by Tarah Benner
Amory seemed the most likely candidate to believe I’d changed. He was desperate for me to come over to their side — an easy mark. And, as much as I hated to admit it, I was curious about Amory and why he was the only one who seemed so invested in me returning to my former self. There was something odd about the way his eyes settled on me when he thought I wasn’t looking — a certain tenderness in his gaze and a deep pain I did not understand.
By the time the noon bell rang out across the camp, my decision was made. I would be amicable and receptive when he tried to talk to me. I would open up a little, act as though I cared, maybe even smile. It was sick, but my escape depended on it.
I sat waiting against the sack of flour that had become my backrest, running through all the things I could possibly say to make him trust me. I had to be careful not to come on too strong too soon, because no matter how much Amory wanted me to remember, he was too smart and too distrustful to be fooled that easily.
Plus, after my long silent treatment, I wasn’t even sure I remembered how to maintain a normal conversation.
As I ran through all the possible details I could conjure up from my broken memories, something strange happened. I found myself smiling — actually smiling.
It wasn’t the crazy smile of satisfaction that my plan could work; I was smiling at the snapshots of memories I could recall with Logan and a dark-haired boy with devilish blue eyes cooking over a stove.
I swallowed, confused about why these snippets of memories made me feel . . . happy. These people weren’t my friends. I knew I shouldn’t trust them, yet these memories were good ones.
I waited.
Amory didn’t come.
Thinking he may have gotten held up hunting with the others, I slumped back and listened to the sounds of guards pacing out in the woods.
I waited for nearly an hour, but he never showed.
Despite my best efforts at indifference, the hurt and anger that spilled into my stomach took me by surprise. I had started to look forward to Amory’s visits, even if they were a little painful. He was the only person who seemed to care about me, and now that he had abandoned me, too, I was truly alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
After the rest of the rebels had eaten and scattered to go about their afternoon routine, a surly Roman appeared with a hot bowl of soup, two rolls, and a jug of water.
I wanted to ask him where Amory was, but I would not give him the satisfaction. I purposely avoided his gaze so my expression wouldn’t betray my hopelessness, and he left without a word.
I watched the steam rising off the bowl of soup and knew I should start sucking it down before it got cold. The rolls looked inviting, too, but I did not reach for them.
If they insisted on treating me like the enemy — depriving me of my freedom and nearly all human contact — I would force them to make a choice: Either I was their friend, or I was their prisoner. I could not and would not let them imagine I could be both.
I allowed myself a drink of water from the jug to bolster my willpower. Then I watched the soup grow cold and averted my gaze from the perfect, golden rolls.
Roman didn’t show up in the afternoon to take me outside, which was strange. I began to wonder if something had happened that had kept Amory from visiting me at lunch. Surely he had bigger things to worry about than drawing me out of my shell. Maybe the rebels were launching an attack against the PMC. Maybe he’d left on a supply run.
Maybe he’d been injured or captured. The thought gave me pause, and it infuriated me that I was worried about him.
I would not let myself care. So what if Amory was kind to me?
It shouldn’t have mattered to me, but it did.
When the bell tolled again for dinner, Roman reappeared with another plate of food. His eyebrows lifted in surprise when he saw my untouched lunch, but he set down my supper and whisked away the cold soup without a word.
I waited as the last beams of sunlight disappeared from the crack between my tent and the frozen ground, and I heard Amory’s voice in the distance. He was laughing at something another rebel had said — a low, musical sound that rumbled up his chest.
My heart contracted.
It was business as usual in camp. There was nothing that had kept him from visiting me at lunch. He had not left camp. He was not hurt.
He was probably happy to be away from me.
I sat stiffly in the darkness until Roman’s silhouette reappeared against my tent flap.
He shuffled inside and untied my ankles roughly. I didn’t say a word when he pushed me out of the tent and into the snowy woods. My legs felt like jelly, and my head was fuzzy from a lack of food. Since the warmth of the sun had evaporated in the night, it was also miserably cold.
I didn’t even drag out the time to stretch my legs as I usually did. I just let him steer me back to my tent without a single complaint or even a dirty look. I didn’t feel like fighting. I was beaten.
The next two days passed at a sluggish pace. Both days when the bell struck noon, I waited for Amory to come, but he never did.
It seemed as though the last of my “friends” had given up on me.
After dinner on the third day of no one but Roman, I heard voices coming toward the woods from camp. The first belonged to Roman.
“Relax. I’m sure she’ll eat today. She has to be starving.”
“How could you not tell me she was starving herself?” snapped Amory. His voice was low and deadly.
“Didn’t seem that significant. She was a pain even before she’d been brainwashed by Aryus.”
Amory made an angry noise. “You’d better fucking watch it.”
“Whatever. I’ve been on babysitting duty, not you. Remember? Honestly, I didn’t think you’d care if she wasn’t eating.”
“Of course I care,” said Amory bitterly. “I never stopped caring.”
