by Amy Braun
Not everyone did.
The gangs started operating only a week after the Centennial, long enough for them to re-gather, stake out territory, and plot their schemes. We knew they were back in action because of the graffiti and marks left on certain buildings in downtown Lantana. The police tried to shut them down when they could, but they were too short-staffed. The Missing Boards were growing larger, the rescue workers needing every hand they could take to help dig out the thousands of people still trapped in their basements. With so many citizens working to get the town back on its legs, there was only so much volunteering the rest of us could do. Like it or not– and out here, alone in the dark, I definitely did not– the gangs were allowed to be out in full force.
My free hand went to my back where Mystery Man’s dagger was looped through my belt. I could feel the hard steel through the cloth wrap against my skin. I took a self-defense course once, but I was no Rhonda Rousey. I would be useless in a fight. I didn’t even know if I had the stomach to hurt someone with a knife if they attacked me. Maybe I could threaten them, but I seriously doubted I would intimidate anyone with my hundred and ten pound, five-foot-two frame, let alone a hardened gangster.
I quickened my pace, not wanting to gain any attention. I’d already done a great job of avoiding it, and had every intention of keeping the streak going. I was over halfway home, so I just had to–
Glass and wood shattered ahead of me. I skidded to a stop. More excited shouts filtered out of the darkness. They sounded like they were around the corner. So much for a straight shot home. Time to take a detour.
I glanced over my shoulder, and watched my luck plummet even deeper into a black hole of awfulness.
Two men were behind me in the darkness. My flashlight produced a small beam, but it was enough to be seen in the dark.
I didn’t know where they materialized from or if they were following me at all, but with the way my day had been going, I was happy to assume the worst.
I made a quick left turn and hurried down the street. I looked over my shoulder to see if the shadowy guys were still walking ahead.
They weren’t. They’d turned down the street and were coming after me.
My pulse sped up. The men moved with purpose, gaining distance on me. I had no what they wanted, if they wanted to rob me or worse. I wasn’t going to stop and ask either.
I threw my hair over my shoulder to see how much closer they had gotten.
The answer was: very.
I had maybe twenty feet before they snatched me up. My chest was so constricted from panic that my breath was coming in jumpy bursts, like I was going to choke on it at any second.
My hand was clenched around the flashlight so hard I was sure I would crush it. I glanced left and right, wondering if there was somewhere I could hide, because there was no way I could defend myself.
The words from Mystery Man’s scrawled note crept into my mind.
Keep it. Protect yourself.
Yeah. Sure. Easy enough, right? Just pull a daring defense against two full grown men. Nothing would go wrong there.
Nothing like say, getting beaten to death and left in the middle of the street to be pickpocketed before being dumped in one of the swelling graveyards for those who weren’t so lucky to survive the Centennial.
My mind raced, scrambling for even the semblance of a plan. It didn’t have to be a good plan. At this point, I just wanted something to keep me alive.
The worst part was that they weren’t saying anything to me. No catcalls or hollers. They acted as if I hadn’t seen them, when they must have known otherwise. They moved with a cold, sharp precision, similar to the way Mystery Man moved when he’d come into the restaurant.
Where are you now, Mystery Man? Why can’t you be here to protect me?
The fantastical thought had barely left my mind when I heard wood beams splash and clatter onto the wet street. The men behind me cursed. I didn’t stop to see if they were going to follow me, didn’t even turn around to see what had caused the noise. I followed the single instinct that seemed to be spoken by Mystery Man himself.
Run.
I bolted like the Devil himself was on my heels, pumping my legs so fast and so hard I thought I would shatter something. I turned around the nearest slump of ruined houses, snapping off my flashlight and hiding from view. The sudden dark sent a spike of fear into my heart. I stood in place, shaking and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the anemic moonlight spilling over the streets. Down the street from where I’d run, I could hear the sounds of a fistfight.
Wanting to know how much time I’d bought myself, and partly curious about how a fight had broken out, I crouched and peered around the pile of ruined housing.
All I could see were shadows, but the two guys who’d followed me were fighting against a third. They were good. Really good.
But they weren’t better than the third guy.
He ducked under a sweeping kick and snapped back to his feet, punching his fist into the kicking-man’s chest. He whipped his other fist across my second follower’s jaw, sending him spinning. The third man barely let his attackers touch him, moving like water. Violent, uncontrollable, powerful water.
I wondered who he was, and where he had come from.
Instinct took me over again.
Run.
Part of me wished I were brave enough to march out into the street and help my savior, but odds were that I would just distract him. Besides, if the sudden sweeping kick he gave to the man on his left was any indication, he could take care of himself.
Thanks, Mystery Guy, I thought, making the distinction between him and Mystery Man.
I turned around and fumbled through the dark, jogging blindly for a couple minutes until the sounds of the fight had faded from my ears. Only then did I turn on the flashlight, slow my pace, and think about three questions that would nag me for the rest of the night:
Who were the people following me?
Who was the man that saved me?
And how the hell did I get onto Pine Street?
