Limerence II (23 page)

Fear can make
people do crazy things. Maybe that’s what makes me step forward and say something? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe it’s the injustice of it all. She doesn’t deserve this treatment. Their treatment. None of us do, but like I said before, fear can make people do crazy things.

A once upstanding member of the community will quite willingly bash your brains in; I know this to be true. I have lived it, have seen it, and have breathed it for the past . . . two years? Three years? God, can it really have been three years already? No, surely not. The years go by so slowly, yet so quickly all at the same time, and I’ve lost track now. Constantly feeling the icy grip of death upon her neck will do that to a girl. I have had enough now though. Enough of death, enough of being bullied and ordered around, and enough of the torment. I thought the deaders were what you had to fear the most. I was wrong.

My stomach rolls in fear and panic, bringing me back to the present. She can’t be more than thirteen, with a tall, lithe body, short strawberry blonde hair, and cute-as-a-button features.

“Stop.”

I look around, unsure of who has just spoken. Upon realizing that it was me, I clamp a hand firmly across my mouth in an attempt to seal in the rest of the sentence. If I could kick my own ass, I would.

Lee turns to look at me, his eyebrows furrowing at my interruption. I look around and realize that the gathering crowd has stopped their gawping at the young girl. Now they all stand and stare at the crazy woman who has opened up her big mouth.

Stupid, stupid me.

His grip tightens on her shoulder, his top lip rising in a crude snarl. He isn’t the man he used to be; that much is clear. None of us are the same anymore, though Lee seems like more of a dick than most.

Lee turns back to the young girl, seemingly dismissing my request for him to stop.

“You have been found stealing more than your allocated ration. You are therefore sentenced to life outside of our protective walls. Our community will no longer support your kind.”

Your kind? What the hell does that even mean?

Her eyes stray to me, a pleading look set in them.

“You are now banished.” His words cut her like an axe through wood, and she collapses to the floor with a howl of fright.

This can’t be right. She’s just a child.

Two men step forward and grab her by the arms, pulling her up to stand.

“You will leave immediately.” His words ring in my ears with finality. “You cannot collect your things. You cannot say your goodbyes. You cannot and will not escape your punishment.”

“You can’t do that.” My voice is quiet, my words almost whispered for the fear of what I know will happen if I speak up, but I have to. I can’t let this young girl die. Someone has to stand up for her—someone has to stand up to them. I’ve seen this ending for others far too many times now, and I don’t think I can take any more.

Shit, but why does it have to be
me
?

Lee looks across at me again. “Pardon?” he asks politely. Too politely for my liking. It makes my hollow stomach do a little back flip.

“You can’t do that… She’s, she’s just a child.” I step forward. Hardly even a step—more of a shuffle, really. “This is wrong.”

Of all the people that I have witnessed be banished, in all the years that I have been here, why does her fate affect me so? There is nothing particularly outstanding about her; she doesn’t remind me of anyone I used to know. A younger, less broken me, perhaps? Nope. Just some skinny kid with pretty eyes. So why her and why now?

“We cannot continue to support her kind any longer.” He walks toward me. “For humanity to survive, we must stand as one. By stealing, you are singling yourself out. I am thinking of us all. Her kind will kill us all if the…others don’t first.”

My heart skips a beat at his last words. The others. Yeah, they’ll kill us if they get a chance, but still…

“I don’t see you starving to death.” My eyes narrow at him.
In fact, even the pigs are better fed than us.
I run a hand across my ribs.

His eyes widen at my obtuseness, and I’m surprised that he doesn’t give me a nice backhanded slap to go with his fish-bowl look. The crowd gasps at my boldness, and I glance at them with a roll of my eyes.

“And what do you mean
her kind?
She’s one of us, not a deader,” I continue bitterly.

“Thieves,” he spits back.

I look at the stale half loaf of bread, now covered in dust and dirt on the ground. My stomach rumbles all the same. I’m always hungry these days. We all are.

How did we even get to a place where people are hungry and begging for scraps from the rulers of this pitiful town, and yet bread is allowed to go stale? I can’t fathom this madness.

Her life for some bread.

“She’s not a thief; she’s a child.” My voice cracks on the last word and I clear my throat and say it again. “A child, Lee.”

He lowers his head, appearing to consider my words. The crowd has grown restless. I look at them. Some I consider acquaintances; not friends—no, I can’t and won’t have friends anymore. It’s much too dangerous to have friends in this world. Friends get you killed, or they die. Neither scenario sits well with me. Either way I wouldn’t ever want any of these cowards for my friends. They’d sooner sell me for food than stand by my side.

The crowd mumbles and shuffles, whispering to each other. Scared, that’s how they all look—scared and pitiful, and here I am hating on them. I don’t think these things because I’m being cruel though; these are just the basic facts. All the people watching the scene play out are much too thin, their skin is dirty, and their clothes are threadbare. Each one of us is frightened, but that’s life these days. The more fear you hold, the more control people like Lee have over you.

Their eyes won’t meet mine, and I can’t make out what they say. Do they agree with me? Surely they must know that this is wrong—sending yet another civilian to die. Or are they as bloodthirsty as he is? Because he must be bloodthirsty to do this.

Blood and death.

That’s what it means to be sent over the wall and away from our town.
Blood and death.
Our wall is fifty feet high, give or take, and made of steel, stone, and whatever else was available when it was first built. Our wall is the toughest yet and is all but impenetrable—so I’m told, though I have never seen the other towns, or their walls. I was here at the beginning, and haven’t left since, the walls strengthening, fortifying, and locking us all inside. All but those in charge.

