The Surge Trilogy (Book 2): We, The Grateful Few

by P. S. Lurie

  I feel myself shaking as I allow him to carry on.

  “But still it was too much. You hated the world you were in. You hated what the Upperlanders did. You hated me for my part in that night. You hated your mother but you also hated not being able to see her in case you were both found out. You didn’t see that everything that we all did was for survival. Until finally you realised that survival was what you had to do too. So we agreed I’d hide you. Protect you in the apartment until the fallout from the cull died down.

  “Despite all my efforts to look after you it was still too much for your conscience to contend with and you couldn’t cope. No longer was it just about living but mental survival. So my father helped you forget. He’s not a medical doctor, Selene. He’s a hypnotherapist and specialises in suppressing memories. Those pills did nothing but calm your anxiety. He helped you forget... because you wanted him to.” Nathaniel swishes his hands in front of my face. “Mind tricks.”

  “No,” I stutter, unable to believe I would agree to this, even if his argument about survival makes sense. “You forced me to forget. You made me believe I was in love with you.”

  “You were in love with me. You fell in love with me.”

  “I would never love you.”

  “I saved your life.”

  “You destroyed my life,” I protest, but it’s all too complicated to know whether it’s true. “You tried to kill me.”

  “I tried to marry you. I didn’t want you to come to the arena but you were insistent and I stupidly wanted to show you off.” Nathaniel looks truly remorseful. “And then you saw your mother and remembered. Once I realised, I just had to keep you stable until my father could help you suppress it again. You really don’t remember any of it?”

  I rack my brains but nothing he’s said registers and the first few months of my arrival remain a blur. Agreeing to forget the past is something I can’t imagine I would’ve agreed to. But maybe I would? I’ve survived, haven’t I, and wasn’t that the point?

  “My father’s good at his job. Enforced amnesia, I guess you could call it, with consent of course. But you couldn’t forget that night in the sea no matter what we did.”

  Nathaniel’s right. Despite not remembering anything else, the sea was always in my dreams.

  Why that one memory? I have no idea but then it occurs to me that maybe I do know after all. I remember exactly how I felt when I waded into the water and floated under the moonlight: freedom. For the first and only time in my life, I was afraid of nothing and bound by nothing. I was free. I shake my head at the ridiculous notion that it’s the only time I’ve ever been completely free but it’s true. I lost my freedom once I walked through the Fence but my mind wasn’t willing to give up that sentiment no matter how much Nathaniel and his father tried.

  I need to get away from Nathaniel and work out whether he’s telling the truth or not. Either way, I’m revolted by what he’s telling me and I’m disgusted with myself that I may have been agreeable to this plan.

  “You have a choice,” he says.

  “What’s that?”

  “Help me with my father and we’ll all board the Utopia together. You agree to get through today and then he can help you forget the past again. We can be happy once more.”

  “Or?” I ask, because that option is detestable.

  “I give you a ten minute head start to the prison.” He points. “Which is that way. Then I follow and kill you, as well as your mother if she’s still alive. I promise I won’t shoot you right now if you run because where’s the fun in that? It’s what I always said: you deserve a chance.”

  I’m stunned into silence. Nathaniel wants to marry me but he’ll kill me if I refuse? Has he really got nothing to live for if I reject him?

  “Don’t ruin my life and I won’t ruin yours.”

  Freedom. It’s what I clung onto for the past year, and it’s what I can’t let go of now. Freedom is about making choices, no matter how large or small, but right now the only real choice I have is to turn away from Nathaniel. Or I could...

  As my hand twists the knife’s handle to thrust it up at Nathaniel, he grabs my wrist and forces me to drop it. “Don’t even try it, princess. Don’t disappoint me. So, what’s it to be?”

  I don’t say anything. Instead, I turn and run.

  Ruskin

  Erica screams, as the four men bound into the room, her reaction more scared than if it was any random intruder.

