Born to Fight (15 page)

"What the fuck, man?" Jake asks squinting.

Anna has the gun up and ready. Will puts his hands in the air, "Bernard, it's me!" he shouts.

"Me who?" a voice calls back.

"Will, asshole."

The lights dim. I still have the spots in my eyes, but my vision clears. I see a massive mansion with the door open and a man inside of the doorframe.

Will walks up and greets him with a weird handshake of sorts. They one-arm hug. Will points, "You are going to want to meet her."

My stomach drops. I pull the arrow that I've relaxed when they shook hands, back again and point it at him.

Will shakes his head, "This is Star's brother. He's ex-CIA. He knows your dad for sure." He ignores the fact I have an arrow on them and looks back at the Bernard guy, "Her dad is one of the seed Gen guys. She's one of the first seed babies."

The Bernard guys grins, "You are not Michael's kid? Oh my God—I have always wondered what became of you. They did studies, early on, with your DNA but then your uncle ran." His voice is deep and calm. He points at the house, "Please come in." Jake steps forward but Leo growls making him stop.

Anna holds the gun to Bernard, "Will, what the friggin’ hell is going on?"

Will crosses his arms and tilts his head like we're being annoying, "This guy knows everything there is to know about the new city. All the ways in and out and where her dad is. I'm tired, can we please go inside?"

I am about to lower the weapon, when I hear it. My skin shivers and my stomach drops again. It's Star.

"Will!" she shrieks and leaps into his arms. She kisses him on the cheek and then jumps out of his arms and attacks Jake, "Jakey."

I have had about all I can take. I lower the arrow and wave, "See you in the city, Will. Thanks for being honest from the start." I turn and walk down the pavement. I hear his long strides following me but Leo's growl stops them.

"Em, don’t do this, please. Call Leo off. Anna, come on." I walk and listen as Anna follows. Jake isn’t far behind us when Star calls out, "He's not kidding, Emma. My brother knows everything. He can help you."

My skin is covered in goose pimples. I don’t even know why I hate her. I stop and look at Anna, "What do you think?"

She shakes her head, "I'm with you. I'm beat but I'm with you. If we're sleeping in the woods then so be it."

Jake grabs my arms, "But sleeping in a bed in a mansion would be nice."

I look back at the huge house and Will's face. I sneer, "He's a jerk."

He sees the exhaustion and comes running over. Anna grabs Leo and strokes him. Will jogs up, "Guys, this is a good idea."

I narrow my eyes, "If it was such a great idea, why didn’t we discuss it?"

He points back, "Because you think things about her and would never take help from her brother, even if it's a good idea."

I scratch my head and think about it for a second. I sigh, "One night and he doesn’t do experiments on me."

He grabs my hand and pulls me along, "I love it when you compromise. Guys, this is a nice house and has full power. Showers—hot showers."

I look at Anna. She mutters something about her weak spot and we follow him back.

When I walk to the front door, Will grips my hand. I think it's so I won't slap or attack Star. He drags me inside and I am instantly transported back in time. It looks like a hotel lobby. There are lamps lit and fineries we just don’t see anymore. Leo strolls in next to me, nudging. I run my fingers into his fur and hold a chunk.

"Will, you never said a huge wolf was part of the group."

Will chuckles, "He's part of it."

I scowl, "How long have you known we were coming?"

He glances at Will, "Well, Star mentioned something."

I give Will my death stare and look around.

Jake whistles when he walks in and Anna grins, "Shower is which way?"

Bernard, who doesn't look a day over twenty, smiles and points, "Top of the stairs to the right."

I jerk my hand free of Will and turn to the stairs. Leo stays at my side. He does it when he's nervous. Houses make us both nervous. I stomp on the stairs. They're sound. The whole house is. That's rare. I thought I had found the only stairs that were intact. The only houses not destroyed in the blasts.

I realize I'm excited about a hot shower. I follow Anna up, and when we open the door, we fill the space with gasps. The bedroom is massive. The bed is lush and gorgeous, like in a picture. The dust is minimal and the whole thing looks kept up.

"I think he cleans," I mutter and look around. Leo walks to the bed, sniffing and checking for surprises.

