by Angel Lawson
“What do we tell the Council?”
“Tell them the truth. That I got antsy and left. Wyatt came with me.” I spot the frown on Zoe’s face. “Seriously. We’re coming back. Don’t even think of following us, okay?”
“Don’t do anything stupid.” Jude declares this like he has to say it.
I make eye contact with Parker and inch my head toward the bedroom. She follows me in.
With the door shut, I give her another hug. This time I let the tears fall and I push them away with my hand.
“Not gonna lie, girl. I wasn’t sure we’d see you again.”
“Tell me about it. Do you really have to leave?” she asks.
“I think so. It’s important and it’s something Wyatt and I can do alone. We’ll be back soon. I promise.”
“Hamilton’s a bad man,” Parker says. She wipes her own, surprising, tears from her cheeks. “When we left you guys at the farmhouse I was worried we’d meet the Hybrids. We ran across that guy Avi on the road, Jane’s friend, and he told us they were coming. We changed directions, going away from Fort Knox. That’s how we ended up in New Hope.”
“What made you so nervous?”
“Walker and Davis shifted on a dime. They drank the Kool-Aid big time. They wanted the safety and security of New Hope and frankly, I think they were so scared and tired of the Hybrids that they were willing to buy into his elimination plan. But I worked with Paul for a long time and I heard the story about Cole saving your life. I knew the difference between a Mutt and a Hybrid. They didn’t care.”
“Not even Davis?” He’d traveled the same path as Parker.
“I just think he was ready to be part of something bigger and more secure. He’s a military man through-and-through.”
“I have to admit it’s tempting,” I say.
“When I heard about Hamilton’s long-term plans, the bounty hunters and purge, I knew I couldn’t stay. It sounded too familiar.”
“Like Jane’s original plans.” I shake my head. “Eradicating the world from terrorists and then the creation of super soldiers.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
That nagging feeling in my chest comes back and I know it’s time for me and Wyatt to leave.
“I’m so glad you’re okay.”
She grimaces. “Well, it looks like you’ve needed me around. You guys got into all kinds of trouble while I was gone. Imprisonment, injections, epic end-of-times battles.”
“Hey! I killed Chloe!”
“After pumping yourself with one of Jane’s cocktails.”
I shake my head. “It was the only way.”
“Do you really think it will fully wear off?” she asks.
“It seems to kick in here and there. Mostly when we need it,” I explain. The tremors in my hands feel less frequent though. “There’s something else I need to tell you before we go.”
“What’s that?”
I sigh and sit on the bed. “It’s about Mary Ellen.”
It doesn’t take long to explain the situation. Parker’s face quickly sets into one of concern and horror. Pregnancy is no joke in the apocalypse.
“She wants to keep that baby.”
“Well then she’s going to need a safe place to stay,” Parker says, running her hands over her thighs. “Like this one.”
“Yes, we need to do everything we can to protect Winston-Salem and keep it an actual Safe City.”
She nods. “We’ll keep an eye on her while you’re gone.”
“Zoe, too?”
“Oh, I’m definitely keeping an eye on her.”
I laugh. “Don’t trust her?”
“Not an inch.”
“I think she’s okay, but we’ve been betrayed before.” And that sums most of my life up. It’s hard to let in new people and settle in a new place. It’s only a matter of time before true intentions reveal themselves or someone comes knocking on the door. Someone without my best interest.
I stand and give Parker one last hug. “We’ll be back. I promise.”
She squeezes my neck. “You better be.”
There’s a knock on the door and Wyatt opens it slowly. “We need to go.”
I nod and grab my bag.
17
Leaving the city isn’t exactly easy, but the guards aren’t really used to people like me and Wyatt. The government did a good job of fortifying the walls—much better than anywhere else I’ve been, excluding New Hope. Ironically our time there is what gives Wyatt the idea.
“We need to wait until they come in and out.”
“The front gate?” I ask. We managed to get out of the room and down the stairwell with a slight distraction from our friends. I get the distinct idea that people inside generally don’t try to leave. They’re mostly trying to keep people out.
“No. There are specific entries and exits for the military. They don’t want the townspeople to get nervous.” We’re two blocks away, pressed in the shadows of a brick building.
“There are literally soldiers on every corner.” We’d slipped past a few.
“Those are just low-level peace officers.”
“And how do you know all of this?” His eyes flash in the dark before he leans out to check the street. He waves me to follow and we run down the alley. We don’t stop until we come to a garage two blocks away. I grab him by the shirt. “Seriously, Wyatt, how do you know this?”
“Let’s just say I still have a few contacts.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. We’re hundreds of miles away from where we started. Both armies we were involved with are decimated and gone. Our friends are split and every day I learn something new about this crazy God-forsaken world, and Wyatt still has contacts. I place my hands on my hips. “Who?”
He lifts my hand and presses a quick kiss on my palm. “Can’t tell you that, babe. But come on, I think we’re about to get our chance.”
“Did you just call me ‘babe’?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that not a thing?”
“Not one of our things.”
