Tomorrow's Gone Season 2, page 11
“Hey.” A grunt as he sat.
Elijah and Joe both gave him a nod.
“Don’t feel bad about not stabbing the girl. I don’t think I could’ve done it either. Certainly not against her sister.” He turned, pushing his hair aside to reveal a puckered scar where his eye should have been.
“She did that to you?” Elijah asked.
He shook his head. “The guards did when we both refused to fight.”
“Damn.” Joe whistled.
Elijah looked around for either Whitney or Annette, but didn’t see them at any of the tables, so he asked the guys.
Joe shook his head. “They break up our meal times in shifts. Keep us on our toes, to make sure we don’t get too close.”
Elijah stared at the bulldog-looking guard who’d roughed him up. The jerk stared back at him and winked.
“Look away,” warned The Light.
“Does anyone ever die in these fights?” Elijah asked.
“They’ll step in, but most of the time it’s already too late. You can get Ghost or—”
“Ghost?”
“Short guy at the end of the table to our left. He’s fucking crazy.”
Elijah turned to glance at a short, skinny, extremely pale young man with a shaved head and poorly done tattoos all over his body. He had a permanent scowl and was sitting at the end of the table with two spaces between him and the nearest prisoner, eating with his arms around his tray and shoulders hunched, like a hyena protecting its meat.
“If you get in a cage with him, kill him as fast as you can.”
“What’s his power?” Elijah asked.
“Electricity.”
“What’s yours?”
“Quiet.”
“What?” Elijah said, looking around, hearing that as a warning.
“I move very, very quietly. Even if I’m running.”
Elijah nodded.
“Yours?”
“I move fast. I’d totally trade it for quiet, though.”
“Well, I’m pretty damned slow if that makes you feel any better. Name’s Max, by the way.”
Elijah reached out, shook his hand, and felt a flood of memories — Max as a child running from bullies, crying in his bed after The Event, missing his cousin.
Max yanked his hand away. “What the fuck, man?”
“I’m sorry,” Elijah said. “That’s never happened be—”
“Don’t you ever fucking do that again!” Max stood, grabbed his tray, and glared down at him.
Then he left their table.
Joe looked at Elijah, eyebrows raised. “What happened?”
“It was Pascal’s power before I entered him. I guess some of it transferred with me.”
“I … I dunno. I saw his memories.”
“You’ve got two powers now? While I still don’t have any?” Joe shook his head. “That shit is not fair.”
“Shh, keep it down. I don’t need them knowing.”
Elijah wondered if he was telepathic now. If so, maybe he could warn Joe, without having to worry about anyone overhearing him.
They’re going to make us fight soon. I’m going to have to stab you. But they will save you after I do. Trust me, he thought while staring into his friend’s dark eyes.
Joe stared back, his expression blank.
Yo, Joe. Can you hear me in your head?
Just think an answer … or nod.
But Joe just kept looking at him, eyebrows furrowed. “You all right, man?”
“Sorry.” Elijah gave him an awkward smile. “Guess I got lost in thought.”
“So, what did you see in Max’s memories?”
“Nothing important.”
But he felt the man’s shame wafting off of him in waves, even from two tables away. Elijah wished he could tell him not to worry. Anyone would be sad after losing loved ones in The Event. And while Elijah had never run from a fight, that was due to stubborn stupidity more than bravery.
Two of the guards lined the prisoners up after dinner and escorted them back to their cell. The line came to a halt at the double doors where the stationed guard started talking to the one leading the line.
“Change of plans! We’ve got another battle!”
Shit. They’re doing it now!
Elijah moved closer to Joe and whispered, “They’re going to make us fight.”
“What?” Joe whispered back.
“Just do whatever they say. They tell you to stab me, then stab me.”
“Are you gonna stab me?”
“Yes, but don’t worry. They won’t let either of us die.”
“How do you—”
“They need me. And I need you, so—”
“Quiet!” a guard barked behind them.
Elijah turned to see Captain Poulter himself.
“Well, look who’s breaking the rules yet again. Seems some people never learn.”
“Sorry,” Joe said.
Poulter ignored him. “Since you two can’t obey even the simplest rules, you will be fighting one another.”
Elijah bit his tongue and feigned surprise.
Poulter smiled. “This time maybe you’ll find your balls, kid.”
Eighteen
Elijah Freeman
Elijah and Joe stood across from one another in the cage as prisoners and guards gathered to watch.
