by S. J. West
“If you want him to live, he has to come with me,” she said matter-of-factly. “I promise to take good care of him. You have no reason to fear for his safety.”
“I’m not going to just let you take Ash. I don’t know you, and I have no reason to trust you,” I told her. “We can bring the other man with us. He needs help too.”
“No. He isn’t ready yet and neither are you. We have to do it my way, Skye, or all will be lost.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I said, feeling my anger start to get the better of me. “Why not take all of us?”
“I know you have no reason to, but you need to trust me,” she said in a voice meant to be calming but only making me angrier. “You and he,” she said with a tilt of her head toward the stranger, “have a journey to take together. Only the two of you can do what needs to be done. But you have to let me take Ash now or he will die.”
I looked down at Ash, praying he would wake up and tell me what to do but knowing he wasn’t going to. I was on my own this time.
“You’re not taking Ash anywhere without me,” I said.
Rose let out a sigh of resignation. “I knew this would happen, but I was hoping I might be able to persuade you to trust me. I’m sorry for what I have to do, but Ash is running out of time and you’re simply in my way.”
Rose walked toward me with a determined look on her face, unafraid of me.
I’d never had reason to fight anyone before. Ash and Blue had always been my protectors. I found myself having to draw on my anger and find a way to protect Ash.
Hoping to take her by surprise, I ran straight at Rose, a guttural war cry involuntarily escaping from between my lips.
It was almost like Rose had expected me to charge her. Without even a hint of surprise in her eyes, Rose stood her ground and waited for me to get closer. Just as I reached her, she bent her knees, grabbed one of my arms, and threw me easily over her shoulder onto the cold hard floor behind her.
When I hit the floor, it felt like someone reached down my throat, stealing all of the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath. My head was spared the brunt of the fall by my jacket having doubled up behind me during the flip.
Rose took advantage of my momentary incapacitation. I felt the sharp point of a needle penetrate the skin on the side of my neck. Almost instantly, I felt numb from the neck down. I tried to move my legs and arms but found they were no longer obeying my commands. I tried to speak but found no voice.
Rose stood up and grabbed me by the front of my jacket, dragging me toward Ash and laying me on my side to face him. She opened my coat and tucked something within the pocket of my flannel shirt.
She left my side and went to Ash. She knelt beside him, gently taking one of his hands into her own before looking back over at me.
“The shot I gave you will wear off in a couple of minutes,” she told me. “I’m sorry I had to do it this way, but you didn’t give me much choice.”
She looked down at Ash and squeezed his hand comfortingly, like you would an old friend. When she looked back over at me, there was an earnest expression on her face, as if she desperately wanted me to believe her next words.
“I promise you I’ll make sure Doc Riley takes good care of him. He’s as important to me as he is to you. And I promise you will see him again. All you have to do is make your way to the Southern Kingdom. He’ll be waiting there for you. It won’t be an easy journey, but remember that whatever hardships you face during your travels, they’re only temporary hindrances. You must remain strong for what lies ahead or you will never survive. Our fates rest solely in your hands, Skye. Don’t fail us.”
With those parting words, Rose and Ash vanished. It was almost like they had never existed at all.
CHAPTER THREE
It felt like someone had just ripped my chest open and tore out my heart. When feeling finally returned to my extremities, I stretched a desperate arm out toward the spot where Ash’s body had been just moments before. I pressed the palm of my hand against the remnants of lingering warmth there. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear Rose’s body apart, limb from limb.
How could I have let her take him away from me so easily? I should have been stronger. I should have fought harder.
For five long years, Ash and I had never been separated by more than a few feet. Now, if what Rose said could be trusted, he was all the way in the Southern Kingdom, hundreds of miles from where I lay. If Ash truly was there, how was I supposed to get that far on my own?
I felt my lungs start to burn and realized I was holding my breath. Inhaling deeply, the faint scent of what Rose had placed in my pocket assailed my senses. With a trembling hand, I reached inside my coat and tentatively felt inside the pocket of my shirt. The silky smoothness of the flower’s petals against my fingertips felt like velvet. I reached in farther to grab hold of the stem and pulled the flower out. It was a perfect red rose bud.
I lifted the delicate creation to my nose, allowing the soft petals to tickle the tender flesh between my nostrils. I inhaled deeply, letting the fresh scent wash over me like a waterfall of warm water, drenching me with its cleansing fragrance.
I sat up, keeping my eyes on the flower, afraid it would vanish just like Rose and Ash had. The flower wasn’t just a rarity. It was a miracle. As far as I knew, nothing so beautiful was able to grow in the soil of the Eastern Kingdom. The earth was practically dead. What vegetation did grow was stunted, only providing the bare necessities of life to the people and animals who were trying to survive in a world that was dying. If Rose truly was from the Southern Kingdom, perhaps they had found a way to make things grow in the cold dead earth.
