by Amy Tintera
Something caught her attention behind me, and I glanced back to see Isaac walking toward the tent at the entrance of the reservation with a plate of food in his hands. The new Reboot was still in that tent, the one they’d killed earlier.
“I don’t understand why they put up with this.”
I turned at the quiet voice to see Addie standing next to me. I shrugged, because I didn’t know, either. I scanned the crowd around me. I wondered how many had been killed by Micah’s hunting teams.
I glanced at Isaac again. “Just lucky, I guess.” That’s what he’d said when I asked how he came to live at the reservation. He said he wasn’t born here.
“No one tried to put a stop to it?” Addie whispered.
“Maybe they don’t care,” I murmured, gesturing for her to follow me. “Come on.”
Isaac stopped when he saw us coming, hand poised to pull back the tent flap. A flash of nervousness crossed his features and he scanned the area behind us.
“I’m not sure you guys should come in,” he said.
“Why not?” Addie asked.
“Micah likes to introduce new Reboots slowly. You know, so they’re not overwhelmed.”
“You don’t think they’ve already been overwhelmed by the whole being-murdered thing?” I asked.
Isaac gave me a look like he didn’t think that was very funny, and I quickly shut my mouth. I had a feeling my suspicions about his cause of death were correct.
“I’m going to give this to her,” he said. “She’s not talking right now anyway.” He disappeared into the tent.
Addie crossed her arms over her chest, shivering in the chilly night air. “Have you talked to Wren?”
“A little.”
“Beth told me she heard Wren sewed up their gunshot wounds while they were still dead so there would be less scarring. I thought that was nice.” Addie shrugged. “Like she did the only thing she could, you know?”
I looked back in surprise to where Wren was, but she and Micah were gone. She hadn’t told me that. I was pretty sure I would have panicked and exploded at Micah if I’d been on that hunting trip. But Wren was able to keep it together well enough to sew up a dead person’s chest. That never would have even occurred to me.
Isaac emerged from the tent, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched like he was trying to disappear. “Do you guys need something? Do you want to go get some food?”
“Is that how you died?” I asked quietly, nodding at the tent.
He cleared his throat, glancing around as if searching for an escape. “I can’t really talk about it.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Addie asked, her brow furrowing.
He took a step closer, ducking his head. “Micah doesn’t like it. We’re supposed to let go of the past.”
Let go of the past? Was that code for “You’re not allowed to be mad we murdered you so just shut up and act happy”?
“Were you with other people?” I asked. I didn’t care what Micah liked. I was going to talk about it. “Did they kill your family, too?”
Isaac hesitated. “Yeah,” he finally whispered, releasing a rush of air like he was relieved to have said it. “My parents died when I was young, but I was with my older brother and a few people who were basically family. They all died.”
“How old were you?” Addie asked, her voice full of horror.
“Fourteen. It was a year ago. They came in and shot us all, and I woke up on the back of a motorcycle with Jules.” His words came in a rush now. “And then they brought me here and it was basically like I was supposed to be grateful.”
“You mean you are grateful.”
I jumped at the words coming from the side of the tent, and Micah stepped out, his face hard and angry. Isaac paled, almost tripping over his own feet as he took a step back from us.
“Y-yes,” he stuttered.
I hadn’t seen that kind of fear in a Reboot’s eyes since leaving HARC, and Isaac’s panic made dread unfold in my chest. Why was he so scared? Why would he stay here if Micah had killed him and everyone he knew?
Micah looked into the distance, pointed down at Isaac, and in seconds Jules was by his side, a frown on her face.
“We’ll discuss this further in my tent,” he said.
The way Isaac’s eyes rounded with fear told me I didn’t want to know what went on in Micah’s tent.
Jules grabbed Isaac’s arm and I stepped forward, attempting to block her.
“Stop,” Isaac said, giving me a wild look and shaking his head. “Leave it.”
I opened my mouth to protest as Jules yanked him to her. Micah watched the scene with his arms crossed over his chest, a menacing presence that didn’t have to lift a finger.
“Callum, leave it,” Isaac repeated, throwing me a pleading glance over his shoulder.
I let out a defeated sigh and moved back so I was next to Addie again. She was motionless, fear plastered on her face.
Micah took a step forward, furious eyes darting between Addie and me. “There are rules here.”
“No one told us any rules,” Addie said.
Micah’s jaw moved, like he was trying to control his temper. “Isaac told you at the beginning of the conversation that we don’t talk about our lesser human lives.”
Lesser human lives? Was this guy for real?
“But I know you’re new, so I’m cutting you some slack.” His tone lightened enormously, which gave me the impression he was completely out of his mind. It was like he flipped a switch from “I’m going to kill you” to “Let’s be friends.”
I took a small step back. I didn’t want to be friends.
“But I suggest you mind your own business and stop interfering in things you don’t understand.”
Which part didn’t I understand? He killed people. He controlled them. He scared them. Seemed pretty basic to me.
Addie and I didn’t say a word, which appeared to please him. He gave us a slight nod and turned to walk to his tent.
“That seems really bad,” Addie breathed when he was out of earshot.
