Naturals (3 page)

Always blood.

I closed my eyes and saw Emma. My sister. The loss that had broken me. I squeezed my eyes tighter; I didn’t want to watch this girl die. That was the battle that plagued my people and me—what we were willing to see and what we wanted to shut away.

“What’s wrong? Are you all right?” Robert asked all of a sudden, sounding panicked. I felt his hand touch my arm, and my eyes opened. I hadn’t even heard him come into the room.

“There’s a girl here. She’s hurt,” said Henry.

“Tess? Are you okay?” Robert asked again.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Help her, Robert!” The moment I said these words, Robert pushed past me and began to assist Henry. I moved backward until the edges of my legs touched the bed, and then I let my body sink down onto it, clutching the bleeding girl’s book in my hand until my knuckles were white.

I wanted to help, but my body just wouldn’t move.

Robert and Henry gently moved the girl so she was lying on her back. Her eyes fluttered and her head lolled from side to side.

“Hand me the blanket from the bed, Tess,” Robert commanded.
One. Two. Three.
I would give myself five seconds before I let all the darkness and despair of this world back in.
Four. Five.

I forced myself up and pulled the blanket from the bed with my free hand, still refusing to let go of the book. Henry yanked it from my reach and pressed it to the girl’s stomach. “Can we save her?” he asked, looking down at the girl’s face.

Robert stared up at me. I could read it in his eyes before he spoke. We had shared death, he and I, and I knew what it looked like on him.

I cleared my throat and stared down at her. “What happened to you?”

“She shouldn’t be talking!” Henry yelled. “She needs to save her strength!”

I wanted to touch my hand to his cheek. Tell him I understood. He had tried to save so many, just like I had. Mother. Sisters. Girlfriend. She would be another girl he’d lose.

Ignoring Henry, Robert said, “Can you speak? I’m so sorry for what was done to you, but if you could tell us what happened, it might help.”

The girl coughed and a trickle of blood and saliva slid out of the corner of her mouth. Henry brushed the hair from her forehead. “Shh. Don’t talk. You’re going to be fine.”

Henry didn’t understand. She had to speak because no one would speak for her. And she was running out of time. I knelt down on the floor beside Robert and took the girl’s hand. “What happened to you?” I whispered, feeling Henry’s glare burning holes into my forehead.

The girl coughed again. “He…he thought he was helping me.”

“Who did? A chosen one?” I asked, knowing they were the only ones with the power here.

She nodded. “They turned on us. We got word they killed our friends…our family…back at the compound. And then everything went wild here.”

A violent rush of coughs attacked the girl, her body convulsing against the floor, her legs kicking—she was fighting. She wanted to tell her story. I tightened my grip on her hand.

“Can’t we do something?” Henry begged Robert. “Aren’t there medical supplies downstairs?”

“Go on,” I urged the girl.

“He treated me differently. He cared for me. The other boys did unspeakable things to the girls before…before…they took them downstairs and…killed them. He shot me.” Tears began to stream down the girl’s face.

“Cared for you? He didn’t care for you. He tried to kill you,” Henry growled. “But we’re going to get you better, and you’re going to help us fight them. They’re going to pay for what they did to us.”

Us.

I turned to Robert. “Get him out of here.”

Robert didn’t need any explanation. We’d always understood each other.

He sprang up from his position and grabbed Henry, forcing him out of the room. Despite Henry’s urgent protests, it wasn’t a difficult task for Robert. I chose to ignore the names Henry called me as he left. Cold. Unfeeling. Selfish. But he hadn’t heard the way he said
us
to the girl, the way he had turned her problem into his own insatiable need for revenge.

He wanted to own her just like the chosen one did.

I shifted my body so I was lying on my side on the floor next to the girl. My eyes level with hers, I pulled her hand so it was resting on my chest and covered it with mine. This was something I remembered Emma doing whenever she had something difficult to tell me. Whenever she tried so desperately to protect me.

“That was my friend Henry. He’s very angry, and he doesn’t understand.” The girl bleeding to death next to me seemed so young. Too young. She reminded me of Louisa. “This boy who shot you, he
did
care for you. He must have thought you were very special. He wanted to protect you, keep you from the rest of them. You must be a wonderful girl,” I said softly.

A ghost of a smile formed on her face. And then she was gone. No violent outburst, no signal her body was fighting anymore. Because, in the end, there are some things we cannot fight, no matter how much we desire to do so.

