Faded Flare

by L. B. Carter

  Reed snorted. “They’re getting dressed,” he said with a quirked brow, amused but not entirely pleased.

  Henley let out a nervous giggle.

  “Traumatic situations bring people together,” Jen mused. “One last fling and all that.” She didn’t sound particularly thrilled either.

  Had the couple kept the others awake with their activity? Ace supposed that was a blessing for his night-time stroll with Henley, even with its exciting ending. A different kind of exciting ending to the one Nor and the experiment likely experienced. What a time. Ace was baffled at why they would choose now, in someone else’s house, without any air conditioning, no less, to become intimate.

  “What are we waiting for?” Nor said, stepping onto the porch with a creak of the screen, pulling his shirt down with one hand and holding the door open for his partner to pass through with the other. Ace could see a heavy blush darkening her cheeks in the moonlight.

  “You,” Henley answered, also slightly annoyed. She was still in flight mode, dancing on her toes, eager to depart.

  “You know I’m proud of you for learning some moves,” Reed told his brother, “but timing is really everything, bro.”

  “Not to mention that you didn’t discuss your intentions with me first,” Jen scolded.

  “I don’t need your permission,” the green-haired girl finally spoke up, eyes narrowing on Jen. “You may have been involved in my… upbringing and helped me get out, but that doesn’t make you a mother figure.” Her fists were curled at her chest now, a barrier between them. “My only parent is gone.”

  “I’m not trying to be,” Jen said, uptight, the words clipped, attempting to be patient, but irritation bled through. “But since I was involved in your upbringing, as you call your creation, I know the dangers of procreation with modified DNA, the result of which hasn’t been studied and might result in some severely unwanted repercussions. Unless—” She turned on Nor, who now had a hand on the shamed girl’s back. “—you have protection somewhere on you.” She gave him a once over. “I very well doubt that your game is strong enough to warrant that.”

  Reed laughed aloud. “Got you there, brother.”

  “We took precautions,” Nor argued, his tone subdued. “We—”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Henley interrupted, to Ace’s gratitude. “Lindy, we need the keys to your truck. Please. They’ll follow us and leave you in peace.”

  Lindy shook her head, arms crossed, looking uninterested in all the drama around her. “No.”

  Ace’s irritation elevated. There were too many people who thought they could be the authority figure for their decisions. He was the one who had organized this expedition. They needed to adhere to his advice.

  “She’s an accomplice now.” Reed’s mouth twisted with discomfort at that truth.

  “No, really. They want us. We’ll tell them you were uninvolved. They’ll leave you alone, I’m sure.” For once on the trip, Henley was supporting Ace’s desires.

  “No,” Lindy repeated slowly. “You cannot have the keys.”

  Henley was taken aback, mute for a second in her bartering. “If you don’t let us go, they’ll send more.” She waved an arm behind them toward the fields.

  “You can go,” Lindy countered. “But you take me with you.”

  Lindy was being too aggressive, too demanding. “No,” Ace said, dropping his tone low in rigidity as a quieter alternative to the voice-raising he was inclined to take. At BTI, others he had been forced to collaborate with on occasion simply accepted whatever statement he went as far as to vocalize and immediately proceeded to achieve whatever he had asked, or he did it himself, brushing them aside. “We already have too many stragglers.” He sent an intentional stare toward Nor and Reed.

  “You don’t take me, you don’t get the keys.” Lindy shrugged and moved toward the door, the baseball bat dragging loudly along the rough wooding, detouring around the couple.

  She was going to attract the drones. Was it possible that was her intention? No, she had destroyed one to aid his return to the house. Ace wondered if, based on Henley’s view of him, everyone at BTI had merely been disquieted or in awe of him, a respect Lindy would no longer hold toward him having taken the role of protector already in their interactions.

  “Shit,” Reed and Nor said at the same time. Nor ran a hand through his hair then put it up to stop Lindy from passing him into the house.

  “Fine you can come with,” Jen allowed.