Chapter 4
Since I made it “home” safely about thirty minutes later– I totally took a wrong turn near the end, thanks to my skittish nerves on seeing that fight– I thought the night wouldn’t get any worse.
“Home” for my family and me was now Park Vista Community High school, the place I had tried to escape to. It was a volunteer and SPU facility that held three thousand survivors alone, not including the fifty nurses, supply distributors, and SPU guards to keep pandemonium and panic to a minimum. We all slept in sleeping bags in classrooms and hallways, since the gym had been converted into a guarded supply and medical station where hungry and moaning wounded could be secluded from the rest of us who were newly homeless.
I made it to the school as stormy clouds began to form overhead, folding over the moonlight. Nobody was looking forward to a rainstorm so soon after the Centennial, but it wasn’t like we had a choice in the matter. Mom was a mess with worry, bundling me in a spare blanket and all but spoon-feeding me the stew from the cafeteria. I wasn’t cold and not hungry thanks to my little adventure on the walk home, but she was being a mom, so I let her fuss over me.
After telling her, Dad, and James what happened– though I decided to skip on the details of the fight, since I didn’t want them to worry and working at the restaurant gave me something to do– I looked for Piper. I had seen her a couple times at the school, but we hadn’t talked much. She was worried about her dad’s leg and had been snappier than I was used to. Something was going on with her, and she wouldn’t tell me about it.
That also meant I couldn’t tell her what was happening to me, and I needed to tell someone. I was missing a week of my life and apparently being stalked by creepy guys in the shadows. I couldn’t have that. Not with the piece of memory I did have before that blank week.
The memory that wouldn’t leave me alone, not even when I finally dropped onto my sleeping bag in the hallway and found sleep…
>
Pain. Four simple letters, one little word. It didn’t even sound that threatening, really, and it certainly didn’t encompass the depth of what he’d put me through.
Every hour, every minute, every second was torture. Detailed and intimate. A bone-deep anguish that stripped me down to the marrow.
I didn’t know where I was. The ground was hard and unforgiving, just like every other surface I’d lain on for… however long I had been here. My body was soaked and beaten, like I’d been drowned and pummeled with an inch of my life.
For all I knew, I had been.
“Fascinating,” a hoarse voice said. “She survived the torrent. I did not believe she was so strong.”
“Nor did I,” he said. Him. The man who did this to me. The man who stabbed me with a crystal blade in the middle of a hurricane. “She is a last resort, but she has proven far more industrious than my other targets. Let us see if she can withstand the other trials.”
I opened my mouth to beg, scream, anything, but something sharp touched my chest and the torture began again.
Frigid water replaced my blood, ice wrapped around my bones like glacial fingers. Frost glued to my lungs and throat, make each breath brittle and short. My heart thudded heavily against my chilled ribs, each beat threatening to crack the bones under my skin. Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes and hardened on my skin.
“It seems we have success on the second trial,” he remarked. “Truly remarkable.”
The intensity of the pain dulled, but I still felt its cold burn throbbing in tune with my heart.
“What are you going to try next?” the hoarse voice asked.
“Well, since you have inquired about it so reverently, I think we shall witness how she endures the transition from frost to cinders.”
The switch was so immediate I almost blacked out. My skin tightened, all moisture leeched away until my flesh cracked. The water in my veins evaporated, making my blood thin and shallow. The frost in my lungs gave way to a choking dust that turned my throat to sandpaper. My eyes were as dry as my skin, swollen and burning. I gasped for oxygen, but it tasted like ash against my inflamed tongue.
I wanted to cry, but the tears dried up behind my eyelids. I felt like I was a brittle branch, about to be snapped in half under one unforgiving boot.
“Does this appease you?” he asked.
There was a pause. They were considering me, but I couldn’t see them. The men hovering above me were faceless shadows in a dark room.
“It suffices,” replied the hoarse-voiced man in a bored tone.
For whatever reason, those were the words that broke me. They weren’t even spoken by him, the man who’d stabbed me and took me to those places to do things to me. Things I couldn’t even comprehend, because it wasn’t torture by the definition I knew. It wasn’t a beating or a drowning or electrocution. It was something else. Something otherworldly, and a thousand times more perverse.
And I was sufficient for it.
“Please,” I begged when the pain in my throat eased enough for me to speak again. “Please… Stop.”
I felt their eyes on me, judging and scrutinizing.
Condemning.
“‘Please stop’, she says,” repeated the man with the broken voice. “As if she thinks this is something to fear. As if she forgets that pain is part of her mortal condition. As if she does not realize it is the lone universal truth–”
“Silence.”
Another small word. A line that carried unquestioning authority, as universal as the pain they thought I could tolerate.
I felt him lean down by my head, his rough, callused hand scratching my forehead and moving my hair from my face.
“You are afraid,” he crooned. “I understand. Humans are accustomed to fear, the same as they are accustomed to pain. But you must not fear, precious girl, because you will become more than them. You are the first. You will be the first of many.”
