by Shay Savage
“You feel so good in me.” Aerin stares down at me with smoldering eyes. She grinds down against my pelvic bone, moving faster and moaning as I feel her clenching all around me. I tighten my grip on her hips and push up, thrusting deep inside of her until my body shakes and I let go with a loud grunt.
Aerin rolls off of me onto her back, and I prop myself up on one elbow and look down at her. I can’t help but smile when I run a finger over her bare shoulder and watch the goosebumps form on her arm.
“Are you cold?” I ask.
“Not really.” Aerin grins. “You’re keeping me pretty warm.”
“Well, it’s going to get cold eventually.” I grab our clothes and we quickly redress before lying back down. I pull the blanket up and tighten it around us, cradling her in my arms as I press her body close to mine to help retain our body heat.
“I think I know what’s different with you,” I say quietly.
“What’s that?”
“I can talk to you.”
“You can talk to anyone you come across.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I purse my lips as she raises an eyebrow expectantly. “Since I left the capital city, I’ve had to be very careful about what I say and how I say it. Naughts might rant about their lot in life, but they don’t go on about politics here, not this far away from the capital city. When I speak with them, I have to make sure I don’t say anything out of place. I can’t chance anyone discovering where I’m from or who my father is. With you, I don’t have to hold back or hide who I am. You understand what’s happening between the Thaves and Naughts, and even though you grew up in the capital, you still understand that the Naughts are important, too. I can talk to you in a way I can’t with the people I’ve lived with all these years. You’re smart, and you know how to take care of yourself. You don’t need my help, but that just makes me want to help you more.”
“We have a common upbringing,” Aerin says. “It only makes sense that you feel more comfortable around someone who can relate to you.”
“There’s more to it than that. I know I’m not expressing myself well, but I’m not sure how else to put it. I can relax around you in a way I haven’t been able to do before. It’s nice. It’s comfortable.”
“I think I understand.”
“You’re also beautiful.”
Aerin laughs and blushes. She starts to turn her face away from me, but I take her chin in my fingers and kiss her.
“Incredibly beautiful.”
Aerin’s blush darkens as she sucks in her lower lip and stares up at me.
“If you keep that up,” she says, “we’re never going to get any sleep.”
“Good point.” I lean over and kiss her quickly. “It’s going to take awhile to get used to sleeping on the ground again.”
Despite the discomfort, I quickly fall into a deep, dreamless sleep with Aerin curled up against my chest.
I wake abruptly.
The sky is lighter, but the color is off. A distinct, orange tint stains the clouds to the southeast, and in my muddled, barely-awake state, I can’t understand why. I push myself up on my elbows, rub my eyes, and clear my throat.
Aerin stirs beside me, and I smile down at her as I sit up and stretch. As I take a long breath, I smell smoke and hope that means it will be easy to start a fire to warm up. I wonder what we managed to haul away from the complex that will make a good, hot breakfast.
But the cooking fire isn’t hot. In fact, there isn’t an ember to be found.
“Aerin?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” She rolls onto her back and sits up, squinting.
I stand up and take a few steps away from the trees to get a better view.
“Do you see that?” I ask.
“See what?” Aerin moves up beside me, shielding her mouth and nose with a bandana as she looks to the horizon. “What is that?”
I swallow hard as the orange glow in the distance flickers and moves across the sky. A little farther south, I see a black cloud billowing up to meet the grey residue in the atmosphere.
“It’s not ash,” Aerin says.
“It’s a fire.” My words come out in a breathless whisper as my insides grow cold. “Plastictown is on fire.”
Chapter 18
In the briefest of moments, the faces of all those I know in Plastictown fly through my head. Ava’s smiling face comes to the forefront of my brain, and without another thought, I race past Aerin and head down the mountain slope.
“Talen! Wait!”
I don’t stop. The cloud of smoke is huge—too big to be contained to the plastics factory. It’s spread, and if it has reached the other side of the river, my people are in danger.
By the time I get halfway down the mountain, I can see the flames. I pick up my pace, barely turning my feet enough to keep my footing as I half run, half stumble down the mountainside. I can still hear Aerin calling after me, but I don’t slow down.
“Talen, stop! You’re going to—”
My body can’t keep up with my legs, and I lose my footing. I fly head over heels down an embankment and come to rest when I slam into the trunk of a tree. The limbs shake above me, dropping ash-covered leaves on my dazed head.
