Born to Fight

by Brown, Tara

  I sigh and look at Will, "People are starving and the city folks have fruit going bad?"

  He shrugs and wraps an arm around me. I want to shove him and maybe stab him with something. He's touching me too much and being too soft and weird. I struggle out of his arms and walk to the window. The lights flicker.

  Bernie looks up, "They run on solar power energy that’s stored throughout the day. Our lights never work until the end of dusk."

  I look out the window and watch as the lights of the small city all flicker together and then come on. "They're not very bright."

  "They get brighter as they heat up. Everything is run on solar power." He points at the small holes in the ceiling, "Those are windows that bring in the light of the day; we don’t need power throughout the day."

  I scowl, "I know. I've seen a skylight before."

  He chuckles, "Anyway, everything is separate. They run the plug-ins separately from the lights. So the fridge runs all day, but there are no lights on."

  I cross my arms, "What's the plan?" I don’t want to hear about how genius the city is. I can tell he had something to do with it all—he's too excited about it.

  He narrows his eyes and shakes his head, "You seem awfully bitchy tonight." He looks at Will who has stopped eating and points at him, "Leave her alone." He has the warning tone.

  "Stop!" I use my own warning tone.

  Will frowns, "Babe…"

  "No, we get the shit we need for Anna and we figure out how and where for the explosives, and we go."

  Bernie crosses his arms, "You two are like the same person, only you keep switching roles and moods."

  I look at him to argue but a laugh bursts from my lips. It's so true.

  Will shakes his head and finishes stuffing his face. I turn my back, looking out at the lights starting to glow brightly. I wonder where Leo is and if he's safe. I wonder if I would know in my heart, if he weren't.

  We leave the apartment through the same creepy hallway, but this time it's lit and not scary. The parkade is, as well. The lights turn on as we walk.

  "Motion sensors so the lights don’t just stay on."

  I smile and nod at the pride in his voice, "You all are clever."

  He nudges me, "You don’t impress easily do you?"

  Will scoffs. I look back at him. He grins and walks up to open the door for me. I choose the other side of the truck and climb in, getting my own door. Bernie laughs at it all. Will scowls at me, "What's your deal?"

  I shake my head and look at Bernie. I don’t want to talk about it. Not in front of another person.

  I still hate the parkade, but at least I can see where we are going. The lights turn on as we get to them and turn off as we leave. It is pretty genius.

  We drive out onto the road.

  "Where are the other cars?"

  Bernie looks at me in the rearview, "Most people walk. There are buses that bring the doctors and nurses to and from the farms, but hardly anyone has a car."

  I feel panic in my stomach, "Stop the truck."

  He does. I jump out and start walking down the road.

  "What are you doing, "You two are idiots. No one drives, but we're driving along drawing attention to ourselves."

  Will catches up, "You might have mentioned that, Bernie."

  He shrugs, "I drive everywhere."

  I shoot him a glare, "try to fit in. Blend—like Star says."

  He shrugs, "Okay, it's a long walk though."

  I snort, "You have no idea what a long walk is."

  Will laughs. We walk in silence, like the people we pass on the sidewalk. They give us a wide birth, probably thinking we are like the kids who travel in packs. We don’t pass anyone with more than two people in their crowd.

  "We should split up," I mutter.

  "Bernie, you walk up ahead, keep a good pace."

  He speeds up as I stop and play with the laces in my boots. Will waits for me.

  "What's up with you?" he asks.

  I glance at Bernie, "This feels wrong."

  He drops to his knee too, "What does? Us? I thought it felt pretty right."

  "What? No, this. The near empty streets, the way we got into the city so easy, and the way Bernie has zero survival skills. It feels wrong." I look at the way his lip curls and can't fight the smile that crosses my lips, "Me and you is the only thing that doesn’t feel wrong. Beyond you acting like a girl from Granny's romance novels, that is."

  He grabs my face and plants a gentle kiss on my lips, "I just want to be the person you want me to be. I want to pretend all the other things didn’t happen."