Silent tears slid down my cheeks. I couldn’t leave her just yet, so I lay there for a while. I didn’t know if what I told the girl was true. I didn’t even know her name, but I felt connected to her. I had been marked just like she had. Was my story fated to end the same way, or had everything James sacrificed for me guaranteed a different ending? Her story didn’t have to be mine. Did her boy care for her like James did for me? Was he trying to protect her when he shot her? Feeling there was no other way to save her except by ending her life, unaccustomed to using a gun so he gave her a wound that would take days to die from? Or was he merely selfish, not wanting any of the other boys to take what was his?

I would never know, but I had told her what she wanted to hear.

As I made my way downstairs, I held the girl’s book in my hand. I would now carry the stories of two new girls with me, two more to add to my growing collection.

The crew was assembled at the bottom of the stairs. McNair and the other two men carried new cargo bags filled with supplies salvaged from the training center.

“You have blood on your dress,” Henry said to me. I looked down at my long-sleeve gray blouse and floor-length black skirt. The clothes given to us by the council were meant to symbolize purity and temperance, but all my dress represented now was death. Henry’s face was pale and he couldn’t look me in the eyes. “Robert found you some clothes.”

After I changed, we stood on the lawn staring at the training center. Waiting. McNair seemed entranced by the place, unwilling to leave it for some reason. Finally he took a deep, shaky breath and strode over to a transport that sat ablaze in front of the building. It was the source of the smoke we had seen earlier.

“Why would they burn a transport?” I asked.

“In case anyone survived. They didn’t want to leave them a means to escape,” Robert replied.

McNair inspected the vehicle, walking around it in a circle, each time expanding his distance from the burning machine. Eventually, he stopped and picked up a container and a grin crossed his face. He jogged up to the compound and began to pour the container’s liquid all around it. Eric rummaged through one of his new supply bags. He pulled out a box of matches and held it up. McNair nodded, but when Eric started to walk toward him, McNair raised his hand to signal stop.

“Give them to Henry,” he commanded. I wondered why McNair chose Henry for the task. It was hard not to notice a new and strange bond between the two.

Henry didn’t wait to be told twice. He snatched the matches from Eric’s hands and lit one so quickly I could barely comprehend what was about to happen. As he threw the burning match to the building, a slow fire began to outline it. But with every second that passed, the fire became more intense, growing exponentially stronger and stronger until it raged and consumed.

And as the fired ravaged the chosen ones’ home, I wondered if Henry’s hatred would burn him, would consume him straight through.

Chapter 3

“Not feeling so well?’ Robert asked as I wiped the sweat from my brow with my sleeve. Not feeling well was a bit of an understatement. The strenuous travel and constant meals of animals found in the woods had taken their toll on me. I was used to the life of the compound, a life that, while it offered little choice, was at least a life of ease. I didn’t have to worry about keeping warm at night or wonder if the rabbit or squirrel I would force down my throat would find its way back up.

I wanted a bed. I wanted to stop walking.

I wanted to feel safe again, even if that sense of safety was false.

“I’m fine,” I replied, finding it easier to offer this answer, because I could tell Robert was worrying about me. I didn’t know if I wanted him to bother. I wasn’t sure how much I owed him for helping set me free, and how much I still blamed him for my sister’s death. I knew I wanted him as my ally, but that didn’t mean things were easy with him.

Robert nodded and handed me his canteen of water. I took it and chugged it. My urine had turned an alarming shade, and I was beginning to think my body was going to turn on me. It wasn’t used to such difficult activity, and I wondered if it was up for the journey. “I’m told we’re almost there,” he offered.

“McNair said that to me three days ago,” I countered, rolling my eyes good-naturedly.

“I’m sorry this journey has been so tough. We’ll be to the Isolationist camp soon, and then everything will get better.”

I found myself staring at Robert. Our relationship was difficult, but I was starting to see him for what he could become—not only my friend but my family. If I could convince him to go back and save Louisa, then he might help me rally the others once we reached the camps. He would stand next to me and help reunite what remained of our family. “Will it be better?” I asked quietly.

Robert offered a sad, small smile. “I certainly hope so.”

My eyes scanned the horizon as Robert and I sat there in silence, taking turns drinking from the canteen while McNair let us rest. My eyes found Henry, who was bending down, picking up stones and chucking them as far as he could. He hadn’t talked to me much since finding the dying girl at the compound. I didn’t blame him. I knew this was the way he dealt with things. It was the way I used to deal with things, too.

“And will
he
be better?” I asked, nodding toward Henry.