My heart fluttered a little, but I pushed down the warmth that was creeping up my chest.
There was a long pause.
“What about you?”
“I don’t blame her. She thinks we’re holding her hostage. She wants to die . . . or she’s trying to send a message.”
I recognized the third speaker as Greyson.
“Does she remember you at all?” asked Amory. “I thought maybe since you two were friends before —”
Greyson let out a long breath. “Did you see the way she looked at me? She doesn’t trust me. It’s like she doesn’t even know me.” His voice sounded strained and tired.
“How did they do that to her? It doesn’t make sense.”
“You think she’s still in there?” asked Greyson. “Because I’m not so sure.”
“Of course she is!” snapped Amory. “She’ll come back. It’s just going to take a wh—”
“How do you know?” cut in Greyson.
“What?”
“How — do — you — know?” he repeated, stretching out each word. “As far as I can tell, she’s not the same. They did something to her. It’s like they made her forget who she is.”
“She’ll come back.”
“Did you ever, though? I mean . . . really?”
There was a long, strained silence between them.
When Amory spoke next, his words came slower than before. “I’m not saying she’ll be the same as before. I hope she will, but I can’t be sure. But you can fight it. I’ve done it. You just have to convince yourself that they don’t own you.”
Their footsteps came to a halt several paces away from my tent, shuffling uncomfortably before they started again and faded away.
For a moment, I thought they’d all gone. But then I heard the distinct crunch of brittle leaves under the snow outside my tent. A silhouette flickered against the canvas, and the flap opened. The newcomer was concealed by shadows, and then he swung in with a lantern.
It was Amory.
He sighed audibly when he saw me slumped against the sack of flour with a plate of untouched bread and potatoes on the tarp
next to me.
For the briefest second, his eyes bored into mine, as if trying to register whether I was in the same state of anger and distrust. I looked away first, silently cursing myself for merely confirming his suspicions. I didn’t know why I couldn’t ignore my feelings and play Amory as I’d planned, but something inside me had broken.
He sighed again and flopped down on the tarp, setting the lantern down between us and rubbing his hands together to restore feeling.
I allowed myself to watch him for a few seconds, noticing the way those sharp gray eyes searched my face.
There was something strange about the way he was looking at me. It was as if he was making a concerted effort to be nonintrusive, even though he knew my face well and could read every part of it.
“Roman says you’re not eating,” he said finally.
I didn’t answer.
“Are you sick?” he prompted.
“No.” My voice sounded hoarse, and I realized it was because I had not spoken to anyone in days.
“Then why aren’t you eating?”
I sighed, feeling stupid and angry before the words even left my mouth. “I thought if you were going to treat me like a prisoner, I should at least protest being held here indefinitely against my will.” I sounded like a child, and that filled me with shame.
Amory’s eyes crinkled in surprise. “Oh.”
I looked away from his face and focused my gaze on his jacket instead. His eyes were boring into me, and I wanted to turn my head so he couldn’t see me anymore. It was awful not being able to avoid someone.
“I’m sorry,” he said, surprising me. “You’re not a prisoner. I didn’t want you to feel that way. Only . . . Roman and some of the others think you’ve crossed over to the other side. They think you’re working for World Corp now. And honestly, after what they put you through, I don’t know what you would do if we just let you go.”
“You think I can’t be trusted.”
“I trust you,” he said, his gaze heavy. “But I think you need to remember who you are.”
“Did we tie you up after you were conditioned by World Corp?” I didn’t remember much about Amory being imprisoned — only that, for some unknown reason, I’d helped him escape — but Greyson’s words had given me an idea.
Amory’s face fell, and I knew I’d hit the mark. “No. But maybe you should have.”
We were quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, it was all in a rush — as though he had to force himself to ask. “Do you really not remember anything that happened after the Collapse?”
I looked at him.
“Do you really not remember me?”
In that moment, his face was so naked and unguarded that it made my chest physically hurt. I sucked in a huge breath of air.
“I remember you,” I said, so quietly I almost hoped he would not hear. “I remember a few basic details . . . I just don’t remember anything to make me trust you. The one memory I have . . . it isn’t good.”
Amory seemed to deflate visibly. “Well, I don’t know what memory that would be.”
His answer struck me as odd, but I continued. “What was it like . . . when we were friends?”
Amory sighed and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Then, strangely, he broke into a sad smile. “I don’t know, Haven. I just really liked you. I liked you instantly . . . even though everybody told me you were dangerous. You and I were the same. We trusted each other.”
His words disappeared into the cold, dry air as soon as he said them, and we were left in the quiet on the edge of the woods with nothing between us.
Then, without warning, a sharp pain burst across my skull. It was hot and punishing and bad enough to make my eyes water.
I winced, bringing a hand to my head, and Amory’s brow furrowed. He opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, but I shoved the pain down and forced myself to meet his gaze.
“What does Greyson think of me now?” I asked, my voice wavering slightly.
