Naturals (4 page)

McNair stopped suddenly and turned on me so quickly I almost fell into his arms. His normally stoic expression was gone. Blotches of red spread from his neck to his cheeks and his fingers tightened over the strap of his gun. “Enough. I’ve had enough.” He spoke quietly through his teeth.

I wanted to step away from him, but I knew to do so would be admitting defeat, and I couldn’t back down. Not now. I took a deep breath and lifted my chin. “You don’t—”

“I don’t believe I asked you to talk,” he snapped.

“Leave her alone. She’s got a point,” Henry said, suddenly appearing by my side. I could hear Robert moving closer to me as well.

“No. I don’t think she gets it. Let me explain to you how this will work. The only reason you’re alive right now is because
we
helped get you out. You think you deserve special treatment because one day you’ll bring some poor pathetic creature into a world that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense? I don’t give a crap what you can do.”

“You’re lying. I
am
important. Otherwise, you and your friends wouldn’t have wasted the time coming to rescue me,” I replied, embarrassed by how shaky my voice sounded. It was the only card I had to play, and I was ashamed by how quickly I’d used it.

“Tess, I think it’s best we save this conversation for later. Everyone is very tired,” Robert said as he moved to step between McNair and myself.

Choice was complicated. This life, the life the council created, dictated that I couldn’t have it all, and if I had to choose, I would always choose to go down fighting. I didn’t have time for later.

“I didn’t make the decision to bring you to our camp. And don’t fool yourself into believing you’re some messiah we’ll all bow down to. We said we would allow one natural and one chosen one to escort you for your protection. You have Henry. And Robert has been connected to the resistance for a long time. Way longer than however many minutes it took that boy to get your skirt off—”

“Watch it, old man!” Henry snapped, taking his place next to Robert. I was now completely blocked from McNair. I looked down to the ground, attempting to hide the way my cheeks burned at his insinuation.

Before anyone could speak, Eric lifted his gun and pointed it toward Henry. “I think you best watch how you talk to him, kid.” When Henry opened his mouth to reply, Eric clicked the safety off the gun.

McNair’s laugh mixed with the heavy quiet that now claimed the woods. “Put the gun down, Eric. You might actually get these kids thinking we’re scared of them.” Eric didn’t hesitate to follow his leader’s order.

Any sense of a united front formed back at the training center had disappeared. McNair took a step to the side so he could see me. He sighed, rubbing his hand across the stubble that covered his face. “Can we continue walking now, or would you like to throw another useless fit?”

Henry looked back at me, defeated, urging me to just give it up. He was a fighter, but this wasn’t a battle he thought important enough to join.

Sleep.

I had nothing but a blanket for a bed in the woods. As the sun set on the wilderness I’d never feel safe in, I knew that no matter how much time I spent clearing out rocks, the ground would force its way into my back—exclaiming in its own way that this wasn’t a place where I belonged. I’d refused to sleep close to anyone those first few nights. It was my own futile attempt at claiming my independence. The feeling that independence could one day be possible was still so new to me that I felt I had to proclaim it every second that I could, just to make sure I still believed it was possible.

Most nights I spent in a fitful sleep. I didn’t wake up because of some nightmare—no, it was something worse than that. Every so often I awoke to an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Finality. I had left. James. Louisa. Everything I knew.

There had to be some way to claim yourself without having to turn everyone away. It didn’t seem like a fair trade.

That night, Henry slept ten feet from me. It was closer than the rest slept, though they also surrounded me. I had the feeling the others were giving me a wide berth after my tantrum in the woods

“Tess? You awake?” Henry whispered through the darkness.

“Why do people always ask that? If I were a light sleeper, your question alone would have woken me up,” I managed to joke.

“You all right?” he asked, choosing to ignore my sarcasm.

I sighed, pulling the thin blanket over my shoulders and turning my back toward him. “I’m tired. I just want to sleep.”

“I—”

“Don’t. I don’t want to talk about it. You don’t need to solve my problems, Henry. I’m glad you’re here, but we’re not seven anymore.” I knew I was taking my anger at McNair out on Henry, but I was beginning to resent the way he was always trying to force me to open up since we started this journey. “We don’t need to pretend we’re friends just because we’re the only two young people around.”

Henry offered a short, sarcastic laugh. “Pretend. That’s the right word. You’re so busy pretending, you can’t even tell when you’re doing it anymore.”

