Chapter 17

The two signals from the boy and girl closed in. The man circled towards my left.

“Stand up, nice and slow.”

I couldn’t read him. He had no energy output, yet he didn’t appear weak, and his threat of a headshot was worrisome. My helmet was the same one the frontliners used, bulletproof, or so Mike said. Still, I wasn’t entirely over my last concussion. I didn’t want to worsen my situation with a bullet, so I complied.

With my hands raised, he gestured towards my right with the gun barrel. “Move from the car.”

I dragged my feet across the gritty pavement and backed away from the rusted vehicle. Glass from the smashed windows gouged what remained of the street. The man kicked a door mirror and waved for the others to join.

“Chris, take the rifle,” he barked.

Although my brain screamed, “fight,” my body wouldn’t move the way I wanted, and my throat tightened. The boy unclipped the strap and took the only weapon I hadn’t used yet. The man shuffled to my side, and the girl removed my backpack before unzipping my parka and taking my pistol.

“She’s clean.” The flashy girl hummed her words when she spoke. She zipped my coat back, smiled, then asked for my name.

Lying crossed my mind, but hiding my identity seemed stupid. Nobody cared who I was, and names didn’t matter much anymore unless you were in the system.

“A-Amy. My name’s Amy.” My voice cracked, and I thanked God the helmet covered most of my face.

She handed the pistol to the boy named Chris and held my hiking bag with both hands. “See Dan, just a regular human.”

“I don’t care, Allie. Take her helmet off to make sure.” The bearded man, Dan, walked closer. Unlike before, his hands were shaking.

“Give it a rest. I’m hungry.” Allie ignored Dan and peeked inside my pack. Her cheeks lifted, and her eyes danced from me to the bag and back again. “Amy. We need to go.”

She pulled my hand and dragged me past the concrete rubble that matched her turtleneck. We avoided rebar spikes and sheet metal edges, passed a flattened postal drop box, and climbed over a steel beam. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but of the three, she was most friendly.

“Hey,” Dan yelled. “We can’t bring her back. What if she’s with Greer?”

I tripped over a loose brick at the name and almost took Allie with me. Surprisingly strong, she caught me and helped me to my feet.

“You can ask her once we get to camp. It’s not like we’re sticking around, anyways.”

Crows took flight as a single flock and circled the town from the commotion we started. Metal scraps clanged down the streets, and the dust we kicked up made me sneeze twice.

“Shut up, you flying rats.” Dan chased after and cursed at the cawing birds. “Allie, I’m telling you it’s dangerous.”

“Calm down, Dan.” Allie ignored his warnings and sped through the crumbled stone veneer. “Amy, come on, I wanna see what’s in here.”

I didn’t like someone going through my bag. The last thing I wanted to share was the food I found. But I didn’t speak up. I wasn’t normally so timid. Allie was a storm, and I had nothing to say. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to leave. Almost as if she drew me in.

We hurried past piles of garbage until we made it to the inner corner of a ruined building. A few hiking bags lined what remained of the brick wall, and dry sticks formed a pile next to a fire pit. They built a camp big enough for a few people to lie down, with a section of the second floor as a roof. How it hadn’t collapsed was beyond me.

“Sit here.” Allie pulled me to the far corner of the hovel.

Stacked cinderblocks created a bed, and an orange sleeping bag on top told me Allie wasn’t a fan of the floor. She removed the stuffed moose from my pack and remarked how cute it was. The main pouch held the vending machine contents. Careful not to crush anything, she removed candy bars and chips, stacking them on her bed until she found what she wanted.

“No way. You even have cookies?” Three oatmeal raisin, two chocolate chip, and a half-eaten roll of Oreos. She grabbed a package with two chocolate chip cookies and the rest of the Oreos. “I’ll trade you. A can of corned beef for these two.”

Salty meat in a can, too mushy to enjoy—I hated corned beef. At one time, I would have laughed at the offer. That was before the collapse. Now it sounded better than anything I had eaten in a long while. Her willingness to trade with a hostage caught me off guard.

“Y-yeah. Um, yeah, I’ll trade.”

Despite Allie acting friendly, my body still quivered. I didn’t think I’d meet anyone the moment I left the mountains. And I didn’t know how to act. The thought of losing my weapons never occurred to me. She left me with my mace and knives, but losing the guns weighed heavy on my stomach. I was so foolish.

Allie noticed my shaking but didn’t say anything. Instead, she unraveled the Oreo pack, handed one to me, and placed another in her mouth. “Ah, I missed Oreos.”

She fell back on her concrete bed and closed her eyes. I had the same feeling when I ate the protein bar in the cavern. Like everything around me didn’t exist. I tried to sneak the cookie under my helmet and push it to my lips, but I gave up. There wasn’t enough space. In the end, I opened the visor and snuck the crème filled wafer in.

