by J B Cantwell
But I got up again and ran anyway. Thirty yards in another direction. I fired until my clip was empty.
I was broken. A killer.
Time passed. I stared around the clearing I had run into, and it all seemed to blur together in a swirl of green.
Then there was someone there, a boy, maybe eighteen, had moved out from behind the trees. I scrambled backward. He approached me, hands up. Those other shots had been random; I had just hoped to hit someone. Or nothing. But here before me stood another human. Face, eyes, soul. Would I shoot this one, too?
I removed my camouflage and faced him. I didn’t intend to drop my gun, but it was falling out of my hands like it was slicked with oil. It clattered at my feet, and I found myself standing there, covered in Avery’s blood, weaponry strapped all over my body. But I couldn’t use it. I could barely stand up straight.
“I don’t want to do this,” I said.
The boy had deep green eyes, made more intense by the green forest around us.
He lowered his hands.
Then I felt two things in rapid succession.
A blow to the head, the right side, knocking me to the ground. Sparkles covered my vision, and I saw two faces, contorted by the injury to my head, staring at me.
One, the boy with the green eyes, held a peculiar looking instrument. The other one, a much older man, pinned me down into the dirt by the shoulders. All I could register about him was his long, gray beard.
The boy set his instrument over the chip on the side of my head, and suddenly I knew what he intended to do.
“No!” I mumbled.
And then pain. Pain like I had never felt before, not even when my leg had broken as a child. It radiated from the spot where the chip had been, snaking out into the rest of my brain like an electric charge running through a spider’s web.
I writhed beneath the hands of the older man.
“Almost there,” said green-eyes.
Finally, with a small pop, the greatest of the pain subsided.
My lens was gone. Details about the world around me disappeared.
I wanted to think about what had happened. It seemed there were so many implications. But the blackness closing around my eyes would not allow rational thought. As I lost consciousness, it occurred to me that I was going to die right now, that I would never wake up again.
They would kill me.
His face above mine, those green eyes. Deep dark black came from every side, until I fell, finally, unconscious.
Chapter Six
All was dark.
“What should we do with her?” a boy asked.
“We can’t send her back,” a woman said. “She knows too much already.”
“She wasn’t with her team,” the boy said. “She was off on her own. She seemed to be having some sort of breakdown.”
“There’s a great reason to get rid of her,” a gruff voice said.
“Get rid of her how?” the woman asked. “Kill her?”
A moment passed.
“She would’ve killed us back there if we had been in the way.”
“Yeah,” said the boy. “But she wasn’t really firing at anything. That’s the thing. She was just spinning around in circles, emptying her clip into the trees.”
The crackling of a fire.
“I say we talk to her before we do anything,” said the woman. “She could have all kinds of information she could give us, sane or not.”
“That’s a mistake,” the man said.
“How?” she asked. “We’ve stripped her of her weapons. She can’t hurt us. The most she can do is run away.”
“And tell her people what, exactly?” he said.
“She won’t tell people about this,” the boy argued.
“You don’t think they’ll notice she’s lost her chip?” the man said. “That’s the first thing they’ll look for. If she goes walking into camp without one, they’ll probably think she’s one of us and kill her on the spot. Either that or they’ll assume she’s already dead.”
Pain. Throbbing, miserable pain.
I started panting now that I could feel again.
My head throbbed all over. Where I’d been hit, an enormous lump had formed. I was propped up in such a way that the lump didn’t touch anything, and instead was cradled, though it seemed to make no difference in the pain.
The pain from the chip removal was different. Like a thousand tiny electric shocks going off unpredictably. Again and again.
I started to cry.
Alex, gone back to base, hurt. Maybe they would find him unsalvageable.
Avery, gone, her blood all over my face and clothes, now dried and sticky.
My team, gone. Or left behind. They would never come after me. Not on purpose. Not to get me back.
Hot tears ran down the sides of my cheeks. A tiny hiss of a whimper came out of my mouth, not a cry of pain, but a long, breathless sob.
“Hey,” said the boy. “I think she’s waking up.”
The woman was closest to me.
“It’s okay,” she said. She drew out a damp cloth and started to wipe the tears and blood from my face.
My breath refused to return to normal. With each sob my head throbbed harder, and I felt myself getting hysterical. I tried to prop myself up on my elbows, but my body shook with the effort. I fell back down onto the ground, hitting my head anew and howling with pain.
“Do you have anything you can give her?” the man asked. His voice sounded muted, like it was coming from far away.
My sobs continued, but as they did, all grew quiet. It was as if I was holding my head underwater in a bathtub, unable to understand the conversation beyond the skin of the water.
The woman removed a little bottle from a backpack. I closed my eyes. I wanted to fight her, but I couldn’t. My lips were frozen in agony as my cries rattled my body. I don’t think I could’ve closed my mouth if I had tried.
