by Liahona West
What if they get worse?
He was in his room, a few of her employees around him. One guard approached. “We’ve managed to stop the bleeding.”
“What?”
They parted for her. Seth held a bloody cloth against his face, more heaped in a basket by his bed. Her mind separated from her body.
Seth tossed the fabric into the basket and grabbed a fresh one. “I promise…I’m okay now.”
“You had a seizure. You’re bleeding.”
“Mama, please…”
She shook her head and sat on his bed. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Baby, it’s my job.”
Seth scrunched up his face and turned away. “Stop.”
She put her hand on his leg. “You’d prefer I didn’t worry?”
“No. I…you always worry. I’m dying…Mama and I want things…to be happy, but when stuff like…this happens, you get a…wrinkle in your forehead and…I’m all of a sudden a helpless little child who…needs to be babied. Then you get…in a funk. I don’t…like it.”
Joy’s heart dropped to the floor. She desperately wanted to fix things, losing sleep over trying to figure out how to still save him, but nothing worked. Nothing could stop his disease. She’d tried.
“I’m sorry.” Joy gave him a hug, pressing her mouth into his shoulder. “I’m trying.”
Seth nodded.
“What do you need me to do?” She asked.
He thought for a bit, then a small smile crossed his lips. “Take a sick day with me?”
The bed sheets rustled as Joy hooked her arm around his. “What do you want to do first?”
***
“You called me, ma’am?” Adam, one of her most skilled men, stood at attention in the hallway. He had only six months left before he could return to his family. It wasn’t pleasant, the manipulation and lying, but she did it anyway for Seth.
Joy turned around after releasing the handle on the lab door where she had been testing yet another small batch of failed nanites. She threw them away. “Yes.” Her lower back was sore from standing so long. “Walk with me.”
He obliged and followed Joy to her office. “What’s on your mind, ma’am?”
“My son. He’s not going to like what I’m about to do.”
“I’m not sure I follow.” His dark eyes narrowed.
Joy turned the corner. Another one of her employees, Kira, presented her with papers documenting Seth’s recent incident and Joy signed it. She looked at Adam and explained Mason and Joy’s agreement. “So, you see, if I remove Mason from the picture, Eloise will be unguarded.”
“She has plenty of others to protect her. Including one of our own.”
She gritted her teeth. “Bannack Owusu is not one of ours. He defected a long time ago and, as far as I’m concerned, is in the way.” Joy looked at Adam, his eyes round and body angled away from her. She rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t give me that look. You know what the job requires.”
They entered the dark office together. Joy grabbed the torch off the wall and lit the other torches. She placed it back on its mount.
“What are you going to do when the Sentinels learn about your secret agreement with the Compound leader? They’ll come after you and we don’t have the numbers to survive an attack like that.”
She sighed and sank into her chair. “I know.” Seth was going to die if they didn’t do something, and even though she loved him more than life, she had to do everything in her power to protect him. He was her only child, one she had fought so hard to keep during the pregnancy, and he was still being taken from her.
The thought pressed on her neck, making each swallow ache. Warm tears formed. “We need to make sure Eloise is with Mason before you inject him. She’ll put up a fight, so bring a second person with you to subdue her. Then bring her to me. The Sentinels may attack, but by the time they’ve gathered, we’ll have her blood. They’ll be too late.”
“Ma’am—”
“Go to the lab. There’s a small freezer there powered by the solar panels. In it is a vial.”
“Ma’am.” Adam stepped close, his face grim. She knew he hated doing errands for her and she’d never asked him to do something so inhumane before, but she knew if he didn’t do what she asked, he would not only lose all chances to get his family back, but she would lose Seth as well. “I’d like to take Liam.”
Excitement boiled in her stomach. “Get in contact with him and send him my way. Tell him he has three days.” She grabbed a stack of papers, then paused. “Oh, if anyone gets in your way…kill them.”
“Ma’am.” Adam nodded.
After he left, Joy deflated.
What am I going to do once Adam and the other mercenaries leave? They’ll finish their term and realize I can’t turn their families back.
She massaged her temples and looked at a photo she kept on the wall of the original Project Nemosyne team. Merrick and Amanda were next to Joy, Merrick’s arm around one of the senior scientists, Henry Marchant.
What was your secret? What did you do to them when you built them? Why can’t I make them like they were?
She turned away and wiped her nose.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bannack
Screams awoke him. Bannack launched from his bed in the darkness. Sweat covered his skin in a thin layer, and he prepared for an attack.
It didn’t come. The screams continued.
At first, his brain didn’t register where they were coming from or from who, but as the fog of sleep lifted, he recognized her voice.
Eloise.
He shot upstairs to her room and pushed past Mason and Soora.
Eloise writhed on the bed. Her skin glistened with sweat, and as she shifted, he could see a wet shadow on the mattress where she had lain. Her hair stuck to her skin in long tendrils.
Soora wrapped her arms around her torso and leaned against the wall, watching Eloise with pain in her eyes. “We’ve tried everything to wake her up.”
Each scream from Eloise wrung his stomach in a suffocating knot. She needed help.
