Althea looked back and forth between them.
“Did they bring what the council wanted?” Karina seemed happy.
“Yeah.” Father slung his rifle over his shoulder. “I need to get back out there. You girls are welcome to come along.”
Althea leaned towards the kitchen.
Karina smiled at Father. “She’s still a little scared; I’ll stay with her.”
“Can I finish the porch after they leave?” Althea clung to her sister.
“They’ll probably spend the night, maybe a day or two, but it’s okay.” Karina grinned. “I don’t think Dad will notice.”
Half an hour later, Althea was elbow deep in tortilla dough, making it herself this time with Karina hovering nearby. The pleasant normality of cooking dinner exorcised her fears. She learned faster than Karina expected; this, after all, involved hands making a mess and had nothing whatsoever to do with forks. Perhaps it made sense.
“What do we trade to them?” Althea kneaded the mush.
Karina shrugged. “Old junk, mostly. Harold wants things from the city around us, the dead parts where no one lives. It is dangerous there; bugs, dogs, and other monsters come out at night. We know how to avoid them, so we take things for him and he brings us fresh food and medicines for Doctor Ruiz.”
“Where does he get them from?” Althea looked up with a head tilt.
“He won’t tell us.” Karina added a pinch of salt to the mix. “They claim to go beyond the wall of fire, but that is a tall tale. He has found a before-time vault or something, and does not want us going there.”
“It’s not nice to lie about that. Our ancestors live there, where the good linger and the bad burn.” Althea squeezed the tortilla mixture through her fingers, adding water until it got to a consistency she could pour it.
Karina made a strange gesture with her hand, touching her head, chest, and each shoulder. “It is bad to claim such things. It is why we do not ask him.”
Althea took a flat pan from the high cabinet and set it on the stove before pulling the oven door open, frowning at the lack of wood. “Need burning wood.”
“It’s out back where it always is.” Karina smirked at her.
Taking a deep breath, she approached the door to the back porch. At some point long ago, it had been enclosed in screens, but only rickety wooden frames remained. The mournful glance she fired back at Karina as her trembling fingers twisted the knob brought her sister out of a chair and up behind her.
“What are you so frightened of?”
Althea looked down. “I don’t want to be taken again.”
“Okay.” Karina held her hand as they went to the pile of wood.
She selected a few pieces, stacking them on her left arm as Karina stood guard. A fat grub fell from one of the chunks, bouncing off her foot and wriggling on the ground.
“Oooh!” She stooped and snatched the thing, devouring it greedily.
The sound of Karina retching made her look up, and the sight of grub-bits on her lips as she chewed made the convulsions worse. Concerned, she dropped the wood and ran to her sister’s side. Much to her alarm, Karina tried to get away from her.
“How can…” She coughed and a tendril of bile fell from her lip. “Ugh. ¡Qué asco!”
Althea followed her into the house, to the nearest bathroom, where Karina collapsed with her face over the toilet.
She paused at the door with an accusatory stare. “You told me that’s not for drinking.”
The thought of drinking from the toilet was the final straw. Karina’s lunch came out. Althea massaged her sister’s back as she searched for the problem.
“I can’t find the sick.”
Karina gasped between dry heaves. “You ate a gusano.”
“Oh.” Althea tucked her lower lip in to nibble bits that remained. “They’re good. Lot of proteam.”
“What’s proteam?” Karina sat back on her heels, wiping her face.
Althea shrugged. “I dunno. It’s what Reed said.” She explained how he could find food from the land and knew what things were safe and which were dangerous.
“Althea?” A feminine voice called from the front porch. “Are you there? Please, we need you.”
She helped Karina up and they went to see what the visitor wanted. A middle-aged woman shifted her weight from one leg to the other, trying to peek in through the small windows at the top of the door.
“Something’s wrong.” Althea jogged ahead, feeling the emotion around this woman.
