***
“It’s freezing, crazy.” James told me as I stood up to pull my cigarettes out of the pockets of my jeans.
I laughed softly and scurried back over to him with the pack in hand. I laid back down beside him and rested my head against his chiseled, bare chest. I looked up at him, unable to keep the smile from my face. He looked down at me, smiling softly, too, his fingers twirling in my hair. He kissed me for one long moment that filled me with that warmth that still intoxicated me.
After we had both reached the breathtaking end of our romantic foray (and I had come very close to reaching it, surprisingly enough), James had scooped me up into his arms and carried me into the tent. Once inside, he had laid me down, covered me with his sleeping bag, propped up a pillow behind him and crawled underneath the blanket beside me. I had heard a rumor once that some men were not appreciative of their partners lying on them after the actual sex was over, but I chanced it with James, because I needed that comforting physical contact with him. I knew by the way he encased me in his arms that he was not one of those aforementioned men.
“So tell me,” I lit two cigarettes and handed one to him, “Was that at least satisfactory?”
He looked down, giving me a look that shouted, “Are you kidding?”
“It was miles above excellent, actually.” He answered, “Are you okay? How do you feel?”
We laid down so that we were facing each other. Our conversation was taking a turn for the serious, and we needed to see the flickering of each emotion that passed on the others' face.
“I feel...” I tried to find a word that fit exactly what I was feeling, only to realize that there was more than one, “I feel happy. I feel amazed. I feel safe.”
“So, it's all positive emotions, then?” He asked me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Not the need to run?”
“Are you trying to dampen the mood?” I asked, but that small grin was still on my face. I had not used the many muscles it took to smile like that since I had been a small child. They were sore from the effort, but I barely noticed; I was too entranced by what had happened between us to feel any pain.
“Not at all.” He replied as he exhaled smoke. “I was only curious.”
“I do not want to be anywhere that is not right here with you, James. I need you to know that. I cared so much these past several days about your dishonesty. But I have let it go.”
“You were right.” He told me instantly, “I should have been honest with...”
I sat up and held my lips to his for a long, dazzling second.
“It's alright. Let's just move on from it.”
“Well, let me just say before we forget it that it will never happen again. I promise you, Brynna, I will never lie to you again. You had every right to be angry. I couldn't accept that at the time. I didn't understand it. But now I do. That, for you, is the ultimate betrayal. It won't happen again.”
I put both of my hands on his face and whispered, “I know, James.”
I took his arms and wrapped them around me. Once I was snuggly bundled up, I rested my head against his chest.
“We can only stay like this for a few more minutes, and then we have to go find Elijah, Violet, and Penny.”
“They're out here?” James asked.
“Of course. You didn't think after all of this that I would leave them behind, did you? But then, I wasn't really the one who saved them this time. They saved themselves.”
“From what?”
“It is such a long story. I'll tell you while we're looking. For a few minutes, though, just don’t let go of me.”
We were silent for a moment, our bodies pressed together to shield ourselves from the bitter cold of morning.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Of course you can.”
“I never thought I could do that with anyone. You suggested that you knew what had happened to me. Do you know the extent of it?”
“I don't know the details. But the outline is enough.” He replied, and darkness came over his eyes that I had not been expecting to see. A fury that rivaled and perhaps surpassed my own was ablaze in his heart.
“There is no use being angry over it anymore, honey.”
Wow. I was even able to call him by a pet name, a phenomenon in relationships that I had always found pathetically stupid and inescapably pointless.
“I know. I just hate that you had to go through that. No one should have to go through that, let alone a young girl. Do you mind if I ask...”
“I think you have the right to ask about it now.”
“That's not true. That's your story to tell, and don't let anyone ever say differently. You don't have to share that with anyone you don't want to. But if you do want to tell me, can I ask how old you were?”
“Nine.”
I surprised myself with the candid response. I had always run when the subject had been broached by anyone from my mother to reporters to a stranger who had read about the trial. But with James, I was safe. I could be honest with him without fear of being rejected or looked down upon. That safety was essential.
“Nine...” He repeated in very slight disgust. He was attempting to hide his anger from me, because he knew that I would be upset by it. I did not want two of us to carry the burden. It was mine to carry, and I would not inflict it on anyone else.
He must have read those thoughts in my mind, because he looked down at me in surprise.
“I'd carry all of it for you if I could. I'd take that pain from you, no question, if I could, Brynna.”
Tears rushed into my eyes upon hearing those words. I had been able to garner the strength it required to overcome my fear of intimacy, but I was still not ready to let him see me cry. I blinked several times as I kissed him again, feeling the tears slowly disintegrate back to wherever they had come.
“Physical intimacy always scared me, perhaps irrationally.” I said after a minute, “I couldn't stand the idea of feeling so vulnerable. I could not even think about allowing someone to get that close to me. It is the ultimate closeness, isn't it, when it is done for the right reasons?” I was quiet for a moment, but he did not speak to fill the space. He wanted me to continue.
“With you, it's right. I have never been so sure of anything. We might be a strange pairing, but the feeling that this is the way it was supposed to happen is so strong, I could not deny it if I tried. I am so happy that it was you. I do not care about anything else. I just know that this was right. I would not have done it otherwise.”
He kissed me softly again, and a delightfully sensuous shudder passed through me when I felt his tongue moving gently against mine.
“I am so glad to hear you say all of that. And after all we have been through, I am truly honored to have been the one you let that wall down with. I mean that when I say it, baby. I really do. And I will make sure you never regret it. That's a promise.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in them. His smell was so intoxicating, and his body was so firm and strong against mine that I wanted to make love to him again. Once we got up, we were back to fighting the faceless forces in pursuit of us. I wanted to lay there with him, warm under the blanket and safe in his arms until the end of my life. The moment we pulled apart, the world would come barging back to the forefront of our consciousness. The fall from the heavenly space we were currently occupying would be as abrupt and painful as being jerked from a pleasant dream by the screaming cry of an alarm clock.
But alas, reality was shriller than any man-made annoyance. We dressed quickly to avoid becoming too cold. We packed up his tent and rations before setting off in pursuit of Elijah, Violet, and Penny, hand in hand.
Quinn
“Alice!”
I had been shouting for hours, and my voice was getting hoarse. As the time passed from the last moment I had seen her, my worry grew into downright terror. I didn't even know for sure that she had made it out of the campsite. The only way
I would know if the worst had happened was if I doubled back and returned, but I had been wandering for so long that finding my way back would be nearly impossible.
It was midday. The sun was high in the sky and casting through the trees to create an oddly calming green glaze on everything I saw. If only I was able to embrace the tranquility that my eyes were drinking in. It seemed so out of place, and yet I wished for nothing more than to sit and submerge myself in it.
We were in enemy territory. The natives lived in the woods and could have converged on me at any second. I would be dead before I even saw them. I was unable to move as quickly as they did even with my new strength and power. They were blurs of death: swift, lethal and inescapable.
“Alice!”
Now my voice had gone. I wouldn't be able to call her to me. The harsh sun was weakening me; I was sweating profusely and wiping my face on the back of my hands. I had to sit and rest for a minute.
We hadn't planned our escape nearly as well as we thought. We should have packed a bag with water and food. Instead, we took off into the woods with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Now, we were going to be forced to find a source of water. It took three days to dehydrate. The human body could survive without food but would crumple in no time without that precious liquid revitalizing us.
Maybe our evolution would allow us to go for longer periods of time without water. Somehow, I doubted that was true. As I tried to focus on anything other than the scratchy dryness of my tongue, my mind ran through images of lakes, streams, dripping faucets, and ice cubes one right after the other like a screen-saver meant to torment me.
My Anthropology teacher had told us that our war for oil was pointless and only temporary. Soon, the war for water would erupt. It was far more pressing. The consequences were far more severe. Maybe the apocalypse we had experienced was a more favorable one than what would have occurred otherwise.
My mind drifted to Brynna Olivier and her family. In Government, Alice and I had learned about her mother and the “Starting Five.”
“Corruption!” My slightly unhinged Government teacher had exclaimed as he slammed his fist on his desk for emphasis. Beside me, Alice had snorted through her nose and covered her mouth as she tried to suppress a giggle. Watching him lecture on those public officials that he deemed morally corrupt was entertaining, to say the least. Well, it was only entertaining when we, his students, disregarded the fact that his blood pressure was visibly rising, and he could fall over from a heart attack at any given moment.
