I suddenly knew exactly how they felt.
The stares followed us as Kris, Nathan and Erik led us through the camp and I stared right back. There was no hostility in the way they stared. In fact, I felt like their stares mirrored mine: curiosity. Everyone there looked tired and worn, like the three I’d already met, but they looked clean and taken care of and all around relatively unharmed. One older woman’s eyes lingered on my face for a moment and I knew that despite the fact that I was in clean clothes, I looked worse than the rest. My body was marked with scars, my face especially, and I wondered what they thought when they saw that.
It took us forever to make our way through the makeshift camp. Several people came up to Kris, Nathan and Erik, greeting them on their return. Several more stopped Liam, embracing him and welcoming him back. Most had assumed he was dead and were ecstatic to see him alive and well, while they offered Astrid and me cautious but kind smiles. I hovered on the outskirts, feeling out of place, shy, something I had never had much experience with in the past.
We finally came to pause in front of a particular tent. It wasn’t special in any way. It was larger than some of the others but there ones definitely larger than this. The flap was open and I could see someone in there but before I could look closer, Kris stepped in front of me.
“We should probably go first,” Kris said, pointing to herself and Liam. “Not that you aren’t welcome, because that’s not it. But…” she hesitated. “But I’m not sure how Greg is going to feel about a bunch of Sanctuary kids coming to us for help about something like this.”
“You mean he won’t want to help us?” I shot out, feeling the apprehension fill my throat. I had no idea how close we were to Sekhmet but I knew that every moment that I spent not on my way there was another moment where Razi Cylon could have been doing something terrible to Ash. Now I was afraid I had come here for help that I wouldn’t get.
“That’s not it,” Nathan spoke up. He rubbed his forehead. “Greg is in charge here and it’s not like it’s a dictatorship or anything. Its just…so many people found each other and didn’t know what to do next. Most people felt pretty lost and helpless. Greg saved a lot of lives.”
“He’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met,” Kris said, her voice soft. She brushed her hair out of her face and it was the first time that her face was clear of amusement. This, it seemed, was the actual Kris, the one that didn’t hide behind sarcasm and jokes. I knew that kind of strategy all too well. “He runs a tight ship here, but we’ve survived months because of it. That’s all he wants, for everyone in hoover to be safe and to be happy. He’ll want to help. That’s just who he is. The problem is if we are actually able to help.”
I nodded and looked over at Astrid, who shrugged. She looked exhausted, sweat and dirt smeared across her forehead. She was close to collapsing. My eyes met Liam’s and I saw he was worried too.
“Astrid, you…” Liam paused, his brow furrowed. “You and Zoey should rest. This might take a while and I don’t want you waiting outside this tent.”
“That was a nice save,” Astrid smirked, but she didn’t argue. She looked up at Nathan. “All right, big guy, lead the way.”
Nathan blushed, looking startled to be addressed directly. He was so much quieter than both Kris and Erik. “Oh, right. Follow me.”
The three of us left Liam, Kris and Erik behind. I glanced back briefly, my eyes locking with Liam’s once more before he ducked into the tent and disappeared from view.
Nathan led us through the camp. There was no direct path so we weaved through the tents and people, making our way to some unknown destination. People waved to Nathan as we passed them. He introduced us to some but there were so many and the names and faces began to blur, especially since I was so exhausted.
We finally made it to our destination. There was a delicious smell coming from a massive pot. I wondered for a moment how they managed to transport that thing around; it was huge. It reminded me of a witch’s cauldron. There was an older man serving something into bowls to a short line of people. He smiled as we approached.
“I heard there were newbies in camp but no one told me that they were pretty ones,” he said, immediately pouring two bowls and handing them to us. It looked like some sort of stew, thick and emitting the kind of scent that made my stomach rumble pleasantly.
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Don’t ever listen to Jeff, okay? He’s a charmer this one; next thing you’ll know, you’ll be chopping up onions and carrots for days.”
