by Tara Brown
"There it is."
A shiver creeps up my back as I lean forward and point. "Stop here."
He looks confused but pulls over. I open the door and look at Leo. "You know the drill, okay?"
He stretches and jumps from the back of the big truck. Leo stands on his back legs and puts his front paws around my neck. I hug him and whisper into his fur, "Stay away from the people, okay? I'll whistle if I need you." I run my fingers through his fur one more time. I need to get the extra touches to stock pile them in my memory.
"I love you, Leo."
He makes his purring sound and hops down. He looks at Will, then me, and runs off into the woods. I see him darting towards the city. My guts burn. I don’t want him to be here.
I ignore the feeling and get back inside.
"He'll be fine." Will puts a hand on my leg. I move away from his grip. "He shoulda stayed behind. He's stubborn as hell."
My hands start to sweat as we near the city. The clean pants and t-shirt itch. They were fresh from a package. Never washed or worn. I don’t like them. They don’t even fit right, but Bernie says everyone wears free-flowing clothes. Clothes that are too tight stores toxins in the body.
The linen pants and shirt feel nice in the summer heat though. Only my hands are sweaty, and that’s not from the heat. I drag them up and down my pants. I wish I had my bow. Clutching that would make me feel a whole lot better.
I feel the cold, mean look crossing my face. It's like a piece of my self-defense. I can't be around other people without a bitchy look crossing my face.
The city comes into full view. It looks like something from The Wizard of Oz. It's amazing. It glistens in the sun and makes me feel inspired. I don’t want to wreck it suddenly.
"You should have stayed back at the house. They're going to know you're not older than twenty-eight." Will adds his own version of a confidence booster as we arrive close to the gates of what appears to be a guard blockade. It's like what Meg told me about. Bernie slows and puts the window down. I can't tear my eyes from the magnificence in front of me.
"Less star-struck," Will whispers. I close my mouth and look at the man approaching us. He has a dark-blue uniform and a huge gun in his hands. He looks a bit older than me and very serious.
Bernie hands him a card like the ones that open the doors to the breeder farms.
"Doctor Sinclair, how are you?" the man asks.
Bernie shrugs. "Getting warm with the windows open."
The man looks past him and nods in my direction. "Who are your friends?"
I watch his dark-blue eyes and wonder if everyone has blue eyes now. His dark hair makes them seem brighter than they are.
Bernie points at Will. "This is Doctor Henderson and that is his nurse. They are guests of mine from a farm a ways out."
He raises an eyebrow. "They have ID cards too?"
Will hands the man his card. "Here's mine."
I pass mine and notice how sweaty my hands are. I wonder if the fake ID card is wet from it.
He looks them over and passes them back. "Okay. Move ahead." He looks directly at me. "Have a great trip. I hope you enjoy the city."
I nod once. I don’t know if I should smile or not.
We drive to the next stop where we are checked quickly for infection and diseases. When we pass through, I'm almost hyperventilating.
Bernie smiles back as we drive into the small city. "You don’t have to fret; all those explosions you caused destroyed any evidence they had on you."
I shake my head in jerks. "They had me in Spokane."
He raises an eyebrow and grimaces. "Oh. I'm sorry."
"Why?"
He brushes it off. "No reason. You made it out—that’s the big stuff."
Will looks back at me with a confused look, but I don’t take my eyes from Bernie. "What happens in Spokane?"
His eyes dart from mine to Will's and back to the road. "Death experiments. It's where they keep the infected and experiment on them. The old hospital is used to try to find cures, and what the connection is with the ones who don’t die. Most die. It's only like seven percent who live on with the disease."
I shudder "Seems like a heck of a lot more than seven percent." I look out at the glass and marble city. It's bright and clean like the farms.
"It's like all the color and personality that makes us human is gone," Will mutters and looks out at the people walking in boring colors and not talking.
"They look like robots, don’t they? It's like a science fiction movie from the early two thousands," Bernie agrees.
