Barricade

by Lindsey Black

  Swaddled in towels, they didn’t bother to dress, just took the clean change of clothes upstairs to Jett’s room and hurried under the covers. The broken gates had stolen the heat from the tower, leaving it well below zero inside. It would heat through the night now it was sealed again, but in the meantime the best place to be was in bed, under a mound of blankets.

  ‘Seriously, what a fuck of a day!’ Jett suddenly mumbled. He’d clearly been thinking about everything and that was his take away. It made Sasha laugh and he pulled Jett in against his side and kissed his temple.

  ‘I’d love to make it better, but honestly I don’t think I can move anymore.’ He was so sore he wasn’t sure he could actually feel his aches anymore, relaxing into a state of blissful numbness.

  ‘Hmm … challenge accepted.’

  ‘Wait. What?’ Sasha was startled by Jett shifting around under the blankets, pushing Sasha onto his back and squirming until he was straddling Sasha’s hips. He was hard and Sasha watched him fist his cock with wide eyes, his own struggling to life and pushing wantonly between his cheeks.

  ‘See, not all of you is too tired.’ Jett moaned as he fisted himself faster. It was incredible to watch, Jett masturbating hurriedly, eyes fixed on Sasha’s face as if that alone were enough to drive him over the edge.

  A few minutes later and Jett came hard into his hand and Sasha almost joined him, so turned on by the show. But Jett shifted around and used his seed to coat Sasha’s erection and before Sasha could catch up with what was happening Jett started impaling himself on Sasha’s cock.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Sasha’s hands gripped Jett’s hips tight, holding him still while they each adjusted. It ached in the best way, Jett’s slide slow and deliberately restrained. His eyes didn’t close, watching Sasha through hooded slits, lips parted on a gasp of mingled pleasure and pain. Jett was in complete control and Sasha let go, his hands kneading Jett’s thigh’s. When Jett drew up Sasha let him go, lost in the pleasure that sizzled through his groin and culminated in his dick.

  There was little finesse, they were both too tired, but Jett rode him hard, exorcising his own demons by wringing the vestiges of Sasha’s strength from his tired body.

  When he came he thought he might have actually blacked out for a minute. He woke to Jett slumped across his chest, both of them sweaty under the blankets and coated in a sticky mess. Sasha didn’t care. He tucked the blankets in around them and kissed Jett’s temple and a moment later let the darkness take him back.

  Waking, he found neither of them had moved at all and they were uncomfortably glued together. Rocking from side to side to unstick his groin woke Jett who grumbled unfavourably at him and tried to burrow into his chest. Chuckling at the futility of that action, Sasha dislodged him, rolling Jett to the side and tucking him into the curve of his body. He loved the way Jett could be smothered by him and not care, just relaxed into Sasha as if they were part of a whole. As if he knew he was safe and could relax completely.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Jett mumbled, still half asleep.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m worried about you?’ He was going to be worried for a long time, he suspected. Jett was still new to the Barricade and yesterday had been epically awful. It was hard to come to terms with that kind of destruction when you weren’t attached to it. Sasha couldn’t imagine what it would be like when there was family involved; he didn’t really understand that kind of attachment.

  Jett took his time, waking up some more before he rolled over so they were face to face on the pillow.

  ‘What are you worried about?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sasha admitted. ‘That you’ll regret what happened, either with the town or your father. Or … I suppose that maybe you’ll resent me for it somehow. I don’t know. I guess I’m worried about time, and how it might change the way you think of me.’

  Again, Jett was quiet, absorbing his words. The smile was unexpected, as was the light kiss when Jett leaned forward.

  ‘He’s no more my father than the stranger who made you,’ Jett pointed out softly. ‘I don’t know him, before all this I didn’t know he existed as anything besides a wistful idea. I think it might have been better, had he stayed that way. Nothing that happened is your fault and I’ll never resent you for it.’

  ‘You can’t know that,’ Sasha whispered, the fear of it niggling in the shadows of his thoughts.

