12. Cold fire

Runt.

Cleo's being difficult. We've barely made any progress ever since we left the Skin Farm. We rested for a few hours and let the poison run its course, and then that's when she'd began her internal war. She was pushing herself even when she didn't need to. I told her we should rest underneath a cliff, she said no. I told her to drink some water, she swore at me. I asked her if the hasty stitches she'd insisted she did herself on her thigh were okay and she pushed me away.

And now she was limping, her trousers slowly soaking with blood, and her forehead plastered with sweat. I offered to carry her, but she swore at me and told me to stuff it. It wasn't really limping at this point, she was just dragging her leg across the tarmac. We'd entered an abandoned suburban town a few hours ago – Jamestown. Burnt out cars, a road strewn with small bomb craters, and the occasional skeleton littered the road. It made it harder for her to keep walking, wincing whenever she had to take a detour or step over something.

I tried to help, but she still wasn't having any of it. She'd only spoken to me a handful of times since the Skin Farm, but it was mostly just calling me names and swearing.

I let her, she needed it.

But the empty houses on either side of the road said otherwise. White picket fences and flamingos out in the front yard, all of them covered in soot or smashed and lying in the overgrown grass. The houses themselves had smashed out windows, some of them boarded up with shadows moving behind their gaps.

All the doors had spray paint on them. A red circle with an X through it and a line through that. It was the Nomad symbol, they never stayed in one place for too long, but this was the warmest we'd come to finding them. Hopefully they were still here, or at least, someone could tell us where they'd gone.

Everyone back home needed them, and losing more friends wasn't part of the assignment if we didn't bring the Nomads back with us.

Cleo swayed and collapsed.

I rushed towards her and got her onto her back. Her cheeks were hollow and lips dry and cracked. I'd told her to drink water, but the sun was slowly setting, so the orange glow wasn't too harsh. And the heat was gone, that was the best part.

I screwed open my metal canister of water and pressed the top to her mouth. I trickled the water into her mouth. She coughed and spluttered, shooting up and sitting straight. She glared at me and snatched the canister out of my hands. She emptied it. Down to one more canister for us both, unless we found someone willing to give us water. Which probably wasn't going to happen, but Dan had always said to think positively, so I'll hope for the best.

She tried to stand but fell to her knee as soon as she straightened up.

Maybe you should rest first, I signed.

"Maybe," she spat, "you should mind your own business. We'll get the Nomads and get the hell out of here." She tried again and fell back to her knee, she'd moved at least a meter onto a lawn in front of a faded yellow house.

Cleo-

She held up a hand. "You hear that?"

The barren trees croaked in the wind, houses groaned and the occasional bark of a stray dog echoed through the empty tunnel of houses. But there was something else, not too far away, the sound of throaty engines growling into the suburbs.

The Nomads didn't use technology. They walked everywhere they went. A gang was on their way. I examined Cleo, her face said she was ready to fight, but the stitches had split open and she was breathing heavy. I'll deal with them if it came to that, but Cleo had to get to some sort of safety first. And then I'll ask the gang if they'd seen the Nomads.

The ancient wooden door of the yellow house swung open, its hinges creaking their disapproval. A shaggy haired dark skin boy waved at us, his brown eyes urgent. "Come, come! Quickly!"

"I ain't going in there." Cleo used a fallen fence post to stand up, her pistol in her other fist. "How about we ask them where the Nomads are? That would be better." She cocked the gun. "And if not, then we'll make them."

The boy scrambled out of the house as the engine note rose. He lunged towards Cleo and wrapped his long fingers around her arm. She swung the fence post and it smacked him in the side of his head. He collapsed face down in the long grass.

The first of the motorbikes rounded the corner at the end of the street.

Cleo to safety first, and then I'll deal with the bikers.

A man came out of the house next, similar looking to the boy in the grass. "Bring him! Hurry!" he growled.

Cleo was heading onto the street, the boy was groaning in the grass, and the man was hissing at me. I clamped my hand around Cleo's wrist and pulled her off of the road. She lost balance and fell, she roared swear words as she landed on her bad leg. I winced as she screamed and held her hand over the split stitches. I'd make it up to her later.

I dragged her and the boy up the wooden steps of the house, the engine notes were a few houses down now. Some of the leather clad men and women had stopped in front of houses and were slamming their boots through front doors.

The man slammed the door shut behind me and cradled the boy in his arms. A pale woman held a small hatch in the floor open, just underneath a mottled green carpet.

A boot smacked into the wooden door. The hinges held but buckled.

The man gave the boy to the pale lady and the boy disappeared down the hatch. He reached out to take Cleo, but she was being difficult again. She was kicking and thrashing, a mix between her usual anger and pain.

The door crashed open and a hand gripped onto the back of my neck. I was bodily thrown onto the porch, my head smacking against the weak wood. The man in the hatch slammed it shut, leaving Cleo on the green carpet. The man was a beast, throbbing stringy muscle weaving its way up his arms and thickening his neck. His head bald and covered in sweat and tattoos, a twisted grin revealing thin yellow teeth.

