Beyond the Gates

by Jason D. Morrow

  “When was this?”

  “When the prison camp started five years ago,” she answers. “They didn’t test for Starborns back then. That’s only been around for the last year. Holbrook’s division, really. He thought up the technology to determine who had Starborn blood and who didn’t. He gets his kicks from torturing all the prisoners to see if any of them will show some supernatural power, even though he would be able to tell with a blood test. He’s an evil man.”

  She seems to stare into the distance when she says this, as if there is more to the story that she isn’t telling me. I’m sure there is, but I don’t press it.

  “How did you get caught?”

  “I came voluntarily,” she says.

  “What? I don’t believe you.”

  “I let myself get caught,” she says. “I knew by where I was I would be captured and brought here. It was a raid on a settlement.”

  “But how did you know you wouldn’t have been sent to the other place? Concord? The place where they actually turn people into greyskins?”

  “Because I knew.”

  It’s not much of an answer. “But why would you want to come here?”

  “Because I knew I would eventually meet you,” she says. “And I needed to prepare for your arrival.”

  The cell goes quiet. There is no sound in the entire cell block but the constant thumping in my ears from my heart pumping blood.

  “Your father is a Starborn,” she says. “He can control the pain he feels. That means you have the same blood flowing through you, which means you have the potential to become a Starborn, too.”

  “Would my ability be the same as his?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “At least, it’s not going to be. Yours is going to be entirely different. Soon, you’re going to learn how to look into the past and see it in vivid detail.”

  “What? That doesn’t even make any sense. Why would I be able to do that?”

  “Because that’s the ability you’re going to need when the time comes for you to have it. That’s how all Starborn powers begin.”

  “Please,” I say. “You can’t keep me in the dark. You have to tell me how you know all this.”

  “I know all this because I am a Starborn.”

  I don’t know how to respond to her. I rack my brain trying to think of times she may have used her powers and I just didn’t notice, but nothing comes to mind. Except…

  “Do you have mind control?” I ask. “The way you convinced Natasha to let me go. Natasha would have never let someone go, but she listened to you!”

  Nine shakes her head. “Natasha listened to me because I intimidate her. She knows I have Warden Black’s ear.”

  “About that…” I start, but she holds up a hand.

  “You don’t have to know everything right now,” she says. “But I have protection from Holbrook because of Warden Black. That’s how I haven’t been discovered. Holbrook doesn’t even know I’m here. He has no idea that he’s never interviewed prisoner number nine.”

  “Because you and Warden Black are lovers?”

  Nine’s face turns angry. “To think you might even consider that to be the truth makes me sick.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I have Warden Black’s protection because I’ve been here from the beginning. In the beginning, I told him about myself and what I can do.”

  “And what is that?” I ask, getting impatient.

  Nine looks away from me and through the cell bars, perhaps as unsure of herself as I have been for the last month. “I can see the future,” she says. “And for the first time in five years, I can now introduce myself for who I am. Around other prisoners, you need to call me Nine. But my real name is Waverly.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Liam

  I CAN’T GET thoughts of escape out of my head. Not the process of it so much as the actual time when Skylar and I are out of here for good. I keep thinking about what Rusty said about the Pass Cards. A citizen Pass Card will be impossible to find, it seems. Any official’s Pass Card will require extra verification with a handprint. He mentioned a friend named Teagan who could replicate a handprint into a plastic mold, but that would still mean I had to acquire a hand. Not only did that seem awful in its own right, but I just can’t imagine reaching that point. It has been a month since I got here and all I have is a little information about some outside sources, and a rumor about officials possibly receiving Pass Cards soon. And if they do, they will leave us for dead or kill us outright.

  Maybe…

  Warden Black and his prison guards have doubled down on trying to crush our spirits. The execution of the man in the cage was brutal and brought back haunting memories of Sarah. I hated that somewhere in the crowd was Sky, a twelve-year-old girl forced to watch a man die a slow and painful death.

  Rusty had later mentioned to me that things always got worse for a while whenever Holbrook visited the prison, which happened too frequently. Rusty alluded to a rift between Holbrook and Black, but he didn’t say much more. I don’t think he really knew anything.

  Over the last month, I have had six run-ins with the twins, and it seemed to be anytime I found myself away from Rusty. Alex and Carver have been relentless in their pursuit to make me the most miserable man alive. They find their success whenever our crews in sorting combine because of large shipments of greyskins. Most of the time they try to steer more greyskins in my direction, but when I’m able to out-maneuver them, the two resort to pounding me while the guards aren’t looking.

  I am not a weak man, but when someone with the ferocity of Carver and the brute strength of Alex come at you with everything they have, it doesn’t matter how strong you are, there is little you can do. Their violence seems to have no purpose. Rusty has all but confirmed this. They often pick a target and essentially try to bring him to the point of suicide. There is no rhyme or reason. It gives them some twisted sense of purpose to take out their brutality on someone else.

