After Destiny

by Tanya Lisle

  “Snow?”

  Yes, there was someone else here. Brady would be wandering around alone at this time. She should have remembered it and seen it coming. The present was still happening, even as she tried to determine the future. She needed to pay attention.

  “Are you okay? You’re crying.”

  She opened her mouth to speak and her voice caught in her throat. She was breathing oddly and she could feel her face was wet. Her eyes saw a blurry world through a layer of water. She forced the breath out of her and took another one in. “No,” she said. “I’m not okay.”

  Brady tugged at her hand, pulling her down to his level. She went along with his pull and let him wipe the tears off of her face. “I heard you punched out Ms. Ed,” he said. “Everyone’s looking for you. I think you’re in a lot of trouble.”

  “I am,” she said. It was still difficult to speak.

  “Did you really punch out Ms. Ed?”

  “No.”

  “Then what happened?”

  He was very careful to avoid looking Snow directly in the eyes, instead going to her side and encouraging her to get up and walk again. Snow felt a strange comfort in his small hand staying in hers and guiding her through the abandoned section. He didn’t know what was coming and he was still so calm even though he was physically still a child.

  “I saw what Tavorian planned,” Snow said. “She set Ed to kill me when the raiders came. She collapsed when I removed Tavorian’s mark from her. But they’re still coming for me. They want me dead or captured. Maybe returned. I can’t see what they want, only what they plan.”

  She could feel the well of emotion building in her again, more aware of it now that she had an audience. It affected her breathing and how easy it was to speak and see. She used her free hand to wipe away the tears as Brady had done before, though it left her wrist wet.

  “Who’s Tavorian?” he asked.

  “She is one of the three Fates.”

  “You know I’m not actually six,” he said. His hand squeezed hers tightly like he was trying to crush her fingers.

  “Yes.”

  “The Fates aren’t real.”

  “No.”

  Brady let go of her had and let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine, I’ll tell you what. You say you know everything and the Fates are real and all that. I’m going to ask you something that absolutely no one else knows. If you can answer it, then I’ll believe you. No questions asked. Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Three weeks ago, I came out here on my own and found something. As soon as I found it, I went back. What did I find?”

  “You found a wine cellar three weeks ago,” Snow said, confusion crossing her face. “You did not leave immediately. You attempted to break down the door by removing the hinges, using a stolen phone and finding a crowbar, but you could not get the door open. You slept in front of the door for several hours before returning.”

  Brady looked up at her, awestruck and a little terrified. “I would have accepted wine cellar,” he said after a moment, taking her by the hand and leading her back through the section. “How did you know that?”

  “I used to know many things,” Snow said. “Now, I’m not sure I know anything at all.”

  “Ed wouldn’t kill you, though,” Brady said. “And there hasn’t been a raid on Janus in years.”

  “The Fates have noticed I’m gone,” Snow told him. Talking to him about this made her feel less like crying and the terror was already starting to fade. “They have marked several people in raiding parties in the area. The nearest one takes a turn. He thinks he hears something on the wind. Like destiny calling him. He brings the rest with him and they come for this place. He takes resources from camps and hides in their shelters with his men, collecting people as he goes. They are here in days. It is a bloody fight with many casualties. Ed was to take up a weapon as well and miss her target, instead killing me.”

  “But she’s not doing that anymore.”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s good at least.” They stopped in front of a large metal door that looked distinctly like a six year old had taken a crowbar to it. The crowbar lay to the side below another very large dent in the wall. “Could you open this?”

  Snow put her hand on the handle and stopped. “I said I wouldn’t open locked doors anymore,” she said.

  “Well, it was worth a shot. You know anyone who can figure out a way inside?”

  “I can go inside.”

  Brady looked at her like he wanted to say something, but held his tongue. He took a deep breath and looked at the door. “I bet it’s not locked from the inside. If you can get in, you can open it from that side, right?”

  “Yes.” Snow took another step forward and she was on the other side of the door. The room in here was cold, but she didn’t balk at the chill or even stop to look at the lines and lines of bottles of wine that filled the room. The metal shelves were each marked with dates and names of the wines it held, each of the bottles carefully stored with a second tag underneath them. Instead, she turned to the door and opened it.

  Brady was still on the other side, staring at her wide eyed and with his jaw slack. He looked at the door as he walked over the threshold, running his hands over it and the lock before he looked back up at Snow. “How did you do that?”

  “I walked and then I opened the door.”

  “I get why everyone’s so cautious around you,” Brady said, though his tone was more impressed than fearful. “Come on, I think you need a drink.”

  The door closed behind them as Brady led the way through the shelves, stopping after the first row and grabbing one of the bottles off of the shelf labeled Champagne. “They don’t serve alcohol in here anymore,” he said, slowly working the cork out of the top of the bottle. “There’s a fake version, but it’s not as strong as the real stuff. I think it’s because the real stuff is high calorie and everything is really carefully monitored. Rationed so you only eat enough to fill in the calories burned. Adjusted for whatever medical conditions you have. No one consumes more than they need to. It’s way different from the movies.”

  “The movies were made a very long time ago. It was before the nuclear fallout.”

