by V. K. Ludwig
Her face went blank and hair lifted at the back of my neck. Did she think I wasn’t good enough to father children? I gulped down the bile puddled at my throat. Not good enough to father our children?
“So, it's a … disability then?”
“I wouldn’t call it that.” I stood up and carried the chair back to the table. “It’s not like I can’t read. By now I can guess that you heard me when I read to Silas. Apparently, there are books out there for people such as me. There would have been ways to teach me differently. A way that would have made more sense for my brain. But nobody really knew how to do it.”
I walked over to my backpack. Her gaze didn’t follow me. Instead, she seemed to count the dust bunnies on the floor. Sleeping bags. Water. Flashlights. Ammo. I checked my holo-band. They should be here any minute.
“Maybe we will find books about it at the school,” I said. “It’s too late for me, but it would be neat to have it on hand if another child gets diagnosed with it.”
“What school?” she asked and continued with her stare, the tone of her voice lifeless. Such a fuzz about nothing. Did I appear like I struggled with life because of this shit?
“The one we talked about a few days ago. You, Oriel, Adair and I will take a trip there tonight. We will be back tomorrow evening if all goes as planned.”
Her plan faced turned towards me. “And Rowan allowed it?”
Knock! Knock! I plunged another pair of batteries into the back and opened the front door. “Not exactly.”
Oriel stood in the door, his eyes sparkling like we’re about to hit a three-day concert. “What’s up, man. You’re not ready yet?”
His eyes wandered to Ayanna who pushed her chair to the table. Then to her unbuttoned pants. “Um, I will just wait in the car for you guys. We have to hurry though. I want to keep this as risk-free as possible.”
I nodded and closed the door behind him.
“You heard the man,” I said. “Take your stuff to the bathroom. I don’t want them to go peeking on you through the windows. I’ll go upstairs and grab two wool blankets.”
Ayanna disappeared into the bathroom, and I climbed up the loft. I rummaged through old socks, neatly folded paper maps and stacks of postcards I brought with me from ruins. Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, the Louvre — I had them all. What I didn’t have were the blankets.
I sat down on the mattress. Where did I put them?
Plop! A white mini-computer lay in front of me on the cork floor. I picked it up and turned it around in my hands. What the hell is this thing?
“Activate.”
Nothing. Not even a hum. Maybe if I push this little button? The old-fashioned computer played a quick tune of beeps, and the analog screen glared in green letters on a black background. It reminded me of old movies we couldn’t convert to a holographic image. Four days until ovulation? Heat swelled through my body as if someone had dipped me into a hot spring. Nothing made sense anymore. Confusion kicked me in the guts like a newly shoed horse. Ovulation? What the —
“Did you find them?” Ayanna yelled from downstairs.
“Um.” I shoved the thing back under the mattress. “Nope. We’ll just take my blanket.”
My stomach fluttered, and I climbed down.
“Hey, um… shouldn’t we pack you some of your water?”
“What?”
“Your water. Do you want me to grab a few bottles and put them in the backpack?”
She stared back at me like a deer in headlights. “I will bring them. Why don’t you wait in the car? I’ll be right there.”
“I can do it.”
She waved me off. “It's alright. I will do it. I wanted to use the bathroom once more before we leave, anyway. You go ahead.”
I pinned her down with my eyes. What if Adair was right, and she was up to something? “Didn’t you just come from the bathroom?”
She swallowed so hard, I would have noticed that from across the room. But she played it cool and gave a half-shrug. “I get very nervous before I travel.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” I left it at that and walked out the door.
This woman was something special. The number she pulled with Bry and the water. The weird situation between her and Adair. My non-existent Newgenics profile. And now this little computer and her reaction just now. What kind of game did she play?
Oriel sat by the wheel in his Rover, and I handed Adair my GPS who sat next to him. Ayanna and I buckled up behind.
“I programmed for the back roads. It’ll take us a little longer, but it will be far safer,” I said.
“This shit won’t stick,” Adair said and repeatedly tried to push the suction cup to the window.
“Just put it in the damn cup holder.” Oriel ripped it from his hands. “Hey, did any of you hear anything about Autumn?”
“Who’s Autumn?” Ayanna asked.
“Rowan’s sister,” Adair said. “She was the one Rowan sent to the Districts .”
I stared out the window and gazed over the treacherous midnight waters of Wolf Lake. “Do you guys think Rowan will still marry her off to a chieftain in the mountains once she’s back?”
Adair sighed. “Not gonna happen. She doesn’t want to, and I doubt he will convince her.”
“Wait,” Ayanna said. “I thought people marry for love out here?”
“They marry for love,” I blurted. “But something's gotta give from time to time. She might get promised to a chieftain to keep the peace. But that’s a burden she carries because she’s Rowan’s sister.”
Oriel turned his headlights off. “It’s better not to be seen from here and on.”
We soon entered unclaimed land and turned ourselves into fair game for everyone out here. No clan had any say in these territories. Oriel shifted up a gear, and the engine of the Rover purred like a kitten across the invisible back-road, eaten up by grass runners and layers of dead leaves. I opened the window and death immediately filled my nose. Non-sense, of course. You can’t smell decade-old bodies. Yet, I knew bones piled ceiling-high in those abandoned buildings along the road. A constant struggle for people who spent some time scavenging through the old world.
