by Frost Kay
Hazel blinked. New tech. It couldn’t be. “Like flying devices?”
Naomi gasped. “You know?”
“I spotted one flying a few weeks past.”
“Then it’s already begun,” the girl said with horror. She reached for Hazel’s arm and started to jog. “You need to go.”
“I need my ATV.”
Naomi pulled her around some sage brush and pointed to an old dirt bike lying on the ground. “That should get you where you need to go. It’s full of gas and I made sure to sneak some food into your pack while you were sleeping.”
Hazel stared at the motorcycle and the girl. How did she get it out here? She shook her head. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. “Won’t you be blamed?”
“No. They’d never suspect me for a moment.”
She walked around the bike and tipped it upright, sand and bits of sage brush falling from the frame. Hazel swung her leg over the bike, the toes of her boots barely touching the ground. It was a little tall but nothing she couldn’t manage. She pulled out the kickstand from the right side and put all her weight on her left foot, the dirt bike sitting at an angle.
Her gaze flicked to Naomi who looked so young in her tan nightdress. Hazel’s heart squeezed. She toed the kickstand down and rushed over to the girl, pulling her into a hug.
“Thank you,” she breathed, hugging Naomi tightly. Hazel pulled back and scanned the girl’s face. “Come with me. My family will provide you with shelter and protection. There’s more than enough room on the bike.”
Naomi shook her head. “You wouldn’t make it home before Shechem came for us. He’d hunt us mercilessly.”
“Not if he didn’t know where to find you.”
The girl touched a loose lock of hair near Hazel’s cheek. “I’ve never seen him act the way he did with you. It wasn’t like he wanted to bed you, but more like he’d found a treasure he wanted to possess. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something in my gut tells me he recognized you.”
“That’s not possible,” Hazel argued. “I’d never met the man before in my life.”
“I don’t know.” Naomi shook her head and stepped back. “Whatever it was, I don’t trust it. Take care.”
Hazel swallowed and mounted the dirt bike, only kicking once to start it. She sighed when it purred softly. A four stroke, not a two. A strike of luck, for sure, that her brothers had taught her to ride one before she could even read. God only knew what this one ran on. She’d hadn’t died on gas-run vehicles yet.
Hazel brushed the morbid thought away and turned back to Naomi, the motorcycle puttering.
“I’ll send someone for you.” And she would. It hurt her heart to leave the girl behind.
“I won’t hold you to that.”
“I promise. I won’t forget your kindness.”
She smiled at Naomi one last time and twisted the throttle, her eyes set on the mountain range ahead.
Her family was so close. All she had to do was survive two more days and she’d see her family again. They’d help protect Naomi.
Two more days.
You got this.
Twenty-Two
Hazel
Her right hand squeezed the brake, and her breath whooshed from her lungs as she set eyes on her valley and Harbor for the first time in over two months. Emotion after emotion crashed over her—thankfulness, euphoria, relief, and finally, fear.
Fear of everything she’d left behind.
Tears blurred her eyes when she thought of how Baz and Mesa, her two best friends, were married and probably had a home of their own. How Jo might be married to Rose. How she would have to confront Aaron, Gen, and Colton.
She lifted her goggles and inhaled deeply. One problem at a time. Hazel wasn’t the girl she used to be. In the two months since Aaron’s attack, she’d changed, and she hardly knew the withdrawn girl she used to be with her head in the clouds. It was okay to dream, but she realized what was most important was right in front of her. She’d never take her family and friends for granted again.
Hazel scrubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and settled her goggles over her eyes. It was time to go home.
Her skin prickled as she approached the main eastern gate. She knew there were eyes on her, even though she couldn’t see them. Hazel slowed the dirt bike and used the tips of her boots to balance the bike when she reached a complete stop, just shy of the archer’s range.
She lifted a hand in greeting and then waited. Five minutes passed, and they felt like the longest minutes of her life. Would the people acknowledge her presence? Internally, she debated whether or not to ride up without her scarf wrapped around her head and face. They would have known it was her immediately, but part of her worried who might be at the gate. If it was Aaron or one of his cronies, they might have shot her on sight.
The memory of him shoving her from the jeep was fresh in her mind as she glanced at the woods to her left.
There wasn’t anything she’d put past him now.
Sweat beaded on her brow, and she rolled her neck, her whole body sore and fatigued. The two-day ride had been brutal. She’d scarcely slept. The only positive part of the journey was that she got her courage up and checked the wound on her heel.
It was only a gash, not a snakebite.
Her attention homed in on the immense, smooth metal wall as a man appeared at the very top. She again lifted both hands to show she meant no harm. The man lifted a rifle, and she held very, very still.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” a familiar voice called.
Hazel bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes. She’d know that voice anywhere. Her brother. Thank god.
“Brent!” she called. “I’m here to see my family.”
“How do you know that name?” her brother snarled.
With slow, precise movements, she lifted her goggles and unwound the scarf. The gun lowered and then lifted again as her brother stared at her through the scope.