“¡Gracias a dios!” She tugged at Althea’s shoulders and blasted her with Spanish too fast to understand. Seeing the look she made, the woman slowed down. “A boy has fallen. His legs, they are broken.”
Althea took the woman’s hand. “Bring me to him.”
At the center of Querq, a small voice wailing led her to a small boy whose feet bent at wrong angles from his legs.
“He fell from there,” said the old woman, pointing at a metal scaffold. “Trying to watch the outsiders.”
A younger woman, no doubt his mother, hovered over him, frantic and screaming for help.
Letting go of the messenger’s hand, Althea sprinted through the small crowd that parted to allow her in. The sight of her stalled his cries as she knelt nearby. The mother fell on her like a cloak, as if she had to squeeze the mercy out of Althea. Some men yelled at the woman in Spanish; Althea knew they told her not to get in the way.
She took one of his legs in her lap. His shrieking faded to a curious look when she dulled his pain. Working the foot back into place as if repairing a clay doll, she mended one and then the other. Finished, she sat and endured the exuberant adulation of the mother. She did not expect the little guy to leap on her and kiss her on the face. Laughing, she patted him on the head before his mother scooped him up and took him back to their home. A growl from her stomach pointed out the insufficiency of a one-grub meal.
“Althea? Is that you?” A familiar female voice, laced with astonishment, shouted from the right.
She had to blink to make sure her eyes did not lie. Rachel stood among the outsiders, sitting on the folded down tailgate of the mammoth vehicle. The bandit’s rifle was gone, replaced by a much longer one, boxier, with blinking lights above the handle.
“Rachel!” Althea sprang to her feet and ran into a hug. “You’re okay!” She cried at the visions the bad man had put into her head. “I’m sorry I ran away. I tried to go back, but I got lost.”
“Hey, baby girl.” She ruffled her hair. “Fancy meeting you here.”
A big man with long brown hair and a beard down to his belt rounded the corner of the truck and looked at her. “You know this one?”
Althea tilted her head at him, her stare drawn to the flecks of dandruff dotting his black shirt like stars in the night sky. His clothing looked strange; his belt was loaded with small things also full of twinkling lights.
“Yeah, I ran into her before. This is the kid I was telling you about that helped us escape.”
Two other men came over to see the child with glowing eyes. The one on the right was tall and bony, topped with a spiky explosion of black hair. Bits of metal stuck through his lip and his outfit looked like pieces of bug shell, gleaming, hard, and shiny. The second man had skin darker than Rachel’s, with short black hair that clung to his scalp. His chest gleamed with a thin layer of sweat and he had the same sort of rifle across his back.
The hairy-faced man leaned toward her. “Badlands ain’t no place for a little girl. You wanna come back to the city?”
Althea shook her head. “No, I’m home.”
“Whoa, Harold… Check out dem eyes. She on Blue Lace?” A pulse of alarm and pity came from the dark man.
“Where the fuck would she get that shit out here?” The thin guy folded his arms and smirked.
“Althea, this is Harold… but we just call him Beard. That’s Darren, and the skinny one’s Dean. Beard, what the hell is Blue Lace?”
He laughed. “Military drug. ‘S
perimental. It’s supposed to make psionic people more psionic. It’s damn illegal. Military stopped using it when they found out it was deadly. The kinda stuff the cops’ll shoot you on sight for selling.”
“Yeah.” Darren added with a voice so deep it vibrated in Althea’s chest. “Shit’ll give you a mad boost for a couple of minutes, but it’ll wind up making you crazy and killin’ you in a few months.
“This is my sister, Karina.” Althea beamed.
“Must be ‘dopted,” Dean mumbled, earning a smack to the back of the head from Darren. “What? Kid’s white and the ‘sister’ is Mexican.”
Darren slapped him again.
“Don’t pay him any attention.” Rachel smirked. “Dean still thinks I’m Dominican.”
“What’s that?” Althea asked.
The explanation, involving an island, largely went over her head. She got the feeling Rachel had mixed parents that had nothing to do with the place.
Althea feigned understanding. “Oh.”
