by DC Little
She knew he assumed, like the rest, that she would pick him, and she felt him imagining what that would be like. Interestingly enough, he didn’t seem too attached to the idea, like he could take it or not.
Of course, she could be wrong. She didn’t always read people correctly.
“If squirrels can distract you from your post, I’m not sure if sentry duty is right for you.” Ethan’s voice held no contempt, only mild humor and observation.
“And if you think I didn’t know the exact moment you started your climb up here, then I am disappointed in you.” She turned, softening her words with a half-smile.
Ethan rocked back on his heels, watching her. “You’ve seemed distracted lately.”
Mercy narrowed her eyes, pushing past him to scan the land around their home. Nothing moved beyond the trees swaying in the wind and birds flitting from branch to branch. Below her, the camp went about its business.
Some people trained, shooting arrows, throwing knives, or sparring. Others worked in the gardens along the small creek. Some washed clothes at the end of the ravine before the water fell through the rocks and into the river canyon beyond. Her heart swelled watching her people peacefully living out their life in the protected ravine.
“Seems like we’d be safe here forever, doesn’t it?” Ethan’s voice breathed next to her.
“Appearances aren’t always the truth,” she said without looking at him.
“No, they aren’t.” The slight humor in his voice caused her to turn toward him sharply.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she spat out.
Ethan shrugged. It often annoyed her that he barely reacted to anything, like his mom. Laurie exuded calm, even when her heart raced and her mind whirred. As irritating as that was for someone who overreacted to practically everything, she still was one of Mercy’s favorite people in Zion.
For a while, Mercy even thought about becoming an apprentice to the healer. She rolled her shoulders and focused on the horizon. The healing herbs held her interest, but all the sitting and pounding and waiting and watching...even now Mercy’s legs twitched at the thought.
“So, you going to share what’s on your mind?” Ethan asked, his full attention on her once again.
“You know me, E. My mind is always running in a million different directions.” Yet, as she said that, her eyes landed on her brother.
Tucker patiently worked with a group of younger boys, gently tapping down their shoulders and lifting their elbows as they released arrow after arrow at the target mounds. He would make an excellent leader, kind, patient, even-tempered. Even without his hidden gifts, he had the skills needed.
Tyler would need a second. It should be Tuck.
A rush of irritation rushed through her like a forest fire. “What is it, Ethan? Spit it out.” She immediately regretted the harshness of her tone, but the soft brown eyes never wavered.
“I thought maybe you were distracted because your Choosing Day will arrive in a little over six months.” As calm as he looked, she felt his pulse quicken and eyes slightly widen.
“What are you saying? Are you just like the rest, Ethan?” She took a step toward him. “Tell me you aren’t trying to snare me or win me over?”
“I’m not,” he said calmly. He searched her eyes for a long moment and then pulled them away to look toward camp. “I know what they say. I know what our parents think.”
Mercy stiffened. Besides Tuck, Ethan and his younger sister, Noel, were her closest friends. She didn’t want to think he would act like the other hormone-fueled men in their camp. She let out a long sigh. Blaming the men fixed nothing. They needed mates, just as she did. Was it wrong she didn’t want someone she had grown up with?
“And you think like the others? You think I should do more womanly things like your mother and sister? To stay safe, so I can bring more babies to Zion?”
“Whoa, so that’s where your head has been?” Ethan looked at her from the corner of his eye, not daring to meet her head on.
Mercy grunted and folded her arms in a huff.
“In answer to your questions,” his voice softened as he turned toward her, “I don’t think you should change who you are...for anyone.”
The fire drained out of Mercy as she turned back toward Ethan, seeing her friend rather than another wife-hunting man. “Really?”
“Really.” He briefly rested a hand on her arm as he walked past.
Mercy swallowed. “Even for you?”
Ethan ducked his head, glancing back at her. “Especially for me.” He took a couple more steps before turning back. “I came up here to...to tell you, that I wouldn’t refuse you...if you decide to pick me.”