“You might find this funny, Alice, but this is your future! The 'Starting Five,'” He drew out the name to emphasize his disdain and disgust for those involved in the group, “They have driven us so deep into debt that you, your children, and your children's children will be paying it off! They have stepped on every foreign leader's toes that they could. They started this conflict we’re in, and they made every country choose a side! We thought we had it made. We thought we had finally reached a new golden age in this country, but now, we teeter on the brink of total chaos!”
Yes. This was all coming from a man hired to mold impressionable young minds.
“Another world war is just around the corner, and you're laughing!”
“I'm not laughing,” Alice had replied, but she was still covering her face to hide her smile, “I'm taking this very seriously.”
“They're stepping on those other governments, because they're afraid of them calling our debt! We’re all indebted to each other after the Expansion, and yet here we are, ordering them to pay us back when we have so much to pay ourselves! If it were me, I would be down on bended knee, trying to please them.”
“This is America, Mr. Frank,” Alice grinned, “We don't get down on bended knee for anyone.”
Our like-minded classmates had clapped after she said that. But I had known that despite his flair for dramatics, he was right.
It's amazing how the things I had learned in school, while seeming so tedious and pointless in the broad outline of our young lives and our futures, made so much sense now when it meant nothing. At the time, even though I knew that what my teachers had said about things had varying degrees of truth, I still wasn't worried. But now, my knowledge yielded to understanding. My understanding yielded to anger. They had done this to us. To speak broadly, we had fled our earth for Pangaea to avoid a disaster they had created. To narrow it down, if Alice was dead now, it was their fault.
It's so easy to pass the blame sometimes.
I forced myself to push away my insight into the deeper meaning of all that was happening to focus on the task at hand. I needed to find Alice. Together, we would find the Oliviers. First and foremost, I was afraid for my girlfriend. But I also couldn't stand the idea of Elijah and Brynna's younger sisters out in the woods, alone.
“You're going to dehydrate if you keep walking briskly that way.” A voice said behind me. I whipped around abruptly, pulling a thick branch from the tree closest to me without realizing I was doing it. I turned and held my makeshift weapon out in front of me, ready for the fight.
My impulse to attack was stopped dead by the sight of Brynna and the man who had accompanied her out of the ship standing before me.
“Put it down, honey.” She said softly after turning back to the man with her. When he did not lower the large knife he was outstretching, she pushed his hand down gently. I was thankful that she was there to stop him, because I knew that if I had encountered him myself, he would have killed me. Looking into his eyes, I was sure of that.
“This young man was part of my retrieval operation.” Brynna explained to him, “I owe him quite substantially.” Her tone fell upon saying that. Brynna was not comfortable being indebted to anyone, even someone as non-threatening as me.
“Forget it. Have you seen my girlfriend? She's about 5'4, blonde, blue eyes...”
“I know what she looks like. I saw her when we were fleeing the campsite.” Brynna replied shortly.
Her disdainful tone was just about the strangest way to thank me for saving her life. I figured I wouldn't call her on it just yet. But if it continued, I would surely bring up how Alice and I risked our lives to help her.
“How very stereotypical of youth, Quinn Wesley.”
“I never told you my name. How do you know my name?” I demanded, wondering if I should have dropped the branch. Maybe she really was a Pangaean spy...
“I can read your thoughts. Basic information like that stays at the forefront of our minds, strangely enough.”
“What are you talking about? What's stereotypical?” I asked.
“Your need for thanks. Your need for recognition of your heroic actions. I do very much appreciate it. However, I am not going to change my inherent behavior in order to make that gratitude known.”
“You'll warm up to her. If I can, anyone can.” The man behind her told me. In his voice, I heard a slight exasperation.
“Who are you?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” Brynna told me.
“I'm James. You're Quinn. Nice to meet you.” He reached out his hand to me, and I shook it. He might not have thought twice about killing me had he stumbled upon me while alone but then, I probably would have reacted the very same way. The territory was hostile, and our lives were all we had.
“Have you seen my siblings running through here?”
“Don't you think I would be with them if I had?”
“I do not know. Maybe you are like this odd man, and you enjoy being alone.”
The way she wrapped her arm around James's back as she said that alerted me to the fact that they were a couple. I looked between them, trying to calculate the age difference. At the very least, it was twenty years.
“I don't enjoy being alone. I didn't really have a choice last time, did I?” He grinned broadly at her. With a slight smile on her face, she rolled her eyes.
“I suppose not.” She replied before looking back at me again. “Oh, look, he is very confused. That is also quite s
tereotypical of youth.”
“Aren't you like, twenty?” I asked her, though her age was none of my business.
“Twenty-two, dear.”
“Okay. Well, first of all, I'm only eighteen.”
“Hmm...” She replied carelessly as she and James continued walking.
“So, that makes you only four years older than me.”
“Your point?” She asked patiently. She was not looking at me as she strode along lightly but instead, was gazing at the ground and up at the trees as though following a shouting match between the two. She was so incredibly odd, even back then.
“When you comment on youthfulness or whatever the hell it is that you're commenting on, you're being weird.”
“That is her typical state of being. You might as well get used to it.” James responded over his shoulder.
“You're not that much older than me, so you're still young.”
“Only in physical age, Mr. Wesley.” She was looking up at the sky that was darkening overhead. “It is going to rain. Your girlfriend is very close. Her scent is on the trees, and her footprints are on the ground.”
“What do you mean, her scent? You can smell her?”
“That hasn't happened to you yet?” James asked me, and I looked at him in complete bewilderment as he pressed his nose to a tree and smelled it. “What do you think, baby? Maybe twenty minutes ago?”
“Less. Weren't you shouting for her at the very least?”
Brynna walked past me, looking at the ground. When I didn’t respond, she looked back at me, eyebrows raised, silently demanding an answer to her question.
“Do you hear my voice?” I pointed at my throat as though she could see my voice box that I assumed was hemorrhaging from the force of my shouts.
“Did you bother to look down?” She asked snidely. She moved some leaves off of the ground delicately to reveal more obvious footprints. “She was treading lightly. Perhaps something was in pursuit of her.”
“Yeah, something was in pursuit of her: Me.”
“Well, did you give her any reason to avoid you?” Brynna asked, and she looked up at me over the tops of her glasses disdainfully.
“Of course not! The last time I saw her, we were running from the natives.”
“Is that what you've been avoiding telling me?” James demanded suddenly as he turned to face her abruptly.
Her jaw opened and closed once as she tried to come up with a quick answer to his question. After scowling at me darkly, she found her words.
“I have only avoided it because now is not the time to discuss it. You said you have seen other people that you did not recognize. They were not ours. There are other people here. What other knowledge do you require?”
“Are they dangerous? Are they...”
“Very dangerous. They can come up on you without you even seeing them.” I answered, “And they're strong, too. I saw one of them force his hand into someone's chest without cutting them open or anything.”
“I saw one rip a man's head from his neck.” Brynna added, “James, I was going to tell you all of this. Is there truly a goal that can be achieved by knowing all of this now? We should not be talking about this now while we are searching for Elijah, Penny, and Violet.”
“Hold on, I'm still lost. They've been killing people?” James continued the conversation, completely ignoring her request to stop it.
We both stared at him, neither wanting to answer his question though we already had with our details. James had looped his large knife into his belt buckle at the back of his pants, but he reached back and pulled it out, checking the blade to make sure that it was still sharp enough to slash down a threat if we encountered one.
“They want us to leave Pangaea immediately. They ordered us to get on the ship and go. We tried to explain that there was nowhere for us to go, but they already knew. Apparently, they have been studying us. They can speak English because they have been watching us since the beginning of time.” Brynna explained grimly, “I do not know what their motive is. They said they would take ten of our number every night until we left. As you are very well aware, we do not have a planet to which we can return, so lest we wish to live on Mars, we need to make peace with them.”
“How?”
Brynna's expression darkened as her mind traveled to some not-so-distant memory. We would learn the details of her quick reminiscence much later. She never offered a verbal response, but her boyfriend appeared to know that look and its implications.
