Stung (11 page)

The flashlight goes dark.

“She’s been sedated, but hold her arms tight anyway!” the man atop me orders. Hands grip my arms, anchoring them to the tent floor. Again, I try to thrash, forcing a little more strength into my limbs, but I can’t get free.

Warm breath wafts over my face. “If you move, I’ll kill you,”
a man whispers into my ear. I open my mouth and scream, but his hand tightens and holds the noise in, grinding my cheeks against my molars.

A nose prods my neck, sniffing, nuzzling. “It smells like a woman, even after living in the tunnels. Hold her tight. We’ve only got a few minutes to get her out of the camp.” The weight climbs off me and my mouth is released. I open it, ready to scream, but my head jerks to the side as something collides with my face, and pain explodes behind my eyes. My chin is pulled down, and fabric is shoved into my open mouth. I scream again, but it’s muffled.

“You grab her legs, Mac. Jerrold, you grab one arm, and I’ll grab the other.”

“How much do you think we can sell her for?” another man asks.

“Enough for all three of us to pay our way inside the wall. Governor Soneschen is always willing to let people in for the right price. She’ll bring in a bundle! On the count of three, we move her out. One … two …”

My blood surges, tightening my skin, making my breath come faster, devouring the exhaustion in my muscles and feeding them with strength. I growl and yank my arms from the men restraining them and sit up. My fingers curl into a fist and I throw all of my rage into swinging it toward the person closest to me. With an audible crunch, my fist contacts flesh, and the person plummets into the side of the tent.

The other two men curse and jump on me, slamming me back to the ground. “I knew this was a bad idea!” one man says.

I reach up and pull the wad of fabric from my mouth.

“Bowen!” My scream echoes through the quiet night before a hand is suffocating me. I wiggle against it, claw at the arm it belongs to, try to breathe.

Light flashes on the canvas roof and a pair of feet thumps outside.

“Dude! Let’s get out of here. Help me with Len,” one of the men says.

“Leave Len! This was his idea,” the other says, his voice panicked.

The hands leave my mouth and arms, and the two men scurry out of the tent. I sit again and hug my knees to my chest, trying to catch my breath. A steady noise is growing in the camp—voices. And then Bowen is in the tent, flashlight in hand, hair messed from sleep. His eyes travel over my bare shoulders. When he sees Len, unconscious at my feet, Bowen’s nostrils flare and he begins to tremble. Without a word he tugs his shirt off—a plain white T-shirt—and hands it to me. I pull the shirt over my head as Bowen crawls to Len.

“If you hurt her …” Bowen yanks Len by the front of his uniform, forcing him to sit. But Len’s head bobs like it is attached to a loose spring. Bowen drops him and presses his fingers to Len’s neck. He looks at me and says, “He’s dead. Did you do this?”

“He’s what?” I whisper, wondering if I could have possibly heard him right.

“Dead.”

I open and close my fingers, staring at them, wondering if
my fist could have killed a man. It was just one hit. One punch. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to kill him. I was just trying to stop him.” The air starts rushing in and out of my lungs too fast. I press my eyes against my knees and try to calm down. I killed a man.

A hand rests on top of my head. “Fo, are you all right?” When I don’t answer he says, “Fiona?”

My name, my whole name on his lips, is like the aloe on my arms. It leeches the pain and fear from me and gives me the courage to answer. “Yeah, I’m all right,” I say without looking up.

“I’ll be right back.” The hand leaves my head and I don’t move.

Within a minute Bowen’s returned with others.

“I bloody
told
you not to leave your post!” he yells.

“Len said—”

“Len is not your superior officer! I am!” Bowen retorts.

“Bowen, man, chill. Len said you wanted us to take fifteen, to drink some caffeine.” I recognize the voice—Tommy’s. “There were three of them. I thought they could handle the situation. Why you freaking so bad? Did the Fec escape?”

“Len’s. Dead. He—”

“Was killed by the Fec?” four voices ask at once, not letting Bowen finish. Guns click, feet scuffle, and the tent flap is thrown aside. The four guards peer in at me with scared eyes, their guns aimed at my heart.

