Sugar Coated

  “I wouldn’t say your legs are one of your more admirable features, but at least they distract from that grotesque mouth of yours,” she heard an all-too-familiar voice say.

  She looked up unwillingly to see the Angel standing before her, her paper white skin and hair looking crisp and in focus compared to the rest of the world that shifted around her like looking at an image under water.

  “Nice dress by the way. Where are you going? One of your little parties in Seaside with your vapid friends?”

  Brynn stared at the star of her nightmares for a moment, wondering how she had managed to find her in real life. The woman stood almost a foot taller than Brynn and her tall, slender figure looked like something you’d cut yourself on if you tried to hug her.

  “What are you doing here, Brynn?” the Angel asked, using her name rather than Rachel’s.

  “Looking for you,” she said honestly to the woman, finding that her bravery was much more intact when she had a voice and control over her own body.

  “You think you can just walk right into my facility? I run the place. What did you think you’d find?” the Angel said, her perfect smile never once faltering as she stared intently at Brynn.

  “The truth, I guess,” she replied.

  “You need to get up and move or your limbs will be stiff from the medicine,” the Angel told her in a strange, muffled voice that sent Brynn’s head spinning for some reason.

  She grabbed onto the bed for support as the world dipped in and out of focus.

  “What did you do to me?” Brynn asked the Angel, looking up into her unforgiving features in alarm.

  The woman simply smiled at her as another voice spoke from somewhere far away.

  “We’re trying to help,” the other voice said.

  A male voice that she couldn’t quite place.

  “Hello?” Brynn called, hoping the other voice would hear and get her away from the Angel before she could start torturing her for answers she didn’t have.

  “Brynn?” the voice said again while the Angel smiled, unblinking and unmoving in the constantly shifting room.

  “Get her away from me. Please!” Brynn called, pushing herself onto the bed to get farther away from the woman.

  It seemed that no matter where she moved, the woman stayed perfectly in step in front of her, never blinking and never letting her sinister smile leave her perfect face.

  “Brynn,” the voice said again.

  “She’s going to kill me!” Brynn screamed, feeling the white walls melt away around her as a new and unfamiliar world came into view.

  The only consolation to Brynn was the fact that the faces in this unfamiliar world were people she knew.

  “Ty?” she asked, seeing her friend’s worried expression. “Jonah?”

  “What’s wrong with her? Her pupils are huge,” Ty said, looking over at Jonah in frustration while he stroked Brynn’s hair.

  “That is an unfortunate side effect of the medicine,” Jonah said, wincing guiltily. “Also, she may be experiencing some mild hallucinations. But it's nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing to worry about? She’s terrified! Look at her,” Ty practically shouted in the small confines of this new location that Brynn couldn’t quite understand.

  She did note with some dismay that Ty still had the bruise on his chin from where her head had rammed into it.

  “Where are we? Why are the walls so funny looking?” she asked, looking around at the walls that seemed to be made of cloth.

  “We pitched a tent to get out of the sun,” Ty explained, still stroking her hair with one hand and grasping her arm with the other. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. Everything’s just…fuzzy,” Brynn admitted, bringing a hand up to her forehead and closing her eyes for a moment. “I was just having a nightmare, I think.”

  “About that woman?” Ty asked.

  “The Angel,” Jonah corrected, bringing out an odd look from Ty that Brynn couldn’t quite place.

  “As usual,” Brynn said, looking at the two boys. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Most of the day. It’s almost dark, so we need to start walking soon,” Jonah explained. “I gave you a pill to help with the healing process.”

  Brynn slipped her hand under her shirt to feel the place where the harness had bitten into her skin, only to find that—like in her dream—the skin was completely smooth.

  “How on earth did you manage to get medicine like that? Charlie only gave me painkillers and gauze,” Brynn said in annoyance.

  “I may or may not have checked myself into the hospital under false pretenses before our trip to get it,” Jonah said with a wicked grin. “It’s pretty amazing stuff. It’s full of these living organisms that target the injured part of your body and repair it from the inside out.”

  “Wait, so I’ve got a million little microscopic things living inside of me right now?” Brynn asked, suddenly squeamish with that idea.

  “No, they dissolve in your system after a few hours,” Jonah assured her.

  “How did you even get them to give you medicine like that?” Ty asked, looking skeptical.

  “Let’s just say I said some things to the doctor that I’m not proud of,” he answered elusively, never losing the sly grin on his face.

  “I’m glad you managed to get the medicine,” Brynn said fervently. “Thank you.”

  “I think Ty’s gauze is what actually helped the most. If he hadn’t taken care of things so quickly you would have lost way too much blood,” Jonah said, causing Ty to look over at him even more suspiciously.

  She would probably never understand boys. Even when Jonah was trying to be nice, Ty thought he had some sort of hidden agenda.

  “Although the pill definitely helped the head wound,” Jonah said.

  Brynn instantly brought her hand to the back of her head, where the bump had almost completely disappeared.

  “I thought I might have hit my head,” Brynn said, as if trying to recollect the memory.

  “Yeah, I saw you slam your head into Ty when the wind catcher first pulled you guys out of the train. It was pretty brutal,” Jonah replied.