“Talen! Are you all right?” Aerin runs up beside me with both our packs wrapped up in her arms.
“I’m fine!” I shove the leaves off and stand back up. My shoulder is a little sore from hitting the tree, and my ankle is aching, but I’m not too bad off. “We need to get to town now!”
“I don’t think we’re going to be in time.” Aerin grabs my arm, but I shake myself free. “I got a good look from up there. Those flames are thirty feet high, and it looks like the whole town is engulfed.”
“Can’t be,” I say, shaking my head. “There are fire breaks. It can’t all be burned. I have to get there and make sure everyone is all right.”
“We are still miles away!”
“So what? Do you think we should just stop?”
“I’m not saying that.” Aerin takes my hand and looks at me pleadingly. “I’m saying it’s going to take time to get there, and running isn’t going to make any difference.”
Uninterested in her logical thoughts, I jerk my arm from her grasp and head off again. My pace is slowed somewhat from the ache in my ankle, but I do my best to ignore the pain and push on. Even as I stumble, I don’t slow down. When the smell of smoke invades my lungs and makes me cough, I just cover my mouth and keep going.
When I hit flat ground and start heading due south, the smoke is thicker, but I no longer see any flames in the distance. I continue to run, dodging rocks and felled trees until I make it to the outskirts of Plastictown.
Black smoke and noxious fumes fill the air as I approach the edge of town where the first set of plastic homes and the marketplace should be. The closer I get, the more overwhelming the stench of burning plastic fills the air. Though I keep my mouth and nose covered, I can’t stop coughing. My eyes are watering so badly, I have to keep wiping at them just to be able to see.
What I see is horrifying.
Everywhere I look, I see smoldering piles of debris.
On my left, the marketplace still burns with quick licks of flame.
On the right, the homes built of plastic bricks are nothing but stinking, melted plastic.
In front of me should be the steps where Keller screams at passersby, but I see nothing except black mounds and pillars of smoke.
As I enter the marketplace area, I see only blackened, indistinct shapes covering the ground. The flames have died down, but several places still smolder, and thick black smoke fills the air all around me. I walk slowly, trying to get my bearings. I recognize the blackened legs of Milinder’s baking cart, and I find the charred metal edge of the carving knife I’d given the new butcher.
I don’t see a living person anywhere.
“Ava!” I scream her name repeatedly, but the only sound I hear is the si
zzling of plastic and the echo of my own voice.
Every time I turn my head, I see another pile of burned debris. The firebreak consisting of rocks and sand stands between the north and south markets, barely scorched, but the areas on both sides are completely destroyed.
A few skeletons are sprawled out on the ground up close to the firebreak, while others are in mounds as if they were all trying to hold onto each other as the flames engulfed them. Near the edge of a large, stinking pile of melted plastic, skeletal arms are wrapped around a charred blanket. A few weeks ago, I’d given some fish I’d caught to a woman and her small child on the same part of the street.
My chest tightens, and I fight the urge to vomit. I tear my eyes away from the sight and press on towards the second market and the tent area.
“Talen!” Aerin catches up to me as I reach the area that used to be filled with carts and tents, but no one’s here. I only see more charred brick, more melted plastic emitting noxious fumes, and more human remains.
“Ava!” I call out in desperation.
Scattered all along the brick road are ashy, blackened bones in misshapen piles. The back of the charred circle where the tents used to be is devastated. The fire burned so hot and so fast that nothing is left to identify.
“Talen, there’s no one here.”
“They could have made it out through the river,” I say. “She could be nearby.”
I slow my pace and trudge through the debris to the very back of the area. I hear the gurgling of the river in front of me as I tentatively approach the spot where Ava’s tent used to be. I’m met with a mound of melted plastic, still smoldering. The fumes burn my eyes as I look down and see a small, clay teacup with the handle broken off.
Beside the cup is a pile of bones, the arms entwined. One skeleton is larger than the other one, with broad shoulders and long legs.
“Jonny…” I choke on his name as I drop to the ground on my knees. I reach out and gingerly touch the skull, leaving black smudges on my fingertips. As I reach for the other one, the pile of bones shifts, sending a puff of black soot into the air.
