Waterproof

by Garr, Amber

  TWENTY ONE

  Zach

  Arguing with Jackson felt like banging my head against a wall until I had no face left. We’d been friends for years, fought together, and genuinely got along well, but it was very difficult to argue with someone as stubborn as Jackson.

  “We need to be patient,” Jackson said for the millionth time. Once Todd left us on patrol duty, we started formulating a plan. Only we’d quickly reached an impasse.

  “Vee, Max, and Sasha might not have much time left! You saw what they’re doing to them. Hooking them up to machines to harvest blood while keeping them sustained. It’s awful and I can’t let that happen to our friends.”

  “Keep your voice down,” he snapped. “You don’t know who might be listening.”

  We both glanced up at the camera by the doors, figuring Dean was probably having a good time watching us. “He can’t hear us.” At least I didn’t think he could. “We need to get that database.”

  “We will, but we can’t do it tonight.”

  “I am doing it tonight,” I replied back. “I just need your help distracting the others so I can try and find the list. We know what day they were brought in, so we can at least narrow it down.” I looked up at the ceiling full of blood coffins, my new term for the black boxes, and felt a sudden sense of urgency. “Please,” I whispered.

  “And just how do you plan on doing it?” Jackson asked, finally calming down a bit.

  I sighed and ran one hand over my face, the other reaching toward my belt. The weight of the sword felt as heavy as my heart. I didn’t have a good plan for accessing the database. I looked at my weapon again. “We kill them?”

  “And you think killing them will solve our problems?”

  “Okay, maybe we hold them hostage and force them to tell us where our friends are.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to release the tension so I could focus. “Yeah, that might work.”

  Jackson paced back and forth underneath a row of blood coffins. They swayed back and forth like debris hanging from trees, while the clicks and hisses of machinery droned on in the background. I couldn’t control my shudder. What if Vee was in one of them right now?

  “Jackson?” I asked, wondering if he was still thinking.

  “Dean would probably know how to get in the system the quickest,” he finally said. “But I don’t think he’ll cooperate with us.” Jackson walked back over toward me but kept his eyes on the electrical panel where Sam the Sadist had picked a random victim. “What about Todd?”

  “What about him?” I asked.

  “He seems to be somewhat normal. Do you think you can appeal to his humanity?”

  I huffed. “What humanity? I don’t think any of these government mouthpieces have feelings of their own.”

  The coffin closest to me began to rattle. I looked up to see a red light blinking above the top, where all of the tubes flowed into the prison. After a few seconds, the light turned off and the shaking subsided. At least in the box.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. We walked over to the monstrous steel doors and looked up at the cameras. Several seconds passed before they opened with a hiss and we stepped back into the hall. Into the world we thought couldn’t get any worse until we saw the duds.

  “What about Sam?” I continued. “I certainly wouldn’t mind forcing him to help us. He deserves to be tortured.”

  Jackson smiled, but before he could answer, we heard feet running down the other part of the hallway. I stopped talking and prepared to unhook my sword at the same time Jackson pulled out his girly pistol.

  We froze, ready to fight whatever was coming after us. The thumping of someone on the run reminded me too much of our life outside the city gates. This person knew how to move. As the steps got closer, my heart hammered harder in my chest. Had our cover been blown?

  A person in a white lab coat slid around the corner, swearing when she slammed into the opposing wall.

  “Fuck!” she mumbled, rubbing her shoulder and looking around in a panic. When our eyes met, I almost stopped breathing.

  “Vee?”

  “Zach!” Without hesitating, Vee ran toward me. And although she was only twenty feet away, it seemed like an eternity before I felt her in my arms. “Oh my God, Zach. You’re here. You came,” she sucked in a breath and grabbed my face between her hands. Tears glimmered in her eyes as she smiled at me. “I thought you were dead. I thought they shot you. And then Sasha told me you were here and …” She couldn’t finish through her sobs.