  “What? No.” Ace’s brows dropped. This was not acceptable. He couldn’t guarantee any of their safety without his contact, let alone not knowing for certain Valerie’s status once they reached their destination.

  “She’s a civilian,” Reed seemed to agree, crossing his arms, brows lowering at Jen, who turned on him, hands on hips.

  “Yes.” Henley turned on Ace. It was almost men versus women. “We need transportation.” Her eyes were too wide. She knew first-hand they needed something that traveled faster than they could run in order to desert the drones.

  Dammit, they were wasting time arguing. “Fine, but we leave now.” Ace had made it toward the rusted truck when Lindy spoke again from behind him.

  “What about mi familia?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Jen whined. “Make up your mind. You want to go or not?”

  “I have to go,” Lindy corrected. “I cannot be sure that you will return my truck. But I cannot leave my sick mama and tio and… They need caring for.”

  “Stalemate,” Reed pointed out redundantly, head tipped back to face the porch ceiling.

  “Fine, I’ll stay with them.”

  “No, Jen.”

  “It’s fine, Sirena. You guys don’t really need me anymore. You’re free. Maybe if I stay here, my mom will come for me and leave you alone.”

  There was a silence for a moment, everyone accepting that as improbable.

  “Fine.” Ace waved a hand. “Problem solved. Everyone else in the truck.”

  “No.” Sirena’s voice was solidifying, her earlier embarrassment waning. “No one should be alone.”

  “She’s not alone. She’ll be with the Juarez family.” Ace’s impatience was waxing.

  Sirena stared him down from her perch on the porch, undeterred. Ace needed Henley’s assistance here. Sirena’s weird blue-green eyes were unnerving in their hold.

  Ace looked away first, staring at the scuffs and dirt coating his boots. He was losing his control over them all.

  “Everyone deserves to be with their friends and family.”

  “So stay,” Ace growled at the experiment, at his wit’s end, turning back to the truck.

  Henley patted his arm, probably attempting to calm him, then pulled it back quickly. She averted her gaze, looking back up at the porch, though her shoulders were square toward him as she explained calmly, ever the negotiator, “She can’t stay. That defeats Jen’s intentions.”

  “I’ll stay with her.”

  Everyone fixated on Reed.

  “Are you sure?” Nor asked. “You’re letting me out of your sight on my first mission? Are those drones or pigs flying around?”

  Reed nodded, not baited by Nor’s attempt at humor. Ace was getting better at reading his company. He could tell the joke was made to cover nerves. Sirena was right that Nor didn’t want to be separated from his brother. “You can send someone to collect us after you get Sirena to safety and can contact Father. The mission is priority.” The fact that Reed hadn’t retaliated with sarcasm indicated he had contrasting feelings toward the plan modification; he agreed with Ace. Another level-headed person.

  And he was leaving.

  At least that meant Ace wouldn’t have to compete with another dominant personality from there on out.

  Nor nodded.

  Sirena watched him closely, concern contorting her small face, but she didn’t move to physically or verbally comfort him.

  “Don’t think you’re doing this because I need a big strong man to accompany me. I won’
t swoon,” Jen informed Reed with a raised brow.

  He grinned down at her. “I’d never dream of it. I think of it more as escorting you.” The sarcasm was back, suggesting that nerves might in fact be hiding beneath the tough exterior he showed his younger sibling. Ace frowned at the quick change. “I just don’t want you to miss me.”

  “Miss annoying me, more like. And don’t expect any payment for these escort services. No cash.” She gave an exaggerated apologetic pout that made her bottom lip jut out grotesquely.

  Reed’s smile widened predatorily. “So you’ll accept my services then? I take payment in many forms.”

  Nor made a weird noise. “And you both yelled at u—”

  “They’re coming.” Henley’s hoarse whisper was intense enough to cut off Nor and his eye-roll, her slack face whipping around to stare at the crops, seeing and hearing something the rest of them hadn’t.

