“I don’t think I believe that anymore.”
THE SECOND BODY was found at the main entrance just days later. This guard was younger, or so I heard, not much older than I. He was even less recognizable than the first guard. The rumor was that actual body pieces had been found as opposed to a whole body. I had spent quite some time bent over the rim of a toilet bowl after that. There was no hiding the news this time; it had been found during the day while everyone was awake. This time, Octavia called the citizens together, to make the announcement.
There was a large amphitheater in one of the lowest levels of Sanctuary. I had never seen it before and was surprised to find it. It was almost like a full football stadium, buried deep below the ground. Kaya explained that it was rarely used. It wasn’t often that Sanctuary needed all of its citizens in the same place. It was also used as the sort of evacuation area in case of any disaster, which hadn’t been necessary since the bombs went off over a year ago, at which point I had been on the road out of New York City. It always seemed sort of odd to me that the citizens of Sanctuary just buried themselves further underground in emergencies
Octavia spoke calmly during her entire speech, not deterred at all speaking in front of countless faces looking to her for answers. She explained about the murders of the two guards, and ensured us that they were doing the best they could to prevent this from happening again. There were worried looks on several faces but most seemed at ease after the speech. The Director had that sort of effect on the people of Sanctuary.
I, however, had seen the sweat glistening on her brow. She was nervous.
“Did anyone else buy that load of bullshit?” I asked loudly as we filed out.
“Zoey,” Liam warned, tiredly. Several people glared at me as they passed and I rolled my eyes. Octavia was not faultless or flawless, despite what people here thought.
“I’m just saying,” I lowered my voice. “I doubt they’re doing anything at all.”
“Zoey.” Ash’s voice was stern. “Stop.”
I looked at him, confused. I followed his line of sight and my heart fell. He was looking at Kaya. She looked like she was barely keeping herself together. Tears were silently streaming down her face.
I took a step closer and she looked startled, like she’d forgotten that all of us were still there next to her. Her fingers wiped her cheeks hastily. “I’m fine,” she said.
“You are clearly not,” I pointed out. “You’re crying. Did you know him?”
“Of course I knew him Zoey! Before the Awakened, there weren’t many of us around here. I knew everyone. These people are my friends, my family, and now they are dying! And no one seems to care because at least it’s not them!” Kaya snapped. She breathed heavily for a few seconds, unaware that several people were staring at her in shock. Her eyes widened and her face turned an attractive puce color. “Oh my…Zoey. Ash. Liam. I’m…your parents and…I’m so sorry.” She looked ashamed.
I, on the other hand, probably looked impressed. I had never seen Kaya use a tone louder than a slightly loud whisper. She was soft-spoken and kept mostly to herself, unless she was asking me about a Kardashian or something equally as useless. “Damn, Kaya, I didn’t know you had that in you.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, wringing her hands nervously.
I shook my head. “Don’t be. It’s healthy to get angry. And it’s nice to see someone else yell besides me.”
The corner of her lip turned up slightly but she still looked miserable. “People shouldn’t be dying,” she said, softly. “We’re supposed to be safe here. If we aren’t safe here, then where are we?”
“I’m starting to think there’s nowhere that’s one hundred percent safe. Not with the Awakened out there. Not with Razi Cylon,” Ash spoke up. His hand was resting gently on my waist but I could see the tension in his shoulders.
All around us, people looked calm. They were reassured by Octavia’s speech and I didn’t blame them. It was easy to fall into that sort of hope. Most of these people had been driven from their homes and seen loved ones die. They were tired and broken down. They were beaten. These people needed to believe that it was finally over.
I was starting to believe that it was never going to be over.
In the next two weeks, four more people were found dead, each body more gruesome and torn apart than the previous. Sanctuary was in a frenzy. Octavia doubled the amount of patrols and then tripled them but there simply weren’t enough people. People didn’t leave Sanctuary often; people hardly went outside unless necessary. Now, no one was leaving. Whispers filled the corridors and there were worried faces everywhere.
