by Tara Brown
I nod. I don't want to answer him. Half of me wants to climb down the tree and kick his butt all over the hill. I don't even want to think about what the other half of me wants. He is messing with my head.
Luckily, I see a small cluster of men fighting the infected like fools to remind me why we are there. But I am stunned by the fact men would fight so close to the infected. “Oh God. They’ll die.”
“Or worse. They’ll be some of the fortunate who are able to live with running sores and bloody tears. God, they should have run."
I shudder when I recognize one of the men fighting with the infected—he’s the one who shouted the loudest when the man with the evil grin peed on the fire. The man named John who pulled down my pants and then died in the woods with a nail in his head. God love Meg. I point. “Those men held me captive. They're with the others. I was with them the last night I saw Anna and Jake."
"Do you know where their camp is?” His jaw tightens. He makes me nervous.
I nod. “Unfortunately, I'd like to avoid it.” I don't want to tell him why.
"What if they have Jake and Anna?"
The pain in his eyes hurts me somehow. “I never said I was going to avoid it. I said I'd like to. I'm betting they have Jake and Anna.” It makes me gag thinking about it. I take one last look at the farmhouse and know it will be a long time before I ever come back, if I ever do. I take possibly my last look ever at the white siding. The small windmill in the front yard waves goodbye to me and I sigh.
As my feet make their way back down the tree, I see something that makes me feel the smallest amount of fear and hope simultaneously.
On the ground is a small bandage and above it is a broken branch. I look deeper into the forest and see another broken branch.
"They got away. They're this way.” I point.
Will looks at the bandage and frowns. “Emma, that could belong to anyone."
I shake my head. “No. It will smell like tea tree and the branches—” I point to them. “I told Jake it was how I always found my way through the woods."
He bends his face to the ground and sniffs the air around the bandage. “It is tea tree."
I turn to run, but he grabs my arm as he stands and pulls me into him. “One thing first.” He puts his hands on the small of my back and lifts me into his arms.
My knee lifts but he blocks it. I wiggle, pushing on him until he smiles and lets me go, pointing at me. “Just admit you like me.”
I snarl back, “Don't touch me. I’m not like the girls back at that camp. I’m not like the girls who get—” I can’t finish the rest.
“What if I say I’m excited because we’re alive? I thought we were going to die in that field.”
I point at the field. “You kissed me in the field, jackass.”
He smiles and lays on the charm, looking at me through his inky lashes.
I roll my eyes, taking a deep breath. “Let me guess, you wanted that kiss to be the last thing you did?”
“That's it.”
It burns inside of me that he and Jake have the same smile and the same line. I fold my arms across my chest. “You touch me—I kill you.”
He nods. “I think that's the thing I like the most about you, Emma.” He turns and walks away, toward the broken branches. “That, and you found my siblings. I never imagined they were alive. I went back to where they were when I got taken and I couldn’t find them. I knew Jake was young and not very responsible. Well, neither of us was.” He runs a hand through his dark shaggy hair.
I follow but I can’t keep up with the difference in him suddenly. He’s charming and funny and not intimidating. “Anna told me you guys were pretty bad at paying attention."
He chuckles and mutters to himself.
The difference in them is so extreme they almost don't seem related at times. Will makes me scared of him but safe against the world, where as Jake makes me feel the opposite.
Chapter Twelve
The sun sets as we reach the top of a hill I have never climbed. It is in the opposite mountain range from where I've been, and I am nervous about new places. I don’t know what lies on the other side. My feet hurt and I'm too tired to run or fight if we have to.
He lays a bunch of boughs on the ground and gives me a very appealing look. It makes my stomach hurt.
I walk to where he has chosen to sleep but my feet refuse to go any further. He makes me nervous.
I have to assume he’s chosen the huge tree with the massive branches to protect us in case it rains. It doesn't normally rain much in the spring, but when it does it’s intense. He’s like my father, more than I expected him to be. Not that I ever expected to meet him. But when they talked about Will, I imagined he would be like Jake. “They think you're dead." I glance over at him.
“I assumed they were.” He nods as he sits, taking the jacket he has brought with him out, and putting it down. He pats it for me to sit beside him.
I must be making a face because he winces and says, “I won’t touch you, I swear.”
My steps hurt my feet now that we've stopped walking. I drop onto the ground beside him and watch his eyes sparkle as darkness takes over the night sky. I tuck my bow and quiver next to me, always close. If he does try anything, I’ll shoot him.
Of course, instead of being foolish, he does the thing I least expect. He starts to talk quietly. “I was taken to the work farms. We were hiding in this old house like your farmhouse there. I wasn’t smart like you though. I never even thought about bunkers or having a few different houses and traveling between them. I was an idiot. Anyway, they came. I hid Anna and Jake and let them take me."
His face is stoic.
I hate that he has a story like this one. “How did you get away from the farms?"
"I met some people while I was there—doctors who were forced to work the breeder camps and other scientists. They convinced me I needed to start a revolution from the outside. I escaped with some of them.” He shakes his head, as if his thoughts entertain him, and brushes his hands through his hair again. He looks at me and smiles. “You know of a good spot to clean up around here?"
