Enmity

by E. J. Andrews

‘Who?’

  ‘Rence,’ I say, finally looking over at her. I am scared I may vomit again.

  Hermia stifles a laugh and says—‘Rence is whispering to that other keeper. You didn’t hear him say anything.’

  I feel my eyes roll around in their sockets and it helps the burn that still cripples them.

  As I look at Hermia I see her make sense of it, and her smile slowly fades, starting with her eyes and then moving down through her cheeks.

  I hear a splintering of wood and then a tormenting pain as the keeper pulls the arrow from my arm. I scream out and don’t even try to keep any of it back this time. This place is underground, it’s not like anyone outside is going to hear me.

  Hermia takes my head, dripping sweat, in her hands and turns my face towards hers.

  ‘What did he say?’

  She looks so angry, I am afraid what will happen if I don’t tell her. Another arrow?

  ‘He’s going to kill them.’

  I watch the emotions go through Hermia’s face: denial, rage, acceptance then back to rage again.

  Hermia stands and starts to make her way over to Rence; even from the back I can tell in her body movements that she is going to kill him. Or at least attempt it. She stoops to pick up her crossbow that she left with my gun on the floor near the kitchen, where we came in.

  The hatch opens and lets the strange natural light down into our land of artificial fluorescent light. Hermia stops as she rises back up to stand.

  Isaac is making is way down into the basement we call home and he looks completely stricken with joy.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ He asks only me, as though I’m the only one in the room. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got something that will make it much better,’ he says, and for a moment my heart falters. What kind of surprise could he possibly have for me?

  I see another male coming down the stairs, and it’s Chase, his rough halo of hair unmistakable. I start to feel the first pinches of excitement.

  If Chase is here, does that mean?

  Marina.

  The thought screams through my head even as I see her gracefully descend to this little world below ground.

  I push myself forward, not even caring that there are people everywhere watching me. I only see Marina.

  She still has two or three steps to go, but I reach for her, pulling her into my arms and bringing her down to me. Marina presses her face into my neck and I can feel a weight leave my chest.

  Marina is here.

  She is alive.

  She is safe.

  She is with me.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she pulls back and looks at me, mostly at the hole in my arm that is still bleeding quite badly. She looks on the verge of tears.

  I shake my head at her and just feel myself smile for what feels the first time in weeks.

  I just stand there and hold her for a minute, forgetting the world around us. There is nothing else I want to do but hold her and forget everything except how complete I feel.

  Hermia

  We all stand around and are forced to watch Nate and Marina embrace. I would probably rather look at Nate’s vomit that is still splattered on the floor behind me.

  My eyes find Chase. I watch the sight of me register in his eyes and I feel as though we are each letting out a sigh of relief together.

  I have not missed Chase, not for one second.

  Though I wondered where he was.

  Wondered what he was doing.

  If he thought of me or not.

  But I don’t classify that as ‘missing’ someone. I was just fine without him around. His presence was not missed, which I classify as missing.

  I even forgot what he looks like, that’s how much I didn’t miss him.

  I spot Chase’s other friends too, the clones Bill and Will. Doctor Josh is looking at Nate’s arm like he might jump on him and start fixing him without a single word between them, and Cora is holding Jared back behind her like she knows something we all don’t. Like this place may explode any second.

  ‘You weren’t meant to be here until the sixth day.’ Rence speaks in a hushed voice to Chase, who rips his gaze away from me. We have been here for just over a week now, more than six days, so Rence must mean Saturday, the sixth day of the week. Strange boys.

  ‘We ran into trouble,’ Chase whispers back. If I didn’t know his voice so well, I don’t think I would have picked up the words.

  Rence doesn’t look worried, but Nate, who is much closer to them, does.

  ‘What kind of trouble?’ Nate finally lets Marina down to her feet, though he doesn’t release her from his grasp. Marina continues to look at Nate’s arm as though it is on fire, which makes a deep sorrow beat on my heart. Why was I so stupid to fire at him?

  Chase looks a little disheartened by Nate’s forwardness, as though he is unsure of him, but then he answers.

  ‘We found their headquarters, though I don’t know how long they plan on staying there now.’

  I watch Nate tense. I guess when you spend enough time with one person you get to know their mannerisms. One of Nate’s is that when his mind races, his body goes stiff and his shoulderblades almost collide with each other.

  ‘What the hell?’ Rence spits at Chase.

  If it were anyone but Chase I would expect him to cower away from the brutality in Rence’s voice. Chase stays the same—immobile, blank-faced, a statue.

  ‘It was an accident, we weren’t looking for their headquarters. I was just taking my half of the group on little sideline field trips as Father asked. But what’s done is done.’ Chase says the words so strong and so sure, I am worried Rence will fight them.

  Then, amazingly, they are sorted. No longer looking at each other with hostility.

  Rence looks around at the group, as though he is only just realising that he is in the company of others.

  ‘Disband,’ Rence says. No one moves. They are all afraid of being the first to move, of drawing attention to themselves. ‘Now!’ He lets his rage seep back into his words and everyone obeys this time.

