by Tom Harem
When I entered the bathroom, I could hear the water running on the other side of the wall as well as the girls' laughter. I pictured them bathing together, groping, the water running down their tits.
I let the shower drip while I was taking off my clothes. The water heated up and the steam coated the space like a grayish, warm mist. I took a quick shower and went back to my room. They were still bathing.
The rest of the day went by in a heartbeat. We dined together in the canteen, where a dozen more people were eating the same mixture that they claimed was puree, the semi-fried potatoes, and the undercooked meat.
I hadn't slept well for several nights but there was something different tonight. Kendra's return and the poll had left a sweet taste in my mouth, the feeling that good times were upon us. The long-awaited bonanza after the storm that had engulfed us. My last thought was how surprised I still was with Keno having a girlfriend. The boy who didn't treat anyone well turned out to be spending time listening to love music for someone. I suppose everyone has their weakness and I had four.
Chapter IV
I woke up the next day with someone knocking on the door. That banging noise was already becoming a habit.
"Who is it?" I screamed, having zero desire to get up. My eyes were half-closed, my body ached, and my lips were dry.
"It's me, Kendra." She said, "May I come in?"
"Yes," I said, "Come in."
As soon as she stepped in, I asked her if everything was okay. She had a dull look like she hadn't been sleeping much and was building up the courage to tell me something. Eyes as black as two putrid rubies that popped out on her pale skin.
"My sister texted me." She said as she came in, "the same as always. That I should be careful and to not be followed."
"We all have to be careful. We don't know if there's a spy here." I said, "We got to get going, don't we?"
"Yes. The other girls are already up. They're pouring water on their faces."
"How about you? Why are you here? Is something wrong?" I asked her, tapping the bed as a sign for her to sit there.
"No big deal. I'm still getting used to this life again. At the hospital at this hour, I'd still be asleep. But at least I can walk now. I was tired of being still." She said, looking calmer than usual, "Well, I just came to wake you up." She said and turned to the door when she was halfway through.
"Kendra, wait, is there anything you want to share with me?" I asked her.
She paused before answering, "No, thank you. I'll be quick too. You should do the same."
She left my room and was careful when closing the door so she wouldn't slam it.
I got dressed, cleaned my face and teeth and went down the stairs. They were already waiting for me. Some of the boys from the previous day's group were already sitting at the desks, pressing the computer keys, the robotic boredom wrapping the whole room. There wasn't even a sign of Tom. His office door was closed.
"Are you ready?" I asked them.
They all nodded. We headed for the living room. It was empty, two boxes of doughnuts in the trash can and a slight coffee scent perfuming it. Each of us picked up a doughnut before we sat on the couches and cushions. Kendra told us that Lipa was expecting us in Okinawa and that, just like last time, she had to go first before we showed up.
"Do you have to do that white-spot jumping stunt, too?" Maggie asked her.
"Yeah. It's my way of letting her know there's no cops or Hunters around. We've had that system for years," Kendra replied.
Between chewing the fluffy doughnut dough and drinking sips of water and lemonade we had little time to talk. We hadn't finished when another Hunters team showed up. Two boys, one of them with black hair overlaid with a green mix that dripped onto the white t-shirt, the black pants, and even the wind glove. I had never seen one of those before. A gold coating covered his slender wrist and a transparent crystal was held horizontally by two thin strips of metal. The boy next to him laughed with his yellowish smile, pausing just to scratch the undercut on the right side of his hair. Around his waist was a kind of belt, for lack of a better word, where he had dozens of metal shurikens. Blood dripped from some into the torn black pants and others were just muddy. They were both level D, almost in C, which the girl was already at. She was silent, her eyes amber in the light, greenish in the dark, traveling across our faces, while we were still shredding the food. Her purple hair was caught in a ponytail, but, nonetheless, the sword's gray grip gleamed behind the colored threads.
"Yes?" Elisa asked her.
"I know who you are." She said, with a haughty, deep voice, "thank you."
The boys readily shut up. They seemed surprised by her attitude. They leaned against a corner, beholding us, with their lips clenched, and the tallest, who had the glove, frowned his hairy eyebrow.
"Thank you?" Maggie asked her.
"The rest of the Hunters may not like you, but we know what you've done. The whole truth. You are almost celebrities here," she said, retaining her facial austerity, "you have given us reasons not to give up. Some of us were already giving up hope."
"Yes, yes, she's absolutely right. We've seen the video dozens of times. That was like an A-level and you guys managed to beat him!" The shurikens' boy said, on his tiptoe, expressing his enthusiasm with his hands, waving them all over the place.
"Is it really them? The way you wear your gloves only made me feel lucky to have them on too!" The other one added.
"Control yourselves, boys. Come on, let's go, we'll come back another time. They just need to rest." The girl said before she walked to the door, paused and said, "By the way, I'm Kaya."
The boys followed her. It was all so unexpected, we didn't even have time to react. None of us cared that they were there. We weren't celebrities at all. Instead, I saw us as mere Hunters at the service of a greater good. We didn't want them to treat us differently or even to see us as examples to follow. The truth was that we were still rookies and we still had a lot to learn.
