inDIVISIBLE

by Hunter, Ryan

  A second man yelled and the officer beside me stalked through the brush, heading back to the trail. When he stopped again I could barely make out his outline beyond the mangled scrub oaks.

  “Nothing?” someone asked.

  “Not a sign,” he said.

  “She’s lost enough blood that she won’t go far,” the first said. “Even if she does, the cats’ll get her.”

  “I hope it happens in the next forty-eight hours.”

  “Forty-eight hours?”

  “If we don’t get her by then, we’re being reassigned.” The Officer spat. “They’ve already promoted Prusa to take the lead here.”

  The other Officer swore. “He’s still in diapers.”

  The first silenced the other and I leaned to my left to see them better. One officer raised his left hand and motioned toward the trail, but higher as if pointing out something in the sky or the tops of the trees.

  I swallowed and pulled enough oxygen through my swollen throat to ease the burning in my lungs, hoping they wouldn’t hear. Where was T? I knew he wouldn’t abandon me, but where had he gone?

  The angry man yelled again and the men reconvened on the trail before heading deeper into the woods. I rolled onto my back and rubbed it into the ground, the hives only getting itchier, the bumps larger and painful. I jumped as a shadow fell over my face, T’s silhouette reaching down to help pull me to my feet.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, slinging my backpack over his shoulder with his own.

  I sucked air into my lungs and breathed, “Alive,” before remembering one Officer silencing the other. I gave T the sign for silence and pointed to the same spot as the Officer had just moments before.

  T motioned for me to stay and inched through the dead brush on the ground, his footsteps crackling as he eased his weight forward. Minutes felt like hours as my throat tightened and the itching turned to a dull burn.

  I didn’t see him return so I jumped when he whispered, “Surveillance camera—that’s how they knew where to find us.”

  “What do we do?” I asked, barely even whispering the words as T took my hand and pulled me to my feet.

  “First—we get you help.” The camera disappeared behind us but T scanned the trees for others as he picked out our route.

  “We can’t go to a clinic,” I said, stumbling. “They want me dead. Besides, we’re terrorists now, remember? No sensors.”

  He moved forward without responding, stopping only once to place his fingers on either side of my neck. I pushed his hand away, scared by the tightening in my throat. “Your breathing is getting worse and you’re swelling from the hives. It’s definitely an allergic reaction. That, combined with the blood you lost from cutting out that sensor, is sending your body into shock. We need a doctor or an epinephrine injection, and I don’t know where to get the latter.”

  “They’re standard issue for a lot of people with allergies.”

  “But not for you.”

  I shook my head.

  “What are you allergic to, Brynn?” He’d lost patience now and I searched my foggy brain.

  “Penicillin, but I haven’t had any—”

  He looked up in the sky, gauging the sun. “I’ll bet that’s what they put in your booster. It could easily be passed off as an accident.”

  They’d really drugged me, the knowledge made me angry but that anger brought on deeper breathing so I struggled to calm my reaction.

  “No doctors, T, please.”

  T placed his hands on either side of my face and breathed deeply. “I know it’s risky, but if we don’t—”

  I plopped back on a boulder and rested my forehead in my left hand. “They’ll send me away to one of those factories—or kill me.”

  He sat beside me, far enough that we didn’t touch, yet close enough I could feel his heat. “I’m worried about you, Brynn. If you don’t get something to counter the reaction and infection in your hand, either could be fatal.”

  I flexed my fingers again, pain ripping through my hand.

  “Good news is I’ve stopped puking,” I half-joked.

  He managed a smile. “That is good news. I think that means you’ve gotten over the shock of cutting your own hand apart, and you’ve flushed out most of the penicillin in the process. If you hadn’t gotten most of it out of your system right after you took it—”

  I knew what he was thinking because the same thoughts had crossed my mind. I wiggled my fingers again, the tear between thumb and forefinger stabbing with pain. I cringed. “So all we need is a drug to counteract my allergy and an antibiotic I’m not allergic to, without the help of a doctor’s office.”

  He felt my forehead again and briefly caught his bottom lip between his teeth before letting it slip free. “Something like that.”

  The sun shone high now, directly overhead and the sweat at my temples irritated the hives. I couldn’t figure out where we’d get the epinephrine shot, but there had to be a way. So many people carried the shot with them for emergencies … then a face emerged and I said, “I’ve got an idea.”

  We started through the trees again, slower so I could breathe. We checked behind us often, afraid the officers would reappear and take us into custody. “How close did you get to them?” I asked.

  “The officers?”

  I nodded and swatted at a fly that buzzed around my forehead.

  “Four Alliance Security Officers. Two guns apiece …”

  “All for me …”

  He shrugged and grabbed my hand, pulling me through the woods one tiny step at a time. I followed his lead, looking for stones or barren dirt so as to not make a sound. “They know you removed your sensor. They’ve been sent to kill you, make it look like an accident.”

  “Why me?”

  “You must pose more of a threat than we realized.”

