365 Days Hunted

by Nancy Isaak

  “We were thinking the same thing,” Porter nodded. “Plus, we need to assign everyone specific things that they can be responsible for in an emergency. That way, we’ll know ahead of time where everyone needs to go and what has to be covered. And it will be easier to find out if anybody’s missing when it’s over.”

  As Porter finished speaking, the hackles suddenly went up all along the back of my neck. My head whipped back and forth, searching the tables around me.

  Perhaps, if I hadn’t been so tired, I would have noticed earlier.

  Or less self-absorbed.

  “Kieran!” I barked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

  My brother was over on my right. He turned slowly toward me, his brows knitting together in consternation when he saw the look on my face. “What?”

  “Where’s Rhys?”

  * * * *

  Kieran and I ran from table to table, asking everyone.

  But not a single guy had seen our younger brother that morning.

  Or the night before.

  * * * *

  I was in the medical center when Kieran sprinted up. “Definitely not in his room,” he gasped, bending over to catch his breath. “And his bed hasn’t been slept in either.”

  Porter, meanwhile, was walking down a row of beds, checking heads as he made his way toward us. Connor was on the other side of the room, doing the same thing with his newcomers.

  “Not here,” called Connor, as he reached his row’s end.

  “He’s not on my side either,” added Porter, chewing on his nails in worry. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Andrei or Ian either.”

  “They’re in their rooms sleeping,” Kieran told him. “I just checked.”

  “What about Ethan and Wester?” Connor asked, joining us. “Has anybody seen them?”

  “They were at Nate and Xavier’s table during breakfast,” I nodded. “And they were making runs for us last night, so they’re accounted for.”

  “But you definitely didn’t see Rhys at all during the fire,” Porter mumbled, continuing to chew on his nails.

  I shook my head, worried. “Last I saw Rhys was at the garage opening.”

  “Same with me,” agreed Kieran. “He was heading over to Little Dume with those creepy twins.”

  * * * *

  Goran was already dead by the time we reached Little Dume.

  His throat had been cut and he was lying splayed on the ground, a ragged circle of drying blood staining the sand all around him. Damien was a few feet away, slowly pulling himself along, inch by inch—trying to reach his brother.

  Like Goran, Damien had been cut. But instead of his throat, his body had been slashed in a dozen different places. I was horrified by what I saw—at the viciousness that had been unleashed on the kid.

  Kneeling down beside Damien, I placed my hands over the worst of the wounds, trying to staunch the blood. As I did, my guards fanned out, searching the nearby rocks.

  “Where’s Rhys?” I asked the kid, trying to remain calm. “Where’s my brother?”

  When Damien spoke, his voice was thready and difficult to understand. “Took him…came…for him.”

  “Was it Brandon?” Kieran asked, kneeling down on Damien’s other side.

  “Sorry…made…us.”

  Kieran and I exchanged a dark look.

  “Made you what?” hissed Kieran.

  “Got our…brother…kill him…we didn’t.”

  “But your brother is over there,” Kieran snapped, pointing at Goran. “Make sense!”

  “Brother…”

  “You have another brother,” I suddenly realized. “One that Brandon is keeping hostage.”

  Damien tried to nod, but the movement caused him to cough. Bubbles of blood oozed out from between his teeth. “Brandon said…brother…for…a…brother.”

  “Dammit!” Kieran was furious. He sprang to his feet and stalked a few yards away, trying to control his anger.

  Meanwhile, I reached out and brushed the blood off of Damien’s lips. “When did he take Rhys?” I asked, quietly. “How long ago?”

  “…yesterday.”

  “Which means that they could be anywhere by now!” yelled Kieran, shaking his fist in the air. “Anywhere!”

  “Do you know where Brandon is taking Rhys?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  Instead of responding, though, Damien moved his closed hand next to mine. Slowly, he opened his fist. Inside of it, was a piece of paper—crumpled and bloody.

  “For…you.”

  * * * *

  The note read:

  Having a good day, Dumbasses?

  I’ll be in touch for a trade. Your idiot brother is safe as long as you don’t come looking for him. If you do, I’ll kill him—after I play with him first.

  Love Brandon.

  P.S. Sorry about the fire, but what can you expect when you’re living in hell.

  * * * *

  “Son of a bitch! Brandon set the fire,” growled Kieran, reading the note over my shoulder. “It was all just a diversion, so that he could snatch Rhys.”

  There were yells behind me as Porter and Connor ran up. Frank was with them, carrying a large first aid kit.

  “Oh my god!” cried Porter, skidding to a stop beside Goran.

  Frank and Connor moved on, dropping the first aid kit next to Damien. “Over here, Porter,” Frank ordered. “This is your patient.”

  Porter stumbled over to Damien as Connor dropped to his knees, opening up the kit and pulling out bandages. Meanwhile, Frank walked back to Goran’s body and turned it over onto its stomach.

  “Frank!” I barked, walking over quickly. “A little dignity, dude. Damien doesn’t need to see that.”

