Writing on the Wall (15 page)

“Which is why you have to offer The Hive more. Way more than just Vin or a shot at destroying this place.” I say evenly, wondering what the hell I’m doing.

But I’ve been thinking about this for the last four days as I waited for Lexy to decide she trusted me. I figured it out that they wanted Vin for his connection to The Hive and since they wanted their freedom, what else could they be planning but to ask The Hive to attack this small Pod and set them all free? And I knew it would never work. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that because I want to hope too, I want to believe that I’ll make it out of here someday even if it’s childish to dream of it. That’s when I started wondering if there was a way.

“What are you talking about?” Vin asks slowly, eyeing me.

“What could we give them?” Lexy asks warily.

“
You’ll give them the one thing they’ll fight for.” I tell her. “You’ll give them this Pod. Intact. Undamaged. Taken down from the inside. That’s something they could
never
have, not without you.”

Vin sits back hard in his chair, watching me. I can see the wheels turning, the numbers crunching and the idea forming in his mind. But will it be enough?

I look at Lexy but I’m speaking to Vin. “There’s hardly any leadership here because they have you all over a barrel with your families. From what I understand, there’s enough unrest to overthrow this place from the inside. So do it. Take control and ask The Hive to help you take down the next Pod in exchange for ownership over this one. If they attacked it from the outside without your help, they’d damage the hell out of it. It’d be almost worthless to them later.”

“There are plans in place to destroy it and escape, leaving attackers nothing to show for their efforts.” Lexy confirms.

“Exactly. They’d gain nothing. But if you hand it to them they could actually use it. They wouldn’t just be a gang anymore, they’d be an outpost. It’s a whole different level of living than what they’ve got right now. With the resources you have, it would set them head and shoulders above the rest of the gangs out there. They’d be the Walmart of the wild. Once you take down the next Pod, you’ll have their numbers, your families, added to your ranks. You wouldn’t necessarily need The Hive anymore to take down the third one. But even if you did, you still have a bargaining chip.”

“The second Pod?”
Lexy asks, looking very, very interested.

“No.
Knowledge. They have no idea how to take care of this place. They don’t plant crops or tend fields, not on this level, and they don’t have livestock. They fish and go to market to trade for whatever else they need. Ask Vin if he can milk a cow. I promise you he can’t and I doubt any of his crew can either. But you can. You said it yourself, you didn’t need a lot of leadership cause you’re all veterans here. Use that to your advantage to leverage more help from The Hive.”

Lexy looks at me hopefully then turns to Vin. “Would they do it? Would they agree to help us if we gave up
a Pod?”

“And promised an end to the roundups.” I supply
, thinking that’s a practice I’d rather The Hive didn’t adopt once they gained this seat of power.

“Would that all be worth it to them?”

Vin clears his throat. I watch as he spins his ring on his finger, thinking.

“I don’t know for sure. But it would certainly be worth a shot.” he replies quietly.

Lexy’s brow falls. She looks unsure as she glances at me. “Is that good enough? Can I trust him?”

“Probably not.”

“Brutal, Kitten.” he mutters.

“But what choice do you have?” I ask Lexy, ignoring Vin and his feelings. “You can’t sit around waiting for more gang members to show up here and hope they’ll play ball.”

“More of them have shown up. Just last week. But they’re from smaller gangs and wouldn’t be any use.”

“Wait, there are more outsiders here? Since when?” I ask, sitting forward.

I can feel Vin watching me closely, thinking of other things now.

“Since last week.” Lexy replies. “They’re on the second schedule. It’s just two of them from some small gang.”

“What do they look like?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them. I only heard about them.”

“Can you find out their names for me?”

“Sure.” Lexy nods. “I’ll see what I can do if you talk to him about doing this for us.”

Vin puts his hands up innocently. “I already said I’d plead your case to The Hive if you freed me.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t exactly sound like you were planning on selling it.” Nats says, glaring at him.

“Are you mad at me right now?” he asks incredulously.

“We all are. It’s a good deal and you know they’ll consider it. They would kill to get their hands
on a piece of the Colonies. You’ll be Marlow’s Golden Boy if you bring this to him so stop playing coy and just agree to it.” Vin goes to open his mouth but before he can speak Nats points her finger at him, whispering fiercely, “And you better come back for me, you son of a bitch. You leave me here to rot in this cage and I’ll die of boredom and haunt you for the rest of your days.”

Vin grins
affectionately at her hostility. He leans forward to kiss her cheek lightly. “Anything you say, Boss.”

“So you’ll do it?” Lexy asks eagerly. “You’ll go for help?”

He nods reluctantly at her. “Yeah, I’ll do it. Just tell me when and my bags will be packed.”

“Tomorrow night.” she says without hesitation.

“What?” I ask, shocked. “Seriously?”

“Yes, we’re ready. We’ve been ready. There’s no sense in waiting, right?”

“I guess not.” I mutter, still feeling surprised by the suddenness of it. How long have they had this planned just waiting for the right person to set free?

“You’ll go out on
a boat. I can’t get you a jacket, they monitor those too closely and only hand them out to people working the fields. Then they take them back the second they come inside. But the women in the laundry have been pulling things aside in varying sizes so you can wear layers.”

“You’ve been prepping for this already?” Vin asks. “Even before asking me?”

Lexy shrugs with a smile. “Luck favors the prepared.”

The phrase immediately reminds me of Crazy Crenshaw and I realize I miss him and his madness.
Among other things.

“How exactly am I getting out?”

