by Logan Keys
The hands at my shoulders grip tightens painfully. There is always a marker to these scenes falling apart. A signal. With this one it starts with a baby crying in the distance. Deep inside of section a child wails in hunger.
My gut clenches knowing I will have to say goodbye to the pretender. Even if he isn’t real, Jeremy’s end is a fresh wound that’s been lanced open.
So, Cory has succeeded in that.
Out of pain, I pull away, and Jeremy changes to another version of himself. His gaze is distant. He melts into the zombie-fied guard. Even his outfit is now the black of their uniform. He’s once again a puppet of the Authority. This version is all too real to me. It is all exact to my memory. And the loss freshens, the misery strikes, it blinds me to the dreamscape, and I am here. I am really here.
Jeremy is holding a gun.
I back away, hands in front of me, remembering what happens next.
“Jeremy!” I cry. “Remember me. Please.”
He shoots me.
I cup my hands over the blood from my middle. The scene changes. Now I have the gun, and I want retribution.
I hold it shakily in my hands, and he’s not just Jeremy Writer anymore, he’s Jeremy Cromwell. He’s his father’s son. He is the reason for the world’s woes.
I shoot him between the eyes.
Chapter 9
Crystal
“You haven’t told him she’s alive?” the doctor asks.
“I won’t either.”
“Why not?”
My thoughts turn to Liza, somewhere, out there… God knows where. “Because from what Phillip has sent me, she won’t be alive for long. The last word was that the Underground had arrested her as a spy, but now I know Phillip has left LA and is headed for Anthem. I’m guessing they are together. But something is wrong. Otherwise, why the lack of communication? Maybe she did die. I’m not sure.”
What good would it do to put Jeremy into one of his stupors over her dying all over again?
The doctor looks like he knows something I don’t. “What?” I ask.
“Liza’s a lot more capable than your Skulls give her credit for.”
“Well, either way. If your little project girl fails, as we know it’s possible, Simon’s not exactly incapable, right? We need Jeremy for this rebellion more than she needs him to pine for her helplessly. Besides, it’s not like it’s happily ever after for anybody unless we get rid of Karma and the Cromwell’s once and for all.”
The doctor just listens to me like always. He lets me come to my own conclusions. He’s interfered enough to know that the results are unpredictable.
I shake my head. “No. Jeremy is not fully himself. She is not fully herself. None of us is fully his or herself anymore. What kind of love can one offer as something they don’t understand completely?”
“Know thyself.”
“Exactly. And if you don’t, then why bother trying to pawn that unknown off on another poor mixed up person, trying to survive?”
Am I talking about them or me?
The doctor sees straight through my façade.
“He’s awake,” he tells me, and I take a deep breath and head toward Jeremy’s room.
“What is it you want from me?” Jeremy screams.
He’s in a rage.
His last purge took hold too long. It can make an explosive personality go up and down, no middle, and Jeremy was already like that, a manic, now it’s double, and he’s weak and strong all at the same time.
He chucks a chair at the wall, it lands inches from my head before it breaks into a million pieces.
I don’t flinch. I’m not afraid of him. Even like this.
I’ve still got a lot of fight in me too. But I’m staying that side in lieu of patience.
He wants to know what I want? Truly? I want him to look at me for once and be satisfied. I want him to see me, really see me, and not be left wanting.
I want him to see Liza where I stand. If I’m being honest. But I won’t admit any of that, not now, not ever. If Jeremy Writer could look at me and see me beautiful just the way I am, scars and all, maybe profess his undying love… But then the world could fall away and I, Crystal, me, I’d be ok with it crumbling. I wouldn’t care if Anthem fell.
Being rejected keeps me focused. It’s what drives me, partially, and that Anthem is scarred too. She’s not beautiful the way she is, and I’m not in love with her the way she is, and I wish she’d change as well.
I love her promise, what she could be, undyingly.
Maybe that’s what I want from Jeremy too, to love me like he loves his hope for Anthem.
And he does too. We both do. We duel over who loves her more. At the moment, it’s me, but someday, and soon, Jeremy will wake up and he will love her above all else.
Even Liza.
He’ll be like he always was, Anthem’s torch.
And with the fervor of his crazy passion, he’ll surpass me in numerous ways. I can only hope to be as devoted to this cause as Jeremy Writer has always been.
But I don’t say any of that because he’s already coping with too much pressure for a fractured mind. If mine has little spider-webbing cracks, Jeremy’s has a cliff with a ledge, and a deep chasm of a voided nothing begging to him to take a final leap.
So instead I say, “I want you to take a deep breath, and realize that we need you, but we can’t get anywhere with you like this.”
“Like what, Crystal? Like what? Crazy? A lunatic? That’s me. Pissed off and absolutely losing my ever-loving mind! That’s all I have to offer. Sure, your doctor may have juiced me back to life, but he can’t make me me again. And that’s who you are looking for to write all of this. The old me. I’m not able to sit down and write, or even sit still long enough to make you happy. Trust me. I’ve tried.”
