I want to turn the handle and just take a peek, but my rules are slowly reinstating themselves and waiting is my biggest one.
I turn with my back to the door, my face to Jesus, and slide down the door. I sit and wait. Patience has kept me alive this long and I won't betray her, or my instincts that tell me to wait. The urge to find Leo is almost driving me through the door. But I know, he won't live if I burst through and they kill me.
I just want my wolf and the smell of the forest. I just want to go home. Oddly enough, I don’t think about the cabin in the woods, when I think of home. That disturbs me a little.
I think about Leo, Anna, Meg, Sarah, Jake and Will, only not in that order. I force them into that order. I think about Will and Jake constantly, but I know Meg and Sarah are my responsibility. Anna is the closest thing, I will ever have to a best friend. I feel warmth in my heart thinking about them. I want to go home and they are the home that my heart recognizes. I don’t need a cabin to hide in. I need my friends. My family.
I need Leo the most. I feel the anger and hatred rising in me. If they have hurt one strand of his fur...
The thought creates rage inside of me. I will skin everyone alive, until I have murdered them all. Even then, I know I will not feel satisfied.
I remember who is looking down on me in the dark and feel my face heating with embarrassment.
"Sorry," I whisper to the frozen God.
I imagine he knows the revenge I want. I imagine, at one point or another, he has felt that want. The want to end the misery of others by ending the lives of their tormentors. Tormentors who hold everyone hostage. I want to ask him how his father has left us to this, but I remember what Meg told me. The evil is us.
In this room his arms are stretched out and his face is smiling. He is offering love, and for that we have stuck him in this dark room where no one looks anymore. Yet, even in the dark, his arms are stretched out. Even in the dark, he offers me something—companionship.
My eyes grow heavy and I let myself relax into the darkness, I don’t think I will ever escape from.
I don’t know how much time has passed. I wake and open my eyes, leaning over. I'm hungrier than I've ever been, but I feel sick. Bile heaves from my lips. I cough as quietly as I can.
I turn and stand using the door again. I click the lock slowly and listen. There is nothing.
I wait an extra second and open the door silently. There is nothing in the hall. The papers are there but the lights don’t flicker. The lights aren’t on. There is a light at the end of the hall, making the rest of it dimly lit.
I squint, but I see nothing.
I take my first steps out into the dim light of the hallway. My feet shuffle along the papers and cold cement. I can't be quiet. As much as I want to move silently, I am too tired.
I lean against the wall and walk clumsily. I need to find Leo. I need water and food. I need so many things. It feels hopeless. I will never find them all. Not all the things I need.
My pockets are still full of fluid bags and the other pocket has my knife I stole. I reach in carefully and take the knife out.
At the end of the hall, I find an open door. The fresh air seems to be coming from there. Inside is a huge set of cement stairs. I cry when I see it. I push myself to the huge stairs and start crawling up them. I force my mind to shut off and climb. I won't let my brain try to let me lie down or tell me I can't climb them all. Like my father said, I am a strong girl. I can run fast and far. I can't let my mind tell me I can't do it.
I just climb.
It's hard and it hurts, but in my mind I am in the forest with Leo. He is standing next to me. My bow is in my fingers. I can feel a slight breeze on my face. I can feel things in the air. Freedom and peace.
The wind starts to smell.
I can smell food and people. I can smell the towns.
My body knows the food is there and it pushes harder. I climb the stairs with ferocity and strength I didn’t know I had left. I can feel the water running down into my parched throat. I can feel the meat between my teeth. I don't even care what kind of meat…just roasted meat that leaves a flame-cooked taste in my mouth.
The light gets brighter and brighter, the higher I climb. When I get to the top of the stairs, I cry harder but my eyes are dry.
There is a huge door. I stumble into it and take the silver handle in my hands. I don’t check what's behind it. I burst through it. I stumble out into an alley. There is a garbage bin beside me. It looks like the ones at the breeder farm.
The building in front of me is huge and broken, like in the cities. The wind is full of smells. People, food, sewage, dust, and city. I remember the smell from before. I remember before. I turn in a circle and realize, I am surrounded.
Broken buildings are everywhere. I am in a real city. A destroyed city.
"No," I whisper and look around, horrified.