I never really watched them, but I can see what they're saying. The people are wooden. Just as I am certain that I am seeing the same people walk by, as if the scenery is repeating itself, I see the thing that everyone has spoken of. A small group of four kids about Meg's age walk together down the sidewalk. They have a gleam in their eyes and a swagger to their walk that is menacing. I get a bad feeling in my belly when I see them. One glances at me as we drive past. He smirks at me. I don’t like that look. I don’t like them.
"They're creepy," I whisper.
We drive past a building that looks familiar. Then I realize it's identical to the breeder farms. My nose wrinkles involuntarily.
The whole city becomes creepy. The kids and the breeder buildings taint it. I nod to myself; I can blow this place up.
"Do they have a back-up explosion button here?"
Bernie looks at me and shakes his head. "No. We'll have to bring in the explosives."
I shrug. "We need to figure out where we'll put it all anyway." I know nothing about blowing things up. I did it when I had to, but the explosives were there.
Bernie pulls into a wide doorway and drives down. My skin prickles as we drive into the darkness. I see other cars but no people. The lights on the front of truck show little dark corners everywhere. I shake my head.
Warmth covers my hands. I turn them over and let Will grip me.
"I don’t want to be here. I don’t like it down here."
Will squeezes. "It's okay, baby. Stay calm. Remember people will be watching."
I shake. "I don’t see people. Just dark corners." The truck turns another corner. I can feel panic starting to become anger. I don’t like dark corners in buildings. I don’t like new places where I don’t know the way out. I close my eyes and stop looking. I take a deep breath, seeing Leo's face. His sloppy-wolf face. I know if I whistle, he will come. If I panic, he will come. He always comes.
I grip Will and know he always comes too. We will get out of the city. Everything is going to be okay. I chant it and pray I'll start believing it.
I open my eyes as the truck stops in a dimly-lit spot. I look at Bernie. "Where are we?"
He points to a door to the left. "My house in the city."
The doctor in Spokane fills my mind. I look around at the vehicles parked and whisper, "Parkade."
Bernie looks at me and laughs. "You remember them?"
I shake my head and touch my fingers to the cold glass. "No."
Will jumps out and opens the door for me. He wraps his hand around mine again. I'm shaking.
"Why can't we ever just fight this in the woods? I'm good in the woods," I mutter and let him drag me from the truck. We walk around it to the door. It's big and metal. Bernie slides his card and it opens. The doors lock here too? No one trusts anyone. Everything is clean, white and shiny, but it's dead here too. They just make the death nicer looking than the dusty junk we deal with out in the borderlands.
I let go of Will's hand as we walk through the door. I see a girl a little older than me. She doesn’t look at me. I watch her—the way she avoids our eye contact, only looking at things, and somehow watching me in her peripheral.
She is in the same sort of pants as me, the tan linen, but her shirt is baby blue and mine is pale purple. I think Granny would have called it violet.
Her hair is shiny and clean. I know I don’t look like that. My skin is tanned and freckled where hers i
s creamy. She looks like a breeder.
Her green eyes dart at mine momentarily.
Guess not everyone has blue eyes.
Bernie walks down the hall past her. We follow.
She smiles at Will. I see a blush rise in her cheeks and roll my eyes. When we round the corner, I glare up at him. "We can't bring you anywhere, can we?"
He looks confused. "Who?"
Bernie looks back confused and opens a door for us. When we walk inside I am awestruck. "People live like this? Freely?" I can feel the dirt coating my skin, compared to the white of the room and the wide-open bright space. The room is bigger than any tent I've seen and brighter than any houses I've hidden in.
Will whistles. "Haven’t seen a house like this in a while."
I feel sick. "People die in the woods from no water and no food or from eating the wrong thing, and here in the city, you all are living like this? I was in a town a few years ago and the people there were so dirty and skinny, they were eating their dead."
Bernie makes a face and puts his hands up. "I didn’t make this war, Emma."