“Tim will explain all that in the morning. He’s got an idea of how to slip you through the fences.”

“Tim from the field crew? He’s in on this?”

“We’re all in on this.” Lexy says seriously. “Every last one of us.”

***

As it turns out, that’s not strictly true. Aside from the meager leadership there are still a few people in this Pod that are too scared of the Colony’s rule to stand up against it. Hopefully when it all goes down they jump on board anyway. At that point, what have they got to lose? But until then some stealth is still required and even Lexy isn’t 100% sure who is a total ally and who isn’t. Aside from herself, Tim, a few of his friends in the fields, all of the women in the laundry, half the sewing room, all of the kitchen and the better part of the greenhouse and gardens crew, people’s alliances are unknown. That means every last guard is a question mark and most likely loyal to the Colony, albeit grudgingly.

As
k me how much I like those odds.

But the ball is rolling and after dinner Lexy took off to tell Tim and the others heading this things that Vin is on board. I wonder if she’s going to tell them how shady it all is, that we don’t know
for sure if The Hive will bite. That we don’t know if Vin will ever come back.

“You look worried, Kitten.” Vin tells me from across the table.

Nats has gone to work while Vin and I are skipping out on after dinner family fun time in the common room. There are a few other people here in the cafeteria with us sitting around tables alone or in small groups, chatting quietly.

“Shouldn’t I be?” I ask dryly.

“You worried about me? That I’m gonna get hurt?”

“No.” I chuckle.

“You worried about your boy?”

I frown at him. “What?”

“Are you worried he’s one of the newbies she told you about?”

Yes. I am worried Ryan is here. I’m worried he’s here and I’m hoping he’s here and the contradiction is ridiculous and torturous. 

“No.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“You’re a terrible person.”

He grins. “You don’t mean that.”

“Are you really going to do it?” I ask him, staring him straight in the eye. “Will you really go to Marlow and try and sell this to him? Or will you go home and forget about us?”

His grin fades. He spins the ring on his finger and
I wonder what he’s considering. Lying to me? Telling me the cold, hard truth? Or is he actually wondering what he’ll do? Part of me wonders if he, as cocky and sure as he is, even knows what will come of this night.

“We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?” he finally replies, his voice deep and low.

I should be annoyed with him. Even to me, the loner of loners, it’s a no brainer. If the Colonies can be stopped, we have to try. It’ll mean one less worry in the wild. One less predator to be afraid of every second of every day. It could even mean the trading of Colony goods, something that would benefit every last one of us outside these walls. But I’m not annoyed because I understand. I get the mentality of every man for himself and this help your fellow man for the greater good business is a notion that died out a decade ago. It was spilled with blood and lost to the ground in the first bite of the first zombie to rise up from the dead and usher in the dawn of the Hell of Earth that we walk in today.

Welcome to the new age.

This is the world we live in now and it’s been working relatively well for everyone so far. We’re all still alive, aren’t we?

Honestly, are we?

I don’t know anymore. I think of the last message I wrote to Ryan telling him I was waking up. I still believe it, even here and now in this place where everyone seems to be sheep falling asleep, following commands. No part of me wants to fall in line, not even with Vin when it’s for the greater good. I don’t know if that makes me a loner, a rebel or a free thinker who refuses to go down without a fight. Maybe I’m none of them or maybe I’m all of them, but what I know for certain is that I need to leave this place to find out. I want another shot at living my life outside with choices to be made and risks to be taken. I want to laugh out loud with no one else around. I want to walk through the streets and not be so afraid of who sees me. And I want to write on the wall with no filter or restraint.

“I have to go.” I say suddenly, heading for the door.

“Not even going to kiss me goodbye?!” Vin calls after me.

I
run through the halls and burst outside, the cold air slapping me hard in the face. It invades my lungs, pinching them and making it painful to breathe. I don’t envy Vin this. Going out into this cold tomorrow. Trying to make it across the city is going to suck for him. Lexy told us it’s about a mile and a half from here to aquarium but it’s going to be dark, possibly raining and so very cold. We didn’t even discuss the massive swarm of Risen roaming just outside the walls. Luckily Vin thinks he’s invincible.

“You’re not supposed to be out here.” I hear a voice say to me from across the
grass.

I raise my hand, waving
to them faintly. “Sorry, I just… I needed some air. I won’t leave this spot okay? Just five minutes?”

The guard hesitates and I wish I knew some of them. I wish I’d made more friends and had more pull. Don’t tell Vin.

Finally he nods silently and goes on about his patrol but I know he won’t go very far. That’s okay. This won’t take long.

I look around the ground furtively, cursi
ng the sparseness of this area but this is as far out as I can get. Whatever I find in here is going to have to suit me. What I could do is go inside and forget the whole thing. It’s not like it matters. It’s not like he’ll ever see it. It’s not like he’s here.

My heart pangs at the idea of him locked inside these walls and I want to write this message more than ever if only to prove to myself that
it will go unnoticed. That he’s not here. Finally I spot a small stone that looks like it will do. I snatch it up in my trembling, cold fingers. Then I write. I write with simple honesty something I would never have had the nerve to write on the outside but wish desperately that I had. It’s nothing huge. Nothing profound. But it’s heartfelt and real and I imagine as I write it on this wall in this prison that the words are appearing on
our wall on the outside. That this message will reach him no matter where he is. That he’ll think of me and that sliver of my soul that I left with him to travel wherever he goes will light up like the sun and run with him again. He’ll carry me far away from here, outside these walls, beyond these waters and I’ll be home again. Just four words to fly me away forever.