I gasped at the horrible thought. Tia needed medical attention, not my resentment. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened to me if I had stood motionless by a tree the first time I’d encountered a Vampire instead of running for my life. I had a pretty good idea, and the image wasn’t pretty.
I would have been drained dry if Jason hadn’t rescued me. But today there was no one to rescue me from the horror that I’d somehow just failed my best friend.
***
I waited with the others for the medic to look at Tia. We didn’t have doctors in Genesis. In our area, none had survived Armageddon. Sometimes we would hear a rumor of a doctor existing somewhere else, in another habitat we would never see. Andon Kenwood, Jason’s father, had been a doctor. A real one. When the monsters had taken over and attacked humanity, Andon’s Wolf pack had been among them.
He described waking up one day to find he’d basically lived in a dream state for thirty-six years year. When he woke, members of his pack awoke, too. The weird thing? None of them had aged a day. Jason had been eight when he’d gone into the trance and eight when he’d woken up. Then he’d started to age again. That meant even though Andon looked like a fifty year old man, he was much older than that. He’d been alive before humanity fell and he’d been a real, medically trained doctor.
Not that any of that would help us with Tia now. I couldn’t help thinking about them. It was like anytime I was left adrift without much to do, my mind went back to their Wolf pack and the things I’d learned there. Truth was, even though it had been brief, I’d been happy with Jason. I think I missed that as much as I missed anything else. Those days had been filled with such sheer joy, brought on by his constant smile and his belief that, despite all evidence to the contrary, all would be well.
Now it looked like at least half of that stuff had been to manipulate me into doing what they wanted. The thought burned in my gut, but it didn’t change my memory of that time or the feelings thinking about it invoked in me.
“Rachel.”
Keith’s voice got my attention, and I looked up to where he stood by the door of the medical tent.
“Come with me.”
He motioned for me to follow him out the door, and I nodded. With a brief glance back at the Lyons, who were huddled around each other in a supportive circle, I followed Keith out of the door, wondering if I was in some kind of trouble.
He waited for me to catch up with him before he led me on in silence away from the tent. When we’d travelled a small distance, he stopped. Turning to regard me, I noticed right away how tired he looked. His eyes were bloodshot and his strawberry-blond hair completely disheveled.
“How are they doing?” His voice sounded strained.
“They’re tense, waiting. The medics aren’t sure they can do anything for her but wait and see, which is frustrating. Carol blames herself—she knew Tia wasn’t ready. She blames Patrick for sending her out.”
I swallowed. I also suspected she blamed me. I’d told her I would try to keep Tia safe, and I hadn’t done a very good job. If I had, she wouldn’t be staring off into space not responding to anyone….
Keith whistled, which grabbed my attention back to the here and now. “That wasn’t your fault. So you can quit blaming yourself, if that’s what you’re doing. She’s alive; a Vampire didn’t bite her. You took down three by yourself to protect her.”
Had I? I only remembered two. Inwardly, I shrugged. Who could keep track anymore?
“Why would she freak out?” My voice was barely above a whisper because my throat ached so badly from the tears I wasn’t shedding. “We’re meant to kill them.”
“No, we can kill them. We’re not necessarily meant to. It’s unfortunate that the presence of one gene determines who must go do the deed.”
He shook his head. The sun was barely coming up over the horizon, and I forced my gaze upwards to watch the show. I hadn’t seen a sunrise before six months ago, and the experience had nearly blinded me at the time. It was nice to be able to see the day come and go without it causing tremendous pain.
“Deacon said something similar.”
“I’m not surprised. Spending his years in cages waiting to be eaten by the monsters probably gave him some perspective.”
A cool wind blew into my cheeks and I shivered in my sweatshirt. I appreciated Keith talking to me like this. I’d felt like a bit of an outsider standing with the Lyons while they waited for news on Tia. I wasn’t family—even if I wanted to be.
“Keith, I have a question.”
It was the question I’d wanted to ask Keith for as long as I’d known him, and never had because he’d always been an authority figure to me. Even though he still was, he intimidated me less. Fighting side by side did that to people.
“Go ahead.”
I cleared my throat. “Why did you leave Scotland? I mean, I know it was to come teach here. But it’s not exactly easy to travel. Was it just for the job?”
Keith nodded, his eyes darting back and forth as he watched the tent city behind me. Finally, he regarded me again.
“No one ever asks me that.”
I raised a hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t intrude. It’s just, I realized I know very little about you; other than you’re a great teacher, a great Warrior, and married to a great lady.”
He grinned, showing the dimples all of us had admired daily when he’d been our teacher. “The last part of that being the most important. Tiffani is a great lady.” He sighed, which quickly turned into a yawn. “I was accused of murdering my brother. I didn’t do it and was acquitted. The man who did it, well, he killed someone else so it became obvious it wasn’t me. However, my family hadn’t believed me. I couldn’t stay there any more. The chance came and I seized the opportunity to take it. The trip was awful. At least one thousand times I thought I was going to die. But I got here.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Of all the scenarios, Keith could have told me, that was not anywhere in my imagination. He’d been accused of killing his brother.