More of both this time, including ones he’d never seen, meaning the guards had likely gathered everybody to watch. Whitney looked at him with an expression that seemed to loosely orbit apology. Annette met his eyes and Elijah thought he saw her trying to say something, though whatever it might have been lost amid the captain shouting over a bullhorn.
“Two among us do not believe our rules apply to them. We have the return of a crowd favorite: the boy who couldn’t even fight off a little girl, Elijah Freeman. Son of disgraced Mayor Richmond Freeman — a traitor to his people and his wife.”
Elijah was on fire inside. He wanted to defend his father, and shove the bullhorn down the captain’s throat.
“Same rules as before. You will both be given a weapon to battle with. And this time, Elijah, I suggest you use it.”
Elijah could feel his friend’s anxiety as Joe looked up at the red box above him with his jaw hanging low. This wasn’t a fight in their Cadet training. This was for real.
Elijah tried to send him a message:
Everything will be fine. Just do what they say. If I hurt you it’ll be something they can fix. Something I can heal, even if they don’t.
But he neither heard nor felt a reply.
“Whichever of you walks out alive gets to live another day. The fight shall commence in five …” Poulter started.
Joe’s eyes were wide and scared as Elijah met them.
“Four … three …”
Elijah’s stomach felt like it was on the edge of a high ledge, staring down into a bottomless abyss.
“Two …”
Elijah tried to swallow a ball of nerves.
“One! Open the boxes!”
His stomach plunged as a pair of knives clattered on the floor.
Joe was frozen. Elijah didn’t want to move first.
Poulter shouted. “One of you better start fighting or we’ll kill both of you!”
Elijah nodded at Joe. It’s okay. We’ll be okay.
Joe bent down and grabbed his blade.
Elijah dropped to the floor, snatched the remaining knife as Joe charged.
Instincts took over.
As Joe came at him in a wide arc, Elijah allowed him to get a swipe that sliced into his left arm.
Elijah acted like it hurt worse than it did, and fell to the floor.
He was still there as Joe spun around and came back at him.
Elijah lined up to stab his friend in the calf. He could put Joe down without him bleeding out. Maybe make it look like a good enough blow for someone to come and stop the fight, assuming Joe acted injured enough.
Their eyes met and Elijah thought, Trust me.
He aimed up with the knife. But Joe tripped and fell forward before Elijah’s speedy reflexes could pull back.
The blade buried itself in his chest. Joe’s eyes widened as he gasped in sudden agony.
No!
Elijah let go, immediately at his friend’s side as he fell to the floor. Joe looked up at the guards, waiting for them to call off the fight and come get him.
They stared instead. Then Poulter was back on the bullhorn.
“Finish him!”
Elijah stared back at the captain in disbelief. “What?”
“FINISH HIM!”
Elijah looked down at Joe’s wide eyes welling with tears.
Joe nodded and whispered, “Do what they say.”
“No.” Elijah shook his head, pleading. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then they’ll kill you, and my dad.”
His eyes burned with hot tears. Elijah held the blade to Joe’s throat.
The Light said, “You have to.”
Joe lifted his chin, exposing his neck. “Do it.”
“No.” Elijah dropped the blade and placed his hands — already warming to their healing touch — on Joe’s wound.
“What are you doing?” Poulter shouted.
“I won’t let him die!”
Two guards came at the gate.
Elijah pressed harder, closing his eyes, focusing all of his healing powers on Joe.
He heard the men coming at him, but he couldn’t afford to open his eyes and break focus.
Something hit him hard across the head.
Elijah fell back, his skull struck by lightning.
He shot back up, lurching toward his blade as one of the two guards moved toward Joe with his sword drawn.
“No!” Elijah shouted, his hand seizing the weapon.
But the guard drove his sword through Joe’s chest.
Elijah screamed, raising his knife and thrusting it into the closest guard’s gut.
The guard staggered back as Elijah claimed his sword.
He gripped the hilt and went at the man who murdered his friend.
But Elijah was stopped in his tracks as an electric jolt paralyzed and then knocked him to the floor.
He looked up and saw Ghost from the lunchroom, entering the cage, smiling as he looked down at Elijah.
Blue and white sparks arced around his hands.
Elijah tried to fight back, but he couldn’t even stand.
“Stay down, dog!” Ghost sent another current at Elijah, a shock that filled his world with pain until only darkness was left.
