The First City (The Dominion Trilogy Book 3)

by Joe Hart

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for leaving you,” he whispers. “I wanted to stay, but every time I looked at you I saw him die. And I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t. I was weak and you’re strong and I knew you’d survive.”

  She strains to flip his weight from her but he’s too heavy. They lie there, breathing heavily, neither of them moving. Zoey stares at the darkened ceiling over his shoulder, smells the blood she drew from his lip, and suddenly her vision blurs.

  “I needed you,” she says, voice weakened to less than a whisper. “I was so afraid and then you were gone.”

  He is still for a long time, and when he raises himself from her, silver tear-tracks streak his face. “I was afraid too. You were all I had left, and I was so scared I’d lose you like I did my father. So I ran. And I’ve regretted it every day since I left.”

  A tremor runs through her and a small sob escapes her throat. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault he’s gone. All my fault.” But she can’t say any more. Her muscles go languid, frailty beyond anything she’s felt before washing over her. Even the unsteadiness of her legs as she relearned to walk doesn’t come close to the weakness she feels now.

  She is water. She imagines herself flowing outward down the hall and disappearing through the cracks in the floor.

  But she doesn’t because he takes her into his arms.

  Lee slides to the side and rolls her to him, pulling her face into the hollow of his neck. For a brief second she resists, trying to summon the rage that’s eaten at her all through the months since she found his good-bye note, but the reservoir is dry.

  And beneath it is longing.

  How many times has she caught herself thinking of him like this? So close against her, the smell of him, his voice. She knows the anger was only a product of it all, the yearning for him and his comfort, the safety she always felt when he was near.

  Zoey leans into him and it is like they are back in her room at the ARC lifetimes ago. Two children huddling together as a war rages outside and the night grows darker, only now it is the fear of letting go that keeps them holding on.

  He murmurs to her. She thinks it’s something like don’t cry, his fingers on her chin, bringing her face up to his.

  Then he is kissing her.

  His lips soft and so gentle, barely grazing her own.

  She can taste tears and the salty tang of his blood. He is so real and vivid that the voice in her head saying this isn’t actually happening fades completely, leaving only the two of them, arms and legs intertwined, bodies pressed firmly against each other.

  She runs her fingers through his hair and feels his hand slide up the length of her thigh, pause on her hip, and continue beneath the hem of her shirt, his palm so warm on the bare skin of her back.

  Zoey mashes her lips against his, unable to hold back any longer. The deep, coiled need she felt in her dream at Riverbend returns, except it is tenfold.

  Their clothes peel away, sodden and cold, replaced by tender caresses that become feverish.

  She realizes neither of them knows what they’re doing but it is right since they’re together.

  Lee hovers over her. He trembles against her, forehead to forehead, eyes staring straight into hers. His breath catches and she grimaces.

  Pain. Why pain? She swallows, a quiet cry coming from her. Lee pauses but she kisses him, the need still there through the ache.

  The rain beats the roof above them as they move together, and it is forever and only seconds before it is over, the pulsing knot of pain dwindling as he collapses in her arms, heart hammering through his chest against her own. His lips press against the side of her neck and he whispers the same thing over and over as she slides toward the oblivion of sleep.

  “I love you, Zoey. I love you.”

  28

  Sometime in the night Lee wakes and guides her to a bedroom off the hall.

  The mattress is quite possibly the softest thing she’s ever felt, and she melts into it, falling asleep again almost at once, the last sensation of Lee curling in close behind her, his body fitting to hers like it was made for it.

  Zoey surfaces from sleep gradually like rising through layers of warm water. Her eyes open to a curtained window on her side of the bed, soft blue light of early morning staining the floor and ceiling. She rolls over, unsure if her memory is telling the truth or not.

  Lee lies beside her with one arm bent above his head, eyes shut, breathing slow and even.

  True.

  She watches him for a time, the knowledge of what she will have to do when he wakes, like the roaring of a distant storm. For the moment she ignores it. She deserves this.

  The rain must’ve stopped shortly before she woke because she can hear it dripping from the eaves in a steady plunking outside. The house is quiet and peaceful. The air outside the covers is cool but beneath she is warm.

  Lee stirs, a low sound in the back of his throat, then his eyes blink partially open. He slides his gaze to her and smiles.

  “You’re really here.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” she says, suddenly very aware of her nudity. She pulls the sheet tighter around her.

  He props himself up on his side and, for a long time, simply looks at her. “Can’t believe you found me,” he finally says.

  “Me neither.”

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How everything. How did you find me? How did you get here? How are you walking?”

  She smiles a little. “I got feeling back slowly in my legs after you left. I drove here, and it was completely chance that we crossed paths.”

  A strange look settles on his face. “It was you, wasn’t it? Last night on the monorail. You were sneaking into the city.” She nods. He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He frowns. “Then why did you come?”

  Zoey sits up, bracing herself against the headboard, clasping the blankets to her chest as if they can protect her from the words she has to say. Lee pivots to face her. “I have to get to the hospital.”