  I shake my head, "But they did and I can't stop myself from loving you through them, so I guess they don’t matter much."

  The grin I love and hate breaks out across his face, "What was that you just threw in there? You love me?"

  I shove him lightly, "Shut up."

  We start walking again. I look up at him, "You need to focus. The thing I LIKE about you is your common sense and survival skills." I make sure I emphasize like. "Don’t make me regret it."

  He shakes his head, "Yeah well, the thing I LIKE about you is the way you manage to get under my skin constantly. In good and bad ways."

  I nudge him and notice we are the only animated people on the road. We walk past a lady who is old enough to be my mom. She gives me a weird look. I drop my gaze.

  "We need to blend."

  He nods, "I see that. It's like these people died inside. The infected have more emotions than these people."

  We walk past a man carrying a paper bag. He smiles at me kindly. I smile back.

  "How did they choose who got to be a city person and who didn’t?" I mutter.

  Will shakes his head, "I would guess the politicians, scientists, professors, artists, engineers, and doctors. People who mattered."

  I look up at him, "It's gonna sound weird, but I like the borderlands better."

  "Me too."

  We pass by an alley and I see three young teenagers walking away from us. They walk with swagger and attitude, not like the other people here. I look down at the road we're walking on. It's smooth and flat, like the old roads were. Everything is tidy and clean. The buildings are made of metal and glass and they sparkle along with the night sky and the streetlights.

  "I remember being in the city with my dad, and not being able to see the night sky, ‘cause the lights were so bright," I say looking up at the stars I can see.

  "Yeah, the pollution too. There is no haze here. We lived just outside of Los Angeles. It was bad there. Mom went to work and got sick right away. Dad took us before the first tidal waves came. He had a bad feeling. We went to the desert and hung there for a while. Then we made our way north. He thought Canada was a good idea. But none of the cars worked near where we were. Someone had let off an EMP and killed the power. We hid at a house with a swimming pool for a while."

  I watch Bernie saunter down the road and listen to Will's story.

  We round a corner as he continues, "Dad didn’t come back one day. It was late, dinnertime and we were starving. Anna was pretty young, but she had paid attention to the things he was always trying to teach us. We were close to starving, by the time we decided to move on; he wasn’t coming back. We moved on to a new place and found some food in the cupboards. We ate too much and ran out again. We didn’t have any common sense back then."

  I snicker, "Jake still doesn’t."

  He laughs, "No, he doesn't. He was worse then though, believe it or not. We were close to the breeder farms, we just didn't know it. We'd made it all the way to Washington, close to Canada. Anna and Jake were inside of a house, raiding it. She was so tiny and yet able. More able than me or Jake. I heard the others outside. One of them heard a noise inside— Jake of course. So I ran, drawing them after me. I let them take me. I knew Jakey and Anna were basically going to die. I didn’t think he'd even have enough sense to get them out of there. But we'd seen the others taking girls as young as Anna. So I figured their best
shot was me getting chased. I got taken and when I escaped I made my way back to where they were last—they were gone though. I spent a long while going back over our steps, retracing them. I didn’t think I would ever find them. So I went and made a burial for them and just tried to get past it."

  We round another corner.

  I look up, "You did the right thing. It's the things I would have done."

  He shrugs, "When we found you and you knew where they were, I nearly died inside."

  I nod, "I didn’t think you really cared that much."

  He looks down, "I'm not good at caring. I turned that all off a while back."

  I feel the sad look taking over my face, "I was wrong. I see that now. You were willing to risk me to get Anna back. You cared about them."

  Guilt creeps across his face, "When I found out what they had done to you and it was my fault, I never have felt that kind of rage."

  I look down at his clenched fist and do something I don’t do—ever. I take it in my hands, surrounding it with mine. It feels like his hand is throbbing with anger still. I have to fight to stay focused on why we're here and not think about the feelings his hands make me have.

  Bernie glances back at us, as he makes a turn under a streetlight. He winks. I frown.