  “Found you,” one says, and I recognise his voice. The way he looks at her bloodthirstily tells me all I need to know.

  Darren is well-built and more than a match for any of us. I guess he’s not been in the prison for as long as I have and has kept his strength up. But he has wounds too: a cut down his face and he rests on only one of his legs, taking the slack off the other. The three men with him are about the same age but only one of the four has a weapon: a plank of wood in his hand.

  No one moves, as all twelve of us inspect our chances and figure out what to do. Eight against four, but Marcus won’t be able to contribute much and they have the upper hand because, for many of us, we’ve strayed from violence whereas they’ll get right into it.

  “Get out of here, or we’ll kill you,” Mad says, thrusting the knife in their direction.

  Darren laughs. “Try it. No, I’ll tell you what, how’s this for a deal: hand over Erica and we’ll leave the rest of you alone.”

  “I want to fight them all,” one of the men says. “I don’t care about a girl.”

  Darren turns to him and scowls. “I want her to suffer like she made Frances suffer. Come here Erica and we’ll leave peacefully.”

  “No way,” Theia says.

  “This isn’t a debate, sweetheart.” He edges forward. “We’ll kill you all. It’s an easy decision to make.”

  “Ruskin,” Jack says to me. “You can’t let them take her.”

  “Says the pacifist,” Melissa adds. “What do you suggest?”

  “It’s not what your girlfriend would have wanted,” I say.

  “She was my fiancée. Don’t you dare tell me what Frances would have wanted.”

  “No,” Mad shouts, but it’s too late because Erica has already crossed over to where Darren is.

  “Do you promise to leave them alone?” the girl asks naively.

  Mad rushes forward to grab Erica but Darren’s faster and sweeps his hand around the girl, turning Erica towards us as he pulls out a knife from behind him and holds it against her neck.

  “He was going to kill us all anyway,” Mad says, dejected because Erica will be killed if she now tries anything.

  “Correct.”

  “You sick bastard,” Marcus groans.

  “Erica, tell the good boys and girls what you did.”

  Erica has silent tears rolling down her face, realising the mistake she made, despite how selfless her action was.

  Darren shakes her. “Tell them how you killed the love of my life.”

  A spear flies across the room from Selma’s direction, the knife face-first, and hits Darren in the chest. He lets out a howl as it penetrates him and Mad takes the opportunity to lunge forward, knock his hand away and push Erica to the side.

  “We all hurt people we loved,” Selma says.

  And then, I don’t see how it happens but everyone starts to fight, me included, until it is one big sprawl of people, some of which will not make it out of this room alive.

  Theia

  Darren pulls the knife out of his chest and is dazed but Ruskin is on him before he can react. Melissa and I run at the same man, another of them flees, and the fourth man has gone for an easy target: Marcus. Selma sweeps past them and through the doors to chase the coward. I want to scream at her to come back but it’s too late.

  Marcus yells as his attacker knees him in the face.

  “Jack,” I hear Ruskin call, but I don’t know what that means as the man swings his elbow out and misses me but connects with Melissa. I swoop down and use my bodyweight to s
end him over. Melissa is back up and pummels into his chest, but he’s strong and shrugs us both off.

  As I roll over onto my back, I see Ruskin and Darren punching one another, Ruskin avoiding the knife, and Jack on the other man’s back, his hands choking him as he bends over Marcus who isn’t moving. Mad appears overhead and dives into the man I was fighting. She’s holding the spear and, almost effortlessly, it slides into the man’s forehead. I lean up and he has stopped breathing as his hands collapse by his side.

  Mad pants.

  “Thanks,” Melissa says, but then Ruskin falls into her, clutching his side. Melissa lets out a groan as her back slams into the floor once more.

  I pick myself up as Mad screams, realising her mistake: she has left Erica unguarded.

  Darren now has the knife and doesn’t stop to deliberate as he chases Erica towards the kitchen area and stabs her in the back with it.

