16. Sisters pt.1

Runt.

It's already daytime. I passed out again.

My mouth is dry and stale, my fingernails are chipped and caked with dirt, and the hand that had been stabbed through isn't as useful anymore. I'd had to heat up the knife and press it against the cut to seal the wound.

It hurt.

I don't remember when I'd passed out, I don't remember where, but I had to get to Cleo. I'd followed the tire tracks deep into Jamestown, where the skyscrapers stood like forgotten relics, the roads like Swiss cheese and animals roamed the city for any dropped morsel of food.

There were people in Jamestown. A lot of them. They huddled together in droves and spoke in whispers, trading silently in their markets and flinching at every loud noise.

I'd tried to ask them where the bikers had gone; they'd scampered off into their small houses and slammed their doors shut.

I got up and leaned against a wall. It was dark. I couldn't see a thing. The grimy window let the sun peak through in blotches, spotlighting a brown wall, a table leg and my hand. Someone had wrapped it in a white cloth, but it wasn't moving as well as it used to.

The sound of clicks filled the room, and then the sound of an ancient door creaking open. A boy, about my age, lanky and blonde with a scarf wrapped around his neck peaked through.

He stared at me, and I stared at him. Enemy? No. He didn't have that look in his eyes. But Hera had said never to let your guard down. I reached for my thigh but my knife wasn't there. I patted around my body: gone. And so were the black rings on my thumbs.

My heart beat picked up and my head pounded as I shot to my feet. Those were presents, those were special. Did the boy take them? He must have. They were valuable.

But they were mine.

Where are my knives? I signed, hard to do, but I pushed through.

"I-I don't know what you're saying," he said. He had a soft voice, like it was stuck in a whisper. "Are you hungry? Do you need water?"

I lunged at him and grabbed his collar. He suppressed a squeal as I ruffled through his pockets. Nothing. No rings and no knives. I pushed him away and left the tiny room. A corridor stretched out in front of me, doors on either side of it with tiny eye balls peeking through their cracks. It was darker here than in the room, the musty smell of mold seasoned the air.

The boy grabbed my wrist. "Hey! You can't leave. Blue said I should only check on you."

I pulled my hand away. I needed my knives, I needed my rings, and I needed my sister. Everyone back home needed the Nomads. I hadn't been big enough last time to help Dan and Tick, but I was bigger now. I was stronger. I could help. But I needed my sister; I wasn't going to let her die if I can do something about it.

I started down the corridor, each door creaking shut as I passed. They creaked open as soon as I stepped past them. Their beady eyes trained on my like watch dogs. But I kept mine straight ahead, glaring down the dark tunnel. I came to the corridor's end, a door stood in front of me. Wooden and old, bent and misshaped, and slightly damp.

Before I reached the door knob the boy pulled me away and hissed, "Please, miss. You must stay here. Blue has not allowed you to leave the Tunnel!"

He couldn't understand me, I had nothing to write on, and so there was nothing more to give him. I slapped his hand away and pulled the door open. The door frame splintered as the weak wood gave way, an explosion of shards flew past me. The people in the rooms squealed, some slammed their doors shut, others opened their doors even more.

The sun was still climbing to my left, hot and harsh, unfiltered and raging in the pale morning sky. The heat was staggering, disgustingly staggering. A compound of people stretched in front of me, a large metal fence wrapping around us as far as I could see. Soft desert sand at my feet, mangled and rusted metal machines stuck out of the dirt. Men and women in dirty clothes picked them apart, stripping them down to their bare frames. Children ran around naked, bony arms flailing as they chased each other with dead insects.

Knives, Cleo, Nomads, and then the Gray.

A man looked up from the radio he was taking apart, one side of his head replaced with whirring parts as he moved his jaw – chewing on something.

My stomach rumbled. Food and water. That too.

The man stood up from his crouch. "Hey! What are you doing out of your room? Get back in there!"

People were starting to take notice, the lanky blonde boy was still in the doorframe, shrouded by its shadow. The scent of meat touched my nose. I hadn't had meat since…before my East Coast assignment. That, I needed that. I followed it, ignoring the cries of the adults. Adults had never been nice to me anyways, so I wasn't going to listen to them now.

I'll bring some meat for Cleo.

I staggered over junk piles and weaved my way around the bony children – they'd stopped running, they'd started staring at me. But I had to find the source of the smell. My stomach ached, my mouth frothed with saliva, and my nose dragged my forward.

