by Pintip Dunn
The man grasps the animal and makes an incision from the groin up the inside of the leg. The knife cuts through the fur like it’s tissue paper. Yes, fur—sleek, brown fur, which has somehow stayed clean despite the butchering. The bile rises in my throat. I’m glad my instructors aren’t here to see me.
The man slides his knife under the skin, cutting what I don’t even want to think about, and then slowly, meticulously, he peels the skin back. It comes off in one piece, revealing a dark red-blue hunk of fresh meat. My stomach rolls.
I lurch forward and trip over a string stretched across the ground. Squawk! Squawk! Squawk! A bevy of black birds bursts into the sky, tearing off in different directions. I grab my ears and reel backward, my heart racing. What did I do?
The man turns, shifting his knife from one hand to the other. He’s huge. As in, the-largest-man-I’ve-ever-seen huge. Probably two of me could fit within his shoulders, and he towers over Logan by at least half a foot.
“We’re fugitives from the Underground,” Logan calls out. “Uh, we seek Harmony, a haven for any who desire a new start in life.”
That must’ve been some secret passphrase. Please, oh please, get it right.
The man stares, and then he sets his knife on a rock. The breath whooshes out of me.
“Don’t mind the birds. They’re our alarm system, so we don’t have intruders sneaking up. I’m Zed.” Walking toward us, the man looks at his palms. “I’d offer to shake, but I don’t think you want to be touching these right now.”
Up close, the man looks younger than I thought. Mid-twenties, I’m guessing, and handsome, despite his size. I clear my throat, trying not to shy away from his hands. “I’m Callie.” I nod toward the backpack on Logan’s shoulders. “I think we’ve got something for you. Size fourteen sneakers?”
“I think I love you.” Zed lifts an enormous foot. He’s wearing oversize socks made from buckskin, slit down the middle and laced together with long thin strips of the same material. “I’ve been lining these suckers with grass, but they’re not much for insulation.”
“Did you make those?” I ask.
“Nah. My friend Angela did. You’ll meet her soon enough. She’s the heart of Harmony.” He turns to Logan. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”
And then he does a double take. “Mother of Fate. You’re Logan Russell, aren’t you?”
“Guilty,” Logan says.
Apparently forgetting what he’s been touching, Zed grabs Logan’s hand and pumps it. “Took you long enough, man! I’ve been hearing stories about you for years.”
What? Logan said he didn’t have a connection with Harmony. He said he only knew what his parents told him. I knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth, but I didn’t think he was an actual celebrity around here.
So much for being in this together.
“What stories?” I ask, but my one true “ally” shrugs as if he doesn’t know. Oh, he knows, all right. He just doesn’t want to tell me.
“Come with me.” Zed claps a hand on each of our shoulders. I wince. Now the deer parts are all over me. Unconcerned, he guides us down the dirt path.
We walk along the row of huts that line one side of the square. Each shelter is neatly shingled with a thin wooden material that looks like bark. A couple of girls cross the open space in the middle, right in front of the log cabin and the fire pit, carrying armfuls of wood. One wears a mesh shirt similar to mine. The other girl has on a buckskin tunic, cinched at the waist to give it shape. They look at us curiously but don’t say anything other than “hello.”
“So.” Zed turns and gives me a huge grin. “What brings you to Harmony?”
Exactly how am I supposed to answer this question? “To see the sights?”
He laughs. “Oh, you’re funny. But seriously, why are you here? Are you running from TechRA or your future?”
“None of your business,” I stammer.
Zed squeezes my shoulder. “Oh, sorry. I’ve been living in Harmony too long. Didn’t mean to pry.”
I blink. “This is considered small talk in Harmony?”
“Well, yeah. It’s the one thing we have in common, so we do our best not to judge each other.”
“If that’s true,” I say, “I suppose you won’t mind me asking: why are you here?”
“I said we try not to judge each other. I didn’t say it always works.”