Rachel held her hand. “You should really come with us. The Badlands is not all there is. Society still exists.” She sighed. “Everyone I ever knew is long dead.”
Althea hugged her, consoling for a moment before she backed away with a smile. “No, I am happy here. I have Karina and Father and I can sleep in a bed and do chores and…”
“You need to go to school, to learn. This is no place to grow up. How will you get a job without education?” Rachel pulled at her arm.
“The council will give me one.”
“What about hospitals? What if you get sick or hurt?”
Althea folded her arms and tapped her foot.
“Oh. Right.” Rachel laughed. “Well, I’m not staying out here. I can’t take the whole kill-or-be-someone’s-bitch thing. I don’t want to sleep with my ass to the wall all the time.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.” Althea’s expression asked why she would do such a thing.
Rachel sighed. “I mean… aww, fuck it.”
“What happened to the others? Zhar? Rama? Aya?”
“Oh them… After you took off, they blamed me for warning you Zhar intended to force you to go to her home. She wanted to―”
“I heard.” Althea looked down. “I wasn’t asleep. That’s why I ran.”
“Yeah, well, they figured it was my fault since I wasn’t keen on the idea. Zhar didn’t much like me anyway… guess there’s only room for one alpha bitch. They’re probably at Cheyenne by now.” She laughed. “I tried to find my way back to base, but I ran into these guys. Beard and his guys are giving me a ride back to the west. There’s a real city there; flying cars and everything. I can’t believe I lost four hundred years…”
“That’s one hell of a freezer they stuck your fine ass in.” Darren grinned at her as he passed with a heavy box.
She smiled at him and squeezed Althea’s shoulder. “Please think about it? I’d feel bad leaving you out here in this shithole.”
Althea put her hand on top of Rachel’s.
“I’m happy you’re okay, but this is my home now. I don’t want to leave my family.” Althea held her hand for a moment, and then returned to Karina’s side. “I have to finish making dinner.”
“You gonna help?” Dean shot a glance at Rachel as he hauled another box from the truck bed.
“Easy. Those two guns she had paid for this whole trip.” Beard waved at him, awe in his eyes. “Original Colt M4s that still fire. Easy million credits apiece.”
“Yeah… Yeah…” The skinny guy shook his head and lurched off with a metal box toward the council building.
Karina led her home, back to the waiting pile of wood and bowl of dough.
Water splattered around Althea’s feet as she struggled with the pump lever. It was something not from before-time Querq, a creation the Water Man had made for several houses. The wall pipe had stopped working with the tub half-ready; the pressure got too low. Karina asked Althea to retrieve water while she minded the fire.
Father had been fortunate to get a home so close to the thing; retrieving water required only a short walk from the back porch. The wooden platform was slimy with sunbaked green growing beneath a permanent puddle. She pulled at the brass handle to make water come out of the Earth, succeeding in lifting herself off the ground a few inches before it gave way and came down with a torrent that knocked the steel pail over and left her on her backside.
Resetting the bucket, she grabbed the lever and took a deep breath. It moved with less work now that the grime had broken loose, and she grinned as most of the water found its way into the container. Tonight was bath night. After a long normal day, Karina would wash her hair. Ever since her first bath here, she craved the tangible reminder of their special bond.
Her hands passed up and down through her stare at the street. She thought of the other children here. They were not afraid of her like the people from Den’s village. In fact, they adored her. She still did not understand the strange game with the ball where everyone would jump on whoever caught it. It was better than being shunned, even if it did cause small hurts.
The waning sunlight glinted across the water in the steel container. It would be dark soon, and her daydreams had left it overfull. Father could carry this much, but she strained to tip it. Losing enough to where she could drag it along, she heaved it into the air and staggered toward home.
The second time she needed to drop it to catch her breath, the scuff of a boot made her jump. Dean, the thin man, approached from behind. Her initial fear fell away to concern at the sight of blood dripping from the hand he clutched against his gut.
