Evadere (9 page)

“All right,” he finally said. “Let’s go get captured.”

Chapter 6

“Are you ready for this?” Jo whispered.

I looked at the small Scave girl and thought what a coward I was compared to her. She was doing this all for me. She was getting nothing out of it. Oh, how I missed the normalcy of Earth, of being near Emry. Evadere was wearing on me. I was starving. I felt lethargic, as if I could just fall over. But I couldn’t whine about any of this, not to Jo or Rooney. They had been abandoned by their birth parents, taken in by the monster Karn and were true survivors by every sense of the word. They had to work for everything they ever had, which really wasn’t much. They could die right now and their lives mattered little to anyone else. They were cast away and forced to live rugged lives where life wasn’t meant to be one to enjoy, but merely to keep breathing. I couldn’t act like a spoiled human here. Not now. Not with them. Yet somehow these two cared more than the other Scaves. I wondered if it was because they were still young and not as damaged as the others who seemed to be coldblooded and cruel, or maybe they were just smarter. They had become friends themselves and now with me, an outsider and misfit myself here. Their friendship was one of a loyalty I had never known before. All of our lives were in danger, and it was my fault that this was so, yet they were still eager and willing to try to help. They no longer even had a home and yet wanted me to return to mine. I
was
being a selfish human. I did want their help even though I knew it could cost them the one thing they valued the most, their lives. I was being selfish because I missed Emry Logan and we had just started our own world together before such a cruel separation. I had no one else to turn to besides Jo and Rooney. Without them, Evadere would consume me, and I’d never lay eyes on Emry again. It was an agonizing fate to even attempt to contemplate. I wouldn’t accept that possibility. I had to keep trying.

“Jo, it doesn’t matter if you left me here for a week, I’d never be ready,” I confessed. “Let’s just do what we have to do.”

She nodded. “Up there in the distance is where the medical contributors live.”

I squinted my eyes which were now burning from both the bright sun and the dust kicked up from following Rooney. I saw what looked like white tents, their open walls blowing gently in the breeze.
 

“This seems like such an idiotic plan,” Rooney huffed. “We’re just going to walk up to them and start taking their stuff?”

“Got a better one?” Jo asked.
 

He didn’t reply.

“That big building on the far side,” she pointed out. “That’s the one that holds the largest amount of supplies. I was in there before.” She turned around and grabbed my hand. “You okay?”

I swallowed.

“I wish I did have a better plan,” she said. “This is the biggest entrance though, going in the middle of daylight.

I nodded. “Jo, before we go …”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I want to say thank you to you and Rooney.”

“Don’t be getting all soft on us, human,” Rooney said sternly.

“No, really, Rooney,” I continued. “It’s my fault you’re no longer with Karn.”

“It was time to leave Karn,” Jo said. “It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time, just never had the guts to do.”

“What?” Rooney seemed surprised. “You never told me that.”

“How could I? You were like his little puppet,” she said.

He looked hurt by her statement.

“This war thing,” Jo continued. “Going on between him and royalty, it’s bigger than me. It’s something I’ve never been interested in being a part of.”

“But they throw us away like garbage,” Rooney interjected.

“I was born the way I was born. At least I’m still alive.”

Rooney rolled his eyes. “Well, I don’t feel the same way. I hate royalty. I’m going to make that known once we’re at the castle, too.”

Jo shrugged. “Good luck with that.”

He glared at her.
 

“You have every right to be mad,” I said. “What has been going on here with Scaves versus contributors isn’t right. Something has to change. Rooney, you’re a good guy. Don’t let your anger change who you really are.”

Rooney turned away from me and looked at Jo. “Are you ready then?”

“What’s the matter, Rooney?” Jo grinned. “This emotional stuff too much for your manly heart to handle?”

He stomped off as both Jo and I burst into a fit of giggles.

Within minutes we were walking onto the land where the medical contributors lived. The large white tent came into view. It was the largest of the buildings and its color an illuminating brightness. We walked right up to it and stepped inside. There were contributors in there. Rooney and Jo separated, each one going the opposite direction in the supply tent. There were all kinds of bottles and different sizes of boxes, most of them stacked high and labeled. I trailed Jo.

I watched her grab bottles of medicine and stuff them into the bottom of her shirt now made into a pouch like she had with the fruit. Rooney did the same thing. There were three contributors that I could see. They didn’t even seem to notice us. I ran my fingertips along the smooth glass of one of the bottles. I went to pick it up but then jerked my hand back. For some reason, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t steal it. I had cold feet. This was all just a game to get to the castle. I glanced up. Where was Jo? My palms turned hot and clammy. I squeezed my hands into tight balls at the sides of my body. The contributors I had seen were gone, too. Then I heard a chilling scream.

Racing toward the noise, my heart pumped so fast it was as if I could feel it pulsating up into my ears. I felt ill as I made my way around a shelf and stopped dead.
 

In the corner of the tent lay Jo. A very burly, muscular contributor towered over her, a steel pipe clenched in his hands. I immediately wondered why Jo wasn’t running. I knew she wanted to get caught, but this man was going to kill her.
 

“Jo.” The word got caught in my throat and came out as a choked whisper.
 

Then the realization that she must be injured entered my mind. The contributor must have already hit her with the pipe. That was the only logical reason for her to still be in the position she was in.
 

A flash of movement caught my attention. Within seconds, Rooney was on the back of the contributor. He wrapped his thin arms around the thick neck of the contributor. He squeezed. The arms of the man flailed in the air helplessly by the surprise attack. Jo still lay on the floor of the tent propped up on her elbows now, her face aghast as she watched Rooney attempt to battle the strong man.

