by Joss Ware
That stopped her for a minute. She had memories of her first twelve years…but were they bad? Or just…memories? Seeing her mother die was horrible, but other than that…she remembered playing, running in the fields, swimming, climbing on old tires that had been stacked and secured, even an elaborate tree house. There’d always been lots of kids to play with, of course. “Some.”
“I’m sorry I snapped at you. Earlier.”
“It didn’t bother me.”
“It didn’t?”
“No. We all get stressed. I thought you were just…tense. All the stuff going on.”
He made a little sound, not really a laugh, not a snort. Just a little choked guff of air. “Yeah.”
All she had to do was move her hand into the space between them, slide it closer, and she’d touch him again. “Simon,” she said, steeling herself…for something. She opened her hand, safely, silently, under the covers, her fingers reaching out into the pocket of heat between them.
“I promised Theo I’d keep you safe,” he said suddenly. A little louder and more distinctly than he’d been speaking.
She nodded, her head rustling softly against the pillow. “I know you will.”
“He was annoyed that he had to stay behind.”
Yes, she knew that. Sage curled her fingers back into her palm. Theo. It could be Theo lying in this bed, facing her as if they were two lovers indulging in some pillow talk. Blind to each other in the dark, but close enough to hear, and feel, and even smell the other.
But it wasn’t Theo. It was Simon. And the very thought made her belly tingle all the way down…low. And intimate. And she realized that she was glad it wasn’t Theo here next to her. That it was Simon.
“I know,” she replied. “He tried to talk me out of going, but I needed to come.”
His head moved against the pillow as if nodding. “We have to be careful. I don’t…trust them.”
“Okay. Do you mean…we need to act differently? More…in love?” Her mouth went dry. What if she had to kiss Simon? Her heart thumped harder, and she thought about those beautiful lips…just a breath away from her right now. She’d kissed Theo, and Owen…would it be any different kissing Simon? Suddenly, she wanted to know.
Really. Wanted. To know. She licked her lips, once again glad for the darkness.
“Love has nothing to do with what goes on here,” he replied in a low, flat voice. “It’s a cold, organized human breeding factory. No emotion, no attachment.” Silence settled over the darkness for a moment. His breathing sounded steady and easy, and she thought he’d fallen asleep. Then, “Good night, Sage.”
Right. As if she were going to get any sleep.
“Good night.”
Simon wasn’t sure when Sage finally fell asleep, but it definitely wasn’t until after the sky had begun to lighten in the east. She’d stopped pretending and her breathing slipped into a natural rhythm instead of the one she’d tried to force it into.
That meant he could finally relax a bit and try to mentally talk down his splitting hard-on. Although with Sage sleeping, there was the added danger of her accidentally rolling toward him, unconsciously moving her hand or legs and possibly connecting with some part of him. Any part of him.
A hasty exit was probably the best option.
He made sure she was asleep before he slipped from the bed, careful not to look toward the camera hidden behind a painting. A dog’s eye had been cut out and the camera lens installed behind it, which he’d found in afternoon after turning himself invisible and taking the opportunity to investigate. He didn’t know if it ran all the time, recording everything that happened, or if it was a live-cam that was only monitored at certain times.
Regardless, Simon had no doubt that some dirty old men used the room-cam as their version of post-apocalyptic porn. And probably other cameras in other rooms as well.
Falling Creek gave him a dirty feeling that worsened the more he learned about it. Not that there was anything wrong with making babies, but Holy Mother of God…the whole regimented setup sickened him, including the very public admonishment that they couldn’t have sex last night because he had to save his sperm.
What the fuck? Was that what they were watching on the cameras? Checking to make sure he didn’t waste his fucking sperm?
He hadn’t been embarrassed at all. Enraged was more the emotion that swept over him.
The sooner he and Sage left here, the better—on more than one account.
Simon glanced toward the bed where a rounded shoulder rose from beneath the covers, richly golden from a wash of freckles. Her glorious hair tumbled over the pillows…including the one on which he’d just rested his head. He knew it smelled of some floral scent, and that the tips of her curls were soft and springy.
He spun and went into the bathroom, hoping they didn’t have a camera posted in the shower. Because he was definitely going to be wasting some sperm.
By the time he finished his shower and came back into the room, dressed prudently in a pair of jeans, Sage was awake. She sat up in bed, the sheets down around her waist, exposing the little pink tank top she wore. She might just as well have been topless for all the good it did.
She was reading a book and looked up as he walked in. “Are you done in there?” Sage asked. She tried to hide the fact that she was staring at his chest.
“It’s all yours,” he replied, finger-combing his damp hair into its ponytail, aware that he had to lift his arms and that his biceps would flex as he did so. And that her cheeks were tinting pink, but she wasn’t looking away.
“Good,” she said, and slipped out of bed, scooting quickly into the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of slender white thighs, pretty feet, and the distracting bounce of her breasts before she disappeared.
He pulled on a shirt and it occurred to him that an unscrupulous guy who could turn invisible could pretend to leave, but stay here and spy if he wanted. A guy who was as warped and perverted as whoever was on the other side of those cameras, which definitely did not include him. It was a revolting thought.