Something crosses his face, a pain so deep, so raw, so familiar it makes my heart throb. A moment later, the look is gone. He drops his hands from our shoulders and walks a few steps ahead.
“But I asked you first, so it’s only fair I answer.” He turns and wets his lips. “In the future, I beat a woman to a bloody pulp.”
I shudder. I’ve heard of bad memories. I mean, I lived in a cell block filled with would-be criminals. But I’ve never heard such a stark, unapologetic description. No excuses, no justifications. Just the facts.
“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “Not because I have to be. Ten years ago, FuMA still didn’t know how to view or record the memories. So nobody else knew about my crime. But I didn’t fit in anywhere. This was the only place that could forgive me.” He pauses. “The only place where I could try to forgive myself.”
“Have you?” I whisper. “Forgiven yourself, I mean?”
He shakes his head. “Working on it.”
We reach the last hut in the row, and he clears his throat. “Here we are.”
As far as I can tell, the hut looks like every other one we’ve seen—ten feet across, bark shingles, a large piece of hide for the door. But next to me, Logan’s entire body stiffens, and his fingers dig into my elbow. He’s been so quiet I’d almost forgotten he was still here.
Zed lifts the rawhide. “After you.”
Logan swallows hard. He didn’t act this anxious when we were jumping off the roof. “Can you…can you go first?” he whispers to me, his voice heavy with guilt. I don’t know where the emotion comes from, but I’m in no position to turn him down.
He’s never asked me for anything before. He risked his freedom when he broke me out of detainment. He gave me the warmer jacket, the bigger piece of dried fruit. But not once has he asked me to do something for him.
He’s asking now. Even if I’m walking into a lair of hungry lions, I’ll do it. I’ll go first.
But please, let the lions be sleeping.
Taking a deep breath, I go inside. It’s dim, and there’s a bed made from five or six poles lashed together. A stone pit lies a few feet inside the door, and the sun shines through the hole in the roof. A figure stands up and comes forward. He walks into the sun, and his features catch the light.
Mother of Fate. I would recognize him anywhere.
He’s taller now, broader through the shoulders. A man, not a boy. But the features of Mikey Russell are unmistakable.
Logan’s brother.
20
Mikey doesn’t even see me. He only has eyes for the boy who stepped into the shelter behind me. They stare at each other, and then Mikey’s face crumples. He crosses the room in two strides and wraps his arms around his brother.
“Look at you. Just look at you,” Mikey says.
I can’t look anywhere else. Tears stream down both their faces. They stand at practically the same height, give or take an inch, the family resemblance as striking as ever. Same discerning eyes, same straight nose, same blond hair. Mikey, however, wears his hair long, pulled back with a piece of rawhide, and sports a straggly beard.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Mikey says.
Logan swipes at his face. “Same.”
They break apart. Mikey slaps his brother on the back, punches his shoulder, rubs his head. It’s as if he can’t stop touching Logan, can’t stop reassuring himself his brother’s real and not the result of a hazy, mid-afternoon nap.
Logan gestures in my direction. “You remember Callie?”
Mikey looks me over. I want to shrink into one of the saplings that form t
he internal structure of the hut. “Is this the girl you couldn’t stop talking about five years ago?”
“Yeah.”
Mikey gives me a nod. “You grew up nice.” Since my hair’s a mess and my skin is streaked with dried mud, I know he’s just being polite. Or maybe this is the look they go for in the wilderness, I don’t know.
“I had no idea you escaped. I thought TechRA carted you away and you never came back.” Even as I say the words, I realize how foolish they are. If the Underground went to all this trouble to break me out, of course they would’ve rescued one of their own members’ sons.
“I was the very first breakout,” he says. “And only because my dad had this idea for a secret community and insisted I be the one to lead it. We don’t rescue someone often, as you can imagine. It’s a huge risk to our members inside the agency. A huge risk to the entire Underground.” He slants a look at Logan. “My brother must have put up a really strong case to the board, to get you out.”
