"Star what the hell. You know me
better than that." He twirls her around and looks sheepishly at me,
"This is Emma."
I nod and grip my bow.
She beams at me, "Wow nice find
Will. He save you from the farms too?"
I raise an eyebrow, "I don’t need to
be saved. I'm the hero of my own story." I've died and gone to heaven when
her face drops. I read that in a novel my granny had. I've always wanted to say
it.
She looks at Will, who is staring at me.
I walk past him and start to look around. If he doesn’t want to find his
siblings that’s his problem.
I'll
be damned if I will let them live another moment without the knowledge their
asshole brother is alive and well.
"You pissed at me?"
I don’t turn. I continue along. My eyes
desperately scan the crowds of people.
"Willy boy." He shakes hands
with a very tanned man with the whitest smile I've ever seen. It almost glows
in the dark.
People continue to greet him, but I can't
hear them anymore. I see what I'm looking for. I see a tall guy limping with
shaggy dark hair. I break into a run. I run through the crowd and dive as I get
close enough for the arm of the man.
As I make contact he turns. His face is
exactly as I remember it. He has me in his arms before I can speak a word. He
is mauling me like a bear, like granny always said.
"Emma oh my god. Emma it's you. Holy
shit I thought they got you." He is planting kisses everywhere across my
face.
"Where is Anna?"
His kisses stop but his grip on my face
stays strong, "They took her."
I want to collapse into his arms and
sob.
"Jakey."
Jake drops to his knees in front of me.
His hands leave my face and fall onto the tops of his knees.
"Will? Will? Is that you?"
Will rushes at him and lifts him up. He
pulls him into his embrace. The brother's hug is fierce but all I hear is the
sentence 'they took her' repeating in my mind.
Jake looks back at me, "You found
him?"
I shake my head. I have no words.
They hug and cry and laugh but I am
stunned. Finally able to speak I mutter. "Where did they take her?"
Their reunion no longer means anything to
me.
People pass by me, becoming a sea of
faces. All I can think is how I will get her back, too. I will do anything to
get her back. It seems it has become my centennial project. I wonder if I will
ever just have the people who have become my new family all together, or if I
will die still looking for one.
"Where did they take her?" I
ask again.
The huge boys hug and rub each other's
hair. I want to shout but Will saves me the trouble.
He looks around, "Where's
Anna?"
"Hunters got her two days ago. She
went looking for Emma and I heard her screaming at the edge of the field. I
couldn’t run. They took her in a truck."
"I'm so sorry Jake."
He shakes his head. "Emma you went
for food after you went for medicine to save me. None of this is your fault.
We'll get her back." He looks at Will and smiles. It amazes me how much
they look alike.
"I can't believe you're alive
man."
Will ruffles his hair again, "You
too little bro. You should have died a long time ago with your survival
skills."
Jake blushes and laughs,
"Anna."
"We need to get her back
Jakey."
He nods.
I can't laugh with them. I can't pretend
that everything is warm and fuzzy.
I shove him. "So how did you end up
here? Why didn’t you stay at the farmhouse in the barn bunker?"
"I tried to go after them. I went
over the hill and broke the branches like you told me. I knew you'd find
me." He shakes his head at Will. "She's like a fucking
terminator."
Will laughs, "I know."
Jake fixes his hair, "Anyway I came
here yesterday. They all know you Will."
Will shrugs, "I made friends at
camp, just like I always did Jakey."
I hate the way he calls him Jakey. I hate
him in a horrid way. I wish he was at the breeder camp and Anna was with us.
Him and his girlfriend in the shorts.
They have their mini reunion. I turn away
and walk to the nearest small tent. I look in the flap. A younger looking guy
is asleep inside. Half his face is burned.
I walk from one small tent to the next,
until I find one with a barrel-chested man with red hair holding a pen and
looking at a map that’s spread across a table, "Are you Marshall?"
He nods, but looks suspiciously at me.
"I need to know where the closest
breeder camp is."
He chuckles, "Little girl you aren’t
thinking about volunteering are you? The food's not that bad here."
I don’t laugh I look at the map. I don’t
know how to read maps. I add it to the list of things he should have taught me,
before.
He stops laughing and raises his
eyebrows, "Why?"
"My friend was taken. I need her
back."
He starts laughing again, "What do
you plan on doing?"
I look up into his older gray eyes and
his bright red beard and stare him down, "I'm going to get her back."
He scratches the back of his fuzzy red
head, "Look kid I get you're upset but there is no getting them back. They
go in and nine years later they get a nice house in the city. It's not a bad
gig. They get healthy food and a place to sleep. Your life here is
harder."
I feel my face change.
He puts his hands up defensively,
"Look we have bigger fish to fry than worry about one girl at a breeder
farm."
He turns his back on me and looks at the
wall of the tent where other maps are hung. I feel my fingers twitch. I want to
pull an arrow.
I leave the tent disheartened and lost.
"Emma where did you go?"
I look up at Will and Jake walking toward
me.
I scrunch up my face and walk away from
them both. I don’t know how to be dramatic. I feel the need burning inside of
me, but I don’t physically know how to get angry without using my hands.
I walk to a group of ladies who are
standing around a fire.
I smile sweetly and look at the one who
looks the most like my mother did, "Hi."
