From her throat, she was emitting a low rumbling sound that sent a wondrous feeling of comfort through my body. It was not a growl of warning. It was more of a purr. I fought it for a moment, but a smile spread across my mouth as I stared with the awe of a child. I pushed myself up so that I was standing again. I knew not to approach her, though I could not be sure whether it would attack or not. She was a monstrous beast that should have wanted to consume me for dinner, though I would have been less than an appetizer given her massive size.
The blue of her eyes was the strangest. Like glowing sapphires in the dark, they looked back at me searchingly, as though she had silently posed a question. When her head tilted sideways, I chuckled; I did the very same thing when I was confused.
“It is alright, beautiful.” I told her, “Though most people do not like me, most animals do. I’m pantheistic. ‘Humble before the smallest ant.’ I mean that in all sincerity.”
As though to tell me that she believed what I was saying, she sauntered forward a step. I backed up, gasping in surprise and slight alarm. But then, when her tail swished and the quizzical look resumed on her face, I squeezed my eyes shut and reached out a hand.
I laughed before I had even looked over; she had pressed the top of her soft head against my hand. When I scratched her ears with both hands, she laid down on the forest floor, purring loudly.
On Earth, we had feared beastly creatures. Though I was sure that many animals on Pangea would gladly eat me, I sensed an innocence in most because they had not yet learned to fear us. I wondered briefly if my views on wildlife had been accurate; we were meant to share the earth, participating in a symbiotic relationship with each other until we departed the world.
After a long while, a yowling far off in the distance drew her away from me. I was able to recognize her instinct to protect and care for the small cub that was making the noise. Through that rabid protective instinct, she would kill me if I followed. I knew better than to tread into her territory when her babies were resting there.
I turned to keep walking, smiling ever so slightly still. To look into that creature’s eyes, to see a mutual respect there between us, had been odd. But it also held a degree of magic that I had scarcely been aware existed on this planet or the last. Seeing her had soothed that charged, frayed, electrical eruption that had overtaken me so suddenly.
Perhaps I was just tired and as usual, reading too much into things, but a strange recognition had been present in the lion’s eyes. In fact, her eyes had been the same shade of blue as mine. It had been so clear to me that this creature had seen me before…
No. I was allowing the mysticism of the encounter to cloud my rational judgment.
The first blue light of dawn was beginning to stream through the leaves of the varied trees; that light illuminated my path for me. Morning was the time of day when the air smelt the cleanest. I breathed deeply, my head angled upwards towards the lightening sky as I walked. When I looked ahead, I stopped abruptly once again.
A tent, branded with the letters “USA” in black on the side of its green plastic covering was set up in my path. Outside, there was a chair, three books, and seven boxes of rations, two of which had been devoured.
I did not know for sure, but I suspected strongly…
I would venture to guess that no one but him had managed to escape into the woods, least of all with a tent and seven boxes of rations.
He was dead. If he were still alive, he would have come out of the tent. He would have sensed me moving ever closer to him as I walked. My legs moved forward, forcing my body to approach the sight I could not bear to see. I could close my eyes but I knew that they would only force themselves open again in response to their own grim sense of curiosity. My heart was what I could not control most of all. It would shatter into jagged, cutting pieces upon seeing him dead.
But before I could begin to unzip the tent’s door, it flew open. I realized that I was pinned on the ground before feeling the pain of being held down so firmly.
A native! A native was hiding in there! I would be dead in seconds, ripped apart like a pig in a slaughterhouse… A knife was pressed to my throat and I struggled to free my hands so I could swipe it away…
“Brynna?”
His voice stirred me out of my panicked stream of thoughts. I stopped fighting and my eyes snapped open. I could have cried at the sight of his handsome face. I reached up, my eyes dissolving back into the shade of blue that matched the sky above our heads.
“I thought you were…” I stopped, unable to finish because what I had thought had been so terrible. I was still lying on the ground when his arms wrapped around me quickly. My own were grabbing onto him as my lips moved feverishly over his face. He came down, kissing me hard on the lips with a longing and a passion that matched my own. When his mouth moved to my neck, I knew that our reunion was headed down a physical path that I had never been comfortable enough with to actually tread down before. The first time had not been my choice. I had been too afraid and too sickened to try it again after that. I will admit that I had been afraid for years and as I grasped James, even though I wanted to so desperately, I was still afraid.
He sensed that in me and pulled away so he could put both of his hands on my face.
“We don’t have to.” He whispered to me and I saw in his eyes that his concern was genuine and far more critical in determining the outcome of the situation than his sex drive was. That moment was enough to convince me that James was the man I was meant to do that with for the second, but also the first, time. I sat up and pulled him back to me so I could kiss him again. I grasped both of his hands and placed them on my body, telling him without words that I wanted, and maybe even needed, for him to touch me.
“Just rip it!” I ordered as he attempted to pull my tank top off, only to be stopped by the built-in bra that kept it firmly rooted to my torso. He grasped the fabric in both hands and ripped it down the center.
