by Logan Keys
“What machine?”
Before he can answer, men in uniform rush through the gate. I’m against the wall hiding in the shadows before they can see me. Shade is there too, hand at my mouth, finger to his lips.
“Shade!” they call but he shakes his head once.
“Shhhh,” he says, too quiet for them to hear.
“I get it,” I mouth.
When they leave, he slowly gives me back my own space, almost reluctantly.
He likes to invade a person’s area, I see.
“Those were Bradford’s men.”
Shade nods, and his black shock of hair flops over his void, disappearing wherever it touches. “Things must be getting heated. Might be better during the daytime.”
“You can travel in the day time?”
“If I stay to the shadows. You?”
“I can stay in the shadows, too, but if I get into the sun, it’s like being burned alive. I go out rarely and it’s draining. Plus, then I need to… um…”
“Feed?” he supplies.
“Don’t sound so disgusted.” I head back toward our side.
“Where you going?”
“I’ll come back another time. I don’t need to end up in the middle of a man chest beating session.”
Shade follows and I raise a brow at him as he keeps pace with me. But he shrugs, hands in his pockets.
The rest of him is corporeal somewhat, still in shadow, but his face is darkest of all. Hands, hair, legs and arms, clothes, all of that is dark but visible.
“Why not?” he asks.
“The sun, you mean? Vampire. You get me?”
“Ah. So, it’s true. Bunch of bloodsuckers running things over here. This I gotta see. Adrian is still the leader, right?”
I nod.
Shade huffs. “Why? Couldn’t you drain her dry and get rid of the stupid witch? You know we have the forces. We are the ones who’ll keep building and readying for the fight for Anthem. Adrian has nothing but women.”
I turn to face him.
“Er,” he laughs, “women who can kick ass for sure. I just meant… no weapons.”
I bare my teeth and lean closer.
Shade covers his throat, and in a blink, is ten feet away. “All right. All right. Touché, vamp-girl, touché.”
“Ugh. Don’t call me that.”
He’s suddenly inches away, his black void bent from his tall height, at least six feet, to peer into my mouth. It’s so strange how he does that, just clings to you almost, and, well, it isn’t unpleasant as it would be with a normal human. I don’t feel threatened, or claustrophobic.
“That’s not what I meant.” He straightens, satisfied. “These are awesome, but real weapons. The type that go ka boom.” He shrugs.
I sigh and lead the way again.
“He’s okay,” I say to the two vampires who lean out when we get closer to the building where Joelle is staying.
This apartment had been her choice of residence, a curious one. Very… domestic.
Shade and I enter together. Joelle doesn’t turn from the window. My guess is she’s not really looking through that ruined glass, either.
She’s got a lot on her mind, our little queen. “Have you met Bradford yet,” she asks, still facing away.
“No.”
“I have.”
Joelle spins toward us when Shade speaks. She gazes at him in surprise, but that’s quickly swallowed by curiosity. Ah, so he’d entered past her defenses as well. Makes me feel a tad bit better.
“And?” she asks.
Shade shrugs. “He’s a fool. He won’t rule long. And if someone doesn’t step in when he falls…”
“I don’t like this divide,” she says, turning back to her window. “I’d prefer if we were to work together. What is it with adults that makes them so easily annoyed with the rest of those just trying to survive?”
I jump in before Shade can accidentally say something about women again. “Shade, do you think the forces actually like following Bradford?”
“Sort of. They like order. Adrian is selling chaos by the pound. Bradford is stupid but old school. He follows the old military standards. The men like having a leader who won’t turn them into stone for being a man. Who isn’t erm…emotional. I think it’s pretty simple. He and Sergeant Nolan have an agreement. They train and work together. Sergeant Nolan hates Bradford as much as we all do, Bradford is a special and he’s not afraid to fight. He also has a small following of specials.”
“What’s a special?” I ask.
Joelle points at herself, then me. A ghost of a mischievous smile plays on her lips but then disappears beneath haunted eyes, and a sad little girl springs forth.
“Can you get Dallas inside?” she asks Shade.
“Not tonight. Bradford has lost control of some of the forces. It’s getting messy.”
Joelle waves him away. “We can handle messy.”
I shake my head at her. “I think we should wait. Maybe this will work to our favor and I won’t have to.”
“Won’t have to what?” Shade asks.
Joelle and I share a look. Like we’d tell him our plans. Could be he’s loyal to Bradford. Joelle’s almost imperceptible nod tells me she heard that thought in my mind.
I sense that Shade guesses we’ve been able to communicate. Those laser eyes go from me to her and back again.
“Will he win if it comes to a fight? I mean amongst the men? Will he still rule?” Joelle asks.
“Probably,” Shade answers.
Because the bad guys always do.
I sigh. I offer to give Shade protection home, but he laughs and disappears. Just like that he’s invisible or gone, or both.
When we feel certain we are alone, I ask, “Why do you want me to see Bradford, anyway?”
“We don’t have to, but it could help us make some decisions. For now, I’d like to get inside his head.”
“Ah. The dreams.”
She nods. “Besides, Dallas, you have a way with men.”
I give a dry laugh. She’s not wrong.
