Enmity

by E. J. Andrews

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I ask dubiously. Isaac and Kane look at each other.

  ‘These morons created a bomb.’

  It feels like a bomb has already gone off in my head. They did what?

  ‘It’s not armed.’ Isaac looks between Winter and I.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ I answer. Winter shoots me a look, as though I am stepping on her toes, which I know I am. ‘It still has the potential,’ I let slip out.

  Kane gives me the same look as Isaac, but with a lot more outright fear.

  ‘We just wanted to help,’ Kane says. ‘We’ve been running around doing nothing for so long, and then they said this was the place.’

  I look between the two guys and then to Winter; she still looks pissed. ‘Move it,’ Winter says in a rushed whisper, ‘now!’

  Isaac looks at me, and then at Kane. And then at me. ‘Move it?’ he asks Winter. Isaac looks beyond frightened. ‘We can’t just mo—’

  ‘It’s highly unstable—’

  ‘See!’ Winter exclaims, cutting off Kane. She now believes she has been proven right. ‘Disable it or something, I don’t care. Just move it.’

  I watch beads of sweat erupt from Winter’s hairline all the way to her brow. Why is she so against this bomb being here?

  I sling my gun behind my back and walk over and grab Isaac and Kane by an arm each. I drag them over to the nearest wall of a building.

  ‘What’s it made of?’

  Isaac looks to Kane, who seems worried by the attention.

  ‘I made it out of orbs,’ Kane says as though it isn’t worth the lie.

  ‘But orbs run off human energy,’ I say. I can’t fathom how he could make it work.

  ‘Exactly, that’s the point!’ Isaac exclaims; he believes it to be an ingenious idea.

  Kane sighs.

  ‘You can’t just throw it and it’s going to blow up. The orbs feed off your emotions, and your emotions are what set the bomb off. Sure a bump can set it off, but only once a certain emotion has been triggered. What we did was hardwire fifty-six orbs together and set them for the same trigger.’

  I try to wrap my head around it, but I just can’t.

  ‘So what’s the trigger? What’s the emotion that sets it off?’

  As Kane opens his mouth to speak, I hear someone else’s words fill the silence.

  ‘Why is this thing turning red?’

  I turn to see Winter standing an inch from the metal box, which is indeed turning a deep shade of red.

  ‘No,’ I hear Kane gasp.

  ‘Run!’ Isaac screams.

  My body feels weightless; a bright red inferno bursts in front of my eyes. Everything moves at a crawl, every detail is laid out before my eyes for incredulous inspection. Then it all streams past me, as I am thrown against the ground, pain sears through my head and I know I have hit it hard and my vision is now blurry around the edges.

  Then, blue. All I see is blue.

  The sky. That must be the sky.

  My heart hammers against my chest, intent on escape.

  There are no clouds, but there is smoke. Thin, grey smoke flutters all around me and I start to choke on it, but I think it is more that I have been slightly winded by my fall.

  I must have fallen on my wrist because it is killing me. Different parts of me start to throb as well; my left hip and shoulder have obviously been beaten and grazed.

  As I crawl to a sitting position, I see just how far I have travelled. I stand and my feet carry me towards the burning wreckage.

  I hear Isaac before I see him. He has vomited and his body obviously doesn’t think it is done even though it has nothing left to give—I can hear a horrible dry retching and his coughing between sobs. It is such a broken and empty sound.

  My eyes find Kane. It looks as though his leg is broken, again—it is sitting at a very strange angle beside him—but I am more concerned about his expression. There is nothing. There is no expression on his blood-soaked face, no personality behind his soft blue eyes, no life there, anywhere.

  I stagger slowly over to Kane, but he doesn’t even look up. He just keeps looking towards the spot where Winter was standing mere seconds ago. Now there is nothing to show she was ever there at all.

  I know I have taken in too much air. My chest is too heavy and I wish to be rid of the empty weight within me.