  I kissed her on the lips then pulled her in for another hug. Her hair, her scent, her warmth. I would never forget how real she was and I vowed to never let her go again. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” I whispered into her ear. Her body trembled against mine like a welcoming blanket. She felt so good.

  Pushing against me, she leaned back far enough to reach my lips. Her kiss filled a void I hadn’t realized I needed. Seeing her, feeling her here with me now…I knew I couldn’t live without her by my side.

  I deepened the kiss and between the hands roaming and moans escaping us both, we totally forgot about Jackson.

  “Hi Vee,” he said, clearing his throat for emphasis.

  I felt her chuckle underneath my lips, but she didn’t pull away too far. “Hi Jackson,” she whispered, eyes only leaving mine for the briefest moment.

  Drawing her back against me, I nestled into her neck. She smelled so good, I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t get enough. Vee was alive, and healthy, and…

  “What are you wearing?” I asked, really noticing her wardrobe for the first time. “Please don’t tell me you’re working in the lab.” Fear snaked through me with all of the thoughts racing around in my mind.

  She shook her head and rested it against my shoulder. “No, I escaped.” Suddenly panicked, she looked up at me and Jackson and the doors behind us. She started to make her way to them. “We have to get out of here. Now!”

  “Vee, no. We can’t,” Jackson said. “Not that way.”

  Vee reached over and squeezed Jackson’s hand. “You don’t understand. They’re using us as lab rats! They’re taking our blood and searching for genes and…” She threw her hands down in frustration. “And they’re breeding a society of perfect humans who are better suited at surviving in our world as it is now. We don’t mean anything to them! Just a means to an end.” Her voice shook and I noticed the tears again. “They’ll use all of us. Even Hunter.”

  In two steps I was close enough to wrap my arms around her again. She sobbed in a way I’d never seen her cry before. As though the weight of the world finally lifted from her shoulders, she stopped trying to be strong. I held her for what seemed like an eternity before she recovered and spoke again.

  “Why can’t we go in there?” she asked Jackson.

  He shook his head. “You don’t want to see what’s in there.” Straightening his shoulders he glanced up at the cameras. “I’d bet my life that we’re being watched right now.”

  Vee tensed under my arms but I squeezed her harder. “I’m sure we are, but at least there’s no sound.” I rubbed my hand through Vee’s long, dark hair. “You have to pretend you belong.”

  “We can’t take her with us,” Jackson snapped, then looked over at Vee. “Sorry, but we can’t. We have to figure something else out.” He motioned toward the cameras again. I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to let her go.

  “It might be too late,” Vee whispered just before I heard a shout.

  A large mercenary man ran around the corner, breathing hard and face crumpled in confusion. When he spotted Vee, his eyes lit up.

  “Vivienne, why did you do that?”

  She pushed me behind her and threw back her shoulders. “I can’t go back there, Riley. What he’s doing is atrocious. No one has the right to play God like that!”

  “Riley?” I asked, moving up to stand side by side with Vee. I heard Jackson shift into place next to me. “You know him?” I’m not sure what emotion skittered through me,
but anger certainly encompassed most of it. “Did he do this to you?” I grabbed her bandaged hand and lifted it to waist level.

  “Who are you?” Riley cut in, stepping too close for comfort. One more move and I’d take him out just for knowing Vee’s name.

  Vee ignored both of us. “Riley, it’s wrong. Please! You have to know that in your heart.”

  Why was Vee talking to this guy about his feelings? And why did he keep looking at her like that?

  He reached out his hand and beckoned toward Vee. “Please, come with me and I’ll explain. I’ll talk to Erik. He won’t say anything…” his voice trailed off in thought.

  I stepped forward and knocked his hand away. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”

  “I am in charge here and you have no say in the matter. So just back the fuck off and let me handle this.” Riley puffed out his chest and stood way too close. He had me by a few inches, but I’d been fighting for my life a long time.

  I punched him in the jaw.

