by Amy Cross
I pause, before taking the knife from him.
“I believe you,” I tell him finally, before turning to Jude. “We're going to the other side of the ridge,” I continue, feeling for the first time as if I actually have a decent plan that might work. “We're starting again, and this time it's going to work. This time, we know the land is unclaimed and we're damn well not going to be scared away.”
Chapter Forty-one
Iris
Dropping to my knees, I grip my belly and let out a gasp of pain. The agony is intense, ripping through my guts as if the old rotten wood has begun to tear at the lining, and finally I lean forward in a desperate attempt to make the pain go away.
Whatever's going on in there, it came on suddenly. I'd been feeling sick for a while and a little dizzy, but about a minute ago I felt a sharp force pushing up against my diaphragm, and now I'm starting to shiver as a cold sweat breaks out across my chest and face. I can't walk, not like this, so I roll onto my side and hold my breath, praying that the pain will fade. After everything that has happened to me since I reached the island, I can't face the idea that something as simple as eating the wrong thing might kill me.
I don't want to die. Not here, not now, not like this.
Rolling onto my back, I clutch my belly and feel that it's slightly swollen. The pain is rising, like a balloon getting bigger and bigger, and when I tilt my head back I can't help letting out a slow, agonized groan. I try to take deep breaths, but my whole body is trembling now and the cold sweat is getting worse, causing beads of perspiration to run down my face. I try holding my breath, in case that makes things better, but after a moment I let out another cry, not only because of the pain but also because of sheer frustration.
Why was I so stupid?
Why did I eat rotten, soggy wood?
I close my eyes and try to ignore the pain. I don't know how long I stay like that, but I feel hot and cold at the same time and eventually I start letting out a faint, sobbing hum in an attempt to get my body back under control. I'm pretty sure I've soiled myself too, but that doesn't matter right now, all that matters is finding a way to ease the sensation in my belly. As I slip in and out of consciousness, I feel as if I'm being slowly dragged into a new kind of darkness, as if the threads of my mind are being unspooled and pulled into the shadows.
Maybe this is what it's like to die.
And then, suddenly, I realize that there's someone kneeling over me. I open my eyes, and sure enough there's a blurry shape silhouetted against the afternoon sky. I blink a few times, trying to clear my vision, and slowly the blur becomes more distinct, until finally I see a face.
A familiar face.
I open my mouth to say his name, but for a moment I can't believe he's actually here.
“Bran,” I whisper cautiously, as the pain seems to fade from my belly. “What...”
“Hey,” he replies, offering a faint smile. He looks down at my stomach for a moment. “Are you in a bad way? What happened?”
“I ate...” I stammer, before trying and failing to sit up. I don't want him to see me like this.
“Easy there,” he says, easing me back down onto the forest floor. “You're in no position to go anywhere.”
“Why are you here?” I ask, my voice sounding impossibly frail and weak. “What happened?”
“I came because I heard you were here,” he replies, using the back of his hand to wipe sweat from my forehead. “I wanted to see you suffer.”
I try to ask him what he means, but the pain in my belly suddenly throbs harder than ever and I let out a brief cry.
“You were my friend,” he continues, placing a hand on my flesh, just where the pain is at its worst. “I tried to help you, I looked out for you, and how did you repay me? You betrayed me to the government, you betrayed everything I was working for. Do you have any idea how many people died when those soldiers stormed the building? We were really getting somewhere, we could have brought about real change, but instead you ratted us out at the first opportunity. And for what? You still ended up here.”
“My sister,” I reply, feeling as if my fever is getting worse by the second, “I thought...”
“You betrayed the revolution,” he says firmly.
“There was no revolution,” I whisper. “It was just people talking. Always people talking.”
“Talking about how to make things change.”
“It never would have worked,” I tell him. “There's no revolution. No-one can fix things, the world is what it is now and...” Gasping, I swear I can feel cold, wet wood scraping against the inside of my stomach.
“It's people like you who stop change happening,” Bran hisses, leaning closer to me. “You were weak, Iris. You let your fears take control.”
“There's no revolution,” I whisper again, as tears stream down my face. “There never was, there never could have been. It was just people talking in the shadows.”
“I hope this really hurts,” he replies, slowly pressing his hand down against my belly. When I let out a cry of pain, he presses harder, until I feel as if my guts are about to burst open. “You didn't just betray me,” he continues, “you betrayed a cause that was trying to help people like you. The revolution will come one day, Iris. Nothing lasts forever, no system stands and never falls. And when change happens, it'll be despite people like you, and because of people who are braver than you can ever imagine. You're weak, Iris!”
“Please,” I whimper, as he presses harder against my belly, “stop...”
“I thought you were my friend,” he adds, leaning closer to my ear. “It's your fault I died.”
