it, but she made me care about her in a way I’ve cared for no one, not even myself. She made me look forward to her blue eyes. To her nose twitching when she gets emotional. To the way she softens her voice when we’re alone and curves her body against mine when we’re close. I don’t know how she did it, but she’s made me love her.
I pull the hood over my head and meet the group at the table they stand over. “I’m going after Ky,” I say.
Seits says, “I’ll go with you. She’s in danger.”
I nod.
“If your friend is with the Guidance, she’s probably already dead. No one needs to put their lives on the line to try and save her.” Napoleon grabs my shoulder with a firm hand, a sympathetic condolence he can save for someone else. “She’s already gone. Let’s strategize a way to get you all home.”
I smack his hand from my shoulder. I’d warned him once not to touch me. “The next time. You’ll lose the arm.”
Seits speaks over me. “Ky is too strong to walk into a trap. You all figure out a plan to get us home. Marc and I will go above ground and check things out.” She meets my gaze. “We’ll go back for Ky.”
I give her a nod. “Sean,” I press my fist against his shoulder, “don’t do anything stupid.”
“Marc, you don’t do anything stupid. I mean it.” He grabs me by the back of my neck and presses his forehead to mine. “Don’t die while you’re out there doing something stupid. And please,” his eyes close as he pleads, “think of me before you think of her.” He meets my eyes. “Swear it.”
“I got you, brother.”
He backs away from me and throws a hard punch in my chest. “You better.”
I always beg Sean to grow up and take things a little more seriously. But when his plastered-on smirk disintegrates and his excited brows relax, I want to take those words back. His eyes narrow untrustingly as he stares me down, jaw clenched.
He doesn’t believe me.
I look away from him. “You couldn’t be clearer, Sean.”
“Don’t lie to me, Marc.”
My gaze
sweeps across the multiple eyes pinned on our exchange. “You want to talk to me; we’ll talk somewhere else.” Every word incriminates us. He doesn’t know yet that these Creations down here murder each other for things we ignored back in Desert Hills. While they’re right to do so, if someone lifts a gun to me, we’ll be having our own war beneath Highrum.
“No. We don’t have anything to talk about. I’ve said it.”
“Fine. Let’s head out, Seits.”
Napoleon digs around in a bag on the floor. “Take these.” He stands and hands us two communication earpieces. “Let us know what you find. And be careful of Fourth-Generation Creations. We’ve not yet seen them, but we hear they’re deceptive and callous.”
Seits and I take one earpiece each and stuff them into our right ear. With a single tap, it activates. There’s a second of static and then silence.
“We will. Thank you,” Seits says. “We’ll be in touch. If you don’t hear from us or we don’t come back, leave without us,” she says to Jord and Sean.
We head for the exit.
“Marc?” Sean calls.
I look over my shoulder.
“Come back.”
Seits and I ascend a sewer ladder; she’s in front of me as we climb. She reaches the top and ducks, waving for me to stop. I halt. She peeks over the cement edge that leads to a landing from the sewer to higher ground and ducks again.
She looks down at me, confusion drawing her brows inward as she chews on her bottom lip. She looks back over the edge and then to me once more. “How long would you say we were down there?”
“A few hours by my watch,” I say.
She shakes her head. “By the way it looks up here, it’s been days.” She snorts, “A year. You hear that, right?”
I take a moment to listen to the echoes. “Nothing but screams. Zombie snarls.” I shrug.
Seits looks back over the edge and quickly ducks back down. “They’re live up there. They’re everywhere, running around like mad dogs. What’d they call them, those Creations turned walking dead? They’re up there, chasing down the humans. The regular Zombies are latching onto their kills.”
The X-Gen Zombies. Those things are wicked, and our bullets will do nothing against them. “We can’t stay hanging on to this ladder. Let’s get up there and make a run for it.” We maneuver around so I can replace her. “We’ll find somewhere safe to scope out the area…” Shit. I peer over the edge. The Zombies claw and eat at people. Fear has those who’re able to flee from their grasps blindly running into the fire that’s rapidly consuming the city. The humans and Creations who’ve been attacked rise, and the Zombies numbers grow quickly. They search the grounds for more to eat.
I continue to scan our surroundings, searching for somewhere we can go to get out of sight. I whisper to Seits, “We have a building to our left, there’s a door we can probably get in to. Across the street, which is out of the question unless you want to charge through the flames, there’s a tall building with a flight of stairs leading to entry doors. On our right, there’s a herd blocking everything.” Down the sewer tunnel is a flight of stairs that looks to lead to upper ground judging by the soft beam of light resonating above it. “Let’s go check that out. See if we can sit there for a bit, give it ten minutes.” I gesture to the stairs. “We’ll at least get off the ladder.”
We climb down and hustle to the stairs. Side by side, we stay low and peer over the top step. “We’ve got enough ammunition to get us to our next stop, but my concern is getting us to the final destination,” Seits says.
“Maybe there are more Creations like this group. Maybe there are more of these underground safe havens.”
Seits looks around, and something catches her attention, causing her eyes to widen. “Maybe not.” She points to our left. “Look. You think that’s the Fourth-Generation Creations Napoleon referred to?”
I hear the marching before I can make out the Creations approaching through the thick smoke from the fire. “Wait.” I squint. Four-foot-five, dressed in black armor suits carrying M4 carbines, are children no older than ten years of age, trudging down the streets. “What the hell?”
