In the End (Starbounders) (14 page)

I stomp down hard on my attacker’s foot, but he doesn’t even flinch. I feel hot breath on my ear and even before he speaks, I realize with an icy spike of terror that I know only one creature on Earth who produces this unmistakable stink.

“Not this time, cupcake,” Tank says. “Got steel-toed boots on.”

Panic floods my body as I struggle against his bulk, but he’s so much stronger than me. I’m powerless.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” he tells me, hefting me up. With my feet dangling, he carries me toward the wall. I don’t make it easy for him and I kick against his shins. He bends down so my feet touch the ground and tightens his hold on my chest, making me gasp for breath. I fight desperately, but Tank’s grip is ironclad. I try to think of a way out but have nothing. A cold, terrifying realization comes to me: I might not win this fight. But I know I can’t give up.

Because if I do, Tank is dragging me to my death.

Chapter Twenty-two

Tank is impossibly strong.

And the more I thrash around to break free, the clearer it becomes that my struggle against him is useless; his hold becomes that much tighter. I twist my head to bite his arm, but I can’t get the angle right. I barely pinch him with my teeth. All I’m left with is the rank taste of his salty sweat in my mouth.

“Go ahead and open the damn door, Pete,” Tank says, grunting. Out of the corner of my eye I see his crony scuffling past us, helping Tank snatch me away. They’re dragging me from the back wall toward an entrance in the side wall. It’s too much to hope that anyone will stop them. Not with the riot still raging and Florae-panic still clouding everyone’s minds. And anyway, who would care about a guard having a little fun with the new girl?

So it’s up to me.

I go slack as if I’ve given up. It takes a few seconds that feel like an eternity, but when I feel him relax just the tiniest bit, I land a forceful kick to Tank’s knee. He doesn’t drop me, but he has to adjust his hold, hoisting me up in his arms to get a better grip, his hot, labored breaths blowing down the back of my neck. I duck my head down as far as I can, then whip it back, hard. My skull makes contact with Tank’s face, and I hear his nose rebreak with an ugly, satisfying crack. Then he lets out a wounded howl.

For a split second my heart freezes in my chest—he’s not letting go. Then I feel hot liquid spill down my back; he drops me to stanch the flow of blood from his nose.

I fall to a sitting position, the force sending shock waves up my spine, but I recover and quickly roll away. Tank, one hand on his crimson, swollen face, lunges after me screaming, “You little bitch!”

I skitter away just in time, but then someone else is on me—someone small and light. Pete. I feel a sharp pressure in my chest, like a punch but more precise. He has a knife. He brings it down again and again. The blade rips through my shirt but glances off my synth-suit underneath.

In another second Tank will be on me again. I grab the blade of Pete’s knife and shove it off to the side, my synth-suit protecting my hand, then drive my other fist into his neck. As he clutches at his throat, gasping, I snatch the knife from him and kick the side of one of his knees, toppling him to the ground.

Then Tank is in front of me again, his face and hands covered in blood. He looks like an oversized Florae splattered in gore. I hold on to the image, as it occurs to me that if Tank were a Florae, I would have already killed him. It’ll be easier to get the job done if I think of him as something less than human.

My gun is out, and I hold Pete’s knife in my other hand, but still Tank takes a step forward. He’s going to make me kill him.

“No!” Pete screams hoarsely. He’s dragged himself to his feet and is holding up his hand. “No,” he croaks between desperate gulps for oxygen. “Lay off.”

Tank turns to glare at Pete, but I don’t wait to see if he’s going to take his advice. I sprint back to the Yard, cutting in and out of the thinning crowd and ducking into the first door I find, to Cellblock C. Then I lean against the wall, my heart pounding out of my chest.

“You okay, honey?” a man asks, his Texan accent thick. I can barely see him in the dark, moving toward me out of his cell. “Y’all get caught in that mess out there?” I don’t even have to answer him. He sees the gun and knife and backs away, retreating to his cell.

Once I can breathe normally again, I check my chest for damage. Pete stabbed me maybe a half dozen times, and my shirt is shredded, but the synth-suit held. I’ll be bruised, but there’s no real injury. Amazingly, Ken’s notebook is still in the pocket of my sweatpants.

I discard my ruined shirt and am wondering what to do with Pete’s knife—I already have my Guardian knives in their sheaths on my thighs—when the man’s voice comes out of the dark again. “You sure you don’t need nothin’, honey?”

I sigh and glare into the dark at him.

“A shirt, mebbe? You can’t walk around like that, I wouldn’t think. I got a shirt, if . . .”

