by David Estes
Flora will suffer, I promise myself. While gaping at the tiny arms of this brave little girl, I notice that it’s not only her hands that are damaged. Fierce red spots dot the inside of her forearms and in the crook of her elbows. They take some of my blood every day, she’d said. I swallow hard, trying to focus on a plan.
I’m too hungry to think. “What did you bring for us?” I ask.
“Hunger isn’t—” Bil Nez starts to say, but I cut him off.
“Then don’t eat.” He goes silent as Chloe picks up the makeshift timber tray.
“They’re better if you close your eyes and swallow them whole,” she says.
“What are better?” I ask, peering at the bowl. Steaming, dark, oblong lumps fill the container to the brim.
“Don’t ask,” she says. “Close your eyes and open your mouth.”
The only thing that would make any of this more degrading is if she used the old ‘Here comes the airplane’ method. “Look, kid, just tell me what it is and I’ll let you feed me.”
“Slugs,” she says. My stomach squeezes into a fist as the smell hits me at the same time as her revelation.
“Nuh-uh. No thanks,” I say. I clamp my mouth shut.
The girl’s lip trembles. “You have to—she’ll punish me if you don’t eat.”
I close my eyes but I don’t open my mouth. This is crazy. Nuts. How am I even here? Bil-freaking-Nez, dammit.
“They’re not as bad as you think,” Chloe says. “I cooked them myself. She used to make me eat them when they were still alive and wriggling, but now she lets me cook them.” She makes it sound like a major victory, which, I guess it is given our current situation.
Keeping my eyes closed, I open my mouth and try not to scream as she shoves a spoonful of slimy, sticky, boiled slugs down my throat. Trying not to heave, I swallow thickly, pretending they’re nothing more than gummy bears.
Three seconds later, I throw up all over Chloe.
Chapter Sixteen
Rhett
When I poke my head out of the tent, the day is yawning and stretching, casting off the weariness of night. So much for a powernap. Which leaves…
Two days until the Shifters attack.
We’ve got work to do, but first I’ve got to find Laney. She’ll probably already be heading this way, but I should surprise her and meet her halfway.
She’s not at the perimeter.
She didn’t trade shifts.
No one’s seen her or Hex since yesterday morning.
My mind is blank, empty, like an unused whiteboard. She said she would keep the peace in Alliance. She said she would wait.
But when has Laney ever just waited around?
Stupid. I’ve been so stupid. I was so focused on the war with the Shifters that I totally missed what Laney was really telling me.
“Ow!” I exclaim when I run smack into something hard.
Mr. Jackson studies me under narrowed eyebrows. “I was standing still and you walked right into me,” he says. “What happened?” Xave’s just behind him, his eyebrows raised in curiosity. I must have looked like a crazy person, staring at my feet and muttering under my breath.
“Laney’s missing,” I say. “Hex too.”
“So is Bil Nez,” Mr. Jackson says.
“What? How do you know?” Why would he be looking for Bil?
Xave steps forward. “We’ve got a battle to plan,” he says. “As Resistors, you and Bil will be a major part of it. We have strategies to discuss.” It sounds so unlike Xave. A battle to plan? Strategies to discuss? Clearly he’s been spending too much time with his father.
“Not anymore,” I say. “I have to find Laney and Hex first. Bil, too.”
Mr. Jackson puts a hand on my shoulder. “Rhett, I know they mean a lot to you, but—”
I pull away. “‘A lot’ to me?” I shake my head. I shouldn’t have expected him to understand. After all, he’s the man who abandoned his own son to foster care. He’d probably sacrifice Xave in a heartbeat if it meant the success of his “master plan” for peace.
“We don’t have time for friends or love,” Mr. Jackson shouts as I stride away. “The whole world is depending on you.”
“Tell them I’m busy,” I say. “I’ll be back when I find them.”
But with each step I take, doubt gnaws in my stomach, like a beaver working its way through a fallen tree. What if it takes a week to find them? What if they’re already dead? I push down the latter thought to a place where I can’t see it, can’t feel it. They’re not dead. No. They’ve just decided to go for a little walk. But to where?
I ask around at The Exchange. No one remembers seeing them. And then I run into Gertie.
“Sure, I saw Laney yesterday,” she says. “She was looking for that creepy little mud troll. You know the one, right?”
“Grogg,” I say, my heart skipping a beat. Because I know where she’s gone and what she plans on doing once she’s there. And I guess Hex followed to protect her. Surprise, surprise. Perhaps he won’t need doggy obedience school, after all. Bil Nez is the only mystery. Why would he follow her? He’s always been enigmatic, but I wouldn’t take him for a stalker. He must have his reasons.
Gertie gives me the same information she gave Laney, and I make my way to the White House, where I find the muddy pillar where Laney must’ve found Grogg and talked my father into letting her come see him. For a fleeting second, anger builds in my chest at my father. He had no right to draw Laney away from me. No right at all. If he had something to tell me he could’ve told it through Grogg. And if he had something to give me, I could’ve sent anyone to collect it. Not Laney. Not Hex.
