Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection

by Heather Hambel Curley

  “Just because something is abandoned, doesn’t mean that its story has ended.” She slumped further down on the ground, propping her head up with her arms crossed underneath her. “Just look at us.”

  I didn’t want to; I didn’t want to compare our situation to a damned, rusted out track that wasn’t salvageable even twenty years prior. No one could save it. If I gave into that mentality, then, I’d lost hope. I’d have lost the will to take another step forward. Another breath.

  And I had to have hope.

  Without it, we were as good as dead.

  Nine

  I lost count of the days very quickly. Hours bled into miles and miles into weeks; we walked for ages, drawn in a direction based on how close the nearest water source was to us. Berries, mushrooms, the occasional raw, wild onion. We ate like beggars and drank like kings. We had no destination, only the pressing, internal feeling that we needed to keep moving—like something was out there.

  Part of me wondered that uneasiness was some kind of delirium.

  I hadn’t seen another soul in…hours? Days? It all faded into one long string of time, broken up only by sleep and the occasional rest. The further we walked, the less free roaming people there seemed to be. I heard the occasional sounds of groups, but those faded fast. People were either breaking off into groups—

  Or simply dying out.

  The sun beat down on us mercilessly. My fingertips sensed water in a general direction and I thought I’d stuck with it—yet, we’d walked in dusty, flat stone desert for hours. Days probably. I wanted water; rain even. I wanted to sit down with a cold class of milk and a warm chocolate chip cookie, just like I had as a child. I was tired of the bite of sand and the draining, brisling feeling of thirst. My sister hadn’t spoken in probably two days and I was fine with that…except part of me worried she was turning more and more inside herself. She’d already given up.

  As the sun crested the highest point in the sky, my eyes focused on shaded, wavering shapes in the distance. Maybe this was the delusion setting in: my brain was too atrophied from lack of fluid and nutrition that I was seeing things.

  I was seeing what I wanted to see. Home. Comfort. Vaughn and the kiss of wet water and bitter wine. I wanted happiness.

  “I see it, too.” Soleil responded as if she’d been hiding in my mind. Waiting. “There are buildings out there, just ahead.”

  I tugged on the red cord wrapped around my arm until my fingers throbbed. If there were people here—people who preyed on others—we were walking to the gallows. We were as good as dead. What we needed to do was push further around them, out enough that we wouldn’t bother the inhabitants. We needed to steer clear.

  But I was tired. I felt the grit behind my eyes and the exhaustion down to my very soul. Part of me didn’t care. Live or die—it didn’t matter anymore. Inside, I was already dead.

  As we got closer, I could see a field of long, rectangular shapes interspersed evenly across the plot of land. The rocks and ground leading up to it were scorched, as if an extremely hot fire once flowed through the grounds. It looked deserted.

  It was a trailer park.

  Or, at least, it had been. The mobile homes still neatly lined in rows were burned and battered, rusted out. The exterior siding was peeled back on several of the homes; others were left in complete disarray by what looked like fire and, possibly, the futile attempt to extinguish the flames. Children’s toys and bicycles littered the grassless yards. Cars were still parked in driveways and, peering through one shattered window, I could see a table still set. It was like the inhabitants just disappeared.

  Soleil slowed at the back of a sporty car, the back hatch open and filled with plastic bags of food containers. It was obviously ransacked; anything still edible had long been removed. “They left in a hurry.”

  My eyes snapped across the exterior of buildings. Even with a quick survey, I could see the makeshift coverings across windows and the fortifications near exterior doors. People were here, maybe even recently. “I think some stayed.”

  “Maybe just to rest.”

  I slowed near a concrete building, partially collapsed and metal rebar visible through gaping holes in the portions still standing. “Maybe.” Someone—or several someones—had tagged the outsides of buildings and shelters. The graffiti was innocent enough, but in the greater context, it was chilling.

  Soon.

  It all ends.

  Death from above.

  Run.