“You’re hurt.” She ran to him, pulling his arm away from his stomach.
Seeing a small razor cut on his palm, she offered a bewildered stare at why he had been staggering from such a tiny hurt.
“It’s just a―”
The spray of pain that raced up her back came with a high pitched whine from a small pistol-like device in his left hand. Her legs failed as everything from the back of her thighs up to her shoulder burned with the torment of a thousand bee stings. She collapsed face down and tried to turn, but only her left arm would move. Dozens of green needles protruded from her skin, falling away one by one as the part of them stuck into her dissolved. The burn became cold numbness and the street blurred into a mess of color as the chemical shards melted.
“No.” Althea knew what was happening.
Poison.
Her power came slow at the urging of a mind dulled by the drug. Sped up by her psionic command, her body expelled the toxin and she made green water. Pushing herself up, she tried to scream, but only a whisper emerged. Her motion startled Dean, who pointed a pistol-like device at her. The high-pitched whine brought more pain. Fire engulfed her back; the weapon screamed for what felt like minutes until the dirt upon which she lay turned black.
Within the darkness, Dean’s voice. “Don’t worry, kid. By the time you wake up…” The voice changed; it was a woman now. “You’ll be among friends.”
oft cloth brushed against her skin as a gentle rocking jostled Althea from side to side. Her head felt as though it weighed many times what it should, and the oppressive thrum of some great mechanized presence filled the stagnant air. Frozen metal greeted her toes as she stretched. Rolling onto her back, she reached up and felt more chilly smoothness.
Her hand carried the cold to her cheek as she rubbed the fog out of her senses and sat up. She looked down at her feet, stark pale against the darkness of her surroundings. Patches of reflected light followed her gaze around a black and white chamber that fit her like a coffin. Below her lay a pile of folded blankets, and flat metal walls enclosed her―a cage without bars.
She remembered the whine, the swarm of angry hornets on her back, and screamed. This time her voice came as it should, though the machine noise swallowed it. Her fingers found the back of her shoulder sticky; her palm came back tinged with blood and crystallized chemicals. She gritted her teeth and forced herself whole, a
thousand needlepoints in her skin sealing in an instant.
Althea purged the toxin from her body, leaving it in the corner, and braced herself against the walls as the dizziness abated. The room really was moving, that was not a product of the bees.
She thought of the fake wound, at once knowing Dean had put her in one of the large boxes in the bed of their truck. The motion told her they had decided to bring her with them despite her protest. The water she had been gathering for bath had never made it to the house. Her long-awaited time with her sister had been stolen from her.
Taken again.
Althea screamed and banged at the metal on all sides, kicking and punching the unmoving barrier until her hands and feet throbbed. No one reacted to her tantrum; if anyone noticed―they did not care. When she ran out of energy, she curled into a ball to cry, but could not. Anger gripped her more than sadness. Hunger as well, which came on as if she had not eaten in a day. Her mind called out for Father, for Karina, for the doctor, the Water Man, and even the canid.
Jostled about in the confines of the box, she rolled onto her back and braced her feet against the lid. The sense of her body filled her thoughts as her power focused upon her legs, causing her thighs to swell into sinewy strands of amplified strength. After bracing her feet against the lid, she shoved. A minute later, she relaxed, red-faced and gasping, and glared at the slab of metal that continued to defy her. Fingers clenched the coarse blanket on either side as she strained again until pain flooded over her legs. She relented, and rubbed her thighs. Mending the torn muscle made her hungrier. When the hurt faded to exhaustion, she lay still for a time, drifting in and out of sleep.
Hours passed.
A bump flung her out of her near sleep into the lid. She landed on her chest and rolled upside down, crumpling against the front wall as the truck jammed to a halt. The machine sound ceased, leaving her basking in the echoes of her own breathing. She eyed the spot where she thought the lid would open. Poised in a wildcat’s perch, she waited to pounce the second it opened.
A murmur. “Good evening, sir.”
Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) Page 26