Keep the dead out and the living in—kind of like prison, but reversed, and with dead people. So maybe not, actually. I almost shrug at my own thoughts. Over the years, the walls have been compacted further still with a cement-like substance to fill any holes, and to thicken their outer shells.

Yet, for walls that are supposedly here to protect us from the outside world, I have seen more horrors within them than I would care to recollect.

“It’s Nina, isn’t it?” Lee finally looks back up at me and I break my reverie and lock eyes with him. He is a cold-hearted bastard.

“Yes.” My hands ball into fists in my pockets to stop myself from shaking, and if I’m totally honest, to stop myself from bitch-slapping him right across his creepy old face.

“I don’t like this any more than you do, but you have to understand that without the bread, the pigs do not have enough food to live. Without the pigs,
we
do not have enough food to live. We breed them to feed us, and to use as bait for when we send out our scavengers beyond the walls. Without the pigs we would be in a much worse scenario than what we’re in currently, and we would most likely starve. Therefore she is condemning us all to death.” He looks to the crowd. “All of us.” His arms open wide and gesturing, almost god-like. “As if there isn’t enough to fear in this new world.”

The crowd nods and agrees. Fear. Fear is the biggest weapon now. Oh, and the army of dead, of course. Yeah, they’re pretty badass too.

“No, no, that’s not what I was doing. I was just hungry… I thought it was going to be thrown away. I thought…” The young girl cries louder. “I just didn’t think,” she wails with wide, frightened eyes. She seems suddenly much younger than her teenage years, like a babe in arms, as she cries and begs for forgiveness.

Lee turns to her with a sympathetic frown. “My dear, that is the problem: you didn’t think. If everybody acted that way, we would all perish. You are a thief; you have admitted so yourself, and with that in mind I will not alter our strict laws on this matter.” He turns to the crowd. “Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks that they can steal from me.” His eyes shift before he corrects himself. “From us.”

Asshole.

The two men holding her begin to drag her away with Lee following behind. I, it seems, am being ignored. I should be glad that I haven’t received some sort of punishment for my outburst, really, but instead my palms are sweaty because I know that I can’t just leave it.

Damn my morals. Where did they come from? And how can I send them back?

I think I get it now, why I want to save this girl: I want to escape with her. I can’t keep praying for someone to help me if I’m not willing to help myself. I hate it here, yet I’ve done nothing to protect myself since I was shown where I stood on this food chain of life.

I hop from foot to foot, my nerves set on edge. I know what I must do, but I know that upon doing it I will condemn myself too. I look around once more at the so-called life that I have been living—dirty, lonely, and trodden down so that we behave as we’re told. This is no more civilized than the outside world. Well, I don’t think so anyway. Since no one lives out there anymore.

“You can’t do this. She’ll die,” I shout out. My eyes follow the men that continue to drag her since she will not walk, refusing in any way to help them send her to her doom. I don’t blame her; I’d do the same. I run after them, ignoring the voices behind me telling me to stop, to hush, to just walk away. The crowd, it seems, knows that I am right, but is unwilling to stand with me.

Cowards.

I grip Lee’s shoulder. “Stop, don’t do this. She didn’t realize what she was doing; she’s just a child, for Christ’s sake.”

He swings around and slaps me hard across my cheek, catching me off guard. The sound ricochets around the small square, and I stumble back a couple of steps with a sharp yelp. My hand grips my cheek as hot tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to cry. Not for this man, not anymore. He glares at me and continues to walk away. I know I’m pushing his patience—a slap will be the least of my worries if I don’t shut the hell up—but I don’t care. What kind of world is it where we send our children to die for stealing rotten food?

The guards are shoving her up toward the steps leading to the battlement-style walkway at the top of the wall. The rope ladders are being thrown over the top to the other side, ready for her to climb down.

I grip him hard by the shoulder again.

“Please…”

He spins to look at me. “Do you think that I enjoy doing this? Do you? Because I don’t, but people must know not to cross the line.” Spittle gathers at the side of his mouth. “They have to know how to behave now, or none of us will survive. They have to know who is in charge…”

“In charge of them? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? We know that already, Lee; you don’t need to kill some innocent girl to prove it to us.”

“She is hardly innocent, Nina. She stole, and now she must pay for that selfish act.” He glares.

I snort. “Please. Teenagers
are
selfish; it’s in their DNA. Just because the world has changed, it doesn’t mean that human nature has.” I flinch when his hand twitches again, bracing myself for another slap or something harder.

He smiles. “You people are all under my watch, and I have been put in this position to protect you all. And if that means sending one girl over the wall into the hellhole beyond, then so be it. That is what I will do to keep it this way.”

Now we’re getting to the heart of his annoyance. He wants everyone to know that he’s the big boss around here, as if we didn’t know it already.

“But she’ll die.” My voice cracks once again.

“Then she should have thought about that before she stole—”

“From the pigs,” I interrupt. “She stole some moldy old bread from the pigs. You make it sound worse than it is. Punish her, but for God’s sake don’t kill her!”

I look at the young girl. Her eyes are pleading with me to save her, but I don’t know what more I can say to help.

“Please, Lee,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything.” If I thought it would make a difference, I’d offer myself—my body—to him to try and change his mind, but I have a feeling that he wouldn’t want me anyway. I don’t have much to offer him, or anyone. My dark hair is limp and dirty from the lack of shampoo. My clothes haven’t fared well either: my jeans are covered in holes and are full of stains. However, I think I’m still pretty, despite my dirty face.