  “I’m nobody.” I tucked my hair behind my ear, trying to contain the rage building in my chest. “I haven’t done anything worth dying for, not really,” I whispered, my eyebrows drawing together. “All I’ve done is had an opinion, T, an opinion that doesn’t match theirs, but isn’t that the way life works?”

  T stopped. “There’s got to be something else, something more.”

  I shook my head.

  “What about your father? Did he tell you anything, leave you anything that they might want to silence?”

  I pointed to my backpack. “My father left journals.”

  “On paper?” T asked. We stepped from the shade of the trees onto the foothills behind my home. Neighborhoods stretched out for miles in front of us, culminating at the City Center. I pointed to my left.

  “I know this girl who had an allergy attack last fall during lunch,” I said. “She lives this way.”

  T grabbed my hand to keep me from scratching. “If this doesn’t work, we find a doctor.”

  I wanted to let go of his hand and leave him but it hurt so badly to breathe that I could hardly walk a straight line anymore. I clutched his hand and cursed him instead. “I won’t go to work in the factories.” I inhaled. “They’re prisons. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want you to go to the factories either, but if you don’t get help, you could die.”

  “No doctors.”

  “Do you have any other ideas?”

  I shook my head but the image of a dark haired boy popped into my mind. He couldn’t help.

  “You thought of something,” T said.

  We scraped through a hedge and across a yard just like mine before we merged onto a narrow street, just blocks from the house we needed. “It won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “His dad was the doctor, not him.” I blinked rapidly while pulling as much air into my lungs as I could manage. “His dad is dead too.”

  “Killed the same way your father was killed?”

  I nodded.

  “They were probably working together.”

  “Obviously—they were in the same building.”

  He gr
abbed my hand. “No, I mean …”

  I shook his hand away and stopped to rest. My right hand burned, feeling sweaty and stiff. I pulled the bandage off and cringed at the red circling the wound, the white and yellow puss filling the gap I’d torn free. I gagged and T took my hand, wrapped the wound again carefully. “What’s his name?”

  “Cray Carmichal,” I mumbled, facing away from the wound. “But I don’t know where he lives … his contact code … anything.”

  T tucked the end of the rag in place and patted the back of my hand. “We can find out.”

  A droplet of sweat trickled from my hairline, tickling my cheek. I swiped it away, surprised at the heat this early in the day. “I’m tired.”

  He helped me to my feet. “I know, but we can’t rest yet. We’ve got to find Cray, see if his father left any medical supplies behind, because even if this girl has that epinephrine, you’re going to need an antibiotic you’re not allergic to.”

  CHAPTER 10

  T’s right hand had healed enough for a simple bandage, making him much less conspicuous than me with my navy blue dishtowel. We’d torn it in strips but it still stood out like a banner waving traitor. That banner, along with my wheezing, propelled us to commit our first official crime together, breaking into a home on Fifth Circle.

  I didn’t know the people who lived there, but I’d seen their daughter use an allergy injection at school one day so I had a pretty good idea we may find something inside to counter the penicillin. I tried to take a deep breath but the air only scraped through my throat, rattling on its way in and back out. My arms were now streaked with scratch marks where I’d tried to relieve the relentless itching and I knew if we didn’t hurry, I’d lose any ability to suck in air. We walked up to the entry like we lived there, neither of us speaking. Once inside, T tried the handle and we cringed when nothing happened. Of course it would be locked. Most doors did that automatically, only opening with the residents’ swipe.

  He tried again but the handle remained firm.

  “Stand over there,” he instructed.

  I moved across the entry way and braced myself against the wall, my lungs burning now and my throat throbbing.

  T took a step back, raised one leg and kicked beside the door handle. The door cracked but didn’t open. He kicked a second time and a third, splintering the door and pushing it open on drooping hinges. “We only have a few minutes,” he whispered and rushed down the stairs.

  The noise of the exploding door would have been heard over the monitoring system and the idea made my head spin again. I grasped the railing and rushed down the spiral staircase apologizing to the girl I’d seen at school over and over again in my mind.

  Nearly at the bottom of the steps, I stumbled, my feet pelting the concrete floor that looked so much like mine, like all of them in Section Seven. T steadied me, raised one eyebrow as if to ask if I was okay. I nodded and he released me before rushing to the kitchen cabinets.

  He searched the cabinets, gathering food as he rummaged for medicine. He motioned toward the bathroom and I skirted quickly through the garden to the bathroom that looked nothing like the one I’d left behind. Dirty towels were piled on the floor, mildew grew up around the shower walls and the smell of filthy bodies pelted my nose.

  My throat tightened and my vision blurred. I grasped for the countertop to steady me but my hands slipped away in time for my body to crash to the filthy floor. It didn’t hurt like I thought it would—everything just went black and gratefully, the pain ceased.

  The air felt cool in my throat, filling my lungs to capacity and I sucked in enough that I thought they’d burst. I exhaled and the tingle of breath worked its way along my arms and legs, a soothing yet nervous sensation and my eyes shot open. T crouched over me, an injector in one hand.

  “Thank God,” he whispered. He dropped the injector to the floor and pulled me close for a hug. I returned the embrace but stiffened when I saw the girl from my school tied on the far side of the room, back pressed against the glass skylight, eyes wide with terror.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered as quietly as I could, my lips pressed against T’s ear.