"Odd, wasn't it?" Vic asked.
"Yes, it's strange to be recognized and not for something evil," Elisa said. She was sitting on one of the armrests and licked her sugar-filled fingers.
"At least they didn't complain about us." Maggie commented, "We weren't very lucky in the main building."
"Have you had that much misfortune?" Kendra asked, "I heard they thought we'd gotten into a fight against other Hunters."
"That's what they've been spreading, yes. But, well, we knew this could happen. Doing good does not mean having the privilege of having a queue of people applauding us and throwing flowers at us." I said, "Are you done yet? Let's get going."
We put the napkins and the plastic cups in the trash. When we left the other group was no longer in the room and half the parking spaces in the garage were empty. It was the first time we saw that room so empty and the truth is that the cars were well suited to disguise the mold in the corners of the walls and even the faint color in some areas. The jeep was as good as new except for a couple of scratches on the hood. The front glass had been replaced and the whole car had been cleaned. The smell of blood was now a camellia scent and the seats were black and padded.
Kendra, Vic, and Maggie sat in the back seats and Elisa sat next to me. Only she half-opened the window to allow in a refreshing breeze that swirled across the crystal-clear air. From the sun only fine traces of light showed up, striking the metal signs along the road and the remnants of sharp glass that were on the broken windows.
"Okinawa... our first mission was there," Maggie said.
"And it almost didn't happen." Kendra added, "If it wasn't for James over there convincing us to do the right thing."
"I did what I had to do. We came a long way since then." I told them.
"There you are, all sentimental. At least we don't have to deal with the terrible blood smell anymore today. I couldn't handle it anymore."
"Yeah! I hate blood. It's viscous and always reeks of rotten." Vic said, "That's one of the reas
ons I decided to practice the bow. The further away from a fight I am, the better."
"I like the adrenaline that runs through my body when I'm face to face with a beast. I actually used a double-edged sword, but in the meantime, I've switched. The ice glove offered me much more security in dealing with people and, of course, I didn't always have to carry it on my back or on my waist." Elisa answered her.
"James, why a gun? You never explained it to us." Kendra said.
We were already on the highway. We still had to go through a tunnel, a roundabout, and then drive for dozens of miles. It was 10:22. Ahead of us was just a truck carrying oranges and strawberries bags and on the other side two cars, one yellow and the other dark blue, traveling at similar speeds. The farther we got from where we had come, the more the clouds filled the sky, grayish, thick, obscuring the sun. We entered the tunnel and all the noise was drowned out. The orange lights of the lamps fastened to the walls, illuminating the whole tunnel, swirling through the car roof. Beams of lights hit the rearview mirror and mirrored on the tarmac.
"My father. He also used a gun, although it was a black one. He was the one who always backed me up and said I could be whatever I wanted. After a month at the academy, when it came down to deciding which weapon we wanted to learn, I had no doubt that I wanted to follow his legacy. I wanted my last name to mean more than my father's downfall." I answered them, while driving, always paying attention to the road even if there was not a single car in front of us.
"Didn't your brother have the same idea?" Vic asked, "But I'm also not surprised that he chose a weapon that would put him right in the front line."
"My brother is only two years younger than me, but he was born at the exact time my father was making the transition. Although I was only two years old, I still have vague memories of my father holding me and feeding me, but Keno doesn't. He only remembers the hell it was the first few years of his life. The fights between my parents, having to move, the whole mess... He always wanted to get away from it and even tried to change his name. Fortunately, he's calmer these days."
"That what was him being calmer?" Maggie asked me.
"Yeah. He's usually grumpier. Apparently, having a girlfriend made him softer."
"Too bad I didn't meet him. I feel like I missed some good adventures and you're almost at rank B." Kendra said. She was between the two girls but looking at Maggie's window. There was nothing to see except for the brown walls with yellow stripes, some graffiti and signatures, and the oval ceiling.
"Don't worry. More adventures will come." I answered her and I know she spotted my smile on the rearview mirror.
When we exited, on the other side, the green hills were now damp, a tiny rain falling on the new front glass.
"I don't understand anything about this weather." Vic said, "It was still sunny earlier."
"There are cities with different temperatures. Okinawa is a city with many factories and old buildings, if I remember well. Pollution contaminates the atmosphere and..." Maggie was saying when she was interrupted.
"How do you know that?" Elisa asked her.
"I read about it. I used to spend a lot of time reading, too. Benefits of having studied at home."
"I don't think that's an advantage" Kendra answered her.
"Better than spending my teenage years scared that my father would be taken away by the police at any moment," she replied, realizing seconds later that she had exaggerated, and her voice burst through silence, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean that."
"It's okay, Maggie. I get it. I get it. You're right. Maybe having a peaceful life would have been better. At least boredom doesn't kill."
"We all had problems in our childhoods. Don't get upset about it." Elisa told them.
"She's right. Even nowadays my parents think that being a Hunter is shameful, that they can't introduce me to their friends who are all bankers, lawyers, the kind of people who don't understand what it's like to fight for something they believe in." Vic told them, "But, Elisa, nobody knows anything about your parents."
"What do you need to know that for?"