Anna ignores us and rushes to the door to the right. She turns on the light and looks back at me with a grin, "Can I go first?"

I laugh, "Yeah, but save me water."

She squeals, ripping her clothes off and disappears into the lit room. I turn to see Jake in the doorway.

"Hey."

He runs a hand through his dark hair, "You okay?"

I nod.

He leans on the door and points back at the door across from us, "I'm going to take the room across the hall. He said we have to shower one at a time, water pressure or something." I see the smirk I love cross his lips slowly, "Unless you wanna just shower with me?" he tries to be serious.

I bite my lip and shake my head.

He frowns but the grin is still making attempts, "No? Okay. Just thought, maybe, it would be faster if we showered together."

The sound of the water pouring and Anna humming, feels like it's taking over the room, or the space is shrinking with him in it. I step back but he steps forward. My heart rate picks up and he makes me feel the thing that Will always makes me feel. I shake my head again, "No."

His blue eyes search for something. He steps back nodding, "Okay. Wow. I feel like an idiot. I thought you were smarter than this. You want him because he's strong and smart in the forest? Really?" His eyes aren’t friendly and sweet. They turn and I can see the hurt on his face. "I would never hurt you the way he has."

I swallow hard, "It isn't that. I just want to be your friend, Jake…yours and his. I need to focus my energy on killing my other dad and ending the things he does. I don’t want to have to choose who I want to be with. I can't be with anyone. I have to stop my dad. I have to free the other girls."

The anger stays in his bright-blue eyes, "For a girl who walked away from everyone and never cared about anything, you sure got some serious causes now, don’t you?"

I don’t have any real excuse for why I am so determined now. I nod, "I'm related to the monster who started it. I know the truth of it all. I feel like it's a heavy weight on my shoulders, and the only way to get rid of it, is to kill him and end it all."

He turns and walks from the doorway.

I look down at the hardwood floors and try to push away the bad feelings inside of me. I hate the way I feel, like I have to choose one of them. I hear footsteps and close the door quickly. I turn and press my back into it.

Anna comes out with wet hair and a huge towel wrapped around her. She points, "That was amazing."

I push off the door and walk to the bathroom, "Good. I need it." I close the bathroom door and pull my clothes off. They stick to me from getting dressed when I was wet still. I leave them on the floor next to hers. They look like a pile of dirt on the clean bright floor. The shower is a walk-in kind. I turn the knob and step in. The heat from the shower is instantly relaxing. I take misty breaths of the steamy air in. I shampoo twice, scrubbing my head free of the debris and dirt. It feels like the dirt coming off of me has been there since the breeder farms. I haven’t felt clean since. Not real clean, like I used to before I opened the door to the cabin and let them in my life.

I finish and leave the bathroom in a towel. I'm not ready to put my dirty things back on.

Star is standing in the room holding a stack of clothes. She smiles, "I brought y'all some of my things."

"Short shorts and tank tops?" I ask.

She flinches, "No." She places them on the dresser and turns.

"She didn’t mean that," Anna says quickly and shoots me a dirty look.

I nod, "I'm sorry. I don’t know why I said that." I'm not sorry and I do know why. What I don’t know, is why she makes me so angry. Why I hate her. It's unnatural the amount of anger I have inside of me when she's around.

She gives me a look, "He's never picked me, you know. Since he met you, it's been you. Before you, it was no one. He never cares about anyone like that. He helps everyone but he doesn’t let anyone in." She opens the door and leaves and I feel awful. I try to make it go away but it won't. It eats at me. It's a horrid feeling.

Anna laughs when she sees my face, "Oh you feel like shit now, don’t you?" She grabs some of the clothes and pulls them on. I sit on the bed and try to just let the bad feelings eat me up, like they're trying to.

"What is this?" I hold my stomach.

"Guilt. You feel guilty for hurting her, for no reason. You acted like a jerk and now you have to suffer through it until she forgives you, or you can go back to not giving a shit." She straightens the t-shirt and looks at me, "I feel amazing. That was incredible."

I look up at her and smile weakly, "Hot showers have to be the thing I miss the most about the real world.

