Forever After (Post Apocalyptic Romance Boxed Set)

by Rose Francis

  But she couldn’t stray too far from Christine. She had no way of knowing whether she could find her way back, and Christine was rarely lucid enough to walk, especially to walk where there might be more frequent patrols. She didn’t dare go back on her own, since even with the blades and baton, she couldn’t defend herself if she got backed into a corner.

  Christine moaned, and Ilsa hurried to her side.

  “What's wrong?” Ilsa asked, cradling her as she groaned.

  “My stomach. It aches.”

  “You haven't eaten,” Ilsa said.

  Christine stared into her with panicked eyes. They darted around the room, before settling back on her and twisting into a glare. “Neither have you.”

  “The baby,” she said defensively, touching her belly.

  “Will be fine,” she said. “By now, you're getting way more cloud just from the tapped filter than you are from the meat. And you can't hold your breath forever.”

  Ilsa frowned. “Okay. Then will you eat with me? We have plenty.”

  “It's not that,” she said. “It's tainted.”

  “I caught it yesterday.”

  “Not spoiled. Bad. Still alive. I can still feel the last one wriggling around inside... maybe I'm pregnant.”

  “With whose baby?” Ilsa asked.

  “With rats.”

  “They're dead,” she said. “Just little pieces of rat meat.” She lifted a hunk on the end of one of the stilettos and pulled it into her mouth with her tongue. She chewed several times, then showed the morsel to Christine. “See?”

  Christine eyed every facet of her mastication, from the way her jaw muscles tensed, to the way her tongue forced the morsel of rat muscle into prime crushing position. When it was thoroughly pulped, she stared at the motion of the rat paste moving down Ilsa’s throat. Ilsa opened her mouth wide for Christine to inspect it and swirled her tongue in a circular motion, to show that she wasn't concealing it.

  Stubbornly, she dropped her mouth open about a centimeter. “Wider than that,” Ilsa said, slicing a bite the same size as the one she'd eaten with the knife. “Careful,” she said, as she set the meat down on Christine's tongue.

  Christine was skilled at eating from the tip of a knife, which, under other circumstances, might have made her feel like even more of a freak than she usually did. But she was consumed with watching Ilsa, waiting for the other shoe to fall as she chewed, and hoping she had enough of her wits about her to react when it did. She thought about cheeking the bite, but knew Ilsa would check, so she swallowed it. She figured she could always make herself throw it up later, if it was poisoned.

  “Another,” Ilsa said, in the tone of a practiced nanny.

  “You first,” she said, in such a way that Ilsa understood it was a gesture of distrust, not kindness. Ilsa took the next bite, and Christine had the one after that. They continued that way until Christine held up her hand.

  “I'm full,” she said.

  “Oh, thank Spirits,” Ilsa said. “I'm eating for two, and even my belly was getting taut.”

  “Your stomach's shrunk,” Christine said. “From starvation.”

  “Oh,” Ilsa said. “Are you tired?”

  “If you are,” Christine said.

  Ilsa was unguarded enough she didn't hear the wariness in her voice. “I could use the warmth,” she said, and held out her arms. The nights were colder than either woman had anticipated, and they had been stuck in the Foundation long enough that they had stopped feigning confusion when they woke holding one another.

  Ilsa fell asleep quickly. She was pregnant, but taking care of Christine, too, so that made sense. Christine wondered if she should sneak off to throw up. She had watched Ilsa eat from the same rat—the same bites, switching whenever Christine objected. And Ilsa's chin was soft, and she'd been so sweet. She knew, somewhere deep in her own head, that she was acting insane, but it didn't make it any easier to stop. Worrying about disrupting Ilsa made it easier. So she closed her eyes and drifted off.

  * * *

  Ilsa woke hours later.

  Christine was awake already, and couldn’t take her eyes off the sky. A cloud drifted past, and a hint of color, and the motion and life in it felt freeing. Christine waved at it, conducting it like it was an orchestra. Ilsa noticed a flash of red—but it wasn't a flash; her arms were red and torn open. It reminded her of the night days before, when she wandered off to butcher the rat, only this time the blood was hers. It was dried over most of her forearms, except beneath her nails, where it was still moist.