  “Before the haze,” Brady agreed. He made one final pull and the top popped off, wine spilling onto the ground. He put his mouth over the lip of the bottle, trying to drink what he could until it stopped fizzing out the top. When he pulled the bottle away, he wiped his mouth and handed Snow the bottle. “But this stuff doesn’t taste nearly as awful. Go on, try some. You sound like you probably need it.”

  Snow took the bottle and drank. The cool liquid singed her throat, leaving her feeling warm and with a bitter taste in her mouth. A rush of heat flooded up to her head.

  “Mom told me about the old alcohol once,” he said, nodding at Snow as if encouraging her to take another drink. “At my age, she was still working with the raiders. She said they’d bring back booze with them, but it always tasted terrible. Apparently you have to drink twice as much of the stuff they serve here to get the same effect. Hey, do you know what my mom actually did with them? Like, what was her job there? Every time I ask… well, she doesn’t really like to talk about it.”

  “Ms. Greenwood took care of the sick and injured,” Snow told him. “When there were none, she would assist in the creation and manipulation of their weaponry. They often gave her explosives to work on.”

  Brady waved the bottle back over to himself and took a seat, leaning against a row of bottles and pulled his knees up to his chest as he took another drink. “Figures,” he said. “Did she ever have to go to school?”

  “No.”

  “Of course she didn’t.” Brady looked down at the bottle again, pulling his knees closer to his chest. “Do you know why she won’t let me grow up at all? She sort of let me once. I got to actually take classes with everyone for a few months before she took me out again. She said it was because I was making friends with the wrong people and I shou
ld be with kids my own age. I mean, I actually was for the first time in a while. Sort of. I hung out with the people who were actually in my classes, so they were a couple years older, but even Clyde was only three years older than me. And he was only still there because he couldn’t figure out any of the science stuff. Apparently she meant going back with the little kids forever, though.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know what that mark on her arm is?” he asked. “She says it’s not there. A lot of people around the complex have these marks and no one else can see them, but I know they’re there.”

  “They have been marked by the Fates to perform set tasks.”

  Brady let out a sigh and took another long drink. He forced his legs to relax and looked back to Snow. “Okay, so, Fates,” He tried to keep a straight face, but the disbelief still showed through. “They want you dead.”

  “Tavorian does,” Snow said. She sat down as well, legs tucked under her. “Providence does as well, though she’s much more direct. She’s sending someone distinct for me instead of several people who all will kill me as part of a larger massacre. Niyati would have me captured and brought away, then return to them if I survive. Kumari would have this place ruined so that I will return on foot. They are bored if they are sending this many possibilities.”

  “I thought you said there were three before.”

  “There are.”

  “Then who’s Kumari?”

  “Niyati and Kumari are one.”

  Brady nodded and gestured for the bottle back. He took another long drink, his face now visibly flushed. He gave it to Snow again. He made a gesture at her and Snow took another sip. She felt calmer with every wave of warmth the alcohol brought.

  “So how are they doing any of this?” he asked. “I mean, you’re their tapestry, right? They weave the fates of man into you. They shouldn’t be able to do anything with you gone, right?”

  “That isn’t entirely accurate,” Snow said. She took another drink, smiling at the new wave of warmth that came over her. “Once they mark you, they have you until your task is completed, whatever task they decide for you. I am used mostly to mark those who have tasks for them and to speak to humanity when they come to the mountain. And… there are other things. I don’t know what they are. I never questioned them before.”

  “But you weren’t allowed to leave the mountain before.”

  “I never had any desire to leave before. It’s just been so long since anyone came up that I wanted to see what the humans were doing. I’m human. I wanted to see for myself what other humans were like. They said I should content myself with just watching, and for a long time I did, but… I realized before that if I looked, then I would have never left.”

  “But they knew you were going to leave.”

  “I didn’t do anything to imply I would-”

  “But they had it planned already, right?” Brady said, carefully avoiding her eyes by taking the bottle from her hand. He didn’t drink it this time, only holding it and looking at it. “That means that they probably already knew you were going to leave. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to change it so that the raiders would find Janus at all. And they wouldn’t have known to mark Ed just in case. They needed you to do that, right?”

  “Yes.” Snow looked at the bottle. She wanted another drink from it, but Brady didn’t offer it back.

  “What happens if you live?” Brady asked.

  “I won’t.”

  “But what if you do?” He put the bottle down next to him and leaned forward, tenting his fingers together and staring at her knees. “What if you somehow manage to survive everything? No one kills you in the raid and you’re alive when Mac finally kills them all?”

  “I don’t know,” Snow said. She pondered a moment and, bottle now in her hand, she took another drink.

  “Downstairs,” Brady said. “No one can get Downstairs. If you hide down there, no one will be able to get you. I mean, there’s the Medical Wing too, but they throw everyone in there. If someone finds out they’re looking for you, they’ll throw you out. But if you go Downstairs, they probably won’t even know a raid is happening. You’ll be safe down there until it’s over.”

  “No raiders will find the entrance,” she agreed.

  “It’s worth a — oh shit.” Brady looked at his watch and got to his feet. “Come on, I gotta get back before my mom finds out I’m gone.”