“Gotcha.”
He turns on a dime and doesn’t even wait for me to make his move. I learned a long time ago to trust this man with my life. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s still three steps ahead of me.
His plan goes without a hitch, the gate opening just as we arrive. Two things make this whole situation easier than what we’re accustomed to. One is that they aren’t used to the battles, warfare, and the level of general survival that we are. The second is that we’re up against regular humans. Not the super soldiers we’re used to. They don’t hear the smallest footfall or our heartbeats. On the other hand, adrenaline makes my senses tick up a notch, and I’m well aware we need to let twelve guards go past us before we make our move. I tug Wyatt back at number ten. Two are lagging behind and we wait for them to pass before we slip through the gate.
“You’re not the only one with tricks up their sleeves,” I tell him.
“Oh, I never doubted that,” he replies, unflappable.
We don’t speak for a long time, instead using the dark in our favor. I can still see a little better than usual but I think the effects are fading. The idea worries me. I never planned on staying like this forever but having some extra mojo certainly is nice.
Wyatt ensured we exit on the southwest side of the city, moving in the direction of Raleigh. The ground crunches under our feet and the smell of soot and ash are thick in the air. The shells of buildings line the streets. “Looks like a pretty bad fire,” I say.
“Yeah,” he points down a long clear road. The fence line is visible from here, even in the dark. It veers sharply to the north. “I think this used to be part of the city.”
“A massive fire? Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that can cause setbacks.” I step over shattered glass. “I mean, in a lot of ways the city has made great strides in the two years after the fall. The government didn’t totally screw up. But they also seem like babies just learning to walk.”
“The whole
place could be wiped out quickly. Then they’d have to start all over again.” He skirts between two charred cars. “The energy to do it again? That would be a challenge.”
It takes a while to get to the end of the burned-out area and when we do, I look back and see the metal fence glinting off the sunrise.
“Do you think they have any idea what’s coming?”
Wyatt brushes my hand with his. “Not a clue.”
The first night out, Wyatt finds a skinny horse grazing deep in a pasture while I sleep in a musty hayloft. I don’t ask how long it took to catch him, but he’s bruised and sweaty when he comes back with a rope lassoed around the horse’s neck. There’s a bridle and reins hung on the downstairs wall, and after a bit of a fight we manage to get it on. We’re just outside of Greensboro, which is too big to enter safely. We take side roads instead, avoiding the main highways as they’re too clogged with abandoned vehicles. It’s obvious from the stench and packs of Eaters that the cleanup crews haven’t come this far. People must not come through town often. They’re either in the Safe City, holed up somewhere, or dead.
“How many people do you think are left?” I ask. The horse plods along and he’s stubborn as hell, giving Wyatt a fight if he loosens the reins. “Like, total.”
“I don’t know but I think the parasite got a lot of people.” He wraps the leather strap around his wrist. “I saw it in action. It moved quickly. Your father was smart to keep you and your mom isolated for those first few weeks.”
“My friends didn’t make it,” I tell him. I’ve never mentioned it to anyone before. Not even Cole. “I went to see if they could come with me and my mom, but they were sick when I got there.”
His free hand rubs along my thigh. I’m pressed tight against him. “I’d say there was nothing you could do, but you did it. You got the data to your father and sister. You’ve made a difference in all this.”
“Was it the right one? Why not just let the parasite fade out, let the Eaters rot and decay? Creating those Hybrids was a terrible thing to unleash on the world. Maybe worse than the Eaters themselves.”
The area we’re in is called the Piedmont Triad. Three academic cities linked together. It’s probably less rural than most of the country we’ve seen lately. Fast food restaurants pop up and down the road. Neighborhoods old and new. The farmland is less frequent although when we do find some, tobacco grows wild, withered and unharvested.
I’d never traveled much before the Crisis and one thing I’m struck by now is the familiar landscape. The stretches of road and pine trees. The architecture tugs at my memories, the plants and the occasional regional chain restaurant I haven’t seen since we left.
It feels like home, and that brings a flood of emotions I haven’t prepared for.
We approach another small intersection; gas station and pizza shop on one corner, a tanning salon on the other. White bones are strapped to the front door of the salon and I can’t stop looking and trying to hear something—someone. It’s too quiet around here. I feel the eyes but I don’t see any people, human or otherwise. I clench my arms around Wyatt’s waist and say, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
I’m sick and tired of the Death Fields.
We reach the edge of Raleigh, taking the same path that my mom, Paul, and I took when we left. I see the charred remains of the school bus—the one Paul wasn’t on, but where we thought he’d died. That was the beginning of his long journey as a test subject and eventual Mutt. I avert my eyes from the black smudges I know are bodies, away from the river where the infected drowned, shot on the spot by snipers Erwin placed on the rooftop. I didn’t know then that he was fighting my sister and her unholy plans. I just ran for my life, unaware that two men would follow me out of the city—both intent to keep me safe.