I circled the building with the rooms and came to its right. A large pot boiled on top of a fire, three large women mixed the frothing stew. It was heavenly. It smelt like Tick's house whenever Dan would cook; like everything was going to be alright. Except Dan and Tick would try singing – it was bad and out of tune, but it was fun. The women weren't singing. They were shouting at each other and swearing, throwing insults and splashing around the stew.

Men sharpened machetes on the outskirts of the stewing pot, grunting and talking to each other in low rumbles. I scanned their hands – none of them had my rings. They had silver ones instead, but nothing like mine.

One of the plump women glared at me and shouted, "You! Kids scrape the pot after everyone else!"

"Go!" another growled.

"Back to the rooms!" another shrieked.

I ignored them and stalked towards the pot. I was salivating, the hot sun beating down on my neck and rolling beads of sweat down my back. I felt sick with hunger, and luckily it was just soup. Shredding meat and squeezing it between the wires was painful, but I could suck the soup down, no matter how hot.

One of the women swung her ladle at me, spraying my face with stingingly hot soup. I wiped it off my face and liked whatever I could from my hands – I was starving, and Cleo was probably starving, too. It was bitter and bland, water above anything else – tinged with the faint taste of beef. So that was the smell of meat. Cleo could have some soup then, instead. She wouldn't mind.

My stomach growled for even more.

The woman swung the ladle again, I swiped it away from her hands and dribbled whatever was left in the bent spoon onto my lips. It burnt, running rivers of hot pain down my throat and down my chin. But it was so good. Too hot, but filling.

When I was in basic training I was always reminded that water meant life. You could go without food for up to two months if you had enough water. I wasn't going to be out here for two months, but I was going to be out here for a few more days. And this bubbling pot of practically water was life.

The men had taken notice of me. They rose and barked at me to go back to the rooms, waving around their machetes. I didn't care. I had water. I stepped towards the pot to scoop out more of it, maybe I can try and find something to keep it hot for Cleo. She hated cold food.

An arm wrapped around my waste and threw me backwards. I landed with a grunt in the soft sand, my head smacking against a piece of scrap metal. The man that had thrown me was a beast – he had a chain around his neck tying him to a thick post, keeping him a meter away from me. He had a giant sword in his fist – an old piece of a car's hood cut and sharpened. He was a Berserker like Draco, but much, much bigger.

"Children. Eat. Last," he growled.

I stood up and brushed myself off. I had my fill, now it was time to get my knives and get to Cleo.

I walked around him, he tugged and roared as he tried to break free from the thick chain. I kept just out of reach of his sword, he swung it and tried lunging, only to get snapped back to the ground. A sharp bark, the scampering sound of paws beating against the sand, and then the bunch of muscle with razor teeth was on me.

Hera had had me shoot stray dogs to get used to something live before we moved to people. Look straight into their eyes and show them who God put in charge, she had said. For both the people and the stray mutts. And this one wasn't any different. Just bigger and in a frenzy.

I picked up the ladle and swung it with all the force I had. It smacked the dog's head and it stumbled. It shook its head and crouched to jump. I swung the ladle again and it crunched against its skull. I hit it again, again, and again. Until it couldn't move and I was smashing a puddle of bloody sand.

I needed a new ladle to serve Cleo, this one was bent and covered in skull fragments.

A bag dropped over my head, snapping the sun out of my eyes. I was punched: one in the gut, one in the jaw, and another to my side. I fell to my knees and wheezed. A boot slammed into my face and I fell to my back. I could taste blood and the acidic taste of vomit in my throat.

The bag was tightened around my throat, a rough rope pressed my hands behind my back. Another bit into my ankles as they slapped together. I was tossed over a shoulder or something like it. The bag blocked out sound and light, the air around my head was starting to heat up and choke me. Shallow breaths, conserve oxygen, and work away at the ropes. The crack of a whip broke the bag's barrier of sound, the sound of a child's scream seeping through the bag's edges.

I was thrown onto something hard – the bag torn away from my head and the ropes pulled off of my hands and feet. I blinked away the blinding light from the sun as my eyes adjusted. I was in a hole, concrete floor and concrete walls. Rusted ladder holds had been bolted on the other side of the pit, weaving a way up to the exit. A few smaller kids were around me, screaming and clawing at the cement walls. A man with a whip was tearing apart a boy with blonde hair.

The lanky boy from earlier. He was long dead, his eyes glassy and dark like the dolls in the orphanage. But the man kept slicing at his back with the whip, all to the cheers of men and women staring down into the hole.

"That one next!" a woman shouted, jabbing a finger at me. "She's the outsider Glazer brought in!"

