by D A Rice
I huffed as my shoulders fell back to the ground with his weight. He lifted my waist effortlessly, threading the bandages behind my lower back and around my stomach before tightening them to an almost uncomfortable level. I turned my head to the side, biting my lip in pain. Discarded and bloody bandages lay within my view, the cast from my arm next to them, cracked and broken. My brows furrowed. “Are those from me?” I asked in a gasp as he eased me back down to the ground and shifted his weight off me again.
Now that I could take in my surroundings, I realized that there was also a canteen full of water and an empty bowl next to my head. Had he fed me, as well as changed my bandages? Now that I thought about it, I did taste something resembling chicken on my tongue. Where had the broth come from? I shifted, pushing myself up on my elbows, before crying out and dropping back onto the ground. He raised an eyebrow at me, then moved, lifting me up by my shoulders in an inhumanly gentle way, especially considering how he had manhandled me not five minutes earlier. He lay me against the tree he had been lounging against moments before, then picked up the bandages and the discarded cast from my arm and tossed them to the flames. “You were hemorrhaging. The bandages could not hold the blood. I had to do something,” he nodded to my sword and comprehension lit itself inside of my head.
“You cauterized my wound……” I said, glancing down, and the pain had awakened me from the blood loss coma I was starting to slip into.
He nodded, “this was not the first time tonight I had to do so. You were also bleeding internally. I apologize but….” He sat down next to me, a grin on his face, “you’ll likely need to clean your knives as well. I had nothing else to cauterize the internal wounds. Your sword was far too big.”
My mouth dropped open as I took him in. His fur coat was brown and covered him up well, but I could tell that he was built up with muscle. He had leather pants on his legs and his hair was honey blonde and wild, flowing almost to his shoulders. His eyes, a stark jade color, were just as wild as his hair. He sat back, taking me in as I studied him. “How did you even know what to cauterize?” I asked, voice soft. I couldn’t help it, I was impressed.
He smiled in amusement, tapping his temple near his eye, “I can see extraordinarily well.” He chuckled again and turned away from me, pulling a decorated hickory recurve bow over his shoulder and tightening the bowstring. He side-glanced me, “who is Isaac?”
I gasped, shooting up from the tree as my memories flashed before my eyes, “Isaac! I must find him! I need to know he’s ok!” I struggled to my elbows, trying to get up as desperation took over.
The hunter in front of me watched me with an eyebrow raised, “and you think you can find him out here...like that?” he asked, motioning towards my injuries.
I glared at him, pausing in my struggle to sit up fully, “I am a Warrior of Adonai, injuries cannot stop us from saving those we love.”
Suddenly he was on top of me again, his knee digging into my stomach none-too-gently as his forearm met my neck in a move so fast I had not even seen him move at all. I wheezed, my hands coming up to meet his arm as he increased the pressure on my neck, his eyes narrowing. “Warrior of Adonai, eh? And yet you can not move me, can you?” he hissed, leaning forward as his eyes blazed, “do not make my saving your life a waste, girl.”
I coughed, and he relaxed his forearm from my throat so that I could breathe, his knee sliding to my side so that he was straddling me. I took the opportunity to hook his leg against my body before bucking and rolling him off me. My body landed between his legs, which folded behind my back as he laughed. I growled at him as my adrenaline blocked out my pain, and threw a hammer fist down, hitting him squarely in the groin. He grunted but did not let me go. In fact, his legs squeezed harder and I yelped as his force sent sharp pains into my still-healing stomach, “I would stop if I were you, lass,” he said his arms crossing over his chest, “You’re likely to re-open that wound I spent all night cauterizing.”
I gasped as I realized he was right. Taking in the sun that crept back over the horizon in the coming dawn, I saw that it was morning. I collapsed on top of him, my energy spent. His legs loosened as he shifted, gently laying me down on my side next to him before sitting up. He draped an arm over his knee as he fixed me with a curious stare. My hands found my face as I let out a sob, “how long have I been out?”