He flinched as some part of her body smacked against a hard surface. Unable to stand by and watch any longer, Bannack rushed to her side, pushing away the side table she hit her head on. It screeched across the floor then clattered backward.
He spoke to Eloise, trying to remember the long-ago memories of what his Agya did to help his Maame. “Hold onto me. Come back.”
Bannack kept his voice low and consistent. Then he squeezed methodically on her arms, running his hands up and down her skin. Her muscles calmed underneath his touch.
Eloise surged upward.
She fell into his body and shook, gasping and grappling at Bannack’s neck. Sobs forced her body to jerk with each inhale. He held her, solid and steady, giving reassuring pressure to her torso, trying to imitate the effect of being wrapped in a weighted blanket.
“You are safe. I have you.”
He sat on the edge of the cot, holding her as she cried into him. His heart broke for her. He understood the pain and the nightmares so severe, you wake in a cold sweat, confused and hurting. Bannack waited until her body relaxed and she pulled away from him, drying her eyes. He hooked his finger around a strand of hair stuck to the corner of her mouth and pulled it free.
She gave him a sad smile, then glanced up at Mason and Soora. Her voice hoarse, she asked, “How long were you standing there?”
Soora knelt in front of Eloise. “Several minutes. How are you feeling?”
“Like I just got a load of bricks dumped on my head.”
Soora smiled, kissed Eloise’s forehead, and said, “I love you. We’re going to go to bed, okay, but we’re here when you need us.”
Then she and Mason left.
Eloise turned to Bannack. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome. Do…do you wanna talk ‘bout it?” Bannack asked.
<
br /> Her eyes glistened. Her hair cascaded to the end of her ribs, a waterfall of dark fire. Eloise glanced down at her hands, stopped rubbing her thumb, and tucked her fingers underneath her thighs.
“Not really.”
Bannack nodded. “Okay.”
As he stood, Eloise grabbed his arm. The touch ricocheted a single blast of electricity through his body and down to his toes, emptying his mind in one sweep. Bannack stared down at her slender fingers with chewed nails.
“Have you ever been so terrified of something, it haunts you, even in your dreams?” she asked.
Bannack nodded. The accuracy of her question stabbed at his gut.
“…Seth was there,” Eloise stared at her feet, “and I’ve never dreamed of him before.”
Bannack sat beside her and the bed creaked gently under his weight. “What did he say?”
She bit her lip, but he noticed the quiver of her chin. “He was dead. He…Joy killed him and then she blamed me for it.”
“Sometimes our brains play horrible tricks on us.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her temple. “Thankfully, it was a dream.”
Her frustration exploded from her. “I know it was a dream! That’s not what’s bothering me.” She turned to him, tears in her eyes. “What if this is really what I think of myself?”
He stayed quiet.
Eloise sighed angrily. “Are you going to say something, or do you just like looking at me like a deer in the headlights?”
“I dunno what to say. What would you like me to say?”
“That I can get over all the nightmares and flashbacks and triggers. That it wasn’t a dream and I’m just being crazy.”
“You are not crazy.” Bannack shifted. “Healing from trauma is not like those flat roads down there. It is like white water rapids; sometimes you know what you are doing and sometimes you have to hold on for dear life. You can get through this. It will get better.”
“When? How? I have so much guilt boiling inside me.”
The mention of guilt jerked forward the memory of his family’s deaths. He worked his jaw, staring at his bare feet. A strong knot formed in his chest and he tilted his head back to blink them away. He said, “Guilt is a strong force and can consume you easily, but you cannot let it.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes down at her hands again. “Bannack,” Eloise laid down on the cot and closed her eyes. “I miss life Before.”
He watched her scoot deeper underneath the blankets, snuggling her head into the pillow.
I wish we had found each other sooner. Perhaps we could have protected each other.
As Bannack stood, she mumbled. “Stay here for a moment. Please. I need to know you’re close. Drag the loveseat over.”
He did what she asked, and the legs screeched against the linoleum. As he settled beside her, she laid her hand on the surface of the cushion.
Eloise mumbled. “I’m going to hold on to you.”
A new knot formed in his stomach. This one spreading warmth and peace.
Bannack let his hand rest near Eloise’s face.
You are everything.
He wondered how to admit he was falling in love with her. To himself. To Eloise. Succumbing to his feelings and allowing them to awaken was not a matter of if, but a matter of when, and he was already there. Wall after wall stood as a defense against his emotions. But that didn’t matter. Not with Eloise. She broke down every wall with a light flick as if they were nothing and the most ironic thing was…she had no idea. Her breaking of his walls was effortless. Flawless. She was unlike any woman he had ever encountered, and she captivated his heart before he realized it was possible.
***
Bannack rubbed his eyes. His neck throbbed.
Eloise slept with her arms hanging over the top edge of the cot, surrounded by a sea of hair. Her blanket laid discarded on the floor and as he bent to fold it, he noticed goosebumps covering her ivory skin. He instead covered her body with the warm fabric and smiled as she quietly groaned in response.
As he folded his blanket, Eloise stirred. “Bannack?”
He turned. “Good morning. Did you sleep okay?”
She blinked, brushed her hair away from her face, then said, “Better after you came.”