Logan flushes and darts a glance at me. “I explained about my future memory. They listened.”
His memory. The one that made him talk to me that day in the park. The one that he warned me was unexpected. It must’ve concerned me, if it caused the board members to authorize my rescue.
Curiosity thrums through my body. What could the memory be? But Logan has clamped his mouth shut. If he didn’t tell me in private, he’s not about to tell me here, in front of his brother.
“I’m glad you’re free,” Mikey says to me and then turns to his brother. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“The board said if I wanted Callie out, I had to do it myself.” Logan’s words are slow and even, as if he’s practiced this answer for days. “They would provide me with the resources, but I had to take the risk myself.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of the policy.” Mikey’s voice rises. “But the policy doesn’t explain why my little brother was concerning himself with Underground business in the first place. Why he would risk his swimming career before it even began.”
“They were going to make her fulfill her memory, Mikey. She went to detainment to stop her future, but if her memory was going to happen anyway, how could I leave her cooped up like that? She can’t even stand to be away from the windows at school.” His breath comes in big, anxious pants. At that moment, he sounds more like the nervous T-minus five boy I knew than the brave guy who rescued me. “I wasn’t intending on coming with her, I swear. But she doesn’t know how to swim. So I jumped in the river with her.”
Mikey puffs out a breath. “Ah, romance. Isn’t it grand? It screws with your mind and makes you do stupid things like throw your future away. So, tell me.” His face tightens, and he gestures between Logan and me. “When did this begin?”
This? I dart a look at Logan, not sure what “this” is. Should I tell Mikey we held hands as we walked into Harmony? That’s something, right?
Across the hut, Logan’s face wavers in and out of the shadows. But he doesn’t respond.
“Um,” I say. “We kinda just started talking again.”
“Explain,” Mikey barks.
“We used to be friends five years ago,” I say, still looking at Logan, still wanting him to take the lead. “And then we stopped. He started speaking to me again the day before I got my memory.”
Mikey wraps his hand around a stool made from a tripod of sticks. There’s a platform in the middle, but he’s certainly not offering me a seat. “You haven’t talked for five years?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t believe this.” His grip tightens and I can see the white of his knuckles even through the dimness of the hut. “I wouldn’t have approved, but I could understand, at least, if you put your life on hold for the love of your life. But this girl’s a stranger! You have no connection with her other than a childhood friendship a lifetime ago. For this you risked everything? Logan, you’re not a kid anymore. You have a responsibility to everyone here. We rely on you. You can’t go running off on a whim with some girl.”
Logan finally speaks up. “Maybe Callie’s only part of it. Maybe the other part is because I wanted to see you again. Did you ever think of that?”
This stops Mikey. Because it’s not an excuse. It’s not something Logan is saying to defuse the situation. The pain in his voice is too raw for that.
I ache to comfort the boy in him, the one who lost his brother at too young an age. I want to smooth away the long-standing cracks in his heart, but I can’t. Logan has never let me into that part of his life. And besides, I wouldn’t know what to say. I don’t understand what Mikey is talking about. Logan’s only seventeen. How could a teenager from Eden City put the entire community of Harmony at risk? It doesn’t make sense.
Mikey places a hand on his brother’s shoulder. With a single touch, he offers solace where I cannot. A pang runs through me, but I can’t bring myself to be jealous. Not when Logan has finally gotten what he’s clearly wanted for so long—to be with his brother again.
“I’m happy you’re here,” Mikey says. “More happy than you will ever know. But that doesn’t change the facts. This girl is nothing to you. Your life wouldn’t have changed one iota if you left her to FuMA. But us? We can’t make it without you, Logan. What were you thinking? How could you do this?”
Logan’s got to confess now. He’s got to explain the guilt he felt when they took Mikey away. How his sacrifice for me was a way to make up for his inaction all those years ago. But he doesn’t. He just bites his lip, taking the criticism, as his fingers trace a pattern on his leg.