“If it’s alright, I’m going to come closer so we can talk without yelling.”
She lowered her palms to the handlebars and crept forward, her senses on high alert. She made it thirty feet from the wall when an arrow struck the dirt just ahead of her front wheel. Hazel braked and tilted her head up to gaze at Brent.
His hair stuck out at wild angles, and his face seemed to hold more lines, but he was still the brother she loved and remembered. A fat tear rolled down her left cheek.
“You going to let me in so I can give you a huge hug, or what?”
He swallowed, then glared at something to his right that she couldn’t see before turning his attention back on her. “Hazel? Is it really you?”
“It’s me. I’ve traveled a long way, and I really want to see all you guys and papa.”
Brent still hesitated, or maybe he was in shock. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Please,” she pleaded. That seemed to snap him out of it.
“Give me just a little bit.”
“Okay, and Brent?” Her brother met her gaze. “Only our family.”
He nodded once and then disappeared.
She crossed her arms and tried to look completely at ease for whoever was on duty watching her through the peepholes at the top of the fence. Inside, she was freaking out. Hazel swiped at a stray tear and started counting.
234, 235, 236…
The gate groaned and swung inward.
Her breath caught, and she kicked the kickstand down and slid off the dirt bike onto noodle-like legs. Hazel braced herself as six men strode through the gate and the mammoth thing slid closed behind them.
Her papa was in the lead, followed by Brent, Jake, Jo, Baz, and Aaron. Her vision turned red as she locked eyes with the muddy-eyed creep she’d once thought to marry and rule Harbor with. Her hand inched toward the blade at her hip, but she decided he wasn’t worth the anger. He’d suffer so much more when her family found out what he’d done to her.
She tore her gaze from t
he traitor and smiled at Baz, who stared at her with wide eyes. Marriage had done him good. In the time she’d been gone, he’d put on weight and more muscle. The cooking and loving of a good woman were obvious.
Hazel straightened and began to move forward to meet them. Cowering by her bike wouldn’t set a good precedent for the conversations they’d have.
Jo caught her eye, his face one of complete devastation. She smiled encouragingly and frowned when her papa held up a hand. Slowing to a stop, she observed the group of men who halted ten feet away. No expression crossed Jake’s or her papa’s face. They just studied her.
“Papa,” she choked out. “I made it home.”
His face cracked. “Hazel?”
She nodded, tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m really here. I made it home.” She took another step closer and he stiffened. Hazel paused and blinked several times to get herself under control. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I had to heal.” She gestured to her throat. “Smoke inhalation has left me with a little deeper voice for the time being.”
“Heal from what?” Jake said, so low that she almost didn’t catch the words.
Hazel pinned Aaron with a hateful glare. “The night before the Blending, there was a party. I’m sure you all know which one I’m speaking about.” She grinned at the unease that rippled across the creep’s face. “Aaron even proposed, and I accepted.”
“He’s told us the story, but that doesn’t explain how you’re alive,” Brent interrupted.
“What kind of story did you tell them, Aaron?” Disgust rolled in her gut. “Did he tell you how he tried to rape me?” All the men stiffened at her words. “Or how he hit me when I tried to escape him?” A bitter, hollow laugh tumbled from her lips, and a traitorous tear fell down her cheek. “Or how, when I threatened to tell you, he pushed me from a moving jeep and left me for dead in the wilds?”
Her papa considered her, then rotated to face Aaron. “Is that true?”
Aaron blanched. “She was drunk that night. I know what I saw as did two other witnesses.”
“That’s not what he asked you,” Jo said softly. “Did you or did you not try to rape my sister?”
“I asked if I could kiss her since we’d be married the next day, and she agreed. It didn’t go further than that.”
Bile burned the back of her throat. While he was technically telling the truth, he hadn’t gotten to the actual act; it had been sexual assault with the intent to rape.
“Hazel?” her papa prompted.
She swallowed hard, trying not to puke. “I did say he could kiss me. What happened afterwards, I did not consent to. I screamed and fought. No one heard me,” she said, her voice wobbling. “I picked up a rock and hit him with it.”
Aaron held his hands up. “I don’t know what happened to you out there, Hazel, but I’m so glad you’re home safe.”
Hazel gagged and placed a hand over her belly, her eyes shutting. A gun shot cracked, and her ears rung.
She jerked upward and gaped at Aaron’s body lying on the ground, blood seeping from his prone form. She gawked at Jake, who calmly put away his smoking pistol like he hadn’t just shot a man.
“There will be consequences for that,” her papa said calmly.
“Our laws don’t allow rapists and murderers to live freely in Harbor, either.”
“He had witnesses,” Jo added.
Jake flicked a look at Hazel and then cracked a mean smile. “It’s a good thing we’re not inside Harbor’s walls.”
She began to shake and took two wobbly steps toward her family, ignoring the body on the ground.
“That’s far enough.”
