The Believers (The Breeders Series - Book 2) (30 page)

He looks at his men, a sadness settling on his face. The wildness drops out of his voice until he's pleading with his men. “I did it for you. So we could have a chance. So some of the women and children could have a chance. They’ll take us in as guards. Otherwise, when they come here, they’ll slaughter us all.”

I shake my head. “What they’ll do in that hospital is not a chance you should take.”

Lavan's swollen face tightens. “You didn’t do this for us.” He shakes his head sadly. “You hated the Messiah. You thought he was an ignorant fool. You were giddy when he died.” He drops his head. “The Gods will surely punish us now…”

Andrew blinks, crocodile tears welling in his eyes. “It was the only way. Otherwise everyone would die like the muties.”

“Like
usss
?” A garbled voice rolls out of the dark. Slowly a figure lurches into view. The acid has eaten away her face, exposing raw muscle and sinew. Her lips are peeled back over what’s left of her teeth and her nose and ears have shriveled to blistered nubs. She looks like a walking corpse. How’s she’s still standing I don’t know. Maybe all those months of living underground. Maybe the contaminated water makes her stronger just like it does the Brotherhood.

The speaker, set to kill, draws a ragged, wet breath and zeroes in on Andrew.

“Shoot her!” Andrew squeals, ducking down behind Ethan. His feet shuffle within inches of the cliff’s edge. Ethan's eyes go wide. He begins clawing at Andrew's arm at his neck.

“Let him go!” I shout, stepping as close as I dare. Mama grips my arm. I can hear her panicked gasps.

Beside me, Clay's eyes are blazing. “Don’t be a coward, Andrew. Let Ethan go.”

Andrew’s arm is like a steel bar on Ethan's neck. He backs another step toward the cliff's edge. Gravel skids down the side and cascades to the bottom with a sickening ping. “I’ll toss him in! I’ll do it!”

Ethan's mouth drops open in terror. I reach out, my heart slamming in my chest. Ethan's only a few feet away and yet the distance seems like miles. “Please! He’s just a kid!”

The speaker shuffles forward, lurching and gasping. She seems not to hear anything but the rage in her heart. She stumbles on, hell-bent on the destruction of the man who ruined her.

“Shoot her!” Andrew screams, pulling back from the speaker. He takes another step back. More stones tumble down the crevasse. “Shoot her now or the boy goes over!”

The speaker grabs for Andrew. Lavan raises his rifle. I focus on Ethan, his face searching mine for help, a rescue. I grip my face, unable to move. I have to save him. How?

Movement catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. Another mutie? A guard? Mama tears past me, running at a speed I wouldn't have thought possible.

It becomes suddenly clear what she’s going to do. “Mama, no!” I reach out to stop her.

All those times she wished she could be the one saving us instead of us saving her.

She slips past my outstretched hand, running, her clothes fluttering, her black hair streaming like a glossy ribbon.

She can’t. She can’t.

I take a step after her.

It all happens in slow motion. Mama hits Andrew from the side, jarring him. Surprised, Andrew stumbles and his grip on Ethan loosens. Ethan topples forward, his dark hair falling into his face. Mama reaches for him. For a moment I think she'll embrace him, but instead she shoves him back toward us, away from Andrew, away from the hole. He stumbles and skids onto the concrete. She smiles.

Then Andrew grabs her.

A tangle of arms and legs, Andrew and Mama tilt out over the dark abyss. Andrew’s hand grips her shirt, his other arm slicing through open air as if he could fly. Mama's hands pry at his fingers, but she's teetering. She’s going over with him.

Dear God, no!

Andrew falls, disappearing. I jump, stretching my body the last few feet to the lip of the hole. I reach for her leg as she begins to plummet. My fingers brush skin and my heart surges. I have her. Then my fingers slip off and my hand slices through open space.

“Mama!” I scream.

This can't be happening.

I hit the ground hard, my lower legs and torso on the concrete's edge, my chest and arms tilting into empty space. As I fall, my eyes lock on Mama below me. Her hair flutters against her cheeks. Her eyes, which I expect to find terrified, have lost their fear. She smiles at me, her mouth open. I’ll fall with her and she’ll tell me the last thing we’ll ever know and I’ll be with her in the dark vastness and whatever waits beyond. I reach for her.

A hand slams on my ankle. My elbow smacks into the crevasse's side. Mama is still falling, down, down. I'm losing her to shadow. My fingers drag against the rock wall. “Mama!”