* * *
TO BE CONTINUED …
Episode 3
Nineteen
Simone Dubois
Simone Dubois looked outside the window of an abandoned house on the Riverside outskirts, sure that she’d just heard a sound outside.
She gripped the hilt of her sword and prepared for Rangers.
But instead of enemies, Simone saw a fox sniffing around the garage by the stables. The fox dipped its mouth to drink from a puddle left by the earlier storm.
Simone didn’t bother shooing it away. Instead, she returned to see her brother, Dom, sitting on the couch and tearing a piece from their last loaf of bread, then shoving it into his mouth and lazily chewing. He stared off blankly, his tired brown eyes looking even sadder than usual.
Dom looked up to see Simone, then grabbed his notepad, found a fresh piece of paper, and wrote, What were you looking at?
“Just a fox. No worries. You should probably try and get some sleep so we can ride to Esther.”
Esther, just southeast of John’s Township, was one of the few villages that still stood strong against the Coalition Cities. It was also fiercely independent. But unlike John’s Township, Esther wasn’t a member of the Coalition Cities, and therefore not forced to concede in political matters. The place had numbers, safety, and a few Alts that had already established a community.
She absentmindedly reached for the ring hanging from her necklace and got a flash of her ex-girlfriend. Kristine had warned Simone that danger was coming when the Registry was created. Then again when she saw that anti-Alt sentiments were reaching a boiling point in places like Hope Springs.
Kristine anticipated that General McTaggart would convince the Coalition Cities to start rounding people up. But Simone had thought that impossible. Surely her girlfriend was being paranoid.
But Kristine thought Simone was naive, especially considering the shit her little brother had gone through just for being different.
“You more than anyone should understand. Come with me to Esther,” she had begged.
But Simone was unyielding. “Sorry, I can’t leave.”
That was a year ago, and there wasn’t a day since that Simone didn’t miss her from the bottom of her deepest place. But Dom did poorly with change. Fifteen years old, ten younger than Simone, he wasn’t the forced-to-grow-up-early toughened teen of the modern apocalypse. He might as well have still been a boy of ten.
Dom had once been perfectly normal. As a baby, he was as verbal as any other infant. But Simone gained a supernatural power in the aftermath of The Event while her baby brother lost the simple ability to speak. Life wasn’t just unfair, it was a brutal sadist.
Dom was mute, and painfully shy. But he wasn’t slow. Her brother was whip smart, about some things. Just not survival or street smarts; in that case he was a helpless little kid. And Simone, as his only living family member, was responsible for his welfare.
Simone had wanted to go with Kristine, but her brother had found acceptance from the people in Riverside. He even had a job, fishing with Old Johnny. And, unlike the stories she’d heard about Alts being shunned in other cities, that attitude hadn’t reared its ugly head in Riverside. Citizens here seemed to appreciate Simone, hiring her to find lost items, pets, and people. She was good at her job and people respected her. Most important, they were kind to Dom.
But that changed in recent months after the Ruin Storm had taken two kids from his village, along with their father and uncle. People thought the Alts were all bad. They even drove out The Wolf, despite his helping them scavenge in The Ruins, and saving more than a few people in recent months from what would have been certain doom.
People she’d known for a decade started looking upon Simone and her brother with fear. After the attack on Hope Springs two weeks ago those same people began to actively avoid them. Even Old Johnny didn’t want Dom working with him anymore, and that had bruised her brother’s fragile heart.
Simone learned that the general was rounding up Alts in other cities. Suddenly all the things Kristine had been warning about, the things that seemed like they couldn’t happen there, felt uncomfortably possible. Writing on the walls Simone had been blind to, or ignoring, for too long were now red-letter warnings, all caps and printed in blood: RUN!
An order had gone out earlier in the day for everyone to remain in Riverside, except specifically cleared workers. Supposedly a lockdown for their protection.
But Simone knew otherwise. So last night she packed light, took her brother, and fled on their horses.
It wasn’t long before they saw the first Ranger on the road. They dashed into the woods and kept going until they’d found this house.
Now she was waiting for night when it would be easier to travel under cover of darkness. Simone could see well in the dark. And it would be easier to spot the Rangers, as they usually carried lanterns when they rode at night.
Will Kristine let us stay with her? Dom wrote.
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen her once since she left and it didn’t go great. But I’m sure she’ll help us find someplace. Don’t worry … we always find a way.”
She touched the ring on her necklace again, feeling Kristine’s presence, still in Esther. So close yet so far, but not for long.