Hazel blinked at her papa in confusion. She wasn’t sick, but maybe giving him proof would help. He had their people to think about. Quickly she stripped out of her linen shirt down to her bra and then kicked off her boots and rolled up her pants. She lifted her heavy braid from her back and rotated in a circle so he could inspect her body.
“I’m healthy, Papa.”
He watched her without expression and nodded toward her shirt. “Get dressed, sweetheart.”
She tugged on her shirt and watched her family cast knowing looks between them. Her jaw clenched, and she raised her chin.
“Don’t pussy foot around the matter,” she barked. “Come out and say what you have to say. I’ve traveled for days to get here, and I’m exhausted.”
“Where did you come from?” Jo asked.
“A small settlement from up north,” she replied carefully.
“I imagine you’ve seen much of our world,” her papa said.
“I’ve come across many Tainted.” A pause. “Both animal and man.” Her gaze darted between her brothers. “How could you not tell me?”
Jo shrugged. “We were trying to protect you.”
“You made me ignorant and easy prey.” Jo winced and dropped his eyes. She turned back to her papa. “The world is not how you paint it.”
“It’s dangerous.”
She snorted. “Boy, do I know it. If it weren’t for a few kind strangers, I would have died weeks ago.” She glowered at him. “Why didn’t you tell me they were people?”
“They’re not people. They’re monsters.”
Hazel swallowed back her anger. Bastile wasn’t a monster. He was a cute, mousy little boy. Different, yes. But monstrous, no. She wouldn’t get anywhere with him by arguing, though.
“I missed you,” she confessed. “I missed you all so much.”
That cracked her papa’s hard exterior. Grief creased his face. “We thought you died.”
“No more mourning,” she said with a wobbly smile and held her arms out. “I’m here, and I’m fine.”
Her papa groaned and bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, but he didn’t come to her. Hazel watched as the strongest man she knew began to cry.
“Papa?” she whispered and took a step closer.
“That’s far enough, Haze,” Jake murmured.
Her bottom lip quivered, and she glanced at Jo. Matt couldn’t have been right. They wouldn’t turn away their own flesh and blood? “Jo?”
He put a hand over his mouth and turned away as tears flooded his eyes.
Oh, God.
A sob escaped her mouth and she slapped a trembling hand over it. They really weren’t going to let her come home. “It’s true,” she whispered, tears blurring her surroundings. “You sent him away.”
Her papa straightened and brushed the tears off his cheeks. “What?”
“Matt!” she cried. “You lied!”
“Matt did die. That thing that came crawling back here was not the boy you knew. It was a monster. I should have put it down then.”
Repulsed, she took a couple steps away from him. “How can you say that? He was like a son to you!”
“A son I lost to the Tainted, and I wasn’t going to lose you, too, like I lost your mother.”
Hazel stiffened, a horrible thought coming to mind. “Did you do that to Mama?”
Her papa glared. “I loved your mother.”
“Did you that that to Mama?” she asked again.
“She died on a scav trip.”
“How did she die? Did she get sick? Did you leave her to die?” Hazel yelled, starting to lose control.
“She begged to die,” her papa exploded. “She got sick, and instead of taking to the change, she began to deteriorate. The pain was excruciating for her. Your mama begged me for death.” A tear dripped down his tan, lined face. “And I couldn’t see her suffer anymore.”
Hazel began to cry, her sobs the only sound. She wrapped her arms around her ribs, as if hugging herself would keep the truth from hurting so much. So many lies. So much grief.
“The Tainted took her from me, and I will never forgive them. Never.”
She lifted her tearstained face and pushed her dirty hair from her damp cheeks. “So, you’ll keep spreading fear, hate, and ignorance? What kind of life is that?”
“A safe one.”
&nbs
p; Hazel threw her hands out. “Look at what it’s cost us.” Another tear slipped down her cheek. “You won’t even hug me, and I’m not sick.”
“But you’re changed, nonetheless,” Jake said, his expression heartbroken. “We can’t let you inside. You’ve had too much contact with them. We can’t risk you infecting our people with your ideas. We have to keep them safe.”
Even though she knew it was coming, it still felt like he’d punched her in the belly. “And if I promise to keep my mouth shut?”
“The last time I spoke, it was harsh. I accused you of not being like your mother.” Her papa’s smile was bittersweet. “Now, all I see when I look at you is her. She was fiery for what she believed in. You couldn’t keep silent now, even if you wanted to.”
She wanted to argue with him, but she held her tongue. He was right. Going back to the ignorant way Hazel lived before wasn’t an option, but neither was losing her family.
“I want you to know I love that about you,” her papa whispered.
Hazel bowed her head and cried. “You’ll cast me into the wilds?”
“We’ll make sure you’re well stocked to find a new home,” Jake choked out.
She squatted and placed her face in her hands. Strong hands wrapped around her biceps and pulled her into a hug. Her papa’s earthy scent wrapped around her as he squeezed her against his chest, his chin resting on top of her head.
“I wanted to keep you from this pain, Hazel. I wanted to protect you from this.”