“He doesn’t know what to think.”
“I thought he was my oldest friend.”
“I think that’s why he’s having a hard time with the fact that you don’t remember why you were friends.”
“And Logan?”
Amory looked taken aback for a moment and then broke into a slight smile. “Logan . . . she’s uh . . . she hasn’t been up and about too much yet. Aryus’s cure did a number on her. It’s not really perfected yet. She’s still weak, but she’s doing better.”
“What does she say about all this?”
“Oh, you know Logan. She’s super pissed about our decisions, as usual.”
Amory gave a strained grin, and I had to look away. His features were gaunt, making him look older and tired. He’d said “our decisions,” and he seemed to notice his slip right away.
We were both silent for a few seconds, and then Amory stood up to leave. Halfway out the tent, he stopped and turned over his shoulder. “Is there anything you need? Even if you don’t remember us, I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner.”
I shook my head, too miserable to speak, and Amory left without another word. The pain in my head had subsided to a dull ache, but the things Amory had said left me unnerved.
Was I imagining the strange way he’d said “us”? It hadn’t sounded as though he was referring to himself, Roman, and Greyson. It was a different “us” altogether.
Rolling over to the pallet and curling up on my side, I tried — not for the first time — to remember something, anything about Amory. Apart from his name, his age, and the basic knowledge that he had been in med school training to become a PMC doctor before defecting and running off to the farm, I could remember little else about him. I knew I had somehow helped him escape a World Corp test facility, but I didn’t remember the circumstances.
He was the person who confused me the most. If I tried to remember the others, I could now recall snippets of conversations and bits and pieces of my time on the farm. I vaguely remembered learning how to shoot a gun with Logan and eating dinner across from Roman. It was generic and void of emotion, like watching a reel of film, but the memories were there.
With Amory, I was drawing a blank. I knew it was strange that I could recall more details about his life than any of the others’, but when I tried to think of us together, I couldn’t picture it. The one memory I had was so faint it could have been a dream.
I was lying on the ground, sore, lightheaded, and in pain. Amory had me pinned to the ground, crushing me with his weight. He was wearing a murderous expression that froze me to the core.
I swung at him with a knife, but he knocked it out of my hand like it was nothing. I punched him in the jaw, but he just pinned me down with his knees until my eyes watered.
He was going to kill me.
Then the memory was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
Amory recommenced his daily lunch visits, and I started eating again.
Hating my captors was exhausting. My willpower was dwindling, and I could feel myself starting to let go of the intense fear and distrust. But every time I let my guard down, new emotions crept in to take its place. I almost didn’t recognize the feelings of camaraderie and compassion because it had been so long since I’d had prolonged contact with another person.
These emotions gnawed at my gut, and every time they appeared, that sharp pain splintered in my head — a feeling that reminded me of when I’d been running around the house as a child and had fallen into the sharp corner of the oak coffee table. I’d hit my head hard enough to need stitches.
The pains turned into persistent headaches. They started when Amory came to eat his lunch, burst into sharp stabs when he spoke about my past, and throbbed dully like a lingering hangover long after he’d left.
I tried to hide what was bothering me, but somehow, he knew. On the fourth day after he started visiting me again, he surprised me by asking, “When did the headaches start?”
How had he kn
own?
“A few days ago,” I said. I tried to shrug, but the pain was intense.
Amory nodded as though he had read my mind. “I used to get headaches like that. For me, they came on whenever I got scared. That was usually when I . . . well, you remember.”
There was a pregnant pause, neither of us willing to concede that perhaps I didn’t.
“Anyway . . . I would lose myself . . . rip apart anyone who was threatening me. It didn’t feel like me, though. It was what they wanted me to do.”
That I could relate to. I hadn’t felt like myself much since they’d taken me from the facility. I didn’t have any memories to tell me who I was, and I didn’t even know whom I should trust.
Amory swallowed, and his eyes searched my face. “Are you scared? Right now?”
“No,” I answered, though I wasn’t sure if he was asking if I was scared of him or scared of what I’d become.
“It’s okay if you are. You can tell me.”
“I’m not afraid. I just . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to tell him that the headaches started whenever I let my guard down around him or whenever I thought about Greyson too long.
Since Greyson was the only one of them I’d known before the Collapse, most of my memories of him were intact — even if the emotions attached to them were strangely distorted. I had begun to study them in the quiet moments before drifting off to sleep: Greyson and me riding our bikes as kids, laughing at school together as teenagers, getting drunk together for the first time at college, me sitting with Greyson after his dad had died.
As much as I tried, I could not find fault with him or understand the reason for my distrust, and that made me doubt the basis of all my fears. The worst part was that whenever I lingered too long in a passing memory, the pain would flare up and send me into a torrent of nausea and dizziness.
“What’s wrong with me?” I whispered, not caring that Amory was my captor. Right then, it felt as though he was the closest thing I had to a friend.