“No!” I shout, suddenly sitting up and finding that he's nowhere to be seen. Looking around, I realize that something seems different, and when I look up at the sky I notice that the sun has started to set. I must have been here on the forest floor for hours, but when I pull my tunic up and place a hand on my belly, I find that the pain has almost gone, leaving behind just a slight sense of discomfort.
Turning I look around for Bran.
“Are you here?” I ask, wiping my face and finding that the sweat is gone. “Bran?”
I wait, but I hear only silence.
He wasn't real.
I must have developed some kind of fever and started hallucinating. When I try to get up, I find that there's something wet between my legs, and I quickly realize that not only have I soiled myself, but a lot of blood has come at the same time. I don't know what the rotten wood and leaves did to my stomach, but somehow they seem to have passed through and I'm alive, albeit sore and exhausted.
“Bran?” I call out, looking around again. “If you're here, I'm sorry! I swear, I didn't mean to -”
Stopping suddenly, I realize I'm being dumb. Whatever happened to Bran after I gave that information to Logan, I'm sure of one thing: he must be dead, along with all the others in his building. Still, that hallucination felt so real, and I can't deny that the words I imagined cut deep. As I slowly and stiffly get to my feet, I realize that he was speaking the truth. I should never have let myself get tricked by Logan so easily, and I should have been strong enough mentally to realize Della was dead. Instead, my weakness caused a lot of people to die.
And soon I'll be one of them.
“You're weak, Iris!” I hear Bran's voice saying, echoing in my mind.
Standing alone and shivering in the forest, I feel a sudden burst of realization in my chest, and it makes me feel strangely calm. Everything I do is just a way of stalling the inevitable. I was following that old man around like some kind of dog, desperately clinging to life, but I can't survive here, not for long. Maybe there are a few people who are good at this kind of life, but there's no way that I'm one of them. It might take an hour or a day, maybe a week, hell I might even last a month by some miracle, but I'm just counting down to my inevitable death. The strangest thing is that this thought doesn't even scare me, not anymore. If anything, it's a relief, because I don't have to keep fighting.
Chapter Forty-two
Asher
“Here.”
“Here?”
Looking around at the patch of land at the top of the ridge, I try to spot any obvious weak spots. We're fairly high up, the ground already feels firm despite the massive storm the other day, and I can see the ocean to the east, with light dancing across the waves.
“Here,” I say again, leaning down and driving my knife into the ground before taking a step back. “We're not on the land those assholes claimed, and this place already looks better than the patch of mud where we started before.” I turn to Jude, and then to Deckard. I can't let them see that I'm terrified. “I think this is where we should build.”
“There's a good combination of materials,” Deckard replies, stepping over to the center of the clearing and looking around for a moment. “I definitely see possibilities here.”
“We should go back,” Jude says firmly. “We had an offer on the table, a chance to cooperate.”
“With a bunch of -” I catch myself just in time, but I'm sure she knows what I was about to say. “We would have been beneath them,” I continue. “We'd have always owed them something. Some time in the next day or two, they'll go to check us out and they'll see that we're gone. I can't live on someone else's land, I have to claim something for my own. For us.”
“We could have worked something out!” Jude replies, clearly unhappy with my decision. “They were reasonable people! You've gone from hating contact with other people, to making a stand against them! How does that work?”
Turning, I see that Deckard has already gone to the far side of the clearing and is examining the trees. From the conversation we managed during our walk here, I've already begun to realize that he knows what he's talking about when it comes to construction. He's a good worker, and I think he'll be useful.
“So let me get this straight,” Jude continues, stepping closer to me. “You turn down an entire community of people because you don't want to rely on them and because you don't like people, and then you agree to work with some random guy who wandered along out of nowhere? Where's the consistency, Asher?”
“He's not peddling a system,” I reply. “He's offering his skills, and in return we're going to help him out. It's a fair trade.”
“You don't know you can trust him.”
“I gave him a chance to turn on me,” I point out, “and he didn't take it. Besides, the numbers are in our favor this time, there are two of us against one of him.” I pause for a moment, and it's clear that she's not convinced. “I can tolerate having someone else around,” I continue. “For now, at least. I'm not a complete loner, I just don't react well to big groups and bullies. Besides, it's not like I've got any other choice, you saw the fence and those walls I built, they were terrible. We need a guy like Deckard, it's a miracle he came along when he did.”
“That's the problem,” she replies darkly, turning to watch him for a moment. “I don't believe in miracles.”
***
“I used to run my own business,” Deckard explains later, as we take a break from chopping down trees. “My wife and I lived in sector B with our son Daniel. We had a good life, and I wasn't one to rock the boat, not by any means. I thought I'd just grow old and live out my time happily. Obviously I saw injustice in the world around me, but it wasn't my place to do anything about that. I wanted a simple, happy life.”
“What happened?” I ask, sipping from a sack of water. “How did you end up on the island?”
