by Jasmine Walt
I go to grab my own pack, then sit down beside her. “You alright?”
She looks sidelong at me, then shrugs. Half a smile paints her face. “Yeah, just a headache.” She starts to pack water into her bag. “I’m used to it.”
“Happen a lot?” I grab a few cans of beans and water to shove into my own pack.
“Yeah.” She laughs darkly. “My sisters. They were loud in life, and even louder in death.”
I nod and don’t say anything. I don’t like this. Getting to know her. Her getting to know me. Even if we weren’t both set on a path to the other side, I just don’t know about her. I still think she’s nuts, but I also find her interesting.
I don’t like that I find her interesting.
I finish packing and stand up. Then, I head back across the room to pack my other shit. The last thing I grab is my journal. A wave of nausea crashes into the lining of my stomach. I clutch the book harder, then shove it into my bag.
I hoist it onto my back and start pacing the room. As I do, I can feel Kiwi’s eyes on me.
I don’t return her stare. Don’t want to have to guess at what she’s thinking. I have to focus. Focus on getting back to Sadie. Or at least having Kiwi get the cure back to her.
I’m not betting on getting back.
The roar of an engine interlaced with the squeal of tires grabs my attention. My eyes dart to the front door.
Seconds later, Juliet comes bounding down the steps. “That’s our transport. You two ready?”
We both nod. I trudge to the door to remove the furniture for the last time. When I open the door, the sun streams down into my face. Dust is being kicked up by what looks like a huge, black tank. I squint and use my hands to protect my eyes from the dust and sun.
“Who drove it here?” Kiwi asks from behind me.
“It’s remote controlled. Let’s move.” Juliet edges past me and heads straight for the tank. I glance back at Kiwi before following Juliet’s lead. I study her as she gets on the ground on her belly and scooches under the massive, armored vehicle.
“The fuck?”
Kiwi pushes past me and mirrors Juliet. I sigh and look up at the blistering sun before doing the same. As soon as I’m under the tank, I turn onto my back and find an entrance hatch. I climb up into it and am met by steel, seats with harnesses, and blinking lights.
There are two seats in front and a matching two in back. Juliet harnesses herself into the driver seat and punches in what looks like coordinates into a clear display on the control deck of the tank.
I have to duck to avoid hitting my head on the roof. Awkwardly, I twist off my backpack and toss it behind the two back seats. Then I sit and strap myself in. Kiwi opts to sit up front by Juliet.
That’s fine by me.
It isn’t until I’m seated and settled that I notice there is no wheel. Nothing that looks like it controls the vehicle. Yet, the monster on wheels lurches forward.
Juliet claps and turns around. “Our next stop will be at what used to be Oceana Air station. Last we heard, it was secure. From there we will travel to the crossroads.”
I nod. I remember the plan. Glancing to my right, I start wishing this damn thing had some windows. Then I remember the hell on earth outside of this tank, and I take the wish back.
I settle back into my seat. Get as comfortable as I can. As we speed along the back roads, I try not to think of Tripp, or how much worse this journey is going to be without him.
I must have fallen asleep. I’m jolted awake by a sudden stop. My eyes shoot open, and I’m leaned against my harness. I grunt and dart my gaze around.
A blurry vision of Juliet is turned in her seat toward me. I blink her into focus.
“Why don’t you two get out and stretch your legs? I have a private communication I need to take.”
I yawn and grapple with the buckles on the harness. As soon as I’m free, a black blur sweeps across my vision. I jump and glance down, then back up. Kiwi half grins at me.
“It’s cold out.”
Nodding, I take the long, fur-lined coat and slide it on. Then I slip out of the bottom hatch and outside.
The cold is a bitch that slaps me. With a shudder, I pull the coat tighter around me to keep the bitch out. My feet crunch through ice and thick snow as I trudge away from the tank.
This is what used to be the south. I know we’re traveling north, but it shouldn’t be this cold. Nowhere should be this cold. I’d almost forgotten about the god’s assault on nature. Harsh winds blow snow in tiny cyclones around us.