Every time I saw Octavia, she looked worse than she had the last time. I tried to corner her but she always seemed to disappear when I got near. I didn’t chalk that off as a coincidence. She spent more and more time in her office and there were definitely no more speeches.
Two weeks and three days after the first death, a total of six bodies were found by the back entrance, scattered amongst the ancient cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde that were the cover for Sanctuary. One of those bodies belonged to Kaya’s brother.
I felt awful. I felt truly horrible. I had spent almost five months in the same room as Kaya and I’d no clue she’d had a brother, let alone known that he worked in the military sector of Sanctuary.
Kaya spent a few days with her parents, sleeping on a cot squeezed into their living quarters. I didn’t like the silence and solitude of our room. It gave me way too much time to think. I actually missed the sound of her snores and her incessant questions.
I walked into our room a few days after her brother’s death and found her sitting on her bed, legs crossed, her eyes fixed on the wall in front of her.
“Kaya?” My voice was soft. “Are you okay?”
Her face titled and her eyes met mine. They were tired but there were no signs that she had cried at all. She looked like a ghost. Her hair was hanging dirtily around her face and she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. She probably hadn’t.
“Kaya?” I repeated.
She blinked a few times and then recognition flickered across her face. “Zoey.” Her voice was rough and broken, like she hadn’t used it in a while. “I haven’t cried. They kept telling me that I need to cry but I can’t. I’m angry and I’m scared.” Her voice broke on the last word and I felt it deep in my stomach.
“I am so sorry, Kaya. I am so incredibly sorry.”
She nodded once, biting her lip.
I didn’t know what else to say or do. It seemed wrong that after so much loss, I still had no idea how to deal. I had cried more in the last year than I had cried in my life. But I hadn’t been given a chance to grieve, not really. After every death – my best friend Madison’s, my dad’s, my mom’s – I hadn’t had the time to process. It had always been about the next move, the need to keep going, to stay alive and survive. Dwelling on what had happened had not been a luxury I could afford.
Kaya had nothing but time for thinking and dwelling and, until she cried, I was afraid it would sit in her chest like a tumor and fester.
I opened my mouth to say something – though I had no idea what I could possibly say – when the door to our room slid open. The two of us jumped, startled and my eyes widened as Corbin came rushing into the room.
I had never seen Corbin like this before. He was always well put together, his head tucked behind a book. I had never seen him this aware of what was going on around him. His hair was a curly mess on his head and his eyes were darting around the room. His clothes were rumpled, like he had just thrown them on hastily, and there was no book to be found. His eyes landed on Kaya and his shoulders sagged in relief.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said, not taking his eyes off of her. I had never seen him look at a person this long before and I had certainly never seen him look at anyone the way he was looking at Kaya. I might as well have been invisible.
Kaya’s face flushed. “You have? Why?”
Corbin crossed the room and stopped in front of her. His hands twitched at his sides, like he wanted to reach for her. “I’ve been so worried about you. Kaya, I’m so sorry.” Sincerity rang through his voice and a little something else. Maybe I had been crazy to write Corbin off. It was always the quiet ones that surprised you.
Kaya stared at him for a long time, almost as if she wasn’t sure if she was really seeing him. Then in a split moment, she grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him toward her. Corbin stumbled as their lips met and I nearly laughed. It was awkward but absolutely perfect for them. I wouldn’t have expected anything less.
My face burned red. Now I was definitely intruding. “Okay, so I’m just going to go now…” Neither one of them acknowledged me. My embarrassment increased when I heard Kaya sigh. “Okay then! Bye!”
I fled the room. I wasn’t sure how long they would need privacy – and I had no desire to even think of what they would do with that privacy – but for now, I was banished. I wandered the corridors for a few minutes before ascending the spiral walkway to the library.
It was fairly abandoned, as it tended to be, especially late at night. I flitted through the shelves aimlessly but nothing was really calling out to me. I was about read to give up when I spotted Liam in the corner, his head bent over a book.