Simone sometimes felt Kristine’s emotions as if the ring was a conduit. She longed to communicate, not just feel her. But she was a glorified bloodhound, not a telepath.
If Simone could broadcast herself across those miles, she would tell Kristine how much she loved her, how sorry she was, and how much she still missed her every day.
Maybe tomorrow she could tell her everything in person.
Her brother rubbed at his red eyes and yawned.
“You know I won’t let you down, Dom.”
He nodded, though no smile found his face or lit his tired eyes.
Simone hated seeing him like this, and being uprooted from their home, but staying any longer would have left them in danger. Simone because she was an Alt, and Dom because he had no one else to look after him.
“Please, get some sleep.”
Dom pointed to Simone and held up two fingers: You too.
“I can’t yet.” She shook her head. “I need to check on something. I’ll be right back.”
His eyes widened as he furiously scribbled on his pad. Go with!
“Rest. We didn’t sleep much last night, and I need you alert tonight.”
Dom nodded, yawning.
“I won’t be long. I just need to get you some medicine.”
He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. To Simone’s surprise he was sleeping in minutes.
She grabbed her sword, went to the garage, led her horse outside, then closed and locked the garage door. She shoved the keys into her pocket and mounted the horse, a spotted white and brown Appaloosa named Butterscotch.
She was headed west to a small village called Nowhere — so off the map and deep into the woods that only bandits and addicts knew of the place.
Despite the danger, Simone knew the people well enough. She was their best client, using the Pillar to calm her brother’s seizures. The leaves were harder to come by further south, especially since the cities had banned the substance for all but the monks who used it in their ceremonies. Even Esther, a place that loved to disregard the rules, was staunchly anti-Pillar. Simone had tried to go into the Ruins a few times to harvest her own Pillar, but it was too dangerous. She didn’t want to risk getting turned into a Lost One.
Simone stayed off the main roads, navigating Butterscotch through overgrown paths in the forest. Her tracking abilities didn’t just extend to sniffing out her targets. She could also sense obstacles in her path, like when a tree had fallen or the brush was too thick for passage. It was as if a part of herself had connected with the forest itself, crawled along its floor, and gave her a sense for what was coming, what to avoid, and how to find the clearest path to her destination.
Elijah and Joe both gave him a nod.
“Don’t feel bad about not stabbing the girl. I don’t think I could’ve done it either. Certainly not against her sister.” He turned, pushing his hair aside to reveal a puckered scar where his eye should have been.
“She did that to you?” Elijah asked.
He shook his head. “The guards did when we both refused to fight.”
“Damn.” Joe whistled.
Elijah looked around for either Whitney or Annette, but didn’t see them at any of the tables, so he asked the guys.
Joe shook his head. “They break up our meal times in shifts. Keep us on our toes, to make sure we don’t get too close.”
Elijah stared at the bulldog-looking guard who’d roughed him up. The jerk stared back at him and winked.
“Look away,” warned The Light.
“Does anyone ever die in these fights?” Elijah asked.
“They’ll step in, but most of the time it’s already too late. You can get Ghost or—”
“Ghost?”
“Short guy at the end of the table to our left. He’s fucking crazy.”
Elijah turned to glance at a short, skinny, extremely pale young man with a shaved head and poorly done tattoos all over his body. He had a permanent scowl and was sitting at the end of the table with two spaces between him and the nearest prisoner, eating with his arms around his tray and shoulders hunched, like a hyena protecting its meat.
“If you get in a cage with him, kill him as fast as you can.”
“What’s his power?” Elijah asked.
“Electricity.”
“What’s yours?”
“Quiet.”
“What?” Elijah said, looking around, hearing that as a warning.
“I move very, very quietly. Even if I’m running.”
Elijah nodded.
“Yours?”
“I move fast. I’d totally trade it for quiet, though.”
“Well, I’m pretty damned slow if that makes you feel any better. Name’s Max, by the way.”
Elijah reached out, shook his hand, and felt a flood of memories — Max as a child running from bullies, crying in his bed after The Event, missing his cousin.
Max yanked his hand away. “What the fuck, man?”
“I’m sorry,” Elijah said. “That’s never happened be—”
“Don’t you ever fucking do that again!” Max stood, grabbed his tray, and glared down at him.
Then he left their table.
Joe looked at Elijah, eyebrows raised. “What happened?”
“It was Pascal’s power before I entered him. I guess some of it transferred with me.”