  “Why? Are you sick? Hurt?”

  “No. I’m okay. I mean I got shot in the foot the other day, but that’s a different story.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” She struggles with the enormity of it. How can words weigh this much? Across the room, her and Lee’s clothes hang from the back of a chair. He must have put them there after bringing her to bed. She stands and moves to them, feeling his eyes on her but the embarrassment of earlier is gone now. She dons her shirt, which is mostly dry before digging in her pants pocket. Returning to the bed she wraps the blankets around her bare legs.

  “I came here because of this,” she says, holding out the blood vial to him.

  He takes it, turning it over several times. “What is it?”

  She takes a deep breath, stomach clenched sickeningly tight. “It might be our daughter’s blood.”

  Lee freezes. He stares at the vial before bringing his eyes up to her. “What did you say?”

  “A man named Jefferson found us at a missile installation in Idaho. Followed us there. He was an NOA agent and he killed . . . killed Eli. I shot him, and before he died he gave me this vial and a video chip with a message on it from Vivian at the ARC.” Lee turns so that his legs hang off the bed, his gaze locked once again on the vial. “There was a baby girl in one of the tanks and she said I was the keystone. That I can give birth to girls and that the blood was proof.”

  “But you said our daughter. How—”

  “When the guard Tasered me in the lunchroom after Rita and I were fighting. They took an egg and your sperm. And . . .” She gestures with her hands, a sudden anger returning at the thought of what NOA’s done.

  Lee shakes his head like he did after she struck him the night before. “So you came here to test the blood?”

  “Yes. It’s the only way to be sure if she’s telling the truth. If it doesn’t match then
they’re lying and just trying to lure me back. But if it does . . .”

  Lee stands, crossing to his own clothes, and draws his pants on. He stands silently by the open doorway for a moment, and she has the irrational fear that he will walk out and disappear, leave her again just like before. But he returns to the bed, perching on its edge. “How do you know even if it matches that it’s not a trick?”

  “I don’t. Maybe the doctor will be able to tell me, but I have to try. I have to know for sure.” She pauses. “There are doctors here, right?”

  He says nothing for so long she begins to wonder if he heard her. She’s about to ask again when he says, “Can’t be. It’s a trick. They’re—” His eyes widen and he slowly looks at her, mouth partially open.

  “What is it?”

  “The army. Oh, God.”

  “What?”

  “The army that’s here. They’re the ones on the streets.”

  “I thought they were guards for the city.”

  “No. They showed up nearly a week ago. Killed hundreds of men and rounded the rest up. The man leading them, he thinks he can father female children. And he knows about the ARC.”

  “What? How does he know? He’s been there?”

  “No. He’s not from here. They came by ship, the huge one in the bay. He said an American told him where the remaining women were being held so he gathered as many soldiers and guns as he could and came here because he thinks he can bring the population back.”

  “But why are they holding the city hostage?”

  “They’re low on ammunition, and the machines at the factory that makes it were damaged.” Lee swallows. “I’ve been tasked with fixing them.”

  She blinks. “You agreed to it?”

  “Only because they were going to start killing people if no one stepped forward.” He stands and paces across the room. “I couldn’t let them do it.”

  “How close are you to fixing them?”

  “Close. They should be producing rounds in two or three days.”

  Zoey places a hand against her forehead. “Okay. Then we need to think of a way I can get into the hospital and out before that happens.”

  “That’s suicide. The hospital has guards stationed out front and more inside. No one gets in there without being checked first.”

  “There has to be a way around the security.”

  “It’s impossible.”

  “You thought the same thing about escaping the ARC.”

  Lee stops pacing. “You’re right. But this is different. If you’d been caught at the ARC, they’d have thrown you in the box. If they catch you here it will be a riot. You’d be torn apart.”

  For a second the memory of racing toward the mountain with the men of the trade close behind takes her and she is there again, heart pounding, ears ringing with their cries, her injury along with fear attempting to paralyze her. The smell of burnt hair and skin invades her nose, sending a coil of nausea through her stomach.

  “I remember my mother’s hair,” she says, swallowing bile. “At least I think I do. It’s the only memory I have, the feeling of it sliding through my fingers. All my life I wanted to know who my parents were. I dreamed of meeting them and dreaded it because I hated them a little for letting me go, for not protecting me.” She gazes up at him. “Now we might have a daughter. What should we do? Ignore the fact that I may be a mother. That you may be a father? Forget about her? Let them experiment on her?”

  “I don’t know!” Lee yells, startling her. His gaze flares, then softens. He moves to the bed and kneels near her feet. He grasps her hands gently. “I’m sorry. It’s just—” He glances away. When he looks at her again his eyes shine with tears. “I made the mistake of leaving you once. I won’t lose you again.”

  The ache in his voice renders her silent. “We’ll figure this out together,” she finally manages.

  He wets his lips. “Let me bring the vial and a sample of your blood in and you can stay here in the house.”

  “What would you tell the doctor?”

  “I don’t know. That I want to make sure a boy is mine that the mother claims to be.”