I flipped my body over so I could look at Henry’s face. It was hard to make it out in the blackness of the night, but I could see the moon reflect off his eyes like he was some animal lost in the wild. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

I could hear Henry shift, pausing before continuing. He used to do this all the time when we were little. He was so careful with his words. It was something I respected. Words used too often lost their meaning. When he spoke, I always wanted to listen.

But a lot of things had changed since then.

“I’m here now. I know I wasn’t for a while. I ran the minute things got weird back at the compound, but I’m here with you. You don’t have to pretend that you’re not scared or sad. I won’t think you’re weak.”

I shook my head and turned my back toward him again. “You’re here because you don’t have anywhere else to go.” It would only be a matter of time before Henry’s part in his girlfriend’s terrorist act would be found out. Besides, when everyone you know lies to you, it becomes easy to think nothing is real. Nothing true. Nothing authentic.

The old Tess was fighting to come back.

It would be easy to let her, but then meeting James would have meant nothing at all. I would have spit in the face of everything he taught me.

I was about to open my mouth to apologize, but the sound of McNair shooting straight up off the ground silenced me. I could hear the
click
of three guns before I had even scrambled to my feet.

“What’s—” A hand clamped over my mouth, and everything stilled. All of us, waiting. It was as if time itself would be defined by what happened next.

And then I heard it—the sound of people moving through the woods around us. They weren’t quiet; they didn’t need to be. What did they have to fear? They were chosen ones.

And they were looking for me.

My breath sounded too loud. I held it inside my throat, praying to God, if he was there, to help us. I could feel a drop of sweat slide down my neck. My hands shook furiously at my sides. The darkness of the night hid their numbers, but I knew they were out there. I had been right to fear the things that hid in the black of night. I had been stupid to think the worlds were separate—my old life and my new one.

Nothing was separate. These worlds would bleed together until there was nothing left.

I’m not sure how long we stayed like that, Robert’s hand on my mouth and Henry by my side. The Isolationists with their guns ready for battle. Eventually, I felt Robert’s hand relax and move from my mouth. The dawn broke, but the light didn’t feel safe. It made me feel vulnerable.

We had come so close to being caught.

Henry gave my hand a squeeze as he went to help pack up the camp. Any disagreements we’d had earlier seemed to be forgotten. No one talked. The men surrounded me as before and we began to walk.

I didn’t ask for Louisa again.

I only asked to make it out of the woods alive.

Chapter 4

“Get up! Hurry! There isn’t much time.” Her desperation had filled the house unchecked that night. I could hear Emma entreating my mother to calm down.

My father’s voice had been absent more and more during those last couple of months before he was taken. I never could understand what drew him from our house during the night. It used to be his job to calm my mother during one of her nighttime fits, but as he delved deeper into a part of the world I never knew about, disappearing into the secret network of the resistance movement, it was left up to Emma to stand watch over my mother day and night. My mother had always had a problem with alcohol, but my father’s absence was making it harder. She was the one who was supposed to be taking care of us, but she acted too much like a child.

I used to wake up often in the middle of the night. Even then, at such a young age, I was shamed by my emotions. I felt weak whenever a nightmare woke me. I never reached for Emma, who shared my bed, but I always felt the tiniest bit better knowing she was there.

In those last days in our house, I often woke to find Emma gone.

I sluggishly pulled myself out of bed and opened the door. The first thing I saw was Louisa—who hated to be away from my mother’s side, who shared my mother’s bed, who chased after her as if she always knew somewhere deep down that our mother would leave us, and leave us of her own free will. My little sister sat against the wall across from me, her knees pulled to her chest, and her much-too-thin face streaked with tears.

“Please, Mom, just calm down. We don’t have to go for hours. Let’s get the children back to sleep and make you some coffee,” I heard Emma beg, her voice coming from the kitchen.

“You don’t understand. They’ll be making their decisions then. They’ll be judging, and we have to make sure we all look our best. We certainly can’t trust that your father will watch after us. It will be just us girls!” Louisa jumped at the shrill noise that issued from my mother’s lips. She had a beautiful voice, and it always struck me as odd to hear it so distorted, consumed by these moments of drunkenness.

I forced my feet to move toward the sounds of my mother’s broken symphony. Emma had her propped up in a chair, one hand against her shoulder holding her in place, while the other hand smoothed her hair. Emma was on her knees, peering up at my mother as one would a child who had scraped her knee while playing outside—mimicking the mother she never got to have and the mother she’d never get to be. “It’s just a shot to boost our immune systems. With the food supplies running short these days, the council wants to make sure we’re getting the vitamins we need.”