I tilted my head to read the title as I approached him and my eyebrows rose high on my forehead. “Co-Parenting in the 21st Century,” I read aloud. “Interesting read, there.”
The tips of Liam’s ears turned red but he smiled slightly. “It’s a nice distraction. None of it means anything and so it means everything.”
I hopped up on the table in front of him, my feet dangling. “And what exactly do you need a distraction from?”
His lips were practically glued together as he gave me a knowing look.
“You can’t blame me for trying,” I shrugged. “Well, I’ve been banished from my room because Corbin and Kaya are currently making out in there.”
“What?” Liam’s voice carried but there was no one around to even care. “Damn. It’s about time. Who kissed who?”
“Kaya kissed Corbin. I’m just as surprised as you,” I laughed at the incredulous look on his face. “Corbin came rushing into our room, looking for Kaya. Shocked the hell out of me, and then Kaya just grabbed and….” I laughed again. “I didn’t know either one of them had it in them.”
“Damn,” Liam said, shaking his head, disbelieving.
I nodded, agreeing. “Everyone seems to be pairing up,” I spoke carefully.
“So it would seem,” Liam answered, his face blank again.
I nearly growled in frustration. Instead, I placed my hand on his forearm. His blue eyes lifted to meet mine, his mouth a thin line. “Just tell me, Liam. Hiding it from me is just stupid.”
“Zoey, I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve continually said that and you just don’t listen, do you? You never listen. You push and you push and you push. Why do you think Octavia runs in the opposite direction every single time she sees you? Because you can’t just leave it alone!”
I opened my mouth, my face flushing, but I was interrupted.
“Don’t yell at her.”
The two of us turned around. Ash was standing there, his fists clenched at his sides. He was looking right past me, glaring at Liam, who glared right back. They both looked ready to punch each other and I was getting seriously tired of it.
“Ash, he wasn’t yelling. Okay, well, he was yelling but…”
“Zoey, stay out of this. This doesn’t concern you,” Ash cut me off, not looking at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Right. Sure. This doesn’t concern me.”
“You’re wrong about it concerning Zoey, but you’re not wrong about her staying out of it,” Liam said, seeming unconcerned. “We should have had this out ages ago.”
“Have it out?” Ash burst out angrily. “Shit, I don’t want to fight with you, Liam. I’m just tired of not knowing why you’re here. Razi Cylon doesn’t just let people go, not when she wants them. Hell, she didn’t even want me and I have a damn scar from the bullet wound I got escaping that stupid place. And you’re spending a lot of time with my girlfriend and I’m not comfortable with that.”
“You worried, Matthews? Worried she might want a Southern taste instead of the Brooklyn muck?” There was a lazy smile on his face, which only seemed to enrage Ash more.
“You are so not helping, Liam,” I scolded him.
“Maybe I am helping, Zoey. Maybe it’ll be helpful to talk to Ash and about his jealousy issues.”
Ash stepped closer to Liam, his eyes burning. His eyes were normally a dark, ocean blue but now they flashed a deep black. “I am not jealous. This is not what this is about. I know who Zoey is. Zoey is mine. She belongs to me.”
“Or I don’t belong to anyone,” I spoke up, irritably, but neither of them noticed.
“You keep repeating yourself. Maybe you don’t actually believe that. Maybe you’re worried that Zoey wants to spend more time with me than you.”
Ash moved even closer, his fists raised and I hopped off the table and stepped in between them. Ash’s hard chest bumped into my shoulder, his eyes focused on Liam. “Both of you. Stop it.”
“She doesn’t want you. She wants me. I love her and she loves me and you just need to deal with that.”
Liam looked bored and irritated. “Trust me, I know that, Matthews. And I’m more than okay with that. You’re the one that needs to deal with the fact that Zoey and I are friends.”