  I wish I never had to breathe again. This is guilt, and I know it.

  Footsteps, why do I always hear someone approach by the sound of their feet? Does nobody speak here?

  I can’t even bring myself to search for my gun; it was slung around my back, is it still?

  Robert almost runs straight past us. Isaac, Kane and I sit in our makeshift semicircle. No one has spoken yet. Robert looks at us all, bewildered.

  ‘Where’s Winter?’

  Of course those are the first words he chooses to speak. Why would he say anything else? That is the logical first question to ask.

  I don’t offer up an answer, because there isn’t one. No one in the world can know where she is now.

  ‘What?’ Isaac asks, looking blankly at Robert.

  Winter.

  Winter.

  I can’t stop thinking about Winter.

  Why wasn’t I this upset about John’s death? Was it just that I didn’t know him as well, if at all?

  I don’t know. I can’t know right now.

  But maybe I shouldn’t feel this bad. Winter tried as hard as she could to make my life hell without reason. Plain and simple, she is a horrible person.

  Was.

  Was.

  Winter was a horrible person.

  Death is nothing but changing an ‘is’ to a ‘was’.

  And now that she is gone I can’t call her a horrible person, because she is now sainted. All the horrible things people do throughout their lives are wiped away when they die; they pay for each and every thing they’ve ever done with their life.

  ‘We killed her.’

  The voice belongs to Isaac. The words sound like they belong to a stranger.

  I look up to him and see that he has both his hands filled with his hair. He is pulling so hard on it I can see the skin of his scalp being lifted from his skull.

  He looks on the outside how I feel on the inside. Broken beyond repair.

  Hermia

  I run my index finger over the small scar that now sits at the nape of my neck, and will do so for the rest of my life. Just as a constant reminder of the fact that some sick bastard decided to insert a chip there.

  I know who it was. My father. What other sick bastards do I know? Not that I actually know my father, but I do know he is capable of it.

  The compound feels different now. Not just empty, but hollow.

  It is probably just that the only person here whose company I don’t completely despise is Josh. And he just did an hour and a half of surgery on me, so I don’t want to bother him just yet.

  For some reason I am allowed to wander around by myself, though only on our level. The level that I have become accustomed to calling home.

  I make my way around the ring of doors, looking into everyone’s rooms as though I am gazing into a snippet of their lives. Nate’s room is so clean it is almost anal; I am bored and move on quickly. Isaac’s room is so messy I can’t even see what colour his carpet is supposed to be. I stop two rooms down and know that this room is Georgie’s. Her walls are a light purple; so is her bedding, and her drapes. She definitely has a theme going on.

  Something catches my eye next to her bed and I actually enter the room.

  I find it is a photograph. It is a very close-up picture, so close that I can see and even count every freckle scattered over Georgie’s nose and cheeks.

  The girl next to her must be her sister, maybe even her twin. They look around the same age and have the same features, but they are in different proportions. Georgie’s nose is smaller, while her sister’s has a large bridge. Georgie’s eyes are more rounded while her sister’s a
re a little squinty.

  I hear someone approach at a leisurely rate, realise it is Darria and don’t look up from the picture.

  I can pick out each and every one of Georgie and her sister’s features from the two people beside them. Their mother has Georgie’s eyes, in colour and shape, while Georgie inherited her freckles from her father.

  I finally turn and see Darria standing in the doorway, looking a lot more relaxed than I have seen him in years. Surprising, considering the events of the past few days. I hold the photograph out towards him.

  ‘You try so hard to keep us away from the outside world, yet you give Georgie this?’

  ‘Georgie’s family means a lot to her.’

  ‘Nate’s family meant a lot to him too,’ I fire back at him.

  ‘I had nothing to do with Nate’s family’s death,’ he says, frowning and solemn again.

  I consider this, then answer, ‘Why don’t I believe that?’

  ‘Because you have a fair few issues with me.’