"Glazer's dead anyways!" another man roared, laughing as he tipped his head back and poured a brown liquid into his mouth.

Glazer must have been the lanky boy. He'd been the one to bring me in, and he had known where my rings were. Someone else in here must know. I'd butcher them until I found out.

Theft is punishable by death. Always. Hera's words rang in my head. She'd shot a boy that night trying to steal one of her SUVs. She'd dumped the body at his parent's house. And she'd paid them and told them what their son had tried.

I'd seen the fear and anger in their eyes. But Hera had the Gray in her palm, people loved her, so speaking out and going against her was unthinkable. So they'd taken the money and kept their mouths shut.

These people had stolen my rings. And I wasn't rich like Hera or Kira, so I was going to punish them all.

The man untied Glazer and tossed his body on a decaying pile in the corner. He lumbered towards me, licking his dark lips and wiping the sweat off of his bald head. The children around me screamed and cried, running away as the man drew closer to me. Wait – that's what I had to do. He had the reach advantage with the whip, and he'd try and use it as soon as he can.

He paused a few meters away from me, flexing his whip carrying hand. "Make your death easy, girl. I don't want to kill you the hard way."

These people must have someone in charge, and they'd understand me. I needed to get their attention, so I'll get their attention the way Hera would.

I gave him the one hand sign he'd understand.

The crowd above roared, the man spat at me, and the whip split the air.

I dived out of its way and lunged at the man's tree trunk legs. He tried to backpedal and use the whip, but I was right underneath him now – the whip was useless to him. But not to me. I kicked at his knee, his knee cap twisted with a soft crunch. He fell to one knee and I slammed my knee into the side of his head. I yanked the whip out of his raw fist and wrapped it around his throat.

The crowd was silent now.

I pulled until the leather bit into my hands; I pulled until my arms ached; I pulled until I was plastered in sweat and gritting my teeth. He flailed his arms and grabbed the air. Every time he got close to clamping a fist around my shin, I kicked the back of his head and forced his face into the blood stained cement.

His body finally went limp.

I let go of the whip and sucked in air. My heart was hammering in my ears and sweat ran down my back. My hands were raw, my right hand aching and sending stabbing pain up my arm every time I moved it. I got off the man and stared at the crowd above me. They all stared, mouths hanging open and heads shaking.

I coiled up the whip and stuffed it into my waist line. Cleo could have it, I still needed to get my knives. I walked towards the rusted ladder, my eyes trained on the people above me. The metal was hot, wincingly hot. But you don't act weak in enemy territory, if nothing fazes you, they'll get a general idea of you.

And luckily for you, Runt, Hera had said, you can't speak. So even if they hurt you, they'll never know.

I reached the top of the hole and clambered out. The crowd parted around me as I walked through them, my eyes trained on all of them. I broke the crowd and turned to face them.

Who's in charge, I signed. I could try, at least.

No answer.

I crouched and drew 'leader?' in the sand. They didn't respond, they were all still staring, all of them with their mouths still hanging open. They had a stale aura of blood and booze hanging around them, dirty rags passing for clothes hung off of flabby bodies.

I cracked the whip in the air – that snapped them out of their trance. I pointed at the dirt again.

They collectively pointed at a silver building, all made out of polished metal. The hags from the cooking pot stared at me as I walked past them, even the men with the rusted machetes were stoic as I strode past. The Berserker's growls were lower. The only sound coming from the buzzing flies over the dead dog. That and the clink of the whip on my belt.

I stepped onto the stairs. My footsteps carrying in the silent courtyard. Two steps, three, four and then five. Halfway up and no one had said a word. It reminded me of the orphanage whenever it was adoption day. All of us lined up with our hair braided to one side and in bleached white dresses like cardboard. Stoic and silent, looking down at our bare feet as adults walked up and down the corridor, picking us one at a time.

I reached the top platform. A shade of plastic bags had been created just above the single door. There weren't any windows to show me what was inside. I got the whip out and stalked towards the door. Better safe than sorry. Better the killer than the killed.

The door swung open and the rancid sweat poured out. A large man – ram rod straight – bent underneath the door's arch and stepped out. One eye was blue, the other was just blue. His iris so big it looked like it covered his entire eye ball.

He must be Blue. A memory tugged at the edge of my consciousness. Too far away to grasp, clear enough to scramble my head.

And he had my rings on his middle fingers. My knife strapped to his thigh. And a toothless grin on his scarred face.

Give me my rings, I signed.

"Why don't we talk first?" he said. "It's been a while, Rebecca."