I tried to stand but a boot crashed into my gut, forcing air out between the wires on my mouth. I tried to suck in air, but that's always been hard for me ever since the stitches were put on my mouth. I tried again and the same boot kicked me again, making me role down the sharp steps and onto the gravel path between the over growth.

My head rung as it was tossed upwards, someone was gripping onto my hair and making me look up at the orange sky. Cleo's panicked screams came from the house, followed by the sharp explosions. Her screams cut off immediately.

Panic a disgusting punch in my stomach. My head thumped as my heart knocked against my skull. The knives were out of their holds and in my hands, they sliced through the air and the wrist of the woman clutching my red hair. She screamed and backpedaled, drawing an old pistol. I lunged and drove my shoulder into her gut, she stumbled and hit the stairs, her back snapping on the top step.

I clambered onto my feet and ran into the house. The large man was on top of Cleo – motionless. She was trying to roll him off, swearing and panting with the effort. I'd been getting a little tired of her swearing, but I'd never been happier to hear it than now.

I helped pull the man off of her, his leather jacket ripped apart and soaking with blood. But there were more motorbikes screeching to a halt on the street in front of the house. We'd have to go through the back, and if there wasn't a back, we'd have to make a back door.

Cleo got to her feet and spat at the dead man. "Fuck. This." She was heading towards the door before I could grab her.

The pungent smell of gasoline, the crashing of old windows, the thunk of bottles hitting old furniture. And then the explosion of heat. All of it happening in a split second, the heat burst through the ancient wooden house. My heart choked me as the flames tore through the dry planks holding up the house. The smoke, the heat that licked my trousers and snapped at me hair.

I backed up and hit a wall. My lungs ached with air that wasn't there, my eyes stung, I screamed on the inside. Fire, just like the orphanage, was raging towards me. But last time I had Dan and Tick. They'd ran in and pulled me out, but they were dead. They weren't coming for me this time.

But my sister was. Cleo's soot covered face burst through the wall of flame in front of me and grabbed my t-shirt collar. She dragged me out of the house, she coughed and gagged. Her usually porcelain skin a hue of red in the intense heat. But she didn't break step, she kept going, just like Dan and Tick had.

We burst out of the house and tumbled onto the gravel. I hacked spat out soot that had coated the inside of my mouth. Screams were coming from inside the house, the family that had run down into the basement had been trapped there.

We would have been trapped there as well, but someone was looking out for us. Dan and Tick were, they'd stopped us from going down there. We'd been taught about angels and heaven on Sundays, I'd never believed in all that, until my big brothers had saved me from the fire. And they'd saved me again.

"Look at that!" a man cheered. "They made it out!"

A woman with spiked hair snapped my head back and made me look up at her. "The hells wrong with this one?"

One of the other bikers sauntered towards us, his scarred face haunting in the shadows of the fire raging behind us. "Huh. Must be one of those brats from Miss Lea's orphanage."

"Thought that place burned down." She traced a finger across the wires on my lips. I swung my fist into her nose, it crunched and she staggered back.

The scar faced man pressed a rifle to Cleo's head. "Go on little girl. Try me. One move and I'll show you how a brain looks like up close."

Cleo was still coughing, but her eyes weren't scared like they were with the Farmer. They were hard this time. "Runt. We have a mission, remember? End the fuckers and get on with it."

I put down my knives and raised my hands. I wanted to do well in the mission and help everyone back home, but Cleo was my sister. I wasn't going to lose another sibling.

"What the hell are you doing?" she raged. "Kill 'em and take their bikes. Just find the Nomads."

"Nomads?" the scarred man said. "Them maniacs haven't been here for a month."

The woman I'd punched picked up my knives and twisted them in her fists. "Hey, Chief, how bout we take these two to a Skin Farm." She glowered at me. "The red head bitch would be worth a fortune."

The man shook his head. "If I'm right and she's from Lea's then she probably ain't got a tongue. No good if you can't hear 'em scream. But this one." He lifted Cleo's chin with his thumb. "She'd be worth something. I'd want to keep her. Feisty would be good to have in our blood line."

Cleo spat in his face. "Kiss my ass you piece of shit."

The man slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of her head and she fell to the gravel. I lunged at the man, but the woman was on me before that. She tackled me and punched me. Over and over, with her rigid knuckles and the knife's butts. My vision blurred and blood pooled in my mouth, oozing down my throat and choking me.

Tears distorted my vision, but I could see Cleo. She'd been scooped up by one of the other men and was thrown into a metal cage with a few other girls. I reached out to her and the woman on top of me forced one of the knives into my palm. Pain shot up my arm, I wanted to scream, but it came out as a whimper.

She stood up and tossed the other knife into the burning house. She spat on my face and left, straddling her bike as the convoy of bikers left.

With Cleo in their rusted cage.

I got to my knees. Blood ran from my nose, my right eye was swelling, the smell of smoke choked the air around me. My hand felt like I'd plunged it into the fire.

The cold sickness of anger that had been bubbling for years frothed in my stomach. The anger that I felt for my absent parents, the hate I carried for the nuns in that orphanage, and the rage I held towards the Gatekeepers for taking away my brothers.

Cleo wasn't going anywhere.

The night had finally fallen and it was cold.

I love the cold.