The Lost Kids: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance

by J. L. Smith

  “Lucky me,” I had heard Jim mutter. “He’s a hell of a nice guy.”

  Susie had sniggered and responded quietly, “Damn it, Jim, quit making me laugh.”

  It was a while before I heard Susie’s infectious laugh again, as the day dragged on, each of us losing our humor the further we rode. It may have been the shortest day of the year, but it certainly was not the coolest. Even in winter, the midday sun seldom gave us a break. Stops were rare, as we skimmed across the blood orange sand, each lost in our own thoughts. Our motorcycles were packed with the bare essentials – water for two days, with a little extra to spare, enough food to get by, a couple of tents and a few other odds and ends, such as a change of clothes and our toothbrushes. As usual, Rayder was leading the pack, with Jim issuing instructions regarding the direction we should be heading. I found myself marveling at them and what seemed to be their endless capacity to find their way amidst the swirling sands. I suspected that for me, the desert would always be endless, masses of rock and sand, all more or less alike, signifying nothing. Yet, for Rayder especially, he could trace his way almost in his sleep, the maps he used mostly irrelevant.

  The day wore on. The sun wilted, falling tiredly from the sky and giving way to another still and cold desert evening. It was to be the longest night of the year and, just as I found myself considering where we might set up camp, a series of lights greeted us, blinking invitingly on the horizon. Rayder drew his bike around towards us, indicating that we needed to talk.

  As the four motorcycles huddled together, engines purring gently, Rayder said, “Looks like a solstice festival.”

  “Should we head around it and stop over for the night further along?” Saffron asked, sounding a little concerned.

  “We need to refuel,” Rayder responded, glancing at the jerry can of fuel hitched to the back of his bike, “which will obviously be easier in the morning. That, and it’s been a long day. We should stop for the night.”

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Kieran said, and I could hear the excitement in his voice.

  “If we avoid them, we could attract attention,” Rayder said. “So, it looks like we’re hitting up another festival.”

  “Awesome,” Kieran and Susie said simultaneously.

  “And, Jim,” Rayder said, “before you get any ideas, you’ll be gagged and bound in a tent.”

  “No fair!” Jim whined, “You know the kind of stuff they just give away at these parties?”

  “Yeah,” Saffron replied, “but somehow I think you might just have had enough of that stuff in the past.”

  I felt more than a little naive, as I wondered what was given away at the festivals, although I could only assume it was an array of drugs and herbs which I had never even heard of before.

  “You can never get enough,” Jim replied sullenly, before Rayder interrupted him impatiently.

  “Let’s go,” he said gruffly, evidently fed up with our hostage.

  As we approached the festival, the light emanating from the horizon became more than a fuzzy blur as distinct shapes started to emerge – the vast collection of hundreds of neon tents and hammocks, the masses of stretch cloth strung between giant boulders, decorating the desert in pinks and purples and greens. Everything glowed against the blackness of the night, highlighted by thousands of paper lanterns, stuck in the sand and dotted across strings overhead. It was a festival of light and color, a contrast to the monotony of the desert. But, the vibrant fabrics were nothing in comparison to the people, to the sound. I could make out the low eerie hum of a didgeridoo, the tinkle of a banjo and the pattering of easily two dozen different drums. The place was alive with noise, accentuated by the writhing of neon bodies. Everywhere I looked were colorful people, their skin glowing with neon paints of yellow and white. It was as if they did not feel the cold, most of them in various stages of undress, some utterly naked.

  “What do you think?” Susie called to me over the drone of our engine. I shook my head, speechless, and she laughed. “It’s meant to be a celebration that summer is coming back after tonight, being the longest night and all that, but, really, it’s just a bunch of crazies getting high.”

  “Have you been to lots of them?”

  “A few. Secretly, I think Rayder likes them, because there’s always some loon who tells him a whole bunch of stuff he’s not meant to.”