I shivered, from the cold knot of fear in my chest or the promise of his words, I didn’t know.
Then he was towering over me again the way a king towers over his starving subjects.
“There is only one more test, precious girl. And I fear it is the hardest.”
He gave me no other warning. No chance to beg for anything. Not even death. There was only a split second between me and the eruption of pain that ripped through my heart.
It spread like wildfire, snapping my muscles tight against my bones. My skin twisted and tightened, like it was being pulled off by invisible hooks. My lungs ballooned, as if they contained the aftershocks of an explosion. My head spun like a tornado, trashing against the inside of my skull. Everything inside me felt like it was being vacuumed out, pulled and squeezed until I was sure the flesh would rip from my bones.
Then the churning in my stomach started, a blazing wave that twisted my belly into knots. The pressure swelled and rose, creaking my ribs until it reached my heart.
Then it plunged in, and I felt my heart explode–
Water slipped into my mouth, gagging my scream.
I snapped my eyes open and pushed myself up. Water sloshed around my wrists. The sleeping bag was completely submerged and the entire front of my body was soaked. I sat on my heels, erasing the last of the nightmare to take in the chaos around me.
The entire floor was flooded. Rainwater rushed in from the front doors in crushing waves, a torrent so strong it was taking four men per door to close them.
I got to my feet and looked for James and my parents–
“Ava!”
I whirled when I heard my little brother’s strangled cry. He was standing about ten feet away from me, clutching his chest while scared tears lined his cheeks. I raced through the hallway, kicking up water and gathering him in my arms. His chest bumped rapidly against mine, his breath strained and shallow in my ear. I rubbed my hand up and down his back, whispering in his ear.
“It’s okay, you’re okay, just breathe kiddo, just breathe.”
“You–” he gasped raggedly, “screamed.”
I faltered. This was the first time I noticed the ache in my throat. I knew I had been screaming in my dream, but I had no idea I’d done the same thing in real life.
“You have your inhaler?” I asked James, backing against the wall. Around me, the survivors yelled for help, directions, and loved ones. No one was ready for or wanted to endure another catastrophe so soon after the last one.
James shifted awkwardly in my arms. He struggled to match my breathing and dig out the plastic bag that held his inhaler. I helped him open the bag and took it out, placing it against his lips. I pushed the button down and felt him jump as the medication pushed into his lungs. He’d regained his breathing, but I could still feel him shaking.
Finally, I caught sight of my Dad. He was one of the men who managed to push the front doors closed. He all but ran over to us.
“You two okay?” he asked, placing one hand on my back before taking James from me.
“Yeah,” I replied, though it tasted like a lie. “What happened?”
Dad shook his head. “No idea. You started having some kind of spasm. I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t. It started to pour outside and then you just... You screamed this horrible scream, and the doors broke open...”
I heard every word he said. Watched different emotions play across his face. Strength became concern, turned to fear, and then confusion.
That was when I realized I was shaking. Crying.
Behind my father, the men pushed against the door to brace it.
Dad gently put James down and wrapped me in an embrace. I shuddered against him, needing his comfort. Dad’s smell was wet and his clothes were cold, but I was able to feel past it and draw comfort from him. He reminded me of the home I’d lost, the safety I’d known.
It took longer than I wanted to admit, but eventually I calmed down and eased out of his arms. Across from us, the men cautiously stepped back from the doors. The flooding must have stopped. At l
east one crisis had been averted.
My father and brother didn’t notice the stilled waters. They only noticed me.
“What happened, Ava? Even as a child, you slept like a stone. What changed?”
A hitch grew in my throat. My body was calm, but my nerves had been shaken violently.
All I could do was tell the truth.
“I don’t know.”
***
Thankfully, no one was hurt in last night’s flash flood. Some of the rations were lost and everyone was soaked, but once the SPU gave the all clear, we were allowed to get back onto our soggy sleeping bags and regain our sleep.
Everyone but me, that is.
By the time I dragged my feet to work, I could barely stand on them. I was exhausted and traumatized, and lying to anyone who asked if I was okay. I managed to find some coffee in the kitchen (I can tell you right now that we all would have lost our minds if coffee had been lost in the Centennial), and three cups later, I was awake enough to pay attention to customer orders and make sure they were going to the right tables.
I also noticed that Mystery Man was back, and that he wasn’t in Carrie’s section this time. He was in mine, and it was too busy for her to steal him from me. Which meant I had to deal with him.
The dagger he left me was still wrapped in its cloth and hidden against the base of my spine. I’d meant to drop it off at a donation center– I really had– but after the stalkers last night, I couldn’t bear to give it away. Until I made up my mind about where it would finally go, I decided on keeping it.
It was a busy enough night that I hadn’t been able to go to his table more than a couple times to refill his water glass. I gave him the barest greeting and my weakest smile to be polite. All he did was glare at me.
Three hours later, Mystery Man was still in his corner, drinking water and scowling at me. Even worse, the caffeine was wearing off. I was starting to crash. Mental note– three cups of coffee means three times the debilitation later.