Born to Fight

by Brown, Tara

  I scratch my head and think about it for a second. I sigh, "One night and he doesn’t do experiments on me."

  He grabs my hand and pulls me along, "I love it when you compromise. Guys, this is a nice house and has full power. Showers—hot showers."

  I look at Anna. She mutters something about her weak spot and we follow him back.

  When I walk to the front door, Will grips my hand. I think it's so I won't slap or attack Star. He drags me inside and I am instantly transported back in time. It looks like a hotel lobby. There are lamps lit and fineries we just don’t see anymore. Leo strolls in next to me, nudging. I run my fingers into his fur and hold a chunk.

  "Will, you never said a huge wolf was part of the group."

  Will chuckles, "He's part of it."

  I scowl, "How long have you known we were coming?"

  He glances at Will, "Well, Star mentioned something."

  I give Will my death stare and look around.

  Jake whistles when he walks in and Anna grins, "Shower is which way?"

  Bernard, who doesn't look a day over twenty, smiles and points, "Top of the stairs to the right."

  I jerk my hand free of Will and turn to the stairs. Leo stays at my side. He does it when he's nervous. Houses make us both nervous. I stomp on the stairs. They're sound. The whole house is. That's rare. I thought I had found the only stairs that were intact. The only houses not destroyed in the blasts.

  I realize I'm excited about a hot shower. I follow Anna up, and when we open the door, we fill the space with gasps. The bedroom is massive. The bed is lush and gorgeous, like in a picture. The dust is minimal and the whole thing looks kept up.

  "I think he cleans," I mutter and look around. Leo walks to the bed, sniffing and checking for surprises.

  Anna ignores us and rushes to the door to the right. She turns on the light and looks back at me with a grin, "Can I go first?"

  I laugh, "Yeah, but save me water."

  She squeals, ripping her clothes off and disappears into the lit room. I turn to see Jake in the doorway.

  "Hey."

  He runs a hand through his dark hair, "You okay?"

  I nod.

  He leans on the door and points back at the door across from us, "I'm going to take the room across the hall. He said we have to shower one at a time, water pressure or something." I see the smirk I love cross his lips slowly, "Unless you wanna just shower with me?" he tries to be serious.

  I bite my lip and shake my head.

  He frowns but the grin is still making attempts, "No? Okay. Just thought, maybe, it would be faster if we showered together."

  The sound of the water pouring and Anna humming, feels like it's taking over the room, or the space is shrinking with him in it. I step back but he steps forward. My heart rate picks up and he makes me feel the thing that Will always makes me feel. I shake my head again, "No."

  His blue eyes search for something. He steps back nodding, "Okay. Wow. I feel like an idiot. I thought you were smarter than this. You want him because he's strong and smart in the forest? Really?" His eyes aren’t friendly and sweet. They turn and I can see the hurt on his face. "I would never hurt you the way he has."

  I swallow hard, "It isn't that. I just want to be your friend, Jake…yours and his. I need to focus my energy on killing my other dad and ending the things he does. I don’t want to have to choose who I want to be with. I can't be with anyone. I have to stop my dad. I have to free the other girls."

  The anger stays in his bright-blue eyes, "For a girl who walked away from everyone and never cared about anything, you sure got some serious causes now, don’t you?"

  I don’t have any real excuse for why I am so determined now. I nod, "I'm related to the monster who started it. I know the truth of it all. I feel like it's a heavy weight on my shoulders, and the only way to get rid of it, is to kill him and end it all."

  He turns and walks from the doorway.

  I look down at the hardwood floors and try to push away the bad feelings inside of me. I hate the way I feel, like I have to choose one of them. I hear footsteps and close the door quickly. I turn and press my back into it.

  Anna comes out with wet hair and a huge towel wrapped around her. She points, "That was amazing."