“Only the night. The Corrupted know better than to pick fights with me, but I built the fire to keep them away from you. Only one even tried to get near,” I could hear the curiosity in his voice and I knew immediately who that Corrupted was.
I peeked at him from between my fingers, “what happened to him?” my voice was soft, pained.
He smiled, his eyes alight with a hidden knowledge, “I got my arrow back.”
My fingers covered my face again, “please tell me you left him alive.”
There was a pause and I lowered my hands to meet his gaze. There was a sadness in him even as he nodded, “aye, he’s alive, and before you ask, yes. He still has some humanity left to him as well. I have a feeling he will be back, even if he knows not what drives him. But you do, don’t you?”
I couldn’t help it. I had barely met this man, and he had almost re-opened my injuries to prove a point, but he had saved me all the same. There was something about him that I trusted, something honest that I could not deny. Besides, it was obvious that he knew how to handle himself in a fight. His reactions had been faster than anything I had seen from any of my warriors. His abilities piqued my curiosity. Was this the one outside the dome the Corrupted had spoken of? It would make sense; not many could survive for long out here. If they did, they had to be a legend to someone.
But more than anything else, he had spared Isaac, had seen the humanity left in him. I could tell that the curiosity about Isaac was burning in him. How could Isaac still have some humanity left? Even I did not know. It had been at least a week since he had been bitten. He should have changed within forty-eight hours at the most. I eased myself back up and leaned against the tree, huffing as the pain assailed me, my arm clutching my stomach again. I could feel, however, that despite the grappling we had done, my wound had not re-opened. I was grateful for the small mercy. I glanced at the hunter in front of me as he, in turn, watched me, his eyes unreadable.
“I am Zakiya Harishima,” I said, offering this stranger a truce.
His smile returned as he nodded, “Gabriel Logan. Tell me your story, Zakiya.”
I watched him for a moment, “are you saying you will help me?” I was hopeful. I was no longer under any delusions that I could do this alone. If I could gain his help, maybe I still had a chance of saving the one I loved. He knew the outside world far better than I did, and I was not one to waste a resource if it was available.
Gabriel pulled another log from beside him and tossed it onto the fire. I could see an open pack hidden on his other side and the quiver on his back near his bow. He tossed the roll of bandages he still had in his hand up and caught it, before tucking it back away inside his coat. He met my gaze thoughtfully, “I haven’t decided yet. I have already helped you. But since you are still healing, albeit remarkably fast, I think we have time for a story before you are in any sort of traveling condition.” He flicked his eyes down to my stomach before meeting my gaze again meaningfully. Then he sat back on his heels as he watched me, his head tilting to the side as his palm came up to rest on his cheek expectantly. He sat unnervingly still, his eyes intensely focused on mine, and I could not stop myself from shivering.
So I told him my story, every part of it and he listened without moving or showing any expressions to give away what he was thinking. I bit my lip as I moved, trying to make myself more comfortable. I could not explain how I felt in Gabriel’s presence. I found myself trusting him to a degree, but he also unnerved me. How long had he been out here to make a reputation as fierce as the one he clearly had with the Corrupted? How had he learned to fight and survive as he had? And why were his movements so unnat
ural? He moved faster than I had thought possible to stop me from getting up, and even now he was sitting so still it was uncanny. Who was this man? More and more I wanted to know, but for the moment, I did not ask.
When I was done speaking, he blinked slowly, thoughtfully, “this Isaac has been in a halfway state for a week?”
I shrugged, “about a week, yes. I was in the hospital after the attack for a few days, but I am not sure how many. When I found him again, he was more human than he is now, but the change in him- it’s not overtaking him as fast as I have seen it overtake others within Zion.”
“And you think that, because he still has some humanity left in him, you can cure him?” Gabriel sounded almost incredulous and I could feel the indignation rising within me at his disbelief.
“Why else would I be out here, risking my life outside the dome?” I huffed in irritation, clutching my stomach harder as my head fell back against the tree. “I brought him out here, Gabriel. I will not let him down. If you saw him, and you saw he still has humanity left, then I will keep my hope.”