  “I do have a gift for getting myself hurt and or killed,” Brynn admitted, slowly sitting up in the confines of the tent that fit two people on a good day. There was no way all three of them would be able to sleep in there if it took too long to find Aywon. “Sorry about your chin Ty,” she added, to which he shrugged.

  “Now, the medicine will probably make you really thirsty, but we can’t really give you too much water,” Jonah said slowly.

  “Why not?” Brynn asked, realizing how thirsty she was at Jonah’s suggestion.

  He didn’t answer, but stole a furtive glance at Ty, who sighed deeply.

  “You guys only brought enough food and water for the two of you and I didn’t plan ahead enough to bring my own supplies, so we’re pretty limited on rations at the moment,” he said, looking very ashamed of himself for overlooking such an important detail in his hasty attempt to save Brynn.

  “It’s fine Ty. Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’m sure we’ll find Aywon tonight and it won’t even matter how many supplies we brought,” Brynn said reassuringly, even as she puzzled over how painful death by starvation would be in the dry, hot desert.

  “I’m sure we won’t even make a dent in the food we brought,” Jonah agreed, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than anything. “The water is the main thing we’ll need to ration. I thought we’d be landing in a forest with rivers and springs, so I figured water would be easy to find. It would be food we’d struggle with.”

  “So this is all your fault because you jinxed us, is what you’re saying,” Brynn joked.

  “Pretty much,” Jonah answered.

  “We should probably take advantage of the darkness and start walking now,” Ty interjected.

  As the three took down the tent and packed their supplies, Jonah explained what had happened while Brynn was sleepi
ng off her injuries.

  “Ty and I agree that we probably passed Aywon on the train, so we should backtrack rather than our original plan of moving forward."

  “What if we didn’t pass it?” Brynn asked, thinking of their limited water supply and the burning sun in the desert.

  “Then we’d better hope we find water pretty soon,” Ty said grimly as he strapped the tent to Brynn’s backpack, which he insisted on carrying as they started their trek.

  They hadn’t strayed too far from the train tracks, so it was easy to locate them in the distance of the flat horizon. The tracks acted as a guide for the group, leading the way to the city they hoped existed. The moon shone brightly in the sky, illuminating everything on the ground with a soft blue glow.

  As they walked, Brynn thought of the walls around the cities, and of Ty’s explanation that they kept wild animals out. She looked around the sandy landscape, wondering what watched them from behind the scruffy shrubs and tumbleweeds. Every once in a while Brynn could swear she heard a rustle in the bushes or saw a flash of yellow eyes watching them. Each time she heard a noise, goose bumps rose all over her body and she tried to ignore the sensation, telling herself the wild animals were just another lie she was trying to discover the truth about.

  Brynn could tell Ty’s train of thought matched hers quite closely. Every once in a while his head would jerk to the side, his attention caught by the sand blowing in the breeze or the moonlight playing tricks with shadows. When this happened, he would give a little shudder and then bring his focus back in front of him, probably telling himself that what he had learned wasn’t true.

  They traveled in relative silence, somehow having come to an unspoken agreement that whether there were wild animals or not, they didn’t want to give their position away. The only sound was the occasional breeze or their silent footfalls in the soft sand. Even at night, the desert was too warm for Brynn’s taste. She could feel herself sweating in the long sleeves and black pants and she began to wonder why she had picked this particular outfit. Pulling uncomfortably at the stretchy material, she speculated over what it would feel like when the sun rose and beat down on her black clad group.

  Their journey lasted all through the night and continued as the sun came up the next morning. They had only exchanged a few words throughout the entire night, warning of a hole in the ground or asking for a little water, and now, as the sun rose, Brynn swore she could hear a collective exhale from the group; relieved that nothing bad had happened in the darkness of an unfamiliar place.

  “We should try to keep walking until about noon,” Jonah said, “By that time it’ll be too hot to keep going.”

  Brynn and Ty agreed to this, though Brynn’s legs were screaming with exhaustion. Her muscles twitched angrily every few seconds, not used to so much exertion over such a long period of time. She had a feeling the deep, soft sand wasn’t making their trek any easier, and she added it her list of things she was beginning to hate about the desert.

  As the sun rose slowly in the sky, making its way above their heads, Brynn, Ty, and Jonah began rolling up their pant legs and sleeves in an attempt to stop the oppressive heat from getting trapped inside of their clothing.

  “Whose idea was the all-black again?” Ty asked, sounding out of breath as they continued through the desert, never losing sight of the train tracks.

  Jonah didn’t say anything, but pointed the accusing finger over his shoulder at Brynn, who shrugged guiltily.

  “It seemed like good cover for the night,” she defended.

  “It is,” Ty said, almost encouragingly. Almost. “If they didn’t turn into human ovens during the day,” he finished, attempting to fan himself with his hand as they walked.

  “Stop doing that—I swear, you’re just fanning hot air at your face. It’s probably making it worse,” Brynn said.

  She had attempted to sound lighthearted and joking, but couldn’t muster the strength to put the emotion into her voice so she just came off as annoyed.