  It takes us a few moments to get to the spot he went in. It's an alley and he's standing at the end of it in the dark.

  "Medical research building," he whispers as we get there.

  It's tall and shiny, like everything else.

  "There's a back entrance. I always take it. My card will get me in. You want to come too or wait out here?"

  I struggle to see his face in the dark, "We come."

  He turns and walks closer to the building. He moves and the door opens. I see the card slider as we walk in. The lights turn on as we walk inside. They do the motion thing. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but it's annoying.

  It looks like the breeder farm hallways when we get inside.

  The lights exasperate the hell out of me, the entire way to the stairs. "We don’t do elevators, only stairs in the city. It's seven flights."

  I raise an eyebrow, "You sure like it here."

  He sighs, "I did. I loved it. It was like almost being back to normal, only without the fashion and luxuries. But the basics are here. I just can't risk Star. When she's older we will come and live here, but she needs to get past the breeder age. If they find out what she is… well you know."

  I nod. I do.

  "Is it weird, she's your sister?" he asks as we climb the second set of stairs.

  Will coughs nervously, "What?"

  I see the look on his face and wrinkle my nose, "Oh my God—you had sex with her, didn’t you?"

  His eyes widen. Bernie turns and looks at him, "Not cool."

  Will sputters, "No. I swear. It's not like that. It wasn’t like that."

  I'm disgusted, because I friggin’ knew it and because I'm a notch on his god-dammed belt, like my sister. I blow past them both and continue to climb.

  "Bern, I never slept with her. I swear to the Gods. I never. You know me. She tried a few times, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not after… just not after."

  I ignore his words. Their footsteps start again behind me.

  "I trust you," Bernie mumbles.

  I don’t. I look back to see the guilty, red face and fight the sneer on my lips.

  I am almost running the stairs, ignoring them and the wind I'm sucking by the time I reach the door with the seven on it. I fling it open and walk into a hallway like the farms. The whole place is like a replica.

  Bernie opens the door, almost wheezing. I look back, "Did they only let one building designer live through it all? Why do all these look the same?"

  He laughs, "Cost and ease. Whew. I haven’t done those stairs in a while."

  Will is huffing next to him. He gives me a pleading look. I give him a look. He gives it back.

  Bernie grabs my hand, "Come on, scowly. You've been grumpy all day. It's not that bad here."

  I look around, it's dark inside and no one is here, just like he said.

  We walk down a hall into an open lab. It's huge. He walks to a room with a huge, red sign on it that says BIOHAZARD.

  He winks at me and opens the door.

  "You're immune aren't you?"

  He nods, "Will stay out here. You're not."

  He pulls me inside of the room. It's dark until we are inside, then the lights flash dimly and slowly grow in brightness. The lab is white and big. The wall where the door is, is all windows. I can see Will through it. He still looks pissed.

  "Can he hear us?"

  Bernie looks at Will and then me, "No."

  "Do you really believe he didn’t sleep with Star?"

  He shakes his head, "No. She has been in love with him since he saved her. She was raped in the back of a truck at the farms." He shudders, "She doesn't really remember much, blocking it out, I guess. Anyway, she remembers Will. He came and saved her. He beat them to death with his bare hands. He broke several fingers and knuckles. It was horrid. He was covered in blood. I don’t know what happened to him in the farm, but he was a savage when he left."

  I look at the intensity in his blue eyes, "It's weird. He's the most gentle person in the world one minute and a total psycho the next."

  He snorts, "Who isn’t nowadays?" He sounds distracted. I look at the huge glass canisters he's touching.

  "What's that?"

  He looks back at me, "The vaccine. We need to give it to Will. You go do that and I'll get the cure."

  I frown, "It's a real cure?"

  He nods, "As long as it hasn’t mutated again. It should work fine. The research is done in Spokane." His eyes flash when he says it. I grimace and take the needle he passes me. It's huge and filled with a pale, yellow syrup-looking liquid.