But what the fuck. He was a man for God’s sake, he was made to have thoughts like that…and being around her, in these close quarters, was making him mother-fucking crazy. What the fuck had he been thinking to agree to come with her—come being the non-operative word?
If she wasn’t involved with Theo, things might be different. Might be different. But the fact was, Theo was waiting for her to be returned back, in one piece and unseduced.
By anyone.
A little chill washed over Simon. Was that something he had to worry about here in FC, where the sex flowed like money had in Vegas? Sage being…approached…by another man? Approached or otherwise manhandled into a potential situation?
Probably not. Adultery would just screw up their birthing plans.
But Simon wasn’t going to take the chance. They needed to find out if there was anyone who knew anything about Remington Truth, set up the NAP, and get the hell out of here.
Especially, please God, before Sage fucking…good God…ovulated. What the hell was going to happen then?
Simon heard the toilet flush and then the shower running, and he began to straighten up the room. He made the bed and set Sage’s book on the table. The Count of Monte Cristo. A thick one that might have once been terrifying to someone who didn’t learn to read until he was fifteen…but that now was highly appealing. Something to take his mind off things too.
The door to the bathroom opened when he was on page twenty-two, and Simon looked up to see Sage poking her head around. Her face was flushed pink and her hair wrapped in a towel, and steam escaped from the crack of the door around her bare shoulder. “I forgot to grab some clothes, Simon. Would you?”
Rummaging through a woman’s underwear drawer wasn’t high on his list of desirable things to do, although Florita had slyly insisted he “pick out something Mancusi would like” more than once…but since Sage didn’t actually have an underwear drawer but a duffel bag, he wasn�
�t going to argue. Not only that, but picking out her clothes enabled him to select the loosest, most conservative attire she had, even though the task had the drawback of him having to decide between black bikini panties or red string bikinis.
God was really making His displeasure with Simon clear.
“Enjoying the book?” she asked, coming out of the bathroom, fully dressed. Her hair coiled in dark, damp curls around her shoulders, leaving little wet spots on the shoulders of her shirt.
“So far,” he said.
Then, to his surprise, she came over to where he was sitting in the corner chair and settled on the arm next to him. Her ass was nearly brushing his upper arm and the fresh, clean scent of her washed hair filled his nose. “I want to show you one of the best parts,” she said, and, leaning over, began to flip through the book.
Simon didn’t move. He just concentrated on keeping his hands still and his breathing regular.
“Here,” she said at last, near the end of the 1,200-page book. “This is one of my favorite scenes.”
“You’ve already read it?” he managed to ask.
She just looked at him, her blue eyes so very close. Very steady. He forgot to breathe.
“It’s a great book. Worth reading over and over again,” she replied. “Edmond Dantès is a wonderful character. He’s betrayed by three of his so-called friends and imprisoned for thirteen years. Then he comes back and seeks revenge on them as the Count of Monte Cristo.”
He looked down at the book and saw…ah. So clever. He glanced at her with a brief smile of admiration and comprehension, and began to read.
She got up and walked away while he perused through the pages that she had inserted into the book at the very end. It was a list of names. His smiled widened. The documents, or at least some of them, from Remington Truth’s jump drive.
Brilliant.
This was his chance to see if Mancusi was on the list of likely Cult of Atlantis members, and he quickly found the M’s. No Leonide Mancusi or Mancusi, Leonide. Or anything remotely like that. He hadn’t really expected to see him in this sort of company, but Simon never assumed.
He flipped through a few more pages, uninterested in the rest of the list, although he did see Quent’s father, Parris Fielding, on there, and closed the book. There would be more time to study the list and the other documents later.
“You were right,” he said, putting it on the table. “Great scene. I think I’m really going to enjoy this book.”
“I’ve hardly been able to put it down,” she said. “We might have to fight over who gets to read it when. But don’t lose my bookmark.”
“Let’s go,” he said, standing. The sooner they got their mission accomplished, the sooner they could get the hell back to Envy.
The first real sign of trouble was when Simon and Sage approached the main gate. Unsure of their welcome, they’d left the supplies for the NAP, and Sage’s little computer, hidden in an old car trunk a few miles beyond the city walls.
Now they meant to retrieve them, under the guise of taking a walk.
“Can’t let you through,” said the guards. “It’s too dangerous.”
“What?” Sage asked. “What’s dangerous?”
Simon didn’t bother. He knew they weren’t going back through those gates now that they’d come in. For him, of course, it wasn’t a problem.
“There’s gangas out there, and lions and other feral animals,” was the reply. This guard was not the friendly Bennie Corrigan from yesterday. But she remembered him as being a shy, pimply teen who liked to throw rocks at trees. Apparently, authority had gone to his head.
“Gangas don’t come out during the day,” Sage replied. “And we didn’t see any sign of wild animals on our way here.”
“Sorry, ma’am. No one’s going through the gates today.”
“But—”
“Sage! There you are.”
They turned to see a slender woman hurrying toward them. “That’s Penny,” Sage told Simon, leaning close enough to brush against him. “She’s the one who—Hi, Penny,” she said.