I laughed, lifting the bowl to my lips and tipping it back. It was delicious and I immediately took another huge gulp, not caring that it was too hot to be consumed so quickly.
“Now, don’t you go scaring off the help, Nate,” Jeff said, scolding him with the ladle. His voice was firm but there was amusement in his eyes. There were wrinkles in the corners around his eyes, like he smiled often. He looked over at us. “Besides, everyone pitches in around here.”
“Where do you get all of this?” Astrid asked, studying her stew. There were chunks of meat, and several different vegetables, all smothered in thick gravy.
“We hunt, mostly,” Nathan explained, accepting his own bowl of stew. He grabbed a couple of spoons from a bucket placed nearby and handed one to me. “That’s deer that’s in the stew. The rest we scavenge. We hit abandoned grocery stores to see what’s left. Most stuff is canned; it’s the only stuff that lasts. Occasionally we run across crops and we take what we can from there. We could plant our own but we’re always on the move so we take what we can carry.”
He led us away, weaving through the tents again. He stopped in front of a small one, a red and gray tent that looked a little worse for wear. There were dark stains on one side that looked like blood but easily could have been something else. Nathan took a seat on the ground, folding his legs, and dug into the stew. Astrid and I glanced at each other before joining him.
We sat in companionable silence a while, each of us munching on our own portion. I took this opportunity to take a look around. There was so much to the community. There weren’t a lot of people but it was large and intricate. There were people everywhere and they had so much. There was a makeshift kitchen area, tucked behind where we’d gotten the stew, where people were already preparing for some future meal. There were people washing laundry in large plastic bins. There was a large tent guarded by three men, where people came in and out. I eventually realized it was their weapons arsenal. It was impressive but there was something about it that bothered me.
“You said you’re always on the move, but you guys seem to have a lot of stuff for people on the move. How on earth do you guys manage that?”
Nathan sighed. He finished the last few bites of his stew before putting the bowl aside and leaning back on his palms. “We try to stay in one spot for as long as possible. We’ve been here for about three weeks, but the Awakened have increased in this area and we’ve shot more than we’ve been comfortable with. We carry a lot. We have a few large wagons. We attract attention. It’s a large group and we can’t exactly skip through the woods anymore. That’s why they send us out to scope out the area before we move on. We make it work.”
It was an incredibly flawed system but as I looked around, I realized how much it worked. These people were surviving. They were living. Despite everything that was going on around us, they looked happy. Nathan’s tent flap was pinned open and I saw a sleeping bag and a modest amount of person items. There was a picture tucked in a wooden frame, with a crack across the glass. Nathan was sandwiched between two older people who looked like they could be his parents.
I looked away, taking a deep breath. I didn’t even have a photo of myself with my parents anymore. Everything in New York had been blown to pieces and I hadn’t thought to bring anything with me from Constance, though it probably would have been confiscated when Sekhmet kidnapped me. I sighed. I missed them. I missed Ash. Ash would like it here. I knew he would.
We sat there for a couple ho
urs. There was a flurry of anxiety in the pit of my stomach and I could tell by the way Astrid constantly chewed on her thumbnail that she felt the same. Nathan kept us pretty distracted though. He told us more about Hoover, the way it was run and the way they kept it going. Greg had been a professor back home and Nathan was one of his students. Nathan had been with Hoover since the beginning.
“It’s just continued to grow. Greg has created something amazing,” Nathan told us.
Several people ambled by as the hours passed. Some stopped to talk and Nate introduced us. People looked at us with open interest, sometimes staring a little too long, but no one looked at us at all with hostility. They asked us about ourselves, where we had lived, who we had lost. Everyone was sympathetic and unafraid to talk about the tragedies that had occurred. Astrid and I fumbled awkwardly through these conversations with encouragement from Nathan.