Mercy stood speechless, unwilling to acknowledge they were discussing this. She could see the rapid flutter of his pulse on his neck, feel the nervousness pouring off of him, but something stronger lived underneath—a solid foundation of love. Not the romantic love that she saw between her parents, or with Tyler and Hannah, or Ryan and Olivia, but the steady love of family and friendship.
“Ethan…” she started, unsure of where her words would take her.
He held up a hand and shook his head. “I’m not looking for an answer. I needed you to know that you should listen to your heart, not everyone’s assumption. Whoever you pick should be someone who will make you happy, whether it's me...or someone else.” He searched her eyes once more. “You will always have my friendship.”
He left her still frozen as he hopped down the ridge effortlessly, his sense of outward calm once again returning. At the bottom, he glanced back up toward her, lifted a hand with a soft smile, and walked in his easy gait toward her brother.
Mercy continued to struggle with how she felt about what Ethan had told her even after Owen came to relieve her.
“Your brother said to meet him at the sparring pits,” Owen told her. “You, uh, you look nice today.”
Mercy glared at him. “Do I not look the same as I did yesterday or the day before that or the day before that?”
“Well, yes, I mean, you look nice every day…ugh.” Owen abruptly turned away, his blonde hair whipping above his brown eyes. “Forget it.”
“You know, Owen.” Mercy punched his shoulder. “You’re a friend, just like those other boneheads down there. Don’t change on me just because I’m turning twenty-one this summer. It won’t help your chances.” She pivoted on her foot, stomping off before spinning back. “And you can tell the rest of them that, too!”
A few birds flew from the tree next to her, shooting toward the alpine glow covering the mountains. At least, she wasn’t in the forest. She didn’t need the extra attention.
She groaned as she saw Tucker surrounded by the young men in the sparring pits. Her feet and back ached from standing all afternoon on duty. The last thing she wanted was to spar.
The group turned toward her as she approached. She ignored them, leveling her glare on Tucker. “Owen said you needed me?”
“I know where I need you,” one guy said, causing a volcano of laughter from the others. She couldn’t tell for sure, but she bet she knew exactly who the speaker was and her skin crawled with fury.
Mercy glared at the group, her lips pulling tight and her eyes hopefully showing the promise to drop them on their backsides should they consider continuing their chuckles. They halted their cackles.
“I need to eat,” she told her brother.
“I see that.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Though that comment,” he turned back to the group, his voice lowering, “should earn its speaker a week in the trenches.”
Mercy followed her brother’s glare to Darius. “Don’t worry about him. I could drop him quicker than a hibernating bear.”
“Oh!” the group shouted and several punched Darius, enjoying seeing him on the receiving end.
“And you think dropping a hibernating bear is easy?” Darius cocked an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips.
“Come on,” Tucker said, tu
gging on her arm. “Let’s get you some food.”
Mercy shrugged her arm out of her brother’s grasp, turning to face Darius who stood only a couple inches taller than her. “As easy as I can drop you.” She smiled, though she knew it looked more like a sneer. At least that’s what Tucker said she looked like when she goaded someone on like this.
“Let’s see it then.” Darius narrowed his eyes.
Her spine tingled in warning, but the fiery anger at all of her friends suddenly turning into stupid, hormone, wife-hunting fiends fueled her on. “What? Drop you?” She dropped into a fighting stance. “Bring it on!”
Darius laughed. “I’m done dropping little girls to the ground for today.” He took a step forward, glaring at her. “No. I meant, I dare you to show us how easy it is to kill a hibernating bear.”
A collective gasp met her ears. She heard the whispered exclamations from the others. Only one person had attempted to kill a hibernating bear during one of the leaner winters they had. He had never made it home. A search party found him. Claw marks had sliced open his chest and the bear had snapped his neck.
