Oasis

by Eilís Barrett

  ‘Look after Lauren,’ I say to him. And I’m wishing I could find a way to break that invisible wall he’s built around himself, get inside his head, make him see what I’m seeing.

  ‘I will,’ he says, but the wall is still there, and I feel like slapping him.

  ‘We’ll be back,’ I say, then I walk out the door before he has a chance to respond.

  29

  The forest is cold as we march through it. I am at the front of the group, more because everyone dropped into step behind me than that I actively put myself there. Clarke is somewhere to my right, and Mark somewhere to my left, but I keep my eyes dead ahead.

  Twelve. Twelve people followed me out here today, and twelve people are coming back home tonight. That’s what I keep telling myself.

  We’ve been out here for hours. I’m not sure exactly how long, but my feet ache and I’m beginning to see double. Clarke’s the best tracker we have, so she leads the group as we follow, searching for any signs of life. A footprint, disturbed undergrowth, ashes, anything that could be a sign Officers have passed through.

  I can’t get Kole’s face out of my head, the panic in every tense muscle in his body, all for these people. I glance around me, watching everyone as they watch the forest around them. They are wound tight, all flashing eyes and quick reflexes, and I wonder why he cares so much.

  And then I think of Beatrice. I wonder, if I could have her back again, would I be as terrified to lose her as he seems to be of losing them? And suddenly it clicks together in my mind: he has seen so many people die, he feels he needs to hold on to the ones he has. And I can see it. I can understand it, but somehow I can’t feel it. It’s like the moment before you feel pain, when you watch the blood trickle across your skin, but you can’t feel anything. When you just watch, in sick fascination, as it stains your skin red.

  ‘Quincy?’ Walter pokes me.

  ‘Huh?’ I look up at him, shaking my head as if I can shake the thoughts out of it.

  He points towards Clarke, who is kneeling down three metres from me.

  I pause, holding up a hand for the group to stop.

  ‘Clarke?’ I step towards her.

  ‘They’ve been here,’ she says, leaping to her feet. Her eyes are bright, but she won’t look at me, her gaze drifting after the trail she’s picked up. ‘This way.’

  We fall into step behind her.

  We follow the trail for half an hour, so long that I’m beginning to think she’s leading us on a wild goose chase, but that’s when I hear it.

  I whip around, holding my finger to my lips, warning the group to stay quiet. Several people adjust guns on their shoulders, adrenaline spiking as Clarke turns to us, a manic look in her eyes.

  I can hear them talking. The Officers. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I can hear them murmuring back and forth, and I follow the sound blindly, the rest of the team fading into the background as I creep towards the clearing.

  There are six of them, sitting in a circle around a fire. We stopped a few hours ago to eat and rest, but Clarke wouldn’t let me start a fire, in case they saw the smoke and used it to track us. But they don’t have to worry about that. They own everything – they own us – so they don’t fear being ambushed.

  Until now.

  I glance back, making eye contact with each person, and then nod. My hand grips the handle of my knife, the only weapon I know how to use.

  I hold up three fingers, then two, then one … and we launch.

  We’re on top of them before they know what’s going on. They reach for their weapons, pulling guns from inside their jackets, at their ankles, laid beside them, but before they can aim at us, we’ve struck.

  I hear guns going off around me, but I don’t know if they’re our weapons or theirs, I’m too focused on the Officer I’ve launched myself at. He half falls back over the log he was sitting on, pulling a long, thin knife from the holster at his hip. My knife catches the light of the fire as it arcs towards him, but he blocks the blow with his wrist before it can make contact.

  He advances on me, pushing me back a step as I try to regain my balance. He stabs at my middle, and I barely have time to slide away from his blade before he’s pulled it back, thrusting it towards me again.

  He takes another step forward, and I step closer to him, missing the edge of his knife by a hair’s breadth as he stabs blindly at me repeatedly.

  Everything is moving too fast. I don’t know what’s happening, how he is moving so fast, except that I’m lashing out, my instincts taking over as I take the advantage of his last missed hit to place one of my own.

  I only realise I’ve stabbed him in the chest when his eyes meet mine, terror freezing him for the smallest moment before he pulls his knife back and falls to the ground.

  I stare at his chest, at the blood bubbling up around the knife still lodged in a downward arc in his sternum, as he gasps in vain for one more breath.

  I crash into someone as I stumble backwards, spinning around, my heart beating wildly. I hold my hands up in front of myself defensively, as if it would do anything to help. But it’s only Walter, an utterly terrified looking Walter, stumbling around a blood-soaked battlefield.

  But as I look around, I notice the Officers are down. Every single one of them.

  I look around the campsite, at the shell-shocked and bloodied people around me, and I realise something I’m not sure I’d even considered possible until this very moment.

  We won.

  30

  The aftermath is worse than the attack itself. As their bodies grow cold, I rifle through their supplies, packing their food and their weapons into my pack to bring back to the base. I can’t help seeing how much this will help.

  I can’t help seeing this as the difference between life and death.