  As we immersed ourselves in the night, I began to see what Susie had meant. It seemed that everyone was a little mad, likely partially brought on by whatever substance they had chosen to abuse. I saw naked women lying in the sand, moving their limbs about serenely in the cool earth, patterning it, while singing gently of the passing seasons. I saw one woman giving birth, guided by two men in white robes, their faces unnervingly painted neon yellow. I saw a pair of strong young men licking an ancient, gnarled man’s bare legs, invoking Mother Earth to bless them with wisdom and long life. It was chaos, mostly, yet presiding over it all were the seers, old men dressed in bright red robes. They remained in the center of the festival, seemingly untouchable, separated from the party-goers by a great ring of fire. While the revelry whirled around them, they sat on wooden thrones, their faces blank as they chanted in voices low and ominous. They called Mother Earth to bless her people, asking for a gentle end to the winter months, imploring the land to give her people longevity and fertility, prosperity and felicity.

  “Do you believe in any of this stuff?” I asked Stef as we walked around with Susie and Kieran, taking it all in.

  “The blessings?” she replied.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to,” she admitted. “But, a lot of the seers are a little too tight with men like Balen for my liking.”

  Having overheard us, Kieran snorted, “It’s all bull. A way to control the lower classes and an excuse for the upper classes to get high.”

  “Last time I checked,” Susie added, “they didn’t need an excuse. The desert makes everyone want to go mental once in a while.” She looked over at her sister, a gentle smile on her face, “But, yeah, Stef, I know what you mean. It would be sort of cool if there was some truth in it.”

  Stef nodded, “I mean, some of them look so sincere.”

  Glancing over at the seers, I had to agree with Stef. Perhaps there were more than a few bad apples, but the men in their red robes looked so solemn, so removed from the pulsating rhythm around them. It was difficult to reconcile the two: the party, a living, breathing, writhing thing, and the seers, so still, almost sad.

  It was late into the night, when everyone else seemed to be asleep in our little tents, that I felt as if I had a chance to catch my breath. I had just finished brushing my teeth and was considering warming my hands beside our camp’s fire for a while, when I saw Rayder, sitting alone before the flames.

  “Some party,” I said, coming up to sit beside him. Perhaps he needed the solitude, but I found I needed some normal company, and so I hoped he would not mind. Rayder shrugged, annoying me a little with his apparent boredom. “Does anything ever surprise you?”

  “Not anymore,” he said quietly.

  It was strange, the way he said it, and so I asked, “Did it used to?”

  He looked directly at me, “It’s been a while.”

  “So, surprise me, then, since I’m still capable,” I challenged. “Tell me when last you were surprised.”

  “When I was twelve.”

  “Oh, yeah, what happened?”

  I expected him to dismiss my question. Instead, he caught me unawares and said, “First time I killed a guy.”

  I breathed in deeply, trying to disguise my shock. When I could trust my voice, I asked, “How?”

  “Right after my family died.” It was the first I had heard of this, but I forced my expression to remain neutral. “I was hanging with an interesting crowd.” His voice caught on the word interesting, twisting it bitterly. “Things got rough one night when we hit up a house after dark. We were just m
eant to take their stuff, but one of the older guys found this girl there. The daughter, I think. She was like thirteen.” He paused for a beat and when his voice came, it was devoid of any emotion. “I walked in on him raping her. I snapped. We fought. His gun went off between us.” He shrugged characteristically, “Lucky me, I guess. I left them that night. Started all this.” He looked me over, seeming surprised that he had revealed so much of himself.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. His hard eyes left me and he started toying with a loose piece of vegetation in the sand. When it became apparent that he was not going to respond, I changed the subject, if slightly, before he could think to leave. “My parents died, too.”

  “I figured.” After a pause, he asked, “What happened?”

  My mouth almost fell open that he had bothered to ask, but instead I said, “A fever hit our area seven years ago. They died a week apart.”

  “Sorry,” he said, sounding as if he meant it.