  I have no idea how he could have guessed that. Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

  ‘Maybe because you told Nate who his father is and you won’t even tell me.’

  I see fear erupt behind Darria’s eyes, but he covers it and sighs. ‘It is in your best interests—’

  ‘To know the truth,’ I answer for him. ‘You know things about my father, and my mother for that matter, that I think I have a right to know. I am your niece.’ I almost cringe using the word. ‘You abandoned me when I was eight years old, left me to look after my mentally unstable mother by myself. It is my right to know. I think you owe me at least that. I need to know . . .’ I search for the appropriate word. ‘I need to know why.’

  Darria looks at me, his wide bluish-yellow eyes almost gleaming. I’ve never seen him so afraid. It makes me doubt him, and almost at the same time it makes me trust him.

  ‘I guess I’ll have to show you then,’ he says, and then turns to leave.

  I place the picture of Georgie and her family down, and start to think maybe I might get some answers about my own family.

  I am surprised to find that Darria has led me to the meadow room. He tells me to wait outside the door, but I am curious as to why.

  Darria enters through a door just off to my right. He still looks tense, but his eyes have softened.

  ‘Now, before we go in, I just want to say something.’ I don’t understand the insecurity in his voice.

  ‘Go ahead then,’ I answer.

  Darria swallows hard and then changes his stance, moving his weight from foot to foot.

  ‘The reason I started this . . .’ He pauses, and a few seconds tick by, long seconds. ‘Just remember that I have made a lot bad choices in my life. The worst, though, is everything I have done to hurt you.’

  I think it is the most human thing I have ever heard him say and I know it must be hard for him—expressing emotion doesn’t run in our family—but it still doesn’t ease the hate I hold for him.

  I lift my hand to the doorhandle and open it. I expect to see the meadow or something, but I don’t see anything. ‘I have set the projection to show my memories,’ Darria says from beside me. I turn to him, in shock.

  ‘How do I know this isn’t a trick?’ I have to ask, just to see what he will say.

  ‘You don’t,’ he tells me. ‘But I know the curiosity will kill you.’ He has a point, which definitely annoys me.

  I take a good hard look into the darkness that stands between me and Darria’s memories.

  My feet carry me forward, yet it feels as though I have left my stomach on the floor behind me.

  I feel myself being transported to a place I could never have been.

  The music pulses through every inch, every crack in the concrete walls, and vibrates through the floor and into the soles of my feet, through my empty chest.

  My eyes survey the dimly lit room, the coloured lights bouncing off the walls and all over my body, until I find them.

  She is obviously out of her mind, though that isn’t really out of the ordinary for her, so she’s obviously on a lot of drugs. My mother must be around my age, and she looks a bit like me, though she is much thinner, almost gaunt, with glassy wide-set eyes and a smaller nose.

  The guy next to her, on the other hand, looks almost identical to me, just a male version of me with different eyes. He looks sullen, wishing he wasn’t there.

  ‘Lucy!’ the young Darria screams over the music. ‘Can we go?’

  My mother, Lucy, just continues to dance as though she hasn’t heard him. She has been dancing like he isn’t even there for the past few minutes.

  ‘Lucinda!’ he yells again as she makes her way through the sprawling crowd towards the middle of the dance floor.

  My eyes catch another male figure making his way over to Darria, though his eyes are on my mother.

  I move in a little closer to try and hear their conversation.

  ‘Darren.’ The stranger greets Darria with his old name.

  Darria looks over to the other guy and I can almost see him roll his eyes.

  ‘Caden.’

  The way Darria says Caden’s name, he hated him the same then as he does now.

  Caden points to Lucy. ‘Are you letting her run wild again?’ His voice has a strange accent and tone to it.

  Darria looks to be getting angrier and angrier by the second, though he hides it well.

  ‘You should know she’s not really the easiest of people to tame,’ he says.

  Caden suppresses a smile and nods.

  ‘You’re still trying to keep her away from me?’