  He didn’t react fast enough to avoid the blow, but he did manage to swing at me before I noticed. His fist landed hard in my gut and knocked my breath away. Pain surged through my internal organs as I struggled to breathe.

  Jackson wasted no time either, but instead of jumping to my aid, he ripped the lab coat off Vee and flung it up onto the camera. As he did this, I got ready to throw another punch. Riley spit blood on the ground and then looked at me with a menacing glint in his eye. Rolling his head, he shuffled into a boxer’s stance.

  “I’ll give you one chance to walk away. I’m your superior and there will be consequences if this goes any further.”

  “Zach?” Jackson asked, wondering how we should handle this situation.

  Without taking my eyes off Riley, I asked Vee, “You know him?”

  “He’s a mercenary,” she replied, trying to step in front of me again.

  “I’m more than that,” Riley whispered. The look in his eyes sent fury to my fists. He liked Vee. Not that I could blame him, but it certainly wasn’t all right with me.

  “He’s the General’s stepson,” she added.

  That got our attention.

  “Zach?” Jackson asked again.

  I looked from Vee to Riley and back to Vee again. “What does he know?” I asked Vee.

  “Everything, I’m sure.” She continued looking at Riley while I held my fists at the ready. “Riley,” she pleaded, “please don’t do this.”

  “Do what?” he asked in confusion. But the moment Vee grabbed my arm, I saw the realization slap him in the face with a vengeance. “You know them? They were with your group!” He glared at Jackson and me.

  Vee didn’t have time to say anything before Riley reacted. He swung out so fast I almost tripped over my feet, the smack of his fist against my cheek echoing through the hall. This time Jackson did join in and he shoved Riley back hard enough to slam against the wall. Vee leaned over my back, pulling my hand away from my face to check my wound.

  “Get your hands off me,” Riley growled. He pushed Jackson far enough away to reach behind his own back. A second later his gun was drawn and pointing back and forth at the both of us. “You’re deserters?” We didn’t say anything. “But how’d you…”

  “Put the gun down, Riley,” Vee said more calmly than I would have expected.

  “They can’t be here. I have to take them in,” Riley replied with a coolness equal to that of a robot. He stepped closer to the both of us.

  Vee suddenly pushed me down at the same time she pulled the sword away from my hip and positioned herself between us and Riley.

  “Put the gun down,” she said again.

  This time, Riley reacted to her threat. “Vivienne, don’t. Just get out of the way so I can take them in and then we’ll talk about what Erik said.”

  Vee flicked her sword in warning. I stood there, just waiting to see how this would play out. As much as I wanted to jump in and be the hero, I knew in my gut that Vee was better suited for handling this particular mercenary.

  “Move,” Riley commanded of her but a second later the gun fell to the ground and he grabbed his wrist. “What the…”

  Vee jumped forward to pick up the gun, passing it behind her and to me when she stood. “I told you to drop it.” The tip of her sword sparkled with fresh blood. She’d cut him so quick he didn’t have time to notice. When Riley stepped forward again, she positioned the tip of her sword in the crook of his neck. “Don’t.”

  He raised his hands. “Vivienne, why are you doing this?”

  “It’s not okay for them to be using humans as lab rats. Especially since the lab rats are the deserters who refuse to report to your stupid draft.”

  “It’s all voluntary, Vivienne.” He sighed and shook his wrist like he only had a kink in it and not a cut from Vee’s weapon. “I told you that already.”

  “Then how do you explain what’s in there?” Jackson asked, head jerking toward the doorway behind us.

  Riley raised his eyebrows. “You mean the storage facility?”

  Jackson and I looked at each other in confusion. “No,” I said, “we mean where they keep the duds.”

  Riley laughed. Actually laughed like a maniacal clown. “They’re still telling those stories to the newbies, huh?”

  “It’s not a story,” I said.

  Jackson, following my train of thought, removed the coat form the camera and turned toward us. “Act normal,” he said. Vee lowered her sword.