I was lying back, letting the sun soak into my skin with my eyes closed, when I felt something land on my hand. It was wet and familiar but it startled me. I jerked back, my eyes flying open. I was face to face with a Labrador. He was small, and a little mangy looking, but he looked happy. His tail wagged behind him, and he licked my hand again.
“You guys have a dog?” I asked, my voice strangled.
Nathan looked over and smiled. He seemed to have not noticed the dog’s arrival but he didn’t seem surprised. “He wandered into our camp one day. I have no idea how he got past all the sentries we have, but he came in, looking like a skeleton. So, of course, we fed him and he never went away.”
The dog sat next to me, panting heavily. I caught the distinct scent of wet dog and dog breath. It sent a wave of nostalgia through me and I remembered my own dog, Bandit, who I’d been forced to leave behind when the Awakened attacked New York City. “Does he have a name?”
Nathan shook his head. “Nobody could agree on one. Of course. So he’s just Dog. He answers to it so there’s that.”
Dog lay down at my feet and I felt another wave of emotion pass through me. I reached for him, patting him on the head and his eyes closed. I took a deep breath and scratched him behind his ears. I really missed Bandit. He was just another reason that I hated Razi Cylon and everything she had done. I had lost too much.
“He likes you,” Astrid smiled, as the dog scooted closer to me.
It was getting late into the afternoon when Liam returned, this time only with Erik, who smiled at me. “Kris is on sentry duty,” Liam asked, when I looked around curiously. “She already missed a great chunk of it talking to Greg.”
“So?” I asked, my fingers gripping my knees tightly. The three of us were poised, waiting for Liam or Erik to say something.
Erik shrugged and Liam sighed, running a hand through his hair. “He didn’t say he wouldn’t help. So there’s that.”
“But he didn’t say he would help, did he?” Astrid said, sharply, her brown eyes focused on him.
“You have to see his point of view, Astrid. He isn’t as well stocked as Sanctuary, nor are his people trained for that sort of thing. When they said they wouldn’t do anything to help Ash, they were being weak. Greg isn’t like that. He is focused on the well-being and survival of a few dozen people. They come first. And that’s what he’s doing.”
“So he’s not going to help,” I said. My hands reached for my hair, loose around my shoulders. I pulled it up into a tight ponytail, if only to give my shaking hands something to do.
“I didn’t say that,” Liam said, sitting down on the ground next to us. Erik made his goodbyes before disappearing through the tents. “We discussed it for a long time. A long time. I’m sorry we were gone so long. You guys were probably worried.”
“Nah,” Astrid and I chorused and Liam smiled reluctantly.
“Anyway, we talked for ages. We went in circles. It’s not that Greg doesn’t want to help. His immediate response is to help. At this point, he’s just unsure of what he can do so he doesn’t want to promise us anything. I’ll give him that. He hates to break promises so he makes very few. He said he’d think about it, see what he can do and then make a decision from there.”
The anxiety that had been simmering in my stomach was starting to boil. The hairs on my arms stood up and the panic rose in my throat. There was wetness at the corners of my eyes and I wiped it away angrily. I was tired of reacting to every situation, every moment, every answer with tears. I was past that. “I don’t have time for a maybe, Liam. I don’t have time for him to think about it. Ash is gone now.”
“I get it, Zoey,” he said, sounding impatient. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I sighed, my fists clenched tightly. “The longer it takes…”
“I get it,” he repeated. “But let’s face it. If Razi wants to keep Ash alive until you get there, which is likely her plan, then it doesn’t matter how long it takes.” He must have seen the mutinous look on my face because he continued. “We’re obviously going to get there as quickly as we can but if we have to wait in order to get more help, I think it’ll be worth it.”
“He’s right, Zoey,” Astrid spoke up, softly, pulling her knees closer to her chest and hugging them tightly. I noticed that she did that a lot when she was feeling nervous or anxious. She sort of pulled herself into a smaller compact ball, as if by doing this, she could keep herself safe from everything else. I wondered if she realized that she wouldn’t be able to do that for much longer. “We just have to hope that Greg has a way to help us and we can continue on.”
