by Casey, Ryan
Susan felt a knot in her stomach, then. She didn’t like the way Pete trivialised her past like that. “You know, it’s attitude like that which drives people away.”
Pete shrugged. “I’ve got this far.”
“You don’t know a thing about my past.”
“Oh, I can guess. Something about a miserable childhood. Maybe a creepy uncle, something like that. Spent the rest of your teen life with self-esteem issues. Trying to fit in with people, but always feeling like you could never really be your true self.”
Susan was staggered at Pete’s accuracy. She wanted to deny he was right. But she couldn’t. He’d got her down to a T.
But there was something else he didn’t know.
Something nobody knew.
She looked away. Put a hand on her belly. She looked into the distance, frosty wind blowing against her. “I had a friend,” she said. “A girl who… a girl who I just wanted to impress. Because she had the perfect life. All the guys liked her. If you were friends with her, you were the most popular person in school and college. I spent so many years being unpopular. So many years looking at her and envying the people around her. I spent so many years just wanting to be close to her.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “And let me guess. You made friends, joined the cool club, and lived happily ever after? And then a big bad blackout blew it all away? Boo hoo, kid. Life sucks. Deal with it.”
Susan gritted her teeth and braced herself to say the words she’d repressed for so many years. The words that had fuelled so much anger. So much pain. “I… I wasn’t jealous of her because of the boys around her. I was jealous of the boys around her. Of everyone around her. Because… because I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be the one who was closest to her.”
Pete narrowed his eyes, then. And then his face lit up. “Ah.”
Susan’s cheeks flushed. She felt like a girl again. Like all the growing up and hardening up she’d done these past few months all went down the drain in a flash.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Pete said. “Hell, it’s normal enough these days. Dunno why you’re making such a fuss of it.”
Susan could barely contain herself anymore. “Because I loved her,” she said. “I loved her and… and she couldn’t love me. Do you know how that feels? We weren’t even possible. There wasn’t even a hope. Not a single hope. But I still couldn’t stop loving her. I couldn’t switch my feelings off. And then… and then I lost her. And I went numb. Everything just changed.”
Pete’s smile tilted a little. He sighed. “I’m sorry for belittling your past. For what it’s worth, I know what it’s like to want something I can never have again.”
“You don’t know a thing.”
“No, you’re wrong about that. I do. But you know what? I keep going anyway. Because it’s not all about me. It’s about the other person. It’s about the people they care about. If the last thing I can do in my life is bring some happiness to them… then that’s what I’ve got to do. Hell, I’ve done enough bad things. I’ve made enough mistakes. It’s about time I started doing some things right for a change.”
Susan saw the pain in Pete’s eyes. She felt a little more guilty. She was wrong to assume she knew everything about this guy. Wrong to assume he hadn’t felt pain of his own.
She took a deep breath and smiled. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a decent guy. Even if I did think we should’ve killed you the second you betrayed us.”
He chuckled a little. “Well, thanks. I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t,” Susan said. She turned around, looked up ahead.
And then she saw them.
The figures.
Instinctively, she lifted her rifle. Froze. Pete lifted his rifle, too.
But then as she stood there, heart racing, ready to fire, she realised something.
Lowered her rifle.
The man standing there.
The dog by his side.
“Trent?” Susan said. “Villain?”
Chapter Eleven
Jack sat on a chair in the leader’s office, and he braced himself for things to turn sour at any moment.
The leader’s office was a bright, airy portacabin. Outside, there was a gorgeous view of the docks. Seagulls swooped down, fished in the water. Little boats sat by the shore, bobbing in the gentle waves. The sun beamed down, as the smells of saltwater filled Jack’s nostrils. In other circumstances, it could’ve been beautiful.
But right now, and right here, it was shit-scary.
Because Jack genuinely didn’t know what was going to happen next.
The leader sat opposite Jack at the other side of the cabin. There were old calendars on the walls gathering dust. An old coffee mug, stains drooling down the sides, “Happy Birthday Paul” etched in bright letters onto it. Relics of a long-lost past.
The leader sat with his fingers intertwined. It was just him and Jack in here. Just the pair of them, after Jack and Candice’s struggle out of the shipping container. When he’d dragged him in here, he was sure the guy was going to kill him. Figured he should be dead by now.
But he was still breathing. That had to count for something.
The man’s skin was pockmarked. His hair was dark, and he had a long fringe. But it was that smile that always captured Jack’s attention. Too white and perfect for this world. Gave him the creeps.
It didn’t help that he hadn’t said a word yet. And they’d been in this office for a good ten minutes.
“So,” the leader said, finally breaking the silence. “Seems to me you’re struggling to adapt to your new surroundings.”
Jack didn’t want to humour this guy. He didn’t want any bullshit. He just wanted to get to the point. He wasn’t in a mood for small talk. Not with people who’d captured him and his people. Not with people who’d killed his friends. “Cut the crap. My people. Are they—”
“They’re fine,” the leader said. “The woman. The girl with one arm. They’re both absolutely fine. Struggling to settle in a little? Sure. But as you’ve found out yourself, it can be hard to get used to a new home.”