  He glanced over his shoulder and licked his lips before responding. “This is Mary,” T said just loudly enough for the bugs to transmit. “She invited us for lunch but I explained that we’d have to take it to go.” He spoke casually—like Mary was an old friend, not someone he’d tied and gagged while I lay passed out. “It’s been too long, Mary,” T gave me the sign for silence and continued. “Maybe we can chat longer next time we’re in town.”

  The girl’s chest rose and fell so quickly I feared she’d hyperventilate. Her eyes flickered back and forth between T and I so that I knew she was taking notes, memorizing details to hand off to officers.

  I stepped away from T, noticed a second injector on the floor beside the first and looked back at Mary. Her eyes widened as she recognized me but I had to take the time to say it anyway, “Thank you so much, really. Thank you and I’m sorry—” I caught myself, “sorry we can’t stay.”

  T handed me a change of clothes and motioned toward the bathroom. I changed quickly, grateful I’d picked a home with someone close to my size and more grateful T had found something practical for me to wear. Mary’s jeans hugged my waist but fell away a little baggy in the thighs, her shirt was just big enough to disguise my body and her gym shoes were perfect for running, which, I was afraid we’d be doing a lot more of before we found safety. By the time I emerged, he had my backpack ready to sling over my shoulder and fresh bandages in his free hand. He stripped the dishrag from my hand and dropped it in the biohazard chute before he dabbed a clear ointment on my wound and rewrapped it with an entire role of fresh gauze.

  “Do I really need all that?” I whispered.

  “Trust me,” T replied, tossing the empty packaging into the recycle bin. “We’re late for our bus,” he said casually and pushed me ahead of him as we made our way up the stairs. I rushed, using the railing to pull myself faster, my heart still stuck with the terrified woman downstairs. T gripped my good hand and fell into place beside me as soon as we stepped into the sunlight. His pace slowed as we reached the corner and turned toward the shopping district.

  “She’ll contact the Alliance as soon as she can get to her PCA. With her descriptions of us, they’ll know exactly who we are and that we’re together,” T said.

  “They heard our voices,” I said. “Why did you start talking, anyway?”

  “To try and set them at ease, and make it sound like we were friends.”

  “After we kicked the door in?”

  “They heard a crash. I explained to Mary that I was sorry I tripped and knocked the bookshelf over when she entered.”

  “But to leave her tied up like that.”

  He slowed even further. “I didn’t want to do that either, but she’s going to contact the Alliance, and we have to put in some distance before she does.

  I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I just wanted my freedom back but I knew I couldn’t gain that if the Alliance waited one step away. “I don’t like this, T.”

  “She’s not hurt, Brynn, but she’s a real Citizen and she’ll report us. We have to buy time.”

  I tried to shake the memory of her teary eyes. I wiggled the fingers on my right hand, the bandages huge and bulky. “Why did you wrap this so much, it’s not as if it’s broken,” I mumbled.

  T grinned. “No, but that’s what we want them to think.”

  We had nearly merged with shoppers when I caught the eye of a young mother pushing her baby along in a cart. She only glanced at the bandage before continuing, unfazed by my injury.

  “Brilliant,” I mumbled.

  T smiled, and I saw that same smile he’d had on the beach in Greece, when we’d stood with the sunset before us, the sun disappearing behind a low strip of land that made the horizon. The waves reflecting that sunset couldn’t compare with my fluttering of infatuation, or the first taste of his lips agai
nst mine. I wondered then, seeing his profile against the afternoon sun, would he ever try to kiss me again? Did I even want him to try? The stirring in my belly screamed yes.

  CHAPTER 11

  We knew the longer it took to escape from the city the closer the Alliance would be watching for us, but there were a few more things we had to do before we fled to our safe haven—which T insisted existed.

  “They’ll look for people who are running—showing fear and anxiety,” he said as we settled near a stream in an unfamiliar park amid unfamiliar homes.

  “So we blend in,” I said.

  “Like lovers ready to apply for marriage courses.”

  I blushed and dipped my fingers in the mountain stream. Icy to the touch, it sent a shock of life back through my body. “Lovers?”

  T scooted closer, running his fingers over my shoulder to tickle the back of my neck. “Too far a stretch for you?”

  I wiggled away, my head so thick with fog I could no longer concentrate. “A stretch?” I’d forgotten what he’d asked.

  “Friends then?” he asked, dropping his hand to draw circles in the river bank.

  “Friends.” I nearly kicked myself. Had I really resigned myself to being just friends?

  T wiped out the circles he’d drawn and leaned back on his elbows. “Friends … for starters. Tomorrow, we’ll see—”

  I brought my hand from the river and splashed him. He sat straight up and grabbed my hand, keeping it between his as he said, “About Cray …”

  His voice had dropped and it sent a shiver through my chest. “How important is it that we find him again?” I asked.

  T cocked his head. “We’re not leaving until we get you on an antibiotic.”

  I knew he’d say that. I pulled my hand away and trailed my fingers again. “I don’t know how to find him.”