  Ace still couldn’t detect it, but he trusted her. She hadn’t been wrong before. “Okay, now problem solved. Let’s go.”

  Feet started toward the old rusted truck, kicking up a small dirt storm in their haste that instigated a few coughing fits, none as violent as Mrs. Juarez’s.

  “One more thing.”

  Ace’s eyes narrowed on the one person who hadn’t moved from the porch—even Reed and Jen had stepped down to see them off.

  For the first time, Lindy looked apologetic, twisting the baseball bat in her hands. “The truck has no gas.”

  Chapter Nine

  Whether this truck was faster than the team could’ve moved without it was questionable. Forget the fuel that Henley had MacGyvered with the help of some of the Juarez’s stocks of corn ears, several precious bottles of drinking water that they tried to recapture during the evaporation processes, which had been hurried along with the aid of a few small cornstalk fires since the sun had long set, dotted around the open dirt area in front of the house to avoid catching the neighboring fields aflame.

  Diesel engines could run on vegetable oil, and it seemed to be puttering on decently with corn oil, heated with the little electric furnace she’d slapped together with destroyed drone parts in the trunk of the truck and funneled into the tank from there.

  Her mentor would not give her points for its fabrication, but everyone in the crew was simply grateful for the idea. Jen had very much enjoyed helping by knocking another drone out of the sky with a bat while the others assisted Henley.

  Henley was more worried the truck would fall apart with the next bump, the suspension worn down, leaving them stranded more in the middle of nowhere than they were before. At least they had left behind the dirt track. Still, even the slightest divot in the white cement road sent her airborne.

  Likely, she would have been abandoned, flying out of the truck bed as soon as they had departed, if Buster hadn’t placed a hand across her waist like a seatbelt, his fingers gripping the rusted rim tightly. She wasn’t sure if he was worried about her safety, didn’t want to lose what he had spent so much effort extracting from BTI, or if he was simply holding on to better secure his own seat against the truck cab. It was additionally considerable that he might actually be nervous about their status.

  Facing backward as they were, without hindrance of a roof, they would easily notice the drones approaching if more tailed them. The third was either toast at the hand of Jen’s baseball-professional-worthy swings by now, still searching the crop fields, or simply hadn’t caught up to them yet. The rumbling start of their truck they had thought would entice a chase, but nothing followed, and they’d departed merely watching Reed and Jen, bat in hand, and the old house shrinking into the distance like a weird version of that depressing painting of the farmer and his wife. Though Henley could no longer hear anything but the roar of their old, decrepit corn-powered transport, the skies were clear to the eye.

  Her blinks were getting longer and longer. She hadn’t slept at all since her nap on that boat, and tiredness was dragging her heavily like a physical weight. She’d pulled all-nighters before to get projects done in time for deadlines. None of them had involved so much exercise. Their newly defined group had only been on the move for a few hours at least.

  She was leery to close her eyes—unless Ace could cover the watch. He was likely more tired than she, not having stolen—almost literally—some sleep in Boston and having run a lot further than she. She also suspected, even with her years of absence from the university gym, that the Bus was more out of shape.

  “See anything?” she checked with Buster, raising her voice to be heard.

  He squinted upward. “No glasses. Can’t see much,” he admitted. He didn’t need to speak as loud, his deep pitch vibrating right into her ear.

  Well, a little more pressure on Henley to be their watch, then. He hadn’t been incredibly observant when the drones had first appeared anyway. Figured, for a guy who didn’t even notice the people around him usually. He had probably been calculating something in his mind at the time—how long it would take them to reach their destination—his destination, he’d called it, which was a little disconcerting now that he had revealed the ultimate destination was her family.

  One set of her fingers were wrapped around her hair over her shoulder, preventing it from flinging around in the wind so she could see.

  The sunrise straight ahead turned the horizon into a mixture of pinks and oranges that faded into blue and darker violet farther from the peeking star. This dawn wasn’t as picturesque as the previous day’s over the Boston harbor with abandoned farmhouses and an alternating checkerboard of brown crops and barren earth, all bereft.