Robert sighed. “You want the lie or the truth?”

I let free a short, bitter laugh. “That seems to be the question that dominates my life.”

“I’m not sure.”

I sighed. “Yeah, me neither. When I think of what he’s been through, I can’t blame him for being so mad. Can anyone come back from that?”

“You did.”

I shook my head. “Too early to say that for sure. Besides, I don’t know that it’s fair to compare my pain to his,” I replied.

“Fair enough. You’ve both been through more than anyone your age should have to.”

I picked up a rock that lay nestled in the ground between my feet and tossed it from one hand to the other. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Did you love Emma because my father saved you, or did you love her for her?” It was something I had been wondering ever since I found out that Robert had been the chosen one I saw my father save when I was a child.

“Ah, that. Don’t fool yourself, Tess. You’re a truth seeker.”

He didn’t want to answer my question. That could only mean his affection for my sister was out of some sort of hero worship for my father. Which meant she died for nothing. All the anger I had been working on keeping down came rushing back. I clutched my hand around the rock and held onto it as hard as I could, letting the ragged edges dig into my skin.

“When your father broke me out of the compound, I was sure I’d be dead in a week. I was sick. I’m a first generation, but even then they didn’t keep the sick ones long. We’ve always been expendable.”

I continued moving the stone from one hand to the other, afraid that if I stopped, he would, too. Robert was the closest thing I had to feeling for even one second that I could have Emma back. If there were any reasons to settle our differences, it would be for our continued love for Emma. He was all I had left of her now

For now.

Because I would get Louisa back. I wouldn’t let another sister go.

I was wrong to have tried to trade Robert for James when I first heard of the plan to go to the Isolationist camp. It was a futile attempt at controlling things I had no power over. Robert was the key. Robert and Henry. One had the skills of the chosen ones; he could lead the men into the compound. The other had the passion.

I
would
convince them.

“Your father was always kind to me,” Robert continued. “The workers weren’t really supposed to talk to us, but he would tell me about you and your sisters. At first, I didn’t understand what I felt as I listened to him speak, but I realize now I was jealous. I couldn’t quite grasp the concept of family then, but I wanted it. I wanted it without even knowing how to say I wanted it.”

I wanted my family, too.

Robert picked up a rock from the ground and began to copy my movements. “He showed me pictures of his daughters, and when I first saw her—Emma—I needed to know her. I felt weak. It went against everything the council taught us; I knew it was wrong to feel anything at all, but I couldn’t help it. And even though it meant the council didn’t want me, that I could die any day, when your father took me and I woke up in your house, I knew what it was to feel happiness.”

“You loved my sister because you wanted a family?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t love her then. I thought she was beautiful, but I couldn’t love just an image. I had heard so many stories about how kind she was. I didn’t think naturals could be like that—it wasn’t what we were taught. I mean, I knew your father was a good man, but some days he was angry or distant.”

I nodded. This was not the father I knew growing up, but the father I met and learned about through reading the letters he left to me after the council took him, letters I had given to James in hopes that by seeing the man who helped shape me, he could hold on to a part of me.

“I was in and out of consciousness the brief time I was in your house, but I remember thinking it was real, all of it. The naturals. Their homes and families. It wasn’t just something the teachers made up to scare us.”

“Scare you?” I asked.

“Family, attachment, all of that meant vulnerability. We were bred to fight wars, Tess. The idea of family was so abstract that despite your father’s stories, I couldn’t believe something so supposedly harmful could truly exist. Or that I would desire it so badly,” he said, dropping the rock to the ground.

“Do you still think family connections make us weak?” I asked, continuing to toss the rock back and forth, my eyes returning to Henry.

“Did I ever agree with the council that to love was dangerous? Wild? Reckless? Of course. But it’s for those very reasons that
we
humans crave it so much.”

He was right. I barely knew what love was, and sometimes, in the darkest part of the night, when it seemed as if I was the only being in the world awake, alive, master of all things, I wondered if I loved James for him or for how he made me feel. Maybe I loved him for both, and maybe I didn’t think that was so wrong. It comforted me to hear of Robert’s love for my sister. To understand how he loved someone helped me understand how I did, and it made me feel like maybe that love wasn’t completely gone just because James wasn’t right there with me. Because it had become so obvious, sitting there in the woods of this unknown place, away from everything that felt comfortable and steps away from a whole new life, that no matter what happened to him or where he went, Robert loved my sister. That would never change.

