by Teri Terry
Freja sleeps against the window next to me. I’ve got to hand it to her: she looks really different. It isn’t just the short red hair but the Goth look she went for to go with it: heavy dark eyeliner, black clothes. You’d never guess it was the same girl.
Though I’m not sure the same thing works on me. She’d insisted: shaved hair up one side of my head, dark eyeliner, the works. And I know she was right. They could be looking for me too. Even if I wasn’t caught on closed-circuit TV with Freja, someone was looking for me in Glasgow, weren’t they? They might not expect to see me in London, but my face could still be on a wanted list.
I rub absently at the itchy stubble on the left side of my head and wonder what Shay would think of this. There is the familiar twist of pain inside me that comes whenever I think of her, like now, without meaning to.
She is always there, on the edges of my thoughts, but thinking of her like this makes her take center stage—and the pain sharpens.
Though it hasn’t happened as much lately.
Freja shifts in her sleep; her head turns toward me, and she leans against my shoulder. Her face is softer in her sleep. What has happened to her to make her so angry? Apart from recently. There is some set to how she is, something that seems more long-term than the epidemic and all that has followed from her being a survivor. She’s the first person I’ve met in a long time that makes me feel like the level-headed one.
There’s something indescribably lovely about the way she smells. I don’t even know what it is, and I lean down to breathe her in even as I fight to pull away.
What would Shay think? The same thought as before is in my mind, but in an uncomfortable and different way.
Then Freja jolts awake as if someone has shouted in her head.
Someone has. “Callie says there’s a roadblock ahead,” she whispers. “They’re checking inside every vehicle, then waving people on. Are they looking for me?”
“No way,” I whisper back. “Even if they are, they’re looking for a blonde ice queen. Not a ginger Goth.”
She rolls her eyes like it doesn’t matter, but I can feel her arm against mine—the muscles are taut, tense. She’s scared.
We’re slowing now, the traffic is lining up. My stomach is twisting. Will they be fooled? If they even are looking for Freja, or me, or both of us. The roadblock could have nothing to do with us—but somehow I don’t believe it.
We inch forward; it seems to take forever. Our bus is finally next in the line.
I can feel Freja’s fear, almost like she is projecting it outward, and in a strange way it seems to make me calmer. I nudge her with my shoulder and take her hand. Her pulse beats fast under her skin.
The bus doors open and two policemen get on. They walk down the aisle. They stop and talk to a blonde girl a few rows up, then keep going, scanning everyone as they go past. They don’t even pause next to us.
I glance at Freja, and I’m so startled I have to stuff back an exclamation to stay quiet. She looks different—really different. Her features are coarser, her cheekbones not so high. The police walk back past us and get off the bus.
The bus starts and heads back up the road; her features blur a little, and then her face is back to the way it usually is.
How did she do that? I’m uneasy, weirded out—is this another survivor thing, being able to make yourself look different?
Like she knows what I’m thinking, she winks.
CHAPTER 3
CALLIE
IT’S DUSK. FREJA IS RADIATING HUNGER, she’s tired, and she’s stomping up the road she’s been stomping up for the last few hours. Kai trails along beside her. He’s more of a closed book to me than she is, but he must be hungry and tired too.
It’s a quiet country lane and a good example of what the middle of nowhere actually looks like.
“Are you sure—” Kai starts to say.
“Yes!” Freja snaps. “I’m sure that was the right stop and that we’re going the right way down the right road. And no, I don’t know where we’re going. Maybe it was all a hoax, or they’ve moved. Maybe someone will find our bleached bones in the sun in five years, picked clean by vultures or rats.”
Tasty.
“Maybe if you tell me exactly what they said?”
She stops.
Her arms are crossed, and I imagine steam actually coming out of her ears. I visualize this and show it to Freja; she’s startled and then starts to laugh.
“Okay, a good change of mood, but…?” Kai shrugs his shoulders, confused.
She shakes her head. “It’s Callie. She just showed me her version of what I look like just now—oh, never mind. They said to get off the bus where we did and to walk up this road.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. Well, they’re not going to be too specific, are they? What if someone was spying on our conversation somehow? I assume the people we want to find are watching the road.”
“But where? A mile from here, ten miles, or a hundred?”
“Lovely thought.”
“Do you have a name of who we’re trying to find?”
She hesitates and then shrugs. “The avatar said JJ, but that could just be an online name.”
“Why don’t we ask Callie to have a look ahead? She found you in London, after all. If there are any survivors around here, she might be able to find them. Or at least find a place we can stop to rest and get something to eat.”
Callie?
I’m on it.
I blur up into the sky and along the road to see what the middle of nowhere looks like from a distance, but it’s just more of the same stretching on and on. Rolling hills. Fields. Trees. A few farm buildings. No sign of movement, no traffic. No likely-looking cafés or empty houses to break into.