“Shut your mouth, Rachel. You’re going to catch bugs in it if you keep standing there with it hanging open like that.”
I closed my mouth.
“Here’s the thing. I want you to keep this in mind when you leave in a few hours: other places aren’t like here. Icahn was here. We got lots of messages, a lot of communication from other habitats. Other places…it’s not like that. It can be years and years between messages. People hold onto the idea of Isaac Icahn being the savior of humanity like it’s their job. You’re going to have to work a miracle to convince them otherwise.”
Great. That’s just what I needed. More pressure.
“Rachel!” I whirled around at Chad’s voice.
My heart fell into my stomach. Oh God, had she gotten worse? “What is it?”
“She’s coherent and she’s asking for you.”
He took my hand and pulled me with him.
“Be careful on your trip, you two.”
Keith’s voice followed me into the medical tent like a final proclamation from a teacher I would never look at the same way again. He was human. He’d been wrongfully accused of a crime. Somehow that made him less god-like in my eyes. All of my childhood fantasies had been slowly crumbling down around me for the last six months. Keith was just the latest.
I rubbed my eyes. I was tired. Bone tired in a way I didn’t think sixteen-year-olds were supposed to be.
“Chad,” I grabbed his arm, “Is your mother furious with me?”
He smiled, which made his face seem younger and less severe. “No, not at all. She loves you, Rachel. You’re family to us. I told you, this is Tia’s thing. Her issue. Not yours.”
Walking through the room towards where Tia was being treated, I wondered if someone should go get Glen. Remembering the tension between the Lyons men and Glen earlier, I quickly decided against it. If Tia wanted him, she could ask for him. There was no way I was going to suggest it. I valued my head stayin
g on my shoulders too much.
Finally reaching Tia, I looked down at her and tried to smile. She looked pale but conscious. That was a good thing.
“Could everyone leave us for a second?” Her voice sounded steady, another good sign. Chad, Micah, and their parents turned to leave the room. I couldn’t hear what they whispered to each other and I was glad not to. This day was going on too long. I needed it to be over…soon.
“Rachel,” Chad looked at me, “We need to leave in about an hour.”
I nodded. “Can you drive? Have you had any sleep?”
“We’ll spell each other.”
I raised my hand to grab his sleeve when he tried to leave. “I don’t know how to drive that thing.”
“I’ll teach you.” He pressed my hand to his lips. “It’s easy.”
As he turned around, Chad dropped my hand and rushed from the room. It was easy? I shook my head. This was going to be one of those times when everyone else thought something was ‘easy’ and it was going to turn out to be hell for me. I sighed. There was nothing for me to do about it now. I needed to speak to Tia.
“How are you?”
She smiled. “I’m sorry I freaked out like that.” Her voice shook. “I had no idea. I mean you tried to tell me and I didn’t listen. The whole experience….”
“It’s okay.” I squeezed her hand as I sat down on the bed next to her. “Everyone gets one freak out.”
“No, it was more than that. I saw that thing and I just went somewhere. I don’t know to explain it. I just went away.”
I didn’t understand what that meant and opened my mouth to tell her so when she kept talking.
“I know there is no way they won’t let me fight. I heard my dad whispering with my mom as soon as I came back to myself. Something about bringing me out more slowly, a few minutes at a time.” She shook her head and I saw her hands fist on the bed. “No way, no how.”
I really wasn’t sure what I could say that would make this situation any better. “There aren’t that many options for people born with the gene.”
We all knew that to be true, we’d known it since we were old enough to know anything. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, this was how it was. Especially with the Vampires tunneling beneath us.
“There are options.”
I shook my head. “Not many.”
“I’m going to marry Glen and get pregnant.”
I coughed as it felt like the room shook on its axis. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m totally serious. Glen will do whatever I want. He loves me.”
“I’m sure he does.” Everyone loves Tia. “But you’re sixteen years old.”
The thought of having a baby to me was so foreign that I couldn’t even begin to contemplate it.
“It’s legal to get married at sixteen.”
“Yeah.” I realized I shouted and lowered my voice. “But it’s icky. Almost no one does it.” Even in our current day and age where if we weren’t fighting, they wanted us breeding; most people waited until they were over eighteen. Certainly, the non-Warriors would never consider doing it so early.
“This is my out, Rachel. I can’t ever fight again. Not ever.”
This was way above my ability to fix. “Tia, maybe if you talk to someone.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m only telling you because you’re my best friend. I don’t want an argument. I’ve already decided.”
“Ahem.”
I jumped into the air as the medic came back in. “I’ve come in to give Ms. Lyons some medicine to help her sleep.”
I stared down at Tia. “I have to go now. Promise me you won’t do anything until I get back from Liberty.”
“No.”
I wanted to throw something. “No?”
She shook her head. “Go. Be careful. Look out for my brother. Come back.”
That was my plan. But if Tia did this thing while I was gone? If she got married and had a baby, my life here would be almost unrecognizable when I returned. How had the world tilted so completely in such a short period of time? Why did it feel like sometimes life moved slowly and sometimes it was so fast I couldn’t keep up?