“How come Rowan doesn’t have a wife although he is your chieftain?” Ayanna asked.
Each one of us tensed in their seats, hoping we could ignore her question. We drove in awkward silence for the better part of a mile until Oriel broke it. “He has a wife.”
“Had a wife,” Adair said. “He just doesn’t get it.”
“She’s dead?” Ayanna asked and threw me a questioning look.
“We don’t know that,” I said. “The day Rowan became chieftain she disappeared without a trace. They never found her body nor any trace of struggle. Other clans denied having anything to do with it.”
“Could’ve been someone from the ash zones,” Oriel said.
“Unlikely.” I shook my head. “They don’t come this far out.”
“What was her name?”
“Darya,” Adair mumbled.
Ayanna didn’t question us further but continued to gaze into the night. We made good time and reach the outskirts of the city in under four hours. Rusted cars slept in piles through the decades, not minding the vines which slung through their shattered windows. Rabbits and other rodents nibbled on grass and dandelions which had escaped from underneath the concrete.
Adair pointed at a sign with a medical cross on it, which dangled on its final breath from a metal pole. An old ambulance poked halfway out from the crumbled wall, and wide cracks spread from the hole like a massive spider web. “We should rest there until the morning. We might get lucky and find antibiotics. If Rowan finds out we’re here, we can at least appease him with it.”
“There’s no appeasing once he finds out we took Ayanna out here,” Oriel said. “He will rip our heads off. Tell me again why did I come here?”
Adair chuckled. “Car parts. Someone has to make sure the junk keeps on running.”
“Absolutely no way.” I p
ointed at the glassless revolving door and shook my head. “I’m not gonna take her inside any medical building.”
“What’s wrong with medical buildings?” Ayanna asked.
“He’s right,” Oriel said. “She has never been out here before, and I don’t think her eyes are made for this kind of shit.”
Ayanna threw herself against the back of Oriel’s seat. “See what?”
Oriel flung his head from side to side as if he needed to fight his inner demons, contemplating if he should tell more or shut up. He took a sharp breath and tapped his thumbs over the wheel. “Well, you know what happened when the government introduced the chemicals into the public water system, right?”
“You mean the old government,” Ayanna pointed out.
“Potatoes, potatos.” Oriel flung his hand up. “From what we understand, people died in cars on their way to work, in their office chairs… or driving an ambulance. Another big chunk died in hospitals and clinics if they ever made it there. Those buildings are nothing but vertical mass graves.”
The corner of Ayanna’s eyes shimmered, and she stared at the building open-mouthed.
“Over there!” They followed my gaze to a townhouse at the far corner of the hospital. “The school is right down the street. We can observe it from the top floor. Those homes usually have a garage in the back so we can hide the Rover if it is still standing.”
The garage waited for us intact. The rust-infested lock by the back door all but crumbled to the ground as soon as Oriel picked it. I stayed back with Ayanna as Adair and Oriel made sure the building was clear. When they came back, Oriel gestured with a nod that the building was clear. Adair, however, leaned his head into me. “There’s a door with pink letters upstairs,” he whispered. “Don’t let her go there.”
I dipped my head in understanding. We set up camp, and Oriel agreed to do first watch in the corner room upstairs. Adair kept an eye on the downstairs perimeter. I flung two sleeping bags onto the floor, and the dust of the upstairs bedroom gushed into my face.
“You should get some shut-eye,” I said to Ayanna and draped my big blanket over the two sleeping bags. “I’ll stay up and make sure everything’s quiet.”
She collapsed and rolled up inside her sleeping bag. Two minutes later, I stared at how her eyelids scurried, shoveling away the dark pictures of this place. At that moment she looked entirely innocent. But she wasn’t, and I knew that now.
Chapter 20
A difference
Ayanna
The pulse of the color had faded, leaving the letters behind in a numbed down version of princess pink. Five of them hung on the door.
“Andra,” I whispered and ran my fingertips over the tacky surface.
The sixth letter, an S, lay on the high pile carpet like a snake whose head had been chopped off. I glanced into the corner room where Oriel pressed his binoculars against the smeared window, too focused to notice my shadow in the hallway. Slow and steady I turned the nob and squeezed myself through the narrow gap.
Lit by the moonlight from the window across, a parade of small circular mirrors on the wall glaring at me. Underneath, knickknacks and oddities stood atop a chest of drawers. Between them, white and yellow framed smiles stared back at me. Oxygen seemed to have gone dormant in this room, but the subtle sweetness of it drew my attention to the bed in the corner.
A shiver went through my body, starting at my shoulder where a heavy palm pressed into my skin. River. His musky scent and the hint of his familiar sweat gave him without a turn, creating a welcome change from the three bodies in front of me.
“The water?” I asked.
“No.” He stepped up close behind me. “That was so long ago, they are nothing but frail bones and dust now. My guess is poison. Fifteen years, maybe. Could me more. Might have ran out of food, or knew others were coming for them.”