“We are going to talk more about this later, Brynna. Right now, we need to find everyone.”
“And then?” I looked between the two of them.
“That is the million dollar question, isn't it?” James replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I have enough rations to get us through a couple of days. Oh...” He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of water. “You're starting to look peaky.”
He tossed it to me, and I caught it in one hand, taking a grateful chug immediately. I relished the coolness as it traveled through me. No drink had ever been so glorious.
They started to whisper softly, not realizing that though I hadn't developed a super sense of smell, my ears had begun to pick up the tiniest sound. As I sat and focused, I could hear the sound of some unknown animal treading lightly across the soft forest floor. My instinct told me that the creature was harmless, so there was no need to run. I could hear the leaves as they fell and their soft impact as they hit land. I could also hear James and Brynna's secret conversation.
“I was going to tell you all of this.” Brynna informed him softly.
“You keep saying that.”
“Yes, because I am being honest.”
“What are you hiding from me? There's something else. I know it. There's something that you don't want to say.”
“Don't you know by now that if I do not want to say it, it will not be said, James?”
“I'm not telling you that you have to say it. I'm asking you to.”
“I am well aware of that. I will say it when the time is right.”
“It's something that scares you.”
“It does not scare me. Stop your dramatics. You know that I am very difficult to scare.”
“I know that if you were scared, you wouldn't admit it. What does your father have to do with this?”
“It does not matter. Not at all, James.”
“It does matter. You should see how red your eyes are.”
“Do you have a mirror?”
“Ha-ha, you are so funny, sweetheart.”
“We cannot have this conversation now while Violet, Penny, and Elijah are out there alone. We are discussing this later.”
“Yes. We are.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
A smooching sound, and they were walking away from me.
“Hey!”
I ran after them, watching as they both bent over to observe the ground.
“She was running erratically.” Brynna told me lightly, “There are two bigger sets of footprints here. She was being followed. Well, not followed, actually. It appears that she was being chased.”
“By what?”
“They are human footprints, so we can assume the natives.” Her head jerked up suddenly, and she smelled the air. “I smell blood.”
I almost collapsed. But somehow, I was able to suppress my fear of stumbling across Alice's dead body long enough to run after James and Brynna when they took off speedily. We pushed through trees and bushes, hurtled over fallen logs, and jumped over a ravine at least eight feet wide and bottomless. All along, Brynna led us.
My senses came alive during that sprint. I could smell the blood mixed in with the scents of the greenery and mid-afternoon haze. Together, they were a tantalizing mixture that should have lulled me into hypnosis. I could hear animals stomping their way away from us in fear as though we were lions on the hunt. I could see clearly in my side vision deer-like creatures dropping to the ground and camouflaging in th
e dirt. Weird...
We heaved ourselves over three oaks that had fallen one right on top of the other. Our leap over them was effortless. After we landed, Brynna skidded to a halt. James stopped beside her. I slid in the leaves, and she was forced to reach back and grab a hold of my shirt to keep me from falling flat on my back like a total square. She didn't turn her gaze away from whatever was in front of her, though her face was taut as she suppressed some unpleasant emotion.
I looked, and my eyes widened.
I had little need to wonder why the scent of blood was so strong...
Alice was bent over one of the natives, her teeth sunk deep into his stomach. With a loud screech, she pulled back and ripped his skin away. Blood sprayed into the air from the gaping wound like erupting fireworks.
“Allie?”
My voice was trembling, and my stomach was turning over in revulsion. Her head jerked up. Her white eyes met mine. For a moment, she spider-walked forward quickly on all fours, hissing.
“Allie!” I exclaimed as James raised his machete. I reached out, pushing his hand down abruptly. “James, don't!”
Her eyes dissolved back into their normal blue, and she pushed upwards so that she was standing.
“Quinn? They've been on me for hours. This one...” She pointed at the man lying face down in a pool of blood. “He was the first one. I didn't know there were two of them until I took him down. I know it's weird, and it's creepy...”
I backed away from her when she reached out to me. I had known that we were changing over to something that wasn't human. I had known that we could fight an enemy until they were hovering close to death. But I had no idea that we were actually going to kill people. I had seen her shoot that creature and collapse into a fit of rage, guilt, fear, and self-loathing as she realized that it was her mother. To take a human life, especially one of someone she loved, had been far too much for Alice to bear. Now, she was trying to justify killing this man.
“Quinn, I didn't have a choice. You saw what they do to people! They were going to do the same thing to me.”
“So, why didn't you knock them out?” I demanded furiously. I was shocked at my own anger and disgust. I had never been able to picture her killing something living. Unfortunately, I had stumbled upon her while she was in the act of it. It changed her in my mind from an innocent human girl whom I loved dearly to a monster I didn't recognize and couldn't possibly love at all.
“Don't tell me that you wouldn't have done the same thing if it had been you being attacked!” She replied defensively. “They were going to kill me. I wasn't taking them down. I was taking them out. It was the only way.”
“It wasn't. We got past those guards without killing them, Alice!”
“We were just trying to get onto the ship to get Brynna. Plus, they were only human! Quinn, please try to see this the only logical way. They were going to kill me so I killed them! I don't understand why you're so upset!”
“Because you think this is alright, just because we're here! You think it’s okay to kill people. You, the religious one out of the two of us, think it's okay to kill people without at least trying to find another way!”
“When they were ripping my head back, getting ready to rip my throat out, I wasn't looking for another way! I had no choice!”
“Well, you might not think so, but I do. And if I had been in your situation, I would have done everything in my power to avoid murdering someone, even a native! I might have been able to let it go if you weren't being so chill about it! If you had a little remorse, I might have been able to see you the same way. But no, you're perfectly fine with this and I can't agree with it, no matter who they are!”
“Children, we're departing.” Brynna spoke loudly over our shouts. “I hope your marital woes will soon yield a resolution that caters to your undying love.”
“We're not married.” Alice snapped at her, “Thank God! He's being unreasonable, right? Tell him he's being ridiculous!”
To be pulled into an argument that concerned neither of them apparently stunned them both, because their facial expressions were priceless. They were torn between trying to find the right words to say and wishing to keep silent. They wanted to stay safely out of the way of our anger.
Of course, Brynna, just like her mother, had an opinion on everything.
“Indeed, he is being unreasonable.”
And just like her mother, she was wrong about everything!
“Thank you!” Alice held her hands up in victory.
“Wipe the blood off of your face. It's disgusting!” I snapped. Admittedly, my outburst was immature, but seeing the way the natives' blood was dribbling from her lips down her chin and onto her neck was only making me angrier. It was a reminder of what she had done.
James grasped Brynna’s hand.
“Let’s walk away.” He told her,
“Yes. These conflicts do so often become contagious. Smart idea, honey.” Brynna nodded.
But as they walked away, Alice stormed after them, leaving me alone.
Maybe it was ridiculous. Maybe my anger was out of proportion. But imagine for a minute, stumbling upon the person you love snuffing out the life of a human being. Even though the Pangaean people were not humans, they resembled us perfectly. They had all the characteristics of beastly creatures, but physically, they were just like us. They had been born to parents who had loved them and raised them and now, a family somewhere was going to be grieving because Alice “had no choice.” I tried to see the situation from her perspective as I walked, but I knew that I couldn’t kill something of a human likeness. I couldn’t take someone out of this world who had an almost tangible history.
It makes no sense today. But in the moment, nothing could have been worse than knowing Alice’s blood was that of a killer’s and mine, in all honesty, was that of a coward’s. When I look at it in its most basic element today, that is the only conclusion to be drawn.
As I meandered about behind them, stuck in a frenzy of thoughts, I only saw the issue as Alice being a murderer and me being a moral person who would not take a life. Cowardice played no part in my beliefs. But the truth is, she was braver than me and always had been. It had been her idea to rescue Brynna. Before that, it had been her who had shot the creature that had broken into her house. I hated myself for it, but I felt emasculated by her drive to put an end to a threat whereas I could only hinder its violent efforts.
I didn’t realize that, being so young at the time. I just believed that I was right, and she was wrong. I was a good person, and she was a sadistic killer. Black and white thinking never helped anyone, and my own was making it impossible for me to see her in the same light that I had always seen her in.