All I can think as I shiver and rub my hands together is that the gods can be real shit burgers. It seems like forever until Juliet is summoning us back into the tank. We are only a few inches from the damn thing, but walking into the wind makes it feel miles away. Kiwi goes up the hatch first, moving slowly like a frosted, wooden doll. By the time I drop to my knees, my muscles feel dead. I manage to slide back under the tank, then I suck in a cold breath and the frost grips every inch of me.
I lay there for seconds that feel like ages. Finally, Juliet grabs one of my arms, and Kiwi, the other. Together, they pull me back into the tank and close the hatch.
“F-f-fuck, it’s cold,” I say, shivering on the floor.
Ignoring my complaints, Juliet steps over me and back into the driver seat.
With a sigh, she turns and peers down at me. “I just got off the comm with Colonel Jax.”
My first instinct is to ask if she told him to go fuck himself, but I’m too cold to be a smart ass. I just blow into my hands and listen.
“He’s informed me that a small community slightly west of here… Wisteria Haven. . . has come under attack. Colonel Jax wants us to make a slight detour to see what we can do for them. He said he wouldn’t normally ask this of us, but these people… They are young and healthy. As such, they will prove valuable once the cure is in circulation.” She stops to glance at Kiwi, then me. Her lips set in a tight line. “I disagree with him completely.”
This gets my attention.
The queen bitch disagrees with her fearless leader?
“I think we should focus on what we left the compound to do. If we lose our lives saving…” She shakes her head. “If we fail, those people are as good as dead, anyway. Maybe even worse. Jaxen doesn’t see it that way.”
I raise an eyebrow.
She glances at me, then shakes her head again. “My apologies. Colonel Jax. He doesn’t see it that way.”
It’s the only time I’ve heard her use his name informally. Must be her way of showing disrespect.
Interesting.
“What is attacking them?” Kiwi asks.
Juliet flips her shiny braid over her shoulder and eyes Kiwi. “Shifters.”
Something curdles in my gut. I feel sour inside.
“From where?” Kiwi says.
Juliet shifts her icy stare to me. “Wee lings. From the Underworld.”
I’m warm enough to laugh. And I have to laugh. “Oh, the Colonel is on that good shit.” I shake my head, still chuckling.
Kiwi straightens up. Her shoulders tighten as if she’s guarding herself against bad news.
“Well, what are we going to do?”
Juliet doesn’t answer right away. I stare up into her face, searching for something. Anything. As usual, I get nothing. That is, until she speaks.
“If I disobey orders…”
A thick nothingness fills the steel vehicle. It seems to swallow her words. She doesn’t have to finish. We all know what will happen to an Enforcer who disobeys, no matter how loyal she’s been until now.
I clear my throat. “Wee lings are the most dangerous kind of shifter. Are we really going to do this?”
Juliet turns in her seat and starts to put her harness back on. “We don’t have much of a choice.”
I glare at her back. “Of course we do. None of us signed up for this shit. We’re not heroes.”
“I’m not suggesting we are,” Juliet says, punching coordinates i
nto the control panel.
“He’s right. We should stay on mission,” Kiwi says.
Juliet snaps her head in Kiwi’s direction. “Oh, is that what you think, girl?”
My eyes narrow. “Why don’t you watch your mouth, psycho.”
She starts to turn her head. I feel it. I reach into her with my power like I would a candy jar and stop her movement. A jolt of excitement hits me. My lips twist into a smile. Controlling her always makes me feel good.
“You know we’re not going anywhere unless I let you take us there, right?” My voice sounds sinister in my ears. For a second, I feel like a dickbag, but I brush the feeling aside.
This bitch pulled out my back teeth while I was awake. Plus, she seems to love putting me into shit where I might get killed.
She can’t move, but she lets out a low grunt. I hold onto her a little longer just to prove my point, then release her.
She jerks her head around. “Do that again and…”
“And. You’ll. Do. Nothing.” I smile.
