Inner Circle

by Y A Marks

  CHAPTER 12

  Jonas walked out of the building. I followed him with my eyes and put my palm to my nose to contain any residuals from crying. Travis and Devin slept against the wall or at least appeared to. They were at least kind enough not to embarrass me with laughter. After a few seconds, I flipped back the tarp at the doorway and went outside.

  Everything was quiet. The moon was three-quarters full and bathed the township in a greenish-blue light. A few crickets chirped in the distance, and a faint smell of roasted meat lingering on the breeze.

  I spun around looking for anyone I knew. I spotted Pyra talking with Shannon. Both of them were sitting on one of the log-style benches about fifty yards away. Pyra glared at me for a moment, and Shannon turned around to see. Confused, I waved three, weak fingers at them. Pyra leaned back and turned her gaze away from me. Shannon smiled, but she was dedicating this time to Pyra and not me. After a moment, Shannon returned her attention to Pyra and wrapped a caring arm around Pyra’s shoulders.

  Jonas wasn’t in sight. I decided to sit down on the closest, log bench thing. I made sure it was one that was far enough from Pyra where she wouldn’t have to see me. The cold of the log slid through my clothes and stung my legs. I wrapped my new, blackish coat the Nobodys had given me around my shoulders and stared at the sky.

  Tiny stars sparkled like the windows of the Atlanta skyline. A deep blue haze settled over the black sky like a lake floating above me.

  I sat there for a long time watching people come and go. Jonas walked past my sight as he went from building to building. I thought about going to him, but decided to keep my distance. I didn’t know if I had angered him, and I was embarrassed about our conversation. I recognized that there were rich people that did try to help Lower-Cs. It was hard for me to understand because I never knew any of them. All I knew was Sarah Graham, her stupid car, and her stupid statement that I should just go jump off a bridge and kill myself.

  I still couldn’t believe that I had actually contemplated doing it. I stared into that blonde bitch’s eyes and thought about jumping. I hated being a Lower-C so badly that I was willing to end it all because an Upper-C told me to. Even after two, long years, the memory of it stung.

  I glanced back at Shannon and Pyra huddled together against the March chill and the sharp sting of loneliness cut into my skin. I missed Rylan. I longed for his warm arms to wrap around me and for his passionate kisses to force back the solitude. I glanced at Shannon and Pyra and jealousy sizzled on my heart. I wished Shannon was the only girl in Jonas’s group. Maybe then, we would’ve had a conversation, and I wouldn’t have been by myself.

  At least in the city, I could escape. I could leave and find some other place to help me deal with any pinned up emotions. In prison, I was forced to face my demons, ones that I had been running away from for far too long.

  Clouds sprang from my lips, blocking my view. Jonas continued his back and forth. I didn’t know what he was doing. I guessed that he was off gathering supplies, but his hands were empty.

  After an hour or so of watching him, he left one of the little houses. The doorway tarp moved to the side. A man and a woman stood in the tangerine glow of the interior light. The man’s face was sad, his eyes worried. The woman’s face was distraught. She used every ounce of her being to keep herself together. Jonas put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and he hugged the woman. That’s when I knew. Jonas wasn’t gathering supplies or preparing himself for battle. He reassured the others, helping them to stay calm even with Death looming at their doorstep.

  I was no leader. I was nothing—an innocent face for politics, not a steady heart for a movement. The thought made me hate myself and detest everything that had happened.

  A sniffle tightened my nose. I didn’t know if I was sniffling because of the cold or because a frightened, little girl lived behind this facade of strength. I glanced away from Jonas. Watching him be a real leader felt like someone ran their fingernails across my heart.

  An alarm blared. It was similar to the alarm I had heard inside of the Stadium when Captain Davis had got our attention. The sound was a constant whine of Do-Re-Mi-Re-Do in a harsh, cracking tone.

  I gazed into the blackness as the last of the people dashed inside their homes.

  “The Death Days have started,” I mumbled to myself.