The anger doesn’t last, as if it’s a house built on a foundation of toothpicks, collapsing under its own weight. I slump beside the pillar, deciding what to do. I can’t follow her, because if she leads me to my father, it could kill him. The damn curse. But what if she never made it to my father? What if by not looking for Laney I’m condemning her to a slow death at the hands of some evil magic-born? What if Flora—I swallow the knot in my throat—finds her first?
I’m torn in half. I’m in love with Laney, that much I know. I can’t—I can’t—lose someone else I love. I’ve barely even met my father and can’t pretend to love him. But still. He’s my father, and all signs point to him being a good man. A good man who I can’t go near. But that doesn’t mean I should speed his certain death along.
I know what Laney’s doing. I should trust her. For all I know, she might be working on a solution to his curse right now. For all I know she might’ve already removed it. She’s smart and she’s a doer and she doesn’t like to lose. She could be on her way back already, dragging my uncursed father behind her.
Everyone needs a bit of false hope sometimes, I think, as Mr. Jackson and Xave appear in the distance, slowly making their way toward me.
“Well,” Mr. Jackson says as they walk up.
“That’s a deep thought,” I say.
Xave smirks. It’s the sort of silliness that used to be so common between us. “Did you figure out where Laney is?”
“Yeah,” I say. I tell them everything.
“Your father will die if you get too close,” Mr. Jackson says.
“You think I don’t know that!” I say, raising my voice. I quickly lower my head in shame. “Sorry,” I mumble. They’re only here to help, even if I know I won’t like Mr. Jackson’s advice.
“This is your choice to make, Rhett,” he says. I look up, surprised. Mr. Jackson has never been the type to suggest. Even his suggestions sound like commands. But in this case he sounds like he’s giving me free reign to decide what to do. I feel an icy twist of fear in my gut. Despite all evidence to the contrary, in my heart I just want him to tell me what to do, like he used to. Following orders is easier than creating your own destiny, but will leave you empty and wanting.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
Mr. Jackson gazes across the White House lawn, where the Claires are
sitting in the unnaturally verdant grass, eating breakfast, talking, and laughing. How can they be so happy when the whole world is so sad?
After a few minutes of watching the Claires, Mr. Jackson clears his throat and says, “Sometimes the easiest thing is to keep moving, to keep busy, to act and react. But sometimes what you need to do is just stay still. That’s the hardest of all.”
With his cryptic advice given, he leaves, his long strides carrying him away too fast.
Xave slumps down beside me. “Take it from me,” he says. “Not everything he says makes sense.”
Despite the awfulness of the situation I find myself in, I laugh. Up until this point, I haven’t heard Xave speak negatively about his father, even as a joke. He’s been practically worshipping him, as if making up for lost time. “I think he did make sense this time,” I say.
Xave looks at me with the same warm, brown eyes he’s had since the day I met him in foster care. “I think so too,” he says.
“So I stay here,” I say. “I don’t go after Laney. I trust her and Hex and Bil, and I take care of my own responsibilities.” I’m not sure if it’s a promise or a question.
Xave shrugs. “If you’re not here, the humans and the magic-born will likely kill each other.”
I would laugh, but it’s not a joke. It’s the dead truth. But I sense there’s more to his words than just a guess. Something I missed earlier. “You and your dad were looking for me this morning, weren’t you?” He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “And don’t give me any of that making plans and strategies BS.”
His face twitches like it always does when I catch him in a lie. “Yes,” he says. “We were looking for you. There’s a slight problem.”
“How slight?” I say, my eyes narrowing.
“Not really slight at all,” he says. His voice rises. “It’s a big freaking problem.”
What else could go wrong? “Just tell me,” I say.
“There’s a new group here,” he starts.
The magic-born don’t have new ‘groups.’ The lines around their gangs are based on magical abilities and are seemingly as ancient as time itself. “Humans,” I say.
Xave nods firmly. “They’re calling themselves Antithesis.”
“Opposite?” I say. “Opposite to what?”
“To you,” he says. “To us. To everything we’re trying to achieve. Their leader is a twenty-three-year-old who speaks like a preacher. Fancy words that suck you in and give you hope.”
“Hope is good,” I say. “We need more hope.”
“Yeah, but his hope is that there’s a safer place up north. He’s trying to convince as many people as possible to leave Alliance immediately.”
“There is no safer place than here,” I say. “Their only hope is with some of the magic-born on their side.”
“Maybe you should tell them that,” Xave says.
I shake my head. “We can’t go chasing every enigmatic nutbag who wants to leave. It’s his right to go if he wants. We need to get ready for the Shifter attack. We have to defend everyone else.”
“You’re not understanding me,” Xave says. “This isn’t a small movement. He’s been rounding up support in secret, but apparently yesterday when we were hunting Shifters, he went public. No one’s arguing with him. Almost everyone is packing up and getting ready to leave.”
Oh no. In my haste to find information on Laney’s whereabouts, I barely noticed all the activity at The Exchange. I thought the sellers were setting up for the day, but now that I think about it, they were clearly pulling everything down, packing up crates and barrels and boxes.
“Show me,” I say.