Chapter Five
Chad and I bounced along in his car on what used to be called a road. Now it was basically a dirt path with periodic bouts of concrete showing where human beings used to travel regularly. Chad looked like a child who had just been given the biggest gift of his life because he got to take his car out for a long, albeit bumpy, ride across country.
He looked over and grinned at me. “This is awesome, isn’t it?”
I gripped the side of the car so tightly that my fingers were white as we rode over some particularly rough terrain. Maybe I would have enjoyed driving back in the day when people did this in a safe, orderly manner. Now, it was rough on my insides to be thrown around, and I wanted to get out so I could throw up my breakfast all over the side of the road.
Chad let go of the steering wheel to pat me on the leg. “Oh come on, you’ll get used to it, and then you’ll love it when you’re driving.”
“If you say so.”
He shook his head. “Haven’t you ever wanted to drive? When you watched the cars in the old movies? Didn’t you want to sink down behind the wheel and drive as fast as possible?”
“Yes, of course.” I thought quickly of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn driving around in the Philadelphia Story. The car jarred to the right as we went over a particularly large bump and I rammed my shoulder into the window. “We’re so far away from my romantic car fantasies, I can’t even recognize them in this.”
“Fair enough, Rachel, but I’m starting to suspect you have no imagination.”
Chad acted so strangely. Was he really insulted I wasn’t in love with his car, or was there more going on here? Did it have more to do with us? And, yes, I had started to think of Chad and I as being a definite ‘us.’
I reached out to grab his hand where it rested on the center console. I squeezed it and he looked up as he smiled at me.
“My mind is a little distracted due to the fact that I’m exhausted and your sister just blindsided me.”
He let go of my hand to hold the steering wheel. A large green hill appeared on the horizon. Presumably, we were going to drive over the grass to the other side.
I looked at Chad out of the corner of my eye. “You do know where we’re going right? You’re not, you know, guessing about how to get to Liberty?”
“I have a pretty good idea of how to get there. I’ve been reading maps for twenty-four hours to prepare. But if you’re asking me if I know exactly how to get there, the answer is no. I’ve never been to Liberty either.” He pressed down on the accelerator. The sports utility vehicle he had reassembled, using spare parts he acquired somewhere I didn’t want to imagine, made a loud noise as it attempted to zoom up the hill. I gripped the seat.
“Tell me what Tia told you that ‘blindsided’ you.”
I sighed. It wasn’t like Chad could tell anyone to stop her. Truthfully, even if he could, that might be a good thing when all was said and done because then maybe someone could stop her from making what I thought had to be a huge mistake.
“She told me she’s going to convince Glen to marry her so she doesn’t have to fight again. You know, because she’ll have a baby.”
I waited for a big reaction from Chad. His face totally impassive, he seemed to consider what I said.
Finally, he shrugged. “It is the way out for female Warriors.”
What?
Had I heard him correctly? I turned in my seat to stare at him as we went over the other side of the hill. Looking down, I was relieved to see the slope of the hill was pretty low and we weren’t going to plummet to our deaths.
“We’re talking about your sister. She is sixteen, and she is going to have a baby.”
He nodded. “I know exactly what we’re discussing, Rachel. I’m not an idiot.”
Okay, enough was enough. “The
n why aren’t you more upset? You’re talking about your sixteen-year-old sister, my best friend, having a baby simply to avoid fighting again.”
Chad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Look, I don’t mean to sound blasé about this, I really don’t. Truth is, there’s nothing I can do about it and it might, in fact, be a really good thing if she never fights again.”
“You’re acting like this is a reasonable decision she’s making. We’re talking about her having a baby.”
“Hey.” He rolled his eyes. “At least she has an out. There isn’t one for men. Used to be you could get out of the fighting if you became a chief teacher somewhere. Now, even that option is gone. If you’re born with the Warrior gene, and you happen to be male, you’re in it for life.”
I shifted in my seat. I’d never thought about it before. I spent a lot of time silently lamenting the fact that I had two options in life—fight or procreate. But men had it even worse. Even if their spouse had a baby, they still had to go out and continue fighting.
That’s what had happened to my father. My mom had been home with me when the Vampires had gotten down into Genesis. He had been fighting up above when she’d been killed.
“You could quit like my dad did.”
He snorted. “Look how well that worked out for both of you.”
“Anything you think you know about that part of my life, you don’t. Okay? Not even Tia knows what it was like. Not one of you ever visited me there or saw how I lived.” I paused, realizing I’d clenched my fists. I hadn’t known this was such a hot button for me. I kind of thought I’d moved past it. Still, I had to finish now that I’d started. “You’re right. It sucked. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone but don’t pretend to know about it. Because you don’t.”
I sat back in my seat. Chad fell silent as his eyes stared out into the countryside. I realized he wasn’t going to say a word. Not even an apology or an explanation as to why no member of his family ever once walked the five minutes around the bend from Warrior-ville to see where I lived. A vein in his forehead poked out, and he clenched his jaw.