  I felt the familiar pain in my chest as I spoke of it. “My aunt, Nita, took me in. She lived nearby.”

  “The aunt who sold you?”

  “Yeah.” I could breathe more easily now, goaded on by my rage. “She always hated me.”

  “Why?”

  I sighed, seeing Nita’s angry, twisted face as I spoke. “She fell in love with my dad when she was really young. Before my parents met. But, he didn’t see her that way. He thought they were just friends. Then, he met my mom. Apparently, it was love at first sight. Anyway, they were married six months later and Nita never forgave my mom. She pretended to be happy for them, but I could tell she hated my mom, even as a kid.” When he simply nodded, as if in encouragement, I continued, “I look just like my mom. Nita never missed a chance to tell me that. If it wasn’t my frizzy orange hair that was disgusting,” I stopped, shrugging. “Well, you get the picture.”

  Rayder did not speak for a while and I thought the conversation was over. Then, he said, his voice low, “She’s wrong. Your hair is the first thing anyone notices about you. And that’s not a bad thing.” He added, his voice lower still, “And your eyes. Like the sky.”

  I was so shocked that, for the life of me, I could not think of a thing to say.

  Rayder coughed, obviously uncomfortable, “Anyway, you don’t miss her, I take it.”

  “Nope,” I replied, finding my tongue again, although I could feel my face burning. “She pretty much treated me like a slave. I looked after our goats, which I actually liked. That’s how we made money,” I explained. “But,” my voice became hard, seemingly emptied of emotion, but I knew the truth, the hatred simmering beneath, “she refused for me to have any friends. Maybe she was worried they’d see the bruises. She used to hit me. Often. Apparently, I ruined her life, because she never signed up to be a mother. Well, that was one of the excuses.”

  “And?” Rayder said softly, as if sensing that I was not done with my confession.

  “I should have run away years ago. I just didn’t have anywhere to go.” My voice was icy, “She was a prostitute. Men were always coming through our house. When she hit me, she’d say they’d do way worse to me if I crossed her.” I shrugged, imagining I looked very like Rayder when he talked of things he wished to forget, “I got lucky. They never did. But, I guess that was one of the reasons I never tried to leave. Weird, it was sort of like she hated me, but she wanted me around. Not just for the goats, but because she promised my dad. Not that that promise meant much in the end,” I muttered, hearing the bitterness in my voice.

  For a timeless moment, Rayder looked at me, his eyes sympathetic. He raised his hand hesitantly, as if to reach out to me, and then dropped it instead. His eyes fell to my lips and, as he leaned just a little towards me, I half expected that he might kiss me. Then, the spell was broken, as a drunken couple stumbled past us, shouting incoherently and laughing hysterically into the night.

  Rayder almost jerked away from me, as we both looked at the couple, mostly naked and a mess of neon paint, all limbs and wild hair. We glanced back at each other and smiled awkwardly, before Rayder said sincerely, “Sorry about your aunt.” When I nodded appreciatively, he added flippantly, “If you’d like, I can have her killed for you.”

  I laughed, “Now, why do I get the feeling that you’re not actually joking?” He raised his eyebrows, smiling mysteriously, and I felt my heart flutter. His good looks hardly seemed fair. “I’ll think about it,” I said facetiously.

  “Do that.”

  I stifled a yawn, “Okay, well, I think I’m going to head to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  “Okay,” he nodded casually.

  Smiling a little shyly, I got up from my spot on the sand and walked away from him, all the while sensing that he was watching me. I felt conflicted, wishing that I could get to know the person behind the façade. He was impossible – one minute friendly and almost flirtatious, the next, utterly dismissive and even downright rude. I simply could not read him. And, did I even want to?