I keep my voice level. Calm. “I hear you, Jeremy, I do. Don’t you think I understand it better than anyone? You’ve been purged what? Twice. I was purged three times.”
He stops. He slumps in his posture. “You’re right. God. I know. You’re right!”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s any better or worse than this. Each time is hard, Jeremy. But it gets better.” His hands are shaking. The shaking is a new thing I’ll have to ask the doc about. “But, listen, I never went into that dark hole you did. I never crossed over. That must make it harder. I get it. I do. I’ll be patient. Haven’t I already?”
He sits down. Defeated. “Yes. Yes, you have.”
“We can do this,” I say, taking his hand. We both stare at our linked fingers and then Jeremy pulls away.
Not because he doesn’t care for me. He does.
But because he’s too ashamed of what he’s become. A shell of a man.
I just want him better. But for now, I’ll settle for…
“Jeremy, promise me you will write something today.”
And I get up, and I leave him to it.
Chapter 10
Crystal
“Why don’t you return to the city and fight, Crystal?”
I give the doctor a half smile.
“They remain in the dark,” he says. “You can show them the way.”
“How?” I shrug with a sigh. I’m weary because Jeremy is weary. “I’m in the dark myself. We are all lost at this point. And lost people don’t argue together in the darkness, you find the switch first.”
I can tell he’s amused even if that stone-cold face doesn’t show it. How close we’ve grown over this time of working together against the Authority. He’s saved so many of our lives. Have I ever thanked him?
“And how are you going to do that?” he asks.
I’ve learned about him. How he thinks. He does not give answers, he lets you reveal the answers to yourself.
“I’m not.” I jab a thumb toward Jeremy’s cell. “He is.”
“You put a lot of faith in Jeremy.”
I sigh and nod. “A blessing and a curse, I suppose. You’ve never felt he was the one to turn it around, did you?”<
br />
“I didn’t have to. You did. I saved him for you. For what you seem to need to get by.”
I hold my breath. Is it true? Has Jeremy been writing to inspire me alone? No. I’ve seen it. The words make the people rise up. I can’t forget the way it happened last time. It started in the prisons, with prisoners passing his pamphlets back and forth with the words from his speech.
They’d struck first.
It was mayhem.
It was chaos.
It was wonderful.
The doctor gives me a pointed look. His most expressive I’ve seen. “It wasn’t so long ago that I put that same amount of faith in you and you rose to the challenge. It was incredible to see such a young girl fight the way she did for a world she never really remembered but, you were told there was freedom, it was out there, that you could grab it.”
“And I’ve been bullshitting ever since.”
He doesn’t smile. It’s not the doctor’s style to smile
“Tell me, when they purged you, what did you think about, Crystal?”
I shift one foot to the other and back again. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone hanging there, no doubt facing their last moments as themselves, what did you think about?”
I can’t keep looking at his eyes. The images flash and I physically flinch feeling it all over again.
“Anthem,” I say, but I’m not here, not really. He’s triggered the feeling of my flesh ripping from my own weight on the hooks. “The people. The ones I’d soon turn on, turn in, and lock up or kill myself.”
This time he smiles with his eyes. “That’s my girl.”
The doctor leaves but he doesn’t see the lingering tremble that runs over my body. He doesn’t see how I use the wall to steady myself as the pain and anguish and fear, return anew. The will I’d had to use to live, to keep my sanity, to not become a guard dog for the authority, it had taken every bit of me to remain… me.
I’d been about to give up many times. But the first time is always hardest. I’d been thrown into a cell, Jeremy and my plans foiled. The early days were sloppy.
I’d laid curled around my injured arm groaning. Wondering what the others saw when they looked at me. My cheeks had puffed in and out, and my bowels had cramped in threat. Everything was misery.
The sounds. The smells. Pure and unadulterated misery…
Another round at first light with the guards has me dry heaving over the stone floor. Other purgers next to me scoot away, afraid my stomach will find something to toss up. I wipe a hand over my face and fight from breaking down.
I’m not afraid to look like a sissy, not in front of these, they’ve all emptied their guts, cried their tears, buckets-full, and they’ve all prayed to---cursed God, and lastly, now they’re silent. I’m moving toward the silent part myself. But not before I’ve let out a string of vile curses against the Authority for beating me so bloody that I can’t feel the left side of my face. I’m certain there’s permanent damage.
I know there will be scars.
I’m not even close to vain, but a person, woman or man, doesn’t want their enemy to mar them beyond recognition no matter how tough they are. It’s a reminder that they lost every time they look at themselves.
No matter. I’m dead anyway. The living kind of dead.
The beatings aren’t even the worst of it. Soon, they’ll string me up with hooks from the ceiling in the big room, and drain my blood out, poison it, and put it back. Spider venom is what they say, just enough to dull your senses and make you one of theirs - forever.
Then, when we’ve given up our souls, they dress us up in their black outfits, their helmets to hide our vacant eyes and evil grimace, and we march to the tune of the Authority for all of eternity.
They say you live forever.
They say you can’t come back.
They say you have no soul.
I say I’d rather die.