“Besides,” Nathan spoke up, hiding his yawning mouth behind his palm. “Either this is Ash guy is alive or dead, right? If he’s alive, I doubt she’s going to kill him now. She’s obviously keeping him alive for a reason. And if he’s dead, it doesn’t matter how quickly you get there. He’s already dead.”
Liam shot Nathan a sharp look but it was too late. My heart had already sunk in my chest, landing with a splat in my stomach, taking up residence right next to the boiling vat of anxiety that was already housed there. Nathan looked around and then his words seemed to catch up with him. He flushed and looked uncomfortable, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands.
“Shit, that’s not…Zoey…” Nathan said, stumbling over his words.
I stood up, brushing my hands on my dirty pants. “He’s not dead,” I said, firmly. “He’s not.”
WE STAYED AT Hoover for two days before Greg came to a decision. It was agony waiting for him to do something but I tried to stay patient. This was the longest I had been apart from Ash since we had escaped from Sekhmet and I wasn’t a huge fan of it, not when I had no idea if he was alive or dead, not when I felt like I had the means to find out. When I was stuck at Sekhmet, separated from Ash, I’d had no choice but to accept that there was not much I could do.
Being here, in the middle of the woods, with a ton of other survivors, made me feel much stronger. I didn’t have my weapon but I knew I could get it back, no problem, if I made the decision to leave. No one kept weapons on their person at Hoover and when Liam handed over his rifle with no fuss, I had known that I should do the same.
It seemed sort of illogical to me, to keep the weapons in one central location. It wasn’t as if Hoover was protected by walls. But they had patrols surrounding the camp at all times and they were confident that this would keep Awakened from getting too close if worst came to worst.
I tried not to think about Greg and Ash, though that was easier said than done. I threw myself into helping wherever I could. I helped chop vegetables and prepare meals. I did laundry and mended clothes and laughed good naturedly when the others made fun of me for my uneven stitches. Everyone was welcoming and always looking for more helpers.
Astrid was a fascination to everyone though. It had been so long since anyone had shown up pregnant after the Awakened and all the older ladies clucked around her, making sure that she rested enough and had enough to eat. Astrid said it reminded her of her grandmother and seven aunts back home. They all were mother hens, both caring and intruding
at the same time. She took it with grace, though, and despite her complaining, she seemed happy to be taken care of.
I loved everything about Hoover. It was everything I had expected when Ash and I had arrived at Sanctuary. It was so organized, and everything worked together. There was a place for everyone. There were people of all ages, some of them who knew each other, some who didn’t, some who were the remnants of family, but they were all accepted and they all got along. There were disputes, Erik had explained to me, but everything was handled well.
I loved how friendly everyone was. I loved how everyone worked together. I loved the tents, of all sizes, scattered around. I loved how people sat and talked about all sorts of things with each other, books and movies and the good times before all of this. It was so refreshing to see people talking about it, not hiding away, and not pretending like it didn’t exist. They repeated the same stories. They told us where they came from, how they had ended up here, who they had lost.
I wanted to stay here. I had every plan after rescuing Ash of returning to the Sanctuary, mostly because I hadn’t really known where else to go. I knew that Liam had spoken of Hoover before but I didn’t take it seriously, not until it was right in front of my face. It was beautiful. It was everything that I wanted. As soon as we found Ash and brought him back, I wanted to be with them. Wherever they went, I would be there. I finally felt like I had found a home.
I was getting impatient though. I had seen Greg from a distance a handful of times. The guy kept himself incredibly busy. He worked just as hard as everyone else, sometimes even harder. He washed clothes and prepared food, all sorts of things. He solved conflicts between several people and listened to everyone who came to him. Even though I was impatient for him to make a decision, I had to admit that he impressed me. He was a much more welcoming presence than Octavia had been. We made eye contact a few times and he would smile before moving along.
The Sanctuary Page 18