My feelings felt at odds with one another. I was angry, but there was a part of me that felt an uneasy relief. Even though I hated Rose for taking Ash, I felt certain she wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of abducting him if she actually meant him harm. If only she had given me the chance to say goodbye in case I didn’t survive the trek to the Southern Kingdom, I might not feel so much regret. The odds of me making it across the barrier, which separated the east from the south, were slim to none.
I stood from where Ash’s body had lain, feeling lost, a traveler without a compass to point the way home. Ash had been my anchor for so long I wasn’t sure how I was going to function without him. He was the one who made all of the decisions for us: where we would go, what we would eat, where we would spend our nights.
I felt a wave of panic almost consume me before my eyes came to rest on the stranger.
He needed me.
If what Rose had said was true, I would need this man in order to find a way through the barrier to be reunited with Ash. That was reason enough for me to do whatever was necessary to get him on his feet as soon as possible. We had a long way to go, and I knew I couldn’t make such a treacherous journey on my own. There were far too many dangers in what remained of the world for a woman traveling alone to face.
I walked over to Ash’s backpack and drug it back with me before sitting down beside the stranger. I rummaged through the items in the bag and found a sealed water bottle and a clean washcloth. If nothing else, I could at least wash the splatter of dried blood from his skin. I poured a little water onto the gash over his eye and gently wiped away the caked-on blood from his temple, being careful not to touch the newly sewn stitches. I squeezed out the excess water from the cloth and began rubbing it against his bruised chest. His muscles were hard, compact, like he spent all of his time honing his body into the perfect male specimen. I folded the blanket covering him down to just below his waist, not seeing any need to wash past that point. He could do it himself when he woke up.
I began to feel uncomfortable performing such an intimate task on someone I didn’t know and decided I had done enough. I pulled the wool blanket back over him, wishing I was strong enough to at least try and put one of Ash’s shirts over his torso to help keep him warm against the never ending cold. The best I could do for
him was lay Ash’s green wool blanket over mine and hope it was enough.
I heard a faint whimper come from Blue’s direction. I immediately went to check on my only remaining friend.
His one good eye was open, searching for me, but he didn’t move. I knelt down in front of him and ran my hand down his side.
“Hey Blue, you all right? Can you get up, boy?”
Blue whimpered again, his eye looking frantically around him. His continued stillness worried me. I lifted one of his front legs and let it go. It dropped limply back down to the floor. I went through the same motion again with one of his back legs to only receive the same result. I ran my hand down his soft underbelly and pinched him as hard as I could, still no response.
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Blue was paralyzed. The female Harvester must have slammed him so hard against the floor it broke his back.
A well of hot, stinging tears filled my eyes. I lay down facing Blue, our noses touching. His warm frantic breaths washed over my face. I ran my hand along the line of his jaw and up behind one of his ears, gently rubbing the way I knew he liked to be petted, even though I wasn’t sure he could feel it.
Ash had bartered with a trader to get Blue for me. He had cost us a week’s worth of rations, but I would have given two weeks’ worth for the amber-eyed puppy. My gaze was drawn to the scar over where Blue’s left eye had been.
He had saved my life the night he lost the eye. A group of starving coyotes had found our camp and Blue fought them off until Ash could retrieve his gun to scare them away. One coyote ripped Blue’s eye completely out of the socket. We stayed put for over two weeks to give the wound time to heal. It was the longest we ever spent in one place.
“I’m sorry,” I told my friend, letting the well of hot tears spill over. “I’m so sorry, Blue. I should have been the one protecting you, not the other way around.”
I knew what I had to do. There wasn’t any way Blue could travel, and I wasn’t about to let him die alone of starvation, or worse, in a strange place. There were ravenous wild animals roaming freely throughout the wasted land of the Eastern Kingdom. I couldn’t just leave Blue to be their easy prey and suffer through an agonizing death. He deserved a more dignified, peaceful death; at least I had the ability to make it quick. One bullet to the head would put an end to his suffering.
People say dogs have no soul, but I just don’t believe that. Blue was more compassionate and brave than most of the people I had met in my life. If such a gentle, loving creature was soulless, then we were all doomed to damnation.
I moved closer to Blue, laying my head against the soft fur at his neck one last time. He let out a soft whimper as if telling me he understood what I had to do. I closed my eyes and wept. My racking sobs echoed against the silence around me, inscribing the story of my loss into the cracks of the walls. I was crying so hard, I found it impossible to take a full breath as warm, salty tears covered my face. My blood felt like it was on fire from the pain of loss.
I hugged Blue to me even tighter, never wanting to let him go, unable to understand why my world was shattering around me all at once. I tried to will Blue whole again, but knew such an effort was pointless. If God actually existed, why was he taking Ash and Blue away from me at a time when I needed them the most? Perhaps he was too busy trying to find a way to save the world to worry about one person’s loss.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of one of Blue’s back legs jerking up and down like he was having a muscle spasm. Before I knew it, Blue rolled over onto his stomach and stood up on shaky legs, like a newborn calf I had seen once.
