SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel) (10 page)

“Sorry, sis,” Nathan said softly.

I thought back to the day of the attack. “Did you see that green-looking scarb that caught me?” I asked him. “The one with red hair?”

“The scarb babe?” Nathan asked, sitting up.
He never misses a girl does he?

“Yeah,” I gave a small laugh. “The scarb babe. You know she’s a
scarb,
right?” I teased him. He just gave a wicked grin. “Well, that was the same flier that took Ray when we were on the mountain.”

“She was?”

“Yes.”I sighed in frustration. “I just thought that since she took us, we would find out where she’d taken Ray. I was hoping he’d be here.”The same question ran over and over in my mind as I breathed in the wet, flower-scented air:
What could they possibly want with us?

Chapter Ten

Owing

When I felt like I could stand, then finally walk, Nathan wrapped an arm around my shoulders and helped me over to where the rest of the human captives had set up a make-shift camp. We passed the massive white-and-yellow blossoms I’d seen while lying on the ground and crossed over a little stream.
That must have been the water sound I’d heard earlier.
At one point, the stream pooled inside a bowl of steaming rocks, evaporating the water into the air. I breathed in the humid mist.

Nathan pointed to it. “We think that’s what keeps this place so stinkin’ soggy all the time,” he explained, “ It never rains, but Its like this dome has its own ecosystem or something. Mrs. Weatherstone says its genius. I personally don’t see what the big deal is about some mossy rocks, bushes, and bugs.”

I looked up to the top of the dome, where seemingly natural sunlight streamed through the net of webs. “That must be the surface, right?”

Nathan squinted up and shrugged. “Seems real enough. The sun sets and rises the same.”

I thought about that. “If that really is the surface of the mountain side, we must be at least three hundred feet deep into the mountain.”I wished that at least one human had been inside the colony before and had been able to tell us about it. A map would’ve been so helpful. I looked across to the far edges of the curved dome wall.
What’s beyond that? How big is this place anyway?

We turned around a dripping willow tree and came to a small clearing where the camp had been set up. “Home, sweet home,” Nathan murmured.

In the center of the space sat a crude, open-air structure like a pavilion. Six tree limbs had been stripped of their leaves and pounded into the soft ground for support beams. The roof was made of cross-hatched bamboo limbs. A flat rock made a table. More bamboo leaves were spread across that, and some were bundled up and tied with thin strips of rope-like vines.

“Dinner awaits.” Nathan motioned to the table. “This is where we store the food we gather.” Derrick sat at one end, sharpening a stick with a rock. His hat was mud-splattered and crunched in on one side. He smiled when he saw me and took off his hat in a gentlemanly gesture. His hair was so disheveled and matted from the humidity it looked like a blond rat’s nest.

“Making weapons?” I asked him a bit slyly as we ducked under the pavilion’s roof.

He shot back an iniquitous grin. “Always.”

It made me glad that at least he was taking the offensive. I knew that arming myself was number one on my list no matter how nicely the scarb seemed to be treating us. We were still their prisoners, and they’d taken our weapons from us. They had even taken the obsidian arrowhead. That really pissed me off.
Who are they to take my things?
Derrick was smart to use his resources to his advantage.
We seem to think a lot alike. He’s doing just what Ray would.
Just thinking Ray’s name stabbed at my heart.
Had he been here in this very dome? Had he been doing these same things, storing food and making wooden knives? What if he was just killed anyway?

Either way, getting a weapon in my hands was the first thing I was going to do.
I’ll fight those blasted devils until the end.

Mrs. Weatherstone came over with a large armful of bamboo leaves, which she set on the ground. She proceeded to tear them into thin strips.

“What’s that for?” I asked her.

“Our beds,” Nathan answered for her.

“Yes, and I’m working on yours right now,” Mrs. Weatherstone said, ripping another narrow strip.

“Come on,” Nathan said, “I’ll show you.” He led me out of the pavilion and took me down one of the several narrow pathways to another, smaller clearing. Three mats made out of braided bamboo were on the ground. “It’s not much,” Nathan said, “but it helps keep the mud off you.”

