by Talis Jones
Seconds later. Minutes later. I have no idea how long I was knocked out but my eyes flutter open and a groan leaves my lips as the pain in my head magnifies with my return to consciousness. Bodies jostle my own and whoops pierce my ears as prisoners rush off the bus. I can just see out the door where one of them has managed to steal the keys and unlocks the cuffs of each escapee as they jump out. Woozy as hell from the knock on my head I blink trying to keep things in focus and see Win and Remi among the frantic group shoving to get out and get gone before backup can catch them and lock them back up. They don’t have much of a chance though unless they can sneak across the border. Cameras govern the Alliance, or so Adi once told me.
I don’t bother to struggle knowing it’s futile. I’ll wait here, my limbs pulling painfully against my cuffs from the sloped angle of the bus, until the authorities arrive and put me on another bus. My head gives another swollen throb and I can’t stifle the moan it pulls from my lips.
From my slitted eyes I see Win turn towards me at the sound.
“Remi,” he nudges his cousin and then his dark eyes are on me too.
For a moment I think they might break my chains, but I blink and they’ve left.
“Hey.” A sharp tap against my cheek has me rousing once more. I hadn’t even realized I’d blacked out again. Remi’s face fills my vision while Win hovers behind him, antsy from the adrenaline no doubt coursing through his veins.
I manage a grunt in response.
Remi’s eyes drill into my own and I feel myself straightening at his intensity. “You really Gan? Terrorist, mass murderer, evil scientist who brought us all to our knees?”
To my surprise I can tell just how much my response matters. Not my answer per say, but my honesty. “Morgan. Foolish, pathetic scapegoat, but I deserve my chains.” My words are slightly slurred and mumbled, but he takes my measure then nods.
Win fumbles at my ankles then my wrists and my entire body sighs as they fall away. Remi catches my sliding body and throws me over his shoulder before following Win out of the bus. Everyone has gone and I whimper at the pressure in my head from hanging upside down.
“Hurry up,” Win frets. “They’ll be here any minute.”
Remi gently lowers me to the ground and I cringe away from the bright sun overhead. Slipping his large hands towards the back of my head he closes his eyes and softly hums. It’s a deep sound born in his chest and with each note I feel my pain melting away. I was concussed, I’m positive, yet when he opens his eyes I feel…healed.
“What…?” I wonder, stunned at what can’t be possible.
Win’s youthful face turns lethal with promise. “Tell anyone and you’ll beg for prison walls.”
Remi stands in a graceful motion, his hand reaching down to help me up. I still can’t believe not an ounce of dizziness washes over me when I’m yanked back onto my own two feet.
“The guards?” I dare ask.
“Dead in the crash,” Remi supplies.
I nod. “Now what?”
“We,” Win gestures clearly between his cousin and himself, “will be hopping back across the border home.” Turning to do just that he tosses over his shoulder, “You’re welcome, Horseman.”
My lips twitch in amusement, but the thought of being out here alone with zero survival skills chills me to the bone.
Fourteen
“Wait!” I call. “I can help you.”
Remi raises an eyebrow silently while Win walks back over to where I still stand, lost. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“I was released from prison to work for a company called Python. They want me to use my knowledge of the chemical that put me in prison to help them develop a proper vaccine.” Van never said it was a secret and even if it was, I’ll be dead before it matters unless I can convince the Wild Cousins to escort me there. “You know they’re powerful if they could arrange for my release. If you help me reach them, I can have your records wiped clean. No one will come after you for your escape.”
Win and Remi both looked amused and I frown in confusion at their reaction.
“The Coalition doesn’t care,” Win laughs. “They don’t waste resources hunting down fugitives. You get caught, fine. You don’t, then you earned it.”
Frustration lined with panic twists my stomach. “Fine, so I can’t help you. I have literally nothing to offer you, but if you leave me here then I will die. My knowledge belongs in a lab, not the wilderness. I’ll be dead by dawn.”
“Some might say that’s justice,” Win suggests lightly.