I was stuck with her, though. We had come to Pangaea together and even though my feelings were irreversibly changed, I still couldn’t leave her. She was the only constant in my life. Pangaea was a dangerous place and not only because of the bloodthirsty natives. It was a one-eighty change from everything I had ever known, and Alice was the calm, stable center of it all. For her, I held the same role. Our relationship might have been effectively terminated before it had even really begun, but I couldn’t imagine living my life without seeing her every day.
Those thoughts were too much for me, in my young days. I thought I was so mature. After fleeing the earth, I assumed that I had to become a man by force of fate. I was nothing more than a little boy still, even after everything that we had survived. But, in perhaps undeserved fairness to me, I have to say that I couldn’t be blamed for still possessing such immaturity.
I looked at Brynna as she walked beside James. She was barely four years older than me and yet the distance between our dead Earth and Pangaea was shorter than the distance between our maturity levels. There she was, searching for her brother and sisters, whom I knew, from hearing Elijah talk, she had raised. Her body was that of a young adult, but her mind was on par with the man she was currently walking beside. I understood their attraction to each othe
r more than I could understand anything else, including what I was feeling myself.
“I am glad you understand me. That was, strangely enough, my one goal in life.” She replied dreamily over her shoulder as her fingers linked with James’s.
“Stop it!” I exclaimed after covering my ears. She looked back at me and grinned in triumph and also, in curiosity.
“What is it about covering your ears? I am starting to believe that it means something. Maybe it is your instinct telling you that it will keep me out if you just try hard enough. Trust me, Quinn; I do not like hearing your thoughts as much as you do not like me hearing them.”
“Then stop!” I yelled again.
“Don’t worry about him, Brynna. He has always thrown tantrums like a spoiled baby.”
Brynna turned back to Alice, brows furrowed. For a moment, she just stared at her. Then, she spoke while shaking her head slightly in arrogant disbelief:
“We really need to work on your use of similes, darling. Perhaps a brainstorming of more creative options is in order.”
With that, she continued walking ahead. Alice watched her go, her face betraying how confused she was by what Brynna had said.
“What?” She called, but Brynna didn’t reply. She was bent back over the ground again, studying the footprints.
“Natives.” She replied carelessly before standing up and walking normally again.
“How do you even know?” I snapped irritably. I was starting to get very annoyed by her all-knowing presence. Was nothing sacred anymore? It wasn’t right that she allowed herself to travel so casually into my private thoughts.
“Don’t you just know things?”
“I do,” Alice answered, “Sometimes I do, I should say. You seem to be grasping whatever this is more than we are.”
“Some of us are more apt to embrace such gifts, especially when we were already predisposed to them. I am a genius, first and foremost, which makes the slight adjustment to my newly enhanced instincts and intelligence much easier.”
“Just because you can form long sentences doesn’t mean you’re a genius.” I told her icily.
“Trust me, man, she is.” James replied surely.
“Of course you’re going to say that.”
“Do not pass your animosity off onto us.” Brynna responded as she ran her hand over James’s back. Though she was speaking to me, her eyes were locked on his. “I have known you scarcely more than twelve hours. I will not bear the brunt of your emotional burden. I do not carry anyone’s baggage but my own.”
James kissed her quickly, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alice’s head cock to the side and her face contort in surprise. She hadn’t been aware that they were together.
James hung back to talk me down when I went to argue with his girlfriend further. Alice walked quickly ahead to accompany her through the thick brush up ahead. Clearly, my girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend now) was going to be asking Brynna some very personal questions about her and James. I knew that she was suddenly very curious about their relationship.
“Just to let you in on the big secret, I’ll tell you that she does that to push people away. She’d hate me for telling you that, but that is why.”
“Well, it works,” I huffed back, “I’d be willing to bet she had no friends on earth.”
“You would lose that bet.”
“Were you her friend?”
“No. I met her right before we left. I saw her in this dream I had. Do you remember me, from the meeting?”
I studied his face closely. It came back to me all of a sudden: Alice and I had spoken to him directly while we were at the meeting of people who had seen the end. He had been the man who had told us where to go. During that meeting, he also gave an impassioned defense of Brynna. The other people had said that she was too closely linked to those responsible for the impending catastrophe. He said that she couldn’t be blamed for her parents’ mistakes. In the end, he had won his fight for her. I wondered if she knew all he had done to ensure her survival.
“I do remember you!” I pointed at him, “James Maxwell, right?”
“The very same.”
“You were thinner then. You’ve gotten…” I couldn’t quite figure out how the describe his new appearance. “I don’t know. You’re bulkier.”
“I know. Don’t ask me where it came from, because I haven’t lifted weights or done a sit-up since high school Gym. As you can see by my age, that was a long time ago.”
“Yeah.” I replied, noting that up close, I could see the slight wrinkles by his eyes, and the laugh lines around his mouth. He was definitely pushing into his mid-forties. I looked at Brynna, and like a typical guy, noticed her tight, toned physique. Though James definitely didn’t look, at least in terms of his body, like any forty year old I’d ever met, their faces distinguished their age. Brynna’s was undeniably youthful, unblemished by any age lines. James’s age was beginning to show on his. There was no denying that she would find him good-looking, because he certainly was, for an old guy, but I imagined that some would find their relationship downright disturbing, despite any level of physical attractiveness in him.
“Before you tell me your story, can I ask you something?”
“By all means.”
“You and Brynna, you’re…”
He laughed softly for a moment and nodded.
“Yeah. It shocks me just as much as it shocks you. Look at her. Look at me.”
“It’s not that. Do people give you two a hard time?”
“Well, our relationship was platonic for those few days on Earth and for a couple of days on the ship. It was progressing, though. Her family was suspicious and disapproved. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t even know, really. It’s just Alice and I used to get looks in our town. Look at her. Look at me.”
He actually did look at her for a minute and then turn his gaze to me.
“You’re not like, forty years old, are you?” He asked, genuinely confused as to what I was alluding to.
“No!” I couldn’t help but laugh. He had a laid back, cool-guy demeanor that came naturally to him. Because of his age, I decided that he was like an awesome teacher I'd want to chill with outside of school. “I’m black. She’s white.”
“People still get themselves out of sorts over interracial relationships?” His expression contorted into one of surprise and disdain for such old school narrow-mindedness. “That was barely going on when I was young. Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Our parents hated the idea. They used to tell us we were pretty much going to get stoned to death if we went to the wrong places. I didn’t believe it at first but now, being here, I see it. Some people at the campsite looked at us strangely. I’m amazed, honestly, that it really does still exist. So, maybe this is for the best, that we’re not together anymore.”
“I didn’t realize you two weren’t together anymore. Is she aware of that?”
“She is. I think I made it pretty clear.”
“Can I be honest with you?”
“I guess.”
“I think you’re being ridiculous. Now, don’t get all defensive.” He held his hand up to stop me when I went to burst out with an angry retort, “I warned you that I was going to be honest. You can’t tell me that if those things had been on her, and there was no other way, that you wouldn’t kill them.”
“I don’t know if I would!” I exclaimed, “I don’t think I’d be able to.”
“Is that your problem? You think she can do something that you’re not strong enough to do?”
“It’s not strength, James. It’s whether I’m a good person or not! I guess I should apologize for not wanting to kill people. I didn’t realize that just because we’re here we get to forget everything we know about being good people! And what really burns me up about it is that she was always the one between the two of us who was religious! She was always telling me we had to live by whatever it is they talk about in the Bible.”
“So, you th
ink she’s a hypocrite?”
“Yeah! Now that you put it like that, I do! I just…” I trailed off, rubbing my eyes for a minute as I tried to find exactly what it was that I wanted to say. “I just want to hold onto a little of what we had on Earth. That’s the bottom line, I think. The most basic law of living we had was ‘don’t kill.’ It was the worst offense we had, right? So yeah, while we’re here, I’d like to keep that in mind. If there’s another way, I’ll take it.”
“What if she’s right, though, and there was no other way?” James pressed me calmly. “What if you had come through there and seen them ripping into her stomach? What then?”
Touché. But of course, I wasn’t going to admit outwardly that he had trumped me with his reasoning.
“So what, you’re telling me if they killed Brynna, you’d make it right by killing them? What would that prove?”