  With a flick of his middle finger, he saluted Dean through the camera. And for no logical reason, Dean responded to the insult by opening the door.

  We stepped inside and introduced our mercenary friend to the real truth.

  TWENTY TWO

  Vivienne

  Coffins. They looked like coffins.

  Zach didn’t let go of my hand the entire time we stood in silence and watched Riley struggle with some internal conflict. I didn’t care what Riley was dealing with, as long as I felt Zach’s warmth through my skin.

  But it was hard not to notice the thousands of black boxes hanging from the ceilings.

  “No, it can’t be. He promised!” Riley shouted loud enough for the sound to reverberate between the coffins. He stared at an electrical panel mounted in the wall, obviously fighting against the blatant truth surrounding us now.

  For the briefest of moments, I let myself focus on Zach. Thinking he was dead only to find out he risked everything to come inside the city gates, gave me a sense of love I never knew I could feel. And he looked good. Powerful and deadly in his soldier uniform and bruise beginning to show on his cheek. I knew I loved him with every part of my soul.

  We had to get through this together.

  “How long do they keep them in here?” Jackson asked Riley.

  Riley shook his head without making eye contact. “I don’t know. In the preliminary experiments they could keep them alive for almost a year.”

  “A year?” Zach asked, squeezing my hand even harder.

  “What are they doing, Riley?” I asked.

  He sighed and turned to face me. “They’re harvesting the genes.” He spoke so softly, we barely heard his confession. “They aren’t even attempting to synthesize it,” his disbelief evident in his the way he hunched over himself.

  “All of these people have the gene?” I asked.

  “It’s not as uncommon as you think. Almost everyone has it, just not in the quantities that make it a precious commodity.” He walked over to an area that looked like a prepping station for the coffin boxes. Gazing up into the vast rows of humans being used like a test tube, he shook his head. “He promised me.”

  I let go of Zach’s hand and stood beside Riley. “Who promised you?”

  “My stepdad. He promised me and my mom that these experiments were over. It was the only reason I agreed to come back here.”

  “So, you left this place because of what they were doing?” Zach asked, moving next to my side and grabbing my hand again.


  Riley smiled. “Yeah. And I managed to drive right on out of here with a water supply truck.”

  The three of us looked at each other. Could that have been the water truck that nearly got us killed?

  “You know, I get it,” Riley continued. “I get the appeal of living on the run and being free of all the rules. But I really thought this was the answer.” I gave him a look and he clarified. “Well, not this,” he waved his hand around. “But the science behind what Erik’s trying to accomplish. It’s just the next step in human evolution. The survival of the fittest and all that.”

  “This is not evolution,” Zach spat. “I don’t even know what to call this.”

  “The world is not the same as it was before the wars,” Riley continued. “But humans are survivors and we always figure out a way to make it through.”

  “You’ve helped us before,” I said. Riley raised his eyebrows in confusion. “Not us. But deserters like us. You left this place, gave them water, and even saved a few.” I figured he must have been the one to bring that water truck to the deserters and I knew my hunch was right by the startled look on his face. Everyone’s reaction to Riley befriending another female deserter began to make sense. He’d fallen for one before. “What happened to her?”

  He swallowed hard then dropped his head. “He killed her. Right in front of me.”

  “The General?” I asked. Zach and Jackson just looked confused.

  Riley nodded. “But I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “So what do we do now?” Jackson asked.

  “Will you help us, Riley?” I spoke softly, not knowing how far we could push his loyalties.

  He kicked a metal clamp bolted to the floor and swore when his toe crunched against the inanimate object. Suddenly, he moved in front of me, hands squeezing my shoulders. “There has to be another way. I’ll talk to Erik. I’ll talk to my stepdad.” He bent forward so that his face was close enough for me to feel his breath. “If I get him to stop, will you stay here with me?”

  Zach’s grip tightened hard enough to send pain through my hand. But I realized again how much I loved him when he didn’t hit Riley and instead let me deal with the mercenary.