  I rubbed my palms against my bare arms, trying to stimulate heat in my flesh. The sun was beating down us, but I felt cold. Empty. “We should go.”

  “God, Wren, why care anymore?” She dropped to her knees in the shadow of one of the trailers and fanned her face with her hands. “It’s like twenty degrees cooler in the shade. If we’re going to die—and it’s likely we will—can’t we at least be a little cooler and a little less miserable? Just for a few minutes?”

  I groaned. The pain in my head was back, piercing my skull right between my eyes. Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I exhaled sharply and said, “Five minutes.”

  “Fine.”

  I slumped down next to her. She was probably right: we weren’t going to survive this. All this walking, all this avoiding people and struggling to find some fat grubs or berries or just enough water to walk a little further—all we were doing was delaying the inevitable. We thought the Division ended the world. We’d been wrong—it just set up the execution. The bombs were the death blow.

  White hot light flashed through my eyes, radiating straight into my brain. I saw the railroad tracks in West Wood; I saw the blackened caboose. The vision leapt forward like I was running, I was scrambling up the steps and throwing open the rear door—

  I opened my eyes.

  My attention snapped across the lot to another trailer. I’d seen movement, as if something was scampering around the farthest side; like a person flitted around the corner.

  Impossible.

  I tried to focus all my senses to the trailers around us. Holding my breath in my lungs—like my breathing was too loud to hear over, or something—I listened. There was no sound of footsteps or whispers. No visible movements or the smell or food or stale, body odor. Wind whistled between the structures and I cringed at the screech of metal rubbing on metal.

  “Soleil.”

  “Shut up. It hasn’t been five minutes.”

  “No, I saw something.” I pointed to the other trailer. “I swear someone just walked around it.”

  She snorted. “You’ve been in the sun too long.”

  “You heard the dead back in Vale. Did you even reach out to see if you sensed souls here?” I glared at her, my upper lip twitching into a snarl. “Or were you in the sun too long?”

  She huffed, like it was some big inconvenience to her, and shut her eyes. Almost right away, her brow knitted down into a frown. Her fingertips twitched.

  And her eyes shot open. “Wren, there’s—“

  A hand clamped down on my shoulder. “It’s never polite to show up without an invitation.”

  Ten

  I was too petrified to move. My brain was screaming at me: throw an energy burst in his face; buck right out of his arms and come up kicking.

  That was great and fine and all, but the message wasn’t getting to my legs. The brief respite in the shade practically dulled my reaction time to zilch. Exhaustion creeped in and, in some defeatist way, the will to life I’d had back in Vale cracked. Splintered.

  Maybe Soleil was right. Maybe it was pointless—she was damned right that we were going to die.

  God, how typical.

  A second hand gripped my opposite shoulder; I was rooted in place. The grasp was tight, but at the same time not harsh. He was in control and he knew it. “You’re trespassing.”

  “I didn’t see a sign.”

  “Wren!” Soleil hissed at me, her eyes widening probably in some kind of plea. Great, now she wants to live. Again: typical.

  The
man pressing down on my shoulders chuckled. “Wren, is it? Ah, a pretty little pointless bird; scrawny but complex and loud.”

  Another male voice chimed in from behind him. “Sounds like the last ten bitches I dated.”

  I felt the man holding me turn slightly, like he was looking backwards, but his grip never lessoned. Lowering my eyes down and towards my shoulder, I could see his dirt caked fingernails and brown leather, fingerless gloves. His leg slid forward and, dipping my head down, I could see his heavy combat boots. This guy was a survivor. He wasn’t some linen wearing, half-crazed husk in Vale. I could feel it in his touch.

  He was laughing, his baritone voice smooth like creamy hot cocoa. “And that, Tone, is precisely why you’ve had so many girlfriends. They weren’t bitches. Skanks, yeah, but a few were polite and that one lived with her grandma.”

  “Julie wanted to be a physical therapist.” The first female voice I’d heard.

  “And Julie wanted to be a physical therapist.” He squeezed my shoulders tightly. “What about you, Wren? What did you want to be before all the world went to shit?”