  “Look,” said Frank, ignoring me. He pulled up Goran’s shirt and pointed to a tattoo mid-way down his back. It was the number ‘37’—its black digits less than an inch in height and width.

  “Thirty-seven?”

  Gently returning Goran’s body onto its back, Frank stood up and raised his own shirt. “See it?”

  Midway down Frank’s own back was a tattooed ‘61’.

  My mouth dropped open, shocked. “They tagged you?!”

  “All the slaves,” he admitted. “Denny was ‘62’.

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

  Frank looked down at the ground, ashamed. “Because I’m Jewish.”

  JOURNAL ENTRY #34

  Intellectually, I understand why Frank didn’t tell me about his tattoo before. I know that it simply never occurred to him that Brandon would send spies to infiltrate our tribe. That Frank kept his tattooed number secret was out of humiliation.

  Because he was Jewish.

  Because—it was history repeating itself.

  * * * *

  Frank told me tonight how—when he was little—he would sit at the knees of these old men from his temple. They would tell their horror stories of being rounded up and tattooed by the Nazis in Germany during World War II.

  They were cautionary tales—meant to educate and warn.

  ‘Don’t let anyone ever capture you’, the old men would say, pointing their fingers at a wide-eyed and entranced Frank. ‘And, if they do mark you, know that it will be for extinction.’

  Then, those old men would end their stories—always in the same way—by lifting up their sleeves to expose the faded numbers tattooed onto their forearms.

  And then they would say two words.

  Always the same two words.

  ‘Never again.’

  * * * *

  Kieran, of course, wanted to go after Brandon immediately. “I’ll take Pauly,” he raged. “See if we can pick up his trail.”

  “You can’t,” I countered. “You read the note. If Brandon sees you, he’ll kill Rhys.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Kieran insisted. “Go through the bush.”

  “You don’t even know where he took Rhys,” I argued, frustrated. “For all you know, he could be on a boat right now, rowing a
cross to Catalina Island.”

  “He’s probably taking him to Agoura Hills,” Kieran growled. “Or to one of the slave camps.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure,” I tried to reason. “You just don’t know. And we still don’t even know where the third camp is!”

  “So, what are you suggesting? That we just stand here with our fingers up our butts?”

  “Brandon said that he’s going to be contacting us. We need to be ready for that.”

  “So, we just wait?!”

  “We wait,” I nodded. “And we prepare.”

  Kieran didn’t like that. Frankly, I didn’t either. But we both knew that it was our only choice at the moment.

  “You know that Brandon is after something,” said Kieran. “And it isn’t Rhys. Little brother is just going to be his bargaining chip. I’m sure of it.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” I asked him. “You know Brandon better than anybody.”

  Kieran shook his head, frowning. “Whatever it is,” he muttered, “it’ll be something that will hurt us.”

  “As long as we can get Rhys back unharmed,” I said. “I’ll give Brandon anything he wants.”

  “Which is just what he’s counting on.”

  SPIES

  We buried Damien and Goran next to Denny in the Nature Preserve. Kieran was incensed, feeling that justice would better be served by simply throwing the bodies over the cliff.

  It was Frank who became the voice of reason. “They were just kids…little kids who were simply trying to save their brother.”

  “And who got our brother taken,” growled Kieran.

  “And who got themselves killed,” said Frank. “We need to pity them, not condemn them.”

  “Yeah, you go pity them,” answered Kieran. “I still say we should just throw them off the cliff.”

  “They were 9-year old boys,” insisted Frank. “What were you doing at nine, Kieran? Playing with Legos and watching cartoons, I would guess. Not living by your wits and just trying to survive.”

  “Frank is right,” I nodded. “Damien and Goran were just kids who got caught up in something they couldn’t figure their way out of. Sure, if they had come to us, we might have been able to help. But they didn’t know how. And maybe that was partly our fault.”

  “How could that be our fault?” asked Kieran, looking skeptical.

  “Because we should have been smart enough to have known that Brandon would send spies,” I said. “And if we had, we might have caught them before any of this happened. And then we could have helped them. Maybe even rescued their brother.”

  “Who’s probably already dead in the Arena,” muttered Kieran.

  “Look,” I said. “If anybody should understand, it’s you. Of all of us, you know how Brandon uses people.”

  Kieran frowned, his jaw tensing in anger. “Are you saying this is my fault?! That I should have known Brandon would do something like that?”

  “No,” I sighed, frustrated. “You’re not getting it. What I’m saying is that it’s Brandon’s fault—not your fault, not my fault, not Frank’s fault. And it’s definitely not two 9-year old kids’ fault.”

  * * * *

  As we walked back toward the compound after burying the twins, Kieran kicked at the stones along the side of the road. He was still angry and frustrated, struggling with not being able to go after Brandon. “So, what are we going to do, then?” he grumbled. “I mean, we have to do something!”

  “We will,” I assured him. “We just need to be smart about it. Do what we can without it blowing back on Rhys.”