  I turn and walk towards the room I share with Nate, not even attempting to look at Chase as I go. I am sure I will see him. And I don’t know what will happen when I do. I got a little too close to Chase back at the compound. I don’t want him thinking that is going to continue, or escalate in anyway.

  When I enter the room I instantly think better of it. Nate has just been reunited with Marina; there is no way I am going to sit in this room and get in their way.

  I do a complete 180 and walk back out into the living room, passing Winter and Kane as I do.

  ‘Argh, gag,’ I hear Winter mutter to Kane as I pass them.

  ‘You can have the room, Nate, only because I don’t want to vomit all over the carpet from looking at you two together.’ Nate cracks a small smile, but Marina beams.

  Then I walk straight up to Rence.

  ‘I want to go upstairs.’ I probably shouldn’t make demands, but asking doesn’t come easily to me.

  ‘You can’t just go off by yourself,’ Chase scoffs from beside his brother. He rolls his eyes and sighs. ‘Guess I’ll supervise.’ He says it as though this is a tremendous burden.

  ‘Great,’ I say, matching his enthusiasm, and then make my way to the stairs and the still-open hatch.

  From the corner of my eye I see Josh give a lopsided smirk that he fails to suppress. I have not missed having to hide the fact that I know these people as more than our brutal guards.

  The air is dank; it smells mouldy in the discarded house that is our cover.

  I wander down the hallway as the last lingers of the afternoon sun paint the walls a deep pink. I swipe my free hand over the wall in an absent-minded gesture. I am glad to be here in this moment.

  I can feel him behind me; I think about it, but I know the decision was made the second I saw him.

  His hands are on my shoulders as he spins me around. There is that tension again, that wanting, but not being able t
o have. Then I only feel the pressure of his lips on mine.

  My hands move to Chase’s neck, pulling him closer.

  What am I doing?

  I am enjoying this moment, and nothing more.

  Chase pulls back and looks into my eyes. I hate when he does this, more than everything else that I hate. I wish we could just be. And not have to talk about the fact that we are.

  ‘No abuse this time?’

  I almost think he’s serious, until I see him smirk.

  ‘This time. Next time. Always.’

  Chase looks confused, and as though he is about to speak again, so I move back in and kiss him softly, gently. Then I move my mouth and kiss the defined edge of his chin before making my way down to his neck. I don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that, but now that I have, I feel almost gratified, somehow. Chase bites his bottom lip and then lowers his head and locks eyes with me again.

  ‘You’ll be the death of me, you know?’

  Chase runs his hands over my forearms, but that’s not the reason I shiver.

  ‘I hope not,’ I let slip out. I hate the way my mouth always seems to disobey my head.

  I throw myself back into the fire, or out of the darkness and into the light, whatever metaphor you want to use.

  I fold myself carefully together with Chase, kissing him as though it is the last time. Because it always might be. Maybe that’s the way I live my life, and maybe that’s why it works for me.

  Chase’s tongue twists with mine and I can feel a deep burn start up in my stomach; it’s as though someone is ripping my insides out slowly, but I kind of like it. How strange this is.

  ‘Mia,’ Chase gasps, his lips still brushing against mine.

  Rage replaces the burn I felt for him, and I let out a low growl of anger as I pull away. Mia. I hate that name. It makes my mind flash to someone else. My uncle Darren, the one I miss more than I can say, the one who is identical to Darria but nothing like him. He changed his name and that changed who he was. Now he is nothing to me.

  Chase looks stricken. His brown eyes are covered in a soft sheen of dew, and suddenly my anger is gone. I am worried I have upset him.

  I move back slowly and pull my arms around Chase’s neck, pressing my body to his in our makeshift hug. Chase wraps his arms around my middle and I can feel his heart beat together with mine, in a double-time rhythm. The burn is still there, but now it is a screaming warning.

  Nothing good will come of this.

  But what if it doesn’t? What if I could be this happy with him forever?

  Those sound like your mother’s words.

  That they do.

  Nate

  I run my fingers through Marina’s hair and wonder when it got so dark, or maybe it has always been this dark and I just wasn’t paying attention until now. I wouldn’t be that oblivious, would I?

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asks and I actually have to think about it.

  ‘That I never want to be away from you that long again.’

  It is the simplest answer I can give to such a complex question. I pull Marina closer to me with the one arm I have around her. My other is in a tight bandage to stop the bleeding. Hermia’s arrow missed my funny bone by a millimetre, though it did cause a small fracture near the lower end of the bone. Meaning Josh has given me some pretty crazy medicine to keep the pain down, as well as something he says will ‘help me heal quicker’.

  Maybe Josh can tell me what is happening to me, maybe it’s something inside me, inside my blood, that he can decode? I need to know what is going on with me. I feel like my body is capable of things my mind still sees as impossibilities.

  Marina’s head rests high on my chest and I can smell the sweet scent of the crown of her head.

  ‘I wish it was that simple,’ she murmurs after a few minutes.

  I’m not sure if she is dozing off or isn’t overly interested in the conversation. Her tone suggests she is indeed falling asleep.