  My left leg was cramping. “Just left alone, I guess.”

  “Well, unfortunately, you’re here now and this is our territory. You shouldn’t be here.”

  I mimicked his pattern of speech. “Well, let us go and we won’t be. We’ll just keep wandering around trying to find a cozy place to die. Sorry for using your shade for a few minutes.”

  I shifted my weight to relieve the pressure on my hamstring; he jammed one hand to the back of my neck and shoved me down. “Who told you to move?”

  I bit my tongue to keep quiet. There were at least three of them and, since they were all behind me, I couldn’t be sure how close in proximity they were to me and Soleil. I could force them back with an energy bolt. My fingers tingled at the thought, but I wasn’t sure I could conjure one large enough to drop three grown adults. One half-burned asshole in Vale, yes, but three healthy people?

  I wasn’t so sure.

  Soleil whimpered. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her hunched over, one hand held up in submission. “Please. Please, just let us go.”

  “Just shut up.” The other male—Tone—barked the order out; at the same time, the loud click of a gun being cocked snapped near my ear. “Nobody told you to talk.”

  I choked back laughter. Finally, someone who saw through Soleil’s bullshit and put her in her place. If I’d been upright, I’d shake the man’s hand.

  Tone shifted next to me; I felt the gun barrel pressed to the side of my head. “You think this is funny?”

  “Only for the incredible sense of irony. You’re the first person to see through her act and…I mean, it’s satisfying. I almost got raped because she was so set on looking for survivors in Vale and, I’ve got to tell you, I’m twenty-years-old and for the past eighteen years I’ve played second fiddle to her. People like her softness and sweeness, not my cold, harsh reality. But, I’m rambling. Sorry, go ahead. You were yelling at her, continue.”

  The first man lifted one hand from my shoulder. “You went through Vale?”

  Tone took a step back.

  “Unfortunately. It wasn’t paradise before, but I can confirm after having an atomic bomb dropped on it, it was far worse.”

  “Get up.”

  “If you’re going to shoot me, can I just save the effort and stay face down? We’ve walked for a long time and I’m tired. Maybe radioactive.”

  “Stand up. Now.” His voice softened. “I won’t ask you again, Wren.”

  I exhaled sharply but complied, easing up to my knees first and then up to my feet. Every muscle throbbed in resistance and I wobbled unsteadily—but I was up. I turned to face him.

  There were actually four of them: the one who held me down was at point, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and his equally dark eyes a stark contrast to his pale skin. His face was partially covered by a scraggily goatee and, around his neck, was a thick, black scarf. A long black leather coat hung stiffly from his solid frame and goggles perched on the top of his head. He looked tough, like the kind of person who dressed for utility rather than with regard to the weather. Behind him was an equally broad shouldered black man, clean-cut and beardless, and a very thin, very pale man with wide, almost translucent blue eyes. The only female seemed to be supporting him with one arm. Her face was beautiful, marred only by a thick, jagged scar running from the side of her mouth, up her cheek, and disappearing into her hair near her ear.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. “Are there more of you?”

  “You went through Vale.” He blatantly ignored my question. “Did you find survivors?”

  “Only one. He jumped me and jammed his hand down my pants, so I…” I trailed off. I’d what, exactly? Defended myself? Did what any rational person would do? “I handled it. And we left fast, so, if you were looking for someone there? I wouldn’t chase that dream to far.”

  “Before our radios went down, we had contact with another group just outside the city lines. My sister…” He ran his hang over his chin, wiping across his mouth like he was pushing something back. “We got word they survived the blast, but haven’t heard anything since. It’s been almost four weeks.”

  Four weeks, Jesus. I exchanged a glance with my sister. “We heard other people around us as we walked. It’s not like we’re the only survivors out of that end of the country, there are others.”

  Soleil cleared her throat. “At least, there were.”

  He was still studying me, his eyes the color of charcoal dust. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to figure out. My strength? How long my body would last if they slaughtered me for food? Whether or not I was lying?