  ‘I can,’ Jett rubbed his nose along Sasha’s jaw and his breath caught. ‘Think about where I came from, Sasha. Really think about what I am.’

  Sasha tried, but it was hard when Jett was warm in his arms, beautiful and gentle and perfect in Sasha’s mind. But he tried. Born in a camp for prisoners of a war that had ended generations before. Taken from the arms of a dead woman and raised in a facility where he was a commodity. Experimented on, trained … abused. Sasha knew how his own training had gone and knew it could only have been worse for Jett. Sent to the Barricade to rot for the rest of his days protecting a wall that would soon guard only an empty wasteland.

  An experiment. A soldier. A cure. None of that mattered to Sasha.

  ‘You’re mine,’ he whispered, refusing to accept any other version of Jett’s reality. He knew he got it right when Jett smiled wide and tossed an arm and a leg over him to pull him close and kiss him hard and desperate.

  ‘You’ll keep me, right?’

  ‘Of course,’ Sasha grunted, frustrated Jett even had to ask. But Jett’s throaty laugh filled the space between them and he relaxed, sliding his arm over one lean hip to settle his forearm along the length of Jett’s spine, his hand cupping Jett’s head and holding him close enough that Sasha could feel his breath on his lips.

  ‘It’s because you’re an idiot,’ Jett told him seriously.

  ‘Like I care,’ Sasha closed his eyes and enjoyed the vibrations of Jett’s laughter as they rumbled through his chest where they were pressed together.

  ‘Shouldn’t we check on the others?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘I’m not very nice.’

  ‘That’s really not true …’

  ‘Will you shut up and either blow me again or go to sleep?’

  24

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  The sun was shining. It was on of those rare, flawless days where the sky was so bright the blue with almost painful to look at. He lay beside Kollig, watching birds spiral lazily overhead, eyes watering, not a cloud in sight.

  ‘Do you reckon the Barricade can talk?’

  ‘What?’ Sergei rolled his head to the side and shadowed his brow with one hand so he could see the expression on Kollig’s face. But he was relaxed, calm with eyes closed as he bathed in the light.

  ‘It’s just, sometimes I wonder you know? Like is it listening to us right now? Does it tell Moscow everything we say? Can it tell when we’re dreaming and shit?’

  It was the weirdest thing Kollig had come up with yet, and a sign they’d spent too long in the sun.

  ‘How would it even know what a dream is?’ Sergei argued, just for the hell of it.

  ‘Well … what if it dreams?’

  Sergei dropped his jacket on the drying rack and stumbled downstairs. His bones ached and his elbow was playing up again. He stank of fire and ash and his shirt was cold from sweating in the jacket. He was worried about the town still smouldering in its death throws outside and the weary, nervous soldiers he’d spoken to on the way home.

  Coming down into the kitchen to the lights on, hot food on the stove and his friends sitting around a roaring fire was weirdly not unexpected, and filled him with a lightness he needed.

  Anatoly tossed a clean, dry shirt at him and he grinned as he stripped off the wet, filthy cotton he’d had on and pulled on the fresh clothing. A woollen jumper followed, sailing through the air to land against his chest and he pulled it on as well.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re too old to be pulling shit like that,’ Kollig grumbled, but he was smiling and
Sergei wondered how much of his good mood had to do with Iosif Blanter sitting next to him on the couch.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Karl busted his ankle and Jussi’s too hurt to do anything with it, so Saami and I swapped.’ He’d known that, of course, having seen Saami back at District Six-Nine, but it was fun to watch Kollig blush. And Blanter looked extremely happy with the situation.

  Sergei rolled his eyes and collapsed into the empty couch closest to the fire. He leaned down and started untying the laces on his boots, struggling with his aching fingers.

  ‘I got it,’ Anatoly pushed his hands out of the way and knelt down to yank Sergei’s boots off, putting them by the fire by everyone else’s to dry.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You seriously look dead on your feet. What happened?’