She matches my smile. Cool, poker-faced Juliet is back. “So, you’d just let innocents die?”
I shrug. “Seems to me like people let other people die all the damn time.” I glare at her. “Especially you people.”
We stare at each other for several moments. My stare is full of hostility. Hers, cool as ice. Kiwi breaks up the staring contest by clearing her throat. “Maybe she’s right.”
I roll my eyes. I’m stranded in the middle of hell with a psycho and a politician. We shouldn’t go. We should go.
Make up your mind.
She turns around and gives me a look. I flex away from it. I don’t know what it is, but it makes me uncomfortable. She’s been doing that a lot lately.
“Wee lings are fucked up creatures. If we can kill a few, we should,” Kiwi says.
I stare at her, trying to dispel that discomfort she fills me with. Finally, I nod. Can’t really argue with her logic, even if it is going to get us killed.
21
Miles away from Wisteria Haven, the flames burn unnatural. Greens and purples spit their way up toward the sky. Smoke blots out everything. A mush cloud of pea soup green and violet.
“Fuck man, suck my dick,” I mutter to myself.
Kiwi turns slightly in her seat. “What’s that?”
I shake my head even though, clearly, she can’t see me. “Nothing, just talking to myself.”
She shrugs. “I can relate.”
I glance at her and almost smile. Did cray-cray Kiwi crack a joke? Who knew she was a little funny?
As we pull farther toward the community, some Little House on the Prairie type shit comes into focus. Wooden cabins. Wooden sheds. Discarded rakes and spades. All dancing behind flames that burn without touching anything. Those flames float above the worn wood, threatening but not destroying.
A community hostage to a potentially terrorist fire.
I sink back into my seat. “This is a shitty idea.”
I catch Kiwi bob her head in my sightline.
“Yeah.” She peers at the display on the control panel. “I don’t see anyone, do you?”
Juliet coughs. “Too much smoke.”
The tank comes to a stop and dread bites into me at the same moment.
“We’re going to have to go in on foot,” Juliet adds.
Famous last words, or more appropriately, stupid last words.
This is some dumb shit.
Juliet and Kiwi release their harnesses and make their way for the hatch. I just stare at them. I don’t know what else to do. Follow them into a shit storm? Before Kiwi ducks through the hatch, she catches my eye, and then vanishes.
I roll my eyes. With a sigh, I release my harness. I reach behind my seat and grab my trident. Lowering myself to the ground, I have to laugh. I swing my weapon onto my back and think, if only my niggaz could see me now.
They’d say this is white people shit, don’t do it.
And yet, I go through that hatch anyway. Dead negro walking.
The smell hits me like a crazed woman’s smack in the face. Rotten eggs and smoke mingle together to create a stench that beats itself into my eyes and nose. My eyes water, and I try not to breath. Then I remember my mask, put it on, and breathe in something less foul. Once I have relief from the smell, I notice I’m not shivering. The temperature has gone mild. We’ve gone from the angry north to mild mannered Middle America.
Or what it used to be.
“Stay alert,” Juliet says.
She’s the first one to move forward. Kiwi follows suit almost right away. The unnatural flames cast their shadows long and stick-like on the dry ground. The last to follow, I remove my trident and twirl it a few times before tightening my grip around its shaft.
Might as well save ammo.
We make our way around a log cabin with scorched wood and its sign hanging half off, and into the heart of what they call Wisteria Haven.
There is no haven here.
Black smoke wisps toward us, and even with masks on we cough at its greeting. Unnatural flames bear their heat on us. So unnatural. I stare into their strange colors. Not raging orange or blue, but green and violet swimming into bruised purple. I stare.
And stare.
And stare.
And then I’m young again. A siren with mother’s milk still dripping off my lip. I watch myself, young and confused, listening to the woman who I thought was my mother explain to me what I am. Explain who made me.
Then, I’m no longer watching.
I am that young siren.