  I push off the door and walk to the bathroom, "Good. I need it." I close the bathroom door and pull my clothes off. They stick to me from getting dressed when I was wet still. I leave them on the floor next to hers. They look like a pile of dirt on the clean bright floor. The shower is a walk-in kind. I turn the knob and step in. The heat from the shower is instantly relaxing. I take misty breaths of the steamy air in. I shampoo twice, scrubbing my head free of the debris and dirt. It feels like the dirt coming off of me has been there since the breeder farms. I haven’t felt clean since. Not real clean, like I used to before I opened the door to the cabin and let them in my life.

  I finish and leave the bathroom in a towel. I'm not ready to put my dirty things back on.

  Star is standing in the room holding a stack of clothes. She smiles, "I brought y'all some of my things."

  "Short shorts and tank tops?" I ask.

  She flinches, "No." She places them on the dresser and turns.

  "She didn’t mean that," Anna says quickly and shoots me a dirty look.

  I nod, "I'm sorry. I don’t know why I said that." I'm not sorry and I do know why. What I don’t know, is why she makes me so angry. Why I hate her. It's unnatural the amount of anger I have inside of me when she's around.

  She gives me a look, "He's never picked me, you know. Since he met you, it's been you. Before you, it was no one. He never cares about anyone like that. He helps everyone but he doesn’t let anyone in." She opens the door and leaves and I feel awful. I try to make it go away but it won't. It eats at me. It's a horrid feeling.

  Anna laughs when she sees my face, "Oh you feel like shit now, don’t you?" She grabs some of the clothes and pulls them on. I sit on the bed and try to just let the bad feelings eat me up, like they're trying to.

  "What is this?" I hold my stomach.

  "Guilt. You feel guilty for hurting her, for no reason. You acted like a jerk and now you have to suffer through it until she forgives you, or you can go back to not giving a shit." She straightens the t-shirt and looks at me, "I feel amazing. That was incredible."

  I look up at her and smile weakly, "Hot showers have to be the thing I miss the most about the real world.

  The door flings open. I stand to see Star walking back in. She looks savage. Her hand comes back, I see it too late. The sting of her hand across my face burns instantly. She shouts, "That’s for saying I dress like I want to be raped and always being hateful to me! I never did a thing to you!"

  She turns and storms out of the room again. When the shock wears off, I smile at Anna, "That feels better in my stomach." I rub my cheek and glance at Leo, sleeping on the bed. His one open yellow eye closes.

  Anna laughs, "Even Leo thought you had that one coming."

  I nod, "I did. At least she hits like a girl."

  I pull on the clothes and walk out of the room after Anna. Star is leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs. She shakes her sobbing head, "I'm sorry."

  I frown, "I deserved that. I had no right to say that about you. I have no right to judge you." Anna gives me a look I don’t understand, but she isn’t happy. She mouths, "SORRY!"

  I stammer, "I-I'm s-s-sorry."

  Star sniffles, "I just didn’t understand why you hated me from the start."

  I frown and look for answers, there are none. I hate that Will kissed me and then kissed her. I shake my head, "I just never was around other people."

  Anna points laughing, "This is her—way more social. See how she doesn’t really move her lips much, she never cries, and she is always kind of hard-ass? This is nothing. You should have seen how bitchy she was, when I met her. We've slowly been fixing her."

  My jaw drops. Anna winks when Star smiles. I don’t know what
just happened, but I don’t like it. I turn back to the room and grab my bow and quiver. Leo gives me a look. I nod. He climbs off the bed and follows me out of the room. Anna eyes me up, "You know it was a joke right?"

  I nod, "I'm hungry." I'm starved actually. We haven’t eaten much and I need something.

  Star laughs, "He has tons of food downstairs."

  My gaze narrows, "How?"

  She shrugs, "He is a smart guy. He knew this was coming. He was preparing for years before hand. He stays in the city for work and brings food."

  I cross my arms, gripping my weapons, "He's your brother?"

  She nods, "Stepbrother. My mom married his rich dad when I was little. They died almost right away, and me and Bernie came here."

  I tilt my head, "How did you get caught?"

  She shrugs and I see her sparkly eyes turn flat and dead inside, "I was stupid. I didn’t want to listen to Bernie. I went out of the yard. He told me to stay here while he was going to the city. He didn’t want me to come because I was at breeder age. He didn’t think he would be able to protect me."