  It leaves me with bruises all over my face and body, but it doesn’t break my spirit. For one, turning off the pain is enough to keep me fighting no matter how hard they beat me. There have been a few times where they seemed shocked that I was still on my feet fighting back when my eyes were swollen shut and blood flowed from my wounds. I could take a hit better than any man they’ve ever faced. However, I have to give up when I think the beatings might be reaching a dangerous level. I often feign unconsciousness before I let it get that far.

  I imagine they keep coming back for me because I get in a good punch now and then. I’ve left Carver with a couple of good shiners and made Alex puke once with a solid kick to the groin. That time I didn’t have to feign unconsciousness.

  After the fifth fight, Rusty told me that they usually moved on to another victim by this point, but since I fought them back so hard, they weren’t done with me. Call it pride, but I can’t just lie down in submission, especially considering my ability to mask the pain of it all. There was no way I should have been walking around with some of the beatings I’d had. And actually, the constant beatings and my ability to take a punch were starting to give me some credibility among some of the rougher prisoners.

  Nothing more came of Carver’s insistence that I kill Rusty, nor did I ever tell Rusty that it was their intention. I’m not so sure the beatings had anything to do with my refusal to act according to their wishes, and I’m not so sure they meant for it to be anything more than to see if I would relent to their power.

  It’s when they stopped the beatings about a week ago, and Carver started taunting me that things got really bad. Somehow, and I don’t know how, he found out Sky was my daughter.

  When our crews combined, he and Alex approached me. I thought I was about to have to fight them when Carver said he had seen a little girl on the other side of the camp.

  “She’s a real sweetheart,” he said.

  I froze, staring at the ground when I should have been putting on an act. But that one moment of hesitat
ion was enough to let them know they were on to something.

  “What are you talking about?” I said a little too late.

  Carver snickered. “Oh, we watch you. Every move you make, we watch you. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. You’re always craning your neck to the women’s side of the cafeteria. Always looking for someone.”

  “I don’t have a daughter,” I said. “I don’t have a wife. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I was talking too much. If the allegation hadn’t been true, I might have just told them to burn and then taken a beating, yet there I was, essentially pleading for them to believe me.

  “We don’t know her name yet, but we have friends. We’ll find out. Better than that, we’ll get to meet her.”

  I didn’t say anything, and my silence was more than enough confirmation for them. Carver laughed to the point of hysteria as I walked away.

  They even noticed at meals that I was no longer looking at the other side—even more confirmation. I didn’t know how to handle the situation. I figured Sky was safe because men weren’t allowed on the women’s side of the camp, but I didn’t know their reach. I didn’t know what they could do.

  The morning comes with difficult news. Under the burning sun, the guards gather both crews together and announce that we are merging indefinitely. The declaration makes my stomach twist. The moment the guards leave to their posts, Alex and Carver walk up to me with smiles on their faces. I grab my staff that I use to wrangle greyskins and hold it in a defensive position.

  Carver shrugs. “We’re not here to fight you,” he says. “We’re finished with all that. Alex’s knuckles were starting to hurt him at night.”

  My eyes dart back and forth between them, unwilling to budge from my defensive position. In the distance, I hear the trucks open and the ramps fall to the ground in a loud crash, signaling the start of the workday, greyskins piling out with hisses and groans. The twins don’t even act like they hear it.

  “Learned a little more about that daughter of yours,” Carver says. “She sure is a pretty little thing. Works in disposal. Barely strong enough to lift a rock, much less a greyskin. Why they don’t put little girls like her in laundry, I don’t know.”

  “Leave me alone,” I say. I don’t know why I say it. I know they will just keep trying to torment me until…until I die.

  “Oh, you know we can’t do that,” he says. “Not when you’re so fun to harass. You’ll have to kill us to make us leave you alone.”

  I turn my back on them and start walking toward the oncoming horde of greyskins, hoping that our work will get them away from me.

  “You know,” Carver says as I walk away, “you and your wife have good taste, coming up with a pretty name like Skylar.”

  His words send a shockwave through my body, and my feet suddenly feel like cinder blocks. As I stop, I take a deep breath. There is no denying now that Skylar is my daughter. How they found out, I may never know, but the next step is for them to hurt her in some way. And I can’t let that happen.

  I turn toward them, my jaws clenching over and over. Carver’s smirk falls, and a concerned expression replaces it, like he didn’t expect hatred in my eyes. Before I can stop myself, before I even know what I’m doing, I charge after the two of them, my staff held out in front of me.

  Carver tries to dodge the first swing but he doesn’t move fast enough and the staff clips him under the chin, throwing him backward. I spin and catch Alex at the knee, but it doesn’t disable him. I swing at him again, but he grabs the staff and rips it from me. Still, I don’t give him the chance to use it. Instead, I charge my shoulder into his chest and knock him to the ground. I’m straddling him now, and I bring my fists down on his face one after the other.