I take a breath, letting down my guard slightly. He just wants to barter. And he’s right: I still have to get back to Cellblock B, where Jacks’s cell is, and I have no idea where Tank and Pete have gone. It
would
be good to get something that covers my arms and head. Something that would make me less recognizable.

“If what?” I ask him.

He takes a step into the muddy light of the entryway. He’s a little man, tucked inside a hoodie. He nods at the knife. “That looks like a mighty fine blade.”

I look at the weapon still in my hand, then back at the man again. “I’ll trade for that sweatshirt,” I tell him.

“Yes, ma’am.” He peels off the hoodie and holds it out to me.

“Drop it on the floor. I’ll leave the knife.”

He looks doubtful.

“Do you want it or not?” I push. He drops the hoodie and backs away. I take the knife and throw it far down the hall, where it clatters to a stop on the concrete floor. The man shakes his head, then moves slowly to retrieve it.

I quickly snatch the hoodie off the ground, pull it on over my head, and push up the hood. I crack the door, then put my hand to my ear and turn on my sound amplifier to check if the coast is clear outside. It all sounds good until I catch a snippet of conversation from the Yard.

“. . . I
know
I stabbed her.” It’s Pete’s voice, raspy from my punch to his throat.

“I told you, she was mine,” Tank’s voice cuts through. “Anyway, you must’a missed her. Did you see how fast she ran off? No one with a knife in their gut could move like that.”

And that’s what I should do again now—run. Run to my cell and lock the door. I know where Tank and Pete are now; it would be easy to avoid them. But then what? Live in constant fear? I scan the Yard for either of them, but they’re out of my line of vision. I tense my body up, ready to bolt for Cellblock B. Then:

“It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like she has a lot of places to hide.”

“But we can’t do it when Jacks is around,” Pete croaks. “He says . . .”

I pull the hood down lower over my face and walk outside, heading in the direction of their conversation. Maybe their attack was motivated by something more than Tank’s bloodlust.

“Well, doing it when Jacks isn’t around is going to be tough. She’s always with him or in their cell.”

“But that’s how Doc wants it,” Pete insists. “When she’s alone. He said the Warden will have our asses if sumpthun’ happens to his nephew.”

Spotting them across the Yard, I duck behind a trampled tent, my heart racing. So Doc wants me dead. Is it because I found out about the testing and he thinks I’ll tell everyone? Or is this coming from New Hope, from Dr. Reynolds? Or from Ken?

I peek out behind the tent and see Tank and Pete still walking, their backs to me. They haven’t seen me, so I continue to trail them. It looks like they’re headed for the front wall, to the guards’ quarters.

“Doc also said to get it done by the end of the day,” Tank says, “but that ain’t gonna happen.”

Pete looks up at Tank, giving a panicked little hop as he hurries to keep up with him. “What are we gonna do? Doc’s gonna be pissed. You saw him angry, what he done to Freddy that one time.”

“I saw him.”

“Made him into a damn
Florae
!” Pete shouts.

“I said I
saw
him. Shut the hell up.” Tank looks around. “Everybody in this place is going crazy ’cause they think one of those things got inside, and you’re gonna go around shouting about what we saw Doc do?”

That’s what Doc meant when he said sometimes he had to “create an opportunity” to test the vaccine. Poor Jacks. He has no idea what kind of monster his father actually is.

Pete nods. They’re almost at the wall. “I know, I know. Sorry. But if we don’t make this happen, we’re the ones gonna end up dead.”

“It’ll happen. Trust me. When Doc came to us and told us what he wanted done, I thought it was my damn birthday! I ain’t gonna let that little bitch slip through my fingers,” Tank assures him.

He opens the door and nearly collides with the Warden. “Oh, sorry, boss.”

“It’s all right.” The Warden steps out. “Did you boys take care of that thang yet?”

“Oh no, not yet, boss. But don’t worry. I’ll get it done,” Tank says before they disappear through the door in the wall.

The Warden sighs and mutters, “Useless,” before continuing on his way. He’s heading straight for me, so I duck behind some cardboard boxes, crouching low, hoping I look like one of the helpless masses from the Yard.

I peek around the box to find the Warden continuing toward me, and I pull my hood down low. He pauses a few feet away from me. My body thrums with fear.

“Did you,” his voice booms across the Yard, “just spit on my boot?”

“No, boss,” comes a frail voice. “I didn’t see you was standing there.”

“You didn’t see me?” the Warden asks, pulling the man up by his raggedy shirt. He’s so painfully thin, he shakes in the Warden’s grasp. “Or you didn’t spit on my boot?”

“I . . . I don’t . . . know,” the man stutters out a reply.