A thick, syrupy flavor hit my tongue. I tried to spit it out, and immediately she held her hand over my mouth. When I still refused, she plugged my nose as well. Finally, I swallowed.
“She’s a pistol,” the woman said. “You might wanna be nicer to us, you know,” she said to me, “for pulling you out of the misery of your military.”
But I was distracted. The taste of the syrup was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The only thing that came close to it was the ice cream my father had once bought me in the city when I was a little girl. I remembered the melted drops running through my fingers and down to the ground.
I was so distracted by the taste now that my sobbing stopped, and the pain instantly eased.
“What— what is that?” I asked.
“Silverberry syrup,” the woman said. “It’ll help with the pain.”
The woman’s face was dimly visible in the light.
“Where did you get it?” I asked. “It must have been really expensive.”
“No, child,” she said. “Things are different up here.”
She continued to wipe my face, her towel coming away pink. It was comforting, having her there. She was taking care of me. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done something so nice as to take care of me.
“What’s your name?” the gruff man asked.
I could see him from across the fire, his beard lit up from the flames. It was the man who had held me down. The one who had hit me.
I pursed my lips and refused to answer.
And the boy. I glared at him and then crossed my arms over my chest. The gesture made me feel like a little girl.
But I couldn’t hold it for long.
“The syrup will help you sleep,” the woman said.
“I don’t think they’ll be after us again tonight,” the man said. “But if you can’t get her up and walking tomorrow, she stays behind. You got that?”
The woman and boy nodded.
A comfortable drowsiness came over me as I lay by the heat of the fire. I felt oddly refreshed after such a hard
cry. The syrup was numbing the pain in my head, and there was nothing else for me to do but fall asleep. I could barely move, and if they decided in the night to kill me, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself anyway.
Three sets of eyes watched over me. I closed mine and blocked out the world.
Chapter Seven
It was still dark when I felt tugging at my arm.
“Hey,” the boy said. “Girl. You need to get up now.”
I opened my eyes. The fire had been completely extinguished, and the three of them had packs on their backs. The old man had draped my camouflage net around his shoulders.
They had managed to take whatever fabric that had been serving as my pillow, and tiny sticks and pebbles now irritated my scalp. I pushed up on my elbows and looked around.
“Come on,” he said, urging.
He held out both hands.
I stared blankly at him.
“If you don’t come now, we have to leave you here,” the woman warned. Her voice was a touch colder now than it had been last night around the fire. Maybe she was starting to see me as a hinderance instead of an asset.
I had to make a choice. Fast. I could run away from the Service with the enemy. Or I could try to turn back now and get reinstated. If they would let me. It was entirely possible that they would send me to the Burn.
Or shoot me by accident on my way back into the camp.
But if I had information I could give them … valuable information …
I had to get back to Alex.
I took the boy’s hands and he helped me sit up. The world spun. For a moment I thought I would be sick, but it passed as I caught my breath.
“Slowly now,” he said, standing now and pulling harder.
I bent my knees and tried to help, but I was little more than a heap. Once I was up, I fell forward into him, unable to stand.
“Rebecca,” he said.
The woman sighed and came to help. They each draped one of my arms around their shoulders, and together we began our long walk through the woods.
I felt mixed up. So much had happened all at once, and I wasn’t sure what to believe or what to do next. These people were rough, that was true. But they were also nicer than I had expected any enemy to be. Isn’t it true of anyone who kills another that they become hard? Lost? Or even thirsty for more?
My face grew hot with shame as I remembered yesterday, running through the woods trying to find something, anything to kill.
Was I forever tainted now, too?
My feet touched the forest floor, but with the support of the two, they barely skimmed the surface.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I only cared because I was already tired and eager to lay down again.
“How about we start with the basics,” the woman said. “What’s your name, princess?”
I almost laughed. The world still seemed blurry. But this time I answered.
“Pink,” I answered.
“Your name is Pink?” the woman said unbelieving.
“My real name is Riley,” I said. “But when I got to training everyone just sort of picked it up and it stuck.”
“Why Pink?” the boy asked.
I sighed.
“Something to do with my hair,” I said, dodging. I might have smiled at myself, or even laughed, if my head wasn’t hurting so badly.
“So what about you?” I asked. “You’re Rebecca.” I nodded toward the woman.
“Sam,” the boy said from my other side.
The old man stayed quiet, his eyes on his feet as they crossed the forest floor.
Rebecca tilted her head.
“That’s Jack,” she said. He looked up at her with a glare.
“You shouldn’t be giving her our information,” he said. “She could take it back and—”
“We’ve taken plenty of information out of her already. And in case you didn’t notice, she can barely stand. I don’t see her ratting us out to the enemy anytime soon.”
He snorted, but he stayed quiet after that.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
It was an innocent enough question, but I could tell nobody wanted to answer it.