“It was my wife,” he replies. “Our son died. To tell the truth, he got in with some bad people, the kind who go on about changing the world. He was one of those people who's never happy, who think that the government's evil, so he started talking about how something drastic needed to happen. I knew it was bad, all that talk of revolution, but I just hoped it'd fade away. And then one day he didn't come home.”
“He was arrested?”
“Worse. He'd taken a homemade bomb to a market in sector C. It exploded while he was trying to set it up. He was the only one who was hurt, that was how incompetent the whole operation was, how pathetic. After that, government agencies went through our lives with a fine-toothed comb, checking to see if we shared his views. We were defending ourselves and grieving at the same time, but I think they understood in the end. Daniel had just gone off the rails and allowed himself to be manipulated by a bunch of low-life scum who filled his mind with talk of changing everything. He had recordings of Darius Locke's speeches in his room, that kind of thing.”
“Revolutions never work,” I mutter. “Not anymore. Every fool knows that.”
He pauses for a moment, as if he's remembering the pain. “My wife fell apart,” he continues. “She became erratic, she was picked up by the police several times, once for attacking a stranger in the middle of the street with no provocation. Eventually she racked up so many points on her record, she was told she'd be sent to the mines. I begged them to let a psychiatrist evaluate her, but no-one listened to me. Anyway, she refused to go to the mines and insisted she wanted to come to the island instead. You've no idea how long I spent trying to change her mind, but there was nothing I could do.”
“So you came after her?”
He nods. “I had nothing left, and I loved her... I thought I could save her, I thought once I got here I'd track her down and we'd still be able to have a life together, maybe even try for another child. I was only a few days behind when I arrived.”
“And did you find her?” I ask.
He pauses, before shaking his head. “This place is so big. I've been here a couple of years now, just walking and walking, hoping that one day by some miracle we'd be reunited. Then a while ago, I realized... I mean, I love her so much, and she's a smart woman, but I don't see her having lasted this long, not on the island and especially not with her head in that state. She was already so fragile when she was sent here.”
“You can't give up hope,” I tell him, although admittedly those words sound strange coming from my lips. After all, my whole life has been defined by the idea of giving up hope. Hope is the only thing that can still hurt me, which is one of the reasons I initially resisted starting work on a town. Unfortunately, hope is also addictive, which I guess is why we're sitting her now, discussing our plans.
“I don't think I want to know what happened to her,” he continues, “not now. It's not like it could have been anything good, so...” He sighs, before forcing a smile. “So now here I am, lost in this wilderness, trying to make the best of it.”
“What was your wife's name?” I ask.
“Samantha.”
“I haven't met anyone named Samantha since I arrived,” I tell him. “I've barely met anyone at all.”
“So why did you come?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“I told you my story,” he replies. “It's only fair you tell me yours.”
“Who said life was fair?” I ask, finishing my sack of water. “We should get back to work.”
“Your friend doesn't like me,” he points out.
Turning, I see that Jude is on her way back, dragging more wood through the forest. “She hasn't been well,” I explain. “She's still recovering. I think she's in more pain than she's letting on.”
“Are you and her...” He pauses. “I mean, I wasn't sure, are you... like, are you a couple?”
“No,” I reply quickly, although I immediately feel guilty. “I don't know. I don't really think like that, I never did. It just is what it is.”
“She's one of them, though, isn't she?”
I turn to him.
“I've been here long en
ough to know that some folk have turned to... Well, I had a few lucky escapes in my early days on the island. The thought of eating human meat disgusts me, deep down on a visceral level. I feel like the people who turn to that sort of thing...” He pauses, keeping his eyes fixed on Jude as she sets the wood down. “Those people are little better than beasts.”
“Jude's a good person,” I tell him.
“I'm sure she is, but she's still one of them.” He sighs. “I don't mean to try to come between you, I just think those people are wired differently, and it makes me worry. Are you sure I can trust her?”
“With your life,” I reply, as she comes over to us. “I'm certain of it.”
I'm lying.
Chapter Forty-three
Iris
It takes me a while to find the settlement again. I guess I must have wandered further than I thought, and in my delirium I didn't quite keep track of the route. At first I start to wonder if I should just give up, since so much of the landscape seems unfamiliar. I find a clearing with what looks like some old rotten walls, with a dilapidated fence falling apart at the edges, and I keep going, heading west until slowly I start to notice a few landmarks that I think I recognize.
And then I spot one of those stones on the ground, with the dark red stain on top, and I realize I'm close.
I start moving more cautiously, looking out for any hint of movement in the area. I still don't have a plan, all I know is that I can't leave that old man behind, not after what he did for me. If I'm going to die on this island, I might as well lose my life doing something worthwhile, something that proves to me that I'm a good person after all. I need to wipe away my memories of what I did to Bran. The only other option is to skulk away and die alone.
Eventually I spot movement up ahead. Ducking down, I wait as footsteps come closer and I realize there's a whole group coming this way.
“Vargas is right,” one of the voices says. “You should've just picked them off sooner. Now we don't know where the hell they've gone.”