  The awful Do-Re-Mi sound continued for ten minutes, echoing through the trees and off the distant, concrete walls. It was as if the police force wanted every inmate up for inspection. I imagined small children waking up to the sound and then rolling over to see their parent’s terrified eyes.

  I pressed my hands over my heart in a futile attempt to slow it, while my gaze drifted into the bluish-black darkness. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for. I wanted peace, but I wasn’t sure where to find it or even where I needed to start looking. I didn’t know how this would begin or what would be the ignition point.

  The tap of light footsteps echoed into my ears. I perked up. My vision instinctively turned my head to see who or what was coming.

  Two men appeared from the shadows. One ran a few yards behind the other. Sweat poured off their faces. The first carried an axe, the other had a… it couldn’t be. It was a gun. It was a basic automatic weapon, similar to a nine millimeter, but it had an orange stripe along the side. Inside the stripe was the animated zebra pattern that the jumpsuits had. My mind contemplated why it would be marked that way.

  By the time it dawned on me that the stripe was for tracking purposes, the first man yelled, “Jonas, get inside!”

  Jonas spun around. He pushed the two people he spoke with into the house. The intruder turned and flung the axe through the air. The gun fired from the hand of the second intruder. Three shots thundered through the township. The sound was everywhere at once as it bounced around the stone walls. Both men disappeared in two mounds of dust.

  Jonas’s head slid out of the doorway. He glanced around. He said something, yelled something. My eyes transfixed on him while my mind loomed, trying to piece everything together. All of a sudden, thud pounded next to me. I spun my head around as someone groaned on the ground. Pyra stood from her previous location and sent arrows into two men. Shannon grabbed my shoulders and yanked me from my seat before I could even realize what was happening.

  Travis lifted one of the men that Pyra had shot, yanked out the arrow and stabbed the man with it three more times. Shannon tugged my face forward. I gazed into her brown eyes as they seemed to vibrate back and forth in their sockets.

  Her lips moved but my mind was catching up. Soon, her voice asked, “You okay? You shot?”

  I blinked a few times which seemed to spur the adrenaline in my body. “I’m fine.”

  Shannon stood and fired off an arrow. Someone cried. I turned to a man with a knife. The knife sliced through the air. A gleam flickered as the knife headed for Shannon. I knocked her out of the way. A rip sounded. A sting cut into my right arm. The knife thudded into a wall a few feet behind us.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “Yeah, thanks,” she said.

  “Would you two stop gossiping and help me out?” Pyra said, her voice high and annoying.

  Shannon jolted up and fired in the same direction as Pyra. Several men and women dashed left and right, throwing all types of objects at Pyra and Shannon. Most of the objects were knives, or some other sharp object. A bent fork thudded into the ground at my feet.

  Another two gunshots echoed. I glanced to my left, just in time to see the muzzle flash of the second shot. The guy with the gun recovered in the dust. He looked up from the ground.

  I dashed across the alley. On the other side of the street, I put my body against the wall of the house that Jonas was inside with the two people. My heart was steadier than it should be. I waited for the surge of power from the chemical release of my body saving itself, but it didn’t come.

  A deep breath expanded my lungs. I dashed around the corner and saw the man with the gun. He was still on
the ground. A huge gash was in his right arm. He held the gun weakly in his left with blood pooling around his body. The gap between us tightened as I ran at him. I knew exactly what I was doing and what I wanted.

  I wanted the gun. I wanted that power. I could feel it. My joy increased the closer I came to him.

  The man’s head craned toward mine. He glanced at me for a brief moment and the barrel fired. A bloom of bright orange lit up the surrounding area. In that brief moment, every house, the puffs of warm air blasting from my mouth, and people fighting in the distance came into sharp focus. A moment later the area was in darkness again.

  The gun aimed at my chest, but I didn’t care. I lunged at the man. A few clicking sounds slid into my ears before I snatched the man’s head up toward me and rammed it down into the ground, over and over again.