  “He’d ask where the mother is. And besides, he’d think it was strange that you were already carrying your blood in something. He’d want to draw it fresh.”

  “Well, that would work too, right? If I’m the father then the blood would match.”

  “It would, unless Vivian was lying about that part. I’m sure they knew how we felt about each other even though we were careful. It would be more leverage to tell me you were the father even if you weren’t.” She looks down at their hands clasped in her lap. “I have to go myself, otherwise we won’t be sure.”

  Lee’s head drops forward in resignation before he stands, moving to the chair opposite her. “Okay. So how do we do it?”

  “I don’t know. When do you have to report to the factory?”

  Lee glances at a clock ticking on the wall. “In a little over two hours.”

  “Then we’ll have to think fast.” Zoey twists the bedsheet in her hands, thoughts blurring into one another. She replays her entry into the city past the barricade and thinks about the hospital’s position. “I know how we get out of the city and when we’ll have to do it.”

  “The monorail at night.”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s really not the problem.”

  “No. I noticed the hospital and the building beside it share the same roofline. What if you went to the hospital today and unlocked the access to the roof, then in the evening we could cross from the building beside it and get to the top floor that way?”

  Lee shakes his head. “Wouldn’t work. That building is a huge apartment complex that a lot of the city’s men took residence in. Someone would see us coming or going.”

  She twists the sheet harder. “How about the alley behind the hospital? Other entrances?”

  “There’s nothing back there but walls and windows and the other two entrances have a guard at them too.”

  “There has to be a way.”

  “I told you, these guys are thorough. They check in everyone at the munitions factory, and no one can even go to the bathroom without their say-so. They have radios they contact each other with. Most of the other men in the city are confined to houses or apartments.”

  Zoey wrings the sheet once more before releasing it. “Then we need a distraction of some kind. Something to draw the guards away from the doors and occupy them while we get inside.”

  Lee frowns and leans forward on the chair. As he does, her pants slide from the back making a loud thud on the hardwood floor. He turns, reaching down for the holster and handgun that have fallen free of her clothes. “You have a gun?”

  “Of course. Did you think I was throwing rocks at people who were trying to hurt me?”

  Lee pulls the pistol from its holster and studies it before glancing up at her as if she’s a stranger. “They confiscated all the weapons they could find when they took over the city.” He slides the gun back in its case, looking thoughtfully at it. “Say what you said before, about a distraction.”

  “We need something to draw them away while we get inside.”

  Lee sits motionless for several minutes before rising and placing her weapon on the chair. His gaze becomes unfocused. “Shower’s in the next room, I’m sure you want to clean up. There’s a box in the closet with some clothes that might fit you; not sure if they’re the prior owner’s daughter’s. I’m going to make breakfast.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Need to think.”

  He leaves the room and she listens to him tread down the hall; the sound of cabinet doors opening and closing comes a moment later. Zoey sits on the edge of the bed in the blue morning light before moving to the bathroom.

  She spends longer than she should beneath the scalding water, but can’t get herself to shut it off. She imagines the last weeks washing away like the rest of the filth from her body and swirling down the drain in
to darkness. If only it were that easy.

  When the water finally begins to run cold she steps from the shower and dries off. The large mirror above the sink shows her the first true image of herself she’s seen in weeks.

  A young woman looks back with the harsh gaze she’s come to accept as her own. Her face is a little gaunt and there are hints of dark rings beneath her eyes. She runs a hand through her shorn hair, not liking or disliking its appearance. It’s simply what is.

  The box of clothes contains a pair of dark pants that are a little large for her. She cinches them tight with her belt before donning a gray button-up shirt that fits better. After some searching in Lee’s dresser, she locates a pair of socks she only has to roll down once.

  The smell of cooking food wafts from the stove when she enters the kitchen and sits at a short counter. Lee stands before two skillets, his hair tousled forward onto his forehead. She studies him, letting his appearance sink in. His skin is ruddier, as if he has spent much more time outside in the sun and wind, his hair uncut and long. And he’s leaner than he was at the ARC, any extra weight he carried stripped down to muscle. The image of him above her in the hallway the night before comes unbidden. The dark shape of his trembling body, how the faint light had thrown shadows across his skin. His whispers in her ear.

  I love you, Zoey. I love you.

  “How hungry are you?”

  She returns to the present. Lee watches her, a slightly bemused look on his face. “Starving,” she says.

  “It’s not much. Potatoes and eggs. The eggs are kind of a specialty, though, since there’s a limited amount each week at the store.” He hands her a plate heaping with golden brown potatoes and three eggs cooked perfectly. Her stomach is an open hole inside her, and she shovels in two mouthfuls before the taste truly registers.

  “This is amazing,” she says, though it comes out mumbled through the food.

  Lee laughs. “I think that was a compliment.” He sets his plate beside hers and sits, eating slowly. They say nothing throughout the meal, though she notices he keeps slipping into a trance between bites, gaze locked on a blank wall across the kitchen. When they’re done he stacks the plates and places them in the sink.