Gabriel was silent for a moment, his fingers coming up to rub his jaw, “interesting,” was all he said as he stood, slowly, up.
I cringed as I watched him, trying to move myself further up the tree to stand if possible, “where are you going?” I asked in what was almost panic. I told him my story and he planned to leave me to my own devices? That irritation spiked up within me a little bit higher as he placed a hand on my shoulder and shoved me back down, his eyes sparkling in amusement. Oh, how I wanted to unleash the warrior inside of me on him in that moment, but I could barely stand, let alone fight, and Gabriel knew it.
“Calm yourself, Zakiya. I only mean to hunt for game to last us through the day and the night. Now that it is morning, you will be safe without me,” he pulled his bow off of his back and smiled, “besides, I have a feeling you can take care of yourself, even with your injuries. You would find a way to survive no matter what.” He gave me a side-eye glance and shook his head, “in my twenty-seven years of life, I have never met someone quite like you.”
I glared at him, “we just met.”
He laughed as he pulled out an arrow from his quiver and strode off, nocking the arrow as he walked, “Aye, and I already can’t wait to see what you do next.”
Then he was out of the grove as the sun began to cast its soft glow inside it, and the fire crackled with the last of the logs. I leaned back against the tree and closed my eyes as the sorrow I had not been able to feel crept over me. I had lost Isaac again, but he had found me.
If Gabriel was right, and Isaac came back tonight, I would not lose him again.
10
My jaw dropped open when Gabriel returned with two rabbits shot through the eye in one hand and the pelt of a deer wrapped around the meat he had field dressed in his other. I eased my way up the tree behind me, having rested enough while he was gone that my stomach was only sore, compared to the stabbing wound it had been earlier. It was still red where Gabriel had cauterized every wound inside of me and out, but it was healing nicely compared to how long the claw gash on my arm had taken.
Even now I could see the ugly scars there, visible with the cast torn off. He set the rabbits down beside his pack, then lay the pelt down next, gently unfolding it to reveal the raw meat inside. He pulled something out of his pack, showing it to me in a flash: tinfoil. Where had he gotten that? I wondered. For how advanced we were inside Zion, things like tinfoil were a commodity most people could not afford. It, among with many other things, had simply run out and we had gotten creative. We still had electric power, and we had our tech geniuses. We saved our food through different means.
Gabriel wrapped the meat in separate pieces of tinfoil as I finally stood up, hobbling over to his side and sitting gingerly down next to him. He glanced at me with an eyebrow raised and I shrugged, “Angel-blessed. We tend to heal fast, as you have observed,” I commented as he tossed the tinfoil packages into the fire with a grin, after stoking it back to life.
“Aye, I had observed as much. I also saw the state your arm was in and know that the opposite is also true. Your arm was infected under that cast,” he sat back beside me, pulling a rabbit into his lap and extracting a hunting knife from his pack next. He set to work skinning the pelt from the meat and I watched him, entranced.
He paused as he glanced at me in amusement again and I coughed, shifting away from him, “claws of the Corrupted, while not exactly lethal, tend to give us infections of a different variety. Even the Angel blessed have a harder time healing from the wounds they leave.” I glanced at him and shivered, “is it safe to eat the meat out here?” I inquired.
Gabriel didn’t respond for a moment as he continued his work, “if you are talking about radiation, look around you, lass. You are still alive and well. The radiation is not as potent as the dome would have you believe. It is unhealthy, aye, in the way that sugars and sweets are, but the air is breathable. That is all that matters. Therefore, the meat and all food and water out here can sustain a person if necessary, without harming them too much.” He grinned at me here, “I have seen your scouting parties. They bring food in all the time that was not grown from your metal box. I believe most of your population survives, even with some food from the outside mixed in with the rest, do they not?”
I cringed, looking down, “not for much longer, but you are right, it isn’t because of the food.”
