MEMORIAM

by Rachel Broom

  “You’re limping. You hurt your ankle, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. We need to keep going, though. We can’t stop now.”

  There were shouts behind us. The paralyzing truth that I would never make it out alive hit me. Sam was dead and I was as good as dead, too. James was the only one left. I fell on my knees, pain shooting up my calf.

  I groaned. “Latch on around my neck. Wrap your legs around my waist.”

  The burning sensation in my ankle was too much. I started crawling as fast as I could, dragging my broken ankle through the grass as I listened for hunters. When we reached the tall grass by the edge of the forest I pulled James off and grabbed his face. “I need you to run.”

  James shook his head. “Not without you.”

  “You need to run and leave me here. You can’t come back for me. Not for anyone. You need to leave.”

  James started to cry. “You promised you’d never leave me.”

  “I-I know,” I stuttered. “But I’ll come for you. We need to split up first, okay? Do you remember Hide-and-Seek? The game Mother taught you?”

  James nodded.

  “We are going to play that. I need you to run and hide. Do you know Jaxton? The town down South on The Rim? Go there and wait for me. There are people who will help me find you. Can you do that?”

  “Do you promise you’ll come and find me?” James asked.

  “Cross my heart.” I kissed his forehead. “I love you. Don’t you ever forget that.” I ran a hand through his hair. A pang shot through me and I bit the inside of my cheek. “Go on. Don’t come back. I will come and find you.”

  James threw his arms around my neck and buried his face in my shoulder. I didn’t want to let go. Eight years ago when my mother decided she wanted a second child, the government rejected her request. They said her body was too old to carry another child and thought it best to let someone else carry the child for her. She refused and fought back. Nine months later she had James, a little miracle. Our age gap was so large that he could have been my child, but as James grew, so did my love for him. I felt sick letting him go.

  His little arms pulled back from my neck and he took off running through the grass, the slithering sound dissolving as he vanished. I reached in my back pocket for the klave but it wasn’t there. It must have fallen out while I was crawling. I took a deep breath, steadying my heartbeat. Stay calm, Vi. You’ll be okay.

  I glanced around the meadow. That’s when I saw her, a hunter standing at the edge of the grass field, watching me. I wondered if she saw James run. Please say she didn’t see James. Please God. I managed to get to my feet. The woman raised her gun and pointed at me. All I could think was run. I stepped over a log and ducked as I heard the gun fire, then picked up the pace, clenching my jaw with every step. I reached the tree line and sidestepped a low hanging branch, keeping an eye out for James. There was another loud BANG and I grimaced, my head spinning.

  I stopped running. My body couldn’t stand straight anymore; the world was tilting right and hunters were all around me, staring at me sideways. One came closer and I noticed the glint of a knife, then a sharp pain in my side. All sound vanished. Someone was screaming…was it me? Everything was muffled.

  “Trent will do it.”

  I smelled rust. I coughed, spraying the man in front of me with blood. His hand struck my face, sending a burning sensation through my cheek. A numb feeling tugged at my chest near my lungs. My heart felt like it was being compressed into glass, heated then beaten.

  I shot my fist out, hitting a mouth, then swinging again and hitting the man’s stomach. It was hard to see. I swung again and heard the man grunt. Something hard hit my stomach and I fell on my back.

  “We don’t need to kill her.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to live,” the man who hit me said. My vision cleared and I noticed the large scar on his face. The man on my right who was defending me had a large build and dark furrowed eyebrows.

  “She does just as much as we do.” Why was this man defending me?

  “She won’t survive!” the man with the scar argued.

  “Severin, listen to Trent.” There was another voice speaking.

  “Don’t tell me what to do, old man! We don’t have the option of choosing. We kill. Do it now, Trent.”

  “No.”

  This, I thought to myself, is what it feels like to die. Inside my heart was attacking my body and my lungs were collapsing. It worsened when Sam’s face materialized in my mind. The way he looked at me before I jumped the wall made me go cold. Guilt washed over me. I had left him there to die.