I look at Will for support, but he shakes his head. "We can't focus on the small things. We gotta save Anna."
I swallow it down, the anger and pain. I fight my urge to want to rant or smash things.
Will starts laughing and points out the window. "I can see a group of those little kids beating someone up. I always imagined it was a crazy story to scare people."
We walk to where he is, and sure enough, there is a group of kids beating someone in the alley between the tall buildings. No one stops it. No one even looks at it. They walk past the alley and ignore that it's going on. A van comes tearing around the corner, stopping feet from them. Men in white suits jump out and chase the kids down. It's like watching TV when I was little.
"Why doesn’t he stop making them, if they are like this?" I mutter, touching my fingers to the cold glass.
"I don’t know. He's convinced he can control them and they'll outgrow their tempers and bad behavior." Bernie stands next to me and sighs. "He doesn’t see. None of them do."
I shake my head. "What a waste of time and technology. He built this city and this life, but for what? So those freaks can overrun it and destroy everything he's worked for? Makes no sense."
I turn away from it, looking out at the city. It's small but everything gleams from the glass and metal. It looks new but the people don’t. "Everyone looks like they do in the borderlands. They aren’t dressed fancy."
Will walks to where I am. The heat of his body so near mine makes me shiver. "There are no factories or cotton fields or anything. They haven’t made a new world; they just put up walls and made a bunch of places to live. The work farms get them food and essentials, but really they aren’t much different than the rest of us. The furnishings and clothes are scavenged."
Bernie gives us a grim look. "Except they have an army and a population of people. We feel safer in a group. People naturally want to be around other people. We used to say that before, safety in numbers."
I nod. "I feel safe here. I'm not—I'm not comfortable with the walls and the possibilities, but I feel safe. I could close my eyes to sleep and know nothing is going to kill me in the night."
He shrugs. "And yet, this is the most dangerous place for someone like you."
I watch his face when he says it. He doesn’t attach emotions to the things he says, unless it's sarcasm. He has plenty of that. I wonder if he ever cries or feels scared.
Will grabs my shoulders. "Let's rest and then we'll head out in the night."
Bernie points to a door to the right of us. "That’s the guest room."
Before I realize what's going on, Will takes my hand and pulls me to the door. When he opens it, I frown and look back at Bernie. "Is there another room?"
He points to the door on the other side of the apartment, "Mine." He grins like he's daring me. I look up at Will. "You should go sleep with him."
He laughs and pulls me into the room, closing the door behind us. "I'm not leaving your side. I'll sleep on the chair."
I look at the tiny chair and the not-so-tiny bed and sigh. "No. Just stay on your own side of the bed."
I strip my boots off and climb into the sheets in my pants. I hate bringing the filth of the day into bed with me, but these clothes are cleaner than my body.
I close my eyes and pretend I don’t notice the heat or weight of him on the bed next to me.
I drift away fast, mostly because he is there. He is the safest thing in the world. Him and Leo.
I wake feeling heat under and around me, and I moan. I try to run my fingers through the fur but I find skin, hot skin. I open one eye to find myself splayed across him, like I do to Leo. I feel moisture under my face and wince. I lift my hand slowly to wipe away the spit I've left all over him. I glance up, hoping to find him sleeping still, but I find his grinning face instead.
"Evening, ma'am."
I gulp. "Sorry." I wipe the spit with the sheet.
He laughs, shaking us both and hugs me down onto his chest again. "For a shy prude of a girl you sure are a naughty sleeper." I pull back but his thick arm traps me to him. "Oh, you aren’t going anywhere now. You've been rubbing me and squeezing me all afternoon."
My heartbeat picks up. I feel panic. His words are threats in my brain, but his gentle smile and blazing eyes don’t scare me. He doesn’t scare me. I realize it now. It's all been a game in my mind to keep him at bay. I scare me.
He rolls me on my side, trapping me. It feels tight, constraining, but I like it. Like we are in a cocoon.