“You weren’t thinking. That’s the long and short of it. No brother of mine would deliberately make such a stupid decision.”
I remember, all of a sudden, something Logan said about his brother. I want him to be proud of me. And I can’t stand it anymore, can’t stand to watch anyone tearing him down, most of all the brother he so wants to impress.
“He didn’t do it for me, okay?” I say. “Yes, I was there, and yes, I needed his help, but it wasn’t for me. Logan jumped into the river because of who he is—because he’s brave and honorable and selfless. The most selfless person I’ve ever known. Maybe it makes no difference to you what happens to me. But I’ll never forget what your brother gave up to save me.”
“What he gave up?” Mikey’s lips twist into a smile. “His life, sure. He’s welcome to throw that away if he pleases. But the future of Harmony? The stability of our very community? I really don’t think that’s his to sacrifice.”
“What are you talking about?”
Mikey glances at Logan. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Of course not.” He won’t look at his brother. Won’t look at me. He studies the woven mat like he’s counting the number of fronds. “I don’t go around blabbing our secrets to strangers.”
Okay, I get that he’s frustrated with his brother. But he offered me his hand. He said we were in this together. Hearing him call me a stranger slams me right in the chest.
“So she has no idea what she’s caused?” Mikey asks, his voice so hard it feels like it’s reaching across the hut and slapping me.
“Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not that big a deal.”
“It’s a big deal, all right. We can improvise a lot of things in the wild, but there’s a whole lot more we need from civilization. We depend on those backpacks, Logan. We need to be able to communicate with the Underground.”
“I understand,” Logan says. “But you’ll figure something out, Mikey. You always do.”
I’m listening as hard as I can, but I still don’t follow.
Mikey slumps on the mat. It’s as if the conversation’s drained him, and he doesn’t have the energy left to be angry. “Callie, do you know why FuMA took me?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You made a racquetball hover above the court.”
“I suppose everybody knows that. What people don’t know is I’m not the only Russell brother with psychic abilities. Logan�
�s more discreet about it, that’s all.”
I blink, and then his words register. Logan has psychic abilities? To do what? Hide information? I shift my gaze to Logan and wet my lips, almost afraid to ask. “What…what can you do?”
The brothers look at each other. Something passes between them, but it’s too subtle for me to catch. The air feels like it’s about to burst with pent up energy, and Mikey laughs a little, shaking his head. I think he’s going to ignore my question, but then he turns to me.
“The telekinesis is a preliminary ability, the one that manifests in childhood. It’s a neat trick, sure, but it has no real power. I can’t levitate anything heavier than a ball.” He takes a breath. “Our true ability is, we Russell brothers can communicate mind-to-mind. Or rather, I can talk directly into Logan’s mind. For the most part, he can’t reciprocate, other than a brief thought here and there, but his reception of my words is crystal clear.”
His glare pins me to the wall. I feel as helpless as a moth mounted on display. “For years now, Logan’s been our contact in Eden City. He’s our means of communication with the Underground. He’s the one who sends us the backpacks with the supplies we need to survive. Of course, now he’s here, instead of there. Because of you.” He bites off each word. “I’d say our lifeline has been cut off, wouldn’t you?”
21
I run outside. After the dim lighting in the dome hut, the late afternoon sun blinds me, but that’s okay. I’m blinded, anyway.
I stumble down the dirt path. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. I tried to stop him, truly I did, but everything was moving so fast. He wanted to jump. Why did he want to jump?
Excuses. I collapse against a tree, the bark rough against my forearms, my breath coming in pants. If I want to call them what they are: lies. The truth is, I wanted Logan to come with me. I could’ve made him turn back at any point in our journey, but I didn’t. I didn’t care what he was giving up, because I didn’t want to be alone. If he had gone home, the entire community wouldn’t be in jeopardy. If I wasn’t so curse-the-Fates helpless, he would be where he belongs.