Authors: Ryan Hunter
C
HAPTER 40
The moisture on my lips felt like heaven. I tried to speak, to suck the moisture deeper, but it barely trickled through my lips, teasing me with promise of life. I stuck my tongue out, caught the first real drip and gagged.
Blood. Not water.
I rolled to my side and buried my face in the ground. If blood flowed into my mouth, it mean
t I was alive, but how?
I opened my eyes
.
The sun beat from directly overhead and cast the stones in pale versions of what they’d been during our battle. Droplets of blood littered the stones nearest me and tiny pieces of metal were strewn about an
enormous crater where half of the cliff had been.
My ears hummed, blurring out anything I might
have heard, and I looked around feeling dazed. How had I lived? The drone had been focused on me, the gun ready to fire. In fact, I’d heard it fire. I’d heard it fire over and over until that last blast when it must have detonated.
Suicide bomber drone? Really?
I scooted on my butt, pain rippling through every limb, every joint.
What about the bullets I’d taken? I looked down and found speckles of blood covering my clothing. As I lifted my shirt I saw the marks, little holes, holes filled with dirt and rocks.
I’d caught rock chips—not bullets.
I fell back with relief when I remembered T disappearing over the cliff. I had to find him. I had to see him, but I felt too weak to move, too tired to even shade my face from the blistering sun.
I rolled to my stomach, pushing and pulling my body forward until I peered over the cliff. Stones piled at the bottom, the results of the explosion—a shoe beside them—T’s shoe. I didn’t care who heard me anymore and I didn’t care who saw. I pushed forward so I could get the most volume and yelled, “T!”
My voice echoed off the cliff and across the valley.
He didn’t respond.
My ears reverted to the humming I’d heard when I’d
awoken, and I yelled again.
The dust that swirled around the rocks fell, settling on the pile so calmly nothing could be moving beneath. I rested my head on my arm, stared at T’s shoe and felt a loneliness fill me so deeply I thought I’d break. “
You want to know what’s not fair, T? I love you.” My voice caught, and though I knew my whole body starved for water, somewhere my eyes found it. They filled with it until tears spilled over and streaked my cheeks.
I continued to lay there, my body trembling, not from fatigue or physical strain but from the pain that
emanated from my heart. It shook until I felt numb, until the sun drained my strength, and I gave into it, closing my eyes and drifting into a state of restfulness where I felt as if I floated through nothing—felt nothing—dreamed of nothing.
CHAPTER 41
The Freemen found me just after dark. One man was older than my father, a graying beard covering half of his ruddy face—the other as young as I.
They found me sitting over T’s body, the rocks dug aw
ay to expose his face, chest and one shoulder. The back of his head still hid beneath rocks, fractured from his fall.
At least they hadn’t shot him.
The thought was the only comfort I could manage and it wasn’t enough.
He hadn’t wanted to be shot. He’d wanted to die trying to survive, trying to change the world—and he had. He’d pushed forward until the very end, until he’d nearly delivered me safely to those who’d take me in.
He’d pushed and pushed until I’d fallen in love with him so deeply that as I watched him lying there I felt as if my own heart was crushed beneath those rocks beside him.
All I’d wanted was for him to come with me.
I sat despondent while they walked around us, the tattered backpack cradled in my lap—T’s limp hand clutched in both of mine.
The older man crouched across from me, T between us.
He searched my face, followed my arm down to the hand that held T’s and must have seen my scar—it stood out so badly I couldn’t have hidden it if I’d wanted to. His eyes were honey-brown, lighter than T’s, softer in his expression and yet harder in the wrinkles. “What’s your name?” he asked.
My name?
Did my name even matter anymore? Did
I
matter? I thought that if I could just deliver the hard drive I could lie down and die beside T—join him in whatever existed beyond this earth. “I’m looking for Oliver,” I said, lips feeling swollen.
The man and the boy exchanged looks.
“How do you know Oliver?” he asked. His voice was soft, his eyes tender as he tried to avoid looking at the dead boy in front of me.
I swiped at the tears with the back of one hand before unzipping the backpack in my lap. “I don’t.”
I pulled the hard drive free, wondering if it had even survived the fall. I held it up for the man to see before dropping it back in my pack and taking T’s hand again. “I believe my father did. He collected some data for him.”
The man placed his hand atop mine and T’s, leaned forward and said, “I’m truly sorry about
your friend—and your father.” He squeezed my hand before backing away.
I stroked T’s hand before I placed it on his stomach and smoothed out his fingers.
How could I leave him here in the open? How could I live with myself knowing he’d been gathered up by the Alliance and hauled somewhere I could never visit?
I smoothed his shirt and the hair on his forehead, that beautiful, bleached hair that looked so startling over his tanned skin.
Life and soul—
the words popped into my head unbidden. If we had a soul, where did it go when we died? T’s body was proof enough to me that it didn’t stay within that shell. Maybe it went up to heaven, that place where God watched over us. That’s what I wanted to believe because if there was a heaven that’s where I hoped my father was too. And if the soul did go to heaven, was T really here with me now?
I bent and placed a kiss on his forehead, the warmth already gone from his skin—and I knew T was no longer there.
“Will you come with us?” the man asked.
I knew I should. The Alliance would be here soon to make sure they’d killed us
, and I couldn’t be here when they arrived.