  “What did you do?” Ilsa asked.

  “Ants,” Christine said. “The ants did most of it. The rest I did just carving them out of my skin.”

  “I'm going to have to figure out a way to bandage you,” Ilsa said. “Stay here. I think I saw some fabric a few rooms down. It wasn't useful as clothes or bedding, but I bet it's clean enough for bandages. No more scratching,” Ilsa said, leaving.

  Christine resented being treated like a child. She hadn't been scratching for hours; in fact, she hadn't felt like she needed to until Ilsa brought it to her attention. Now it was the only thing she could think of. She wished she could tear free of her skin—the itches were overwhelming, and the scabs more so. The discolored patches of skin she’d left shifted like Rorschach blots.

  A bird flew by outside, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Then it arced back and landed on the edge of windowsill, separated from her by a pane of glass. Light, lithe feathers shifting with some kind of oil-reflective gleam, in a skull with a pronounced browline that seemed to focus its gaze into her very essence. She swore she saw some kind of primal recognition in it, and its face haunted her long after it took wing again. The eyes were almost human, yet not. She wondered if the souls trapped safely in the skeletons and skulls of her ancestors became birds if they waited long enough.

  She looked again at her misshapen, broken form, and the idea hit her; she could remake herself in the bird’s image.

  She focused, and felt the power inside her, direct as the bird’s eyes. The skin on her arm shifted, bumps forming and shifting under the skin. She laughed.

  Christine focused harder, and bloody stumps poked through the holes in her arms, extending delicate tentacles that hardened into rigid feathers. Her vision swam, and she pushed herself as far as she could—if she pushed any harder, how would she have strength to fly away?

  She stood, at the same moment Ilsa emerged from an apartment down the hall. “Christine?” Ilsa mumbled. Christine saw confusion and horror in the woman’s face, as much as she could see under the filthy mask. There was no latch on this window, so Christine picked up a brick and threw it to weaken the glass. It cracked at about chest height. The air whistling through her new-formed feathers awakened a sensuous, visceral feeling of elation. She threw herself at the spiderweb cracks in the window and burst through. It hurt more, especially so soon after using her power, but the freedom was worth it. The space around her burst with colors, and the sensations of the air pulling across her pain-ridden body made her feel truly alive.

  Dimly, she heard Ilsa’s scream, saw her run to the window. But she couldn’t be assed to look back, not with the whole world laid out before her.

  Fifteen

  Ilsa didn’t see how she could have any reaction other than hysterical tears. She rushed to the window and found Christine caught on the end of a scavenger ship’s wing. A crew member was already pulling Christine to safety, and another held his hand out for Ilsa to climb across a length of piping onto the ship. She looked at their supplies strewn about the camp. They weren't likely to wait while she gathered them up. She pushed the doll pieces that had fallen out back into Christine's pack, shut it, and let him help her across.

  The crew’s words of comfort couldn’t sink into her.

  Finally, their captain said “We’ll talk soon,” and ordered one man to take them below while the rest got back to work. Their faces shifted unnaturally in her vision and made the whole scene feel
threatening. She hoped it was simply a result of exposure and the shock of seeing scrawny feathers burst through her friend’s skin. She’d tried to prepare herself for the possibility that Christine was a lost cause during their time in the Foundation, but nothing could have prepared her for the skeletal, bruised shade propped up in the infirmary bed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Ilsa’s lips tightened, her eyes wary.

  “I don’t tell anyone. It’s the only reason I’ve lived this long.” Christine itched the sores on her arm and breathed through a deep spasm in her midsection.

  “But you could have told me.”

  “I don’t tell anyone.” Christine rolled over and put her back to Ilsa.

  Ilsa took a step back. "You're a..."

  "Yeah," said Christine defensively. "So?"