  He wavered on his feet, but remained firmly on them. Snow followed him out of the room, finding that the world shifted around her as she moved. Brady took her hand once more and he led the way down the halls and through the back passages, continuing to talk as he used his phone to open the doors along the way.

  “If you need to, you can always hide Downstairs,” Brady continued as they walked. “Everyone says that it’s awful down there, but I never thought farming sounded that bad. I mean, I’ve seen it in the movies. It looks like it’s hard, but not really that hard. And they wouldn’t even be able to make you do that much really, would they? They ask you to do something you don’t want to, you can just walk away and disappear, right? They can’t even do shit about it, can they?”

  “Yes.”

  Brady laughed, though stopped as soon as they rounded the corner to the large room he brought her to yesterday. Outside it was M.s Greenwood, unruly red hair swinging around at the sound of her son’s laughter. Her face grew as red as Brady’s and she stormed down the hall to meet the pair of them.

  “Brady, what are you doing?” Miranda demanded, grabbing him by the hand and hauling him away from Snow. “She is dangerous! She’s got all of Security looking for her. She tried to kill Ms. Ed. I don’t want you around her anymore.”

  Brady’s eyes grew larger and he looked much more like a small child as he looked up at his mother than he had the entire time he had spent with Snow. “But mom,” he said, his voice slurring and taking on a higher pitch. “She was bringing me back. I snuck out again and she found me. Ask Isaiah! He always tells on me.”

  Miranda took a sniff and turned on Snow. “Were you getting my son drunk? He is a child!”

  “No,” Snow said. She felt very light headed now that she stood still.

  “Don’t lie to me! I can smell it on both of you! Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “No mom, she didn’t do anything! She just brought me back. I promise.”

  “Brady, shut up!” she hissed back at him. Her arm jerked slightly at the words and Brady backed out of her reach, growing very small. His jaw clenched shut and he kept his eyes firmly on the ground.

  Ms. Greenwood turned back on Snow. “You stay away from my son! If you come near him again, I will see to it personally that you get put back outside.”

  “You aren’t able to do that.”

  The sound of a loud slap echoed through the hall. Miranda could feel the soft throbbing where her hand met Snow’s cheek, but Snow was nowhere to be seen. Miranda drew her hand back, looking around for some sign of the woman, but none remained. She grabbed Brady and dragged him quickly away, giving into every urge to look back to make sure Snow White was really gone.

  Chapter 8

  Ed missed the simpler times from a week ago. She had a good streak going where she could just focus on repairs instead of managing the complex. Janus ran without needing her interference for a whole month before Snow showed up. Now she was getting dressed in a hospital room, and taking as long as she could to do it. Anything to delay what she knew would be outside.

  She didn’t even know what happened. One minute, Snow was telling her about things that she shouldn’t know, and the next she was waking up in a hospital bed. Ed found her phone and, within a few texts, found out that there was a manhunt out for Snow after she tried to kill her in the mess hall. She had damage control to get to, though she had no idea what she would do about any of it.

  She wasn’t even sure what happened yet. There was a video of what happened somewhere and she needed to talk to Snow.

 
Or she could hand Snow over to Mac. At this point, she’d definitely proven herself dangerous, even if Ed still didn’t get any sense of anything malicious or even intentional from the woman. Mac might be able to figure out what was going on better. Well, he might if he could keep her in a locked room with him long enough.

  Ed didn’t even turn as the door opened, still fiddling with the buttons of her shirt. They couldn’t let Snow keep roaming around the complex freely, so she would have to send her Downstairs. It would be a good excuse to talk to Liah.

  “Ed, sit the hell down.”

  “You can’t be in here, Ms. Grace.”

  “It’s fine, Kelan,” Ed said, turning to see her nurse trying to usher Kitty out of the room. “Apparently I missed some stuff.”

  “You shouldn’t even be up yet,” Kelan said, immediately starting to check Ed for her blood pressure and heart rate. “Are you feeling dizzy or light headed at all?”

  “Just hungry,” Ed said. “But it sounds like I’m going to have a clusterfuck to deal with before I get anything to eat. Apparently Snow tried to kill me?”

  “Depends on who you ask and when,” Kitty said. She looked tired from dealing with it already. “Do you even know how long you’ve been out for?”

  “A day?” Ed asked, thinking back. “Snow said I’d talk to you tomorrow, which would make it yesterday, right?”

  Kitty shook her head as Kelan told her to take a deep breath. “A little less,” Kitty told her. “According to Dave and Clyde, she barely touched you, but you were kinda spaced out before you collapsed. A little farther away and she punched you. Wait a couple hours and she had a weapon. The only thing everyone agrees on is that she just vanished when you fell.”

  “Like she left?”

  “No. Like she was gone. Disappeared into thin air. There’s footage of it. We haven’t been able to find her since, though. Ed, you’re going to need to do something about her.”

  “She’s not going outside.”

  “Mac’s never going to convince anyone to do that,” Kitty assured her. “We’re all pretty anti-slow-death penalty. Just stick her Downstairs once we find her and I can handle the rest. Well, except Mac.”