“What, so they can produce mass quantities of shots but can’t produce enough food for us to eat?” my mother scoffed.

Emma didn’t hesitate in answering. “You know the war takes larger portions of our lands every week. Besides, food distribution is too large of a project for the council to undertake right now. It’s so much simpler this way.”

“Simpler. Simpler is not always better, Joan.” Her voice rose in pitch. I had never met my grandmother, and this voice was the only thing I ever knew about her. Joan was my mother’s name, and somehow in these moments of delirium, she channeled my grandmother. When she began speaking in this tone, we all knew it was only a matter of time before she passed out.

Mother’s head fell forward. Right on cue. Emma caught it in her hands and lifted it to look into her eyes. I felt Louisa beside me. She tried grabbing for my hand, but I pushed it away. Louisa was one of the last naturals born in our sector, and somehow Mother’s condition got worse after she was born.

“Mommy, I’m tired. Can we go to bed now?” Louisa asked quietly, her voice catching on the hiccups her earlier crying had caused.

My mother pulled her head up, snatching it quickly from Emma’s hands. “Come here, my sweet girl,” she said, holding her shaking hand toward Louisa, who didn’t have to be told twice. She ran to my mother, nearly knocking Emma down in the process. My mother held her against her chest. “Repeat it back to me, Louisa. Like a good girl. Just like I taught you.”

Louisa nodded and cleared her throat, turning her head up toward my mother’s face. “I believe in the council. The council will protect me. Protect me from my enemies. Protect me from myself.”

“That’s a good girl,” my mother replied. She closed her eyes and began to rock Louisa back and forth. Emma stood watching, her hands clutched at her sides. I turned my back on them and returned to bed.

“Tess. Tess!”

The voice didn’t belong to my mother. My mother was dead. So was Emma. “Louisa,” I whispered as my eyes opened. My younger sister was still alive and I had left her. I couldn’t stop the tears that ran down my face then; it didn’t matter that the darkness of the night did nothing to hide them from Henry, who was now closer to me than I remembered him being before I had gone to sleep. We had walked for two days after our run-in with the chosen ones in the woods. No sleep. No rest. When McNair finally allowed us a night to sleep, I didn’t hesitate.

I pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes. “I…I left her,” I replied, trying to be quiet. It was okay for Henry to see this, but I didn’t want the others to witness my weakness.

Why did it still feel like weakness?

“We had to leave her,” Henry replied softly.

“No. We didn’t. If I hadn’t acted so foolishly with James, we would have had more time. I wanted too much. It was silly to love at all, and I went and fell in love with the one person I never should have thought about. Somehow that love destroyed everything,” I said. “The council always told us that it was dangerous to feel such things. When I think of how my selfish need for James affected Louisa, I think maybe the council had it right.”

“Tess. Look at me. Please, look at me.”

I sighed and reluctantly moved my hands from my face, choosing to look up at the stars tossed randomly into the night sky than to confront Henry’s gaze. It was a compromise. He could see me, but I couldn’t bear to look at him.

“You’re tired. You’re scared. And you miss your sister. Don’t let one bad night make you regret the choices you made. You fought back against
them
, Tess. Don’t regret that,” Henry urged.

I laughed. “I didn’t do any fighting. I made out with some boy a bunch of times. I read books I wasn’t allowed to read and listened to music I was told was harmful. I wasn’t like you. I wasn’t a part of some resistance movement.”

Henry sounded like he cared, yet I couldn’t help but remember his need for vengeance back at the compound only days before. Was he asking me if I was all right because he was worried, or was he subtly convincing me to join his revolution?

“And you approve of my actions? There’re so many different ways to rebel. Revolutions aren’t all just blood and sweat. The strongest revolutions begin in the mind and the heart. Why do you think the council took books, music, and art away first? Because they’re the weapons by which our souls fortify themselves. And it is our very souls that the council is trying to destroy.”

I couldn’t help it—I had to look at Henry. His words weren’t backed by the tone of rage that usually composed his speeches. This was a different Henry. Not quite the boy I knew in my childhood, but also not the vengeful soldier who’d helped me escape.

Maybe it was pure exhaustion that had torn down his walls, but this sounded like hope.

He sounded like James.

I grabbed Henry’s hand and clutched it. “We have to find a way to save her. We
have
to. Louisa won’t make it on her own. She’s not like you or me. She’s a believer.” My mother had seen to that.

“No, you’re wrong. She’s strong like you. She’ll be all right,” Henry said, giving my hand a squeeze.