  "How old were you?" I can't stop myself.

  "Fifteen, almost sixteen. They made a few of us stay behind when they got to the farm." She shudders, "Then Will came. He was with Marshall. Will just kept hitting and hitting. They were dead but he couldn’t stop. I can still hear the sound of it."

  We all shudder together. She stares for a minute, I know she's reliving it. She shakes her head, "Then they brought me to the camps. I showed Will the way back to here. Him and Bernie became friends. I went back to the camp with him. I couldn’t stay here and do nothing. So I help the wounded, give massages and try to be of help."

  I feel sick again.

  Her eyes sparkle again but it's the tears in them that makes them shine, "When Marshall betrayed you I decided I was done. They don’t want to fix things. Marshall wants to make it look like he's putting in an effort, but it's so that the camps will still run. He wants people motivated to work and gather and stay together but it's an act. He just doesn’t want to do any of that shit alone. He may not have agreed to the breeder farms or the military, but he would be in that city, if it weren’t for the fact he's diabetic."

  Anna frowns, "He is?"

  She nods, "Yup. The only reason he's out in the woods like that is the diabetes. The city has a no-sickness law. I still think he traded you for a free pass. He knew what you were."

  I swallow the bad feelings associated with those words, "How do you know?"

  She winks, "He was fond of my massages. He told me when you came back from the breeder farms, that he figured you were one of the early seed-gen babies from the breeder farms. One of the ones they experimented on early. He said you were dangerous like those kids in the cities—unruly and unpredictable. I could see it."

  I flinched.

  She shrugged and wiped her face, "He said that he could tell right away. Then you got ambushed and he admitted to being responsible. He said he was protecting the camps, but I think he did it to get a free pass to the city. Rebuilding a city has been his main focus for a few years."

  Leo whines and yawns. I look at the bow, "I have to get him something to eat." I walk past them both with Leo on my heels. We walk down the stairs and out the front door.

  I hate that I'm a seed gen and that I'm different. I stalk across the concrete to the gravel and sigh, "Stupid gravel." We crunch along to the far side of the yard. It's huge and surrounded by a wall of massive trees. Leo crouches and runs into the woods. He disappears. I follow along and wait for my eyes to adjust. I pull an arrow and lean against a tree.

  "I wouldn’t go in there, Emma." I sigh again when I hear Will's voice calling me.

  I whistle. Leo comes running back to my side. We leave the forest the same way we came in, "Why?" I call back.

  "He booby traps everything to keep the infected out."

  My hand instantly goes to Leo's fur. I grip it tight and walk back exactly the way we came. I'd seen yards like this.

  He put his hands in his pockets. When I get close I can see he's clean too. "He said to tell you, he has steaks and things for Leo."

  I look at Leo and nod, "Ok."

  He doesn’t move, so I walk past him.

  "Wait."

  Turning, I see his clean-shaven face in the dim light of the sky, "What?"

  "Star and me have never had anything, you know that right?" His tone is low like he's testing the water. "You get that when I explained it before, it was the truth?"

  "Yeah, she told me. I don’t really care." I hate lying to him, but I hate him assuming I do care.

  "She treats me the same way she treats everyone. She is just flirty and sweet to everyone."

  I put my hands up, "It's fine."

  "You don’t need to be jealous or whatever…"

  I cut him off, "STOP!" I storm past him, almost dragging Leo by the fur. I can feel the muttering trying to burst from me.

  He grabs my arm and spins me around. My knee comes up fast but he jumps back, narrowly missing a hard hit to the groin.

  I step back, "I said not to touch me. I'm not jealous of Star. Asshole." I back up pulling an arrow and holding it on him.

  He puts his hands up, "I'm sorry. I didn’t mean like jealous. I meant..."

  "I don’t care what you meant. I'm done with it. We're friends. Let's be friendly, don’t make me shoot you." I nudge Leo. He looks up at me and backs off Will, when he sees my face.

  I turn and walk to the house, but my arrow stays taut in the bow. I don’t look back at him; I listen to him. He walks behind me softly.

