Page 13

Claire

T he trip back to Kimmy was long and arduous, doubly so because we had what she needed now, but there was no way for us to know if she was even still alive.

We’d been gone two days, and it was likely it’d take at least another day to get back to her.

I hoped her estimate of living another week was accurate.

“We need to make good time,” John said shortly to me. “Kimmy’s counting on us.”

I nodded. For the first couple hours, the three of us didn’t talk much—too focused on covering as much ground as possible.

John was clearly distracted by his concern for Kimmy and pressed on at a punishing pace, especially for a man who’d barely slept in two days.

We were both exhausted, but we couldn’t afford to make more than one stop to rest. We walked through the night with only occasional guidance from my flashlight; we didn’t want to attract prying eyes. Thankfully, the moon was full.

I stayed quiet, if only because I was stunned by the last twenty-four hours.

The knowledge that the cult was seeking me out, tracking me down, was terrifying.

But what made my chest tight was the news about my father.

I’d known there was something strange about his death, even as a teenager.

I’d just never imagined that he’d led a rebellion against the tyranny we lived under at the Cave.

I touched a lock of my red hair, so like his. I somehow recalled him more clearly now than I had in years—his kind eyes, loud laugh, and sweet singing voice. My throat ached so much that I had to push thoughts of him away. I needed to stay focused.

John reached over and stroked my arm occasionally, and I knew he was trying to comfort me without words. Asha walked parallel to us, and her every step reminded me of the whole new problem I’d somehow stumbled upon.

I’d only given a brief explanation of our journey to Asha, but if she objected to the grueling pace or lack of rest, she didn’t complain.

The silence weighed between us over the night, heavy with all that remained unsaid.

I wondered not only where she’d been all this time, but why she clearly had nowhere to go.

She’d followed us on this journey without question.

Asha was much thinner than I remembered, her hands bony and her cheeks hollow.

Her clothes were new—likely from the Cave—but they hung off her.

However, the most obvious change was in her demeanour; she had a haunted look to her that I’d never seen.

I didn’t want to admit it about my oldest friend, but her presence unnerved me.

I didn’t blame John for not trusting her.

When John was confident that we’d finally put enough distance between us and the Cave, we stopped to rest for a few hours.

The sky was beginning to lighten, and we’d set off again at the break of dawn.

I laid out sleeping bags in the grass and gathered food from my pack.

Asha simply sat in the grass nearby, watching John warily.

She clearly didn’t trust him any more than he did her.

I pulled out a couple packets of preserved food that we’d gotten from the school, then sat next to John. They’d even included utensils—tiny sporks that folded up. Asha had already torn into one of the packets she’d taken and was eating ravenously.

“Homestyle macaroni and cheese,” John said, reading the packet. “ Just add water for deliciousness , apparently. ”

His sardonic tone made me smile a little, despite the tense circumstances. We added water from our bottles, and I raised a spork full of macaroni to my lips. I wrinkled my nose.

“Not homestyle, then?” John asked wryly.

“Hardly,” I said. “But it’s not terrible.”

As we ate, I noticed Asha emptied two meal packs by herself. I felt a pang of sympathy; she must be hungrier than we were. John yawned, and I noted the dark shadows under his eyes.

“You need sleep,” I murmured, reaching out to touch his cheek.

“When we’re back,” he answered, as I knew he would.

“No, now. I won’t have you keeling over on me. I’ll keep watch, okay? I promise I’ll wake you at dawn.”

He sighed, and I could tell his resistance was waning. I moved in and kissed him. I intended it to be brief, but he held me there for a second longer. My heart skipped a beat before we broke apart. He said goodnight and headed for his sleeping bag.

I looked at Asha across the fire, and she stared back, unblinking, giving me the impression that she’d been watching us the entire time.

I shifted uncomfortably. Silence descended again for several minutes, until I heard John snoring softly.

I smiled absently as I glanced over my shoulder at him; he’d been out like a light.

“You love him.”

I was almost startled by Asha’s voice, pitched lower than usual, sounding matter-of-fact.

I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say, so I told the truth.

“I do.”

Asha gave a mirthless chuckle. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you with a Wastelander, much less be smitten with one. You really think that’s a good idea out here?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Wasteland’s a ruthless place,” she said. “Every bit the hellhole we were told about. Didn’t appreciate the warm bed and full belly I always had at the Cave, all because they matched me with someone I didn’t want.”