  Sergei blinked at the flames, seeing the bombing of the town all over again in the flames but that wasn’t what they were asking. He felt ancient, even in the company of men who had been serving as long as he had. The town he’d known for thirty years was rubble and the valleys he’d been able to draw with his eyes closed were underwater. It was like they were starting again with an entirely new district.

  ‘A few injuries, but for the most part everyone’s okay. Stepanova’s gates are smashed and we’ll have to go help them seal up that side until we can get some new gates in the Spring, but they’re fine.’

  ‘And … the cure?’

  ‘Matti’s pretty certain he can make it. It’ll take some time, but I’m game to try whatever he comes up with.’

  ‘Of course,’ Anatoly agreed, sitting back down on the other couch and relaxing. ‘We’re old. Not like old age won’t get us soon anyway. He’s testing it out on me before he stabs any of these young gooses.’ He waved at Blanter, who frowned at shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘You’re not that old.’

  ‘That’s because you’re used to staring at old Saint Nicholas every time you wake up,’ Sergei grunted.

  Blanter gaped at him, and it was cute how his cheeks went pink. Maybe Saami should swap more often after all. Sergei could get used to teasing someone who didn’t dare give as good as they got. Age had some advantages.

  ‘You think anyone survived in the town?’ Anatoly asked softly.

  ‘I think we’ll know soon enough. They’ve got nowhere to go for help except our front doors.’

  ‘We gonna help them?’ It was sad, that Blanter felt the need to ask. Kollig’s hand on his shoulder was firm.

  ‘Where we can,’ Sergei agreed. ‘But desperate people do stupid things.’

  ‘And those idiots just lost everything,’ Anatoly nodded.

  They sat in silence, eyes closed, content just to be with friends. Warm and dry, with the gates sealed shut and the walls intact.

  25

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  Sitting on the back of the truck, legs dangling from the bumper and kicking out with each bump and furrow in the snow, Jett smiled. He watched the facility grow smaller and smaller in the distance, tilted his face toward the cool breeze and felt for the first time that he was a person. He was going somewhere. He had a purpose. He’d been assigned a life.

  The glaciers grew small, blending one by one into the fine line of the horizon. Trees sprouted into forests that hid the stars and then opened into towns and fields and busy roads. He’d never thought of what the world must look like beyond the tundra, thinking he would never get to see it.

  One day, sitting on the back of the truck, a shadow fell as if they’d slipped behind the clouds and when he dared to peek around the canvas his future rose like a dark veil across the world. The Barricade.

  Watching the needle slip under Sasha’s skin, Jett was glad Matti was administering the shot because his own hands were shaking and sweating. He felt like his skin was about to peel off, too tight, the air too thin and hot despite it still being relatively cool in the tower.

  Summer was on the horizon, the snow had long since melted and they’d turned the heating off. Jett had switched his thermals for a plain black singlet and was usually still cool but watching Matti inject Sasha had him burning.

  ‘Settle down,’ Enzo demanded, putting a heavy hand on the back of Jett’s neck to try and still him. It only made Jett want to scream. He clutched the dog tags hanging around his neck and rubbed his thumb against the designation letters and numbers so hard he was worried he would wear them down. They weren’t his tags. Sasha had his tags.

  Just as quickly as it had gone in the needle came out and Matti carefully disposed of it in the infirmary waste bin.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Jett asked immediately, looking Sasha up and down as if he might go into anaphylactic shock at any moment. Or grow a second head. Anything was possible.

  ‘Don’t you love how he wasn’t concerned at all when it was us getting stuck with a needle?’ Enzo asked Matti.

  Jett ignored them, stalking forward, shoving Sasha’s knees apart where he was sitting on the side of the bed so he could stand between them. He clutched Sasha’s arm where Matti had put the needle in and stared at the small red dot. Waiting for the world to end.

  Sasha’s gently placed his hands over Jett’s and slowly drew them away, reaching up to place his hands on either side of Jett’s face instead, drawing his gaze. Jett stared into familiar blue eyes and felt the icy fear drain away and with it the adrenalin. It left him weak and he fell into Sasha, wrapping his arms around his waist and letting his head rest over Sasha’s heart.