“I don’t know what happened. Len was in the tent,” Bowen says, pushing between the guns and me. “But I’ve got to get the kid out of there. I’ll put him in my tent. You guys take care of Len.”

“Wait … you’re taking him to
your
tent? He killed Len! He’s on the verge! Have you lost your—” Tommy’s mouth snaps shut as his dark eyes move between Bowen and me. “Dude, Bowen. Is the Fec wearing your
shirt
?” he asks.

Bowen clears his throat and glances at his bare chest. “Yeah. I guess so.” He kneels beside me, releases my ankle cuffs, and helps me out of the tent.

“Whoa. You’re
touching
a Level
Ten
, Bo. And he’s not wearing wrist cuffs! It’s no wonder he killed Len. For the sake of the camp, get him fully restrained!”

Bowen glares at Tommy. “I’m the one who is in charge of the Fec. I’ll do what I deem necessary for the safety of the camp. Now, come on.” The armed guard follows us as he leads me to his tent. He holds the flap up while I crawl inside, and then I am alone, segregated from the others by fabric walls. “Do not leave your post! No matter what,” Bowen says to the men now standing outside his tent. “And if the kid does anything,
Tase
before you shoot. Tase to
stun
, not kill.”

“Where are you going?” Tommy asks.

“I’ve got a few things to do,” Bowen says, voice fading as he walks away.

I lie atop Bowen’s sleeping bag with my head on his soft pillow. Wrapping my tender arms around my chest, I roll onto my side and stare at the darkness, wondering what’s going to happen to me now. Now that I have killed one of the militia. Do they hang people for murder, even if it is self-defense? Are they going to stand me against the wall, line up, and shoot me?

My thoughts turn slowly from a tornado of fear and dread
for my future to a gently swirling oblivion, and my eyes refuse to stay open.

Quiet footsteps make my heart race and pull me from a sleep filled with nightmares. When the tent flap swings aside, I open my mouth to scream.

“It’s me,” Bowen says. His voice is salve to my fear. My mouth snaps shut as he crawls into the tent, barely illuminated by the first hint of a gray dawn.

“Where’s your uniform?” I whisper. He’s wearing faded blue jeans and a tattered Sprite T-shirt.

“I hid it.” He stuffs some things into a backpack and slings it over his shoulder.

“Why would you do that?” I ask.

He looks at me, eyes troubled. “We’re going rogue. Until Sunday.”

“Rogue? You mean, we’re leaving the camp?”

He nods.

“Why?”

“I can protect the camp from you, no problem. But …” He takes an empty backpack from the corner of the tent and crams the sleeping bag into it. “… I can’t protect
you
from the
camp
. We’re going out on our own until I can get you to the lab.” He tosses the pack at me, and I catch it.

“What do you mean, protect me from the camp?” I ask, dread making me shiver.

“For starters, you killed Len with your bare hands. You’re a
girl. You shouldn’t be strong enough to kill him. Extreme bursts of strength are one of the first signs of turning.” His eyes meet mine. “Once the camp finds out, they’ll think you’re on the verge.”

I swallow, wondering if I am on the verge. Am I about to morph into a bloodthirsty beast? I don’t feel any different than I did yesterday. Not physically, at least.

“What do you think,” I ask, searching Bowen’s face.

Bowen catches his lip in his teeth and stares at me for a long time. “I would have done the same thing if our roles were reversed. But that’s not the main problem.”

“Then what is?”

“They know you’re a girl.”

I frown, confused.

“Most of them haven’t set eyes on a woman in more than a year, Fo. Let alone a young,
pretty
woman.”

“What about you?” I ask.

“That includes me. But I know me. And I trust me. I can’t say the same for anyone else. We’ve got to get you out of here. Now. So put on the backpack.”

The camp sleeps, an exhaustion brought on by the fight the day before. Only a few armed militia patrol the border. They watch Bowen and me with heavy, curious eyes as we pass into the trash-strewn street, but do nothing to stop us.