  People claim that the worst pain in the world isn’t dying, but watching someone you love die. Sam’s limp body replayed itself in my head and I covered my trembling mouth. I’m sorry.

  Incomparable loss – of Sam, and James, and the future I would never have with them – hit me. I sobbed, my shoulders shaking.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  My jumpsuit was soaked through with blood.

  “Let’s take her back. She might make it,” the man with the large build said.

  “She’s lost too much blood.”

  “I think that if you keep standing here debating it then she will die regardless of what you want.” A taller woman with jet black hair came into focus. I blinked several times and counted the hunters surrounding me. There were five.

  “Don’t take me back,” I said. The idea of going back into the base was worse than death at this point. I wouldn’t live without Sam.

  “Let me die,” I croaked. Nothing focused anymore. I breathed maniacally. My hearing started to fade again. The forest was silent. Then I heard it: a song playing in my ear, growing louder and louder. My eyes welled up and my heart pumped faster. The song was blaring in my ears now. I shut my eyes and saw Sam.

  It wasn’t the Sam I knew now, though. It was the Sam I knew from two years ago when I first met him. His face was younger. We were dancing, swaying back and forth. He began to hum. It was the first time he told me he loved me. We were alone in his room and it was late.

  I couldn’t control my sobs. It felt like I was underwater. Sam’s voice kept humming. “Baby, I wrote you in a song…” He pulled me close and rested his mouth next to my ear. I felt the corners of his mouth tickle my neck. “…to tell you,” he breathed in my ear, humming softly, the subtle purr of his chest vibrating against mine, “…I love you.” Our hearts beat as one, and when he gazed into my eyes I knew I was in love with him, too.

  I was losing it. I was leaving, dying. My heartbeat pounded in my ears until the song faded and my breath slowed down to almost nothing. Then everything went black.

  Two weeks later.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Today is her last round of treatments.”

  “Mm.”

  Bronte’s eyes flashed at Sam from under her curtain of satin red hair. He noticed it but said nothing. Bronte had been prying where she did not belong. She had been asking about Violet for the past week, but Sam kept quiet. What happened that morning out by the wall would be forever in his memory. After he was shot by a skryer he was paralyzed. Following hours of surgery, the klave in Sam’s shoulder was removed and his body freed of poison. Some people called it a blessing that the Head chose to spare Sam’s life, but Sam was not convinced. From what he could tell, his life had turned into a personal hell.

  When Sam had first seen Violet rolled into the healing center on a stretcher he was stunned. A crisp white sheet, fresh from the laundry division, covered her body. Sam had expected her to be dead when he pulled back the sheet but she still had a heartbeat. It was almost gone, but not yet.

  “What’s the hold up?” one of the hunters had snapped. Sam had struggled to pull his attention away from Violet’s broken body to Trent.

  “Well?”

  “Nothing.” Sam looked back down at Violet. “Nothing.”

  Sam knew Trent was one of the extreme hunters but had known no more than that.
It was pointless to ask Trent about what had happened to Violet; everything that happened amongst the hunters never left their mouths. They were as mysterious as the Head who took over Rinfero.

  Sam kept hoping Vi would wake up and see that he was still alive, but she didn’t. After an hour and a half of silence she was wheeled away, and he hadn’t seen her since. He’d heard things from Bronte or the other healers about her having a ‘disobedience’ injury, but he did not know what they meant by that. Most of the healers who talked about disobedience injuries were more experienced than him and dealt with a selective group of patients.

  “Pately!”

  “Yeah?” Sam turned around. Plantarch, a regular who came in to deal with disobedience injuries, was striding down the isle of the healing center, a memory disc in his hand.

  “I hear you had a….slip-up…of sorts last week.”

  “I didn’t know the base wanted news like that spread around,” Sam replied, staring intentionally at the wall behind Plantarch.