My skin itches and crawls with that desire. To drink in what my mother is, all of what she is, and ride the wave. To end her in song.
“No,” I hear myself say, shaking my head.
I glance around at familiar surroundings. The small apartment I grew up in. Police cars throwing blue and red flashing lights in through the window. Casting shadows on the peeling wallpaper and never quite clean living room with its stacks of magazines falling off the coffee table. A blue glow is cast on my mother’s face. The washing machine whirls in the background.
“It’s going to be okay, Pike.” She embraces me in her beefy arms.
I take in the scent of laundry detergent and lilac her housecoat was always drenched in.
But other scents are there, too. The smell of gumbo her mother used to make. The iron in her blood when she skinned her knee playing basketball. The smell of the man that was her first love. After shave and tobacco.
And I wanted it all.
And I had the power to take it.
“No!” I shout the word this time and wrench away from her.
She doesn’t react, just looks at me as if she understands something I don’t. That face I love. The face I now want to kill.
Something slams down on my arm and jerks me slightly left.
I turn my head toward it and find Kiwi squinting up at me.
“Don’t look into the flames.”
I’m back in Wisteria Haven. I shake my head, gulp, and dart my gaze around.
“It’s wee ling fire,” Kiwi says. “Creates fucked up visions and shit. People have died watching their own hell in the flames.”
I try to steady my breathing and nod. I glance at Juliet who is slightly ahead of us. She stares off into the distance, and I follow her gaze.
There they are. Twenty or so people, various colors and ages, are fixed in place by the flames. My stomach ties itself into a knot. A scream breaks out, and I jerk my head away from the people, toward the source of the sound. A little girl darts at us. She is barefoot and clutching a headless doll in her left hand. I stare at her, take in her yellow complexion, wild hair, and large, scared eyes.
My stomach knots itself tighter.
“Help!” the little girl screams, and she weaves around the fires toward us.
As she gets closer, I kneel. She almost crashes into me. I reach out hands to steady her.
“Help me!” Snot bubbles pop from her nose. She can’t
be any older than five or six.
I nod. “What happened, Shorty?”
She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I know not.” Sniffles. “They come. Torch place. Can’t find… Can’t Mommy. They come… Kill Daddy.”
My eyes narrow. “How many?”
Sniffles again. “Know not.” She shakes her head. “Twenty? Thirty?” She grabs my hand and tries to pull me with her. “Come, please. Help.”
I stand and smile down at her. “Yeah, sure. I’ll help, little bitch.”
Before she can react, I plunge the tongs of my trident through her chest. I lift her up, then slam her back to the ground and twist it through for good measure. Her eyes and mouth open wide. A tar like substance spills from that gaping mouth. Placing my foot on her stomach for leverage, I yank my weapon from her flesh.
With a shudder, she dissolves into that same tar that leaked from her mouth. Bits of flesh and nasty ass liquid seep into the dry ground.
“Ugh.” I shake off as much of the thick ooze as I can, then rest the end of my trident against the ground. I lean against it for support as that knot in my gut tightens until I’m sure my stomach will cave in.
“How did you know?” Kiwi says from beside me.
I glance at her. “Know what?”
“That she was a wee ling.”
I shrug, then stare ahead. “Well, don’t know much about them, but one of the things I learned is that their English ain’t shit.”
She laughs. “Maybe I should stab you through the chest.”
I look back at her and smirk. “I wasn’t certain until she touched me.”
She nods, opens her mouth and is about to reply when a throat clears up ahead of us.
“Mr. Richards. Ms. Grunder…”
I switch my focus to Juliet. She’s turning in a small circle with her gun gripped firmly in her hands, looking toward the sky. I follow her gaze.
An ohfuck moment hits me.
The things are everywhere. Perched on wooden rooftops. Crouched on the ground around us. Every one of them in the form of a child. My eyes rest on the youngest, not old enough to walk, as it crawls toward me with drool dripping from its lip.
Wee lings.
A rush of the nasties run down my spine. The fires burn hotter.