“So that’s what Mrs. Weatherstone is doing,” I said, understanding now.

“This one’s mine,” Nathan pointed to the one on the left under four large leaves.

“Who sleeps on the other two?” I asked.

Nathan pointed to the one on the right side. “Gray is there and—”

“And you
,
Cat,” Derrick said, suddenly behind us, “are sleeping on the other one.” He smelled so strongly of grass and dirt that I was surprised I hadn’t noticed him sooner.

“What about the one Mrs. Weatherstone just started on?” I asked.

Derrick smiled and brushed the fallen twigs and leaves off the mat. “You can take my bed. It’ll take Mrs. Weatherstone at least a day to finish the mat. I don’t mind sleeping on the ground tonight. We country boys are used to that sort of thing. Besides, you’ll want to be close to your brother.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” I told him.

“No problem,” he answered, then lifted a rock beside his mat. “And I thought you should have one of these.”He handed me a stick the length of my hand with a sharp rock fastened to the end of it with
strips of bamboo. “You never know when one of
them
will be watching.”He looked around the bushes like a scarb could be there lurking there right now.

I took the weapon and slid it into my boot. “Thanks again,” I told him. He nodded once and left so it was just Nathan and me in the small clearing.

“Tired?” Nathan asked, setting me down onto the mat Derrick had given me. “It takes a while to feel … normal again.”He plopped down onto his own mat.

He was right. Whatever the scarb had done to heal me had also made me extremely lethargic, like I was constantly trying to swim through sand.

After a moment, I looked at Nathan and asked, “Why do
you
think they have us here?”

He leaned forward with his arms on his knees. “For a while, my best guess was that this place was like a nursery, where they’d bring their young after they’d hatched, or however scarb are born. You know, like in that ant farm I used to have. After the larvae are born, the older ants brought them into that little room with all the bread crumbs and gooey stuff?” I tried to remember what he was talking about, wishing I’d paid more attention to it. “Well, then if this is the nursery—”

“Then we’re the bread crumbs,” I finished for him. Being baby food didn’t sound like a good idea to me.

“But whatever this place is,” Nathan continued, scratching at a bug bite on his shin, “the scarb seem to be really good at growing things.”

“Maybe this is their green house?” I offered, but that didn’t seem quite right.
Why would they put human captives here, then?
I sighed, frustrated. One thing did seem certain: The scarb had an agenda for us, else why would they keep us alive? Why would the fliers come, net us, and not just let their army destroy us? I thought back to the
battle. The ground scarb seemed to have no problem killing us, but they stopped as soon as the fliers showed up. Then, instead of wiping us out, the fliers bagged us, apparently healed us, then put us in this dome. “Ugh!” I growled. “It’s so aggravating not knowing and just being stuck here!”I thought about Ray again. “I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.”

“At least we’re together,” Nathan said, always seeing the good. But he was right. It could have been a lot worse. Cold drops of water started hitting my head, sliding off the wet leaves above.

“The roof leaks,” Nathan said, stating the obvious. For the first time in days, I laughed.

That night, I slept cold and wet on the bamboo mat. After a couple of hours of tossing, I found myself crying. My heart ached for Ray. I had been so sure that I would find him once we got to the colony. Now, he was just as lost to me as ever. All my hope seemed to drip away from me, like the water running off my skin. I’d been strong for so long. I’d held onto the dream that once we got to the scarb, I’d get him back. He had always been there for me. He’d protected me when I was too weak to protect myself, and he’d given Nathan and me the closest thing we had to a family. Now, I had failed him. When he needed me, I couldn’t save him.

Close to dawn, I pulled my mat close to Nathan so we could try to keep each other warm, but it didn’t help much. Water was everywhere. On the plants, in the air, running from my eyes. When we woke, I rubbed my eyes so my brother wouldn’t see I’d been crying. “We seriously need to expand that pavilion so everyone can sleep on dry ground.” I hoped that would fix everything. He laughed and took me over to the pavilion. The ground under it was just as soaked as anywhere else. In fact, a little stream had formed and flowed through it.
Guess there really is no hope.
Mrs. Weatherstone shook out the bamboo leaves.