  Vibrations rocked my bones. I trembled all over, but I had to keep going. I had to eliminate the threat. I would yank this man’s life away before he hurt anyone else.

  Georgia clay was not as hard as concrete or wood, but after a few moments, the man’s body slacked. The gun rolled from his fingers.

  I crawled over and grabbed the gun. Without a second thought, I aimed it at his head and tugged back on the silver trigger. I snatched the trigger back again and again.

  His skull didn’t explode into fragments. My face wasn’t sprayed with blood.

  Nothing happened.

  I slid off of him and sat on the ground. The screams around me settled and my body relaxed. I pointed the gun off into the distance and pulled the trigger several times to make sure I wasn’t crazy. I fiddled around the back of the weapon. These things came with clips for bullets. I had to make sure. It didn’t take me long to find the release mechanism. I pulled out the long strip of metal and gazed inside. There were no bullets.

  My heart steadied while I considered the dead man next to me. He tried to shoot me, but he couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how many bullets he shot before he came to the township. I believed he had shot six while he was here: three at the axe carrying guy, two when I stood with Pyra and Shannon, and one more when I came around the corner. He shot six times.

  I wasn’t an expert on guns, but from movies, rap songs, and my run-in with the governor, most guns like this had somewhere between 20 to 30 bullets. The man only had six.

  Some voices rattled behind me. Most of the voices asked if the next person was okay or how severe was a wound.

  I wondered why I had so much anxiety about the dead man next to me. Why did I want to hurt him so badly? What had Clarisse done to me? I was never like this before. Life was precious. People were precious. However, I was some kind of an animal who only wanted to kill—who needed to kill, even if it was just to protect myself. Even though I had decided to let anger fuel me, a shiver slid through me from my behavior.

  Shannon walked over and smiled down at me. “You’re not shot, right?”

  My chest deflated as I glanced at her. “There were only six bullets.”

  “Yeah, the cops don’t give anybody a full clip. They give us just enough to kill a person in here, but not to wage war on the guards.”

  “Crix,” I said, but then I thought about the three clicks I had heard. I’d probably be dead or at least bleeding from my stomach if it wasn’t for the few shot system.

  Shannon reached her hand down. I put my hand in hers and smiled as she lifted me to my feet. I was about to toss the gun when she put her hand over mine.

  “No. You gotta keep the gun. There might be more clips or guns that jam. Guns are valuable.” Her expression brightened. “I’m… I’m kinda glad you got the gun. I saw you on TV with it. You’re pretty good.”

  “I kinda suck from a distance. But you put somebody within ten feet of me and BAM, I got ‘em.” I aimed the gun and acted like I shot the air.

  Shannon laughed.

  “Thanks for saving me,” I said.

  “No problem. We all have to stick together.” The skin around her eyes tightened. “Are all the bats gone from the belfry? You seemed like you were out of it.”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I said.

  “You?” she asked as if what I had said was going around like the flu. “I can’t turn this thing off.” She pointed at her head. “I’m trying to focus, but I keep running ‘what if’ scenarios in my head. What if I die, and my brother gets caught? What if I get maimed but don’t die? It’s like I can’t focus through all the garbles in my noggin.”

  She wiggled her head and for the first time in a long while I laughed. Not an outward belly laugh, but an internal pause that puts a smile on your face and makes your worries disappear for a moment.

  If Ms. Cooper, my foster mom, was still out there praying for me, like she said she always did, I’d think she’d like Shannon. Ms. Cooper may even believe that someone like Shannon could help me find a better path. Maybe, Ms. Cooper had been praying for me just to have a friend all these years; not a boyfriend, or a mentor, or children to protect, but just somebody kind of like me. Shannon was that type of person. A person Ms. Cooper would be proud of.

  CHAPTER 13

  Shannon and I stepped over the dead man on the ground and walked around to see Jonas exiting the house. He glanced over, but his eyes were serious like they had been in the kitchen.

  “You guys alright?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Shannon said.