  Life always adapts to find a way. She had told Buster her favorite saying. What she hadn’t added was that she wanted to be the catalyst to aid in the Earth’s recovery, its adaptation.

  It had been thrilling improving upon herself, empowering; she had replaced a handicap with an advantage. Since then, she lusted after that feeling. It was one way her mentor always instigated her efforts in the tech lab: “With your modification, life will no longer be threatened by this aspect of global warming.” Now that she had almost completed her project though, she realized he had manipulated her like clay—not actually lied because what he said was true. Her tech was going to be useful.

  But it wasn’t going to save her life or her sister’s if she couldn’t get back home in time to stop her signing the same contract Henley foolishly had. The scholarship and a chance to be one of the elite few admitted to university with the opportunity for a degree… that was a strong lure.

  “It’s a new day,” she pointed out, daring for a moment to lift the hand that was also clutching the rusted trailer side next to Buster’s to point out the sunrise.

  That momentary lapse in security meant she was tossed on the next bump, flung across Buster’s lap. The arm he’d had across her middle was squashed between them, pressing on her glass wounds.

  “Sorry,” she yelled, trying to push herself upright, her hair dancing every which way in the turbulence whipping around the truck as it barreled through the hot air. She let it flail, returning both hands this time to grab the wall, some of the rust flaking off under her grip. Buster would have to be their cursory watch. She was embarrassedly conscious of the fact that it was the second time she had been sprawled on top of his body.

  She had just gotten situated when Buster slid the arm that had previously been braced in front of her behind, crossing her shoulder blades. She thought he was just going to settle it there to avoid being bent upon her future tumble. Instead, he put a warm hand on her bicep and then used his other hand to lift her legs, sliding her butt over one of his thighs and onto the corrugated flooring of the truck bed. He wrapped both arms around her middle and his heavy boots over her shins, his calves pinning her extended legs to the floor. It pressed her a little painfully into the ridges of the flooring. At the same time, the new position locked her in place, his heavy weight being her anchor.

  Henley used both free hands to scoop up her hair, twis
t it and grasp it tightly in one hand again. “Thank you,” she said over her shoulder.

  Her voice was evidently too quiet for him to hear because he brought his chin forward to rest on her shoulder. “You’re welcome,” he said, showing that he could at least guess what she had said. Was she so predictable? Or was it a compliment that he presumed her politeness?

  When he leaned back, he slid her ponytail out of her fist, dropping it down her back and pulling her tighter against him to trap it between their bodies. Her back warmed against his chest as if he were the furnace instead of the metal box by their right feet. He wasn’t as squishy as she thought he’d be under his baggy clothes. He had run pretty fast…

  A knock sounded on the window behind them. Henley leaned forward so Buster could tip to the side. The little middle section of window slid open with a grating screech and then clunk. It might not be closing again. It was unlikely the air conditioning worked inside anyway.

  “Doing okay back there?” The voice was male—Nor.

  Henley couldn’t see him, trying frantically to capture her renegade hair once more.

  “Perfect.” Buster’s voice was like chocolate in her ear. Smooth and dark. Not the powdered kind.

  “Yep, fine.” Henley said, not sure about how perfect it was. She felt a little squirmy in their current stance. Finally, her hair was under control. She peered around the Bus’ considerable shoulder, leaning against him to twist without withdrawing her legs from under his.

  It was actually Sirena whose delicate face filled the little gap, wide eyes darting back and forth between Buster and Henley, their color currently a dark green on the inside, light turquoise on the outside, her lips clamped shut.

  “No tails?” Nor asked from Sirena’s right, slightly obscured by the dirt tinting the part of the window that couldn’t open.

  “None.”

  “Yet,” Henley added fairly. “Everything okay in there? Truck gages reading okay?”

  “Si,” Lindy called out above its chugging. “Not far now.”

  “To the coast?” Henley was surprised—their speed was not impressive.