  Darria’s eyes close into a squint for a second.

  ‘Trying,’ he agrees.

  ‘She loves me,’ Caden says. ‘As much as you hate it, that’s not going to change.’

  Darria is now staring at Caden while he stares at my mother. ‘Aren’t you supposed to tell me that you love her too?’

  Caden looks back to Darria, a wicked smile spreading over his face, one I recognise the feel of.

  ‘And what good would that do, Darren?’ Caden moves in closer to Darria and I strain to hear the words he utters in Darria’s ear. ‘I’ll tell you one more time—join me, or you’re against me.’ Darria glares at Caden, though Caden’s face stays unchanged. ‘Look at all we’ve done already—this is only the start.’

  I watch Caden slip a pill onto his tongue as he raises his eyebrows at Darria.

  ‘I’ll be expecting your call.’

  Then Caden makes his way through the crowd, out towards the middle of the dance floor, where he takes my mother by the hand. She turns to him and, for the first time ever, I see some life behind my mother’s eyes. Her mouth twists at the sides into a strange smile I don’t recognise. I don’t recognise her at all. Caden leans in and begins to kiss her in a very provocative and, dare I say, private way.

  The people all around them don’t seem to even notice—they seem too engrossed in the music.

  I watch as Darria storms away. Then the room begins to fade, until it is completely white. The Darria I recognise is standing across from me. Though I don’t mean it to, the one thing I’ve been thinking comes out as a question.

  ‘He’s my father, isn’t he?’

  Darria just stares at me for a few more seconds.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  I ponder this. I had guessed that Caden was my father the moment I saw him, even though we don’t share any obvious features. But now that it is confirmed, I don’t know why I am still curious.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say, looking back to Darria. ‘What does he want from you?’

  But before Darria can answer, the scenery around us starts to change.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he says. Then he utters, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Where we end up this time, I am in a state of shock instantly.

  My mother lies on a bed, screaming. Darria looks white as a sheet, as does his teenage memory self.

  I turn as if to leave, though ther
e is no leaving for me.

  ‘You have to see—’

  ‘I’m not really that comfortable with watching my own birth, thanks!’

  I look around the room of the hospital. Women die every week from having to give labour on the streets because they can’t afford to have treatment at the hospital; I’m guessing my grandparents took care of this bill. The walls are a mint green, with white skirting, and there is a large window to my left which tells me this room was on the second or third floor.

  Darria grabs my hand and pulls me back around, right as a tiny baby is being handed to the young Darria. He looks at the child with curious, admiring eyes. For the first time I think maybe—even if it was only for that one moment—he actually loved me once.

  Lucy isn’t looking at the baby; she is almost purposefully looking away.

  ‘It’s a girl, Luce.’

  Lucy doesn’t respond.

  ‘She’s beautiful.’

  Again, no response.

  ‘Where’s Caden?’ my mother asks.

  Darria—still holding a baby so small it must be premature—looks guilty.

  ‘Not here,’ is all he can say.

  My mother doesn’t look disappointed or sad, because she always looks like that.

  ‘Do we have a name?’ the nurse asks as she moves over to take the baby.

  I still can’t bring myself to register that the child is me.

  ‘No—’

  ‘Hermia.’ My mother cuts Darria off.

  I asked my mother once where my name came from. She said she read it in a story and that the story somehow seemed appropriate for my life.

  I watch the nurse take the baby away, and then my mother and Darria are alone.

  ‘You didn’t tell him.’ She doesn’t sound surprised, or hurt—she is simply stating a fact.

  ‘We had to get the baby out—I wasn’t going to lose you like the others,’ Darria answers.

  My mother just looks at Darria for a long moment. Then, with a lot of effort, she gets up out of the bed and half-walks, half-limps over to Darria. She winds her whole arm back and then sends her open palm flying, slapping Darria square on the cheek. ‘You bastard,’ she spits.