  Chapter 8

  We left at dawn the following day, our bikes weaving between masses of brightly-painted sleeping bodies scattered about the sand. It was far too early for the festival-goers to be awake, it seemed, and I imagined that for most, it would be a long, lazy day after the revelry of the night before. We had engaged in musical chairs with our motorcycles, switching up who was riding with whom. The issue was that Rayder’s bike was not performing as it should have been, having some minor problem with the engine which I could not understand. Basically, the additional weight of Jim was putting strain on the bike, with the result that Jim was riding with Saffron. Kieran had volunteered too, but Saffron got there first and I had to admire her, wondering if I would volunteer with such haste, when we knew he could not be trusted. As a result, I was riding with Rayder, apparently being the lightest amongst us all.

  “Interesting,” Susie had commented quietly, elbowing me gently in the ribs.

  “What?” I had asked, feeling my face burn, although I was sure there was nothing to Rayder’s invitation to ride with him, except practicality.

  “Suse, don’t start.” Stef had swatted her sister on the arm playfully.

  “I’m just saying it’s interesting, is all. Rayder’s bike doesn’t usually malfunction.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I had responded quickly.

  “So it seems,” Susie had winked at me and I had looked away, hoping that I was not blushing. I was sure my feelings had been written all over my face.

  The journey with Rayder felt a little different this time, as opposed to when last we had ridden together, on the day we had taken Jim captive. It was almost as if our bodies fit together a little more comfortably, as I rested my hands against his hard chest. I felt less awkward, attributing it to our frank fireside chat the night before. Perhaps, I had chipped away at a few of the bricks in Rayder’s defensive wall, which he thrust up between himself and the world. It was not as if we spoke much. The engine prevented that, but it seemed the very air between us was calmer, a strange stillness which I found reassuring.

  In every other way, the day was entirely the same as any other day we raced through the desert. The monotony of it was enough to drive one mad – red rocks and sand as far as the eye could see, the smell of fumes seeping through our respirator masks, circling birds of prey overhead, and not another person anywhere at all. Likely, after the winter solstice, any would-be travelers were sleeping off the night before. Although, seeing no one else around was hardly a novelty. It was simply the way of things, the way I had always known them to be.

  We stopped to rest in the late afternoon, a gentle breeze providing welcome relief on my face, after the heat of my mask, helmet and goggles. I was growing to hate wearing the lot of them, feeling instantly claustrophobic when I put them on in the morning. We passed around a few bottles of water, relishing the taste after a hot ride.

  “Jim says another hour until we get there,” Saffron commented, while Jim sat
still fastened to the back of her bike, glaring at her.

  “Why can’t you just untie me for a few minutes?” he moaned. “My hands are killing me.”

  Saffron closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, “So, are we still going to split up once we get in?”

  “Yeah,” Rayder responded, eyeing Jim in annoyance.

  “And Jim?” Stef asked nervously, in a low whisper.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Rayder said cryptically, causing me to frown slightly. What was he planning for our hostage?

  “Come on, guys,” Jim complained. “Untie me. Just for a few minutes. What difference does it make?”

  “Someone shut that guy up!” Saffron snapped.

  “Maybe he could have a break?” Stef questioned tentatively.

  “Fine,” Saffron replied tensely. “As long as he stops complaining. It’s been all damn day.”

  Jim got his wish – a few moments without ropes around his wrists and he was all smiles. He enjoyed a cigarette, while relacing his boots. The rest of us readied to leave once more, the sense of anticipation palpable as we prepared to come face-to-face with Balen. I had tried not to think too much about it, instead focusing on the ride itself. But, now, it was likely only a matter of hours before we saw the man, the lord with the organ harvesting empire. I had no idea what he looked like and part of me wished I would never have to find out. My stomach knotted at the thought, but then I looked at Rayder and something of my anxiety fell away. He was always so sure of himself, or, at least, it felt that way. Somehow, with him around, I felt safe. I smiled ever so slightly at the thought and looked away. As I did so, I caught Saffron’s eye. She regarded me as if I were a fly on the wall, her lips curved into a frown.