“It wouldn’t prove anything. On Earth, we all possessed a degree of human emotion. Rage was one of the worst. Have you noticed that here, it’s amplified? It’s become more potent. Our emotions here are part of our instincts. They drive us. They enable our survival.”
“If you say so. But you still haven’t answered…”
“If one of those things hurt Brynna, I would kill it in the worst ways. They would feel every last second of it. It wouldn’t prove anything nor would it bring her back. But that’s the drive of our kind, do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I guess.”
“If one of those things were attacking Brynna, and it came down between her and it, I would kill it because of that, too. It’s the call of the wild, Quinn.”
“We’re not part of the wild, though! We’re human beings!”
He studied me for a long time before replying.
“Are we?”
“I am! I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m still human! I thought this weird mutation stuff was cool at first, but now I’m seeing that it’s replacing our… our… humanity!”
“That’s not true. If we possessed no humanity, I wouldn’t care what happened to Brynna. I would only care about myself. Brynna certainly doesn’t need me to protect her. Alice proved that she doesn’t need you to protect her. They can take care of themselves. They always could, without our help, long before we came here. But if it comes down between me, Brynna, and the life of one of those things, I’m going to kill for our survival.”
I didn’t respond because I knew he was right. I had run out of retorts and exceptions to the new code we were living by on Pangaea. I wanted so desperately to hang onto the code of Earth, perhaps only for the sake of recognition. But I knew that my need for civility was bred from a fear of allowing my animal instincts to take over completely. What if they erased everything else?
“Just sleep on it. Let things ride for a few days. You’ll come to see that I’m right. I know that sounds cocky, but it’s true. What I’m saying to you is the truth. Think it over.”
No pondering was necessary. I knew he was right. As further proof of my immaturity, I refused to accept it.
Alice and I were finished.
Violet
Elijah had found us in no time. After he saw that we were safe, he quickly hurried off to find Brynna. He was operating on a grid in his mind; he walked in straight lines, using where Penny and I were resting as a starting point. In a blur, he would take off running until he felt he had gone too far. Then, he would return, move to the left by two feet, and run straight again.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that he was sitting beside me, huffing and puffing. I thought that he was catching his breath but in fact, he was crying. I had never seen my brother cry before, and I sat up quickly to wrap my arms around him. The moment I touched him, though, he jumped and furiously wiped at his eyes.
“It’s okay,” I told him gently, “Just let it out. You’ll feel better.”
“No. I need to stop it. It’s not helping us.”
“Just because you’re a boy doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to cry.”
“Yeah, it does,” He replied, “I’m just frustrated. It doesn’t matter how far I run. There’s no end to these woods, and I can’t find her anywhere. I have no idea where the hell she could be. She’s out there alone.” He paused, unsure of whether he should say what he said next. “I don’t even know if she’s alive, Vi.”
Admittedly, when I heard those words, my heart plummeted. Even after all the terrible things I had said to Brynna, I could not bear the thought of losing her. I had been furious, most definitely, but I had not meant those things. Though I still found it hard to admit, I needed her desperately.
“She is alive.” I told Elijah somewhat urgently but also convincingly. “Wherever she is, she's safe. There's a deeper meaning to all of this, Eli. There's some significance that we don't understand. Maybe we'll never understand it. But I don't believe that I would have had that dream only for one of us to die. There's no way Brynna would have saved us all only to be paid back by being killed. I just don't believe the universe is that cruel.”
He looked at me, smiling slightly and trying to suppress a bitter laugh. But when he spoke, I heard a condescension in his voice that reminded me of our lost sister.
“So, this 'deeper meaning' that would save Brynna is the same 'deeper meaning' that was responsible for an entire planet full of people being blown away by some huge explosion?”
“I know you're thinking that I'm naïve right now.” I snapped, “I know you’re being rude because you don’t believe in that stuff. But I didn't just say that to make you feel better. I do believe it, Elijah.”
“You would. You're still so young.”
“Me being seventeen has nothing to do with this!” I shot back angrily. “It's the truth! The natives are nothing. Whatever happens from here on out, I'm not going to be afraid. I refuse to believe that we would escape the earth only to die here.”
“Twenty people have died since we got here, Violet! They died brutally. The natives killed them because we're not welcome here. Not to mention, the countless people that died after taking that sedative. Where is all of that in the plan?”
I thought long and hard for a retort that would put the argument to bed. Coming up short, I just stood and started to gently shake Penny awake.
“You can sit here and cry, if that's what you need to do. But I'm not giving up on her.” I grasped Penny's hand as she rubbed her eyes sleepily, “Let's go, Penny.”
“Have you found Brynn yet?”
“No. Not yet, honey.”
Elijah followed after us, kicking rocks and stewing over his thoughts quietly. When we sat down to eat, he took his bottle of water and his bag of indistinguishable edible contents and hid behind a tree several feet from us.
“Why is Eli so mad?” Penny asked as she winked in the sunlight to look at me.
“He’s just mad.”
I shrugged the question off but knew that she would not be dissuaded from getting her answer so easily.
I was not skilled at hiding the emotional turmoil that was ever-present in our daily lives the way Brynna was. Under her watch, Penny had never known a detail of any familial conflict. That was quite a feat, considering that our family had more than its fair share of catastrophes, ranging from the mundane to the explosively devastating.
“Is he mad at me?” Penny asked, “I broke his cellphone.”
“Of course he's not mad at you!” I replied with a smile, “And what does he need his cellphone for, anyway? How did you break it?”
“I dropped it in the potty. He was letting me play with it. I was pretending that I was calling Jackie, and I tripped over my shoelace. It fell in the potty.”
“Oh.” I couldn't help but chuckle softly.
“Do you think Jackie is here?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think Mommy is here somewhere? I thought I saw her the other day, but it was just a lady who told me to go away and to tell my daddy he is a mean man!” She mimicked the woman by raising her voic
e, putting one hand on her hip and wagging her finger at me. I found her impression to be amusing, but the fact that a woman had said such a cruel thing to Penny made me angry. Our father's actions were in no way my five year old sister's fault, and it was certainly not her responsibility to deliver messages of discontent.
While I had been walking through the campsite with Nick, I had been well aware of the hateful glances that were being thrown my way. Of course, no one said anything out of fear that I would report back to my father. If I did that, their food and water would be kept from them, most definitely. In actuality, though, I wouldn't have said anything to him, of course. I would have handled it myself.
“Mommy will be here soon.” I lied uselessly.
Penny may have been only five, but she was still apt to tell a lie from the truth. It's at that age that children begin to see through the farces of adults. The lies we tell them become nothing more than an inconvenient roadblock they have to hurtle over in order to reach the truth.
“Did Mommy stay on Earth?” She asked me, and immediately, her huge blue eyes filled with tears. No love had been lost between my mother and Penny, at least on my mother’s end, but Penny still recognized, however vaguely, that our mother was her mother. Penny only became a difficult child when she was in the care of Mom and Dad, and it was during those times that Mom furiously texted Brynna and demanded that she come pick Penny up. Regardless of that animosity, though, Penny still loved her, even if it was only because of the slight remembrance of being carried by her.
“No!” I reached out and embraced Penny quickly, “Of course not! She's here somewhere, honey. We just haven't found her yet. As soon as we find Brynna, we'll all go out and find her. We'll have her back with us in no time.”
“Will Maura and Daddy come find us?” She croaked out through her tears.
Now, despite giving Dad a hard time, and despite seeing him so infrequently, she did love him. In the rare instances that they saw each other, Dad became a completely different person, playing and laughing with his youngest child. Penny and Maura had always been close, because Maura watched Penny when my father forbade Brynna from doing it, and they had formed a tight bond over that very small amount of time.
Because of that love she had for them, I lied again.
“Yes. They're meeting us soon.”
I was digging the hole deeper for her. I was doing her absolutely no good by continuing that charade of optimism. But I couldn't break her little heart. I would leave that task to Brynna. Penny was still so young, and Brynna allowed her emotions to flow unchecked. Despite how uncomfortable outpourings of grief made her, Brynna was able to comfort Penny more swiftly and effectively than anyone else alive. Our mother's death would be the first bombshell. Dad and Maura's subsequent abandonment would be the second. I did not envy Brynna's position in the slightest.