“I don’t care if you’re friends!” Ash yelled. “But I don’t trust you! I don’t know why you’re here and you keep saying that you have no idea, but you won’t tell us at all. You won’t even tell us about Astrid, and yet I’m just supposed to be okay with you being alone with Zoey all the time. I don’t trust you and I don’t want anyone I don’t trust around her. I’m supposed to protect her! I promised her dad that I would protect her and I’m not going to let you get in the way of that!”
My fingers gripped the fabric of Ash’s shirt tightly and tears sprung in the corner of my eyes at the mention of my dad. It had been so long since he had died, but it didn’t make his death any less painful.
“Ash,” Dad said softly, looking around at the Awakened surrounding us. They were so silent and so still. They looked dead, more so than they already were. I kept waiting as the seconds passed by. “Ash, whatever happens, you take care of Zoey. You protect her, no matter what.”
“Ash,” I whispered, looking up at him.
“You’ve done a really great job of protecting her. Where were you when she got her face cut up?”
I gasped, my fingers letting go of Ash’s shirt as I turned around. Liam had stood up, and his face was bright red. I was the only barrier between the two of them, and considering I was a good foot shorter than both of them, I wasn’t sure what good I could do. Even with my pretty legit fighting skills, I couldn’t really take out both of them at once. But I was definitely going to try if it came to that.
“How dare you?” Ash growled, his voice low. One of his hands unclenched and wrapped tightly, but gently around the back of my neck. He pulled me closer to him and I hid my face in his chest. I could feel the raised scar on my face against the soft fabric of his shirt and my face burned. Most days I forgot that it was there, but it hurt to remember that my face would never look the same again. “She is beautiful. No matter what, she is beautiful. How dare you bring that up?”
“She is beautiful,” Liam cut in. “But every time I see that on her face, I want to punch you in the face. How could you have let this happen to her? You want to protect her? You shouldn’t have let anyone even touch her!”
“I did protect her!” Ash shouted back. He moved closer to Liam, close enough that I was sandwiched between them. I pulled back, one palm against Ash and another pressed against Liam. “You think I like that she has that scar? Don’t you think that it kills me every single time I think about how I
couldn’t prevent it from happening? But she’s here and she’s with me and she’s alive and that’s what matters.”
Liam laughed, loud, but there was no humor in it. His own blue eyes were staring daggers at Ash. I had never seen Liam be this cruel before. He had always been so nice, so polite, so perfect. I couldn’t figure out if he really meant what he said or if this was yet another distraction from the things he didn’t want to think about.
“Face it, Ash. You can’t protect her. You could never protect her. The only reason she is here is because she’s strong and she’s tough and she saved your ass in Sekhmet! You can’t do anything for her, and it kills you! You’re useless. You just sit there in your stupid room and you’re useless. You can’t protect her because she isn’t safe!”
Liam’s voice grew louder and louder as he yelled at Ash, and he sounded angry, upset and desperate. The more he yelled, the more that it seemed to make sense. Liam wasn’t talking about me. Okay, maybe he was talking about me a little bit. He was the closest thing I had to a best friend anymore and he did care about me. And I did think that he wanted to get under Ash’s skin a bit. But he wasn’t talking about Ash and me. His eyes were wild and I realized exactly who he was talking about: Astrid.
Ash, it seemed, had realized the same thing. “Don’t you dare talk to me about Zoey? I do everything I can to make sure she is safe and protected. And that’s with me knowing that she can damn well take care of herself. But at least she’s here, with me. Don’t take out your inability to take care of Astrid out on me. You may not have told me anything but trust me, I know. It’s not my fault that you left her there.”
Liam moved so quickly that I almost missed him, but I was fast, even if massively out of practice. My hand reached out, landing a punch in his stomach, and I had him flipped on his back before he could reach Ash. The table next to us crashed on its side. I was surprised no one had come to see what was going on by this point. Liam lay on the ground, motionless for a moment, before groaning.
“Shit, Liam, I’m so sorry,” I apologized, reaching for him. He pushed my hand away and pulled himself into a sitting position. He winced, rubbing his arm where I had grabbed him.
The Sanctuary Page 7