“I’m not a liar,” I growl.
“No,” Remi steps in. “You’re not.”
Win sighs. “Python. The place in Carolina?”
“You’ve heard of it?” I ask hopefully.
“A lot of people have heard of it,” he snorts. “What, you been living under a rock?”
I’m not sure I have any anger left to be upset by the truth. “Yes.”
Disquiet spins Win’s thoughts at that. “Tell us something,” he bargains. “What went wrong?”
I don’t need him to elaborate to know what he’s asking. “The government wanted super soldiers, a genius wanted to play god, another genius wanted revenge, and I was an intern who wanted to save my niece. Then it all went boom.”
“Super soldiers?” Remi asks, his interest piqued.
“Yes,” I nod tiredly. “What killed so many, left others…changed.” I meet his gaze knowingly. “Like you.”
Win chokes on disbelief, spluttering, while Remi and I stare each other down.
“I didn’t know for sure until Python visited me a few days ago,” I continue. “But if I’d had any doubts, they’re gone with my injury.”
“But I wasn’t there that day,” Remi questions. “I wasn’t even born yet.”
“It’s inheritable.”
Win and Remi glance at one another trying to process such a thing.
The moment crumbles as Win begins unleashing a bubbling laugh. “Ha! So Coyote didn’t love you more than me!”
Remi rolls his eyes. “We like our freedom,” he informs me clearly, “but…if there’s a chance of a second wave and they need you to keep the numbers down then like hell if I’ll turn my back on you.”
“Traveling with an old lady will slow us down,” Win complains though I sense he’s teasing me.
“Who are you calling old?” I scowl. Reaching out my hand to shake on the deal I crush my fingers around Win’s politely gentle grip and twist until he’s on his knees trying to counter my leverage threatening to break his wrist. “I won’t slow you down, boy.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay!” Win pants. “I get it, respect your elders and shit, just let me go!”
I release him and he snatches his hand, tucking it protectively against his chest. “I dunno, cuz,” he mutters. “Maybe she is dangerous.”
Remi shoves his shoulder. “Of course she is, idiot. She’s Gan of Cellblock D.”
Ignoring them, I tilt my head back to gauge the sun. “I doubt the agents will wait long when I fail to show,” I say mostly to myself. “I don’t know if they’ll send anyone to hunt for me, but I do know that we need to keep ahead of the Alliance who will be sending people after me.” I look them over and see the excitement coiling in their muscles. “I’m ready when you are.”
Cameras likely don’t bother to cover this stretch of empty land, otherwise sirens would’ve been hot on our tails as soon as the bus began to dance and swerve. I don’t know how long the trip was supposed to take, but when no bus shows they’ll send out the dogs to round us up.
Win hurries over to the front of the bus and yanks the passenger door wide open. The driver and the guard hang in their seatbelts while he rummages around. A sound of triumph comes from the cab and then he hops down tossing something to each of us.
My hands snap out and catch the item on reflex. A bag of chips.
“Only one water bottle,” Win adds. “This’ll at least be something until we get our bearings and hopefull
y find a house or something.”
I frown. “Don’t you know how to forage or whatever? Find food straight from the land?”
Win laughs loud and heavy with Remi stifling a laugh of his own. “My sister does,” he says once he’s calmed down. “She always loved learning that stuff, but I had no patience for it. Just because people in the S.C. don’t live in big fancy cities, doesn’t mean we all know how to do without civilization.”
“Give me a soda pop over Katniss root any day,” Remi agrees.
I look between them and lose my patience. “Then how the hell are we supposed to make it all the way to Carolina when we have no supplies, no money, no food, no water, and have zero clue how to get those things??”
“Relax, Horseman,” Win smiles far less concerned than I am. “We steal a few things then trade a few things then it all snowballs from there. No big deal.”
“Theft?” I raise a stern, disapproving brow. “You want me to steal?”
“You already murdered millions and broke out of prison,” Remi’s voice rumbles lightly. “You’re really worried about a little petty theft?”