  "I can't believe you almost hit me in the nuts," he calls out.

  "You're lucky you're fast. I have boney knees," I mutter back.

  Leo growls back at him.

  "When is he going to quit hating me?"

  I turn and shake my head, "When you stop scaring him. You act like all the fuckers he's saved me from. You think you're the first guy Leo has had to pull off of me? You think he hasn't dove in and saved me a thousand times? He hates men, just like I do. He doesn’t trust them anymore than I do. You all seem to have one thing on your mind, and you seem to think you should be allowed to have it, even if we don’t want to give it. Leo and me have seen things like that tons. Men grabbing arms and spinning girls. Making them kiss them and dragging them into the bushes. You know what that sounds like, when you're ten years old? You know what it sounds like, when people take what isn’t theirs to have? It's enough to make you never want anything to do with anyone."

  His face is pale in the night, "Em, you know I would never do that."

  I shake my head and fight the god damned tears that just keep coming, "No. No, I don’t know that. Your own brother and sister don’t know that. You act like…like…"

  "You?"

  I laugh, "Yeah. You act crazy like me, but you have no excuse. You had family and friends and people. I get you went to the farms, Will, you suffered. Big deal. They didn’t put a baby in your belly and then kill it just to see what it looks like."

  He steps forward and I see the square of his jaw tense, "You think what happens to the women in the farms is more brutal than what happens to the men? You think they don’t have it hard? You think I don’t wonder if any of those babies out there are mine too? Babies I won't ever know about or see. They took my rights too. The only difference is, I didn’t get to go to sleep, Em. I was awake while they took it, and when they were done I got shoved into the work farms with all the other men." He spits on me with the last of his words. I didn’t realize how close we were until that moment. His breath huffs from him down on my face and I can see the steel in his blue eyes even in the dark.

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know, what I did say. His lip is trembling like he wants to say or do something that I think I want him to do. No matter what I do, I can’t stop myself from wanting it. Leo senses it and presses his cold noise against my hand. I jump and step back.

  "I'm hungry." I turn and
walk away and promise myself that if he grabs my arm, I will shoot him in the damned leg.

  When I get inside, I hear laughing. I walk towards it; smells are like promises in the air of food and drink. I round a corner and walk towards the light. They're in a huge kitchen with lights and food spread across the long counter. I stop and stare. It's like the restaurants I went to with Granny. They had whole counters of food and you could pick what you wanted. Jake grins at me over a heaping plate of food. He motions for me to come. I hear Will and then feel the heat of his body pressed against the back of me.

  I sigh and lean back into him, "That’s a lot of food," I whisper.

  Will speaks softly, "It's a lot of food. Bernie shops in the city. He's allowed in and out of the city."

  I nod, "So, he's friends with my real dad then?"

  Will's hand runs up my arm, "Put the bow down and come and eat and we can talk about it, okay?"

  I look back at him and nod. I let him take the weapons from my hands. "I can still kill you with my bare hands."

  He grins and looks like Jake for a second, "You don’t have to, you have a pet wolf."

  "I hate you," I laugh.

  He nods, "I know. I'm okay with it."

  I walk to the huge counter. Star passes me a large square plate. I've never seen anything like it. It's heavy and thick. I take some of everything. I don’t even know what it all is. I know there's chicken, steak, potatoes and beans, but the rest are casseroles or something. They're all in tinfoil packets and steaming hot like TV dinners. I used to like the fried chicken TV dinner. I grab a fork and carry my plate through the door that Jake went through. Anna and Bernie are sitting next to each other talking. He's young looking, but I can tell he's older. He has dark hair and dark eyes and his skin isn’t tanned but it's olive colored.

  The eating room is fancy—everywhere in the huge house is fancy.

  I sit next to Jake and look down on the plate. I don’t know where to start. I dig the fork into the potatoes and take the first bite. It's hot and salty and perfect. I close my eyes and moan.

  I open them to see Bernie staring at me.

  "What do you know?" he asks.

  I shake my head, "Nothing."