She shook her head. “Spent so much of my time whining about how tough we had it under tyranny, yet not a day’s gone by that I don’t wish I’d wake up in my bed back home. I’d marry that poor bastard a million times over again if I could just have that. ”

When I’d first been cast into the Wasteland, I’d have agreed with her wholeheartedly. Now…I saw the Cave as the place I’d escaped. I saw my old life as a mundane, stifling straitjacket that I didn’t realize I’d been suffocating under until I had my first gasp of outside air.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I don’t know what must’ve happened to make you feel that way…but I’m sure it can’t have been easy.”

“You’re saying that you don’t agree,” she replied with another bitter laugh. “Come on, is Wild Man’s dick that good?”

I frowned. “John saved me, that day at the factory. From the cannibals. After you left me.”

There it was—the ugly thing between us. The fact that we’d been split up and as far as I could tell, she hadn’t come back for me or tried to help me. Asha seemed to bristle a little at my words.

“I didn’t leave you,” she shot back. “We got split up, and by the time I got back to where I last saw you, you were gone.”

I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Fact is, he saved my life, and I’ve been with him since.”

“How noble of him, to rescue a helpless woman to rape.”

Anger rose inside me. “That’s not what happened.”

She gave me a skeptical look. “If he had, he’d be no different to any of the other Wastelander men I’ve met. Kinder, in fact, if he’d had the manners to ask first. They usually just take what they want—whatever they want.”

A shiver went down my spine. “Is that what happened to you, Asha?”

She shrugged and looked at the ground, which gave me my answer.

“It makes no difference what’s happened to me,” she said. “What gang are Wild Man and his sister part of? You’re headed back to their territory, right? In the city.”

“No,” I replied, my eyebrows raised. “They’re not part of any gang. We were headed up north before Kimmy got hurt. They have a farm there.”

Asha looked surprised for the first time and considered me for a moment, as though trying to decide if I was being truthful.

“I was in a gang,” she finally said. “Just two weeks ago.”

The story came out then. Asha had fled the factory, certain I was a goner with the cannibals, and wandered for another day in the wilderness. She’d walked until she collapsed with exhaustion and thirst .

“I expected to die. Then he came,” she said bitterly. “Angel.”

I opened my mouth to ask, but she kept talking in a steady stream. Angel—the name was clearly ironic—was the leader of a large gang that held territory by the river in the old capital. His men had discovered Asha wandering on her own and brought her home with them.

“There’s a rigid hierarchy,” Asha said, “and I was at the bottom, with the other new members. Food was a constant problem, because these were not the sort of people who had the patience or the tenacity to live off the land.”

They’d gotten food and supplies mostly through banditry—robbing people on the road and in the city itself.

They were the sort of people John had warned me about since I first arrived in the Wasteland and had taken so many pains to avoid on more than one occasion.

I felt sick that Asha had been mixed up with people like that.

“If you did their bidding, you ate. Otherwise, you starved. Simple as that. And I was an ideal initiate because I had no hope of surviving on my own.”

Asha took a deep breath. “Angel took me as his woman. I didn’t want him, but it didn’t matter. I followed his orders. And every so often, he beat the shit out of me so that I knew my place.”

My chest hurt. “Ash, I’m so—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” she said sharply. “I don’t want your pity, and there’s no room for that kind of sentiment out here. I’m shocked that Wild Man hasn’t clued you into that yet.”

I swallowed hard. I had the impression that it didn’t matter what I said; she just needed to be heard.

“Anyway, joke was on him,” Asha said with a grim little smile.

“I slit his throat when he was sleeping and snuck away. I’d been planning it for weeks.

Just waited for him to get a little drunk, a little sloppy, and a little less careful.

Then I let him fuck me, and after that, it was easy.

I went to the Cave because it was the only place I knew might still have supplies I could use. ”

I hesitated briefly, only because something in her tone didn’t ring true. But I was tired, and it’d been a very long couple of days. I practically jumped at shadows now.

So I let out a long exhale. “I’m glad.”

“Glad that I’m a killer?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I did things that’d make your hair curl, Claire, especially considering how innocent you still seem. Have you ever even killed anyone, or have you been letting the Wastelander do the dirty work for you?”