  I just listen to the rhythm of her breathing and try to imagine where I would be right now if I had never met her or I was never brought here, or if my family were still my family. It is amazing the number of things that would be different.

  I would be at home, studying for one of my many exams by now. My father, the man I thought was my father, would be in his study, doing his work. Olivia would be screaming at the dog to do some kind of trick it had never even been taught. My mother, my aunt, would be in the kitchen cooking dinner. I think it’s Friday, so we would be having roast beef, my favourite. Friday would have been my least favourite day if it wasn’t for that roast beef.

  Now it’s all gone. They are all gone.

  I don’t know why my family slip into my head—I haven’t let them in there in quite some time, and I know now why.

  I feel a slow nagging, like the beginnings of a migraine, that tells me I miss them. That tells me I need to know what happened to them.

  Who do I trust now?

  Who am I fighting to get back to?

  Everything that makes me feel as though home is within reach is right here in my arms.

  So why do I still feel like I need to hunt down the man who destroyed my family?

  Hermia

  I sit across the room from Chase. It is very dark now, and the only light in the room comes from the orbs that Chase and I each hold. Mine lets off quick bursts of blue, green and red light every second or so; his is a constant clear white.

  I knew that Chase had the skill required to manipulate the orbs, as he did to Georgie’s in our weapons test—that he can manipulate the feelings they feed on. But I never realised he might be doing the same thing to my feelings.

  I am on guard now—well, we both are.

  Now that our enemies know we are on to them, Rence says they will be hunting us even more aggressively than we are hunting them. So that means sentries, guarding the house.

  Chase and I have been unspeaking now for around four minutes, but who’s counting?

  Before the silence, I explained what had happened in his absence. I explained the training, the fighting and the stun guns. All of the stupidity that I had to endure. I didn’t mention Nate, though a large part of me feels like I should have. The way Nate moved that day with the stun guns reminded me so much of the way Rence and Chase moved in our weapons test.

  ‘Does Rence just enjoy causing others pain?’ I can’t help but ask, the memory of him headbutting Nate makes the question come to mind. It is an obvious question that should receive an obvious answer.

  Just thinking about how painful it would be to have someone’s head smashed against your own makes a headache start setting up home in my brain.

  ‘No.’ To my surprise Chase shakes his head, his orb still completely level.

  The light coming off it doesn’t move at all and no new shadows appear. How does he do that?

  ‘Rence doesn’t think others feel pain. So he doesn’t . . .’ Chase searches for the word. ‘He doesn’t really care what he does to people, or has them do to each other, because he doesn’t see it as something that will hurt them.’ He passes the orb between his hands absent-mindedly. It is easy to forget that these small balls of light can explode with the right command, or the right feeling. ‘How can he be so closed-minded?’

  Chase shrugs. It is a captivating gesture. ‘Have you met our father?’

  I can tell he is making a joke, but it sounds wrong, somehow. Chase never jokes about his father. Chase respects Law above everyone, even though he says his father hates him.

  My headache is suddenly much more than that. It is like someone has rammed a pencil from one temple right through to the other one, and the entry and exit wounds are on fire.

  I hear Chase scuttle over to me; his hands find mine and I now realise they are empty. I must have dropped the orb—what a dangerous, stupid, stupid thing to do.

  ‘Mia—’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  I know where my rage is coming from, and it isn’t about
my pathetic nickname that my uncle is so fond of. It is about pain, a pain that now seems to vibrate through my whole body.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I can only just hear Chase over the white noise pulsing through my brain. ‘What’s happening to you?’ I hear movement, people, but who?

  My body falls to the ground and I bring my knees to my chest and throw my hands over my head, trying to block out the world.

  I am letting out a noise unlike anything I could ever create myself. It is a noise of pain, and of anguish, but also determination not to make a sound at all.

  A hand pulls at my arm and I try to keep my body as unmoving as I can. The longer I am in this position the further away the pain feels. I don’t want to move and start it up again.

  I feel lighter now somehow and I realise I am being lifted. Strong arms clasp my body and I can feel the flutter of cold night air caress the uncovered skin on my arms and legs.

  Peeking through my hands I see Nate’s eyes looking dead ahead, cold and unyielding.

  I have never seen him look so strong before.

  And I have never felt so weak in all my life, having to be carried away, shrieking in pain.

  But the pain. The pain. The PAIN.

  It is a constant throb that hits me hard, over and over again until I start to become accustomed to it. I can pinpoint where the pain is truly coming from, and it is emanating from the base of my neck. Like a shock is being sent from the top of my spine through every nerve in my brain, and then exiting through each temple.

  I feel the soft confines of my room, and then the pillow beneath my head. As I am laid down, I realise there is a warm, wet patch against my cheek.

  What is this?

  Am I—crying?

  I can’t be. No.

  ‘No!’ I let a single word escape my lips.

  ‘Hermia?’ Nate asks in a gentle tone.

  My eyes are still wired shut, and the last image I have of Nate is him looking completely devoid of kindness. His words don’t match that look.

  ‘Hermia, what happened?’

  I can’t speak anymore; I can’t do anything except try and let the pain out through my silent tears and gritted teeth.