The door flings open. I stand to see Star walking back in. She looks savage. Her hand comes back, I see it too late. The sting of her hand across my face burns instantly. She shouts, "That’s for saying I dress like I want to be raped and always being hateful to me! I never did a thing to you!"

She turns and storms out of the room again. When the shock wears off, I smile at Anna, "That feels better in my stomach." I rub my cheek and glance at Leo, sleeping on the bed. His one open yellow eye closes.

Anna laughs, "Even Leo thought you had that one coming."

I nod, "I did. At least she hits like a girl."

I pull on the clothes and walk out of the room after Anna. Star is leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs. She shakes her sobbing head, "I'm sorry."

I frown, "I deserved that. I had no right to say that about you. I have no right to judge you." Anna gives me a look I don’t understand, but she isn’t happy. She mouths, "SORRY!"

I stammer, "I-I'm s-s-sorry."

Star sniffles, "I just didn’t understand why you hated me from the start."

I frown and look for answers, there are none. I hate that Will kissed me and then kissed her. I shake my head, "I just never was around other people."

Anna points laughing, "This is her—way more social. See how she doesn’t really move her lips much, she never cries, and she is always kind of hard-ass? This is nothing. You should have seen how bitchy she was, when I met her. We've slowly been fixing her."

My jaw drops. Anna winks when Star smiles. I don’t know what just happened, but I don’t like it. I turn back to the room and grab my bow and quiver. Leo gives me a look. I nod. He climbs off the bed and follows me out of the room. Anna eyes me up, "You know it was a joke right?"

I nod, "I'm hungry." I'm starved actually. We haven’t eaten much and I need something.

Star laughs, "He has tons of food downstairs."

My gaze narrows, "How?"

She shrugs, "He is a smart guy. He knew this was coming. He was preparing for years before hand. He stays in the city for work and brings food."

I cross my arms, gripping my weapons, "He's your brother?"

She nods, "Stepbrother. My mom married his rich dad when I was little. They died almost right away, and me and Bernie came here."

I tilt my head, "How did you get caught?"

She shrugs and I see her sparkly eyes turn flat and dead inside, "I was stupid. I didn’t want to listen to Bernie. I went out of the yard. He told me to stay here while he was going to the city. He didn’t want me to come because I was at breeder age. He didn’t think he would be able to protect me."

"How old were you?" I can't stop myself.

"Fifteen, almost sixteen. They made a few of us stay behind when they got to the farm." She shudders, "Then Will came. He was with Marshall. Will just kept hitting and hitting. They were dead but he couldn’t stop. I can still hear the sound of it."

We all shudder together. She stares for a minute, I know she's reliving it. She shakes her head, "Then they brought me to the camps. I showed Will the way back to here. Him and Bernie became friends. I went back to the camp with him. I couldn’t stay here and do nothing. So I help the wounded, give massages and try to be of help."

I feel sick again.

Her eyes sparkle again but it's the tears in them that makes them shine, "When Marshall betrayed you I decided I was done. They don’t want to fix things. Marshall wants to make it look like he's putting in an effort, but it's so that the camps will still run. He wants people motivated to work and gather and stay together but it's an act. He just doesn’t want to do any of that shit alone. He may not have agreed to the breeder farms or the military, but he would be in that city, if it weren’t for the fact he's diabetic."

Anna frowns, "He is?"

She nods, "Yup. The only reason he's out in the woods like that is the diabetes. The city has a no-sickness law. I still think he traded you for a free pass. He knew what you were."

I swallow the bad feelings associated with those words, "How do you know?"

She winks, "He was fond of my massages. He told me when you came back from the breeder farms, that he figured you were one of the early seed-gen babies from the breeder farms. One of the ones they experimented on early. He said you were dangerous like those kids in the cities—unruly and unpredictable. I could see it."

I flinched.

She shrugged and wiped her face, "He said that he could tell right away. Then you got ambushed and he admitted to being responsible. He said he was protecting the camps, but I think he did it to get a free pass to the city. Rebuilding a city has been his main focus for a few years."

Leo whines and yawns. I look at the bow, "I have to get him something to eat." I walk past them both with Leo on my heels. We walk down the stairs and out the front door.