Chapter Fifteen
Crystal
Mimi’s woken up, so I sneak to the door to watch.
“Jeremy,” she says.
He lifts his head where he’d been laying it on her bed. “Mimi!”
“I knew you’d come,” she says, and his face crumples.
He pushes at the tears, smearing them, and smiles. He’s not smiled since waking up, but he does for Mimi now.
I turn back to the doctor. “I thought you were going to make her like Liza?”
The doctor shakes his head. “Few will ever be as Liza is.”
I turn back to where the two siblings hold one another. “I thought you were going to fix her?”
Why do we get to live, Jeremy and I and Liza, but Mimi won’t?
“I tried,” the doctor says.
“How long?”
“Days. Maybe less.”
Jeremy comes out of the room when Mimi’s asleep again. His purple eyes don’t see me anymore. He wants to stay with Mimi, he says, but he shakes and quivers and collapses onto me. I help him back to his room instead, promising him if she wakes I’ll tell him.
Jeremy rests fitfully in his cell, and I decide to lay down myself. I don’t sleep though. On my side, I stare at the wall, and go back to where I was in the past. I relive it like it’s happening now, hoping for a clue. A way to let go of this awfulness, and trade it for another worse awfulness, I suppose. Like poking at a cut to see how deep.
But I don’t get to do it for long, because Jeremy comes in, eyes bloodshot.
“I heard you and the doctor,” he says.
“You did?” I sit up.
“Yeah.”
He sits with me and then hands me a scrap of paper. This one says many things. Paragraphs and paragraphs.
I silently read the words until they blend together into one big ideal. It gives life back to society, these words of his. These magical and colorful words. How t
hey energize one even as low as I am now.
But one part catches my eye. Bold, harsh cursive: Stop the purge. End the Purge. Fight the purge.
Jeremy leaves me with his soul on a bit of paper, but I’m not here anymore. I’m there.
Dawn rises but we don’t get to see it. Before light, they drag us from the cells and we won’t be back until the moon is high if not already descending. We pass the place where they’ve been beating us half to death, and this time the guards continue on. The rows of hanging people stop my heart. All fly high by the hooks cutting neatly into their backs. The sight doesn’t shock as much as the first time, but what does catch my eye is the section that’s empty waiting for us. This is what eviscerates me where I stand. I promise myself not to scream when they tear off my shirt and pants. I don’t get far enough to promise much else because the hooks are enough to strike fear into the bravest of brave, and they hold me down while I let out girlish screams of rage and fear and desperation. It’s so loud that it shreds my throat. And the pain isn’t nearly as bad as the total and utter fear that bleeds into you when you know you’ll hang while they drain your blood and replace it with a mixed version of yourself.
After this I won’t be me.
After this I won’t be anyone.
I’m deranged with panic. I’m animalistic, scratching, biting, clawing, and punching, and none of it matters. They pin me and force me into position.
I make slobbery sounds, tears blocking my vision and the IV is set up after I give the guard a few punches and slaps until they hold me still. The pressure on the hooks makes me suddenly docile as a lamb.
Everyone from the cell screams and cries. Everyone.
Chapter Sixteen
Crystal
My crew helps us three the best that they can, but there are major withdrawals after the purge.
They inject something into you, and it’s like you crave it when it’s gone. Like you crave death.
The pain only subsides when we are unconscious. But then nightmares greet us when we rest.
The worst one for me is when I’m back on my old street on Loretta, in what was once Southern California. My old brick house still stands, even though it’s been long since washed away in reality, but in the dream, I know something sinister lives there instead of me and my family. I’m afraid to open the door in my dream, knowing that everyone inside is dead, but alive at the same time.
Second to that nightmare is when I’ve woken up, alone in a cell again, waiting to be purged.
I’ve dreamt that the hooks they hang me from pull from every direction until I’m pulled apart.
I’ve dreamt that Jeremy was one of them and he arrests me.
Then there are wolf eyes in the mist. But these do not frighten me. These are my favorite ones.
He’d rescued me. The wolf. And I owe him my life for it.
I find Jeremy in his room, sitting up, trying to write, cursing as his hand shakes. His face is haggard, and he’s aged ten years. No more youthful writer of pamphlets, he’s faced the worst of this war, and like me, crawled out onto the other side undone.
“Hey,” I scratch out.
He jumps back and up with a flurry of papers, pen held in front of him like a weapon. “What do you want!”
I smile at his threat. I suppose they are a weapon… his words.
His eyes are glazed with fear and anger, sadness, betrayal, but most of all, fury. He’s got every reason to hate them more than any of us. After all, it’s his own parents that dropped him off to be purged, the Cromwell’s, and leaders of the Authority. And Jeremy being their son is my big secret that even my closest crew isn’t aware of.
Phillip doesn’t know how right he was. Jeremy’s own father sent Jeremy to be purged.
That’s how I ended up there. I’d been trying to rescue him.
Seeing that Jeremy isn’t fit for company today, I leave him be. Let him rest. I move slowly, feet shuffling to the next room. The wolf’s. I find him crouched in the corner, eyes closed. He seems to be meditating.