I see garbage to my right and cringe. I look down at myself to see the pants I stole are covered in blood and a stain from the pee. I am covered in old, dry blood. I shake my head in a twitch and drop to my knees. I was bleeding from somewhere. The blood on my pants is old and dry. It's brown and gross. My hands are also covered. It's cracked and flaking.
I push myself up and walk along the alley. I don’t see people, but I know the infected live in the cities. I'm like live bait. I wreak of old blood and urine. I am too tired to fight them or run. I grip the knife in my hand and stumble.
I feel a hand on my arm. I swing weakly at the owner. I see a man with an old shopping cart full of paper and blankets. He smiles an old smile.
"Get in," he says.
I start to fall but he puts my arm over his shoulder and pushes me to the cart. I grab the metal with my hands and let him help me in. I don’t understand what he's doing, but I'm tired of walking. I see a red thing flying in the air over me and then I see nothing. There is a red glow all around me.
"Jesus saved me," I say. I don’t know why.
"Relax kid. Just stay down. We're almost home."
Home.
This word means so many different things to me.
The cart rumbles along the ground and I try to imagine what home looks like to him.
Chapter Four
Home is a little room surrounded by cement. It's a quiet little corner where I don’t hear the infected or the looters or the others. He doesn’t smile.
"You made an awful mess kid. The doctor was a pretty important man. They're looking for you." His voice is quiet. He freaks me out.
I blink and stare. I'm lost until I hear it.
"Emma."
My head snaps around. I would get up and run to her too, but I can't move. I'm still hurting in so many ways, but the major ways start to heal the second I see her face.
She rushes me and wraps her skinny arms around me. She buries her face in my hair.
I grip her shaking body, "You're real," I whisper.
She pulls back, her tear-stained face and sparkling blue eyes heal some of the cracks inside of me, "Of course, I never would have left you there. I've been looking for you for weeks."
I flinch, "Sarah, Meg…?"
She cuts me off and smiles weakly, "Only you went missing. You and Leo. Sarah and Meg are at the place we left them, safe." She doesn’t say the retreat. She's being careful around him. She sighs and continues, "I panicked when we couldn’t find you. We assumed you'd been taken. We didn’t know by who, but we saw the trucks leaving."
I nod and try to ignore the shock that’s still paralyzing me. "Marshall." I say softly, eyeballing the man in the corner.
She nods, "Will figured he betrayed you and Leo. Sold you out to the military. We got back to the camp, but Marshall wasn’t there. His friends said that Marshall did it to free the women; you were the one they wanted. You were a danger to the camp and he traded you for healthy normal women." She rolls her eyes, "He's insane."
I nod slowly, it burns and hurts. He traded me for all those other women and their babies.
She smiles, "You okay?"
I want to nod and tell her I am, but I'm not. I can feel it. I let myself be true to my feelings. She is my us. I shake my head and look down.
She wraps her arms around me, "You will be."
My common sense is slowing creeping around in my mind, checking on the facts I have, "Who is he?" I mutter.
She shrugs, "He found me, needed me to help him find a girl. We figured out pretty fast we were looking for the same girl. I had gotten separated from everyone else and had hid. Then he found me, and showed me where to find you. He needed me to pretend to be a nurse, but then the doctor made me leave before we could rescue you." She chuckles softly, "Then of course, you got away on your own. So we assumed you were hiding and waiting for the military to leave. When they did, we were coming to get you. I went one way and he went the other. He found you."
It's not something I would have done. I don’t accept help from strangers. It's the difference between her and I.
He looks around and speaks softly, "We have to stay here a few more days. You're just lucky I got to you first. I looked everywhere for you."
I shake my head in the dim light of the small space. "Who are you?"
"A friend." He picks up a tin and takes a bite.
I glance at Anna but she shakes her head, "You gotta get out of the city."
"Where are we?" I can't tell anything from the small concrete room. It's like a shanty in the towns with board and concrete walls.
"Spokane."
I rub my eyes and try to focus them, "Where?"
Anna laughs, "I said the same thing. We're in Washington, by the West Coast."
I sniffle and wrap my arms around myself, "How did I get here? Why are you helping us? How did all of this happen? Why would Marshall betray me like that? ‘Cause I defied them?"
Anna looks confused, but the man's eyes dart suspiciously. He asks nervously, "What do you remember?"
I shake my head, "Nothing. Marshall betrayed me and then I woke up on the cold, metal table."