If I had been stronger, I would have taken that responsibility from her. I would have told Penny myself to spare Brynna from having to inflict such pain on our sister.
I was stunned at how quickly my anger had dissipated. I had truly hated Brynna during our time on the ship. After I had learned that she had left our parents to die, the only reasonable reaction was to loathe the very sight of her. It took seeing my father behave so brutally towards her for me to understand that if she had felt it was right to leave him, she had certainly had her reasons. Her relationship with my mother had been one of quiet hatred. At first, it had been one-sided; my mother began to hate Brynna the day my younger brother died. As her animosity grew, Brynna's defenses went up. Part of her defensive strategy was to hate my mother back. The mutual loathing spared her the pain of bearing my mother's punishment, which consisted of cruel and unbreakable silence followed by periods of harsh verbal abuse.
Our parents had decided to have Penny eight years after my younger brother was dead and buried. Even at twelve, I was well aware that Penny was meant to fill the void left by Lucien. But after she was born, Mom and Dad weren't satisfied. Their old, still-stinging grief was not rectified by the angelic baby girl. The brunt of the responsibility the baby presented fell on Brynna's seventeen year old shoulders, because Brynna had insisted on caring for Penny herself. During the day, we had gone to school. Maura would feed and change Penny. At night, Brynna came home and became Penny’s mom. Everything she had needed to know about child-rearing she had learned from some parenting book with a really long title.
“I can teach myself to do anything.” She had told me proudly one night as she expertly swaddled Penny, who was crying hysterically despite being fed, changed, and cuddled. “See? I saw this in that book. It really does work!”
Penny had stopped crying almost immediately after she was wrapped tightly in the blanket.
“You're so smart, Brynna!” I had told her with the pride and admiration that is ever present in younger siblings.
Our mother poked her head in frequently. But when she found Penny asleep or content with Brynna, she would slink back into her bedroom and drink herself to sleep or into a stupor.
I could understand Mom's grief, even then. Her feelings had never changed towards Elijah or me. But her maternal feelings towards Brynna were broken, irreparably, and towards Penny, they were never formed. She had observed her growing belly with sadness in her eyes, as though the expansion was a malignant stomach tumor, not a child. Her rages and fits of tears had forced my father to lock her in their room. After Lucien died, she had taken a long vacation from work that left her feeling restless and ready to return. Working didn’t heal the wounds, but it certainly bandaged them.
After she got pregnant with Penny so many years later, though, she wanted nothing more than to shut herself away, hiding from the eyes of the world that would see how terribly she regretted ever conceiving her.
I had no reason besides her treatment of my sisters to create such an anger in me. But that reason was enough.
Once, when Penny was three and Brynna was turning twenty, our mother had stumbled into the room. Brynna had come home to visit with Penny, as she did every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Normally, she left before my mom and dad came home from work or their recreational time out. But that night, my mom had returned early. After seeing Brynna, she shook her head, sighed in disgust, and went upstairs.
Brynna ignored Mom completely and continued to show Penny how to write uppercase letters. Maura was in the background, cooking dinner and looking over her shoulder at us every few seconds. I was leaned over my schoolbooks, looking up at Brynna and trying to remember how to spell the word “catastrophe.”
“Are you going to stay awake this time, Brynna?” My mother had slurred at her cruelly after making her grand re-entrance into the room.
“Mom, why are you walking like that?” I had asked her innocently before gasping in horror, “Are you drunk?!”
I had never been aware of her drinking habits before, but watching as she tripped over herself displayed them clearly to me.
“Shh!” She snapped, pointing a trembling finger at me for a second. “Should I sit here and watch? Make sure you don't kill another one of my kids?”
I didn't understand. I started to cry.
“Mom, stop!” I begged as I wiped at my eyes.
“Mrs. Olivier, you need to go back to your room.” Maura had told her. Even after twenty-two years, Maura had insisted on calling her “Mrs. Olivier.” Maura was even a few years older than my mom, and yet she still called her by our last name. That had always confused me.
“Don't tell me what I need to do! I need to protect my little girl!” She had run her hands sloppily down the back of my hair and leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “You shouldn't be alone with her, honey. She killed your brother! She killed him when she fell asleep! So selfish! My little boy!” She broke down into a drunken fit of hysterics so shameful, I'm surprised Brynna didn't slap her. “I don't care what happened to you! I don't care if it was ten men...”
“Just stumble away now, Mother.”
> Brynna had only just begun to call our mom “Mother.”
“My Lucien is dead! Everyone knew…” She sniffed and breathed heavily, “Everyone knew he was my favorite! He was my baby! I miss him. Every year, I’ve thought that it will get better. But I still miss him so much.” She raised her voice to a vicious shout. “It should have been you! I wouldn't have cared at all, Brynna Claire!”
I couldn't understand how she could say such terrible things. I was in the dark as to what she was alluding to when she had said “ten men.” But there was little interpretation needed to understand the implications of the other words she was saying. I didn't want Brynna to die, especially after losing Lucien years earlier. So, I put my face in my hands and cried harder.
“Take your homework into the living room, darling,” Maura closed my books and packed them into my bag, “Brynn will be in to help you in just a second.”
“I will, Vi. Go on.” Brynna had agreed with a small, reassuring smile.
She was distracted instantly when my mother reached out and grabbed both of Penny's tiny hands. Brynna's eyes flashed with a rage we had all become very familiar with over the years.
“Get off of her!” She barked so loudly that I had to cover my ears.
Upon seeing the terrifyingly furious look on Brynna’s face, Mom had released her grip on Penny.
“You wouldn't even be here if he had lived!” Mom slurred in Penny’s face as tears fell freely from her eyes. “I wouldn't have bothered with you! I wouldn't have wanted you! I didn’t want you! Your daddy...” She said the word with such awful contempt, “Made me have you! He wanted another son like Lucien! You wouldn't even be here if your brother hadn't died!”
Penny was more afraid of that outburst than I was. I suddenly understood that my mother wasn't herself. When Maura engaged in the same reckless imbibing, I understood the same. But Penny had no idea. Remembering it, I felt a harsh pang of pity for her.
Brynna understood it perfectly, too. She didn't excuse my mother's childish behavior or Maura's, be it alcohol-induced or not. She didn't hold with excusing the cruelty of two fully grown, supposedly mature women.
At my mother's words, she allowed herself to snap. Her human frailty overcame her ability to suppress every last flicker of emotion that crossed her heart. Tears leaked from my eyes as I remembered the look on her face as she brought her hand back. Then, without hesitation, she slammed it hard across my mother's face. The look was not one of malicious, revenge-seeking fury; it was one of deep heartbreak and fear.
The moment Mom hit the ground, Maura grabbed Brynna and pushed her away before she could engage in any more violent behavior that would drive my mother to have her committed or worse. But Brynna pushed past her and pulled our frail, sobbing mother off of the ground. I had cried harder when I had seen the blood streaming down Mom’s face.
“You say whatever shit you want to me, but if you say something like that to her again, I will break your neck! Do you understand me?!”
“Brynna!” Maura had screamed at her as she reached out and tried to pull her away from Mom again. Brynna shook her off easily.
“You're the devil!” My mother had shrieked in rage as Brynna pulled her onto her feet by putting one of Mom's arms around her neck. “Satan! You're possessed! I should let your father kill you!”
“Alright...” Brynna had replied as she walked Mom out the room delicately. “Just be quiet and hold onto me. Maura, she will need some ice. Could you bring her some?”
Why had that memory crept up on me? Why had it been so clear? I was attempting to remain level-headed and emotionless for Penny's sake and even partly for Elijah's. Yet there I was, crying right along with my little sister. The cruelty of my mother in that reminiscence remedied my grief, at the very least. But my grief evaporating had left an empty hole that was filled only with a toxic hatred that I knew Brynna had been carrying for well over twelve years.
I hated all three of them for her sake. Elijah had accused me of still being so young. But the sudden loathing of my parents and Maura was proof that I was growing up far more quickly than even I could have imagined.
I had seen them as being nothing short of God-like before. Now, I was beginning to understand that my three parental figures resided at the other end of the theological spectrum. Perhaps they weren't at the very end, but they certainly were close. Brynna, whom I had begun to demonize after overhearing Maura, Dad, and Mom doing it for so long, was working her way back to the top.
