“I mean it, Skylla. No fuckin’ around. If someone so much as looks at you the wrong way, you get the hell out of there and get back here right away, got it?”
I wasn’t about to deliver anymore snarky comments to the man. The fact that he was actually cooperating with my suggestion that he stay put was a feat in itself, and I wasn’t about to lose the ground I was gaining with him. “Got it,” I said, giving him a lazy salute. I handed him the water canteen from the backpack and adjusted my gun.
I didn’t need to travel far to find anyone. Just as I’d moved to search for a way into the next car, four men appeared to block my path, weapons in each hand, all of them aimed directly at us.
“Hitchin’ a ride, are ya?” one of them asked, sneering over my shoulder at Jet, who was now standing to join me.
Jet raised his gun at my side. “No need for that,” he gestured to the colorful array of weapons in the men’s hands. One held an axe, another a meat cleaver of some sort, while the other two were armed with shotguns and rifles.
“We might need some convincing,” the man shot back, his black, beady eyes igniting into hot pools of fire at the sound of Jet’s assertive tone. “Who told you about us? Let us see your hips. Now.”
I glanced at Jet.
“I said, now!”
Jet slid me a look and nodded, using his free hand to lift the hem of his shirt to reveal the bloody bandage where his chip used to be. I did the same, showing the men my untainted skin.
“Changed your mind, did you, traitor?”
I bristled at the man’s words. “He’s not traceable anymore. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
“You wanna get fresh with us, sweetie? I dare you to come over here and say that again.”
“Skylla,” Jet murmured, “don’t.”
“We’re here to trade, and to catch a ride west.”
“Skylla,” he insisted, his voice more persistent.
“We have what you’re looking for,” I said, “so drop the traitor shit or we’ll jump right back out that door and you’ll be worse off because of it.”
“I doubt that, honey. Go ahead, try and jump. You’ll be dead before you’re airborne.” The man raised his gun higher and leveled it with my forehead. Tension crackled around us, the air stuffy and suffocating. I swallowed and did something Jet was vehemently against.
I took my finger off the trigger.
Raising my hands in open surrender, I glanced at Jet, begging him to do the same, but he wasn’t onboard. “We were sent here with a map,” he said. “From a Black Hole near precinct 74. We have information and some goods to trade, in exchange for antibiotics and a ride. We don’t want any trouble, so take it or leave it.”
“What kind of map is it?”
“I traded for it, fair and square. That’s all you need to know.”
The man burned Jet with another icy stare and shuffled a few feet closer to us, taking the lead in front of his friends. “I’ll tell you what I do and do not need to know, punk. Especially when it comes to traitors like you and your little girlfriend here. You know how many people claimed to have something we want, trying to hop a ride on this train? Too many to count. Right now, their bodies are dumped along the railroad ditch near Highway 85. So you either tell me exactly what I want to know, or you’ll be joining them in less than two minutes. Make your choice.”
My teeth clenched at his warning, but I kept my hands up, hoping to God Jet did the right thing. I didn’t doubt for a second that this guy would follow through on his threat. “Don’t you want to know what we have to offer you first?” I asked, my voice coming out a bit shakier than I’d hoped.
“We’ll get to that, sweetie. First, the map.”
Jet inhaled and lowered his gun back to his chest. “It marks known Black Hole locations around the country. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” the man laughed. “Hand it over.”
I didn’t know where my sudden bravery was coming from. Maybe from the adrenaline high I was still riding from the jump onto the train. Maybe a product of pure desperation or a crack in my sanity. Whatever its source, I harnessed it with a vengeance and didn’t plan on letting go until we got what we came here for.
I stepped in front of Jet, allowing the man’s gun to press against my forehead again. Every bone in my body shook, every hair on my neck raised in pure, stripped fear, but I worked to steel my stance and hold myself upright. “That’s not going to happen,” I said, my voice firm. “We’re not going to just let you rob us and then toss us out with the rest of those bodies. You’re going to hear what we have to say.”
“Is that so?”