They didn’t believe she could do it. Her blood boiled. She was tired of the guys thinking of her as less than them. She may not be as strong, but her agility, skill, and quickness could out maneuver them at any drill. A bear...that took strength.
“Fine. You take over my sentry duty, and I’ll leave for a bear hunt in the morning.” She turned on her heel, leaving the group in stunned silence.
The silence broke while she was still in hearing range as her brother’s livid voice rose behind her.
“You’ve gone too far, man.” His words came through his teeth, like their dad’s did when you knew you better heed his warning. “You had to dare her! If something happens to her, I will inflict it on you tenfold. You hear that, Darius! Tenfold!” Tucker’s angry footsteps quickly caught up with her.
Together, they stormed to their dwelling in silence lined with an uneasy tension.
>>>—ORION—<<<
Orion stood in awe of the forest surrounding him. Everything teemed with life. Birds sang from hidden places in the branches of the tallest trees he had ever seen. Squirrels scampered around the trunks, angrily chattering at the intruders disturbing their hunt for acorns or whatever they ate. He paused, inhaling the crisp and fragrant air.
“You stopping to smell the roses?” one of the coalition boys sneered, snorting as he laughed.
The pimply-faced kid was younger than Orion and eager to prove himself, so Orion let the comment roll off. “Have you ever even seen a rose, Sanders?”
“Well, no...I guess not.” The kid quirked his eyes in a way that made him look cross-eyed.
“Then I imagine, should we happen upon one, we would all be smelling it.” Orion comradely slapped the kid’s back before stepping up his pace to stride alongside Mulroney.
“They’re beautiful, by the way.” Mulroney kept his voice low. “Roses, that is, and one of the most memorable smells besides fresh baked bread or chocolate chip cookies.”
“Living in the past again, are you?” Orion teased.
“Count yourself lucky that you don’t know any different, boy. You have no idea what you’re missing,” the man muttered.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Orion said, but with a touch of respect. He always enjoyed hearing about the old days the good ol’ boys talked about around the fires at night. “So, how did you get wrangled into this babysitting job?”
Mulroney grunted. “None of your business, boy. You just do what we came to do so we can get back to warm beds and guaranteed meals.”
“How long do you suppose that’s gonna last anyway, Mulman?” Orion leaned in closer as they squeezed between two enormous trunks. “I heard rations are running low. The farms aren’t producing like they’re supposed to, and the rivers are running low on fish.”
Mulroney stiffened as he quickened his pace.
“I heard that this mission we’re on is more than just revenge, but scouting and intel,” Orion continued in a conspirator’s whisper.
The older officer kept his face expressionless as he stared toward the animal trail they followed. “Leave it alone, boy.”
“Is Meyers planning on moving us out to defector land?”
Mulroney halted so quickly that Orion had to take a few steps back to be within whispering range...which he ended up regretting. Mulroney cuffed his ear and squeezed his face between his powerful fingers. “Don’t mess with what you don’t understand, kid. Or you’ll end up worse off than you already are.” He shoved his face away and stormed up the trail.
Several of the guys in line smirked at Orion as they passed him. The last guy, a surly man everyone called Big Al, stopped before him with a leveled stare.
“Oh, I see, you’re taking your babysitting job seriously.” Orion rolled his eyes. “Fine. Fine. I’ll let you bring up the rear. It’s not like I could run away now, even if I wanted to. I’d get lost before I went fifteen steps and die of hunger...not to mention freeze to death.”
A shiver coursed through him with a premonition of sorts. It left goosebumps rising and a knowing teased him with something just out of his reach—a knowing that his life would never be the same after this expedition.
Even as fit as Orion believed himself to be, his feet ached and his body rebelled against the monotonous movement that walking demanded. Now if he could run, jumped, and swung his way through the woods, he might not feel as sore. A smile pulled at his lips with the thought. What would old Mulroney think of him free-running through the forest like a wild man? Freedom expanded his chest with the thought.