“I … I dunno. I saw his memories.”
“You’ve got two powers now? While I still don’t have any?” Joe shook his head. “That shit is not fair.”
“Shh, keep it down. I don’t need them knowing.”
Elijah wondered if he was telepathic now. If so, maybe he could warn Joe, without having to worry about anyone overhearing him.
They’re going to make us fight soon. I’m going to have to stab you. But they will save you after I do. Trust me, he thought while staring into his friend’s dark eyes.
Joe stared back, his expression blank.
Yo, Joe. Can you hear me in your head?
Just think an answer … or nod.
But Joe just kept looking at him, eyebrows furrowed. “You all right, man?”
“Sorry.” Elijah gave him an awkward smile. “Guess I got lost in thought.”
“So, what did you see in Max’s memories?”
“Nothing important.”
But he felt the man’s shame wafting off of him in waves, even from two tables away. Elijah wished he could tell him not to worry. Anyone would be sad after losing loved ones in The Event. And while Elijah had never run from a fight, that was due to stubborn stupidity more than bravery.
Two of the guards lined the prisoners up after dinner and escorted them back to their cell. The line came to a halt at the double doors where the stationed guard started talking to the one leading the line.
“Change of plans! We’ve got another battle!”
Shit. They’re doing it now!
Elijah moved closer to Joe and whispered, “They’re going to make us fight.”
“What?” Joe whispered back.
“Just do whatever they say. They tell you to stab me, then stab me.”
“Are you gonna stab me?”
“Yes, but don’t worry. They won’t let either of us die.”
“How do you—”
“They need me. And I need you, so—”
“Quiet!” a guard barked behind them.
Elijah turned to see Captain Poulter himself.
“Well, look who’s breaking the rules yet again. Seems some people never learn.”
“Sorry,” Joe said.
Poulter ignored him. “Since you two can’t obey even the simplest rules, you will be fighting one another.”
Elijah bit his tongue and feigned surprise.
Poulter smiled. “This time maybe you’ll find your balls, kid.”
Eighteen
Elijah Freeman
Elijah and Joe stood across from one another in the cage as prisoners and guards gathered to watch.
More of both this time, including ones he’d never seen, meaning the guards had likely gathered everybody to watch. Whitney looked at him with an expression that seemed to loosely orbit apology. Annette met his eyes and Elijah thought he saw her trying to say something, though whatever it might have been lost amid the captain shouting over a bullhorn.
“Two among us do not believe our rules apply to them. We have the return of a crowd favorite: the boy who couldn’t even fight off a little girl, Elijah Freeman. Son of disgraced Mayor Richmond Freeman — a traitor to his people and his wife.”
Elijah was on fire inside. He wanted to defend his father, and shove the bullhorn down the captain’s throat.
“Same rules as before. You will both be given a weapon to battle with. And this time, Elijah, I suggest you use it.”
Elijah could feel his friend’s anxiety as Joe looked up at the red box above him with his jaw hanging low. This wasn’t a fight in their Cadet training. This was for real.
Elijah tried to send him a message:
Everything will be fine. Just do what they say. If I hurt you it’ll be something they can fix. Something I can heal, even if they don’t.
But he neither heard nor felt a reply.
“Whichever of you walks out alive gets to live another day. The fight shall commence in five …” Poulter started.
Joe’s eyes were wide and scared as Elijah met them.
“Four … three …”
Elijah’s stomach felt like it was on the edge of a high ledge, staring down into a bottomless abyss.
“Two …”
Elijah tried to swallow a ball of nerves.
“One! Open the boxes!”
His stomach plunged as a pair of knives clattered on the floor.
Joe was frozen. Elijah didn’t want to move first.
Poulter shouted. “One of you better start fighting or we’ll kill both of you!”
Elijah nodded at Joe. It’s okay. We’ll be okay.
Joe bent down and grabbed his blade.
Elijah dropped to the floor, snatched the remaining knife as Joe charged.
Instincts took over.
As Joe came at him in a wide arc, Elijah allowed him to get a swipe that sliced into his left arm.
Elijah acted like it hurt worse than it did, and fell to the floor.
He was still there as Joe spun around and came back at him.
Elijah lined up to stab his friend in the calf. He could put Joe down without him bleeding out. Maybe make it look like a good enough blow for someone to come and stop the fight, assuming Joe acted injured enough.
Their eyes met and Elijah thought, Trust me.