Relief washed through Jack’s body. He didn’t want to take this man at his word, but there wasn’t a lot else he could go on right now. “Trent. My dog. How about them?”
The man narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.
“Would it hurt you if I told you they weren’t with us anymore?”
Jack’s body tensed. “You better not have laid a damned finger on my dog.”
The man smiled again, then. He leaned back in his creaky chair. “Don’t worry. Your friend and your dog are long gone. And not in that way either. At least I hope not, for your sake. No, they managed to get away. Broke free of my people. My colleagues pursued them for a while, but they soon lost the trail. What harm can a man and a dog be, anyway? I’m sure they’re a long way away right now. They’d be foolish to come knocking on our door. Especially when they’ve seen what we’re capable of.”
Jack saw Susan standing there one second, then falling to the road clutching her stabbed body. The anger and the urge for vengeance flooded his thoughts. “What the hell do you people want?”
The man’s smile widened some more. “What do we want? Isn’t that the question? ‘Want.’ It’s always about ‘want.’ Always has been. And don’t you think that’s part of the problem, really? Humanity has put far too much faith in its desires. Take desire out of the equation, and you remove the source of suffering. Take ‘wanting’ out of the way, and you take away weakness.”
Jack frowned. He kept on glancing outside. He wanted to catch sight of Candice, make sure she was okay out there. “I don’t think I’m really following.”
The man sighed. “We’re at a crossroads in history. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, we have an opportunity to decide our future. Do we really want to go back to a world where we were at the mercy of our desires? Desires planted in our skulls by corporations and movies and governments?
Or do we need to be self-sustainable? Do we need to start working together as a whole unit rather than this emotionally bastardised animal? Because humanity needs to develop. It needs to move forward. And the only way we move forward is by taking desire out of the equation.”
Jack tried to wrap his head around this man’s words. But all he could do was sit there. All he could do was stare.
The man’s eyes widened. “Any thoughts on what I just said?”
“Well. I guess I was just trying to figure out if I’d ever heard such a load of delusional, psychotic bullshit in my life. But frankly, I’m struggling.”
The man’s smile widened some more. He laughed like he genuinely found Jack’s words funny. “That’s the problem. You’re still entrenched in the old world. But the old world will lead to your demise. It’ll lead to the destruction of everyone you care about. The only way to truly do right by those you care about is to let go. To work towards a better future. For the whole.”
Jack shook his head. “You sound like a shit Jim Jones.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “I like your sense of humour. I’ll miss it when I have to kill you.”
Jack looked around for a weapon. Anything he could use against this lunatic.
But he didn’t see a thing.
And it felt like the man was watching his every move.
“Your people can be safe if they accept us. If they work with us rather than against us. It won’t be easy. At times, they’ll have to do things they aren’t comfortable with. But they can break through. They can lose their attachments to the old world. And they can start seeing things from a whole new perspective. One without the fear of loss.”
Jack stared into this guy’s eyes. “I’m guessing you lost someone?”
Just for a split second, the man’s smile faltered, and his act dropped. “What?”
“To speak about living life without the fear of loss like that. You must’ve lost someone really close to speak that way. Trust me. I know how much it can screw with your head, losing someone you really care about.”
The man’s smile faltered even more. His eyes grew bloodshot. It was like Jack had hit a nerve. A nerve he was beginning to regret touching.
They sat there in silence for what felt like forever. Jack glared into the man’s eyes, and the man glared back into his.
He thought he might just lean over the table and stab the shit out of him when a door creaked behind Jack, jolting the man from his trance.
Jack turned around. There was a woman standing at the door.
And she was holding someone.
Jack almost jumped out of his seat. “Emma!”
She was beaten. Cut. Bruised.
But she didn’t look defeated.
She looked defiant.
She looked strong.
And she had blood on her hands.
“What is this, Renae?”
The woman called Renae looked down at Emma with such disgust, such hate. Then she looked back at Jack, and then at the man. “It’s Harvey, Jefe. She killed Harvey.”
Silence filled the room. Jack turned to the man—Jefe, or whatever it was—and saw his eyes widening.
And then he saw the way he looked at Jack and smiled.
“It looks like your people have been problematic, Jack. Time to learn a lesson or two.”
Chapter Twelve
Emma sat in the chair opposite the man who called himself “Jefe” and waited to hear what he had planned for her.
It’d all gone so wrong so fast. She’d taken out the man who’d threatened Hazel, ramming a knife into his skull. She’d seen an opportunity to slip away. A chance to escape. She’d reached the door, smelled the fresh air outside.
But there’d been somebody out there waiting for her. Renae. The woman who’d murdered Lydia. Of course she’d be waiting for her.