He looked at me, his brows furrowing, “ah, the Corrupted. It is strange that they know how to get into the city.” He scratched his chin with the butt of his knife, thoughtfully.
My eyes found the fire and stayed there, “I need to find that cure, or Zion is doomed.”
“Zion is doomed? Or Isaac?” I could hear the scrape, scrape of his knife as he continued his work, peeling the other pelt from the meat and setting it near the fire to dry. Then he sliced the meat, carving it down from certain sections of each rabbit and laying strips out to dry next to the pelts. I watched him as his question hung between us. He wasn’t wrong.
“Both,” I said quietly, and he nodded, accepting this. I took a deep breath in, looking up as I held back the tears, “I need to find him, Gabriel.”
Gabriel paused again, then pulled out the last of his tinfoil, wrapping up the larger chunks of rabbit and poking the wrapped deer he had left in the fire, flipping each package. “I don’t think you do, actually,” he finally supplied, voice quiet, “I think he will come to you. Now, whether he will come as the one you knew or to eat you raw remains to be seen.”
I shot a glance at him to find his face in complete seriousness and I scowled, “how can you be so nonchalant about all of this? Who are you?”
“I have been out here a long time, Zakiya. Nothing really surprises me anymore. Not even you as you ran out of the dome being chased by demons,” he met my gaze. “However, the way you fought them, and the way one attacked his own to save you after you were injured…. That did surprise me.”
“If you saw him save me, why did you shoot him?” I asked incredulous.
He threw the last of the packages into the fire, using the stick to make room as he did and shrugged, “I saw the way he looked at you when you were bleeding. I saw the way he smelled the blood coming from your body. He wanted to make you into a meal, even as he fought himself. When I shot him, I aimed to hurt, not to kill. I wanted to see what he would do. His face held recognition, and fear,” he glanced up at me, “he let me take you, then he followed us. He prowled the edge of this grove as I saw to your wounds, just outside the firelight.” He nodded back towards the circle of trees, his gaze assessing the memories there.
“How did you get your arrow back?” I asked him, voice soft, remembering what he had said.
His eyes sparked in amusement as he chuckled, turning back to the fire, “he threw it at me like one would a spear. Almost got me too. The boy’s got aim.”
I laughed outright then, gasping as each laugh racked me with pain. “Isaac i
s a master of all weapons, from the staff,” I nodded to the bow slung over his shoulder again, “to the bow. His favorite, however, is dual-wielding his short swords.”
Gabriel was watching me again, his eyes unreadable, “you claim to love him, but I am seeing something else entirely. I get the feeling that this cure your looking for isn’t actually for him, is it?”
I turned my gaze on him, seething as I clenched my hands into fists. How could this man make me laugh one moment, and make me want to kill him and throw him into the fire the next? “What do you mean by that?” I asked him, voice dangerously low.
Gabriel did not back down, “I think you are afraid to be alone. Isn’t that why you refused to kill him in the first place? Even knowing how he would suffer?”
His words hit me like a slap in the face, “you do not know me as well as you think,” I growled as my body tensed, ready for a fight.
“Am I wrong?” he asked simply, face calm as the rage simmered inside me.
“I love Isaac. I could not kill him because he is my other half, because I know that we can find a way to save him instead,” I pounded the ground with my palm in irritation and his eyes flicked down before meeting mine again.
“Why did it take you this long to look for a cure, when you were completely satisfied killing Corrupted before Isaac got bitten? Didn’t you believe it was possible to find Adonai before? To find the garden in which he resides?” He was watching me far too closely. I didn’t care.
I threw my hands up, standing as I exploded, “Adonai! Where is Adonai in this world?!” I twirled around, waving the hand that wasn’t clutching my stomach in pain around the clearing, as well as the dying world beyond. Gabriel didn’t move a muscle as he watched me, and it agitated me further. “So what if I am selfish?! So what if I did not want to find a cure before now? Are you any better than me? Out here for who knows how long, just surviving? What have you contributed to our decrepit world? At least I helped my mom in her quest to find a cure, to rid the world of the Corrupted!”