I rest my head on Wyatt’s back, wondering where he was when I traveled through here. He didn’t catch up with us for a bit further down the road. As much as I do remember, other things have faded. The sound of my mother’s voice. The exact way she looked before this all started. For months I couldn’t keep the image of her bitten and dying out of my brain. Now, I’d probably sacrifice the sleep to get it back.
“Can you check the map?” Wyatt asks. He doesn’t know how this place tugs at me. I nod, unsure if I can breathe, much less speak.
Without really looking I point ahead. “Turn right.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
As we get closer to the side of town I grew up in, near the university, the more things trigger memories. Not just of the escape but my life before. The more familiar it seems, the further away I feel from it. I’m not that girl who went to the Taco Hut after final exams or the girl poised to read her valedictorian speech to her senior class. We pass neighborhoods where friends lived, and my old elementary school, all looking like a poster for a horror movie. The roads are blocked, houses in decay. Cars rot and rust in driveways. We pass the occasional abandoned military vehicle with vines and wildlife creeping over the wheels. I feel a pang when I spot my old bus stop and eventually the sign leading into my neighborhood.
Not once in our journey here did we pass a human, dead or alive.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say quietly. Wyatt had stopped the horse and is waiting for directions.
“Go back?” His eyes hold mine. It’s afternoon. It’s cold. We’re both exhausted with painful backsides from riding this horse for two days. “We don’t have to. We can stop somewhere else. Anywhere. You name it.”
“No, we can’t. We came here for a reason. I can’t let a little sentimentality stop us.”
“I can go in without you.”
The thought of Wyatt in my childhood home without me makes it hurt even more. I think that’s part of my apprehension, letting him see that side of my life. The ‘before’ Alexandra.
“I’m being stupid.”
“No, you’re not, but this street corner is making me nervous. I know it seems quiet around here but it’s unlikely everyone is gone, don’t you think?”
My street had been mostly evacuated by the time my mother and I left, but I agree. He’s not talking about survivors.
“Okay, it’s the third house at the end of the street. Black shutters.”
Wyatt takes the horse all the way up to the house. I’m not particularly surprised it’s left untouched. Further evidence there’s less people left around than we’d like to admit. He dismounts and helps me down, two hands on my hips. My thighs ache and my butt feels bruised from the ride. I can tell he feels the same from the way he grimaces when he walks toward the backyard. “There’s a detached carport in the back. We can block the horse in with some of the stuff out there.”
It’s surprising how quickly it comes back. The tools and equipment that made our lives so easy back then. The hammer I gave my dad for Father’s Day. A wheelbarrow and several heavy cardboard boxes. We tie the horse up to the metal workbench and step into the yard.
“So this is it?” he asks. “Home of the infamous Ramsey sisters.”
“This is where it all started.” I point to a window. “Jane probably spent hours coming up with her diabolical plans up there.”
“And you?”
I point to the opposite room. A tiny bathroom connected the two. “I spent way too long coming up with ways to beat her up there. Grades, approval…that kind of stuff.”
“And in the end it didn’t matter.”
“No,” I say softly. “It didn’t. We had to go through all of this to realize we work better together than against one another. Tough price for civilization to pay.”
“You ready to go inside?”
“I’m ready.”
I fish the spare key out from the empty bird feeder and push it in the lock. Wyatt grabs me before I turn the knob. “I love you, Alexandra Ramsey. Never forget that.”
“I love you, too.”
18
The house carries the chill of abandonment. Unlike every other building I
’ve rummaged through, slept in, and used for shelter over the last two years, beneath the thin layer of dust lay memories as well as useless objects from another life. My life.
I point to a basket next to the TV. A comfortable blanket folded neatly on top. “My mother hid her gossip magazines in there. People, Us Weekly…all the trashy tabloids she knew better than to believe.” I walk over and reveal them. Pristine and untouched. “My dad thought they were ridiculous. I mean, they were, but it was just her guilty pleasure.”
I walk through the kitchen and see the note on the refrigerator. We left it for my father—hoping he’d catch up to us at any minute. I pick it up and study it, reliving those last moments in the house.
“There’s not any food in here. We either ate it or took it with us.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I glance down the hall. “My father’s office is down the hall.”
Wyatt follows me quietly, clicking on his flashlight, which doubles as a lantern. The white glaring beam leads the way. The office door is shut and I take a deep, dusty breath before I open it.
The hinges creak and Wyatt holds the light over my head, splaying it across the room. The shades are drawn and my mother and I moved a large shelf over the window early in the early days of the quarantine.
Everything is in place. His chair and the framed certificates on the walls. The picture of him and my mother at some conference in Texas.
“Can I have that?” I ask, reaching for the light.
He hands it over without a word, silently taking in the room. I walk around the desk and pull out the heavy, padded, leather chair. It rolls easily on the hardwoods and I tug at the lower right drawer.
“Locked?” he asks, looking away at a photo of me and my sister when we were in preschool.
“Yeah, but…” I open the middle drawer and feel around under the bottom of the desk. My fingers catch on a strip of tape and I pry the metal out of the drawer. “He left a key.”