If the larger bones are those of the woodcutter, then the others bones can only belong to one person.
“Ava! Oh God, no.” My arms ache to hold her again, but I can’t bring myself to reach out and embrace her remains. Instead, I grab the broken teacup and pull it to my chest as tears run down my face.
The pain in my stomach is like nothing I have ever felt before. It’s as if someone had just reached inside of me to rearrange whatever was in there. I scream in short, choppy sobs, barely aware of Aerin’s arms around me.
“Talen.” She whispers my name as she pulls me to her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
I remember the last time I snuggled with Ava in her tent and how she made me tea.
In my mind, I see her smile.
I watch her cheeks redden at the mention of Layshell, and I imagine the weaver woman and her younger brother, huddled together as flames whipped around them. My stomach heaves, and I can barely keep from losing whatever is in my stomach.
Another set of remains, similar in size to Ava and likely belonging to Milo, smolder nearby.
“They’re all gone! All of them! It’s my fault! My fault!” My throat burns from the plastic fumes.
“It’s not your fault!” Aerin grabs my face in her hands and stares hard at me. “There’s nothing you could have done. This happened so fast. If you were here, you would have burned, too.”
“I should have been here to protect them! I’m supposed to keep them all safe. I’m supposed to keep her safe, and I failed! I failed her again!”
I cough, sputter, and nearly vomit. Aerin holds me against her again, stroking my hair as I cling to the cup. My mind conjures images of Jonny and Ava, locked in each other’s arms as the flames overtake them, and I cry out again and again.
“Ava…Ava…” I bury my face against Aerin’s shoulder as my throat goes raw.
Aerin coughs loudly, winces, and coughs again.
“The air is toxic here,” she says. “We can’t stay.”
“I’m not leaving her!” I reach out, but I still can’t bring myself to touch the smoldering bones.
“She’s gone, Talen. There’s nothing you can do now.”
“We need to bury them!”
“And we will but not now. We need to wait for the air to clear.”
Aerin turns her head to the side, coughing uncontrollably. I take hold of her arm, and we both stand. My knees lock up, and I almost fall, but she steadies me long enough to get my footing. I can barely breathe, and I know Aerin is right about leaving the area, but I hate the idea of leaving their remains lying where they are.
“I can’t…” Tears continue to stream down my cheeks.
“Shh, Talen.” Aerin takes hold of my arms and drags me across bricks and away from the charred ruins of Plastictown. Mindlessly, I follow her along the trail leading to the wall near Hilltop, stumbling over roots and rocks. Aerin sits me down against the trunk of a tree far enough away from the mess to be able to remove the cloths from our faces without choking on the air.
As I stare at the cup in my hands, I can’t stop from shaking.
“Drink this.” Aerin hands me a bottle of water.
I drink it wordlessly. Though the liquid cools my raw throat, it does nothing to ease the pain inside of me.
“I should have been there,” I say again, rubbing a smudge from the clay cup. “They did this. My father probably ordered it. We knew they had something planned for Plastictown. I should have gotten here quicker.”
“We never would have made it in time,” Aerin says. “We didn’t know what they were planning, but even if we knew, we never would have gotten here before the fires. I saw multiple places where fires originated, and they obviously burned the other side of the river, too. This has been planned for some time, and there’s no way we could have prevented it.”
“I never should have left. I never should have followed you into that shaft.”
“You didn’t know, Talen.”
“But I’m supposed to protect them.” I rub my fingers into my eyes. “I’m the one they turned to. I’m the one they counted on.”
Aerin sits beside me and tries to get me to eat something, but I refuse. Anything I put in my stomach is just going to come right back up again. I can’t get the images of Ava burning out of my head, and even as I stare into the distance at the smoking remains of Plastictown, I can’t stop seeing her face.
“We have to go back to the mountain,” I say.
“Hilltop is closer. We can find an empty house to hide out in and figure out what to do next.”
“I don’t give a shit about Hilltop!” I push away from her. “They aren’t the ones who did this! I know who did this! President-Fucking-LaGrange! Viruses just didn’t do the trick, did they? Takes too long. Too many people are resistant. It’s just not reliable enough. Fire though—fire works fucking wonders!”
Aerin takes hold of my arm and brings me back to her side.
“I know how upset you are, but you have to calm down long enough to think reasonably.”