I shake my head. “Never been here before. I have trails I take and this is not one of them. You're starting a revolution?"
He nods. “The camp we were just at is one of our peace camps. It's like a retreat. The children and young and old stay there. We have people coming and going constantly. Didn't you notice how easily you were welcomed?"
"I guess. I just thought that’s what people were like when they live in a camp like that. After the machine-gun escort, that is."
He laughs again.
"Well, that a is big timber wolf, Emma.” He sighs and shakes his head. “I know I’m going to regret this, but how did you end up with him?"
"His mother gave birth and must have gotten sick shortly after. Leo was waiting for me at the door to the cabin one day. He was tiny then. I could hear his brothers and sisters in the woods. I found the mother dead and half eaten, surrounded by the other cubs who were weak and sick. It was awful. I shot them and burned them. It’s the closest infection ever got to my cabin. He's immune anyway, so that's helpful."
His gaze narrows skeptically. “He's immune? Naturally? Maybe he never ate any of the mom."
“I don't know.” I shake my head. “She wasn’t the only sick thing Leo has eaten. He likes the infected."
He grimaces. “That's disgusting. Disgusting and lucky, all at the same time."
I nod. “It is."
"What do you know about the start of the infection?"
I shrug. “People got sick. Some died and others lived but went a little crazy."
His eyes look dark as his expression loses its humor and the sun sets completely. “No, Emma, people didn’t just get sick. The infection was spread on purpose. Everything that’s happened has been a plan all along."
"That can't be true.” He sounds like my father did.
"I wish it weren’t. There was something called the Un
ited Nations. They did all of this."
I feel sick. “They were evil?” He sounds EXACTLY like my father.
He shakes his head. “Not evil, just detached. The world was running out of resources, and everyone was constantly putting a hand out to them and asking for aid, food, and money. The UN had been warning us forever about the global warming, the ice melting and the oceans becoming acidic, the imbalance of wealth, and the immunity to antibiotics. We had made the perfect storm and everything was falling apart.”
I sigh. “You should have met my dad.”
He scoffs. “Dads never liked me. Anyway, in 2012 all of Greenland's ice and snow melted in a week. The earth started to enter a drought. We thought it was a cyclical event but it wasn’t. It was manmade. We had pushed it too far. The same time all this was happening, a conference was held in Rio about the environment. Canada, the US, and China pretty much pulled out and admitted they had no intention of slowing their pollution to the recommended level. It would be too hard on their economies. That was the final straw. Apparently, the UN had a backup plan for a worst-case scenario such as that. They had a plague. It had a vaccine, which made it easy to spread and then control. The problem was that it mutated. They spread the virus at the same time they had bombs placed deep in the ocean, along the Japanese coastline. They bombed the shelf and pretty much wiped Japan off the face of the earth, making the West Coast of North America a target for huge tidal waves.” It felt like a movie. It didn’t feel real. It felt like the ramblings of my father, before.
I shake my head. “How could you know all this?"
He shrugs. “The work farms. I met people who had been part of the initial plan. The plan was to reset everything. Instead, the UN decided they wanted to start humanity over but set it up to succeed this time. The breeder farms were built where only the fit and healthy were allowed to reproduce."
I shiver imagining it.
He laughs. “It isn’t what you think. I know what everyone thinks happens but it's not. The girls only breed every three years and only up to three times. The pregnancy isn’t the result of rape. It's done using science. The baby is made in a lab and then inserted into the woman's womb."
I gag and he laughs.
"The religious had the same reaction. The UN never mentioned this plan to anyone but the very high-ups. It never went well."
I frown. “The girls are still taken against their will and made to make babies against their will."
His head nods in the dark. “Yup, and the babies are not God's children to the Christians. Anyway, the UN runs the military, and again in the same way, they sit in their closed offices and plan using numbers, facts, and data. They don’t leave it to see what the world looks like or how corrupt the military is. They have built six cities worldwide from the ashes and rubble of the previous cities. They plan on cleaning every inch of the world."
My head spins. “What about the borderlands?"
"They can't use any more bombs without affecting the weather and pollution again, so the plan stands at leaving us to our own devices until they have this part of the world cleaned up. Then they will round us up."
"Why?"
"They want the diseases and illnesses bred out. They won't allow those people to live and breed."
"Oh my God. It’s like a nightmare. It is worse than my father feared."
"It is. On that note, we need to sleep. You sleep first and I'll keep watch."
"That's some bedtime story.” I like Jake's better.
Will laughs. I watch his silhouette in the dark for a moment. He doesn’t lean in to kiss me. He watches the hill we climbed.
I lie down on his jacket and snuggle into the smell. It makes me miss my wolf. “How long have they been breeding the science babies?"
His outline turns to me and I see the shine of his eyes in the dark. “A long time. They started in the early 2000s."
"Are the babies different than the rest of us?” I am scared of the answer.
"Yes."
Chapter Thirteen
The broken branches lead us to a camp in a high valley on the opposite side of the mountain from where my farmhouse sat. Will walks directly up to the man holding the gun amid the trees. “Hot damn, I never knew we were on the backside of this mountain.”