  Selma runs into the room as she sees Erica go down.

  Melissa is able to help Jack fight off the other man, as Ruskin tries to run over but his legs give out underneath him.

  “What have you done?” Mad screams at Darren.

  He’s out of breath, and looks around to see he’s isolated. “She deserved to die.”

  Mad runs at him and he raises his hand with the knife in it, as they topple to the floor. Selma and I hurry and pull her off as she lets out a deathly roar, but it is Darren who is lifeless. The knife sticks out of his chest and he doesn’t move from the floor, sprawled out next to Erica, linked together by a puddle of blood.

  I turn to see Ruskin comforting Jack, and Melissa bent over Marcus with her head on his chest. The other invader is on the floor, also lifeless, but I don’t know how or who. It doesn’t matter. We won, if you can call it that, but I don’t know the damage except for Erica.

  I move behind Melissa and put my hands on her shoulders, but she instinctively jerks them away before she realises who it is. “My parents killed themselves. I didn’t even see their bodies.” She’s never told me this, and I didn’t think she ever would. “I didn’t try to save them. I let them die so I could live.”

  “It’s ok.”

  She’s hysterical. “I didn’t save him.”

  I look at Marcus, no longer breathing. “It’s not your fault.”

  I see Selma standing over Mad, who is on her knees by Erica’s side. Jack and Ruskin hold one another, their heads cradled into one another’s necks, both grateful to be alive for the other.

  There’s been so much death and it’s not Melissa’s fault, nor mine, nor anyone else’s fault in here. It’s not Darren’s or his accomplices’. It’s President Callister and all the Upperlanders who stood by and let this happen who are to blame. They all demand retribution and I feel something inside of me change.

  I went from being just one person lucky to survive the cull, with no agenda other than to keep surviving and protect my siblings, but now I owe it to all those who have lost their lives not just to carry on but to avenge them.

  Selene

  I’m out of breath before I’ve made it three streets away, and all I can think of is that the last time I raced, a year ago against the rising sun instead of the sunset, I was too late to save Theia and Henry, and will I be too late this time?

  I stop in my tracks, and gasp for air, not just because I haven’t done any exercise for months, but this time, unlike during the cull, when I was stopped by the homeless man whom I had to kill, I wonder what I’m running for. I gave my mother access to the Upperlands and she messed it up. I hated my mother but still I allowed her to live over me. Should I care enough to try and help her now?

  What am I thinking? It’s not just her but Theia too. Henry would want me to save them all. And Ruskin. I should’ve helped Theia and her siblings escape. However I feel about them, I have to try.

  I start up again, aware that Nathaniel could catch up in his fitter state and fire at me. He could outrun me easily and this would all be over with the pull of a trigger. The blood on my wedding dress wouldn’t be his but mine. We might not take the same route so I might be safe for now, although I’m not even sure I’m headed in the right way. I know the prison is on the outskirts of the city and I rack my brains trying to remember what I know about the prison, which is nothing.

  No, there’s something. When I first arrived to the Upperlands, Nathaniel was commanded to take me there but... I remember. We were on the train and passed it as Nathaniel made a snide comment. The building must be on the outskirts of the city, near the tracks but close to the Fence. I have a general direction. It was a twenty minute commute to the Fence this morning, so I should arrive at the prison around the time the gates open. But what am I running towards? A host of savage people competing with one another to board the Utopia. Whether Theia and my mother are part of the rabble, there will be others who won’t care what happens to me as they stampede past.

  I’ll have to proceed with caution.

  And Nathaniel? Could I have loved him? I don’t know but what he did at the cull would really make me hope he’s lying even if what he said makes sense. Could I have loved a killer? Aren’t I a killer, so could he have loved me? Did I convince myself that I finally found someone who cared about me and that was good enough? Someone who could give me a future and keep me safe? Someone who could help me survive?

  Could I have convinced myself that it was better to forget the past or was I forced to against my will? I can’t remember. Doctor Graft, I mean, Doctor Penn, Nathaniel’s father, has really messed up my mind.

