Curses, Fates & Soul Mates

by et al Kristie Cook

  He reached for my wrists and started to rub them, eyes darting frantically around the room. “I just killed those sons of bitches and it’s not going to go over well. Hey.” He released my wrists and started snapping his fingers in front of my blank stare. Slowly moving to my jeans button, he raised his hands first for permission. I didn’t speak, didn’t nod, just blinked and watched him gently pull up the zipper, his deft fingers hooking the top button closed. “I know you’re in shock right now, but we need to leave. Do you understand me? They’ll kill us for this.”

  “No way out,” I whispered, my speech slurring.

  “We have to try. Come on.” He slung his gun higher up his shoulder, grabbed the men’s guns and attached them to his strap, then reached for the backpack under the table before lifting me into his arms. The last thing I saw as we exited was the three men on the ground, and I knew that whatever we were headed toward, it couldn’t possibly be worse than what almost happened to me in that room. Everything around me grew dark again and I started to drift, swaying in the arms of my nameless captor.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Skylla, can you hear me?”

  My whole body was shaking. Someone was running. I was running. No, my captor was running, and I was still draped in his arms. The thumps of his feet traveled up to the soles of my own, his hard, panting breaths stirring my hair as his chest quaked against mine. I opened my eyes to find my arms thrown loosely around his neck, my face turned into his throat.

  “Skylla?” He repeated my name. How did he know my name?

  “Where are we?”

  “I need to know if you can stand.”

  “I can try.” I blinked furiously, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I felt him change direction and then slow to a stop to set me on my feet. “I got it,” I said, my voice groggy.

  “I’ve been running for a while,” he breathed, hovering over me. He held me against a cold brick wall, shielding me from something. “I just need a break for a few minutes.”

  I took a few deep breaths and stretched my neck, my gaze finally focusing on our surroundings. It was nighttime, and we were in an alley of some sort. It was still. Quiet. No marching, no machines, no screams. “Where are we?” I asked again.

  “Don’t know. Getting close to Mississippi, I think.”

  “What?” That was impossible. “How long have I been out?”

  “A few hours.”

  Eyeing his tattooed arms as they encased me against the wall, I pressed my head back into the brick to give us some distance. One arm was decorated in a sea of dramatic black, an image of an angel and demon reaching for one another, a bridge separating them. His other arm was riddled with Gothic-style text. Poetry or song lyrics, I couldn’t tell. He studied me curiously and let up a bit, putting a few more inches in between us, making it impossible for me to read the words. “You’ve been running all this time?” I asked.

  “I took a few breaks.”

  “You could have set me down.”

  “I didn’t want to.” His jaw muscles worked while he seemed to rethink his statement. “In case we were caught and I had to sprint, I mean. It was safer just to carry you.”

  “So what are we doing? Why are you helping me?”

  “I … don’t know yet.”

  “You’re a wellspring of answers, you know that?”

  “We need to find water, and then we need to keep moving west.”

  “Why west?”

  “Because it’s as far away from the prison as we can get, and it’s where I need to find my sister.”

  “So you do know where your sister is?”

  “I have an idea. Narrowed it down to three training camps on the west coast. But I was hoping to dig a little more, know for sure before I set out looking for her.”

  I swallowed, suddenly needing even more space. I ducked underneath his arms and moved away from the wall. He didn’t seem to like the idea, but he let me go. I looked around, finding nothing but a blanket of darkness and twinkling stars above us, and two deserted buildings closing us in. “I’m not going any farther. I’m going to find a place to hide and stay here.”

  “We have a hell of a better chance at surviving if we stick together.” He moved as I moved, glancing over his shoulder and out into the street, his hands fidgeting over his gun strap. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?” He reached down to his belt and grabbed one, checking the ammo before handing it to me.

  I stared down at the weapon. It was familiar for a few reasons. One, it was the gun of one of my attackers, who was now dead on the floor of my jail cell, and two, it was the exact same gun I’d used the night the Invaders came to my home in Morton. “Yeah, I know how to shoot.”

  “Aim for the head or chest every time, and you should be fine. They die just the same, they just have better weapons than we do.”

  I wanted to say, Yeah, I know, but I didn’t want this guy to know anything about me. I didn’t want to know him at all. He’d held me prisoner in a cell and fed me Twinkies, and now he was hauling my ass out west. I was grateful he’d saved me, but he was the one who’d made me powerless in that situation in the first place. “Thanks, but I don’t need any more protection,” I spat the words at him, rolling my eyes at his definition of what he was doing for me back at the prison. Tucking the gun into my jeans, I walked around him and started stalking toward the street.

  “You can’t just go running off.” I could feel his feet behind me, kicking up dirt.

  “Watch me.”

  “Skylla—”

  “How do you know my name?” I whirled around to face him and he came to a stop, just inches from my face.

  “You told me.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You don’t remember, but you did.”

  “When?”

  “You were coming in and out of consciousness. I asked you your name.”

  “When you locked me in my cell?”

  His gaze shifted to the left, then floated back down to mine. “Before that. Look, it doesn’t matter. You need me right now, and I need you.”