"It's only fair that we all know the slightest bit about each other's lives, isn't it?" Maggie said, "If we're going to keep risking our lives for each other, we can at least get to know each other better."
"I agree with them, Elisa. Nobody's saying you need to tell your whole life but slowly share. Nobody's going to judge you, you know?" I told her.
"I know, but that's not it. I feel fragile and vulnerable knowing that someone knows what I've been through." She said, the rain overriding her voice, "Do you want to know the truth? How come I never mentioned my biological parents? I don't know who they are. Okay, are you happy?"
"What do you mean you don't know who they are?" Maggie asked her.
"I was adopted when I was 4 years old. They were great, but they weren’t my parents. It's like an essential piece of me was taken from me at birth. But forget it, it doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does! If it bothers you, we'll work it out as a group. Have you ever tried to find out who your birth parents are?"
"I tried, of course. The orphanage that contained all the information burned down when I was still 10 and my adoptive parents always told me they didn't know who they were and after what happened to them, I just gave up. I couldn’t even find out who had sent the killer after my mother. I’m a mess. Maybe it's better if I don’t know who my parents were, you know? The closest I had to a family since then was Ashen's group, and after he pushed me out, I ended up enjoying being alone. I think this is the first time since then that I feel like I have a family, or the closest thing to it." She said, all rushed, without even pausing to breathe, "Come on, that's enough. Looks like we're arriving." She said and pointed to a sign that said there were only a dozen kilometers away.
"You can talk to us about anything, Elisa. But all right, let's not insist anymore, shall we?" I asked and they all agreed.
The water droplets poured down on the wine-colored sign that did not move even with the desolating gusts of wind. Elisa closed the window. Her lap was already damp when she turned on the air conditioning. A stream of hot air crept through the inside of our clothes and spread through our bodies.
"I bet I'll catch a cold," Maggie said and sighed.
"You're missing a good coat." Elisa said.
"You sound like a 40-year-old man talking. By the way, if you don't have marks on your body from risking your life so much, it doesn't count." Maggie answered with a slightly sarcastic tone.
We all laughed. The only four-story buildings, five if we counted the ground floor, made up the entire row of dark brown that stretched across those streets. Smoke sprang up behind the structures, black and thick, flying over the brick roofs and covering the sky with a grayish fog. The city itself was sad. It had a melancholic temperament, the streets to be colored and the people always with their faces frozen, eyes half closed, suspicious of each other, clashing with each other's shadows and arguing at the coffees' doors due to trivialities. The last time we had been there we had not crossed the highway that gave access to the city. It resembled the second city we'd worked in. A certain antiquarian mysticism, as if a legend shared by the elders stated that the fog hid a secret behind it, to which only some would have the privilege of seeing it revealed.
"Now what? Where do I go?" I asked Kendra. I'd already slowed down. I was at 20 per hour, maximum 30, which was the legal limit around the cities unless it was an emergency.
"Here." She said and handed me her cell phone.
I wrote the name of the street, Lowland Street, on the GPS and waited until I heard the woman's high-pitched voice. She told us that we were about ten meters away and that we still had to make two turns to get there.
"Have you ever come here before?" Maggie asked Kendra.
"Not really. I know my sister has hiding places in several cities, but I have no idea where they are. I never had much interest. As soon as I could, I left the house and let her take the lead."
<
br /> I turned left and went to a wide street, steps away from a circular zone, with a warrior statue with a shield and sword in his hand, in the center, and a couple of coffees around. There was a fresh fruit market in the corner. Dozens of people came and went, loaded with bags, not talking to anyone, walking along the sidewalk. Sometimes there were groups of two people, three at most, and they talked quietly, fearing that someone was listening. When we passed by, although on the other side of the street, I noticed that the market was not a building but a long street, in an endless alley, sheltered by a plastic roof.
"Here even the fruit seems to have less color," Maggie commented.
"I was thinking the same thing. No wonder Lipa has a safe place here. It matches her icy personality." Elisa said, "Damn, how come my pants haven't dried up yet."
"Also, why did you have the brilliant idea of coming in latex paints?" Vic asked her.
"I didn't think it would rain, did you? If I'd known, I'd have come in regular black pants like Kendra. It doesn't matter now either. We're getting there." She said, looking at the red dotted line on the GPS coming to an end.
I had already made the last turn and we had stepped into a narrow street, flanked by workshops and warehouses with dusty gates, a shrill noise, even worse than chalk being scraped off a blackboard, and sparks splashing on the bifurcated sidewalk.
"That one over there," Kendra said and pointed to a cross-iron gate whose sidewalk before it was cross-checked.
"It could only be. On top of that, it stands out from the rest." Elisa said, "Now what?"
"I'm going to text her that we're here and then I have to do the quasi-ritual, so she knows she's safe," Kendra answered her.
Chapter V
I stopped in front of the gate. She sent the message and left. She nodded to the camera on the upper right side of the gate and stepped forward, stepping on one white pebble and then jumping into another. The camera followed her movements. It didn't take more than a few seconds for the gate to rise off the ground, ascending, and disappearing into a facade that was in between the bulkhead.