For a moment that is both forever and a single second, her beautiful face is illuminated by light. She offers me one more smile, her dark eyes shining with tears. Then the darkness swallows her.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to hear. Yet the thud, when it comes, is so loud it shakes every inch of me.

I roll into myself. My body feels gone. My brain too. Maybe I've died. Maybe I'm floating forever through black space. Yet there’s pain. Pain pressing at my heart. Hands draw me up and pull me in. Arms surround me, but I can’t open my eyes. I can’t live in the world where that just happened. It didn't happen.

Clay holds me. Holds me, holds me, holds me. Murmurs things into my ear.

I push away, detaching from his arms, and open my eyes. He stares at me, fear in his. “Riley, are you—”

I turn and run from him, down the incline, down into darkness.

“Stop!” he calls, but I don’t. I run. Run into the dark. I run until my foot strikes something hard and I skid into the wall. When my feet hit the bottom, I stand in the blackness, panting, not knowing what to do.

Clay thuds down the incline, a lantern bobbing from his hand. “I’m coming,” he says, his tone firm. “Yer not doin' this on yer own.”

My heart hammers so hard in my chest pain radiates up my breast bone, but I take the lantern from him. I both need and fear its light. But I have to see my Mama. See if she's…alive somehow.

Slowly, I scan the light over the dark hole. The beam falls on a pair of black lace-up boots. Andrew's. My gorge rises. Slowly, my hand trembling, I move the beam up, up his broken body.

His eyes are open and staring through goggles that have splintered into spider webs. His mouth is slack, as if surprised. A trickle of blood meanders from his nose. His thin blond hair is pink in the back where his head has cracked like a bird's egg. I turn the beam away from the mess of red behind him.

Clay walks up and pulls something off Andrew’s neck. The Messiah’s necklace. “For Mage.” He tucks it in his pocket and turns to me. “Let’s find yer ma.”

My head swims. I'll faint. I'll die. I have to do this.

I flick the lantern left and the beam trails over a pale, slender hand. My own hands shake so badly the beam dances, yet I draw closer. I know those fingers. How many times have they stroked my hair or rubbed away the sting of some reckless wound? How many times have I held that han— I choke on a sob hitching up in my throat. Clay puts a hand on my shoulder. Then, slowly, he lifts the beam to her face.

Her eyes are closed. Her face looks…peaceful. Her raven hair fans out behind her head in a black halo. Trembling, I kneel down and touch my palm to her cheek.

“Mama?”

Nothing.

“Mama?” I lean down, placing both hands on her face.

Beside me, Clay kneels and presses two fingers to a vein in her neck. I don't want him doing that. I shake her a little. “Mama?”

His face morphs from serious to somber to total, awful sadness. He shakes his head. I push him out of the way. “Let me,” I say. My fingers ply the tender skin on her neck and hope for the quick pulse beneath the pads of my fingers. Nothing. I shift my fingers.

“Riley,” Clay whispers. Then firmer. “Riley.”

I shake my head, still searching for a pulse. “No,” I whisper. “No.”

“She’s gone.” He places a hand on my shoulder.

“No.” I stand, wringing my hands. Clay bends down to lift her and her arms fall lifeless to her sides. On the ground, a stain of blood has spread.

I turn and vomit. Lurching spasms rock my whole body. For several moments I can do nothing but convulse, gripping the wall. When it's over, I open my eyes. Clay slowly carries Mama's body up the incline.

I scuttle up to the surface behind him, a thrumming in my head that makes every movement, every breath feel like they belong to someone else. Somehow I reach the top. Lavan, the guards, and Ethan stare. They look at me. I don't like the looks on their faces. I want out of here.

“Riley,” a small voice. Ethan. I feel his hand on mine. “Riley, is she…” He doesn’t finish. I hear the tears in his voice.

I fall to my knees, drawing him in. I hug him and shake uncontrollably. I bury my face into my brother’s chest. He holds me and cries, his body shaking, his tears falling into my hair, hot and wet. I don’t know how long we stay like that. I don’t know what else is happening around us.

When I finally look up, they’re all waiting. Even the speaker, who looks more human now, less monster. Even her ruined face offers me a sympathetic look. Clay stands behind me. On the ground is a body covered in a jacket. Mama was alive a moment ago. She gave herself up to save Ethan. To save us all. I should've been the one. I should've have gotten to her in time. She can’t be gone. She can’t.