She raises her eyebrows and the corners
of her mouth at the same time, "Hi sweetie."
The rebellion people are nice.
"Do you know where the nearest
breeder camp is?"
She frowns, "Yeah." She looks
over at a dark strawberry blonde who has a scar along her mouth, "Beth where
was that camp that you all saw not far from here?"
"South east, over two small
mountains and a ghost town. Used to be a place called Lincoln there. Stay on
the outskirts of that place."
I nod, "Thanks so much."
"You aren’t trying to go
there?"
I shake my head, "No way. Just
wanted to know where my friend went. Her nine years is almost up."
The lady with the scar laughs bitterly,
"Honey she aint coming back out here to shit in a ditch. She'll get
herself a nice place in the city. I hear they even got air conditioning
again."
A lady with a t-shirt with a big tongue
on it laughs, "Oh girl, what I would do for air conditioning."
They all laugh and it makes me grin. I
walk away from them and go back to the small tent.
The man looks less than pleased I am there.
"Really, you're back again. Look kid
I'm not sending a bunch of men to their death over some girl."
I smirk, "I'm not asking you for a
thing. I just want to see the map."
He holds him arm out at the one on the
table, "Have at it."
I look at the compass on the map.
"Where are we?"
He drops a fat finger onto the map next
to a blue line.
I drag my finger southeast to the place
that says Lincoln. I look up at him, "Which way is south east from
here?"
He points to the back of the tent where
the other maps are. He's blocking my view of them purposely.
I nod, "thanks." I walk in the
direction he's told me.
My quiver isn't very full. Normally I
make arrows once a month but I haven’t had a chance in the last month.
Nothing has been the way it would have
been back at the cabin. I think about the moment I stood at the door as Anna
knocked outside of it. I remember the regret.
I see Will and Jake. I walk faster. I
don’t know what to say, but running away from them seems like a pretty good
idea. Jake still limps from the branch, but they move quickly.
"Em wait up." Jake's voice
picks at me.
I want to be alone. It figures the only
boys I've ever liked have to be brothers. My mom would have been proud. She too
had a thing for brothers.
Fingers bite my arm and spin me around.
Will towers over me, "What are you
doing?" He looks annoyed.
I pull my arm from him, "I'm going
to find her." I look at Jake, "Stay here and get better. That leg
wound isn’t going to heal with you traipsing all over hell's half acre."
He looks hurt.
Will grabs my arm again, "Em we
aren’t going to let you run off half cocked. We need a plan."
I feel angry, maybe because I like them
both and maybe because they're not running after her, like I expected they
would.
I glare at Jake, "When you fell in
that hole she did the bravest thing I have ever seen anyone do. She told me
that she didn’t care if I shot her but I had to come find you."
He shakes his head, "We need a
plan."
I point south, "There's probably a
three day hike, we can plan on the way."
Will's grip on my arm tightens, "We
will be down a mountain and in the woods alone with no resources when we find
her. What plan can you come up with there?"
I shake my head again. "I've made it
this far without anyone." I pull my arm free and take a step back, "I
don’t need either of you."
I feel something in my stomach. I should
have grabbed food. I start my hike. I realize I not only have no plan but that
I'm starving.
I hear their footsteps behind me.
"She's really stubborn." Jake
tries to whispers but I hear him.
"I did notice that. How's the
leg?"
I make a face but don’t look back at them.
"Good. She did surgery on it. I
don’t think I'll ever win the Boston Marathon if it comes back in style."
Will snorts. I want to laugh but I'm
pissed off.
"Anna been a handful?"
Jake laughs, "Oh my god. The year
she started the road to womanhood was the beginning of the end. Oh my god it
was bad."
I feel my face flush with heat. I
remember getting my first menstruation and cringe. I had thought I was dying
for a few days. I read granny's encyclopedia to health and found the answers
I'd been seeking. I made rags and stayed indoors. I rubbed the clary sage oil
on my stomach for the cramping like the book said and put warm compresses on my
belly.
It was the first thing I added to the
list of things he should have told me about. Being twelve and alone in the
forest was daunting. Bleeding every month for no reason was much worse.
I realize how far ahead of them I am when
I come out of my daydream and can't hear them. I look back. They are laughing
and walking like it's a stroll in the park. I glance up in the trees to see the
guards placed strategically. I know we are still safe from the others but I
can't imagine laughing and joking and catching up the way they are.
I walk faster. I miss the silence and
uncomplicated days of traveling with Leo. He would hunt and we would touch each
other every now and again but neither of us needed to make a sound.
I look back at Jake again and notice the
way he lumbers through the woods. I sigh.
The bottom of the mountain leads to a
valley. I climb a tree and sit up in it.
"What do you see?"
"A highway. There are cars on it,
they're burned."
It frightens me. Scavengers are always
nearest to the old remains. I stay away from the remains.
"Do you see movement?"
I shake my head but narrow my eyes to
improve my vision. The sick have a way of not moving when you need them to. The
sun is going down. I want to cross the highway and be halfway up the next
mountain before it's completely dark.
I climb down the tree and try not to look
at either of the hulking men standing next to me.
I pull an arrow and crouch low to the
ground. I shut my mind off. I try to not think when I'm scared shitless.