“The fact that you assume anyone who works for the Invaders is a voluntary traitor shows just how little you actually know about the inside. If you want us to enlighten you, you might want to start with some good old southern hospitality.” I shrugged, trembling beneath the effort to make the gesture appear casual. “Then we’ll see what we can do.”
The man’s fingers brushed over the barrel of his gun and he started laughing again, turning to glance back at his friends. “You believe this chick?” He gestured to me with a wave of his gun. He turned to glare at me, his maniacal laugh lingering. “Saucy little thing, aren’t you? I love it!”
Jet shifted beside me, heat rolling off him in waves. He remained still, the tension in his neck and face coiled tightly.
“We also have this,” I said, carefully pulling the canned corn from the backpack, along with a can of beans that we’d found not long after escaping the prison. I tossed them at the man’s chest and he caught them, his eyebrows rising in amusement. I cleared my throat. “And one other thing you’re looking for.”
“Oh, yeah? Let’s see it, honey.”
I hesitated for a beat, then stepped forward, placing myself directly in front of the men and their leader. I couldn’t think, just had to act before I lost my nerve. This was the only way to save Jet, and essentially, his sister Hera. A little girl that somewhere, was depending on him. It was the only way to save myself, by giving myself something to live for. Because right now, what did I have to live for? In this now barren, depressing wasteland once known as Earth—my home—what did I really have left? My only choice was to commit to devoting my fight to someone else. Jet’s battle had to become my battle, or the fire in me—the little bit I had left—would surely flicker out. And then what? He’d already saved me once and had done everything in his power to protect me. He’d more than made up for collecting me.
I had to do this.
The men waited, their eyes bouncing around curiously, and I breathed deep, aware I’d have to make my message clearer.
My fingers dropped to the knot in my shirt and I slowly began to unravel it, pulling it up and over my head the second it fell loose. Reaching out, I offered them the shirt. The dry air caressed my bare skin and I quivered under their zealous gazes.
“Skylla!” Jet flew to my side in a cloud of fury, snatching the shirt from my fist before they could accept the offer. He shoved me behind him and brought himself nose–to-nose with the men’s ringleader. “We’ll handle this another way.”
“Go on, boys.” The man smiled widely at Jet. “Cuff him.”
“What? No!” The men moved in and Jet started throwing punches, each crack of his fist escalating the scuffle until he was kicked to his knees, forced to kneel at their mercy. “Skylla, jump! Fucking jump, right now. Don’t do this!”
“Hands on your head,” one of the men shouted, sending a sharp blow to Jet’s temple when he refused to comply.
“It’ll be okay,” I whispered, cringing when one of the men delivered another kick to his gut. I shot forward. “Stop it! Fucking stop, or the deal’s off.”
The men cuffed him, then backed off, letting their friend take the lead again. “So you’re in need of antibiotics?” he asked, his excited eyes snapping to my bare chest. I crossed my arms to cover my breasts, my skin crawling at the sight of his appraisal.
“Yes
.”
“I think that can be arranged. Right this way, honey.” He bowed with a filthy grin, motioning me to follow him. I obeyed, stepping forward to follow his lead, my eyes squeezing shut with unshed tears as Jet’s voice roared behind us. The men picked him up and dragged him away while the ringleader led me into the next car. The metal door slammed shut, separating me from Jet’s pleas and shouts. In seconds, his cries were fully drowned out by the brutal pounding in my head, a deafening drum, coercing me to shut my brain down. To give in to the numbness. It’d be the only thing to get me through this alive. And I had to make it out of this alive. Jet needed those antibiotics.
It was life for a life, and I’d been keeping score. It was my turn to pay up.
CHAPTER 5
A tired moan pushed through my lips when I felt something nudge my leg.
“Get up,” a man’s voice said. It was rusty and unfamiliar, a hollow echo somewhere in the back of my brain. “Come on, move it.”
My eyelids stirred and I shifted to sit up, the pounding in my head a ferocious tattoo. It thumped against my skull as I opened my mouth to speak. “What’s going on?” My voice was shaky.