I hated that one day Penny would have to experience that same upheaval of every belief she ever held on the people she loved.
Hopefully, if we were lucky, she would forget them. She would never grow to hate them, because they would simply disappear.
After all of this time, I know that wish has been granted. Believe me when I say that it brings me no joy.
Brynna
I was becoming more and more frantic, though those in my party never knew of my internal storm. The forest around us held a presence that we could not see. Besides the years of events that those old trees had seen, some other conversation was occurring between them. I felt unsafe suddenly and certainly not alone. There was something moving amongst those woods, watching us.
Whatever that unknown, malevolent force was could have claimed my brother and sisters. I would scarcely be aware, even with enhanced instincts and all-knowing perception.
I stopped walking and sat on the ground, leaning forward to put my face against my knees.
Just breathe, my mind urged as my heart pounded, Just keep breathing, Brynna.
“Alright…” James was kneeling in front of me and rubbing my arms, “Baby, we’re going to find them. I promise you, we’ll come across them any minute now.”
The eyes of Alice and Quinn were turned away from us. I could afford one fleeting moment of weakness while they looked off in the distance for any signs of movement. I flung my arms around James’s middle and pressed my cheek to his strong chest. His arms wrapped around my neck, and his lips pressed to my forehead.
“It’s okay. They’re not looking, sweetheart.” He told me softly when I went to pull away. With that reassurance, I grabbed a hold of him again even more tightly than I had before. “You’re allowed to be afraid, Brynn. I know that you don’t think you are, but anyone would be afraid right now. I’m afraid, and I’ve only known them for a few weeks.”
I shook my head. I trusted James’s judgment and appreciated his acceptance of my temporary descent into emotional madness, but I would not allow myself to succumb to the raging war of feeling. I had to remain clear-headed and ready to fight. He believed that my show of emotion was normal, but I disagreed. It was not something I had ever allowed in myself before. It was an inconvenience we could not afford.
I pulled away from him, letting him grasp my hands so he could pull me to my feet. I swayed slightly as dizziness twirled my brain in hastened circles. I grasped him to steady myself, and my brows furrowed as I squeezed his biceps.
“You are totally lifting weights!” I accused him with a large smile that was very uncharacteristic of me, “You were thin before. You certainly did not have these…” I squeezed his muscles again. “Believe me, I would have noticed. Despite my aversion to emphasizing physical attractiveness when searching for a mate, I do still look.”
“So you were checking me out?”
The anxiety brewing in my chest calmed as my smile grew. I balled up my fist and hit him lightly in the chest as his arm wrapped around my shoulders. He chuckled softly, a sound that filled my ears with that glow I was so used to by then.
“I don’t know what exactly is happening to me. But I like it.” He said, “Did I tell you I picked up a rock the size of a Volvo and moved it the other day?”
“You did not!”
“I did. You think I’m kidding, but I am being completely serious. It’s not like I’m eating a lot, either. I don’t know where this is coming from, but I definitely like it.”
“Do yo
u think it’s the mutation?”
“I know it is. What else could it be?”
“Well, I love it. I thought you were quite good-looking when we first met. Though, if I am being honest, you were very thin.”
“I was. I hadn’t been feeling too well after I had that dream. Food repulsed me, to put it lightly.”
“Well, the fate of our kind was rested on your scrawny shoulders. You will be forgiven for not wanting to eat.”
“Okay, I wasn’t scrawny!” He protested.
“You were. You looked slightly ill, if I am still being frank.”
“When have you ever not been frank?”
“There were times. But now, I see no use in holding back honesty to spare feelings. It was something that developed as I aged, I suppose. It was part of my strange maturity.”
“Your maturity is very strange. It’s also the reason why I can easily justify having a relationship with you when you’re still so young.”
“Well, I am an adult, by the old world standards.”
“I know. But you’re also so mature. Can I ask you, though, why someone who looks like you would want to be with a guy my age? I’ve been curious about it, but I haven’t asked.”
“What do you mean ‘someone who looks like me?’ Looking at the context of the sentence, I can tell that it’s a compliment, but…”
“It is a compliment. You said you never had a lot of ‘suitors,’ and I don’t really understand why.”
“Elijah told you. I scared them away by being who I am.”
“Well, you don’t scare me.”
“Despite my best efforts. You know that I certainly tried to scare you away.”
“I know you did. But I was never afraid of you. I knew, and still do know, that beneath all of that disdain and animosity, you have a good heart. You have a great heart, actually.”
“And beneath all of your apathy and arrogance, you have the kindest heart I have seen. I have never been able to trust someone the way I trust you. Keep that in mind, if ever I start to pull away. In fact, remind me that I said that.”
He kissed me and replied, “I will.”
Apparently, a crushingly dense forest is a proper setting for heavy emotional discussions. Alice and Quinn were walking ahead of us, muttering to each other quietly so James and I could not hear. Their body language conveyed their tension and anger. It would not dissipate any time soon.
“It’s just a young person thing. In his heart, he knows he’s wrong. They’re reluctant to admit that their relationship has to last forever. That’s not true, of course. They can separate any time they want,” James explained as we studied them, “But that will be harder than it would have been, if the world was still right. She’s his last link to home and vice-versa.”
“You seem to feel that I have some emotional investment in their relationship.”
“I know you don’t. But you looked curious.”
“I was curious as to why she does not just punch him. That is what she wants to do.”
“Would you punch me?”
“If you were making me that angry, then yes.”
“You would not.”
I smiled up at him and kissed his cheek.
“You are right. I would use my words to punch you.”
“That would probably be worse.”
“Indeed, it would be.”
Alice and Quinn had disappeared into the brush up ahead.
“That is very odd…” I whispered in awe at what was in front of me.
James and I were looking up at a wall of thick palm leaves and pine needles. Interspersed with them were the crumbling leaves of the various trees that surrounded us. It was a huge green behemoth standing before us, blocking out the late afternoon sun. There was something threatening about its great mass. The feeling of being so small in the shadow of something so gargantuan was overpowering. I had to turn away for a moment.
When I turned back, I found James looking up towards the canopy overhead. The wall of shrubbery reached up to the very top of the tallest nearby tree.
“It’s blocking something. Alice! Quinn! Are you there?”
“Guys,” Alice’s voice said tremulously, “You have to see this!”
“How did you two get through there?”
“It parted for us. It was so weird!” Quinn called back.
“Well, I am just thrilled that they are so very special that…” I was beginning to mutter irritably as I walked up to the wall. But as I spoke, the leaves pulled back and up, revealing a small, oval-shaped tunnel. James and I looked at each other, our faces contorted into expressions of shock and amazement.
“That was quite impressive.” I told him as I stepped inside cautiously. I looked back, my eyes widening slightly as a new worrisome thought passed through my mind. “You don’t think this is going to close on us, do you?”
“No.” James replied, laughing. But his smile faded as he added, “At least, I don’t think so. I’ll go first. Scoot over.”
I moved to the side of the tunnel, grasping the twisted branches that made up its walls. He moved inside and maneuvered around me so that he was in front. I turned and grasped his hand as we walked through.
The walls never even shuddered in desire to close on us. We stepped out into the soft orange twilight once we had reached the end.
But it was not even close to sunset. Both James and I were dumbfounded by the sudden darkness of the world. We saw Alice and Quinn staring off, wide-eyed, into the distance, and we looked.
Of all the sights I had seen, it was by far the most breathtaking.
The sky over the metropolis was dark purple, like an oil painting made from the juice of smashed wild-berries. Interspersing with the vivid darkness were flecks of burnt orange swirled spectacularly into the canvas. The clouds hanging lazily against the backdrop were a deep hazel, though those cumulus beings stacked on top of one another were nearly transparent.
The city itself was alight with silver; the towering buildings and their surrounding subjects were made of soft chrome. The lights burning away in their windows were as orange as the light over our heads. It was natural translucence, so unlike the harsh, white, artificial lights we had used back home. Though I could feel the city bustling with life, not a sound reached us. The Pangaeans were quiet folk, in no rush and with no need of the excessive, deafening noises that we were so used to hearing.