“Well, then, clean ’em.” The Warden pushes the man to the ground. A crowd has gathered now, and everyone is staring and laughing at the unfortunate man singled out by the Warden.

“Clean ’em good,” someone calls.

He tries to wipe the Warden’s boot with what’s left of his shirt, but someone else yells, “Spit-shine ’em!”

The Warden laughs and glances around the crowd. I realize this is all for their benefit, to assert his dominance. To put on a show, a spectacle. New Hope was about hiding the bad away from its citizens. Fort Black puts it all on display and lets the people lap it up.

“Spit-shine!” the Warden calls. “Maybe that’s what he was trying to do! I like the sound of that. You, lick my boot clean.”

My stomach drops at the humiliation the man is suffering at the hands of the Warden. Only a coward would treat such a harmless man so cruelly. The man reaches out his tongue and touches it to the Warden’s boot. The crowd erupts in shouts and clapping, laughing at the man’s embarrassment. The Warden pulls his foot away and uses it to kick the man aside. Still laughing, he walks through the crowd, which parts out of his way.

I stare after him for just a moment before I disperse with the crowd and hurry back to Cellblock B. Whether Doc has told Dr. Reynolds I’m here, he wants me dead. Even the Warden is behind him. I guess they realized I wasn’t as good a companion for Jacks as they’d hoped. I should have known they’d want to get rid of me after exposing Jacks to the truth.

My decision’s made. Fort Black isn’t safe for me anymore, if it ever was. Ken’s promise of information isn’t enough to make me stay. I need to get my pack and find Jacks.

When I get back to our cell, though, Jacks isn’t there. I don’t have time to wait for him. I grab a piece of sketch paper and a pencil. A note will have to be good enough.

I’m still staring at the blank paper, unsure of how to say good-bye, when Brenna appears in the doorway. “Jacks here?”

“No. I . . .”

Brenna takes in my wild eyes, the pack on my back. “What’s up, Amy?”

“It looks like I have to leave.”

She blinks at me. “For good?”

I nod. “I think so.”

“Where you going?”

It’s probably better for her if she doesn’t know. “Pretty far away. I guess I’m glad I at least have my bike.”

“I know where there’s a car lot and a mechanic’s shop out there,” she tells me. “I heard Dwayne bragging about it. Maybe we can get you a car.”

“A car won’t be hard to find. There are a million out there, just rusting away.”

“Yeah, finding a car ain’t the problem. . . . It’s finding a car with gas. The Scrappers have sucked all the ones around here dry.”

My eyes widen. I hadn’t even thought about the lack of gas. “Oh, Brenna. You mean you know where to find a
working
car? That would be amazing. Can you tell me where that lot is?”

“I can take you there. When do you want to leave?”

“Right now.” A car would be a game changer. But I can’t put Brenna in danger. “Do you know how to survive out there?”

“Sure. You know, I used to be a Scrapper. I make a better living at the fights, though. I’ll show you where it is. I’m real good at being quiet, when I have to be.”

“We don’t have to be quiet. I have a gadget that scares off the Floraes.” Immediately I know I’ve said too much. I’m not thinking—or really, I’m thinking of something else, what to write to Jacks.

Brenna is silent for a couple of seconds. “Are you serious?” she asks slowly, her brow furrowed skeptically.

I don’t answer right away. I feel like smacking myself. How could I be so careless? If word gets out about the advantages I have, I’ll be dead within a day. Though it hardly matters now; I’m leaving Fort Black for good. Who cares if Brenna blabs when she gets back? “Yes, I . . . You won’t say anything to anyone, will you?”

She takes another step closer. “Really? Like I’m gonna tell anyone,” she says with a roll of her eyes. I look her in the face, and I believe her. I have to. “Amy, that has to be the most valuable thing in Fort Black. Hell, on the whole planet.”

I shrug, trying to play it off. “So we’ll be safe on the way there. Fine. But, Brenna, just to be clear: I’m not returning to Fort Black. You’ll be on your own on the way back here.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she says with a grin. “You bet your ass I can take care of myself. Maybe I can even find something good to bring back and trade.”

“Okay, then,” I say, and return to staring at the blank page, contemplating my last words to Jacks. Finally I scribble:

Jacks. I’m in danger here. I have to go. Thank you for everything. Really.

I know it’s a lame note. Especially after all that’s happened between us. The fact is, I don’t know
how
I feel about Jacks. But I can’t let anyone into my life right now. Not in that way.

Besides, Jacks could never go with me—not with what I have ahead. He’s too afraid of the world outside the walls of Fort Black. Too afraid of the Floraes. And I’m afraid too, but I can’t let that stop me from doing what I have to do.