My hands tremble where they press into his chest.
He smiles devilishly and presses his lips against mine. The heat and intensity of him pressing against me, makes sparks where our skin connects.
His tongue slides into my parted lips. I kiss the way he does, slipping my tongue against his. Our wet lips caress and suck each others. He sucks my tongue and I catch a moan escaping me.
My breathing increases with my hands’ movements. I knead his thick, muscled back, gripping him and pulling him down on me.
He moves between my thighs, pressing himself against me. I don’t know what's happening, but I'm pressing myself against him too. He's gentle and delicate with his kisses and caresses. His hand rubs from my lower leg to my upper thigh. He breaks our kiss and gently kisses my throat. He cups my butt cheek firmly, lifting me almost.
It's not how I imagined it, none of it. He's soft and delicate. He sits back and opens the buttons on my shirt softly. He plants a kiss on my exposed skin as each button comes off. He opens the shirt. My hands naturally lift to cover me. As I cover my breasts, my walls start rebuilding themselves. I shake my head. "No."
He nods and laughs. "Okay." He climbs off the bed and pulls on his shirt. He's panting; we both are.
He looks at me and I see something I've never seen from him—understanding. He isn’t mad. He isn’t mean. He isn’t being sarcastic or rude. He gets it. He sees how scared I am.
I frown and take an inventory of my feelings. I'm not scared. I want him. I want him to climb back into the bed. I want him to rub against me again.
I look at the door and nod. "See if it locks."
He furrows his brow. "What?"
I swallow, still covering myself, "See if it locks."
He starts to get what I'm saying. "It does. I locked it when we came in."
I take a deep breath and remove my hands from my chest. I put them on the bed, gripping the sheets that are still warm from his body being there.
He arches an eyebrow, and I nod in tiny twitches. He pulls his shirt off and drops his pants. He takes a step in his underwear and gives me the look once more. I take him in. His body is beautiful. He's muscled and smooth, and I want to slowly touch every inch of him. My eyes dart to his underwear and nod. "Yes." I want to touch every inch.
He climbs into the bed and pulls back the covers. His fingers tremble as much as mine do as he pulls off my pant
s. We are both just in a pair of underwear. He loops his fingers into the sides of mine.
"Last chance."
I smile. "Yes."
A grin breaks across his face as he pulls them down and I stifle the heart attack I'm pretty sure I'm having.
Chapter Twelve
I feel different.
I knew I would, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as much as it is.
It's a lot.
He keeps giving me a weird look, like he's scared of me or for me. I can just see it in his face, thanks to the last of the sunlight coming in the window.
I frown finally. "What?"
His cheeks are still flushed. He shakes his head and licks his lips. "Nothing. Are you okay?"
I frown. "Why?"
"It's just not what I was expecting."
The comment hurts my feelings—feelings I didn’t know could get hurt. I feel myself pulling away.
He sees my look. "In a good way. Not what I was expecting in a good way."
I freeze. "We should get going." I don’t want to talk about it and his face is weird. He looks a bit like I imagine Jake would, self-conscience or nervous. He doesn't have the cocky Will face I'm used to.
He pulls me into his chest again and kisses the top of my head. "I love you, Em."
I look up. "Are you okay?"
He laughs. "Yeah, why?"
I shake my head. "You're acting like a girl."
He laughs. "Want me to rough you up a bit?" He cocks an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes. "I'll still shoot you."
He kisses me again. "I know you will."
The awkwardness in the air is interrupted by a knock, thankfully.
"You guys ready to go?"
Will clears his throat. "Yup. Out in two." He looks at me. "You should stay here."
I grimace. "What?"
"Yeah, I was thinking you should stay here, in case we get caught."
I pull back. "No."
His eyes narrow. "It's not safe."
I shake my head, like I'm trying to rattle his words out of my brain. I climb off the bed and fish my underwear and pants out of the sheets. I pull them on fast. I don’t like being naked around him, which is weird, considering what we just did.