It was the only city on Pangaea, or so I thought at the time. It was where its more forward-thinking, progressive citizens lived. I wanted nothing more than to run down the steep, high-grassed slope on which we were standing and disappear into the depths of the fantastic place that stood before me. I wanted to see every part of it. I wanted to experience the life of the Pangaeans.
But they were hostile to us. Surely, we would be killed.
I could understand it now. We were on their land, fresh from the planet we had so dirtied and inevitably destroyed with our filth and greed. We were a plague on those people whose age-old planet was as clean and pure as the day it had been born from empty space and a Godly hand.
Purissimus. That’s what the man had called it. Pure.
I understood why they hated us. We had shunned the creation gifted to us so many thousands of years earlier. The Pangaeans feared that our kind would do to their Purissimus what we had done to our Earth.
I understood it perfectly. I sympathized greatly. I almost hated us for being there, too, until I remembered that we had no other choice. My self-interest powerfully overruled my empathy. It certainly was not the first time that had happened. It certainly would not be the last.
“We have to go down there!” Alice exclaimed, and I could hear that she was beaming brightly with excitement.
“No.” I replied simply before turning my eyes away from the city to squash the temptation.
“Come on, the wall parted for us. They want us to come down there.” Alice informed us, and I suppressed a derisive chuckle unsuccessfully. I always found it so diffic
ult not to correct people when they were so obviously wrong. In this case, I did not even try to stop myself.
“Yes. So they can kill us.” I said, “Darling, you must start using your instincts. They’ve been gifted to you for a reason. Embrace a little cynicism.”
“That seems to have worked out well for you so far.” She replied coldly.
“It has saved me and everyone I have ever held dearly to me. So yes, it has, as you say, ‘worked out.’”
I said all of that without skipping a beat. I could have used my gift of reading minds to bring up some darkness from her history. But the dark memory I could see through a thin haze in her mind was fresh. It had only just been burned into permanence. Her mother’s crumpled body was at the forefront of her thoughts. Apparently, her trustworthy nature had allowed her to be fooled into letting in a Scout. That’s what I called them: Scouts.
“I’m going down there. There are a lot of people. I can feel them. I’ll just blend in. They look just like us.” Alice told us, but Quinn grabbed her hand.
“You can’t, Alice.”
“Maybe we should go down there.”
James shocked me by spewing such empty-headed nonsense. I had been beginning to feel that he was on par with me, intelligence-wise. Part of intelligence was a firm hold on common sense. To go down into that city filled with natives would be suicide. Suicide defied common sense.
My face conveyed all of that before I could even open my mouth.
“Baby, we could reach out to them. They might look at us coming down there as a noble act, like we’re bravely extending them the olive branch. That could make them listen. You know it could.”
“Or they will rip us apart on sight. That is perhaps a predication far too extreme to be plausible. But I know that it is certainly a possible outcome. In fact, it is far more probable than them granting us an audience with whomever their leader is so we can explain ourselves, James.”
“What if it’s the only way?” He asked me.
“What on Earth, or Pangaea, in this case, I suppose…” I shook my head slightly, pondering the drastic change in a simple expression. I almost lost my train of thought, which most certainly was not new to me. With so many thoughts running wildly through my head before the change-over, I had always been apt to lose what I had been musing on silently. Now, I had the thoughts of others with which to contend. In that case, I found my way back to the point with little effort.
“What makes you think that this is the only way?”
“Because it seems so obvious.” He laughed slightly in disbelief that I was not grasping the genius behind his great plan. He failed to realize that if a plan truly was one of great intelligence, I would have thought of it first.
“James, do not force me to go into a lengthy, intricate tirade. I am becoming more and more exhausted as this day progresses. All of this running is draining my strength.”
“This could be exactly what we need to do. Maybe we’re meant to make peace with them, do you know what I mean?”
“Of course I know what you mean, James. That was not a difficult thought to decipher. However, I think you are wrong. You did not see what they did to people. It was brutal. It was sick. I certainly do not want to be ripped apart!”
“I will never let that happen, Brynna. I promise.” He changed courses immediately, “Alright, I have an idea.”
“Dear Lord…” I sighed heavily and sat down on the ground. He knelt in front of me.
“I’ll go down there alone. I’ll tell them that I need to come back to get you…”
“Let me stop you right there. If you go down there and then say that you need to leave immediately to fetch me, they are going to suspect that you are a spy. That would be any person’s first thought when the enemy strolls so willingly into their midst. Even a brain-dead, crack-addicted vagabond would suspect that.”
He covered his face, trying to hide the fact that he was laughing. I raised one eyebrow in irritation as I looked at him.
“Do you find me humorous, James? Because you should know that amusing you is just about the last bullet on my list of priorities.”
“I find you very humorous, baby. I know that you’re being serious, and I appreciate that. But sometimes, the things you say just make me laugh.”
“Yeah? The scrawny body you possessed on Earth made me laugh, but I did not call your attention to it.”
He laughed even harder now. I wanted to slap him.
“What do you want me to say?” I snapped at him angrily, “Do you want me to say that I am worried about you? Is this plan you are proposing some roundabout path to get me to say that I care?”
“No. Baby, stop it.” He grasped my hands, “You’re getting defensive.”
“You’re being stupid.”
“I know. I know.” He kissed my hands, “I’m sorry. You’re just funny sometimes.”
I studied him for a moment as he tried to suppress his crooked grin that I loved so much. I found myself fighting a smile. I was irritated, surely, but his amusement at what I had said did touch me.
“Well, I am glad you feel that way, honestly.” I told him as my shaken nerves calmed. “Not many people find me to be even slightly funny, so this is a plus, I suppose.” I looked at him, feeling myself choking back words that I wanted to say. But those particular words were forceful, and after several seconds of attempting to suppress them, they had to be spoken. Finally, they spewed forth from me as my defenses crumpled before him.
“I need you, James.”
Those particular words were always waiting to be said. There was never a moment when they were not true.
“I know,” He leaned in to kiss my lips tenderly, “I know, Brynna.”
“I have never needed another human being. I never needed a parental figure, even. But I need you. I hate it, but I do.”
“Why do you hate it?” He asked me.
“I do not hate it because of you. I hate it because I cannot stand allowing myself to rely on someone. I hate knowing that at any time, I could be…” I searched for the right term, “I could be damaged by you.”
His warm brown eyes gazed into mine for a long time. He was stone-serious now.
“I can’t promise you that I won’t hurt you, Brynna, but I will try my best not to.” He told me gently after resting both of his hands on my face. “I know that this is all very new to you. I know that it is something you’re learning.”
“Splendid. You know that you are my guinea pig. That eliminates awkwardness, surely.”
He smiled.
“That is definitely new. I've seen you use your disdain for people to avoid feeling things. I’ve never seen you make a joke to do it. That’s far more normal than anything I could have expected of you.”
“Well, I am not going to apologize for embracing a little normalcy, however unconsciously I embraced it.”
“I’m not asking you to. See? I made you angry. You’re getting defensive with everything I say.”
“You did make me angry. I can admit that to you. I am so used to feeling mild annoyance. But you are making me genuinely angry with your empty-headed suggestions. I have always been independent, and if something happened to you down there, I would survive. But James, I would grieve for you.”
The words being said aloud shocked him as much as they shocked me.
“I would be so sad.” I felt a rush of tears in my eyes. Furiously, I blinked them away but they were bullheaded, with a will of their own. In an abrupt motion, I flung my hand up in his direction, palm facing outward.
“Don’t look at me!”
Respectfully, he looked away. My own will to suppress the new insurgence of tears surpassed their own power; they never fell.
“Maybe you are right.” I told him in a voice devoid of any emotion. Whatever onslaught of feeling that had passed over me had dissipated, leaving no trace of its sudden grip. “Maybe this is our only way to reach out to them, to make them understand. But I have seen what they can do.”
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He was looking back at me now.
“If they decide they want you dead, even with all of this power we have now, you would not stand a chance in a crowd of them. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I don’t agree, but I do understand.”
“Either way, it is not a risk I am willing to take. I am not willing to risk your life, not for anything. Okay?”
He nodded and pulled me close to him, kissing the top of my head after my arms had tightened around his middle.
“Okay.”