“I didn’t murder anyone and it wasn’t I who screwed the prison bus,” I remind him. It felt good to be able to say that and have people believe me. “I won’t hurt innocent people by stealing what’s theirs.”
Win shrugs. “Either you steal now to save the world later, or you lie down and die in the woods after nibbling on an innocent berry that’s bursting with poison. Up to you.”
I cross my arms stubbornly and Remi closes the distance in a breath. Suddenly I’m once again thrown over his shoulder and I react at once, twisting violently in his easy hold until I’ve hooked my legs around his throat, tipping my weight back to yank us to the ground where I keep the momentum and flip him over me. Leaping onto my feet I spin around in a fighting crouch before I remember they’re allies.
Remi lies there stunned while Win leans against a tree in laughter. “She took you out, cuz! You got your ass handed to you by an old lady!”
I glower at Win and he hurries to correct his careless tongue. “Young lady. Ageless lady. SUPREME LADY.”
“You’re both idiots,” I grumble.
Remi finally rolls over and regains his feet. “You were so damn quick,” he says in awe. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
Continuing in the direction they’d been heading before I attacked Remi, I decide to answer. Turns out I’m feeling pretty chatty once surrounded by eager ears. “I watched and when they came, I practiced.” Remembering those early days chills me despite the glaring sun rising in the sky. “Didn’t always work, but it was practice.”
Win lets out a low whistle.
“D’you practice a lot?” Remi wonders cautiously.
I turn to look at him without breaking my stride. “What do you think?” It’s a rhetorical question and I turn my senses to other things. The sun warm on my fair skin that I know will soon burn. Birds singing and calling from their hidden perches up above. My thin prison-issued slippers crunching against the earth. And no walls, no bars, no watchful eyes as far as the horizon.
“We bailed more than halfway to the prison, I’d guess,” Win says to fill the silence.
“And how far away was that?” I ask.
Win stays quiet and Remi answers for him. “Ration that bag of chips.”
“Just keep the sun at your back in the morning and chase it as it drops,” Win sighs.
“Until we cross the border, then keep the fire bouncing shoulder to shoulder, left to right,” Remi adds.
I’m afraid to even open my bag of chips worried that once I do, I’ll eat them too fast like the novice I am. So I don’t. Even as the sun climbs and the cousins start dipping into their snacks, I touch nothing but a sip of water when offered. My stomach growls and I know they hear it, but I ignore them all. Clutching my small pouch of food in my palm, I hike ever onwards praying we run into a miraculous cornucopia of supplies.
Win gives a sudden yelp and I gasp as he’s propelled up into the air by his ankle where he dangles and struggles to free himself.
“Win!” Remi cries.
“What the hell?!”
“A trap,” he explains tersely, his eyes fixed upon his flailing cousin. “There must be people nearby and seeing as we have no weapons of our own I’d suggest we hurry and get out of here before they find us.”
Casting my gaze around I see nothing but trees, grass, leaves…wait! Something glints and I approach slowly, careful not to step in another trap. Crouching down I eye the cleverly camouflaged crack in a tree and see that what had caught my eye is a hunting knife. Reaching in I hold my breath halfway expecting something to grab my hand, but I snatch the blade and retreat.
Remi mutters a curse under his breath when he sees what I found. “A hunter’s stash. We have got to get out of here now.”
“You stay here and catch Win,” I order sharply. “I’ll cut the rope.”
Not waiting for agreement, I dash over to the tree holding Win up and start to climb. The rough bark tears at my hands and pries my fingernails painfully while I use more stubborn strength than skill to shimmy up higher and higher until I reach a branch close enough to the rope. Scooting out carefully I lie flat on my stomach, reaching out for the rope just beyond my grasp.
“I can’t reach it,” I grind out with frustration.
Win cranes his neck to look at me. “You’ve barely moved! If you’re so bad and brave, why don’t you scoot out a bit further, eh?”