  There’s no one here at all. They must be onboard, celebrating. This city is eerie, not just because it’s deserted but because it’s a living relic, all of it abandoned and ready to be destroyed. Is the flood really that close to the top of the Fence? Is it really better to drown the city out rather than fighting the water that spilled over the top for a while longer at least?

  I stop again, exhausted and know that I can’t keep running. I see the train track up ahead but even if it’s operating I won’t know when to alight. I look like a wreck and it is better that I don’t come into contact with any latecomers for fear of them reporting me to the guards that patrol our city. Then I look around and realise I don’t need to stay on my feet, like I was bound to in the Middlelands, where vehicles were out of working order for years. I can use the technology here to my advantage. I walk over to a line of motorbikes that have been left behind, not because of a lack of petrol like beyond the Fence but for a lack of need once the water surges in.

  I find one bike that has the keys hanging off the ignition. I climb onto it, my dress hanging off each side, and start the engine, ready to speed towards the prison, where I should have been sent a year ago. The bike vibrates noisily and I pick my feet off the ground. “How hard can this be?” I ask myself.

  Theia

  “That solves one problem,” Mad says about Marcus, as she wipes a tear, pretending to be strong and unmoved.

  “Shut up,” Melissa says.

  “What happened to thanking me for saving your life?”

  “Enough,” I say. “Marcus and Erica died and we didn’t. We’ll grieve them when we’re out of danger. Selma, what happened to the other man?”

  She joins us, by the doors. Six of us alive, five more dead bodies joining the corpses we found on arrival. “Someone killed him before I could get up to the exit. I didn’t see but hurried back here. I shouldn’t have left. Maybe I could have saved them.”

  “What did you see?” I re-jig the conversation towards our survival.

  “Nothing. It was quiet. But the man’s killer was swift because I didn’t hear him or her leave.”

  “The man with the gun?” Melissa asks.

  “It was a knife wound.”

  “Great, so there are others still alive.”

  “New plan. We give them two minutes,” I say. “As long as there aren’t five or more, we’ll be fine to board.”

  “What if there are more?” Ruskin asks.

  I
don’t hesitate. “Then we fight.”

  No one speaks up so I assume they don’t have a better idea. I check the time. We have five minutes until the doors open. Then we wait for the shortest time. “Weapon up,” I say, although I hope it’s unnecessary.

  Mad has moved back to Erica so I join her.

  “I’m sorry Mad.” Seems like there’s a lot of people saying sorry for things they shouldn’t apologise for. I’ll be satisfied when I hear it from President Callister. Or when I force it out of her.

  “It’s Maddie.”

  “I know.”

  “No. I mean, it’s only Maddie. I made up that bit about Mad on the spot to scare you.”

  I figured when I saw the scars on her arms she wasn’t as tough as she made out but I didn’t know to what extent.

  “I was in the cell on my own when I first arrived. The knife was an accident, left on my tray. Or maybe the guards were tormenting me to kill myself. Maybe they saw me as fragile. I spent a week deliberating, until I couldn’t take it anymore.” She shows me the scars.

  “I saw them.”

  “I slid the knife under the door the next time the grate was opened. The following day the guards gave me a new plate of food. The knife was back on it.”

  I bite my lip to stop myself saying sorry.

  “A few days later, realising I wasn’t going to kill myself, I was given a cellmate. I killed her in self-defence. Then a second one. And a third. Each time the guards put someone in my room she was deranged and violent.”

  “You had no choice.”

  “How many times can I kill someone without taking responsibility?”

  “What is it about Erica?”

  “I had a younger sister. About Erica’s age, maybe a little younger because she wasn’t allowed to be Rehoused.” I think of Ronan being old enough and Leda being too young for the cut off, and how neither option was better. “My parents killed her during the cull, then each other, saying I should come here. How could I live with myself?”