“Too bad they don’t let us kill ourselves, huh?”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud. I look across the dank cell to find a man leaned against the other side. Must be twenty while the rest of us still hold onto our teens. He’s got gray eyes and dark, sweaty hair; Native American. Without being pale and sick, he’d no doubt have skin darker than mine.
His eyes slide over me like cold steel, he’s not given up, and it rallies my spine.
“I’m Phillip,” he says.
“Crystal.”
He gives a soft laugh. “I know who you are.”
My gaze snaps to his.
“You and that other one,” he says. “The one with the technicolor eyes who got in here over some pamphlets, right?”
He mentions eyes while his glitter in the darkness.
“Jeremy?” I ask. “Have you seen him?”
Phillip spits to the side. “Would it matter? He’s one of them.”
I jump forward, my chains catching and yanking me back to land on my bum arm, making me grunt. “He’s not,” I pant. “He’s never been. He risked his life for the cause.”
“Shut it.” Phillip turns panicked. “They’ll hear you!”
“Let them,” I say staring straight into his gaze. “Maybe they’ll kill me. And I can be free of this. Dead before this monstrous experiment!” I scream toward the door and the prisoners shrink away from the crazy one.
The door swings open and the guards rush in, batons up, and that’s the last thing I see before shiny metal lands cold on my jaw.
Chapter 11
Crystal
I wake feeling no worse and no better, but I won’t be yelling anymore tonight. Phillip is the first thing I see, his shadow moving, checking, first the door then me, then the door again, and then lastly the window where the moon pours in unconvinced of the power of men.
But I am no man.
I sit up and spit the blood out. I want to ask how he got out of his chains but my jaw is only partially working. Some loose teeth are payment for my shit idea of yelling at the guards. The contents of this room to them are nothing but bags of flesh to add to their league of slaves. Being a slave while conscious is bad enough, but blindly bound, willing even, to do the Cromwell’s bidding, is what keeps me fighting.
I sit up and stare at the only awake cell-mate. Phillip’s eyes glow in the darkness and I remember the one known description of such a convict with the description of that type: “The wolf,” I whisper.
The gray turns to slits confirming my suspicion.
“It’s true,” I mutter through a locked jaw. “I can’t believe it. The wolf is right here in a cell with me.” I try to hide the awe in my voice, but I can’t.
My arms pop up with chills. It’s a shock to me that he could be brought down, just like me. If we two are in here, who’s out there keeping up the rebellion?
I fight back the feeling of dread. If the wolf is here, then the uprising has gone soft or… is gone altogether.
“But how?” I ask.
His shackles shift as he toys with them. At first, I think he won’t answer, but then his deep voice says, “I did like you, Crystal. Skull leader. I did just like you and fell for one of those augmented monsters with the perfect everything. A loser from section, just like you, trying to reach for the stars, and now burned here same as you.”
He’s wrong about me. They always are. “Jeremy is in here with me. It’s not the same.”
“Is he? How do you know?”
I swallow the doubt. Jeremy couldn’t have betrayed me. He has as much reason to fight against the Authority as I do no matter how rich his family is… or who they might be.
“I know.”
I sense his shrug. “Fine.”
I have so many questions bubbling to the surface, but the room is still swaying from my knock to the head.
It could be worse, I suppose. If I go down, I do so in good company. The wolf has caused more trouble for the Authority single-handedly than any of the Skulls put together. For every nick we gave the leaders, he gave them a bla
ck eye. They feared him more than they feared the burning hell where they’d all go. They fear him because he seems inhuman. The eyes are the most telling and now I get it because he’s no ordinary person. And here he is, brought down to the mortalness, being purged, just like me.
I look at the floor for answers and he sighs seeing my thoughts in the shape of my shoulders.
“It’s not so bad,” he says with a listlessness. “We’ll be martyrs, you and I.”
I sniff. “Martyrs die. They go away. They don’t march willingly to kill the people who followed them, trusted them. They pass on. Ignorant of the things after. They don’t even know if they made a difference. But at least if you die, you don’t do what we’ll do.”
He shifts again, and I’m thinking he shrugs a lot. “I don’t have any followers,” he says.
I glance up sharply. “Yes, you do. The lore of the wolf spreads like wildfire, the Skulls follow your every move, you are a hero to them, and if they think you can go down, it will be bad for morale. Your bravery is well known.”
“Ah, a leader even in chains. I knew I’d like you. So, what got you into this, anyway? Being a rebel is a hard life.”
He doesn’t say, “For a girl.” And he doesn’t have to. Heard that plenty. But it still burns.
“Nothing got me into it.”
“Of course not. You just risk your life and sanity for the pure joy. Maybe it’s the thrill. You an adrenaline junky?”
I hiss in pain from tensing up. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Touchy touchy. So, it’s the fight itself, huh? You just like beating up against anything trying to take you to your knees, is that it?”
Is that innuendo? Is the wolf flirting with me? Here?
I start laughing. It’s a morbid sound.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he says. “I haven’t seen the light of day for two months, and a girl for six.”