“We need to get your temp taken right away. It’s supposed to be the first thing you do every morning,” she chided. Penny was a grim-faced woman with iron gray hair streaked with white. Her hands were skeletal in their thinness. “And then breakfast. I know you haven’t eaten breakfast, but it’s imperative that you do. That’s when you get your vitamins too.”
“Go get yourself taken care of,” Simon said, conscious of being watched. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for him. They’d probably want to check his sperm count or something obscene like that.
Sage looked at Simon, a flash of helplessness in her eyes that was quickly masked, then turned meekly to follow the other woman.
As soon as Sage was gone, Simon sauntered off toward the Community House himself. The moment he was alone, he shimmered into invisibility.
The first thing he wanted to do was find a place where he and Sage could meet and talk without being overheard or seen. After that, he’d leave the compound and retrieve their electronics and other items and bring them back through the gate while invisible. He wasn’t sure how far his capabilities would extend when carrying items, but he thought that since his clothing disappeared on command, anything he might be able to slip under his coat or shirt might also become transparent. If not, he’d find another way to get them in…or to get Sage out.
In fact, as he walked around the perimeter of the stone barrier, Simon knew there had to be another way in and out of the compound. He just didn’t know if he should waste his time looking for it when he had other ways.
What had once been an obviously extremely affluent neighborhood still maintained its air of pretension. The houses were massive—eight thousand or more square feet, made of brick and stucco, with single-acre yards that allowed a clear view into the neighbor’s living room. Or bedroom.
Most of them appeared to be inhabited, and cloaked in his invisibility, Simon passed hordes of children in the yards, playing the games that children played. At least, children who didn’t grow up on narrow streets and dark alleys, in hot, smelly one-bedroom apartments that housed fifteen people at a time. And who didn’t have to watch for cars and drive-by shootings in their neighborhoods.
Those other children played with guns and knives and didn’t know what an MP3 player or Xbox was until they were stealing them or making enough money dealing to buy their own.
As Simon observed the residents of Falling Creek, he noticed that certain mothers or older daughters were supervising the children. Others were obviously on garden duty, for they worked in small patches where vegetables grew. Still others were likely inside, cooking, cleaning, sewing, whatever.
Where were all the men?
He walked farther, realizing that his ability to remain transparent waned and weakened the longer he held it. So he allowed himself to fade in and out instead of trying to hold it for too long. He was still learning his new power’s quirks and limitations, but one thing he had to be grateful for was that his gamble with Sage in the stairwell at the Beretta had paid off. He hadn’t known if it would work to make her invisible too, and it had been a big risk.
And apparently, she still didn’t realize what happened.
He should probably tell her. Maybe.
By now, Simon had reached the far west side of the settlement. The sounds of children playing had faded, and he could tell that this was the section that hadn’t been maintained like the other areas…which of course made him suspicious and curious.
A large house with broken windows and a sagging door sat amid piles of debris. It appeared that this was the place unwanted remains were dumped. Old cars—many of them Hummers, Beamers, Mercedes, and SUVs—sat in what had been perfectly manicured, landscaped yards. Grass grew between them, invading flagstone pathways. Untrimmed bushes had long overtaken the flower beds, merging into large, long clumps of growth.
But the sense of abandonment
only intrigued Simon even more. And when he heard a faint sound…a human sound…he knew he was right.
Remaining visible, saving his energy for when he needed it, he slinked around the outside of the nearest of the decrepit mansions. It was also, he noticed, the closest building to the protective wall that encircled the settlement, on the opposite side of the former golf course and current farmland. A large pile of more junk and waste sat beyond, on the north side of the wall.
From the front, it appeared dark and forbidding. Simon was certain the children and women were told to stay away because it was dangerous and uninhabitable. He got closer, using the abundance of overgrowth as his shield, and made his way around to the back.
The grasses were tall enough to brush his waist in places, and even at the rear, it was unkempt. But Simon could see where someone or something had passed through—the grass was flattened in places, leading to the rear door.
A patio had once stood there, probably equipped with a built-in stone grill—but now, he saw little but rubble and the broken away half-wall enclosure. Simon drew closer, listening, knowing there was someone in the house. What was the best way in?
Then he heard voices. Simon ducked automatically behind a bush. Two men appeared, and he realized that they were guards, patrolling the area. They looked around, and as soon as they passed by, Simon went over to the sliding door that had led to the patio from inside. It wouldn’t slide, so he moved on.
At last he found a small side door that opened with a minimum of fuss. Hidden behind a massively overgrown rhododendron, the door would have been easily overlooked. But from the way the backside branches of the bush were bent, and a few imprints in the dirt, he knew this was the regular entrance.
Inside the house, Simon found that it was not at all as decrepit as it appeared from the exterior—which was no surprise to him. At first glance, it seemed merely empty and uncluttered, but he saw that there was little dust and no stray plants or growth like he was used to seeing in ghost-town homes. A few small rodent and bird nests decorated the corners—likely to give the sense of abandonment realism, but the space was definitely not unused.