“If you’re so strong, why don’t you just climb up the rope yourself?” I snap back.
Win’s grunts fill the still forest as he tries to do just that, but his body bounces and swings until I hear a slight crack.
“Stop!” I shout in surprise. Win’s momentum slows as his body hangs still and I dare to shimmy out a bit further along the branch, reaching out with the hand holding the knife. Trying to keep my hand steady, I saw the blade back and forth at an excruciatingly slow pace.
“Hurry!” Remi shouts.
“Let her focus! And you’d better catch me,” Win growls down to his cousin.
“There’ll be nothing worth catching if the hunters get here first and put a bullet in you,” Remi throws back.
I shove their panicked squabbling out of my head and focus on severing the rope and nearly choke on my relief as it finally snaps. Win lets out a sound of surprise followed by an oomph as he tumbles to the ground knocking down Remi. Carefully scooting along the branch back towards the tree I suddenly freeze when I meet a pair of eyes staring right back at me from the tree right beside this one.
The stranger is painted in earth tones and they slowly raise a finger to their lips, a bow with a nocked arrow held loosely in their grip. I swallow and it feels like a knot, but I say not a word though my mind races for a way to warn Win and Remi.
“You okay?” Win asks.
Remi lets out a groan as he rotates his bruised shoulder. “I’ll live.”
“Hey Horseman!” Win shouts, spinning to search the branches for me. “You coming or do you need someone young and spry to help you down?”
I fight not to roll my eyes, refusing to let this predator out of my sight for even a moment.
They arch an eyebrow at Win’s words and my mouth presses in a flat line.
“Well, well, well,” a gruff voice calls curiously. “What do we have here?”
Immediately Win and Remi raise their hands in surrender as a large man approaches with a rifle leaning against his shoulder.
“You’re not gonna shoot us?” Win asks foolishly, eyeing the weapon not currently pointed at them.
The man guffaws. “I could faster than you can blink, but I don’t need to. There are about twelve other guns aimed at you boys from all sides.”
The cousins look around wildly. “I don’t see them,” Win challenges arrogantly.
“You’re not supposed to,” the man smiles. “Now, what are you two doing here on our land?”
“Your land?” Win scoffs. “Here I thought it was no man’s land. You should put up a sign or something, eh cuz?”
“At the very least,” Remi nods. “Then again, I assume the Sundown don’t want to advertise their presence to the Alliance.”
The man glances towards a mark on his forearm and his brow furrows angrily. “Who are you?”
“Truthfully?” Remi asks with a shrug. “We’re a couple of escaped convicts headed for the border back to the Coalition from whence we came. Our family is part of the Nightshade Clan though we prefer to roam free between seasons.”
The man’s eyes shift warily between them, searching for tells of lie or truth.
With a sigh, Remi rolls up his sleeve baring a tattoo I can’t make out from this high up but Win does the same and the man’s stance instantly eases.
“The Sundown have no feud with the Nightshade,” he relays, “though it never hurts to be owed a favor.” Reaching out he shakes hands with Remi then Win. “Come on out!” he shouts and from the foliage a squad of camouflaged hunters emerge.
“Damn you’re good,” Win grins appreciatively.
“Better than you it seems if you ended up tagged by the Alliance,” he agrees.
“Bah, that was just bad luck,” Win insists.
“I’m Remi,” he introduces himself before gesturing towards his cousin. “This is my cousin, Win.”
The leader gives them both a nod. “My name is Tango.” Giving a sharp whistle he calls out, “Come on down, Whiskey!”
As I watch, the hidden figure crouching in the tree beside mine gives a flash of white smiling teeth then seemingly melts into shadow before dropping down to the ground below. A girl maybe twelve years old makes her way to Tango and he places a protective arm around her shoulders.
“My daughter, Whiskey,” he says. Whiskey pushes up onto her toes to whisper something into her dad’s ear that has his eyebrows reaching for his hairline. “Is that so?” Turning towards the cousins he asks, “Would your friend hiding in the trees like to come down?”