“Only if you’re absolutely sure…” He said breathlessly as he grasped my face with both hands again.
I was trembling now as I brought one of his rough hands to my lips. I nodded, kissing it once, before whispering, “I am sure.”
He saw the pure fear that I could not hide. It was not of him; it was of the vulnerability such an act brought to life in me. I had never been able to have sex with anyone because I had never allowed myself to be seen as weak. Giving myself over to another human being was a thought so terrifying that it could have stopped my heart without warning or prolonged pain.
But James’s warm brown eyes comforted me, assuring me that he was a good man with no intention of hurting me or throwing that vulnerability at me once it was over. He would be gentle and mindful of my fear, self-consciousness and inexperience. He would prove to me that what I had experienced as a child was a perversion of an act meant to be used only as an expression of love.
“It’s okay.” His lips grazed mine gently as his hand traveled down between my legs where an intense, warm feeling had emerged wondrously. “I promise you, baby, it’s okay.”
I nodded, holding onto him with my shaking arms.
“I know.”
When he kissed me again, my hands grasped his strong, muscular back.
I gasped.
XXX
“It’s freezing, crazy.” James told me as I stood up to pull my cigarettes out of the pockets of my jeans. I laughed softly and scurried back over to him with the pack in hand. I laid back down beside him and rested my head against his chiseled, bare chest. I looked up at him, unable to keep the smile from my face. He looked down at me, smiling softly, too, his fingers twirling in my hair. He kissed me for one long moment that filled me with that warmth that still intoxicated me.
After we had both reached the breathtakingly mind-blowing end of our romantic foray (and I had reached it, surprisingly enough), James had scooped me up into his arms and carried me into the tent. Once inside, he had laid me down, covered me with his sleeping bag, propped
up a pillow behind him and crawled underneath the blanket beside me. I had heard a rumor once that some men were not appreciative of their partners lying on them after the actual sex was over, but I chanced it with James because I needed that comforting physical contact with him. I knew by the way he encased me in his arms that he was not one of those aforementioned men.
“So tell me,” I lit two cigarettes and handed one to him, “was that at least satisfactory?”
He looked down, giving me a look that shouted, “Are you kidding?”
“It was miles above excellent, actually.” He answered, “Are you okay? How do you feel?”
We laid down so that we were facing each other. Our conversation was taking a turn for the serious and we needed to see the flickering of each emotion that passed on the others' face.
“I feel...” I tried to find a word that fit exactly what I was feeling, only to realize that there was more than one, “I feel happy. I feel amazed. I feel safe.”
“So it's all positive emotions, then?” He asked me with a mischievous glint to his eyes. “Not the need to run?”
“Are you trying to dampen the mood?” I asked but that small grin was still present on my face. I had not used the many muscles it took to smile like that since I had been a small child. They were sore from the effort but I barely noticed. I was too entranced by him to feel any pain.
“Not at all.” He replied as he exhaled smoke. “I was only curious.”
“I do not want to be anywhere else besides right here with you, James. I need you to know that. I cared so much these past several days about your dishonesty. But I have let it go.”
“You were right.” He told me instantly. “I should have been honest with...”
I sat up and held my lips to his for a long, dazzling second.
“It's alright. Let's just move on from it.”
“Well, let me just say before we forget it that it will never happen again. I promise you, Brynna, I will never lie to you again. You had every right to be angry. I couldn't accept that at the time. I didn't understand it. But now I do. That, for you, is the ultimate betrayal. It won't happen again.”
I put both of my hands on his face and whispered, “I know, James.”
I took his arms and wrapped them around me before resting my head against his chest.
“We can only stay like this for a few more minutes and then we have to go find Elijah, Violet and Penny.”
“They're out here?” James asked.
“Of course. You didn't think after all of this that I would leave them behind, did you? But then, I wasn't really the one that saved them this time. They saved themselves.”
“From what?”
“It is such a long story. I'll tell you while we're looking. For a few minutes, though, just don’t let go of me.”
We were silent for a moment, our bodies pressed together to shield ourselves from the bitter cold of morning. It was more than just a survival method, of course. It was the wonderfully tender embrace of two lovers.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Of course you can.”
“I never thought I could do that with anyone. You suggested that you knew what had happened to me. Do you know the extent of it?”
“I don't know the details. But the outline is enough.” He replied, and a darkness came over his eyes that I had not been expecting. A fury that rivaled and perhaps surpassed my own was ablaze in his heart.
“There is no use being angry over it anymore, honey.”
Wow. I was even able to call him by a pet name, a phenomenon in relationships that I had always found pathetically stupid and inescapably pointless.
“I know. I just hate that you had to go through that. No one should have to go through that, let alone a young girl. Do you mind if I ask...”
“I think you have the right to ask about it now.”
“That's not true. That's your story to tell and don't let anyone ever say differently. You don't have to share that with anyone you don't want to. But if you do want to tell me, can I ask how old you were?”