“You’re done here,” the man’s voice said, nudging me again with his boot. He dropped a plastic bag on my lap and disappeared. My eyes finally adjusted to the light, and I was surprised to find the train car so lit up. The lighting was low, but everything was visible. Single mattresses were lined up against the walls of the car, much like the ones Jet and I had shared in the Black Hole.
My heart jumped against my ribcage when I spotted them.
Women. Women, lying on the other mattresses, covered in blankets, just like me.
The warm, already suffocating air reached in closer and began to claw at my throat. The rickety motion of the train wheels moving beneath me sent my blood pressure soaring. I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, could only stare at the scene around me. Some of the women were alone. Some were joined by men, who hovered over them. Others were paired with more than one man.
My stomach rolled and I stumbled to my feet. I was going to be sick.
Keeping the blanket wrapped tight around me, I spotted my jeans, shirt, and boots on the floor behind me and bent to scoop them up, my fingers shaking uncontrollably. A soft moan and muffled scream reverberated throughout the car. Quiet sounds, but they pierced my ears with a sharp slicing. My vision blurred with hot tears. I reached down to retrieve the plastic bag and clumsily rushed through the train car, toward the door.
Sucking in frantic breaths, I pulled the latch and was greeted by three armed men. They eyed me up and down and nodded, letting me pass by when their gazes landed on the plastic bag in my hand. Voices were wafting toward me, but I couldn’t make them out. Scorching tears started to spill down my cheeks, and I gasped when Jet’s chest collided with mine. A man behind him released his cuffs, and his arms enfolded me and I sank to my knees, letting him catch the weight of my fall.
“Are you happy?” he shouted at the men who’d been guarding the door. “It’s done, now fuck off! All of you!” My entire body quaked against his, but I could feel the tremor in his own movements. He was rocking back and forth as he held me, his fingers clenched tight in my hair as his hands cupped the back of my head.
“Skylla, look at me,” he pulled back to stare at my face, his hands still cradling my head and neck, “did they hit you? Did they fucking hit you? Tell me now!”
“I don’t know,” I stuttered, saliva sputtering from my lips through my sobs. “I don’t remember.… I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you don’t remember?”
“They gave me something. I … took something. I wanted to. Wanted to … to be out for it.”
He winced and his jaw worked, his eyes blazing and burning into mine. “Fucking hell.” He pulled me back against his chest, tucking my head in the crook of his neck, then resumed his rocking. We sat on the dusty floor like that for what felt like hours, our legs intertwined in the kneeling position. Like the demon and the angel reaching for one another on Jet’s arm, I felt half of everything. Half pure, half used. Locked in a dark, beautiful embrace. One I wouldn’t wish on anyone yet one I wouldn’t ever reverse if given the chance.
Not when it had the power to save a life.
I pulled back to peer down at the blanket encasing me, at the plastic bag smashed tight in my fist. I lifted it to Jet’s chest, and my gaze rose to meet his. “Take this,” I said, my voice fueled with fierce determination. “Take it now.”
Jet grabbed the bottle from the bag to read the label, and I didn’t have a chance to say anything more. I pushed away from him and darted for the corner of the car, dropping back to my knees in a dry heave. My whole body convulsed as I vomited, the stench bringing on wave after wave of nausea.
Jet gave me space, waiting until the sickness subsided to join me. He pulled my hair back to look at me, concern and anger etched on his face. Without a word, he hauled me up and into his arms and carried me to the other end of the compartment, setting me down against the wall before rummaging through the backpack and retrieving our guns, guns returned by the men who’d confiscated them while I paid for the medication.
After handing me some water, he retrieved a towel and moistened it to wipe my face. He was pushing my bangs away from my forehead when a woman approached us, escorted by two tall, heavyset men with machine guns.
“One of you needs stitches?” she asked, her voice soft and meek. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, with long red hair tied back in a braid. “My name’s Julianne. I’m a nurse.”
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed. “Yeah, thank you.”
Jet tossed some of the pills I’d given him into his mouth with a swig of water, glancing at me as he swallowed. “What’s this?” he asked.