Are there any survivors watching out for us, hiding somewhere in this vast space?
How did I find Freja in London? I sort of felt out and around for anything that felt different—like Shay did, like Freja does. Ripples of emotion and intensity and, I don’t know, a certain kind of presence. The only other living things that feel anything like survivors are cats.
I drop closer to the road that Kai and Freja are still walking on and go forward along it more closely, mile after mile—casting out, feeling all around…
But there is nothing. Nada. Zilch. The only point I can sense is Freja, well behind me now. I’ve been keeping up a light contact with her all along, so as not to lose track of them.
She’s just as tired but more chilled out now; she’s laughing at something Kai is saying.
Wait a sec. Is there something—someone—else? Some different vibration near where they are?
I try to home in on it, but just as I do, it vanishes.
I reach again for Freja, to go back to them so I can tell them I thought I felt something, but…there’s nothing there anymore.
Freja? Freja?
She doesn’t answer.
CHAPTER 4
KAI
I’M FLAT ON MY BACK ON THE GROUND, my head spinning a little. What the…? I shake my head, confused, and try to sit up, but something is holding me down. I can’t move or see anything. It’s pitch-dark.
My eyes: they’re shut. It takes a huge effort of will to open them even a little to a slit. There is this weight crushing down on me, but then, when I look…nothing is there.
It’s not real. I open my eyes all the way, push this invisible wall aside, and sit up.
Freja is standing a short distance away, arms crossed, and the angry set is back in her shoulders. She’s facing somebody, some guy. He’s in profile—dark hair, tall and thin, about mid-twenties or so. There are a few others there too—a teenage boy and girl a bit younger than us—and they look like they’re all having some sort of argument…but not out loud. All is silent.
Something is still holding me back, a
nd anger bursts through it inside. Struggling against it, I finally manage to stand up.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The guy facing Freja turns toward me, amazement on his face. “I told you to stay still,” he says out loud, and as he says the words the crushing weight is back, only now it’s even more.
But it’s not real. “Get out of my head!” I push it aside and step between him and Freja. “Who are you?”
He grins. “I’m the one who gets to decide what happens to you.”
“Oh?” I say, and I can feel my muscles tensing, fists clenching.
Freja’s hand is on my shoulder. “Stand down, Rambo. This is JJ. They’re the ones we’ve been looking for.”
“And that is kind of the problem,” JJ says. “Freja is welcome. You most definitely are not.” He’s still smiling, but it is unsettling, and then something weirds out in his eyes: dark swirls like clouds through the colored part.
Something tickles in my mind, not a physical thing like before—something else—and everything goes black.
CHAPTER 5
CALLIE
FREJA? FREJA?
I cast out again and again, but there is nothing, no trace of her, and I’m starting to panic.
They can’t just vanish. I’ve been up and down the stretch of road where they should be—concentrating on the area where I guess they’re most likely to have been, based on the pace they were walking. I go slower, along the road surface, looking for something, anything…
There is a place where maybe the dirt is scuffed on the side of the road. As if someone fell over and then was dragged into the trees?
But I’m no tracker. I can’t follow bent twigs or anything like that to see where they’ve gone.
Freja?
Still there is nothing.
Less than nothing.
It’s almost like…something is missing. As if there is a blank patch in a murmuring world. Maybe something is blocking her?
It’s harder than trying to find a person I can home in on; it’s more vague. I think I can feel something in the nothing, but when I get closer, the sense of it vanishes.
Maybe if I go farther away, then come in toward whatever it is—or isn’t—until it disappears again, and maybe if I do this over and over from all different directions, then the place in the middle of all that should be roughly what I’m looking for.
Huh. Sure it will.
I dash away until I sense it more strongly and come back in until it vanishes. I do this again and again from all different directions, noting where I lose the void each time—and it seems to be working. There is a rough circle of missing space in a wooded area well away from the road; somewhere inside of it I hope will be the place Freja and Kai have vanished to.
I go over the area in the circle fast to start with and then slower, but there is no sense of Freja or of anybody else. Frustrated and scared, I drop down to ground level. I’ll check every inch if I have to.
I almost run into a tent before I see it.
Cautious now, I hang back, look around. There are a few more camouflaged tents and a low wooden cabin that blends into its surroundings so well that I’m almost on it before I see it.
This must be the place where Freja and Kai have been taken.
But there is a sense of dread inside me, and it’s growing. It’s like that time on the boat with Freja when I was imagining killer zombie rats and was so scared I almost left before I found her: that came from her, didn’t it? Somebody else—a survivor—is making it so I don’t want to be here.
I shake it off.
I check each tent. They’re sparse: a few sleeping bags and other belongings. No one is inside any of them until I get to the last one, closest to the cabin: it’s Kai.
His eyes are closed and he’s breathing evenly—like he’s asleep or unconscious. He’s very still, but there are no injuries or anything I can see.