“Phillip,” I whisper not wanting to wake him but those eyes, I need to see those gray eyes that found me in my nightmares. I need them to do their job of steadying me now.
They slit open and my heart slows. They’re mostly normal, pained, but he’s still him.
Finally, he unfolds to stand. Phillip is not a teen like Jeremy and I, he is a man. He’s a head taller than me and I’m tall for a girl by standards. His ropey muscles have been tight for the days we’ve been suffering, and his square jaw is clenched against what flashbacks he’s facing.
I didn’t realize how close we are until his arms closed around my shoulders pulling me into them with a strength that soaks into my body.
“Every time I slept I dreamt,” he says. “Terrible dreams. But you were there in one of them, calling me to come back.”
I nod. “Yeah. Uh. Me too.”
I move my head from his comfortable shoulder to look up into his strange eyes. I’m very conscious of Jeremy in the neighboring room.
We are in section in the lower part of Anthem. The Skulls have set up in an abandoned warehouse, and they’d given Phillip a room, no questions asked. They admire him so.
The wolf had looked embarrassed by their regard. Right now, he looks like he wants to shake me and make sure I’m real. He looks like he wants to kiss me.
I blink quickly and step out of reach. Despite my bravado, I’m still a girl inside. I’ve only ever loved, crushed, whatever you call it, one boy. And he’s wanting to stab me with his pen.
The wolf cocks his head. “Does he share your feelings?” he asks, as if he’s realizing he’d read the situation wrong all along.
“Go ahead and leave whenever you need. We won’t hold you here.” I turn, tossing over my shoulder with meaning, “Thank you for helping us. Helping me.”
He gives a soft laugh and moves around restlessly. “So that’s it?”
I pause. “I suppose. We have work to do. I don’t want to make you feel as though you need to be a part of it. It’s risky.”
“What if I wanted to be a Skull?”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. I hold the door knob, and I twist it side to side.
He walks up behind me. But he won’t touch me again, I bet. Not unless I invite him to. I turn around, and like I’d figured, he backs away. It’s my move. An unspoken gauntlet has dropped.
Phillip’s expression is so earnest. “Make me a Skull. I’ll follow you, Crystal. Wherever.”
I’m more surprised by the fact that he means every word. I gape at him. He’d just saved my life. I should be following him.
Instead, I say, “Okay.”
Chapter Seventeen
Crystal
When it’s the wolf’s turn I don’t look and muffle my ears mentally trying to give him his dignity. He does holler, and I feel better for having made a show of my own terror.
Then we wait, suspended, while the blood cycles, and the loss of it is enough to make me fuzzy then sleep.
I wake groggy, and thirsty like never in my life, the iron in my blood running low.
It must be night because they cut us down and drag us away. They ask us questions. I must answer wrong or maybe it’s right; I get back to the cell that’s only half full.
They chain us again.
Phillip enters dragging his feet and sits against the wall. After they fix his chains, he sighs when the door closes. “You still with us?”
“I thought I wouldn’t be,” I slur.
Then I cry from thankfulness and then regret because we have to do this all over again. Again and again until we are not we anymore. That’s what they do. Purge you until you are gone.
For some it only takes once. Others more than once.
But after two times, you are finished. It’s never more than two.
“They say for some it takes a second time,” he says quietly.
His voice wobbles from fear. We are nothing but nerves now. Flinching echoes of the prev
iously brave. Exactly where they want us. So that’s why some of the cell mates are gone. They’d crossed over. They are zombiefied puppets now ready to do their masters will.
“We have to get out of here,” I moan.
Phillip gives a soft laugh and sniffs. “If I could I would have done that before day one.”
“But, you were out of your chains, and you’re the wolf! You must have a plan or something.”
“I did, but that was until I realized they don’t want me dead. I wanted them to end me, then I’d be as free as I’ve ever been. But they won’t kill us. No matter what.”
Something occurs to me. “Do the purged ever zombie out? They say they don’t but is it true?”
“No. The Authority lies. I’ve seen them “zombie” out plenty. Their guards change all the time. They just put them down too quickly for most to know. Besides, how can you tell the difference? They keep it under wraps. Real quiet. The guards turn more than regular people if you ask me. They just fall over and then get up as a zombie though.”
“You said they won’t kill us. Then we need to find another way to die.” I start thinking of a plan. I start to feel better focusing on anything but what the morning will bring.
Right before dawn breaks, I tell him everything.
Phillip doesn’t like my plan. We fight over who does the dangerous role. I tell him that I’m doing it and that’s that. He doesn’t argue with me when I threaten to start yelling.
We wait until it’s darkest. A small window where the moon is so low, but the sun has not come to take its place. He says if he has the edge of complete darkness it will help. The clouds provide cover.
And just when it’s the deep black of early morning, I start my moaning. When nothing happens, I redouble my efforts even leaning over to the one next to me and biting at his leg.
The others had slept while we’d plotted. They don’t know my plans.
The other prisoner realizes what’s happening and begins to scream then the others start in. “Zombie! Zombie!”
The guards rush in, pulling me away, unshackling me, as I knew they would. And without time to turn on the flashlights, they fumble round the cell.