“Well,” Sam said. “Seeing as your unit has pushed us out of our main camp, we’re a little hard to nail down now.”
“That’s for the best,” Jack said. “We’re safer if we’re on the move.”
Nobody spoke, though I got the impression that they had differing opinions on the matter of where they would lay their heads that night.
“So, we’re going to see your people, then?” I asked.
“Some of ‘em, yeah,” Jack said.
“Why?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just leave me behind?”
“That you can blame on Sam,” Rebecca said.
I looked over at him and saw a blush rising up his neck. I quickly turned away.
“You were just so … lost,” he said. “And you didn’t try to fire at me. You looked like a wildling or something, an animal away from her pack. I figured you’d be as good as any for us to target for a chip.”
My hand automatically went up to the side of my head, but where my chip had been I now found bandages wrapping all the way around my scalp.
“And as for not leaving you,” he continued. “We don’t do that sort of thing. Not to someone in need.”
He glanced at Jack.
I turned and watched him as we walked. These people were so different from the ones I had spent the last few months with. Not only did they not leave their own injured fighters behind to die, but they didn’t leave the enemy behind to die, either. Or at least they hadn’t with me.
“Sounds like I’ve been fighting on the wrong side,” I said.
I meant it to sound like a joke, but instead it was more like a cloud that came over us all. Maybe because it was true. Or maybe because, like those of us in the States, our enemies were just as tired of war as we were.
Chapter Eight
We walked for about an hour, and I was just getting ready to beg them to let me stop and rest when we broke through a small clearing in the woods.
They hadn’t put their tents back up; their position was too precarious to get so comfortable in one place yet. But the bedding was unrolled on top of the pine needles. Several people were up, and someone was cooking something.
We walked right into their makeshift camp. Maybe it would house them for tonight and tomorrow, or maybe just another couple of hours until the Service would come in to tear it all down.
“And what do we have here?” said a woman who approached us. She was older and broad, but her voice was full of an authority my other three companions didn’t carry.
“Says her name is Pink,” Rebecca said.
She hastily removed herself from under my arm. I stood, barely, with just the support from Sam. My head throbbed.
“Let’s get you sitting,” he said.
He led me over to one of the bedrolls and sat me down. I was so tired, but it seemed like I had barely done anything all morning. Just a little stroll in the woods.
Then, suddenly, I was scrambling backward, my throbbing head forgotten. Something was coming at me, a huge animal must have snuck into the camp and now, seeing me down and vulnerable …
“Get away!” I shrieked
I tried to turn over, to get to my feet to run, but I didn’t have the strength and fell forward.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sam said. “What’s the problem?”
I was crying now.
“What is that thing?” I asked, still trying to get myself upright enough to escape.
“What are you talking about? he said. “That’s just Bear.”
“That’s a bear!?”
I tried to remember what the word meant, to remember what one looked like, but all I could think of was that a bear was one of the most dangerous animals that lived. We had learned about animals in school, but only briefly; they were mostly a thing of the past in the States.
My scrambling inc
reased.
“It’s not a bear,” he said. “It’s just a dog. Bear is his name.”
Dog. Dog.
Not a bear?
We had seen pictures on the viewscreen. Before the droughts came there had been thousands of them, companions to humans. Now, humans could barely feed themselves. Dogs had been banned in the city since before I was born.
I stopped struggling to get away and stared at the strange beast. It sat down next to Sam and it licked him on the face several times.
“Ugh,” I said, disgusted.
“Here,” Sam said, reaching out one hand. “Come pet him.”
I frowned and held out one tentative hand.
It was a big animal, at least as tall as the height of Sam’s knees. It had white and gray fur, a pointed nose, and crystal blue eyes.
“Let him sniff you first.”
I did as I was told, both horrified and intensely curious. The dog sniffed at my hand, and I was surprised to find his nose was icy cold. I drew my hand away.
“It’s all wet,” I complained.
“Ok, now that he’s met you, try scratching him under the chin. Like this.”
Sam stuck out his hand and scratched the dog. Almost immediately he started thumping one of his back legs on the ground. He stuck his neck out as Sam scratched him.
“What a good boy,” Sam said.
The older woman watched me carefully, arms crossed.
“How did you find us?” she asked me, her tone cold.
“I didn’t,” I said. “You found me.”
“Where is your team?”
“I— I don’t really know,” I said. “Back near your old camp, I think.”
But it had been hours since I had last seen them. They could be on their way to us right now.
My brain wrestled with the thought that I was answering her questions without hesitation. Her presence was strong, strong enough to let me know that she was in charge here. If it came down to a decision over my life, she would be the one to make it.
“And how did you get away from them?” she asked.
“I just— well, I ran.”
“Why?”
My cheeks flushed red again. It seemed that everything I was doing was bringing me shame. The man I had killed. My flight away from the group. Leaving Alex behind.