I burst into a fresh set of tears. Blue came to me and began licking the salty trails from my cheeks with his warm tongue. I hugged him around the neck and cried into his silver-gray fur. Like a good friend, he let me empty my heart of its sorrow over losing Ash and joy over the miracle he had just received.
Perhaps there actually was a God out there watching over us.
“Hey, you ok?”
I lifted my head, eyes swollen from crying and looked at the stranger now sitting up with the top half of the blankets bunched around his waist.
I hastily wiped at the tears on my face.
“Yeah,” I sniffed. “I’m fine.”
I was sure my appearance and the small catch in my voice were a dead giveaway that all was not actually well in my world, but the stranger didn’t try to argue the point.
“How are you feeling?” I asked him.
“Sore,” he replied, stretching his arms into the air as if testing to see just how sore his muscles actually were.
“That doesn’t surprise me any. The Harvesters must’ve had you for a while, considering all the bruises you have.”
The stranger lowered his arms, looking at his surroundings like he had never seen the place before.
When his eyes met mine again, I could see how confused he was.
“Harvesters?” he asked, as if the word was foreign to him. “What’s a Harvester?”
Now I was the one confused.
“Don’t you remember the man and woman who almost beat you to death?” I asked, indicating the state of his body with a swipe of my hand.
The stranger’s eyebrows furrowed into a look of serious contemplation as he examined the proof of torture written all over his body.
“I don’t really remember what happened,” he admitted, a look of panic crossing his face as he looked back up at me. “I can’t seem to remember anything.”
“Well, you were knocked in the head pretty hard,” I told him, trying to ease his worry. “I had to stitch that gash over your eye up. Sorry, I’m not much of a doctor, so you’re going to have a scar.”
The stranger raised his hand to the wound as if just now realizing it was there.
“Let’s start off with something easy,” I said. “What’s your name?”
He thought about the question for a moment then finally answered.
“Jace, I think,” he said, not quite certain he was remembering correctly.
“Ok, Jace. Can you remember where you came from? Did you escape from a breeding camp?”
Jace sat for well over half a minute. His eyes darted around as if the answer to my questions were written somewhere on the walls of his mind.
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I don’t know what a breeding camp is, but I’m assuming it’s not a nice place if I would have to escape from it. I can’t remember anything except that my name is Jace and,” he looked up, his eyes narrowing on me, “I needed to find you.”
I swallowed hard. I had chalked up Jace’s statement before he passed out to being that from a delirious man.
“Why would you be trying to find me?” I asked, apprehensive to hear his answer. “We’ve never met before now.”
“You’re the only thing I do remember,” he said, as if not wanting me to take away the one thing he was certain about.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but what you think you know isn’t true. We’ve never met before today. Whatever you’re remembering isn’t real.”
“But the memories I have of you are so clear. I couldn’t have just made them up.”
His eyes held my gaze with such intensity it made me feel increasingly uncomfortable, like he knew me better than I knew myself.
“Listen,” I said, trying to be as understanding as I could, “whatever you think you remember about me have to be memories you have for someone else in your life.”
“No,” he said with a stubborn set to his jaw. “The memories I have aren’t about someone else. I would know the difference.”
I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.
“I can’t help explain what you think you know. All I know is that we need to get out of here before other Harvesters come to look for the ones who tortured you.”
I conveniently omitted the fact I wanted to get on the road to Ash as soon as possible. The poor guy was confused enough as it was.
“Where are we going?�
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“The Southern Kingdom,” I told him, making a mental note of the supplies we would need to find to make Jace travel ready.
“How far is this place?”
“A long ways.”
I honestly didn’t know exactly how far it was. I would have to look at Ash’s map and chart out a route for us to take so we could avoid the breeding camps Ash and I had encountered on our travels.
I knelt down beside Ash’s backpack and pulled out the largest shirt I could find.
“Here, see if this will fit,” I said, tossing the plain white T-shirt to Jace.
I rummaged around the contents of the pack and found a pair of jeans and red socks, tossing them both onto Jace’s lap as he squeezed his large torso into the T-shirt.
When I looked back up, I noticed the T-shirt definitely didn’t fit. It molded to Jace’s body like a second skin, outlining his muscles in an almost obscene way, but it would have to do until we found something better.
The real problem was shoes. Ash didn’t carry around a spare pair, saying they weighed too much.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Jace. “Why don’t you see if the pants fit while I’m gone?”
Blue and I went outside and made our way to the back of the library where Ash and I had disposed of the Harvester corpses. I pulled off the male Harvester’s patent black leather slip-on shoes, trying not to gag at the sight of the headless bodies lying haphazardly on the cold dead earth. When Blue and I reentered the library, the sight that greeted us shocked and amused me at the same time.
With his back to the entrance, Jace was hopping up and down on his feet trying his best to pull Ash’s pants up over his hips. His bare buttocks jiggled with each jump he made. I promptly made an about-face and went back outside to give him some privacy and myself a few moments for my cheeks to cool down. After a couple of minutes, I figured he either had the pants on or had given up trying.
When we walked back in, Jace was fully clothed and slipping Ash’s green jacket on.