  Ilsa didn't answer for a moment, thinking of Benito's hands on her belly again—shifting, changing their baby. She shuddered, and couldn't repress it.

  Christine looked hurt.

  "I'm sorry," said Ilsa quickly. "I just...had a bad experience with one of..with a...with the baby's father."

  Christine's shoulders tensed, as if biting back a retort.

  "He tried to change the baby," Ilsa added.

  Christine's eyebrows rose at that, and she softened, angling her head back to meet Ilsa's gaze. "There's not much I wouldn't do, but I wouldn't do that," she said.

  Ilsa stared at her feet shyly. She felt a dim awareness of the irony—running from one changer's arms to the next, in a way. She stepped back again, reluctant to touch Christine, in case she started to change from the woman's touch.

  "Hey, hey. I'm not going to hurt you either," Christine muttered. "Or switch your face around. It's hard enough doing it to myself."

  "Sorry," said Ilsa again. "I just...well. It's not important. Thank you for...for helping me."

  Christine shrugged coarsely and turned her attention back to the wall. Ilsa said nothing. Her jaw clenched as she turned to leave, and she bumped the door frame in agitation on her way out.

  * * *

  Christine rolled onto her back, cried out as the air hit her wounds. The visions she’d seen were now only shadows, hiding in corners, gliding along walls. The pain was so great that the whole world shook, like everything was made of gelatin. She missed having a firm reality to hold on to, even if that reality was wrong.

  She knew she shouldn't take Ilsa's revulsion personally, but it was hard not to. She'd kept it a secret her whole life, but it was still one of the most unique and integral parts of her. And the thing that had enabled her to survive long enough to find Ilsa. She worried that whatever closeness they might have developed in the Foundation would be gone, spoiled by Ilsa's inability to accept all of Christine, abilities and all. Christine didn't have it in her to change for a lover; family, friends, all were transient. Better to focus on herself, and not indulge relationships that punished her for her nature.

  Obviously the intimacy, the safety, that Christine felt around Ilsa was an illusion, another facet of her ill-formed dream world. Christine hardened herself to losing her only remaining friend.

  * * *

  Now was as good a time as any. Ilsa looked for the captain. It wasn’t hard to spot him. People were giving him a wide berth. He had loose clothes, so worn she couldn’t tell what colour they were supposed to be. When he turned around, his eyes were the same. She swallowed. A life of subservience was one thing. Eyes like this demanded more, something else. They sized her up, measuring every part like she was a ship at a scrapyard, wondering if the whole was worth scavenging, or if only parts of her were. No lust, just calculation, just one more piece of salvage. That was worse somehow.

  “Sir... I...we need a ride on your ship.”

  He kept looking at her. She wondered if he was comparing her face to a wanted poster. A sweat broke out on the back of her neck.

  “I’m pretty full up on crew, and I can’t let you ride for free.”

  She crossed her arms, trying to straighten her spine. “I need the ride. We do. It’s not a pleasure cruise.”

  He cocked his head to the side like a raptor. He must have recognized her. There was a bounty, wasn’t there? Maybe rumours of her disappearance...or that she’d been seen with Christine. They gave out a little extra, a few chits, when two people were turned in. Or maybe he was just thinking about selling her off to the flesh pirates. She tried not to think about the fact that he seemed to be pricing out the value of her mostly clear, soft skin.

  “Sounds like you’re on the run,” he said. Was he playing dumb?

  “The father was abusive,” she said, and touched her belly for effect. “My sister tried to get me away from him. But we can help you. We’re useful. I’m useful.”

  The captain balanced on a hip. “You know the price if I get caught aiding and abetting you, right? I could lose more than my ship.” He stroked his neck to mirror her gesture.

  Ilsa knew what she was supposed to say. His eyes demanded it. She was supposed to have jewelry, chits, pull, some kind of currency—secrets or access to a cache of some kind. “I have nothing. A doll head, fine porcelain, and a handful of meal chits. But I can...I can work.”

  “You can work?” He laughed, and acid burned in her throat.