I shook my head, wiping my free hand against my nose. “I don’t even know her well enough to say what she’s like. You’re just telling me that to make me feel better.” I had put distance between Louisa and me growing up because she had reminded me too much of my mother. I wondered if I would have to spend my whole life regretting that choice.

Henry fell silent. Then he said, “You’re right. I am. I can’t pretend that place isn’t dangerous. But,” he continued, “we all had to make some decisions back there. They weren’t pretty decisions. Maybe they weren’t right, but we had to make them.”

“You all had to save me…because I’m fertile.” I swallowed, the word feeling strange to say. I didn’t know if I would ever be comfortable with it. It was a word connected with something I was taught to be dirty and shameful, and I felt as though it covered me like sap from a tree.

“I don’t care what you are. I just had to save you,” he whispered back.

I went still. There it was again. No matter how much things had changed while we were apart, he still felt it. I could name what he was feeling now, especially since I had felt it myself. I just hadn’t felt it for him.

Henry yanked his hand from mine and jumped to his feet. I propped myself up on my elbows. “Where are you going?” I whispered, looking around to make sure his movement hadn’t woken anyone up.

“I have to pee,” he said with a careless shrug and disappeared.

I lay back down, pulling my knees to my chest and curling myself into a ball. It made sense to try and go back to sleep—there would be another long day of travel in the morning. The nights and days were getting colder as we moved deeper and deeper into the Middlelands. McNair had offered me his jacket earlier in the day, but I had stubbornly refused. I was still angry at his refusal to back up my plan, and I didn’t want to let him see me as some prize he was bringing back to his people.

I was regretting my refusal tonight, though. I knew I could simply ask Henry to sleep closer…perhaps even cuddle. But for Henry, there would be too much meaning wrapped between our limbs. We wouldn’t define the act the same way. And it would make me ache for James.

I’m not sure how long it took me to fall back asleep or why Henry vanished for so long, but the sound of leaves shuffling and crackling against the eerie music of the woods at night jarred me from my sleep.

“Run!”

One word. No attempt at secrecy or strategy. It was human instinct at its greatest—flight or fight.
RUN.
I scrambled to my feet, and Robert’s hand yanked me by the arm. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Henry was running toward me, but before I could open my mouth to ask what was going on, Robert threw me over his shoulder and we were off.

I watched as Henry ran after us. McNair and his men stood their ground, their guns pointed at whatever had caused Henry to sound the alarm. But I saw nothing else; Robert was too fast. The bitter air stung my eyes as he effortlessly maneuvered the woods. He only ran for minutes before he stopped, and even though I had done none of the actual running myself, when he helped me to my feet I was breathless.

Robert circled me, his sharp eyes searching our surroundings. Even when I did catch my breath, I didn’t dare to speak. I had learned what it was to be chased, hunted down like I was a war criminal, and my silence was the only weapon I currently possessed.

I made a vow to myself in that moment that I would someday learn to defend myself. Maybe I would never be strong enough to take down a chosen one, but I would never let them control me in another moment of fear as they did now.

A rustle in the woods caused goose bumps to rise on my skin. Whatever was coming for Robert and me had found us. This was it.

“Is she safe?” Henry panted.

Before either of us could answer, a gunshot cut through the air. We paused, waiting. For what, I didn’t know, but whatever came next couldn’t be stopped no matter how hard any of us silently prayed—that much I knew.

“I have to go back and help McNair and the others,” said Robert, the first to spring into action. “If we lose them, we won’t be able to make it to their camp. It’s the only place she’ll be safe.”

Henry took two giant strides toward me and grabbed my hand. He was shaking. He took a deep breath and nodded in agreement. “I don’t think we’re going to be safe anywhere. You don’t know what’s out there.”

“They’re our only chance,” Robert said firmly.

Henry nodded again—this time with more certainty. “Go. I’ll keep her safe as long as I can.”

I opened my mouth to speak to Robert. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, but it felt important I say something. But he was gone. I looked up at Henry. “What…what’s out there?”

An agonizing scream filled the darkness and Henry pulled me to him. I let him. Because if this was the end, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted him to have his moment with me, and maybe I wanted it a bit, too. Wouldn’t it be better to die in the arms of someone I cared about than to die by myself? His hands moved to my face. His eyes were wide and his face pale. I’d never seen him so scared.

“They found us? The chosen ones?” I asked.

Henry swallowed and his eyes traveled across my face, taking me in, memorizing every fault—all the random construction that James had loved, too. James. Would he somehow know I died? “I don’t know what they are,” Henry admitted.

Another scream.

No.