“Where’d you find cookies?” Chris showed up with my rifle and a blue tote loaded with cans.

I wanted to rip my gun from him, but Dan kept his eyes glued to me.

Allie rose with a smirk. “Don’t worry about it. Chris, give Amy a can of corned beef.”

“What for?” The boy pulled the bag close, unwilling to hand over what he had collected earlier.

“Chris. Give Amy a can right now.” Allie’s face darkened, and her smile disappeared. The young boy with dark wavy hair no longer looked so defiant.

He removed a blue labeled tin from the bag, the kind that opened with a key, and tossed it to me. Allie shot him an angry glare when I dropped it, and he put his head down, then walked away.

“Stop giving away our food.” Dan ducked under the slanted roof. “We don’t know her, and I don’t want to hop through towns for supplies unless we need to.”

“Don’t worry about him, Amy. He’s always complaining.” Allie paid him no mind and popped another Oreo in her mouth.

Dan sat across from us, and the alert in my helmet finally pinged once his essence energy released. I scanned him for reference—not in the system, but almost six times as strong as me. He could hide the energy leaking from his body. His ability, no doubt.

“Amy, huh?” Dan played with his beard and leaned towards me. “If you’re not with Greer, where’d you come from?”

I didn’t think he would get violent, but I readied myself in case he did. Not everyone was against torture. I could only blame myself for being so careless.

“North. University of Potsdam. And the army base.”

“Oh, I had a friend who went to Potsdam,” Allie said. “She was a second-year education major. Melanie Davis, did you know her?”

I shook my head. I was in my senior year, and even though the college was small, we wouldn’t have shared any classes. Different lecture halls and separate dorms, the only things seniors shared were the cafeteria’s, and I rarely went. The fall semester started fine and ended with a nightmare.

I didn’t want to remember it. There was little warning, and most students died in the dorms, unable to leave for winter break.

“I heard about what happened.” Allie rested her head on her knees. “We were friends since middle school. I kept hoping to see her again. You’re here, so maybe, but probably not.”

There was no way to comfort her. Melanie probably never made it out of the University. Nobody knew why, but the beast hoards formed in the North first, and full soul collapse happened instantly for some after the fifth breach. On the base, soldiers said parts of the south remained untouched. All speculation.

Dan threw a few branches in the little pit and told Chris to start a fire. None of them appeared worried about signaling our location.

“Allie, can we talk?” Dan pointed to the other side of the building, and Allie pinched the bridge of her nose before leaving.

Although the far wall was a good distance through weeds and crushed planks, it wasn't so distant that I couldn’t make out what they said.

“Something’s not right, Allie,” Dan whispered. “Don’t trust her.”

“What do you mean?”

There was a brief pause, and I watched Chris squeeze a handful of twigs until they caught on fire. Most people were cautious about showing their abilities. Not everybody agreed with a database that tracked souls like fingerprints. Chris used his openly.

“Nobody made it out of there, Allie. Nobody.”

Dan’s voice brought me back to their conversation. His words weren’t false, but it wasn’t because everyone died. Scab camps dotted the area. Those of us who escaped the massacre eventually found ourselves in one of those bases. Grouped in lots and held in mud pits. I doubted many people were as fortunate as me.

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I’m telling you, she’s lying. We need to dump her.”

Allie’s voiced lowered, and I barely made out what she said. “Dan. What do you mean, dump her?”

“We tie her up and leave her, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Allie cut him off and didn’t let him answer. “You gonna shoot everyone we come across now, Dan? Shoot everyone until you run out of bullets?”

“I’m telling you she’s dangerous,” Dan yelled loud enough for Chris to jump.

“That’s it. We don’t kill people, Dan. Especially those who haven’t harmed us.”

Dan tried to interject again, but Allie waved him off. They walked back into the tiny shelter, Allie grinned in my direction, but her smile wasn’t reassuring. Allie seemed nice, perhaps too nice. I didn’t really know her. Even though something made me want to trust her, I couldn’t afford to believe in anyone. Not when one of their members openly talked about ending my life. He might have been stronger. That didn’t matter.

I pulled back, but Allie squatted in front of me and gripped my hands.

“Don’t worry about Dan. He won’t try anything. I promise.”

An odd comfort flowed into my arms and washed away my worries momentarily. I pushed against the sensation, and Allie’s body stiffened before she grinned.

Psychologists said our deepest desires determined our abilities, and Eastern Guru’s agreed. Mike wanted strength, Lia was searching for something, and I struggled to understand why I could stitch people to me. But now I understood why everyone listened to Allie. Why I felt so comfortable around her. And why she didn’t appear worried about me at all.

I pressed back against her advance. Her smile parted, and she giggled. “Interesting. You’re interesting, Amy.”

I figured out her trick, and for some reason, that made her happy.