  “Maybe if I wasn’t wearing a space heater I wouldn’t need to fan myself,” Ty shot back. Brynn could feel one of their fights coming on.

  “And that’s our cue to make camp,” Jonah interjected, verbally stepping between the two before they could really get into it.

  It took a long time to make camp, all three of them too overheated and thirsty to work very hard. Once inside of the tent Brynn was sorely disappointed by the lack of chill the shade provided. She lay on the floor of the tent with Ty and Jonah laying awkwardly beside her in the sticky confines of the small enclosure.

  “I don’t know if it’s worse to be in the direct sunlight or stuck in here in the muggy heat,” Brynn said miserably, sweat drenching her entire body. “It’s like we can’t see the sun, but all of the heat is getting trapped inside.”

  “Please stop saying heat,” Ty requested, wiping his hand across his forehead and groaning.

  “I’m so thirsty,” Brynn commented, eyeballing the almost empty water bottle attached to her backpack.

  “Okay, don’t talk about water either,” Ty said.

  “What can I talk about, Ty?” Brynn asked in annoyance.

  “Really, you shouldn’t be talking about anything because we’re supposed to be sleeping right now,” Jonah said from beside Brynn, his arm draped over his eyes so that only his grinning mouth could be seen.

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to fall asleep in this heat?” Brynn asked, running her tongue over her dry lips in an attempt to bring some moisture back into them.

  “I can sleep anywhere,” he answered, rolling over onto his side so that his back faced her as if to prove his point.

  She sighed deeply at this explanation, finding that she was even becoming annoyed with Jonah. It wasn’t unusual for Brynn and Ty to fight endlessly. It was what they did. But she and Jonah had always gotten along. Even now he was still being his same funny, lighthearted self, but for some reason it was annoying her to no end.

  She turned her head to look over at Ty. His eyes were closed, but she could tell by his ragged breathing that he was using all of his willpower to keep from screaming about how hot and uncomfortable he was. Brynn could feel a massive headache coming on and tried to close her eyes to sleep through it.

  Sleep didn’t come easily for any of the three, and when it did it brought its own set of bizarre dreams. Brynn dreamed of her parents and good memories she’d had with them over the years, but this quickly turned into Orson and Lia running through the white facility the Angel ruled, trying to escape her twisted smile.

  “You think your family is safe because you’re so far from home, Rachel?” the Angel’s voice said to Brynn from somewhere in the dark recesses of her dream. “Don’t worry. If it means getting answers from you, I can always find them.”

  Chapter 24: Glimmer

  By the time Brynn woke at sunset, her head was throbbing and her clothes were soaked through with sweat. She placed her hand lightly over her face and wiped away a few tears that resided there as a result of her pounding head.

  “Are you okay?” Jonah asked, already sitting up in the small tent and packing his things while Ty slept on.

  “I feel like my brain is swollen,” Brynn explained, feeling that this was the best way to describe the pain she was currently experiencing.

  “That’s the dehydration,” Jonah answered knowingly. “If we don’t find this place tonight we might be in trouble.”

  “I think we were in trouble yesterday; now we’re just dying,” Brynn complained, stuffing dehydrated food bars into her backpack and wishing she was in the comfort of her own home so that she could simply ask Charlie for some water. “We’re kind of spoiled in the city aren’t we?” Brynn asked, never realizing before how accustomed she had grown to getting anything she wanted simply by asking for it.

  “Just a little,” Jonah replied sarcastically. “But at least we’re excellent askers.”

  “So we’ve got that going for us,” Brynn added with a g
roan.

  “You should wake Ty. We need to get going so we can cover some good ground tonight. I refuse to die out here,” Jonah said, sounding as if he were simply refusing to eat his vegetables.

  * * *

  By the time Brynn, Ty, and Jonah had gotten back on track and were walking to their unseen destination, the sky was turning dark blue with neon pink and orange clouds skittering across the surface. Brynn had never seen a sunset like that before and she was glad that in the color free desert there was at least one beautiful thing to look at.

  Ty had seemed more groggy than normal when they woke him and he complained of a headache similar to Brynn’s. They both tried to ignore the pain in their heads and the dryness in their mouths as they pressed forward. Brynn couldn’t help but wonder, as they walked with no results, if they had picked the right way to travel. She would have assumed they would have reached the city the night before, but on their second night into the trip, there was still no sign of Aywon.

  By now the threat of wild animals was a moot point. Brynn and Ty had long since stopped turning their heads at every sound. They hadn’t seen so much as a bird since they’d left the train and Brynn figured no animals could live in such harsh terrain. Even if an animal had decided to attack them, none of the three were strong enough to fight it off anymore, so worrying about it was only using up precious energy that needed to be conserved for walking.

  As the moon slowly made its way across the sky and began its descent, Brynn felt a tear roll down her cheek in the warm wind of the hot night. She was beginning to lose hope that Aywon existed and felt that she had dragged her friends out into the desert to die with her. They hadn’t even seen the train come by since they started their trip, which they all found odd, since it should have passed them twice a day. This bizarre digression from the norm, however, was the least of their concerns.