  I closed the inches between us. My nose hit just below his chin as I glared up at him. His height was intimidating, but I wouldn’t cower beneath him. “I don’t need anything from you, and I couldn’t care less if you need me. Thanks for saving me from those assholes, but we’re done here.”

  I went to spin back around.

  “I work street patrol. I’m a Collector, not just a prison guard. I know how to get around without being seen. You won’t make it a mile before they find you.”

  His words froze me in place. Damn it all, the man was right. Why did he have to be right? “You’re a Collector?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you collect me? What was I, a scientific specimen?” The whole concept made me sick, because after what this guy had said about testing and labs, I knew there was a shred of truth to it.

  “I did.”

  “So you kidnapped me.”

  “I’m not a kidnapper. Or a traitor. I was on duty, and you were there. I had to take you in. Now we have to move. Come on.” He resumed the lead and started for the street.

  “Where did you collect me?” I followed him, watching as he looked from left to right before pulling me around the corner of the building, keeping one hand over his gun. At least one finger was always on that gun.

  “Can you interrogate me later?”

  “I want to know.”

  His voice turned into a harsh whisper. He held a finger to his lips. “Now’s not the time. Move with me. Hand on your weapon at all times.”

  I gave him a dirty look because it felt good. “Repulsive, arrogant, and bossy. It just keeps getting better and better.”

  He hushed me again and led me along the edge of the building, his movements stealthy and calculated. I had to admit, I was jealous of his smooth agility. I wasn’t clumsy or anything, but I sure as hell wasn’t trained for this sort of thing. I’d no intention of fighting my way out west on the op
en road when the Invaders attacked. I knew how to use a gun, and I’d learned a few basic self-defense moves from a class Mama insisted I take with her a few years ago, but the moment I fled my home in Morton, my intention was to hunker down for as long as possible, not duke it out with armed traitors and an alien species.

  It was hard to see them in the dark, but the streets were empty. My captor continued to lead the way, weaving in and out of buildings every few minutes. His head was continually shifting, his eyes searching upward and behind us. Every so often he’d slow and listen to our surroundings, sometimes dropping to his knees to feel the ground with his fingertips, as if the earth could tell him something. We went on like that for blocks, until the center of the city started to thin out and nothing surrounded us but a maze of highways and overpasses.

  “We need to find some friendlies,” he said, when we reached what looked like an interstate exchange. “They might be able to point us to the closest Black Hole. We need to stock up on supplies and go over some plans.”

  He led us underneath the highway’s bridge, then pulled something from his backpack. It looked like a pair of binoculars, only way more high-tech than anything I’d ever know how to operate. “Air patrols run continuously, especially in rural areas,” he was saying. “They’re prime areas for capture, because they know people can’t get from town to town without crossing through. Easy visibility. I don’t see any machines in the sky, but it won’t be long before they show up.”

  “What’s a Black Hole?”

  “A pit. The Underground. You haven’t heard about them?”

  “No, this is all new to me. I haven’t seen a thing outside of Morton since the attack. Some news and rumors here and there, before the Morton invasion. Not much else.”

  He lowered his binoculars and studied me for a moment. “We call Underground hideouts Black Holes, because they’re the only places we can be invisible for a while. Disappear. The enemy has a hard time finding them. They’re not like backyard bunkers, they’re more like hotels. Some are rumored to be as big as towns: whole communities. I’ve heard that people have been building them since before the Invaders touched down. It’s getting harder and harder to locate them, though. The Underground leaders are starting to put limits on occupancy. Black Holes don’t want attention.”

  I followed his gesture to crouch down, stationing myself next to him. “Communities? How have they managed that?”

  “Meticulous secrecy, hard work, and trial and error.” He shrugged. “Let’s keep moving while it’s dark. I want to at least make it past the state line tonight. I hear there’s one just east of Hattiesburg.”

  I didn’t object. I was thirsty and bordering on exhaustion, and I needed a few minutes to think without worrying who or what was lurking around the corner. If I was going to devise any plan of survival or course of action, I needed some sleep, some supplies, and a place where I could breathe to regroup and form a strategy. I laughed to myself, mumbling under my breath, “Strategy.”

  Right.

  Strategy for what, exactly? What did I intend to do, anyway? Life back in Morton was over. My parents’ lives were over. There was nothing for me there, and by the sounds of it, nothing for me anywhere. I was probably in the same boat most of the human race was in—survive until you can’t.

  What a lovely future.

  Things like my job back at the pet shop and my humiliating breakup with Dylan were laughable now. I guess that’s what a change in perspective did to you, though. Whether you asked for it or not, one simple shift in point of view altered your entire outlook on living. When it was just you and your fight to live, the only thing that mattered was time. Time was the only thing reminding you to propel forward and find your next meal, the next roof over your head, or those few hours of crucial sleep, because your days were numbered and they wouldn’t stop for anyone, no matter how rich, privileged, or smart you were.

  If there was one thing I’d learned in my short span of twenty-three years, it was that time didn’t discriminate.