  ‘I’m fine, Jett. No one has had any side effects, remember?’

  ‘There’s a first for everything,’ Jett mumbled into his tee-shirt. Sasha didn’t laugh at him, knowing he was terrified. He just held him until it passed and all he could concentrate on was the steady beat of Sasha’s heart under his ear where he rested his head.

  They’d made a vaccine and tested it numerous times on volunteers. People who’d moved into town during the spring thaw, following rumours that the Barricade had a cure. The first few attempts didn’t work, but Matti had tweaked his formula and the fourth try was good. Not only did it successfully destroy the virus in a lab setting but it worked in the field. A woman who’d volunteered to trial the vaccine had accidentally run into an infected child. She’d tried to help the ailing girl but it had been too late. The girl died, but the woman never got sick.

  Since then no-one who took the vaccine had been ill and the Barricade soldiers had started vaccinating one another. But Jett had held off, refusing to allow them to vaccinate themselves, watching and waiting for something to go wrong.

  Nothing did. Matti grew increasingly frustrated and eventually vaccinated himself without telling Jett. When he found out, Enzo had demanded to be vaccinated as well and in the end Sasha had told Jett he was taking the vaccine when Enzo did.

  So they had. And as Matti had promised, they were fine. Jett tried to breathe through it, but it was hard. He’d grown to love his new family more than he had known was possible. He hadn’t even known what family was until he was sent to the Barricade. Hadn’t known how to love.

  Knowing they were using his blood horrified him. Not because he was being used but because if something went wrong it would be a part of him that killed him.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sasha promised him, kissing his temple and pulling back far enough to look at him clearly. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Fuck,’ was all Jett managed to shakily say.

  ‘You’re okay,’ Matti said softly.

  Unease prickled Jett’s skin, something in Matti’s voice ringing his internal alarm bells and when he turned to look Matti was toying with a slide, haunted.

  ‘What’s wrong? You said it worked!’ He’d injected all of them with it! What if it failed? What if they got sick? What if they all died and Jett was the only one left alive?

  ‘We’re fine, Jett. The vaccine works, I swear.’

  ‘You’re worried,’ Sasha pointed out and when Matti met his gaze he seemed paler than usual, bleak
and ghostly.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sasha demanded, arms crossed over his chest, braced for the worse but ready to hear the facts before he made a decision. He reminded Jett of Dyogtin, whenever he was being particularly ‘in charge’.

  ‘Jett, did they tell you why they sent you here?’ Matti asked.

  ‘No?’ Jett was stumped by the question. It wasn’t something he had considered. He’d thought he’d done his time at the facility, proved his worth as a solider as it were, and been stationed. No different to going to an academy only they’d been able to synthesise a vaccine from his special blood. ‘I assumed I’d served my purpose?’

  Matti laughed, raw and bitter, shaking his head and looking down at the slide in his hands again.

  ‘What’s the slide, Matti?’ Sasha asked softly.

  ‘I compared the most recent samples from Jett to the first ones I took.’

  ‘Is something wrong with me?’ Jett was stunned. He’d never been sick in his life, never had an injury that didn’t heal fast. He’d never been told anything was wrong with him, even after his enhancements. Everything had always gone exactly to plan.

  ‘It was Blanter who told me to look into it.’ Matti spoke softly, voice thick and raspy. ‘He said he had an uncle who worked in one of the facilities. Said he wasn’t a good guy. That he didn’t do favours …’

  ‘There was a doctor called Blanter at my facility,’ Jett agreed. When he thought about it he realised they did look similar. They even had similar attitudes.

  ‘I figured,’ Matti agreed. There was something broken in the small upturn of his lips. Not quite a smile.

  ‘Matti?’ Sasha was worried, but trying to hide it. Jett could hear it in his voice.

  ‘The vaccine works. I think that’s why Jett was stationed here; it was the nearest available position to Blanter. His uncle took a gamble that we would figure it out and Iosif would be vaccinated.’