  “Look. I don’t have anything to bargain with, and I’m not going to pretend I do, but I can work. I know more about tools than most, I won’t complain, and I have some good tricks for making stuff last longer while passing inspections. Repairs are expensive, right? I haven’t spent a lot of time on ships, but I have polished equipment for them, and…” A little part of her wanted to dig the knife out and threaten to cut his face up if he didn’t give them a ride. One look at him and she knew it wouldn't be the first knife in his face, which was markedly without knifewounds. She laughed at herself—that was a Christine thought, not an Ilsa-the-servant thought. And the equipment—that was Christine, too, not her. She forced herself to give him puppy eyes, look softer, more helpless. The magnanimity of power would do the work for her. She rubbed her raw lips together.

  “How much farther?” he asked.

  “I can cook, sew, and clean,” she said eagerly. “And there’s a trick with paint—”

  He didn’t have to put a hand up to silence her, but there was a long pause, and she knew he was looking at her hands, hands that had clearly never done manual labor for more than an hour. “I had a sister once...fine. I believe I may have a use for you after all. But no funny business or you’re getting thrown off; you and your sister.”

  Ilsa reminded herself not to show too much weakness or relief. She lowered her eyes to the floor. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “There’s a storage locker we have down there—coupla extra crew bunks. You can sleep there.”

  It wouldn’t be roomy, and ‘extra crew bunks’ meant tiny roll-over areas about the size of a luggage rack, but beds were beds. Her belly tightened and she felt the child kick.

  “Thank you. I—”

  “Don’t thank me. Just don’t screw me over.” He nodded to the ship. Ilsa wondered about the meal chits in their pack, why the captain hadn’t accepted them anyways, but such things wouldn’t be worth much to him. They might be used to buy the crew’s trust, though.

  Sixteen

  For a day, Ilsa watched Christine. Every moment she dreaded the captain, fretted over what request he might make of her, and whether she could make good on her promise to be useful. But for a day and a night she sat watch, with only the interruptions of an older crewmember who seemed to know a few things of medicine.

  Christine seemed to be recovering, if tense, and Ilsa felt safe enough to drift off.

  She woke to the captain's hand on her belly. It reminded her of finding Benito pushing his will upon their baby.

  "Apologies," he said, "at taking liberties. I did not mean to wake you. But your shirt had cinched up, and I wondered after the welfare of your child." It was only after saying all that, and still not being excused, that he
removed his hand. “I never got to introduce myself earlier. Coronetto.”

  She nodded, not giving a name yet. “Has a position opened up?”

  “I trust you won’t object to doing women’s work.” He looked again at her hands, too soft to belong to a dockworker, and paused, perhaps waiting for her to recant. “It's as light a duty as I have to assign, and will free up hands less encumbered than your own.”

  "I'll do what needs done to pay passage."

  "Excellent," he said. "Though it may not suffice. Passage for two—or three,” he paused, and nodded towards her belly, “costs more than the services of a cook's assistant. But we can discuss it when your sister is about. What’s her name again?”

  “Christine,” Ilsa said hesitantly.

  “But one condition that is not under debate is that, as a member of my crew, you attend the termination of your predecessor's employment."

  “Termination?” she asked.

  “Nothing so savage,” he said, sensing her trepidation. “We're making port, and he'll be walking off the ship under his own steam.” His words should have comforted her, but there was something in his eyes that made her want to run. She reminded herself that Christine wasn't yet ready to walk, leave alone escape at speed.

  A whistle blew somewhere above, and she gave him a questioning look. He smiled to try to ease her. “Means we're above the clouds, and it's safe to go up on deck. It also means we're nearly to port, and you have to come with me.” He followed her glance back to Christine. “I'd make her come, too, were it not for her health. But I'm sure your remembrance will suffice.” He led her through a few twists in the ship's bowels. Ilsa realized she didn't know her way around the ship at all.

  Then they both emerged into the light. She remembered once Benito snuck her up to the roof garden in the morning, seeing the sun, and the beautiful hues of its light bent through an atmosphere of pollutants.