I didn’t take the bait. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, Asha. But I’m glad you got away, and that you’re here now. I’ve missed you.”

Asha stared at me doubtfully. There was a darkness, an intensity, in her eyes that I’d never seen before.

“If that’s really true,” she said slowly, “then you’ll let me come with you to this farm you mentioned.”

I swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”

“Really? It’s not enough that you got the hunky Wastelander and the medicine and supplies from the Cave?” she said with a harsh laugh. “You don’t want to share any of your windfall with your oldest friend?”

“It’s not about that,” I said with a frown. “The farm belongs to John and Kimmy. It’s their decision. I’ll speak to John once we get back and help Kimmy, but I can’t promise anything.”

“You and the rest of the world.”

Asha turned away from me then and lay on the grass to sleep, making it clear that the conversation was over for now.

Frankly, I was relieved…and then guilt seeped into my consciousness.

She’d clearly suffered horribly, and meanwhile, I’d been out here falling in love with John and making friends with Kimmy, finding the family I’d never had.

I didn’t regret my time away from the Cave.

In fact, up until Kimmy had been injured, I’d have said it was the best time of my life.

I rubbed my eyes, exhausted. I was too worn out to worry about Asha right now, on top of everything else.

I needed to stay alert. I comforted myself with the sound of John’s gentle snores and deep breathing, until the blood-red rays of dawn appeared on the horizon and the gradual crescendo of birdsong signaled it was time to leave again.

We returned to the cottage mid-afternoon. John dashed for the door once it was in sight, and I followed, leaving Asha trailing behind us .

Kimmy was lying face down in her sleeping bag, right where we’d left her inside the tent.

John tied the flaps back for easier access as I examined her.

Her eyes were closed, but I was relieved to see that she was still breathing—shallowly, but still.

I dropped to my knees beside her, swallowing the lump in my throat at her flushed, clammy face.

She burned with fever, her skin hot to the touch, and her eyelids fluttered as I unzipped her sleeping bag.

John rummaged through my bag to retrieve the vials of medicine as I peeled away the layers of bandages from Kimmy’s back. My nostrils were assailed with the putrid stench of rotting flesh, and I held my breath to stop myself from gagging.

“We’re back, Kim,” I said gently, pushing her fringe out of her eyes. “We got you medicine.”

Her eyes opened and she muttered something unintelligible, pupils blown wide, eyes glassy. She’d clearly slipped into delirium in our absence. It tore me up inside to see her so sick and helpless; she was usually so fearless.

“I got it,” John said, moving to Kimmy’s opposite side, loaded syringe in hand. “This is the Regenerex.”

“That one has to be injected near the wound,” I said. “Antibiotics are intramuscular.”

He nodded, then carefully inserted the needle into the putrid flesh around Kimmy’s wound, pressing down the plunger.

A pocket of greenish pus had formed under the stitches, making my stomach turn.

John followed the Regenerex with a shot of penicillin in her right flank.

Kimmy gasped but otherwise remained still.

“So that’s her?”

I jumped at the sound of Asha’s voice; we’d been so absorbed in our work that I hadn’t noticed her enter the cottage. She stood in the doorway, staring at Kimmy with curiosity in her eyes.

“Yes,” I replied with a sigh. “She’s not doing well, but at least we made it in time.”

I turned to John. “I should change her dressings.”

He nodded. “I’ll gather firewood. Once you’re done, you should wash up and get some sleep. As soon as Kimmy is well enough to move, we’re leaving. ”

I retrieved Kimmy’s medical kit and began measuring clean bandages. John headed towards the door. Asha shuffled out of his way, looking awkward.

“What about me?” Asha asked. “What should I do?”

John shot me a questioning look, silently asking if I was alright being left alone with her. I inclined my head slightly, and he sighed.

“Nothing,” he said gruffly to Asha. “Just stay with Claire.”

Asha nodded curtly, then joined me at Kimmy’s side. She held the bandage taut so that I could cut it into strips more easily.

“He doesn’t like me,” she murmured after a few minutes.

“That’s not true,” I said, even though it was. “He doesn’t know you well enough yet.”

She gave me a tight, uncanny smile that reminded me too much of my mother.

“Neither do you.”