He aimed up with the knife. But Joe tripped and fell forward before Elijah’s speedy reflexes could pull back.
The blade buried itself in his chest. Joe’s eyes widened as he gasped in sudden agony.
No!
Elijah let go, immediately at his friend’s side as he fell to the floor. Joe looked up at the guards, waiting for them to call off the fight and come get him.
They stared instead. Then Poulter was back on the bullhorn.
“Finish him!”
Elijah stared back at the captain in disbelief. “What?”
“FINISH HIM!”
Elijah looked down at Joe’s wide eyes welling with tears.
Joe nodded and whispered, “Do what they say.”
“No.” Elijah shook his head, pleading. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then they’ll kill you, and my dad.”
His eyes burned with hot tears. Elijah held the blade to Joe’s throat.
The Light said, “You have to.”
Joe lifted his chin, exposing his neck. “Do it.”
“No.” Elijah dropped the blade and placed his hands — already warming to their healing touch — on Joe’s wound.
“What are you doing?” Poulter shouted.
“I won’t let him die!”
Two guards came at the gate.
Elijah pressed harder, closing his eyes, focusing all of his healing powers on Joe.
He heard the men coming at him, but he couldn’t afford to open his eyes and break focus.
Something hit him hard across the head.
Elijah fell back, his skull struck by lightning.
He shot back up, lurching toward his blade as one of the two guards moved toward Joe with his sword drawn.
“No!” Elijah shouted, his hand seizing the weapon.
But the guard drove his sword through Joe’s chest.
Elijah screamed, raising his knife and thrusting it into the closest guard’s gut.
The guard staggered back as Elijah claimed his sword.
He gripped the hilt and went at the man who murdered his friend.
But Elijah was stopped in his tracks as an electric jolt paralyzed and then knocked him to the floor.
He looked up and saw Ghost from the lunchroom, entering the cage, smiling as he looked down at Elijah.
Blue and white sparks arced around his hands.
Elijah tried to fight back, but he couldn’t even stand.
“Stay down, dog!” Ghost sent another current at Elijah, a shock that filled his world with pain until only darkness was left.
* * *
TO BE CONTINUED …
Episode 3
Nineteen
Simone Dubois
Simone Dubois looked outside the window of an abandoned house on the Riverside outskirts, sure that she’d just heard a sound outside.
She gripped the hilt of her sword and prepared for Rangers.
But instead of enemies, Simone saw a fox sniffing around the garage by the stables. The fox dipped its mouth to drink from a puddle left by the earlier storm.
Simone didn’t bother shooing it away. Instead, she returned to see her brother, Dom, sitting on the couch and tearing a piece from their last loaf of bread, then shoving it into his mouth and lazily chewing. He stared off blankly, his tired brown eyes looking even sadder than usual.
Dom looked up to see Simone, then grabbed his notepad, found a fresh piece of paper, and wrote, What were you looking at?
“Just a fox. No worries. You should probably try and get some sleep so we can ride to Esther.”
Esther, just southeast of John’s Township, was one of the few villages that still stood strong against the Coalition Cities. It was also fiercely independent. But unlike John’s Township, Esther wasn’t a member of the Coalition Cities, and therefore not forced to concede in political matters. The place had numbers, safety, and a few Alts that had already established a community.
She absentmindedly reached for the ring hanging from her necklace and got a flash of her ex-girlfriend. Kristine had warned Simone that danger was coming when the Registry was created. Then again when she saw that anti-Alt sentiments were reaching a boiling point in places like Hope Springs.
Kristine anticipated that General McTaggart would convince the Coalition Cities to start rounding people up. But Simone had thought that impossible. Surely her girlfriend was being paranoid.
But Kristine thought Simone was naive, especially considering the shit her little brother had gone through just for being different.
“You more than anyone should understand. Come with me to Esther,” she had begged.
But Simone was unyielding. “Sorry, I can’t leave.”
That was a year ago, and there wasn’t a day since that Simone didn’t miss her from the bottom of her deepest place. But Dom did poorly with change. Fifteen years old, ten younger than Simone, he wasn’t the forced-to-grow-up-early toughened teen of the modern apocalypse. He might as well have still been a boy of ten.
Dom had once been perfectly normal. As a baby, he was as verbal as any other infant. But Simone gained a supernatural power in the aftermath of The Event while her baby brother lost the simple ability to speak. Life wasn’t just unfair, it was a brutal sadist.