“Once I was well enough to travel, your father connected me with the resistance movement. I was in hiding with different small clusters of people in the woods and bombed cities for years. And when we could make enough connections to falsify my papers and get me transferred into your compound as a natural, I had no idea you or your sisters would be there. That day you saw me at your house was the last I ever saw or heard from your father,” Robert said.

I stopped tossing the rock. “So you don’t know what happened to him?”

Robert sighed. “I know. Do you want to hear that story today?”

“No. Not today.” I returned to tossing the rock back and forth. There would be time for that story another day. I didn’t know if I was brave enough to hear it at the moment.

Robert nodded, and I was grateful he didn’t push me. He would wait until I was ready. “When I first met your sister, I tried to stay away from her. But I couldn’t help it. I had to see if she was what I imagined her to be. There was so much about the outside world that let me down, so much that seemed to prove the council right, but she wasn’t one of them. How anyone could ever hate her, I will never understand.”

“She was perfect,” I agreed.

“Yes. She was. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to keep my distance. I had become too…”

“Human?” I offered.

Robert laughed. “Yeah, I guess. So I decided to be her friend.”

“I remember that. I like to think you were my friend, too. But then things changed. You broke your promise,” I charged, unable to rein in the tiny bit of anger that slipped from my lips. It stilled lived inside of me; I wondered if it always would. My eyes found Henry again.

“Tess—”

“Don’t. No matter how many times we speak about her, it will always come to this. Some part of me understands, but then there will always be a part of me that can’t forget. I know she took matters into her own hands. I’m still angry with her for that. It’s not fair that she lied to you, told you she was being safe. All she wanted was to give you a child. She didn’t think of the family she already had. She got pregnant knowing full well that in all likelihood, she would die. I know it’s hard for me to understand when I’ll never be in the same position as her…” My voice trailed off.

I could have sex if I wanted to without worrying that I would die if I got pregnant. But James and I had decided we weren’t ready. I wondered if some day I would regret that choice.

“But that doesn’t mean you won’t have to make some tough choices down the road. Love’s a funny feeling, and we do stupid things because of it. I know you miss her. I miss her. God, I miss her.” He paused. “But I won’t ever be able to explain it in a way that will make it all right. I know that—I accept it—but if there is one thing you should never doubt, it’s that I loved her.”

I chucked the rock as far as I could and got up. Robert was right. “Thanks for the talk. I know it wasn’t easy for you.” I paused, finding the strength to admit what else I needed to say. “And thank you for everything else. You didn’t ask to have the biggest brat of all time as a sister-in-law, but I couldn’t have asked for a better brother-in-law.”

“Anytime,” he said with a small smile.

I made my way to Henry. “What were you two talking about?” he asked, trying to sound indifferent.

I shrugged. “About how long it will be till we get there.”

Henry nodded and stuffed his now-empty hands in his pockets. I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and pulled his hand free, taking it in mine. “Doesn’t feel like we’re close to getting there,” I said softly, looking at the miles of woods that still lay in front of us.

Henry squeezed my hand. “No. It doesn’t feel close at all.”

…

“If you would just hear me out, I wouldn’t have to keep talking so much,” I argued, pushing my tired legs to try and catch up with the men. Robert and Henry followed behind, effectively surrounding me. I had decided it was time to lay down the groundwork for my plan to get my sister and back.

“I don’t need to hear you out, because I already know what you have to say. And you can say it in any pretty little way you want, but we’re not going to change our minds. A deal’s a deal. And we stick by our word,” McNair gruffed, pulling the strap of his gun tighter against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t told of the deal you made, which is pretty absurd considering I’m part of the trade. My sister. She’s all by herself.”

I wanted to start gathering volunteers the minute we entered the camp. Robert had told me back in an abandoned barn, just days after they rescued me from certain death, that there was a sector of the resistance movement located in our compound’s community. Surely these men who came all the way to save me were a part of it.

It pained me that I wasn’t fighting for James, too, but Louisa was my priority. I couldn’t imagine James being stuck in a life he hated—following rules without question. Suffocating any part of himself that dared to think differently in order to survive. I knew what that felt like, and I knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. And when the council found out he wasn’t just another blind, devoted solider, they would murder him for it.

But saving my sister was bigger than us.

It had to be.

McNair walked on like he couldn’t hear me. With a grunt, I pushed myself even harder, stumbling over the uneven ground to keep up with his long strides. “I think I deserve to be heard. You and your medical staff will want to poke and prod me as soon as I reach your camp. If you think I’m just going to let you without—”