Eloise wore an off the shoulder graphic tee, the image long since faded, and a single silver ring on her right thumb. The golden light of the morning touched her freckles.
He smiled and kissed her forehead. “Good.”
Eloise grabbed a pile of clothes and slipped behind a changing screen, her belt, jeans, and jacket flopping over the top. “What’s your plan for the day?”
“I will figure something out…”
His voice trailed off. Eloise flipped her hair out of her jacket, walked across the room, boots untied, to reveal a small arsenal of lethal blades. A closed balisong, a silver blade with handles that counter-rotated around the tang. A karambit, a blade that resembled a velociraptor claw. Three ten-inch metal throwing knives. The last one in the lineup, and the knife he had seen when he first met Eloise, was her kukri blade. Eloise slung it to her thigh, then began loading the others onto her body.
As if she could sense he was staring, Eloise said without turning around, “One for each year I’ve been without my sister.” She slipped her boot knife between her ankle and the leather of her vintage-style combat boots. “Sibyl calls me a walking pincushion. Which is accurate.”
When her nonchalant mention of the reason she kept knives registered in his brain, he blinked at her. She didn’t seem bothered by it, although he knew quite a bit of loss, and wasn’t convinced Ada’s death didn’t hurt, at least a little bit. He decided to wait for her to open up more, if she chose.
“I…”
She slapped him on the shoulder. “Shut your mouth.”
He chuckled, the heat from her hand leaving an imprint on his body.
She’s something else.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Eloise
Eloise sighed and dried her wet hair.
I so needed that shower.
Digging a cow out of the mud in the lagoon was the last thing she wanted to do for the day, and she had been the unfortunate person who had to get into the mud and tie the rope around the cow’s horns. She was wet, cold, and irritated by the time she finished the task.
I hate cows. They stink, they’re huge, she almost broke my foot and—
Eloise stopped. Bannack waited by her door, chewing on his lip and bouncing his leg. Excitement jumped to life in her chest and she called out to him. When he didn’t answer, she moved into his line of sight so he could see her and looked closely at his bouncing leg and flexing hands.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
“I need to talk to you about something. I want to be honest with you,” he finally said, “but I’m not sure how you’re going to react.”
“Alright…” Eloise invited him inside and, in unison, they sat on the bed. She tried to comfort Bannack by placing her hand on his bouncing knee, but he quickly stood, paced, and shook his hands out several times.
“I am sorry. I—I am really nervous.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll do my best to help.”
“See,” Bannack wagged his finger at her, still pacing in a tight line, “that is the problem. I am nervous—and honestly terrified—you will not.”
“What?” Eloise blinked. “I thought we were going to work on trusting each other.”
“We are,” Bannack said. Then realization turned his eyes wide and his mouth opened. “Oh no! That came out wrong. I do trust you.” He knelt at her feet and grabbed her hands. His palms were warm. Sweaty. “There is no one else I trust as much as you, but—and I am trying not to mess things up again—what I need to tell you has been bothering me ever since you showed me around the Compound. I knew then my life was on a different course than I thought, and what I had wanted for so long was no longer what I wanted. Does that make
sense?”
“Yeah.” Eloise’s heart throbbed in her temples. She ignored it and grabbed Bannack’s hand. “Bo. What is this all about?”
“It is…” His breath shook as it came from his mouth. “It is about Maame’s and Malikah’s deaths.”
Eloise leaned back. Her eyes widened. Freely, Bannack had told her about his father’s death from sepsis, a symptom of an untreated, severe case of the flu, but never Malikah or his mom. He’d actually avoided the topic all together.
“They were not supposed to be in the store. We were hungry, and it was my job to get the food. But I was late. When I was passing an abandoned store, I heard gunshots. Instead of running to help like my parents had taught me—'whenever there is trouble, always be the one to help’ they would say—I ran instead. The screaming was so loud, and the popping guns made things worse. I was terrified of it all. Of what it meant.
“I got back to the house we were staying in,” Bannack continued, “but they were gone. So, I waited, hoping they went out somewhere. The worst part about that is I didn’t leave for days. I was so damn convinced they would eventually return that I waited days—days, Elle!—until I realized something was wrong. I found them but—”
Bannack crumpled to the ground.
Unsure what to do with a six-foot-two man on the floor in front of her, Eloise froze. This was not a side of him she recognized. This side of him came from a place of great anguish. With a start, Eloise realized…
This is the Bannack that was torn down, stomped on, ridiculed, banished, and abused.
“They were in there! They took Maame and Malikah from me.”
His words, the way he said them, put Eloise’s chest into a vice grip. She still couldn’t move, petrified with uncertainty, and watching hurt, but she tried.
Ice-blue eyes rimmed in red looked up at Eloise. “I want the ones responsible dead. I want to torture them. Rip off their fingernails, gouge out their eyes. They took my entire life from me and for what?” Bannack screamed the next words. “For what! For a little bit of fun? A night on the post-apocalyptic town? Shits and giggles? What right do they have to rip my Mama and baby sister from me? Shot them right in the back of the head with Maame holding Malikah to her chest! All this hate and anger festering and swirling inside me and I cannot get rid of it!”