Yeah. It did.
I returned to our tent that evening to find Wren already sitting on the mattress, her legs pulled to her chest and an arm wrapped around them. She turned to me with a worried expression as I shut the tent flap.
“How’s Isaac?” she asked. “Did you find him?”
I nodded. I’d filled her in earlier, then gone looking for Isaac. It was quiet outside, most of the Reboots already in their tents, and I lowered my voice when I spoke. “Micah didn’t have him for long, and he seems fine. He wouldn’t talk to me, though.”
“Micah could do whatever he wanted to them,” she said with a sigh. “They’d just heal a few minutes later and no one would know.”
I winced at the possibility. “Lovely.” I sat down next to her and ran a hand down my face. “I can’t understand why they would all just go along with him being their leader.”
“He makes some good points,” she said quietly. “They want to survive, and he’s providing them with a good plan.”
I raised my eyebrows. “A good plan?”
“A logical plan,” she corrected, avoiding my eyes.
I pushed back a burst of annoyance at Micah being called “logical.” That was the last word I would have used to describe him. I gave her a confused look.
“He’s doing the only thing he knows how to do to protect everyone here. His experience has shown him that humans and Reboots can’t live together. So he had to make a choice.”
“The choice to kill everyone?” I asked.
“Everything isn’t black and white, Callum,” she said quietly.
I paused, deciding not to tell her I thought murder was black and white. You chose to kill people or you didn’t.
Unless HARC made you insane and you accidentally killed someone. I paused, a pang of guilt zipping through my body. Maybe it wasn’t totally black and white.
“But that wouldn’t have been your choice,” I said.
>
“No,” she said immediately. “But I see his rationale.”
I scrunched my face up. I didn’t see how anyone could make a decision that involved murdering an entire species. I could barely handle that I’d killed one person.
“I made choices like that,” she said to her lap.
I slid my fingers between hers. “How do you mean?”
“I went into the Austin facility knowing that humans were going to die. That maybe some Reboots would die. I decided that was an acceptable sacrifice to save you. Micah has decided that all the humans are an acceptable sacrifice to save the Reboots.”
I held her hand tighter. “That isn’t the same. You never wanted to kill anyone. You did it because you had to, or because you were protecting yourself or me. You’re not committing mass murder because you can. You see the difference, right?”
Wren squinted, like she was thinking about it. It freaked me out when she gave serious thought to things that seemed simple to me. She really had to think that hard about it?
She caught the look on my face and immediately slipped her hand out of mine, her cheeks turning pink. “Yes,” she said. It was an obvious lie, said to make me feel better.
She looked embarrassed now, and I wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. I didn’t appreciate her seeing any of Micah’s points, but I felt guilty for making her uncomfortable.
“Hey,” I said, running my hand to the back of her neck. “They said you sewed up the kids Micah killed.”
She nodded, her fingers closing over the collar of her shirt. I tried not to look. I didn’t want to tell her that by not showing me her scars, she’d made me even more curious about them. But I couldn’t come up with a way to ask about them that didn’t sound like “I really want to see your boobs,” so I kept my mouth shut.
“That was a nice thing to do,” I said, gently removing her fingers from her shirt and taking her hand.
She shrugged. “I would have liked someone to do that for me.”
I nodded, giving her an understanding look when she met my eyes. I leaned down and brushed my lips across hers, holding her tighter.
TEN
WREN
I MET MICAH OUTSIDE THE RESERVATION THE NEXT DAY, IN THE grass near the lake. Most of the reservation was already there, milling around as they waited. Micah had explained to me that everyone capable of fighting participated in sparring/training sessions several times a week. I’d volunteered right away when he mentioned it, and I was happy for the distraction this morning.
My heart took a dip as I found Callum in the crowd. He stood next to Isaac, arms crossed over his chest, and when his eyes met mine he smiled. I returned the smile, trying to push last night’s conversation out of my head. I kept seeing his face after I told him Micah was logical, like he was horrified I could ever think that.
I’d known it was a mistake the moment I said it. But what was I supposed to do? Lie? Micah wasn’t insane; he was strategic. He was making decisions based on logic and experience and he wasn’t letting emotions get in the way. The results were kind of horrifying, and I hadn’t lied when I said I wouldn’t have made the same decisions, but to dismiss him as insane wasn’t smart.
“You all right?”
I jumped, quickly turning away from Callum to find Addie next to me, a concerned expression on her face.
“Fine.”
She frowned and made a face like she was going to say something, but Micah was strolling in my direction, Riley next to him. Addie squeezed my arm gently and I shook her off, not wanting to encourage her to talk to me. I didn’t want another person looking at me like I was crazy.
“Good morning.” Micah smiled at me as Addie walked away. “You ready?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like for you to take whoever seems like they need the most help. I’m thinking only a couple weeks until we go in to the cities, at most. We need to kick it into high gear.”
I swallowed. That was soon. I expected more time to figure out what to do. Leaving was risky, given what happened to the group that split off. Staying meant going along with Micah’s plan, and dealing with Callum trying to recruit the reservation Reboots to help the humans. Staying also meant training with the reservation Reboots, many of whom would turn around and use those skills to kill humans.