  “Then, what? What do we do now?”

  “I can answer that,” said Frank. “At least, I know where to start.”

  We both turned toward him.

  Frank glowered. “We find the other spies.”

  * * * *

  Frank was right.

  We couldn’t put it past Brandon to have more than one spy in our midst. It just made sense. Which meant that we were going to have to check each of our guys for tattoos.

  If they were slaves, they would have a number in the center of their back.

  If they were Crazies, Frank told us that there would be an ‘A’.

  “Not exactly like the ‘A’ up on the hill above our school,” he explained. “But with a circle around it, like the symbol for ‘anarchy’.

  “And everyone has it?” I asked.

  “I think so,” he nodded. “At least everyone that I saw. When Brandon became leader he made sure that everyone got tattooed. One of the guards told us that Brandon told the tribe that it would bring them together, that sort of thing. And because their tribe was getting so big, it was a way that everyone could instantly know who each other was—either slave or Crazy. An easy way of checking.”

  “A lot of our guys have tattoos,” I admitted. “It’s like tattooing became a thing after everything changed—something to do. Never occurred to me that it could be used to mark people.”

  “Because you’re not Jewish,” Frank grimaced. “Also, I never saw it, but one of the guards up in the Fire Camp said that Brandon’s main guys—the ones really in charge—they have these lightning bolts on either side of the ‘A’. So, that’s how we can identify them.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So, now we know what to look for. Let’s go find us some spies.”

  * * * *

  We assembled everyone in the courtyard.

  I stood in the center—on top of the cage—where I could easily be seen by all of the guys. My armed guards were all there—some close to me, others at the far ends of the yard—all with their hands close to their guns.

  When everyone had quieted down, I began to speak. “As you all know by now, the Crazies have killed Damien and Goran and kidnapped my brother, Rhys.”

  There was angry muttering throughout the crowd of guys.

  I held up my hands for silence.

  “We were left a note by their leader, Brandon Keretsky. In it, he says that he will not harm Rhys as long as we don’t try to follow him. It also says that he will contact us in the next few days to arrange for a trade.”

  “What does he want to trade Rhys for?” asked Jonny, who was standing next to Pauly just below me.

  I shook my head. “We don’t know, yet. But, it most likely won’t be good.”

  As I talked, Frank pulled himself up onto the top of the cage to stand beside me.

  “Kieran and I think that Brandon is probably going to ask for the thing that will weaken us the most,” I continued. “So, we’re guessing maybe weapons or food.”

  “What if he wants us?” asked one of the guys from Tapia. “What if he wants the slaves back?”

  “You’re not slaves anymore,” I barked, becoming angry. “You can’t get sold. You can’t get traded.”

  “Not even for your brother?” the guy asked, looking scared.

  It took a moment for me to answer—because I hated having to say it. “Not even for my brother.”

  I didn’t dare to look at Kieran at that moment—afraid of what I might see.

  * * * *

  There were gasps of horror when Frank lifted up his shirt and showed the guys his tattoo. “It’s a way the Crazies mark their slaves,” I explained. “The actual tribe members don’t have numbers. They have ‘A’s’ in circles. And the leaders have lightning bolts on either sides of the ‘A’s’.

  As I talked, my armed guards moved in, slowly surrounding everyone. They had their weapons out now—but pointed at the ground.

  “This isn’t about trust,” I continued. “This is about reality. Two of their spies came into our tribe and our home and took away one of our own. So, we need to make sure that it won’t happen again. And to do that—we need to check for spies. So, every guy here needs to show us his back before he’ll be let out of this circle.”

  “I’m not a damn spy!” huffed Jonny below me, looking incensed. “Why do I have to be checked?”

  Immediately, I grabbed the hem of my t-shirt and whipp
ed it off. Then, I slowly turned around, so that every guy could see my back. “I’m not a spy either,” I said, looking directly at Jonny. “And neither are you. So—show everybody, Jonny. Show them exactly who you are.”

  It took a moment, but Jonny slowly lifted up the back of his shirt. His back was bare. “Satisfied?”

  “You’re a Local,” I nodded. “Just like I knew you would be. Now, check Pauly because I’m pretty sure he’s a stinking Crazy.”

  Jonny burst into laughter at that. “Come on, dude,” he baited Pauly. “Show me your Crazy!”

  With a sniff, Pauly lifted up the back of his shirt. He had a number of tattoos there—an arrow, a triangle, and of course—tRUe.

  But there was no ‘A’.

  “You’re clean,” said Jonny. “Barely.”

  “Not so fast,” smirked Pauly. “Maybe I’ve got it tattooed on my ass.”

  And he pulled down his board shorts—mooning Jonny.

  JOURNAL ENTRY #35

  This has been a hard day.

  If Brandon has hurt Rhys in any way, I swear to God that I am going to kill him.

  No—that’s a lie.

  Even if Brandon hasn’t hurt Rhys—I’m still probably going to kill him.

  * * * *

  We didn’t find any other spies.