I stared at the small body in the middle, protected by what must once have been the arms of her parents. The rare beauty of their union warmed a place inside my heart I didn’t know still existed. “They look peaceful.”
River looked them over and nodded. “There is stuff that makes you go to sleep, and you just never wake up. I guess even in the end, he took care of his wife and kid the best he could.”
I turned around to gaze at his soft eyes, which guarded over me as if he would become blind if they ever lost hold of me. Walking over to the chest, I picked up the frame with the family picture. Nothing special. Dressed in whatever felt comfy that day. Hurried together so they would beat the timer. A three-second snapshot in the garden, capturing the love between them for decades to come.
River placed his large chest between us at the first step I took towards the bed. “You don’t have to.”
“But I want to,” I said and pushed myself around him. When we left the room, the frame rested between them in the middle.
We sneaked back to the old bedroom, and he quietly closed the door behind us. When he turned our eyes locked, and for the first time in days I didn’t look away. I wanted him to see me. Didn't he feel how my tortured body longed for his? His chest filled and emptied in slow, deep breaths, but the rest of his body seemed encapsulated in time. What if he turned me down? Refused me like I had refused him over and over again? I will never find out unless I tried…
I crossed my arms and grabbed the seams at the side of my shirt. With one pull, it ended in the corner of the dark room, leaving my breasts exposed for his eyes to explore. They didn’t. Why didn’t he look at me? I took a deep breath and undid the sides of my heavy breeches. They piled beneath me in folds of brushed dark leather. Whipped and spanked by my desire for what seemed like an eternity, I eventually stepped out of the pile and took a small step towards him.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” I asked, my voice dipped in anguish.
Another lifetime passed during which he stared relentlessly into my eyes. He took three careful steps towards me. My skin all but burst into flames when his arms stroked down my back.
His voice whispered low and husky. “I am looking at you.”
“River,” I breathed, but he jailed my moan with his palm on my mouth. He pushed my chin up and to the side, caressing my neck with his lips. Wet and determined, his tongue danced circles around across my collarbone and collapsed into a suckling on my pebbled skin. He scooped me up as if I weight nothing, and plunged me onto his hips. My body vibrated, overwhelmed by my desire for him. As in reflex, my legs crossed behind his back, never to let go of this man again.
“I want you,” I pushed the words out between kisses, furiously exchanged and driven by something primal neither of us could control anymore. Wordless, he carried me over to the cool down blanket and lowered me down. It bunched up underneath my spine. I don’t care! He might push and pull me all he wanted, so as long our bodies wouldn’t part.
Fingers as impatient as starved embers ripped my panty down, where it hung on its last breath between the toes of my feet.
“Spread your legs for me and show me your pussy,” he demanded.
I did as he ordered as if someone had promised me nine lives in exchange for obedience. I bent my knees like two triangular watchtowers to each side of my body. Letting them tumble to my sides, I revealed yet another triangle — hidden away at the junction like a treasure.
His hands, arms, and legs stopped all movement; only his eyes wandered to my tingling folds.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
The blood inside my veins thickened. What if he changed his mind? The thought alone made me want to burst into flames so that the deadly heat might burn my longing for him to the core.
He shook his head and freed himself of his sweater and pants. Aroused to its full size, his penis jolted as he pulled his briefs down. Mmh! There he stood in front of me, like the picture of a man next to the word in a dictionary. The veins on his muscular body made me experience things I would have been ashamed of just weeks ago. My head spun. Why did he have to be flawed?
&nb
sp; “Everything is perfect,” he said and kneeled down to my sex like a slave to his master. “Your pussy is so soaking wet, I could see it glister between your legs from up there. And now I will eat it.”
“You are going to wh—”
Too late! He answered my question before it left my mouth and plied his tongue between my folds. “Ah!” He kissed the grooves between my lips and thighs, then slipped the tip across it, just to turn his interest back to my center. He switched back and forth between sucking the bud of my flower and penetrating my cave with his tongue, thrusting at its target like a spear. My head spun, devastated by the tickling sensation that crept up on me.
“Mmh,” I moaned. “What… what are you doing to me?”
His words mumbled from between my legs. “Today, I will make you come, gorgeous.”
“But I don’t know how.”
He sucked my throbbing bud and circled around it. Whenever he gave it a brief rest, he licked my folds from bottom to top, just to return to the sweet spot atop once more. “Yeah, you know how. And I want you to say my name once you get there. Nothing coming from your mouth sounds sexier than my name, and I want to hear you moan it!”
“I can’t… ah… River.”
He placed his hands onto my wet lips and split them apart, licking, sucking and caressing without a break. Soft waves floated through my body, which had turned into a tsunami b the time they reached my core.
“Say it,” he whispered and rubbed the tip of his finger over my bud.
Heat built up inside me, and my breathing turned shallow. No! I can’t… Mmh. “River…” O breathed underneath my trembling body.
“That’s right.”
Then I lost control over my limbs, which jerked and thrashed against his mouth unchecked. Never did I need a breath as desperately as my next one -- but River flung me onto my stomach, and my lungs remained as empty as my thoughts for yet another second.