~~~
Although he’s young, he looks every bit like a thirty-something-year-old man. Like a politician, with a flawless white smile, well-groomed dark hair, and a stubble-free face. He’s even wearing a neatly pressed button-down shirt and khaki pants, as if he’s heading to some office job and not trying to survive a world where you could be eaten by a shape-shifting lion at any moment. I recognize him immediately—the young man who spoke for the humans after I ordered that the murderers were to be imprisoned until a trial could be held. According to Xave, his name’s Cameron Hardy.
And the words he’s spouting almost make me wish I could turn into a lion and eat him.
“My friends and fellow humans,” he says, his arms outstretched in a grandiose fashion. “The time. Is. Now!” He speaks slowly, enunciating each word as if it’s the most important word in the sentence. The gathered crowd leans in, their collective body language clearly demonstrating their interest.
“We are at a crossroads and it’s time to act. We’ve allowed ourselves to be fooled by the magic-born, to be used by a false president, to be led like lambs to the slaughter. But I say to you that all”—pause—“is”—pause—“not”—pause—“lost.” People are nodding fervently. A few even shout “Yeah!”
“I know you’re scared, that the world outside our perimeter seems dangerous—and it is—but the true danger lies inside our very walls. The magic-born may act like our friends now, but they’ve done this before, and then they killed our soldiers, our brave men and women who protected us for so very long. They say to ‘trust us,’ but I say to trust yourselves. I’m asking you to trust me! Antithesis is the way forward!” A roar goes up as people echo the chant of “Antithesis!” and the politician smiles broadly, soaking it in.
I remember when I spoke to a small fraction of the humans. They didn’t cheer. They heckled and walked away, muttering curses under their breath. The fear of rejection bubbles inside me, making me feel ill, but Xave shoves me forward from behind. “Go,” he says.
With each step I feel as if my legs will fail me, and more than once I stub my toe and nearly trip. It doesn’t help that the speech continues, seeming to intensify the closer I get. “Them!” he shouts, pointing toward the back of the crowd. I pause to swivel my head, seeing a group of Necros gathering behind the humans, drawn by the commotion. “They are the enemy! They want us to die so they can use our bodies for their dark magic. I ask you this: Is raising a corpse from the dead a good thing? No! It is the purest form of evil, as dark as the black hearts of those magic-born who carry out such heinous acts.”
“Kill them!” someone shouts, and the idea ripples through the crowd, the selfsame message being shouted several times. The humans do not look weak nor helpless. They look strong, but their strength is focused in the complete wrong direction.
The Necros back away, like a dark shadow retreating from a growing light. I only notice the Reaper because he’s moving opposite to his people, stepping forward while they move back, a fish swimming upstream. He steps between the humans and the Necros, looking so much smaller than usual on the empty patch of cement.
“We wish you no harm,” he says calmly.
“We’ve heard that from the magic-born before!” Cameron Hardy shouts. “And they killed us in return for our trust!”
“All we want is peace,” Mr. Jackson says. “Together we can defeat the Shifters and we’ll prove ourselves to you.”
Mr. Jackson is struggling, his words falling on deaf ears. Some of the bigger humans have shoved their way to the front, inching toward him, bearing clenched fists and threatening sneers. I can hardly blame the humans. They’ve been through so much, and I remember a time when I didn’t trust the Necros either. But now I do, with my entire soul.
I push forward, shouting, “Wait! Wait!”
The crowd gives way when they notice me, and fierce whispers of “The Resistor!” race along like a brushfire.
There’s no room for fear when I step between the humans and the Necros, and yet it’s still there, sucking my breath away, shaking my knees. They’ve rejected me already.
“This isn’t right,” I say. The crowd goes silent.
“Raising the dead isn’t right!” Cameron shouts, and the crowd agrees with a roar.
I shake my head. “I used to believe that, too, and it’s still
hard for me to understand. But the dead are gone already. Their souls aren’t with their bodies anymore, and they would want to help, even from the grave.”
“That’s sick!” Cameron shouts, and the crowd adds their agreement.
“Kill them! Kill them all!” the crowd roars.
The bruisers in the front move forward, some of them cradling crowbars and sticks. One of them even has a strange-looking gun, and I can tell by the purple barrel it’s one of Huckle’s magical ones.
“No!” I yell, desperation cracking my voice. “Please, listen!” No one listens, the mob charging like an angry bull.
That’s when I get bailed out by the very person I’m fighting against. Cameron Hardy raises his arms and shouts, “Stop!”
They stop instantly, like he’s pressed the pause button on some life-controlling remote. Like they’re the pawns on his own personal chessboard, available to be moved in whichever direction he chooses.
“There has been enough death,” he says. “We have to take the higher road. We are not like them.” He says ‘them’ like it’s a dirty word, pointing a single finger at Mr. Jackson. “We invite the Resistor to join us, but we will not force him. To the rest of you I ask: Will you follow me to a better place?”
The question is barely out of his mouth before every man, woman, and child, as one, answer “Yeah!” in a deafening cry surely heard throughout all of Alliance.
“We leave under the cover of night,” Cameron Hardy says. “But first we must hold a trial for our unlawfully detained brother and sister.” He steps down from his makeshift platform and walks away, the crowd following in his wake like a pack of dogs on a leash.