  “Well all they’ve said is they have a surprise to remind you never to do it again. Keep in mind I’m only the messenger.” Plantarch turned around and waved his hand. A stretcher rolled in, carrying a figure Sam knew all too well. His heart pounded. Plantarch stepped over next to Sam. “Apparently they were waiting for the right punishment.” A healer pulled the sheet back and there on the stretcher was Violet. Her skin was blotchy and dark green circles lay under her eyes. Her body looked crippled and broken.

  “Is she alive?” he asked, half ready to scream. He ran a hand through his hair, facing Plantarch. “Is. She. Alive?”

  “I’m sorry, Pately. Her memories have been…tampered with. There are certain things she won’t remember.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  “I told you, I’m just the messenger…”

  “TELL ME!”

  Plantarch was frozen next to the stretcher. Sam’s insides twisted. He needed to know the truth about what had happened to his fiancé, even if it killed him.

  “I don’t know,” Plantarch said.

  “Liar.” Sam lunged for him. They collided with the stretcher and hit the ground, Sam rolling over as Plantarch’s hand vanished into his pocket and came back out with a klave. He pointed it at Sam.

  “You make one move and I’ll shoot. You won’t get another second chance.”

  There was a noise and Sam scrambled to his feet, standing over the stretcher. Violet was stirring.

  Plantarch got to his feet and dusted off his jumpsuit. “I’ll return when the process is complete.”

  “Process…”

  Bronte came out the back room.

  “What the hell is he talking about?” Sam asked Bronte.

  Violet opened her eyes. Sam smiled in relief and reached for her hand. Violet flinched and pulled it away.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel weak. Like a hole’s been punched through my chest.”

  Sam chuckled. “Same way I feel.”

  Violet’s eyebrows knitted together. “Did the same thing happen to you, too?”

  “No, I thought you were…you were talking about us?” His voice grew quiet. Sam felt sick. Now he knew what Plantarch was talking about.

  “What do you mean, us?’”

  Sam shook his head. “No. He can’t do this.” He pointed at Bronte. “He can’t do this. He can’t…” Sam punched the empty bed beside him. “This cannot be happening.”

  “Is he okay?” Violet asked Bronte.

  “You know what’s wrong, Violet! Say my name! Please say my name!” Sam’s mind was racing. Did she know who he was at all?

  “Is this some kind of joke?” she asked.

  “Please just say it,” Sam croaked. He leaned across the stretcher and stroked Violet’s face, thinking that if he could trigger her memory then she’d remember him. Violet gave Sam a hard shove. He stumbled back.

  “What are you doing? I don’t even know you.”

  All emotion left Sam’s body. He stared into Violet’s hazel eyes and saw nothing. No spark, no passion, no love. He’d never seen her eyes empty like this. “What did they do to you?” he asked.

  Bronte passed Sam and wheeled up a tray with an intoxicator. Violet was still staring at Sam when Bronte opened Violet’s mouth and rested the intoxicator between her teeth. Within seconds Violet slumped back down onto the stretcher. Bronte ignored Sam as she bustled around Violet, placing sensors on her body so she could track her vitals through a memory disc. Sam rubbed his forehead, taking deep breaths. Violet’s memory is gone. She can’t remember me. He kept repeating it. The sensor connected to Violet’s chest began to beep, pushing her chest up and then back down. Her left hand twitched. Bronte came around the stretcher and sat down next to Sam, passing him a memory disc.

  “They want you to sign it.”

  He stared straight ahead.

  “Sam.”

  “They want me to prove that she doesn’t know who I am. They want to humiliate me.” He rested his head in his hands. “They took her away from me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Sam took the disc from Bronte and held his hand above it, waiting for his print to be processed. It beeped. He handed it back to Bronte.

  When Sam and Violet were first put into the base together, Violet was often pulled out of her bed by skryers in the middle of the night and beaten, sometimes whipped. She began having nightmares, so she’d sneak from her tube and visit Sam in his quarters, staying for hours on end to lie in the silence.