“We…we have to bury her,” is all I can mange. My voice sounds like broken concrete.

Clay nods, his hand stroking my arm over and over. The only comfort he can offer. “This morning we’ll honor her sacrifice.”

Dawn in the desert brings no comfort. Today I bury my mama.

I stand, barely on my feet, as the Brotherhood gathers stones to entomb the woman who birthed me. Ethan is clutched under my arm, staring into the bright burst of pink light in the East. He hasn’t talked since he asked me if she was dead. I don’t blame him. I don’t want to talk. I want to crawl into a hole and die. Over and over I feel her ankle brush against the pads of my fingers. Over and over I picture myself one second faster, my hand cinching around her leg, holding fast, drawing her up into my arms.

I could've saved her. Somehow I should be able to go back. I just need one more second.

They gather stones, large sand-colored boulders and, beside them, smaller gray ovals. The stack grows before my feet and yet it feels like they’re piling them on top of my chest. I'll be buried here beneath the rocks and stones, entombed in this desert, and it'll be okay.

If I'd been one second faster...

We place her body on a sandy hill a quarter mile from the mall. Rayburn will lie beside her. I stare out at the foreign landscape. This isn't right. We can't leave her here. But Clay keeps insisting this is what we have to do. He comes over to me now, his eyes wary like a dog that’s displeased his master. He places a hand on my cheek, but I can’t be touched. Not with my mama’s body growing cold beneath a tarp at my feet. I pull away.

He says nothing, just looks at me morosely and then goes back to hauling stones. Sweating and toiling for me. For my mama.

Her ankle brushing against my fingers. Then empty space.

When the rock pile is complete, the other men walk off. Ethan, Clay, and I stand around her body and stare. I should say something, but what words would be equal to her sacrifice, to the years of torment she endured so that Ethan and I could have a chance at this world? Should it be a surprise that this is how she died?

I kneel in the dirt and slowly lift the tarp back. There’s her delicate face, the soft ridges of burned skin running up her cheek and over her chin. I place my hand there and feel how cold she's become. It lays another boulder on my heart. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Ethan drops beside me, quietly crying. “It’s not your fault.” He snakes his arms around my chest. “She died because of me.” His sobs rock us both.

“No,” I say, wrapping my arms around him, pressing his angular body into mine. “She died for you to live. She knew the baby would kill her and she wanted the end of her life to mean something.” I pull back and look into his teary eyes. “You gotta forgive yourself. Live the life she helped save.”

“Then you have to stop, too.” He wipes his nose on his sleeve and tosses his hair out of his eyes. “You have to stop saying sorry for her being dead. Or I won’t.” He swipes at the tears trailing down his face.

“Okay. We will. We go on together.”

Then Ethan and I place the first stone.

Mage, Lavan, and the Brotherhood feed us from their food stores. Ethan, Mage, and I sit on blankets on the garage's floor and eat canned tomatoes and peaches out of jars. The plan is we eat, we pack, we leave. If the Breeders are headed this way, we need to get going as soon as possible. And I need to get to Auntie. Now more than ever I need my last adult connection to the life I knew.

I glance around the hot garage for Clay, but I haven’t seen him since we buried Mama. I push up from the floor and give Ethan a pat. He looks up at me with worried eyes.

“I’m going to find Clay. Be back in a bit.”

He gives me a quiet nod and then goes back to learning how to make a paper crane, his leg pressed into Mage’s. As I watch them, I almost smile.

Walking out through the desert at dawn somehow soothes me. It’s the life I knew, the life I’ve been missing. The sun is low in the east and the day critters are starting their trek. A copper-colored lizard slinks under a rock as I pass. In the distance, a hawk dives on its prey. It's nice out here. No wonder Clay came out alone.

I find him over the ridge, sitting Indian-style, his arms around his knees. He hears me coming and snaps around, his hand reaching for the gun at his hip. When he sees me he relaxes, but doesn’t smile. Instead he turns his eyes toward the sunrise, a sadness settling on his face. As I sit beside him, he doesn’t look over. His brooding eyes crinkle slightly as if me being here pains him.

“Not up for company?” I ask, trying to sound light. I lean my shoulder into his. His body rocks at my touch, but then stiffens. His good left hand tightens over his right. His jaw is stone.