  And that’s when I hear the shouts. Mark freezes where he stands, just a few steps away from me, and suddenly everyone in the camp is looking at each other. The shout is brittle, followed by cracking, and I take a trembling step forward, moving towards the sound. I follow it to one of the tents, pushing aside the fabric of the door to find the tent empty.

  Empty other than a black radio in the corner, like the ones the Officers at the Dorms used to carry, only bigger. I duck my head into the tent and grab the radio, holding it closer to my ear as I exit the tent again, back to the circle of people standing outside.

  It’s quiet for a moment, and we all stand silently, hearts in our mouths as we wait. It crackles back to life, the voices rough on the other end, and static fills the line during intervals, but I can hear most of what’s going on.

  ‘Unit 32, do you copy? Unit 32?’

  I look at Mark, his bright blue eyes locking onto mine as he steps closer.

  ‘Unit 32, do you copy? We have a disturbance this side and we need back-up. Unit 32, I repeat, there’s been a disturbance. The rogues have attempted escape.’

  A muffled thump comes across the line, and a crash.

  ‘Take them down, Officers!’ the same voice shouts at something we can’t see.

  And that’s when we hear it.

  ‘COWARDS!’ A new voice now, with an edge as sharp as a blade and enough rage in it to strangle a person.

  Mark goes still beside me, the blood draining from his face as he looks at me, his jaw slackening.

  ‘What?’ I ask, my stomach dropping.

  ‘Jay,’ Mark breathes. ‘He’s alive.’

  31

  Kole is gone when we return.

  People come swarming out of the base, faces stricken at the sight of us. We are covered in blood that is not our own, but we are alive. Twelve of us return. Injuries are minor, and as we are swallowed back inside the house, I do not pull away from the crowd.

  I need to be here, in the middle, if I want them to trust me. My plan is falling to pieces in my hands, but I push it to the back of my mind.

  I have to focus on this. On this crush of bodies, this tangle of arms and voices all pushing and questioning
and ‘Are you okay?’, ‘What happened?’, ‘Did you find them?’

  It won’t last forever. I know that. But it’s here now, and for now, I am one of them.

  We eat a mixture of the last meat from the deer Clarke killed and the new supplies from the Officers’ camp, and the room has never been so loud. While we were gone, Lauren was moved upstairs and I am told she is still breathing. I sit in the corner of the room, nursing my side as I watch them quietly. This time, it’s not because I want to be apart from them that I stay in the corner, but because I want to see it, this rare elation within them.

  And I wonder if I could ever feel about them the way Kole does.

  That night, I can’t sleep. I roll over onto my side, listening to the rustling of trees outside my window, and I keep seeing the look on his face when he realised what had happened. The sound of his body slumping to the ground as blood bubbled out from his chest echoes in my ears, and I have to stop myself from gagging.

  I feel cold. Every inch of me feels ice cold, and I don’t know what to do to stop this feeling crawling around inside me.

  He was an Officer. He deserved to die.

  But Aaron was an Officer, and if it had been him, would I have been so quick to kill him?

  I can’t breathe.

  A loud rapping sound on my door startles me, and I groan at the pain in my side as I jump to my feet.

  ‘Quincy!’ Kole half shouts, half whispers. ‘Get out here.’

  I pull open the door tentatively, unsure of myself. Those others who’d stayed behind told us that he’d just walked out a few hours before we came back, that no one had seen him since.

  I follow him into the kitchen. He looks pale in the moonlight streaming in the window, but not pale like he did this morning.

  He’s furious.

  ‘What?’ I ask, and I wonder if I should start sleeping with a knife and some combat boots if he insists on starting fights in the middle of the night.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘So? Talk.’

  His eyes are sharp as they meet mine, but I won’t back down.

  ‘You’ve attacked the Officers, you’ve raided their camp. You fought back. You’re done now.’ He says it as a statement, but I can see the doubt in his eyes as I step into the kitchen, pulling the door shut behind me.

  ‘No. This isn’t a once-off, Kole. We’re doing this now, and you can’t stop us.’

  ‘So what’s your plan? To spend everyday wandering around the forest, hoping to stumble across some idiot Officer patrols you can take down.’

  ‘No.’ Yes. I hadn’t thought past today. I was too caught up in the fact that it actually worked to think of anything else.

  ‘This is ridiculous, you know that, right? You’re not getting anywhere. You’re not actually doing anything.’

  ‘We took out an entire patrol—’

  ‘Do you have any idea how many more of those Oasis has? Officers are as expendable to Oasis as the Dormants are. They’re nothing. That patrol was nothing.’

  ‘It’s not just about the Officers—’

  ‘I swear, if you give me a lecture on morale—’

  ‘Kole, Jay is alive.’ I let the words hang in the air between us.

  ‘What?’ he says, quietly, like it might disappear if he’s too loud.

  ‘We found a radio at the camp. We heard Jay on the other end.’

  ‘How would you know—’

  ‘Mark recognised the voice. He’s alive, Kole.’

  Kole doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t move or do anything but stand, staring straight through me, like he can see something beyond this room.

  ‘He’s alive?’ he repeats, his voice strangled.

  ‘He’s alive.’