I’m guessing he didn’t just decide to take a nap. What’s going on?
I head for the cabin door.
The sense of dread and revulsion is getting stronger, and I still can’t sense anybody—inside the cabin is a blank. I shrug off the urge to run in the other direction and instead flow under the door.
Once I’m inside the cabin, the dread vanishes. Freja is here, others too—five altogether—and I can sense all of them the same way as I do Freja. They’re all survivors? It must be just outside the cabin that is blocked somehow. I stay shielded, low to the ground, and hope no one will see or sense me. The light is dim, so maybe they won’t notice me seeping across the floor.
Freja is furious. I’ve seen her angry before, but this is well over her usual scale of rage.
Undo whatever it is you’ve done to Kai, or we have nothing to talk about, she says silently—they’re talking in their minds.
He’s perfectly fine; he’s just having a nice sleep, a man answers. I thought it’d be easier to talk about what we’re going to do with him without him lumbering around with his fists.
I don’t care if you’ve sent him on a five-star Caribbean vacation. I have nothing to say to you until he comes back.
Another man, an older one, raises his hands. I think everyone should calm down. JJ, you’re not the law here, and we’re not going to do anything to anybody.
The first one—JJ? —turns to him angrily. We can’t just let him go. How can we trust him?
How can we trust anybody? Even you. The others in the room—a woman and two teenagers, a boy and a girl—are looking back and forth between the two men now. Wake him up, and let’s get to know each other; we’ll work it out soon enough.
Freja’s arms are crossed. She’s scowling, her anger focused on JJ.
JJ leans back, an amused half smile on his lips. I don’t like him. I’m not sure why you’re angry with us, Freja. You’re the one who broke your word, told an outsider about our group, and brought him here. It’s your fault he’s in this predicament.
Aren’t I an outsider to you too? Do you mean he’s an outsider because he isn’t a survivor? So what? I trust him. I wouldn’t have made it here if it wasn’t for him and his sister.
He exchanges an alarmed look with the others. His sister? Is there someone else who knows about us?
I’ve had enough of listening in and draw myself up next to Freja.
Yes. Me.
They jump away, alarm and fear radiating through them, and despite everything—despite Kai and the fear and threat—I’m still happy all of them can see and hear me.
The older man crosses himself.
The girl, maybe a little younger than Freja, is the first to move. She looks fascinated and comes right up to me, stares into my eyes. What are you?
I was like you. This is what happens if they try to cure you.
Great dramatic entrance and all that, Freja says, but where’ve you been?
It was hard to find you. There was some sort of blankness over this place.
So, our clever shield doesn’t work after all, JJ says, a glance at the other man. And who are you?
Freja answers for me: Everyone, this is Callie—Kai’s sister.
The others, one by one, stop pulling away. They come closer—curiosity and fear warring inside of them, but curiosity starts to win. There is so much they want to know.
Cure? Is there a cure?
If who tries to cure you?
How?
Their questions all batter against me, but there is only one that I care about right now.
What have you done to my brother?
CHAPTER 6
KAI
I’M IN A WARM PLACE. Soft arms are around me, and I’m breathing in deep, inhaling that delicious something, close and closer. Lost and falling. I shouldn’t be here, but I don’t care. I burrow my face in her neck, her hair, but her hair isn’t dark—it’s red, li
ke the heat in my veins…
“Kai?”
Someone is shaking my shoulder.
“Kai, wake up.”
I shake off both the dream and the sleep and sit up in a hurry. I’m in a…tent? Freja is here, and all at once what happened by the side of the road floods back. My muscles tense, and I half spring up but then sit back down again when my head hits the top of the tent.
“Listen. You have to promise not to punch anybody, and in return, they’ve agreed to let you wake up. We’re all going to talk and work things out together after dinner.”
“After whatever the hell it is that they’ve done to me?” I’m furious.
I’m pretty pissed off about it too, she whispers inside my head, and I’m in turn startled and angry that she’s in my mind. She’s never tried that with me before, and my automatic instinct is to resist, to push her away. Sorry. Best way to not be heard. Can we go softly, softly for now, until we work out what they’re about? Callie agrees. Actually, she’s the one who got them on our side. They want to know what she knows, and she said you were the one who can tell them all about Shetland and what happened there. Can you keep your cool, at least for now?
I’m disoriented from whatever has been done to me, and I’m still angry too. I’m frustrated about having to talk to Freja like this, worried that she caught the end of that dream and, if she didn’t, wanting to get her out of my head before she does. But if she did, she doesn’t react, doesn’t acknowledge it.
Come on; you’re one of the Three Musketeers. We need you.
I struggle to control the swirling anger inside, then nod. I’ll try.
“Right,” she says out loud. “First up it’s time for dinner.”
She backs up on her knees to get out of the low tent, and I follow her. It’s dark now, I’m starving, and there is the smell of a barbecue and something delicious cooking.