"Halt.” The man in the trees points a gun on Will. I take a step back, pulling an arrow.
"Lancaster.” Will shouts up at him.
The gunman smiles. “No kidding! Willy boy, you're alive and well. I heard they caught you.” He climbs down and walks to us.
Will laughs. “They think they did. Jeeze, I didn’t realize this was the damned hill we were climbing. We came from a farm that's right in the middle of the retreat and here.”
The man nods. “Yeah, no water that way. We always go the other side.”
Will scoffs. “We did notice the shortage of water. Is Marshall still kicking up there?"
Lancaster points to the camp. “He's in the smallest tent. You know what he's like. Still paranoid they will bomb us."
“Like they’ll risk that.” Will laughs and points to me. “This is my friend, Emma."
"I'm John.” The man puts a hand out, and I notice he has a nice smile. His eyes are trustworthy. I rarely see those. Meeting him feels like before, people meet and shake hands and smile. I look at his hand stretched out and hear Granny telling me not to be rude. I slip my hand in his. He shakes both our hands as I meet his gray eyes and smile back. “Nice to meet you."
His eyes flicker on Will for a moment and an even bigger smile crosses his lips. “So where did you two meet?"
Will shakes his head and sighs, laughing like how we met was a joke. “She walked up to the mountain retreat the other day with a huge timber wolf for a pet and an unruly teenager."
John's eyes grow wide. “You have a wolf?"
I nod. I want to find Anna and Jake. I don’t understand why Will isn’t busting inside to see them. The broken branches led here, they’re inside. I’m fidgeting anxiously with my bow.
Will nods. “Well, it was nice to see you. I'm going to go see Marshall and see what's new on this side of the hill."
We walk closer to the camp as the sound of a bird squawking fills the forest. The gunmen guarding the borders lower their weapons as they hear the sound, and we walk past them. The camp opens as the forest spreads thin and dips into a high-sided valley that's more like a crater. It’s unbelievable. I didn't know people gathered like this anymore except in the towns. The retreat is the only place I have ever seen this.
"You've been here before but didn't know this was the way we were going? You really are related to Jake.” My high opinion of him is shrinking.
“That's not even funny.” He looks at me and scowls. “I made this camp, but I have never come up the backside before. That was Marshall's side to scout and like Lancaster said, no water."
It looks like the camp we were at before, except that everyone is wearing a firearm or a huge knife. At one point, I swear I see a sword. There are no children here, which makes me more comfortable.
"Will. You're alive!” A girl with long blonde hair in two braids and cutoff shorts runs and jumps into his arms. She’s the prettiest girl I have ever seen. She kisses his lips, making heat radiate from my cheeks, just seeing it. Guess he kisses everyone. But then again, she’s pretty and she’s probably his girlfriend. I don't like knowing he tried to kiss me and is seeing her. I don't want to watch this. I want Jake and Anna and my cabin with Leo and Meg.
He pulls her back, smiling like he is a different person with her. "Star, what the hell? You know me better than that.” He twirls her around and looks sheepishly at me. “This is Emma."
I nod and grip my bow.
She beams at me. “Wow, nice find, Will. He save you from the farms too?"
“What?” I raise an eyebrow.
She blushes and bats her incredibly long eyelashes at him. “The farms. That's where he saved me from.” Her clothing is killing me. I don't understand what
she could mean to accomplish dressing like that in this cruel world.
“No farms.” I shake my head. “I don’t need to be saved. I'm the hero of my own story.” I've died and gone to heaven when her face drops. I read that in a novel my granny had. I've always wanted to say it. I didn't imagine it would be like this though. I saw it as more of something someone would say before jumping out of a plane or doing something brave. But there are no more planes.
She looks at Will, who is staring at me. I walk past him and start to look around. If he doesn’t want to find his siblings, that’s his problem. But I want to find them. I want to find them and get back to Meg and Leo.
"You pissed at me?” Will comes running after me.
“What? No.” I don’t turn. I continue along. My eyes desperately scan the crowds of passing people.
"Willy boy."
I glance back to see Will shaking hands with a very tanned man with the whitest smile I've ever seen. It almost glows in the dark.
People continue to greet him, but I can't hear them anymore. I see what I'm looking for—a tall guy limping with shaggy dark hair, and I break into a run. I tear through the crowd and dive when I get close enough for the arm of the man. As I make contact, he turns. His face is exactly as I remember it. He has me in his arms before I can speak a word. He is mauling me like a bear, like Granny always said.
"Emma, oh my God! Emma, it's you. Holy hell, I thought they got you too.” He is hugging the life out of me. “They took her.”
I push back on his chest. “Where is Anna?"
“They got her.” His hugs stop but his grip on my face stays strong. “They took her. I have to guess they took her to the farms. God, I was hoping you were there with her. You could escape together." I want to collapse into his arms and sob. But I can’t. One thought fills my mind: we have to get her back! I glance up into his blue eyes, but he isn’t looking at me. He looks like he’s seen a ghost and his head is twitching back and forth. “No way. No way. No way, man.” His voice cracks and tears fill his blue eyes.