  ‘If you’re lying—’ he says, catching me by both shoulders. A gasp escapes me, the jerking motion tearing into my side, the pain lacerating through me. He releases me immediately, like I burned him.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asks, his voice gruff, as if he’s trying to cover up the weakness in his voice a moment ago. Like he’s trying to cover up the pain that crossed his face at the mention of Jay.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Were you hurt? Why didn’t you get medical help?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ll just run over to the nearest hospital … Oh wait.’ I raise an eyebrow at him.

  ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Clarke,’ he scoffs, and I’m a little taken aback.

  I guess he’s right.

  He pours water into the kettle on top of the stove then turns to me.

  ‘Show me where you’re hurt,’ he demands.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘No.’

  He cocks his head to the side, as if to ask if we’re actually going to do this. I huff, rolling my eyes as I lift my shirt and pull away the T-shirt I’d wrapped around my middle before I went to bed, to stop the bleeding.

  ‘God, Quincy, what the hell were you thinking?’ he asks as he examines the wound. I glance down at it, only long enough to see the gash has started bleeding again.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  He looks at me, raising a single eyebrow in response.

  ‘Sit on the table.’

  I obey, but I don’t spare him any complaining while I do it.

  He takes the kettle off the stove and pours the hot water into the cracked basin we used for Lauren, and I start feeling cold again.

  ‘You’re not going to …’

  ‘No. You don’t need stitches. But you do need a little more than a shirt wrapped across your ribs, surprisingly.’ He dips a piece of fabric into the hot water and dabs it against the wound.

  I hiss, pulling away from him involuntarily. He places his hand on my other side to hold me in place, and I freeze. I’m still holding my shirt up so he can clean the wound, so his hand is directly on my waist.

  I shift away, sirens going off inside my head every time the rough skin of his hands makes contact with my abdomen.

  ‘Be careful,’ I whisper.

  He looks up at me, his eyes steady, his hands frozen above my waist.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that anymore.’

  ‘You don’t know. I don’t understand––’ I grit my teeth, both from pain and frustration. ‘I don’t understand why you’re all so calm about it. The gene could activate at any time, and once it does, if it’s me, I’m a danger to everyone.’

  ‘Don’t quote them to me,’ he says, his shoulders stiffening.

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘You are,’ he says, cutting me off. ‘You need to stop letting them get inside your head. You’re not gonna hurt me.’

  I release a shaky breath, and he glances at me for a second.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he whispers, focusing his attention back on the wound. ‘I promise.’

  For a long moment, neither of us says anything, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. My heart is pounding too fast, so I focus my eyes on a random point on the wall across from me, staring at it until I can catch my breath.

  ‘Was it a knife?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The cut. Is it a knife wound?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes. An Officer nicked me before I could kill him.’

  His eyebrows draw down in a question, but he doesn’t look up, too focused on cleaning the wound. Once he’s done, he tells me to hold still, then leaves for only a moment, returning with a heap of bandages.

  ‘From the raid,’ I breathe.

  His eyes lock onto mine for only a second before dropping again, and he begins to wrap the bandage around my body.

  ‘Yes.’ He releases a slow breath. ‘I’m glad it went well, and I’m thankful for the supplies, but I hate putting them in danger.’

  I try to ignore the feeling of his hands on my skin long enough to respond.

  ‘They’ve always been in danger, Kole. It’s just that this time, it’s through their own choice.’

  He goes quiet, and I can tell he doesn�
��t have an argument for that.

  He pulls my shirt back down over the bandages, finally letting me hop down from the table.

  ‘Does that feel better?’

  ‘Yes.’ And it does. A lot better.

  There’s a short silence, and he just looks at me. I take a step away, towards the door, not fully understanding the tug in my chest at the sight of him like this, quiet and calm in the moonlight.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I say, and my hand is on the door knob when he stops me.

  ‘Wait.’ He says. ‘I want—’ He pauses, and I glance back at him. ‘I want to help,’ he says finally. ‘I want to help you rescue Jay and the others.’

  I am quiet for a moment, and then something like a smile crosses my lips.

  ‘Good,’ I say quietly.

  We stare at each other in the half-light for another beat.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I repeat, breaking the silence.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  As I step into the cold silence of my room, closing the door behind me, I try to calm my racing heart.

  32

  I wake to the sound of Kole shouting. I am up and awake and out the door before I’m even fully aware of what’s going on.

  ‘Kole? Kole, what the hell is going on?’

  Kole is standing outside the door, dressed, with a pack over his shoulder and a gun slung over his back.

  ‘We’re going hunting,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘What …?’ I try to rub the sleep from my eyes, my heart still thundering in my chest.

  ‘If they’re alive, we need to go find them. Now.’

  His sentences aren’t making any sense to my foggy mind, but then Mark comes up to stand beside me, looking like he was wrestling with a bush before he came out here.

  ‘Kole, what are you doing?’ Mark asks quietly, trying to calm Kole down.

  ‘We’re going after the Officers who took Jay and the others. I was up all night thinking about it, and I know where they are. Remember the base camp they used to talk about in training?’

  ‘What training?’ I ask, confused, but he’s not listening to me, distracted by all the thoughts flying through his brain.