“We can’t take him,” the man said.
I took the man’s hand and stood, my body numb while my head was heavy enough to be a bowling ball perched atop my spine.
I took one last look at T—his eyes closed—and wondered if he still thought … felt … dreamed?
If he did, what did he think of me now, standing over his body, ready to leave him to the Alliance?
He’d tell me to run
. He’d tell me to find safety.
Was safety
even possible?
I wondered.
The younger Freeman offered to take my backpack
, and I passed it off to him, grateful to be rid of the weight. The older wrapped an arm around me and helped me hobble around the cliff, into the trees and over the rise.
“I’m Brynn,” I said when I could speak again. “
My father was Criton Aberdie.”
The man hesitated then resumed his pace, his arm tighter.
“Did you know him?” I asked.
The man nodded. “We corresponded.”
“He was a good man,” I said.
The man paused next to a hillside littered with branches, logs and rocks as
if they’d been swept up against the hillside by a flood. “I’m Oliver. This is Dane, my son.”
My relief took the st
ability from my knees, and Dane lowered me to a stone while his father moved a few of the branches from the hillside. He looked nothing like his father, his blond hair hung straight, nearly into his eyes. His olive complexion was at direct odds with his father’s and his brown eyes were nearly chocolate—like T’s.
I looked away, fearing he’d see the pain in my face again
, and I had to be strong. T would want me strong.
Oliver stopped and turned
, a wide gap in the debris revealing a tunnel. “Ready?”
I nodded.
Dane helped me to my feet and led me forward, into a cave as dark as the mine but somehow tamer, less frightening with arms around me. Oliver stepped in behind us and pulled the branches back into place before flicking on a flashlight. “It might be a bit overwhelming so soon, but you’re about to meet the rest of the Freemen.”
CHAPTER 42
The cave curved through the hillside, dirt and rock forming the walls and ceiling. Some of it looked natural but the deeper we ventured, the more I could tell someone had dug it out. I wondered how long they’d lived there but didn’t want to ask. I didn’t trust my voice or my emotions but as we neared an ever-growing light, I realized that it didn’t matter. I’d have to speak soon as we were entering the settlement.
The tunnel opened up into a gaping
cavern, the walls and ceiling looking so much smoother than the ones in the mine had felt. Wooden boxes lined the walls on one side, shelves built into rock to keep them off the ground. Canned food sat on another shelf with cooking pans stacked on a countertop opposite. Women stood in a row along the counter, like an assembly line: chopping carrots, cubing potatoes, dicing meat.
My stomach should have growled but I had no desire to eat.
I just stared and wondered where they got all that food all the way up here.
The women
stopped and looked over their shoulders when we entered, none of them speaking. An older woman with Dane’s eyes raised her brows in question and Dane shook his head—once. She looked away.
I raised my chin and swallowed, every inch of me crawling with questions that seemed to seep from their minds and flood the air.
I was strong.
Oliver didn’t introduce me to any of the women. He didn’t even acknowledge them. One by one they turned back to their task and tension rose as they waited for me to leave so they could talk about me.
With the women at our backs, we emerged from the cavern under a black crisscrossed sky, like a giant, tattered net had been hung above the wide meadow. Little pockets of blue shone beyond the ceiling that the Freemen had constructed—for shade—maybe camouflage? The clouds above made white squares amid the blue, a strange combination of colors and lines that drew me in with the texture and yet repelled me as I felt barred in. I stared so long that my eyes ached and I blinked, my eyes feeling swollen from tears. I was glad the women hadn’t seen my tears. I didn’t want them to know my weakness.
Oliver paused in an a
rea outside the cave where logs sat around like chairs. “I’ve got to get Jenks,” he said.
Dane sat
, and I plopped down on a log beside him, hands clasped in my lap.
Dane touched my elbow and whispered, “You okay?”
How could I respond? I’d lost everything I cared about—everything I knew—and now I sat in this alien world wondering what life would hand me next. All I could do was send him away so I could think about T. “I’m thirsty.”
He motioned for me to stay and ran back into the cave. Seconds later he returned with a chipped mug filled with icy water. I took it and drank, the water
cramping my stomach until I forced myself to stop.
Children watched me, hands poised above sand and toys as if caught by surprise. Some were chubby, some thin, some filthy.
One freckled kid with red hair reminded me of Emel while another looked like a little T, his dark hair falling in his eyes over olive skin. I tore my gaze from the child to catch the shy grin of a dark skinned girl with cornrows. I wanted to touch her to see if she was real, but her squeal confirmed it, and I jumped as she ran for cover behind a pine.
Water spilled across my thighs
, and I watched it soak into the denim. I sipped again.
“What was his name?” Dane asked.
“T,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry about T,” he said.
I swiped some hair behind my ear. “Thanks.”
The children wandered off, heading to a wash bin before supper.
“How long’s it been since you’ve eaten?” Dane asked.
I remembered an apple … how many days ago? “I don’t remember,” I said.
He offered to take the mug. “You’re shaking so hard you’re spilling water all over yourself.”
I handed him the mug
.
“If there’s anything I can do, will you let me know?” he asked.
The concern in his voice touched me, but not enough to draw a verbal reply. I just nodded instead, licked my lips and looked him in the eyes.