Derrick came over as Nathan and I were eating some plums for breakfast. He looked like a walking mud pile. “At least the mats keep us from looking like that,” Gray laughed, and he and Nathan took turns dumping collected rainwater onto Derrick’s head.

I felt bad, though. He’d gotten all muddy just so I would have a better place to sleep. I offered to help Mrs. Weatherstone strip and braid the bamboo leaves for his mat. The work was mind numbing and helped me not think about Ray. Later that day, though, my hands were raw from the rough leaves, and when Derrick came over and asked if I wanted to help him find more stones for weapons, I eagerly agreed, even though I didn’t want to leave the old nurse with all the work.

“Go,” Mrs. Weatherstone laughed. “You’re terrible at braiding anyway.”

“You’re a champ,” I said and kissed her on the head before abandoning her to the job that had proved too tedious for me. Besides, I was feeling a lot better that second day. She had made me drink more of that nasty honey nectar after breakfast, but now, I felt energy returning to my limbs and fog clearing from my brain.

“We’ll go look over at the north end,” Derrick told me as he led us away from the others. “I’ve avoided it up until now, since it’s even wetter over there, but I’ve pretty much cleared the rest of the dome. It’s the only place left that might have good stones.”

I ducked under a low, mossy vine. The hiss of humming grasshopper legs rose up from the ground.

“How many bugs are in here?” I wondered aloud as I swatted at a red-winged moth.

“Too many,” Derrick laughed, sloshing through the mud in his cowboy boots. “Maybe the scarb see them as a distant relation.”

After a few more minutes of trudging through the thick foliage, I could see the curve of the dome’s edge through the trees.

“This’ll do it,” Derrick said and started poking around under the ferns and fallen tree limbs for sharp stones. I followed his lead and brushed back a pointed orange flower.

“Oh, don’t touch that one!” Derrick warned, but it was too late. The flower spat a stream of sticky pink liquid all over my neck and chin.

“Gross,” I groaned as I tried to wipe the mess off with my hands. “A flower that vomits. Who would’ve thought?”

“Here,” Derrick laughed and took his plaid shirt off for me to use as a wipe. I couldn’t help but notice how toned his bare chest and abs were. “I can just wash it at the stream on our way back.”

I took the shirt, dipped in collected water on a leaf, and wiped the goo off my skin. “Thanks.”
Why is it I’m always thanking him?

When I was finally sticky-free, we resumed the search for stones. Derrick and I went separate ways for a while, and after a few minutes, I saw the gray net of the dome’s curved wall through the trees. I had to get closer. I stepped over several spiky plants, pulling their barbs out of my calves and walked up to the wall. It wasn’t so much a wall, I realized, as it was a million different cords bound together. Each one was about as thick as an empty roll of toilet paper, but they stretched higher than I could see and wrapped around each other in a network of loops and knots. I put my hand out to touch it, and my fingers instantly stuck to the gray cord. I had to pull so hard to get free that the first layers of my skin ripped off.

“Ow!” I put my raw fingers in my mouth.

“Yeah, you don’t want to get any closer to it,” Derrick said in his country-accent at my right. “It’s nasty sticky, like fly paper on steroids.”

I looked up at the dome of gray cords curving several hundred feet over us and enclosing us on every side. We were trapped in a netted tomb.

“And the scarb can really get in and out of this stuff?” I asked, remembering what Nathan had told me the day before.

“Yeah, it doesn’t seem to bother them,” Derrick answered. He shook his head like he didn’t understand it. “But I don’t imagine you’ll get to see them.”

I frowned. “Why not? Won’t they bring any more humans?”

“Well, you were probably the last one to make it here,” he explained. “From what everyone remembers, you were hurt the worst out of those that were captured. A lot of people thought you weren’t going to make it back at all—”The corners of his mouth and eyes showed tension, like the thought that I might not return had been hard for him to deal with. “But you did,” his face brightened a bit. “You’re really strong, Cat. Stronger than most anyone I know. Not many people have the will to fight like you did.”