  The flesh behind my eyes pounded; bolts of white hot electricity seared into the depths of my brain. These four…they thirsted for something. It was almost insatiable, the frail one needed it more than the others, but the need was there in all of them.

  My eyes fluttered shut. I could still hear him talking, but my mind filtered out the sounds. I could see them, each of them at the same time, pawing through the trailers and jamming pipes in the ground to look for it. The sky never clouded. There were cisterns, there were barrels. But all they needed was locked away in the sky.

  I opened my eyes again. It wasn’t so difficult; their thirst—was thirst.

  He was still talking. “…won’t kill you, but you need to leave.”

  My eyes shot open. “I can find you water.”

  His jaw went slack; he stopped talking and stared at me, his brow furrowing into a deep frown. “Look, if you’re going to lie to me, we can just shoot you. I think it’s easier for you two just to leave and pretend this meeting never happened.”

  “No.” I shook my head—what I really wanted to do was shake the thought right out of my brain. Exhaustion was getting the better of me. We’d let people pass us by for three weeks; why these people? Why now?

  As if in response, my brain shuddered with pain. It was deep and penetrated to the very core, like someone jabbed a pick straight through my cranium and into the center of my mind. I ground my teeth together, straining and stiffening my jaw until I started to worry my teeth would crack. “You need water. I can find it for you and, if I do, you let us stay.”

  He looked into my eyes; I could feel the intensity of his gaze. My vision blurred and, for a moment, I saw us dancing together. We were in a small room, draped with thick purple curtains and thin sheers. He was laughing, spinning me around and then dipping me backwards. I felt…I was…happy.

  I snapped back to the present. My pulse was hammering in time with the pain in my head. I held out my hand to him, to shake. “Water for shelter. Is it a deal?”

  He glanced to either side of him and then grabbed my extended hand. His grip was firm. “Shit, Wren, if you find us water, you can stay for however much time we have left on this damned earth.”

  “Fair enough.” I cocked my head to my si
ster. “You can still shoot her, though.”

  “Wren!”

  “I’m joking! Really, I’m joking.” I pulled my hand from his, though his touch lingered on mine longer than it should have. I again crossed my arms at my chest. “This is my sister, Soleil. I’m Wren. Uh, obviously.”

  “Lyta, Tyler—we call him Tone—and Peter.” He cocked his head at me. “And I’m Avi.”

  “You can put your gun down, Tone.” I glanced down at the handgun still firmly pointed at me. “I’m not armed. I have some tools in my pack, but that’s more for fixing, not actual defense.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath, but lowered the piece. “We’re out of bullets anyway.”

  Good to know. I filed the thought away, as the look on his face indicated a wish to pull those words right back in his mouth. Tilting my head to the side, I said, “Why do they call you Tone? Were you, like, into body building or something before the Division?”

  “No. Music school.”

  “Good talk. Glad we’re all acquainted.” Avi clapped his hands together. “Now. About that water.”

  ****

  “God, Wren, maybe you should have promised him diamonds or something actually easy to find.” Soleil pinched her thumb and index finger into the sensitive flesh of my underarm and twisted. “What is wrong with you? They were going to kill us.”

  I shoved her away from me. “They said their gun is out of bullets.”

  “You, better than anyone, should know you can kill a person with more than just a gun.”

  “Don’t tempt me, Soleil.”

  I squatted down on the ground just outside of the trailer park and pressed my palms to the parched earth. This was a wasteland. I’d never been this far west in my life, so maybe this was how it typically looked: barren. At some point, though, people lived here. They didn’t necessarily thrive, but they’d put a plot of trailers and, in theory, had the base necessities.

  I closed my eyes and relaxed my body; I pictured the muscles in my body loosening slack, from my clenched jaw, through my shoulders and each finger, and down my back, legs, and to my toes. I imagined the space between my fingers and the soil growing smaller. Our molecules mixed, I was one with the earth.