  "Shoot it into his arm. He's gonna get crazy sick for a couple hours and then be fine."

  I give him a look as he passes me a packet.

  He shakes his head, "I know. Not ideal, but it's our best hope."

  "He's going to be sick as we flee the city with the stolen cure?"

  He laughs, "You really are a true skeptic, aren't you?"

  His flippant behavior drives me insane. I take a deep breath and walk to the door.

  "Wipe him with the cloth in the packet and then stick him."

  I nod and close the door. Will looks down on me, "You think I'm lying don’t you?"

  I hold up the packet, "I need to wipe your arm. This is the vaccine." I tear the packet with my teeth and tug the wet wipe out. I always get excited when I find these. I wipe his arm in the thick spot and try not to think about anything but the wipe. My hand shakes with the huge needle in it. When I lift it, his eyes widen, "Really?"

  I nod and look in his dark-blue eyes. I smile bitterly and slide the needle in slowly. He winces as I press the liquid in slowly.

  I pull the needle out and toss it and the wipe in the garbage can, next to the desk beside us.

  He grasps my hand, but I stop his kiss with my evil grin, "You're going to be horribly sick for a day or so."

  He cocks an eyebrow, "What?"

  "It makes you really sick." I can't help but smile when I say it.

  He rolls his eyes, "Why, because Bernie said so? He gets a sliver and feels sick. I'll be fine."

  I shrug, "Ok. He has the cure, I think."

  Bernie walks out holding a small cylinder. He looks sweaty and off, "We need to go now. This can only stay active for a short amount of time."

  We follow him out of the lab and down the hall. I can't help but feel like it's all too easy.

  "Doesn’t anyone guard the lab?" I ask.

  He nods, "They do, but they rarely come up the stairs. It's too bloody far to check every floor."

  Will laughs, "That sounds dumb. They don’t put in elevators, so then the guards don’t want to climb the stairs?"

  Bernie chuckles and starts down the stairs, "I'm not one of the e
ngineers who decided this. I told them it was stupid, but they never listened to me."

  "Have you stolen the cure before?" I ask, starting to feel weird.

  He shakes his head, "Nope. I haven’t ever used it either. I heard it only works if the person taking it hasn’t got the fever bad yet. That takes five days to set in and get so high the brain damage happens."

  We reach the bottom of the stairs and enter the hallway with the lights that turn off as we walk.

  As we leave the building he hands the cylinder to me, "I'll go get the truck. You wait here, okay?"

  I want to say no. I don’t trust him. It's sudden. I don’t like that we've put so much faith in him. But I don't. I take it and wait for him to betray us. I don’t have a choice. We can't walk down the street with a cylinder, not without people giving us a look.

  I look at Will, "Starting to feel sick so soon?"

  He nods and I fight the grin that wants to take over.

  He grabs my arm, "What if he poisoned me?"

  I sigh and point down the alley, "You are the one who said to trust him. You are the one who said he was going to help us. Is that possible?"

  He takes deep breaths and then nods, "Yeah. It might be possible."

  I growl, "For fuck's sake." I grab his arm and drag him down the alley. We cross the silent street and enter an alley across the way. I drag him behind another building and up another alley. We walk for a few minutes and then I hear it. I pass him the cylinder, "Don’t drop this, I don’t care if you're dying."

  He scowls, "She's my sister too." I like that he said too.

  I scoff and walk up to the corner of the building in front of us. A group of the weird breeder kids are standing in front of something. In the dark, I can barely make them out. I squint and manage to count five or six.

  "Shit," I whisper and turn back around to grab his empty hand, "We gotta go." I see a window on the ground level and try to open it, but it doesn’t move.

  I pull him down the alley further. We reach a building with stairs. We climb a few flights until we can see the road we were on. I sit. He sits beside me. I can feel him starting to shake. I take the cylinder and put it beside me. I wipe away the sweat forming on his brow.

  He lifts one corner of his lip, "I'm sorry."