“Nine.” I surprised myself with the candid response. I had always run when the subject had been poached by anyone from my mother to reporters to a stranger who had read about the trial. But with James, I was safe. I could be honest with him without fear of being rejected or looked down upon. That safety was as essential as the air in my lungs.
“Nine...” He repeated in very slight disgust. He was attempting to hide his anger from me because he knew that I would be upset by it. I did not want two of us to carry the burden. It was mine to carry and I would not inflict it on anyone else.
He must have read those thoughts in my mind because he looked down at me in surprise.
“I'd carry all of it for you if I could. I'd take that pain from you without a second thought, Brynna.”
Tears rushed into my eyes upon hearing those words. I had been able to garner the strength it required to overcome my fear of intimacy but I was still not ready to let him see me cry. I blinked several times as I kissed him again, feeling the tears slowly disintegrate back to wherever they had come from.
“Physical intimacy always scared me, perhaps irrationally.” I said after a minute, “I couldn't stand the idea of feeling so vulnerable. I could not even think about allowing someone to get that close to me. It is the ultimate closeness, isn't it, when it is done for the right reasons?” I was quiet for a moment but he did not speak to fill the space. He wanted me to continue. “With you, it's right. I have never been so sure of anything. We might be a strange pairing but the feeling that this is the way it was supposed to happen is so strong, I could not deny it if I tried. I am so happy that it was you. I do not care about anything else. I just know that this was right. I would not have done it otherwise.”
He kissed me softly again; a delightfully sensuous shudder passed through me when I felt his tongue moving gently against mine.
“I am so glad to hear you say all of that and I am truly honored to have been the one you let that wall down with. I mean that when I say it, baby. I really do. And I will make sure you never regret it. That's a promise.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in them. His smell was so intoxicating and his body was so firm and strong against mine that I wanted make love to him again. Once we got up, we were back to fighting the faceless forces in pursuit of us. I wanted to lay there with him, warm under the blanket and safe in his arms until the end of my life. The moment we pulled apart, the world would come barging back to the forefront of our consciousness. The fall from the heavenly space we were currently occupying would be as abrupt and painful as being jerked from a pleasant dream by the screaming cry of an alarm clock.
But alas, reality was shriller than any man-made annoyance. We dressed quickly to avoid becoming too cold. We packed up his tent and rations before setting off in pursuit of Elijah, Violet and Penny, hand in hand.
Quinn
“Alice!”
I had been shouting for hours and my voice was getting hoarse. As the time passed from the last moment I had seen her, my worry grew into downright terror. I didn't even know for sure that she had made it out of the campsite. The only way I would know if the worst had happened was if I doubled back and returned but I had been wandering for so long that finding my way back would be nearly impossible.
It was midday. The sun was high in the sky and casting through the trees to create an oddly calming green glaze on everything I saw. If only I was able to embrace the tranquility that my eyes were drinking in. It seemed so out of place and yet I wished for nothing more than to sit and wallow in it.
We were in enemy territory. The natives lived in the woods and could converge on me at any second. I would be dead before I even saw them. I was unable to move as quickly as they did even with my new strength and power. They were blurs of death; swift, lethal and utterly inescapable.
“Alice!”
Now my voice had go
ne. I wouldn't be able to call her to me. The harsh sun was weakening me; I was sweating profusely and wiping my face on the back of my hands. I had to sit and rest for a minute.
We hadn't planned our escape nearly as well as we thought. We should have packed a bag with water and food. Instead, we took off into the woods with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Now, we were going to be forced to find a source of water. It took three days to dehydrate. The human body could survive without food but would crumple in no time without that precious liquid revitalizing us.
Maybe our evolution would allow us to go for longer periods of time without water. Somehow, I doubted that was true. As I tried to focus on anything other than the scratchy dryness of my tongue, my mind ran through images of lakes, streams, dripping faucets and ice cubes one right after the other like a screen-saver meant to torment me.
My Anthropology teacher had told us that our war for oil was pointless and only temporary. Soon, the war for water would erupt. It was far more pressing. The consequences were far more severe. Maybe the apocalypse we had experienced was a more favorable one than what would have occurred otherwise.
My mind drifted to Brynna Olivier and her family. In Government, Alice and I had learned about her mother and the “Starting Five.”
“Corruption!” My slightly unhinged Government teacher had exclaimed as he slammed his fist on his desk for emphasis. Beside me, Alice had snorted through her nose and covered her mouth as she tried to suppress a giggle. Watching him lecture on those public officials that he deemed morally corrupt was entertaining, to say the least. Well, it was only entertaining when we, his students, disregarded the fact that his blood pressure was visibly rising and he could fall over from a heart attack at any given moment.
“You might find this funny, Alice, but this is your future! The 'Starting Five,'” He drew out the name to emphasize his disdain and disgust for those involved in the group, “They have driven us so deep into debt that you, your children, and your children's children will be paying it off! They have stepped on every foreign leader's toes that they could. They started this conflict we’re in and they made every country choose a side! We thought we had it made. We thought we had finally reached a new golden age in this country but now, we teeter on the brink of total chaos!”
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 33