  We moved quickly and quietly along the desolate highway. I could barely see a foot in front of me, only the sounds of our feet touching the ground keeping me company. My run for survival had only just begun, but I could tell it was a lonely business, even when you were in another’s presence. I wondered how long my captor had been on the run before he became a traitor, or if he’d been on the run at all. Someone once asked me if I ever got lonely. If I ached because it hurt so bad. I’d stared back at them, wondering what loneliness must look like to that person.

  “Lonely?” I’d asked. “Lonely is being surrounded by hundreds of people and not knowing if even one of them really knows you exist.” The thing about loneliness is you can be seen by many, but heard by no one. “That’s loneliness for me,” I’d said. “And it doesn’t hurt. It scares the hell out of me.”

  I pushed the fact out of my head that I didn’t know the man towing me along, instead focusing on his movements as he’d instructed. “How can you tell if we’re getting closer? It’s so dark.”

  “We’ll know. They have security at each state border.”

  “Have you been out of the state since they attacked?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “You don’t answer any of them. At least tell me your name. You know mine—”

  His hand snaked out and wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled me down to the ground again. We both crouched low. His breath faltered. “Do you feel that?”

  “What?”

  “They’re close. Human patrol trucks. Ten, maybe twenty. Come on.” He yanked me to the left, and away from the road’s asphalt, until I heard dry gravel and dirt crunch beneath my feet. A flicker of light appeared in the distance from the direction we came, the sound of engines roaring as tires beat the highway with a low growl. We retreated farther and farther back from the main road, watching carefully while the headlights grew brighter, creating a tunnel effect down the highway. The first truck came into view, then the next, each one followed by another, all black as night with armored doors. The line moved past us quickly; my captor’s hand remained, pressed tightly around my wrist. “You holding up okay?” he whispered, his mouth close to my ear.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “As soon as they pass, we’ll—”

  A light and a chorus of laughter came from behind us. The sound of footsteps sent me on red alert and I stumbled back, tightening my grip on my gun. My captor shoved me behind him and I pressed up against his back to shield myself, steadying the gun at my side.

  “Well looky here, fellers, we got two er ‘em.” I peeked around the tall wall of muscle I was clinging to and into the bright beam of a flashlight to find a pale, dirty man, his front teeth brown and cracked, his eyes wild.

  “Turn that thing off!” my captor yelled. “A whole brigade of Keeper Agents just drove by.” He reached for the man’s flashlight, but the man raised a gun, pointing it straight at us.

  “Put yer weapon on the ground, sonny,” he snapped. “Er I shoot the girl, first.” Three men joined him, all raising their guns on us.

  “We don’t mean any trouble, man. We’re just passing through. Put the guns down and I’ll lower mine.”

  “How do I know yer not one of ‘em?”

  “If I was, would I be running around in the dark like this with a girl on my arm?”

  “Hhhmm,” the man grunted, running his tongue over grimy teeth. He didn’t move to lower his gun. “Where’re ya headed to, huh?”

  “We’re looking for a Black Hole. We need water and some cover.”

  “A Black Hole, nuh?”

  “Yes, sir. So we’ll be on our way now. Will you please shut that thing off? You’re going to get us all killed.” He started to back up and my feet mirrored his as he began to shuffle us backwards, keeping his weapon pointed at the men.

  “Hold it,” one of the others said, “how er we gonna show you to a Hole if yer run off, nuh?”

  My captor went still a
nd I followed his lead, leaning to the left to get another peek at the men. “You have directions to one?”

  “Yer standin’ on one, sonny.” The man thumped his foot hard, and the ground gave out a low groan beneath us. He motioned for us to shoo a few feet left, then he shined his flashlight on the ground, running his hand along the dead grass and dirt, feeling for something. His hand stilled, and a snap and click echoed in the night. He rose to stand to full height, bringing a large door vertical with him, grunting while the other men worked to join him in pulling it open.

  A cloud of dust exploded around our feet and my captor brought me forward to stand at his side. I could feel his eyes jump to my gun. “This is a Black Hole?” he asked suspiciously.

  “See fer yerself, sonny.” Instead of waiting for us to descend the wooden staircase and into the ground, he started down the steps first, his friends following right behind. The wood creaked beneath their feet as they lowered themselves into the pitch-black hole, their flashlights doing little to illuminate whatever awaited them.

  “Is it a trap?” I whispered to my guide.

  “Don’t think so. But don’t let go of me, and fire on my mark, got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  His gaze bounced to my gun again. “Finger on the trigger.”

  I obeyed and gripped the back of his shirt again with my free hand, letting him lead us after the men, down the same wooden stairs and into the ominous hole in the ground. I wasn’t sure I liked this idea, but then again, nothing about this journey had been pleasant, and right now, my only hope for a drink of water or a good night’s sleep was in front of me, trusting me to follow him. I wasn’t sure why I cared if he trusted me or not, or why he said he needed me. He seemed to be able to handle himself just fine on his own. Wasn’t I slowing him down? I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. Didn’t that make me a liability?

  The dark stairwell finally gave way to some dim light; the sound of low chatters and glasses clinking floated toward us.

  “You got lucky ther, boy,” the man in the lead said, stopping when we all reached the bottom of the stairs. “This here is one of the few in the area that still has room fer people such as yerselves.”