  Sam pulled a chair over to Vi’s side and sat down, surveying her wounds. He touched her fingertips, flipping her hand on its backside to trace the lines in her palm. Her eyelids quivered but she stayed asleep. He wondered what she was thinking of. Countless times he had asked her what she was thinking and she never replied. Half the time when she did reply he knew it was a lie. He wondered if his talk of marriage scared her. She never seemed to share her true opinion when he asked.

  Sam reached down in his shoe, removing his heel and pulling out a ring. A string of olive leaves were etched out of murkwood, synthetic wood material, with silver ridges along the border. Sam had known Violet was the one back when they slow-danced in his room. He’d waited forever to give the ring to her.

  Even if Violet didn’t remember him, he loved her. Her freckles that covered her face and her hazel eyes that widened when she got excited were what made Sam fall for her. He loved her silent laugh and the way she mumbled nonsense when she was tired. He would kill for her eyes to light up like that one more time.

  Bronte peeled the sensors off Violet’s wrist.

  “Her treatment’s finished. Can you please remove her intoxicator?”

  Sam’s hands shook as his fingers brushed against Vi’s lips. He gently slid the intoxicator out from between her teeth, lifting her chin slightly as he pulled.

  He had only minutes before she would wake. Sam picked up the ring sitting on the edge of the bed and slipped it back in his shoe, then stood and crossed over to Vi’s side, stroking her forehead. He bent down, kissed her temple, then closed his eyes. “Please try and remember ‘us,’ Vi. Remember what we were, who you were. Who you are.”

  He watched as her chest lifted and her eyes fluttered open once more.

  ***

  I opened my eyes to see a healer standing over me. Bronte, a healer who I did recognize, was by my feet. She had always been friendly to me when she came by the kitchen division for routine injury check-ups.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You had a moderate brain injury – a concussion, to be exact. It was out by the tubes last week.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Most patients who suffer a head trauma such as yourself don’t.” Bronte pursed her lips. “You’ll make a full recovery, though.” She came over and rested her hand on my back, sitting me up. “Someone will be with you shortly to give you your assignment.�
��

  “Assignment? I already have one. I work in the kitchens. Why am I getting reassigned?” I asked the other healer.

  The healer had a strange expression. He said nothing but turned, gathering the blanket off my stretcher. I studied his face. He looked familiar but I couldn’t recall where I had seen him before.

  I crossed my legs and held my hands together as if in prayer. I knew that was the Pax in me because the Trux would never think to pray. My worn grey shoes skimmed the ground as I swung my legs back and forth.

  I heard the doors swoosh and saw a man, whose scalp was shaved along the sides, come through the door. I wondered if he had the Pax symbol on his wrist like me. He wore a black jumpsuit with a black band on his upper left arm. Most of us wore dark grey jumpsuits and were given a colored band so skryers could easily identify what division we were in. I didn’t recognize the black band the man wore.

  “Plantarch.” Bronte greeted him. He acknowledged her then turned his attention to me.

  “You’re Violet Hansen?”

  “Yes.”

  “It appears you’ve been reassigned to hunter.”

  The healer shook his head and rested it against the bars of the stretcher. My eyes stung and my throat tightened.

  “A hunter?”

  Plantarch nodded. “We’ll need to do one more procedure to complete the process.”

  “Why was she assigned to this?” the healer asked Plantarch.

  “I do not make the decisions, Pately. It is the Head’s choice when it comes to hunters.”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “We are the Head’s last concern. He wouldn’t care whether I was a hunter or not.”

  “Don’t, it’s not worth arguing over,” the healer said.

  “You should feel lucky,” Plantarch said. “Hardly anyone rises from the rank.” I knew he was talking about me, and that I came from the bottom. Most of us did. Just one look at the tubes would tell you all you needed to know about these bases. If we didn’t die from starvation, we would die from the skryers. They showed no mercy and found any excuse to whip you. It was hard to believe that skryers were once Pax who’d been taken and brainwashed. I didn’t want to think of how many people who had died in this place because of skryers. It made me sick.