Dom was mute, and painfully shy. But he wasn’t slow. Her brother was whip smart, about some things. Just not survival or street smarts; in that case he was a helpless little kid. And Simone, as his only living family member, was responsible for his welfare.
Simone had wanted to go with Kristine, but her brother had found acceptance from the people in Riverside. He even had a job, fishing with Old Johnny. And, unlike the stories she’d heard about Alts being shunned in other cities, that attitude hadn’t reared its ugly head in Riverside. Citizens here seemed to appreciate Simone, hiring her to find lost items, pets, and people. She was good at her job and people respected her. Most important, they were kind to Dom.
But that changed in recent months after the Ruin Storm had taken two kids from his village, along with their father and uncle. People thought the Alts were all bad. They even drove out The Wolf, despite his helping them scavenge in The Ruins, and saving more than a few people in recent months from what would have been certain doom.
People she’d known for a decade started looking upon Simone and her brother with fear. After the attack on Hope Springs two weeks ago those same people began to actively avoid them. Even Old Johnny didn’t want Dom working with him anymore, and that had bruised her brother’s fragile heart.
Simone learned that the general was rounding up Alts in other cities. Suddenly all the things Kristine had been warning about, the things that seemed like they couldn’t happen there, felt uncomfortably possible. Writing on the walls Simone had been blind to, or ignoring, for too long were now red-letter warnings, all caps and printed in blood: RUN!
An order had gone out earlier in the day for everyone to remain in Riverside, except specifically cleared workers. Supposedly a lockdown for their protection.
But Simone knew otherwise. So last night she packed light, took her brother, and fled on their horses.
It wasn’t long before they saw the first Ranger on the road. They dashed into the woods and kept going until they’d found this house.
Now she was waiting for night when it would be easier to travel under cover of darkness. Simone could see well in the dark. And it would be easier to spot the Rangers, as they usually carried lanterns when they rode at night.
Will Kristine let us stay with her? Dom wrote.
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen her once since she left and it didn’t go great. But I’m sure she’ll help us find someplace. Don’t worry … we always find a way.”
She touched the ring on her necklace again, feeling Kristine’s presence, still in Esther. So close yet so far, but not for long.
Simone sometimes felt Kristine’s emotions as if the ring was a conduit. She longed to communicate, not just feel her. But she was a glorified bloodhound, not a telepath.
If Simone could broadcast herself across those miles, she would tell Kristine how much she loved her, how sorry she was, and how much she still missed her every day.
Maybe tomorrow she could tell her everything in person.
Her brother rubbed at his red eyes and yawned.
“You know I won’t let you down, Dom.”
He nodded, though no smile found his face or lit his tired eyes.
Simone hated seeing him like this, and being uprooted from their home, but staying any longer would have left them in danger. Simone because she was an Alt, and Dom because he had no one else to look after him.
“Please, get some sleep.”
Dom pointed to Simone and held up two fingers: You too.
“I can’t yet.” She shook her head. “I need to check on something. I’ll be right back.”
His eyes widened as he furiously scribbled on his pad. Go with!
“Rest. We didn’t sleep much last night, and I need you alert tonight.”
Dom nodded, yawning.
“I won’t be long. I just need to get you some medicine.”
He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. To Simone’s surprise he was sleeping in minutes.
She grabbed her sword, went to the garage, led her horse outside, then closed and locked the garage door. She shoved the keys into her pocket and mounted the horse, a spotted white and brown Appaloosa named Butterscotch.
She was headed west to a small village called Nowhere — so off the map and deep into the woods that only bandits and addicts knew of the place.
Despite the danger, Simone knew the people well enough. She was their best client, using the Pillar to calm her brother’s seizures. The leaves were harder to come by further south, especially since the cities had banned the substance for all but the monks who used it in their ceremonies. Even Esther, a place that loved to disregard the rules, was staunchly anti-Pillar. Simone had tried to go into the Ruins a few times to harvest her own Pillar, but it was too dangerous. She didn’t want to risk getting turned into a Lost One.
Simone stayed off the main roads, navigating Butterscotch through overgrown paths in the forest. Her tracking abilities didn’t just extend to sniffing out her targets. She could also sense obstacles in her path, like when a tree had fallen or the brush was too thick for passage. It was as if a part of herself had connected with the forest itself, crawled along its floor, and gave her a sense for what was coming, what to avoid, and how to find the clearest path to her destination.