He had found a certain security in being able to disappear between the large, decaying buildings. No one could navigate through them as fast as he could. Well, besides the man who had taught him. Diego. Orion called him a man, but he had lived little past the age Orion was now.
Did he consider himself a man? Everyone he knew called him a boy, yet at twenty-three he had every right to be considered a man.
“Hey, rooster boy,” Mulroney yelled at him from the front of the line.
Orion dropped his shoulders, not realizing he had shoved out his chest in response to his internal conversation. Still a boy, he chuckled to himself, might as well live it up.
“Get your scrawny behind up here,” Mulroney bellowed.
Orion jogged to the man and followed his gaze up a tall, long-needled tree. “You thinking of camping in the branches?”
“Don’t you take anything seriously?” Mulroney raised his hand as though to cuff him, but dropped it instead. “You think you could shimmy up there and scan the area?”
Orion eyed the tree in a different light. The only branches the tree wielded were at least ten feet off the ground. He remembered watching Diego shimmy up a street lamp. His mentor had climbed to the top, wrapped his legs around the arm a good fifteen feet in the air, and hung upside down.
Orion shrugged, pushing thoughts of Diego down. “I’ll try just about anything once.”
“That a boy.” Mulroney smacked him on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward.
“What exactly am I scanning for? Bears?” Orion asked, arching his eyebrow.
“Smoke. Sign of human life. And sure, bears.”
Orion stood back to size up the tree, laying out the climbing route in his mind. Once he saw himself maneuvering up the tree, he shrugged his shoulders and rolled them out. His fingers, stiffened with cold, scrunched together before he rubbed his palms briskly across each other to build up heat.
The trunk of the tree was much thicker than a street lamp, but its rough bark should offer more traction.
“We going to just sit here watching the pansy boy exercise?” Sanders squawked.
“No,” Mulroney turned on him, “you’re going to make yourself useful by collecting firewood.”
Sanders grumbled.
“Now!” Mulroney pointed into the trees. “And make sure it’s dry!”
&nbs
p; He sent off the other onlookers as well, leaving only him and Big Al to watch Orion shimmy up a hundred foot tree for the first time. The light slowly faded, leaving the sky muted and a chill growing in the air.
“No time like the present.” Orion took a few more steps back.
“Just…” Mulroney’s voice stopped him. “Just don’t do anything foolish.”
“Me? Foolish?” Orion laughed.
Before Mulroney could muster a response, Orion sprinted toward the tree, ran a few feet up it before his arms hugged it like a long-lost friend. His feet scrambled, showering the forest floor with bark and moss before he slipped back down. The rough wood tore at his hands and his chest. Even through his coat and layers of clothes, he could feel the scrapes sting.
He pushed back from the tree and landed in a squat, eyeing the massive beast of nature with a fresh eye.
“You aren’t giving up, are you?” Mulroney goaded.
“I’m just getting started.” Orion relied on speed. His speed and agility had kept him safe over the years as he leapt off roofs and across them, down stairs, and up and down walls. This new obstacle required a novel approach.
Hitting the tree at the speed he did, made him have to cling to the trunk. He needed to begin in the correct position.
His arms couldn’t quite fit around the bottom of the trunk. He inspected the bark, the depth of each groove, and its strength to hold him against the tree. On either side of the tree, Orion wedged his fingers into the grooves and tested their strength by putting one foot flat against the trunk and bringing the other off the ground, first for only a second. Finally, he put the other foot on the trunk next to the first.
He jumped back and nodded. After double checking his pockets, ensuring that he had zipped them closed, he shrugged out of his coat and laid it next to the tree. Then he turned toward Mulroney.
“Promise me you’ll watch after Lily.” Orion stared him hard in the eyes.
“Your Old Man has your sister properly cared for.”
“Mulman,” Orion snapped, glaring at him, hoping using his nickname for the guy would grasp his attention. “Promise me.”