She kicked the shit out of Emma until she was sore all over. And when she found the body of her friend Harvey, she beat her up even more. Then she slammed the door shut, locking her friends inside there, and dragged her out across the shipyard. Emma tried to look around when she was out there. Tried to see if she could see any of her other people.
But all she saw were these crates. All she saw were these weird people. Their stares so blank. Looking at her like she was an alien. People of all ages. People of all colours. Men and women.
And now she was here. In this room. The man called Jefe sitting opposite her. The man who led this place.
He sat opposite her not saying much. Every now and then, when she looked up at him, she saw him staring right at her, smiling. She didn’t want to break her silence. She didn’t want to show any kind of weakness.
She was strong enough to handle whatever he could throw at her.
She was just worried about Hazel, Hannah, and Mary.
“Aren’t you going to ask anything?”
The man’s soft voice sent shivers up Emma’s arms. Made her glance at him once more, a move she regretted. “What would I ask you?”
“I don’t know. Who are we? What do we want—”
“I don’t give a shit who you are or what you want. I just want to get out of here. I want to get my friends out of here. That’s all that matters.”
The man whistled. Chuckled a little. “Wow. You really are something, aren’t you? Not like most kids. You have a boldness about you. A strength about you. Is it what happened to your hand that made you that way?”
Emma glanced down at her missing hand. She felt her cheeks flushing. Every time someone brought up what she was missing, it made her feel weak. She knew she should ignore that feeling. She knew she shouldn’t get caught up in her weakness. She knew she shouldn’t believe it. Because she was strong. So strong.
But she couldn’t help the way she felt when someone brought it up.
And it made it worse when other people saw it, too.
“It is, isn’t it?” Jefe asked. “You lack something. And you’re trying your damnedest to make up for it.”
“You don’t know a thing about me.”
“I know about people. I know about loss. And I know about the lengths people go to in order to make up for those losses.”
He did something Emma wasn’t expecting, then.
Out of nowhere, he reached a hand over the table and touched her arm.
“But you’ve got to let go of what you’ve lost. You’ve got to learn to grow from your loss. Let it make you stronger. Let it teach you not to grow too attached again. Because that’s the only way we can move forward. It’s the only way we can—”
“I don’t give a shit what you say. I don’t give a shit what you think. About me. Or about loss. Or about whatever. But I’m getting out of here. I’m getting out of here, and I’m getting my friends out of here—my old friends and my new friends. And nothing’s going to stop me. You’re not going to stop me. Whether you think you are or not.”
She yanked her arm away. Shuffled her chair back.
Jefe sat there. Perfect white smile beaming across his face.
“You know, you don’t know a thing about me either. Not really.”
“I know enough.”
“Do you know what ‘Jefe’ means?” he asked.
Emma frowned. “What?”
“My name. ‘Jefe’. It’s a Spanish term. It means leader or chief. I used to be called Jeff. A long, long time ago, it feels. But I knew I needed to change if I needed to make it in this world. Just like you have changed.”
He smirked, then.
“You’ve got fight. You’ve got spirit. That’s good. You just need to learn how to channel it better.”
She gritted her teeth. Prepared to scrap. She’d fight as dirty as she had to. There was nothing she wouldn’t try if she thought it might help her people.
Jefe stood, then, suddenly. He walked around the table, squared up to Emma. Stood over her.
And it was only then that she realised he was holding a knife.
He’d been holding it all this time.
<
br /> He towered over her. One of the tallest men she’d ever seen.
He stood there, knife in hand.
And for a moment, she thought he was just going to ram that knife into her and finish her off.
But then he did something else.
Something unexpected.
He put his knife away.
And then he turned her around.
She tried to push against him. Tried to resist.
But in the end, she could only turn.
“Come on,” he said. “There’s somewhere I need to show you. Somewhere you need to spend a little time in order to build your... education.”
She didn’t want to walk. But when he pushed against her, she didn’t really have a choice.
He opened the door. Walked the pair of them out into the shipyard. Walked them between the containers through the slushy snow. She saw the doors of those containers slamming shut on people. She saw people dressed in rags mopping up the snow, barely lifting their heads. She saw people all working here, all together. But so quiet. Just getting on with whatever they were doing.
Skinning animals.
Building traps.
She kept on walking, following the direction he was pushing her in, when she saw something up ahead.
There was an opening in the ground. It was like a big sinkhole she’d seen on a film Mum had been watching once. Sinkers, it was called. She remembered Mum being really pissed by the ending because the film didn’t make enough money so they weren’t doing a second one.
But there was something about this big, wide, muddy hole in the ground.
There were people in it.
She stood right at the edge of it. People sat in there, covered in mud. They didn’t look like they were wearing much. The place reeked of shit and rot. Some of the people weren’t moving, clearly dead.
And for the first time, as much as she didn’t want it to show, Emma was afraid.
“What—what is this?”
She turned around.
Saw Jefe smiling.
Hand on her back.
“This, my dear, is your new school.”