Bowen walks with his hand on his rifle, and I walk beside him. His mouth is set in a thin, grim line, and his eyes never hold still, scanning empty alleys between abandoned buildings, peering through broken windows—glancing warily at me. Our feet on the cracked pavement make the only sounds in the still predawn.

The sun never rises, hidden by a gray dome of clouds. The world is shades of brown and gray, with only the color of Bowen’s eyes and the word
Sprite
on his shirt to remind me that green plants once grew in this dead place.

We have been walking less than an hour when Bowen,
without a word, grabs the sleeve of my shirt and yanks me into a narrow alley between two brick buildings. He shoves me into the shadows and whispers, “Stay!” Balancing his rifle over his shoulder, he crouches at the alley’s entrance and takes aim at something I cannot see.

Above the torrent of blood rushing through my body, I hear rain, the pitter-patter of hundreds of drops thudding on the ground. I hold my hand up to the gray sky, but it remains dry. I look up. There is no rain. But the pitter-patter is louder than a moment before, a downpour.

I press my hand to my mouth and stare at Bowen’s back. The downpour is not rain. It’s footsteps. Lots of them. Running.

Bowen sets his gun down and tears the backpack from his shoulders. With trembling hands, he unzips it and starts pulling things out—dehydrated food, water bottles, a grenade—and stops. He holds the grenade in one shaky hand and places the fingers of his other hand on the pin. The muscles in his jaw pulse. I creep to his side and squat so that our shoulders touch.

The rifle is cold and much heavier than it looks. I pick it up, check the safety, balance it on my shoulder, rest my finger on the trigger, and point it out the alley in the direction of the stomping feet. And, side by side, we wait.

The pounding grows steadily louder. My hands begin to sweat, making the gun slippery, making it hard to aim. My shoulder trembles against Bowen’s, and I wonder if he can hear my heart trying to explode out of my chest. A lone bead of sweat trickles down my temple.

Bowen’s shoulder sags against mine, and he takes his fingers
off the grenade pin. I look at him, thinking he must be crazy. He presses a finger to his lips and then touches his ear. I tilt my head to the side and listen. The footsteps are still there, still loud, but fading. To a drizzle. A sprinkle. Silence.

Bowen lets out a sigh and sits on the ground, still balancing the grenade in his hand. I sit beside him and set the rifle down.

“What was that?” I whisper.

“An entire hive is on the move,” he says.

“Hive?”

“The beasts. A lot of them. Heading in the direction of the camp.” Bowen carefully returns the grenade to his backpack and hands me a water bottle. I drink and pass it back. “I haven’t seen the beasts this stirred up in months. They attacked yesterday, and the day before…. Something’s bothering them.” He looks pointedly at me.

“You think it’s me causing this unrest?” I ask, stunned.

“Maybe. You’re sure creating a lot of unrest for me.” He puts his backpack on and peers out of the alley. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

With the gun now affixed to his shoulder, his finger looped through the trigger, we continue on. I follow a step behind him, my heart jumping at the echo of our feet against the ground, the jingling of his backpack, the scuff of a shoe behind us.

I stop and turn around. A wisp of gray, hardly more substantial than smoke, darts into a building half a block behind us.

“Bowen!” I whisper. Before his name has settled into the air, he is in front of me, gun pointed in the direction I am looking.

“What is it?” he whispers.

“Someone is following us.”

He sweeps the rifle left and right. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“How many did you see?”

“Just one. He darted into that building.” I point.

Bowen slowly lowers his gun, staring at the building.

“Whoever it was is more scared of us than we are of him,” he says. “Let’s go.” He takes my hand and pulls me down the street at a slow jog. I stare at our clasped hands, at the human contact, wondering why it almost makes me want to cry.

Without warning, Bowen yanks me between two buildings and, hand in hand, we start to sprint. Our backpacks thump against our backs, and our feet pound the ground. Within seconds, my legs feel too weak, and a clammy sweat breaks out on my brow. My stomach turns, and I feel as if I haven’t eaten in a year.