  I nodded but kept my lips sealed. Nervous shivers vibrated at various intervals through my neck and arms. I didn’t want to be a killer. I wanted to protect myself and those I loved, but I didn’t understand my sudden behavior. Sure, this lined up with my attitude when I was with Clarisse and Norwood in his office; but this latest event seemed wrong somehow, like I wasn’t in control.

  Pyra jumped in front Jonas, waving her hands around like a lunatic. “What-the-what? It just started. No one has ever attacked this quickly before!”

  His shoulders relaxed as he stared into her panicked face, but he had a twinge of concern at the edges of his temples, too. This was my first time experiencing the Death Days. I didn’t know what to expect. Having the first attack thirty seconds into it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies.

  Shannon noticed my twitches and wrapped her hand around mine. I glanced at her smiling eyes and was able to calm down.

  “Things are changing,” Jonas said. His voice carried emptiness of thought.

  “No duh!” Pyra yelled.

  Devin stepped forward and stretched. “You think this has anything to do with our new acquisition? If so, then maybe we shouldn’t be protecting her.”

  Everyone looked at me. Devin’s eyes seemed to ignite in his sockets.

  Jonas put a hand on Devin’s shoulder. “If it is, then it’s more reason to protect her.”

  “Why? What has she done worth anything? We didn’t make her the poster child for anyone. Crix, is she even a part of us? I mean really?”

  I wanted to yell at Devin and let him know that I did officially join Escerica. I was a rebel, technically. However, my mind reeled over my behavior and the way I killed the man, beating his head into the dirt. It wasn’t… it wasn’t me.

  Jonas stretched his arms wide. “It doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t a part. All of that is irrelevant. What matters now is that the world sees Paeton as a reason to fight. If Norwood and Dalton can put her head on a spike and say, here’s your dead hero, it can demoralize everything. But if she’s alive and well, then it’s like spitting in their faces.”

  Travis walked over and ran his hand over his head. “I like the idea of spitting in their faces.”

  “Good. Cause while I’m not planning on dying tonight or tomorrow night, I do want us to at least attempt to keep Paeton alive.” Jonas walked back to his house.

  The others glanced me over and one by one turned to follow him.

  I didn’t want to be some crutch. I also didn’t like the idea that people would die for my behalf. There was enough death already. They didn’t need to treat me
like Sun Hi and Dhyla had. I had grown up a lot in the last week.

  Shannon put an arm around my shoulders. “Everybody’s just scared.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said.

  My chest expanded and contracted in hard pulses. I turned away from Shannon and felt like I was suffocating. I slid down to my knees but Shannon stayed with me.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Something’s wrong. I don’t know what.” I tried to regain control of my lungs and stop hyperventilating.

  “You’re afraid.”

  “How can I be? I don’t feel afraid… I feel… different. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “What is it like?”

  I turned toward her. My back was tight, legs weak. “I didn’t just want to kill that guy, I wanted to… it was like I wanted to destroy him, cut him open, and keep ripping at him until there was nothing left.”

  She paused for a moment. I was the monster under her childhood bed. The expression faded, and she forced a weak smile. “It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “When will I be me again?” I dropped my gaze while her hands stroked my arms.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll come back. We always come back,” she said.

  I stumbled to my feet, and she guided me back to the house. Before I went in, I wiped my face with the coat. Once inside, I leaned against the far wall. Shannon stayed with me for a moment, making sure that I was okay. After a few seconds, I nodded as an encouragement for her to leave me. As much as I tried, I had a hard time just being one of them all of a sudden. I hadn’t gone through what they had. I hadn’t trained with them. They didn’t know me and didn’t trust me. I didn’t want Shannon to be ostracized from them because of the demons plaguing me.

  Shannon gave me the brightest face she could muster before sitting on a chair next to the others. Even though she was trying, Shannon still had her loyalties. Not that I blamed her, but it would be nice to have someone truly on my side.

  I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and concentrated on Clarisse. She had done this to me, and one day I would take my revenge out on her.