My eyes darted over the crowd I was supposed to train. So many of them looked young. Many were around eleven, twelve years old.
“They look young,” I said, pointing.
“Everyone twelve and up is participating,” he said.
By “participating” he meant “ordered.” Twelve was also the HARC age for training. I glanced at Riley, who also seemed uncomfortable.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about this one.
“Sixteen,” I said.
Micah raised his eyebrows. “Sorry?”
“Sixteen and up, not twelve.”
“I think twelve is fine.”
“I died when I was twelve and was put into HARC training right away. I don’t think you realize what that’s like,” I said, realizing too late that of course he understood. I wasn’t used to dealing with an authority figure so similar to myself.
“I died when I was seven, and also started at twelve, so I understand fine,” he said. “The training process won’t be the same here anyway.”
“I’m not training twelve-year-olds for war.”
Silence fell over the crowd, and many Reboots stared at Micah nervously. One girl vigorously shook her head at me behind Micah’s back, fear plastered on her face.
I took in a small breath, watching the faces of the rest of the crowd. Callum was right about them being scared. And not just in the way they were scared of me. What exactly did they fear from him?
Micah’s jaw moved as he studied me. “Thirteen.”
I caught Callum’s eye and he gave me a look I thought meant he was proud. Next to him, Isaac winced.
I whipped my head back to Micah. “Fifteen.”
“Fourteen.”
“Fifteen.” I’d trained too many young kids in my time at HARC. I wasn’t doing it again.
He paused, narrowing his eyes at me. The silence stretched out between us for so long I saw Jules start to shift uncomfortably behind him.
I scanned the rest of the group behind Micah. Kyle stood with them, as well as Riley, and about fifteen others. They were apart from the rest of the Reboots, mostly One-twenties or close, and none of them appeared to be scared of Micah. In fact, a few were glaring at me.
“Fine. Fifteen.” Micah’s face relaxed and I could almost feel the crowd doing the same.
“Everyone under the age of fifteen, back to camp,” Micah said. He cast a quick glance back at me. “For today.” He cocked his head like he dared me to say something about that. I stared at him.
I turned and headed in Callum’s direction. Maybe I’d train Under-sixties. I could use some of their optimism and talkativeness today.
“So.” Micah’s voice made me stop and when I turned around, he clapped his hands together and grinned at me. “Want to do a demonstration first?”
“A demonstration?” I repeated.
“Could be fun, right?” he asked, a challenge behind every word. “Show them how it’s done?”
Excitement zipped through my chest as I met his gaze. It had been a long time since I’d sparred with a Reboot so close to my number and skill. Not since Riley left.
“Of course,” I said. Micah’s smirk grew bigger, but I could see the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. He was sure of his ability to win. I pushed back a smile of my own.
He pulled off his sweatshirt and to reveal a T-shirt underneath, and the Reboots immediately began to move back. They left a huge, wide space for us.
“No weapons, no neck breaks,” Micah said. “Everything else is fair game. We go until one of us is down for five seconds.”
I nodded, taking a quick scan of the crowd. There was a hint of excitement in the air, but several Reboots look
ed worried. They couldn’t have been worried about us getting hurt, so it was something else bothering them.
Micah walked closer to me. Some of the excitement was gone, his brow set in a hard, firm line. He was serious about this challenge.
For a moment, I considered letting him win. He clearly needed to solidify his place as leader in the reservation, and proving he was a better fighter than me would go a long way toward that goal. It might even help me gain some of his trust.
But I’d never let anyone win. I’d rarely lost at all.
I stretched out my fingers and then balled them into fists. I didn’t want to lose today, either.
“Riley? Want to count us down?” Micah asked without looking at him.
“Three . . . two . . . one. Go.”
Neither of us moved. I’d been waiting for him to rush me, so I could sidestep him and possibly grab an arm to break. A corner of his mouth turned up. He’d been waiting for the same thing.
“It’s not a staring contest,” Riley said from behind me, his voice tinged with amusement.
Micah took a swing at me, like he thought I’d be distracted by Riley’s voice. I smiled as I easily ducked it.
He took a step back before I’d even had a chance to fully straighten. His strength wasn’t his speed or force, it was his patience and ability to assess the situation. He hadn’t underestimated me because of my size.
I took one quick step forward, throwing my left hook into his face and heading for his stomach with my right fist. He blocked the former and let out a slight wheeze as I connected with his gut.
His hands were up and he began throwing punches hard and fast, matching mine. I ducked and blocked and almost hit the dirt when he connected with my cheek. He had the second-hardest punch I’d ever felt. The number one honor still belonged to Riley.
He dove suddenly and wrapped his arms around my legs. I hit the ground with a grunt and Micah slammed my shoulders down with his hands, easily pinning me down with the full weight of his body.
I’d always hated being pinned.
I kicked him dangerously close to the crotch and he flew off of me with a gasp. I darted from his reach before his hand could close around my ankle. A few people cheered and I took a quick glance back at the crowd. Had they cheered for Micah? I hadn’t been paying attention.