“It was part of the deal,” I said. “A condition I added before I paid.”
His blue eyes went stone cold and he looked away.
“Just be glad they held up their part of the bargain. Julianne, this is Jet,” I said quietly, the groggy memories beginning to surface. One man crawling on top of me. Then two. Bile crept up my throat as more blurry faces sidelined me, causing my breath to accelerate. “He needs his hip stitched up, please.”
“Sure, okay.” She turned to one of the armed men, and he handed her what looked like a first aid kit. She tightened a white apron around her torso and asked Jet to sit down next to me.
The next few hours, I was in and out of consciousness. Every so often, Jet would whisper what time it was, and sometimes, between dozing off and waking up, I’d hear other things, too. Things like I’m so sorry, and I’ll kill the bastards. Once there was an It’s all my fault, and even in my half-conscious state, I couldn’t bear to hear that one. I’d groaned and brushed my fingers over his lips to silence him, mumbling for him to stop.
When I finally began to come around again, I realized my awakening wasn’t due to Jet speaking to me, or my body’s natural desire to wake up. A heavy rattling shook from above, followed by piercing screams from one of the nearby compartments.
“Skylla, get up.” Jet shook my shoulder. “Do you hear me? Come on, time to go.”
“Hhhmmm? Why, what’s wrong?” My eyelids fluttered open and I straightened my back against the wall. Jet offered a hand to help me stand and I accepted, fighting dizziness when he brought me to my feet. He was holding a lantern of some sort; the light cast a strange glow over his cheekbones. I wondered what time it was, but stopped when I figured it must still be nighttime. I remembered hearing something about the train only running at night.
Another noisy rattle sounded above us. This time the entire car shook, the floor beneath us rumbling like tremors of an earthquake.
“Damn it,” Jet huffed, adjusting his backpack, then cocking my gun and handing it to me. “For future reference, you’re not allowed to sleep anymore.”
“What?”
“Every time you doze off, something bad happens. You’re hereby banned from sle
ep. Indefinitely.”
“Uh …” Another slam on the roof of the train. “I’m afraid to ask.”
He opened his mouth to respond but his balance was thrown off as the train creaked with a loud groaning, and he let out a curse instead. He stumbled to the left and recovered quickly.
Me, not so much.
I stumbled toward him and he caught my arm, keeping me from falling flat on my face. More screams rang out, echoing throughout our car. A group of people burst into the compartment, their eyes just as frantic as their shouts, and it took only an instant for Jet and me to realize what they were yelling about.
To the right and left of us, the car’s metal doors slid open, sending blasts of cool air inside. The gusts whipped around us in a dizzying spell, disorienting us both. We struggled to regain our balance as the floor beneath us rocked slightly side to side.
Then the gunfire began.
Three, then four Invaders began to creep inside, the first two slinking in from above, their graceful, pale-white skeletal frames slithering out from the train roof and into the car, gripping the sides of the entryways to pull themselves in. Two more ascended upon us, climbing upward from underneath, where they must’ve been lurking somewhere near the tracks. As the gunfire commenced from behind Jet and me, I launched into fire at my right, and Jet did the same to the left.
Deafening pops sounded from every direction while he fired from both arms, and those high-pitched screeches I’d heard the Invaders make before multiplied all around us, their long jaws dropping open and dripping with that clear liquid that prompted my gag reflex. Looking into their eyes as I shot at them was a surreal experience. Not just because they were an alien species—but because they looked dead. Their empty, sunken-in sockets were terrifying, because you couldn’t tell what they were looking at, what they focused on. There was nothing but dark, oval voids that gave you a glimpse into their nothingness.
But as more fire rang out throughout the car and Aqua Bombs spat toward us at rapid rates, I knew there was a lot more than emptiness lurking in their eyes. In those apparition-like skulls of theirs, there was definitely something. Something intelligent, something I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to figure out. For a split second, the thought was humorous to me. An alien species invades my planet, and I don’t want to study them. I don’t want to discover their kind or where they come from. There’s no intrigue or awestruck wonder compelling me to find out more.
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