The Zombies head for them, running and plodding across the ground. The children lift their weapons and fire. Body shots. The Zombies plow through their rounds, making it to the children and biting at whatever flesh they can stick their teeth into. The children continue to shoot, but after being attacked, they don’t turn. Eventually, they fall, dead. And even after death, they still don’t turn.
Gunshots sound in the distance, attracting the herd of Zombies.
We wait for them to pass. When only a few linger, we climb the stairs to the upper ground and take them out. “Let’s go check this out,” I say, heading for the fallen children.
They marched the ground in line formation, ten to a line, five to a row.
“They’ve forced children into the war?” Seits asks. “They couldn’t wait for them to grow up?”
“Maybe they didn’t have the time. Everything happened too fast.” I glance over the fifty boys and girls, finding one on the brink of death. Black hair hides her blood-smeared face. I squat down beside her and drag my index finger across her forehead, swiping the strands away. Pink flexion embellishments dress her face, dimly flickering with every breath she takes. “They’re not just children.” The girl’s lids drag open. Her eyes beam a tense green.
“They…” she stammers. “They said it wouldn’t hurt.” She grabs my ankle tightly and tears pool in her eyes. “He said we would be okay, and there would be time to swing at the playground when we returned.” The girl belts out a cry. “I don’t think we’re going to make it back. It hurts. It hurts so badly.”
“Shhh,” I soothe, sitting beside her. I lift her upper body onto my lap. “Who told you these things?”
“The man. The Guidance leaders.” She meets my eyes. “You’re like me?” Her arm struggles to lift, but she gets it up and runs her finger along my embellishment on my neck.
I nod.
“Does it hurt you too?” She gestures to the glowing embellishments in her palm.
I knit my brows and turn down the corners of my mouth. I assumed she was talking about the bite and scratch wounds in her neck, shoulder, and arms. “No. They don’t hurt.” I want to ask her why she thinks they would, and why hers hurt, but she cries, wailing as a child would while in pain. “Shh,” I say to hush her cries. I brush her forehead gently.
“You’ll make it stop? Please?”
I nod and draw my gun, placing the barrel an inch behind her head. The sound of the gunshot swallows the silence. She goes limp in my arms. I lay her back on the ground and look over the others. “None of them look alike.”
“I’ve noticed,” Seits says, nudging a boy with her foot. “His palms are green.”
I scan the bodies’ hands seeing they all have colored palms that match their embellishments. “Yeah. These would have to be the Fourth-Generation Creations. But whatever happened to the third generation?”
Seits shrugs. “Let’s get out of the open. If Napoleon was right, we have targets on our backs.”
“Sure.” I climb to my feet and dust my hands off on my pants. “Watch out and move slow. We’re in uncharted waters.”
We head toward the fire, in the opposite direction of the herd. Low grumbles and movement start behind us. I ease a glance over my shoulder, spotting the children rising, jerking movements working their bodies from the ground. They snarl at our backs.
“Shit!” I whip around, gun aimed.
Seits says, “I know why they made them children.”
“Don’t think about it. Just get it over with.”
Zombie-turned, the children snap their teeth and charge for us. We take out the first line, but the second they drop, they’re back on their feet.
“Fuck it.” I whip around. “Let’s make a run for it.”
We book it toward the fire, hurdling over the flames. We make it out, escaping the kids and the growing
blaze. Behind us, through the flickering fire, we spot the children stop abruptly. They snap their heels together and take on a human facade as they march away. As though the entire event never happened.
The earpiece statics as we hunch over to catch our breath. General Jord comes in, “What’s going on up there?”
Seits raises her hand to her ear. “Some weird shit, brother.”
The ventilation system of an oncoming disposal truck draws my attention to a nearby street. Marching beside the truck are more child-Creations. They heave dead bodies onto the truck and the truck burns the remains. It’s not until I notice the truck, do I catch the stench of burning flesh tainting the air.
“Spotter! Spotter!” A child sitting on the roof of the truck yells. He stands to his feet, pointing in our direction. “Spotter. Spotters,” he shouts.
The others join in unison and charge for us.
I grab Seits by the arm and pull her with me as I flee. We escape down a street that leads to a highway underpass that’s blocked by a line of Creations. We slide to a stop and hurry to a nearby building to duck behind it for protection. The thundering patter of rushing steps is coming for us and will likely soon draw the attention of the others.
“We’re going to have to fight our way out of this, General Seits,” I say, shoving my mag holding two rounds back into the gun. Thankfully, my second handgun is still full.
She looks over her two empty guns. “Yeah…Okay.”
General Jord comes in again, “Hey! What’s going on?”
Seits hurries to explain, “They’ve sent out children Creations. They’re like miniature Creation cyborgs or something.”
“Psst.” The door beside me cracks open. A hand the color of caramel with nails painted pink sticks out of it and waves me toward it. “Here.”
Seits heads in first. I shake my head, removing my second gun from the holster, and head in behind her.
It’s pitch black.
I can hear the story now, Sean pissed off, telling it to someone: “Marc’s dumbass blindly followed Seits’s even dumber ass into a building they didn’t even check first. They’re dead now, and the one thing I asked him to do was to not die. If he’s not saving my life, he’s letting me down. Stupid bastard.”
Ominous Order Page 17