  I stand quickly, just in time to see Carver coming after me. He gets one punch in, then another, but I swipe my leg at his feet and wrestle him to the ground. An elbow finds the side of his head, and he lets out a loud groan. I feel pain coursing through me, but I don’t deaden it. I feel invigorated. I want to kill these two, but I know that if I do it, the guards might execute me for murder.

  The commotion has caused quite a stir among the other prisoners and too much attention from the greyskins in the distance. Not even the pigs could distract them from the noise of the fight.

  I pick up my staff and move away from Carver and Alex, pulling myself into the shadows. Carver continues to let out groans and then finally makes it to his hands and knees. He sees the greyskins coming after them, and he tries to pull Alex up, but his brother won’t budge. I’ve knocked him out cold.

  Carver does everything he can to pull Alex away, but the greyskins are too fast, and he’s forced to run. It’s the first time I’ve seen the man panic. “No! No! No!”

  The greyskins rip at Alex’s legs first. Then a couple of them get to his torso. Then his neck. I’m thankful that he doesn’t wake in the middle of the feast. I’m not sure I could have lived with that.

  Maybe I killed him with one of my punches. That, I could live with. The twins are monsters and they deserve this place.

  A glance at Carver, who has found safety on top of the outhouse, shows a man filled with sorrow. There aren’t just tears pouring from his eyes. The man is sobbing, reaching his arm out toward his brother who is filling the rotting bellies of at least five greyskins.

  Others rush to pull the greyskins away with their staffs, but it is too late for Alex who is little more than a pile of ripped flesh on the ground, the remains of something that resembles a person.

  Another glance in Carver’s direction reveals a man with malice in his heart. He will kill me, but not before he tries to make me pay for what I’ve done. He knows about Skylar. He knows who she is, what she looks like.

  The guards have made their way down to the conflict. They’ve seen us fighting, and I might be in trouble. If I’m not, however, then I’ve got to kill Carver before he can do something to Skylar. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I have to stop him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Skylar

  WAVERLY AND I talked through the rest of the day and on into the night, though we had to keep our voices down. We were hungry, but I was too excited to think about my hunger or the pain in my shoulder.

  She told me about how she had discovered her ability almost forty years ago after the start of the greyskin outbreak when she was seventeen.

  “I had a sister named Remi with a different Starborn power,” she told me. “She could hear things no one else could.”

  She then told me an almost unbelievable story about how she had known the real Jeremiah of Screven before he became the leader he is today. She told me things that scared me—that Jeremiah had Starborn blood in him, but it was not his own…that he was partially a greyskin and was being kept alive by the power running through his veins…that he would live forever until someone stopped him.

  “I, for some reason or another, have been given the task to facilitate the rescue of the world,” she said at the end of one of her stories. “With an ability like mine, it was almost impossible to determine what was real and what wasn't in the beginning. Then, once I got used to the power, I started seeing things much farther into the future. I have seen the rise of Jeremiah, and I have seen how he will fall. And now,” she said, her eyes piercing me to the soul, “I have seen how humanity is rescued. With you and your father.”

  “So, it’s going to happen?” I asked. “We’re going to get out of here?”

  “That’s the problem with seeing the future,” she said. “When you get good at it, you can see multiple futures. Being the one who knows the future, I am the only one who can change it. And the more I tell you about the future, the more you will be able to change it. That’s why every action I have with you, everything I ever say to you, has to be taken with caution. I am only telling you all of this because I know it will not affect the outcome.”

  “Except, now I can change it. I can decide not to help get the cure to the world, ri
ght?”

  “You could decide that with or without me,” she said.

  “So, how did telling Warden Black about your power make him keep you a secret from Holbrook?”

  “Every month I meet with Warden Black. It’s like I’m his personal fortune teller. I tell him some vague truths that actually will come to place. I am sure to tell him about every good thing that will happen to him, as well as a few bad things so that he doesn’t get surprised too much. It’s all mundane, really, but it keeps me alive. I knew that telling him about myself would keep me safe from the start. No one in the prison but you and he knows about what I can do. I’m sure some of the prisoners have rumors going around about me, but what do I care? I’m the one in good standing. A guard could kill them at any moment.”

  “And the guards would think twice before hurting you,” I said.

  “My arrangement with Warden Black is the only reason we’re not still out in the fields, and the reason Natasha didn’t drive a stake through your brain.”

  Her words were true and I knew it. My mind was reeling. I couldn’t believe that she had foreseen meeting Papa and me, learning about us and our potential, then putting her own life on the line so that she could help us.

  “I have a great responsibility with my gift,” she said. “A responsibility others may not have. I also have to live with the fact that I can be wrong sometimes. Even in my clearest visions, I have been wrong. I have seen a future where you bring the cure to the world, but that doesn’t mean things can’t change. That also doesn’t mean that it’s the best possible future for you. The road to getting the cure to humanity is a long one and full of pain. There is no easy way to tell you this, but you will feel sorrow. At times, you will feel more alone than you have ever felt in your life. But in those moments, you will have to remain strong, and know that the race is not finished yet.”