Do something,
I thought. Why couldn’t I move? Jo said this was a peaceful contributor group, yet here was this horrific fight going on before my eyes, and I stood paralyzed, the coward I was.

The contributor’s face was beginning to turn red. Maybe Rooney could pull this off and take him down. Suddenly the contributor violently bent forward. Rooney was thrown from the man’s back, landing on the floor of the tent with a hard thud. He laid motionless for a moment, stunned from the traumatic fall. The brawny man rushed over to Rooney and swung his arms backwards, the steel pipe raised high in the air.
 

“No!” I heard someone behind me yell out.

It was too late. The steel pipe came down forcefully. It collided with the bone of Rooney’s skull, crushing it to pieces.
 

I covered my mouth in horror. Rooney’s leg twitched momentarily and then … nothing. I heard Jo cry out and cover her eyes from the gruesome sight of her best friend’s head being brutally beaten in by a supposedly peaceful medical contributor. I collapsed to my knees, my eyes still locked on Rooney as if what I had just seen hadn’t really happened, as if he would suddenly come back to life and jump up ready to battle again.

More contributors entered the tent. A woman hurried over to the man with the bloody pipe still locked in his hand as he angrily gazed down at the Scave he had just ripped the life from.

“Put it down,” the woman cried, reached out for the weapon and taking it from him. “Leave them alone.”
 

He turned around and gave her a hard glare. Then he stomped away and exited the tent. A younger male walked over to Rooney and gazed down upon him. He put his hands up in the air and looked at the woman who wiped tears away from her cheeks before turning around to tend to Jo. Jo began to fight the woman who knelt at her side trying to examine her legs. She flung her arms wildly in the air trying to get the woman away.
 

“It’s okay, child,” the woman said in a soothing manner. “I won’t hurt you. It’s okay. Please, child.”

I struggled to get to my feet again. I didn’t even know if I had the strength to walk. I took two steps toward Jo before someone grabbed my arms and held them behind my back.

“Where do you think you’re going?” someone whispered to me.

I glanced back into the face of yet another contributor who now bound my hands with rope.
 

“Pick her up,” he instructed someone else, gesturing toward Jo.
 

“She’s hurt,” the woman said next to her. “I think her leg’s broken. Don’t harm either one of them.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “But royalty has already been contacted. They will be leaving soon. You can tend to her once she’s properly tied and can’t get away.”

“Why did you call them?” the woman asked angrily, pulling on the skirt of her dress as she stood up to face him.
 

“You would rather they be set free?” he asked.

“That’s right, I would,” she replied.

He chuckled. “You would say something like that. You’re a softy for the Scaves, even after they’ve tried to steal from us yet again.”

“Their people get sick, too,” she reminded him.

“They are hardly people,” he replied.

The woman gave him another hard glare.

I tried to move my hands behind my back. Any movement made the rope dig into my skin deeper. I was forced to walk out of the tent as I glanced behind and saw them restraining Jo. Once outside, I stared up at the red sky before me. It was as if I were in the middle of a maze. It was so frustrating to be stuck here. My stomach churned from the image of Rooney’s deformed, broken face as it popped in my mind at that instant, and I bent over and dry heaved forcefully. Saliva collected at the edges of my lips as I spit again and again onto the ground. When I stood up straight again, Jo was beside me maintaining her balance on one foot. Blood dripped down the other leg, a gash below the knee. She didn’t make eye contact with me, and I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.

The contributor woman who had been inside the tent came out with an armful of things. She stood in front of Jo and commanded her to sit on the ground.
 

“Just leave it be,” Jo snapped as the woman hurried to begin fixing Jo’s wound.

“Now don’t be foolish.” She poured something onto the wound, and Jo cringed from the sting. “That’s a good girl. This will clean it out. We need to stop the bleeding fast.”

The flap of the tent wall opened from behind and out came another contributor, Rooney’s limp body in his arms. He tossed it carelessly down onto the ground beside Jo.
 

“Why did you do that?” the woman asked him in anger. “Get him out of here.”

The contributor ignored her and kept walking.

I got a good look at Rooney now. I hated myself for looking and felt the muscles within my stomach clench once more.
 

Jo carefully took Rooney’s hand in hers and held onto it.

The contributor woman sighed as she continued to clean up Jo’s leg. “I’m sorry that happened to your friend there, child. I’m sorry that this has happened to your life.”

Jo stared up at her for a brief moment, tears threatening to spill. She released Rooney’s hand and turned away from him then, a sudden stubbornness coming over her as she refused to cry.

“Jo, I …” I began to whisper. What was I going to say to her? What could I say? Rooney’s blood was now on my hands. She had her leg gashed open because of me. This plan had turned into disaster, a life lost, and it had been all for me. I felt overwhelmed as if I no longer had an ounce of strength left in me to be able to face this place anymore. This was just too much to handle. I needed to give up and stay away from Jo before she ended up in the same position as Rooney. My heavy eyelids closed.

“They’re here,” someone said.
 

My eyes fluttered back open. A group of contributors hovered nearby, staring and speaking about us as if we weren’t even there.
 

“What would you have us do?” one of the contributors asked a man who stood the closest to me.
 

Our eyes met. He was well-dressed in silky white pants and a matching shirt with a gold-colored collar. His eyes left my face as he now looked to the lifeless body by my side. He sighed and put both hands on his hips. “Dispose of that body,” he instructed them. “Are they contained?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He turned his back to us. “Get them some water and put them in the wagon.” He then made his way through the people and disappeared into the crowd.