Uprising (53 page)

They murmured the usual “it’s fine”, “we wanted to” and “no problem”.

“Well, I’m going to head to bed,” Lillian said and yawned. “I hate staying up when- well never mind. Good night guys.”

“Wait,” I called after her and scrambled to catch her in the door. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing...ok, fine. I remember. Lie detector.” She shifted on her feet uncomfortably. “I just worry the whole time Cain is gone. So, I usually go to sleep early. I’m not good at waiting anymore. I always think the worst...”

“It’s ok, Lillian. I understand. I didn’t realize things were going so good with you guys. Moving along, you know?”

“Merrick didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

She cleared her throat and glanced at Merrick but he was talking to Danny.

“He caught Cain and I, in this room earlier today.”

“Caught you what?” I whispered and felt my eyes widen.

“Just kissing.”

“Ahh.” I giggled. “No, he didn’t tell me. That’s why he was late to practice,” I realized.

“Yeah. And Cain checks on me when he comes in at night too. I mean, we’re not like, official or anything. I just really, really like him. He...seems to like me. He says he does...gah, I’m so out of practice,” she said all flustered and tucked her hair behind her ears furiously.

“Calm down, Lillian.” I couldn’t help but smile and try to stifle a laugh. “Trust me. Cain doesn’t exactly beat around the bush. He’s pretty blunt. If he’s said something along those lines, you can trust that it’s true. And he‘s not gonna waste his time on something either.”

“If you say so. I’m just trying not to make a huge deal out of it but I’m freaking out a little bit. I just can’t- I just can’t believe how much I feel for him. We barely know each other, ya know? And I’m so scared when he’s gone. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s really...unnerving.”

“Well, you’ve lost two people recently. I don’t think you have to look far for an explanation.”

“Yeah. Alright, well, happy birthday. Goodnight.”

I hugged her tight.

“Thanks. And don’t worry. He’ll be fine. He knows what he’s doing. Night.”

When I turned back, to go sit back in the lap of my awesome husband and eat cookies with some other really important people to me, I almost forgot all about Lillian and her troubles. I was solely focused on my little family and my haphazardly perfect little life.

Protective Ways

It’s late. I have no idea what time, but I have a bad feeling that it’s really late. Cain hadn’t come home yet. Well, at least I think he hasn’t. He didn’t check on me. Or maybe he did. He said he wasn’t going to sleep in here anymore. But surely he would have woken me to say hi before heading off right?

I get up and shift out my door, two doors down to Cain’s room. It’s dark and quiet in the hall. I knock easily and open the door. His sleeping bag is empty.

I grope through the house, checking the clock in the living room first, 2:05 a.m. He’s an hour late. I check all the rooms that I could imagine him being in and then the ones I am sure he wouldn’t be in and then I start to panic. I have a horrible feeling. It’s not a coincidence. It’s all coming true. The theory I had about me and the people I get close to.

Cain’s in trouble, because of me.

He laughed at me and told me I was nuts for thinking it and now look.

I run to Merrick and Sherry’s room. Knocking slightly as I push open the door. They are wrapped together pretty good. Her head is on his chest with his arm around her shoulder, her legs and his are intertwined. I hate to disturb them, but I know something’s wrong.

“Merrick,” I whispered but realize that’s not gonna cut it so I shake his foot too. “Merrick.”

He jolts groggily and looks around, his shirtless arms immediately wrapping themselves tighter around Sherry to protect her from whatever may be lurking. Wow, dude is built. Then he sees me and squints just as Sherry starts to stir.

“Lillian? Everything ok? What’s the matter?” he asked in a flurry of slurred hushed words.

“It’s Cain. He’s still not here. He’s an hour late. Something’s wrong,” I explained.

“Um,” he scratched his head as Sherry sat up. He shh’ed her and pulled her back to him to lull her back to sleep, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “I’m sure he’s fine,” he whispered. “He’s not always punctual. He’s probably out doing something with his boss or something.”

“I feel like something’s wrong, Merrick. He hasn’t been late not once since I’ve been here.”

He sighed and looked at me. Not like he was annoyed but like he was thinking. Which I appreciated.

“Alright. If he’s not here in an hour, come get me and I’ll get a couple of the guys to go with me to look for him, ok? That good?”

“Ok.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. Cain’s just upset about his job and all. He probably didn’t think you’d even notice him being late. But come get me and we’ll go in one hour, ok?”

“Ok. Sorry I bothered you.”

“You didn’t,” he said and smiled lazily, he could barely hold open his eyes. “Don’t worry. Get some sleep.”

I slid back out the door and immediately knew what I had to do. Number one, I couldn’t wait one hour for help when I knew something was wrong now. Number two, I couldn’t put all those people in danger to go look for him when, even though I was sure, what if I was wrong and he was just out with his friends. This I had to do myself.

I ran to my room, pulling off my pajamas and grabbing jeans and a t-shirt and snagging my tennis shoes all in a blur. I ran silently down the hall, through the commons room, to the stairs, still forcing on the last sneaker. I grabbed a flashlight and the a set of keys.

The tag above them was labeled ‘Jeep’ so I unlocked the latch door and knew it would creak but kept going, didn’t stop until I was through the stock room and at the back door of the store.

I was scared. Shaking scared. I could hear my teeth chattering and it took me a few tries to get the deadbolt unlocked with my shaky hands.

I didn’t want to go out into the dark at all let alone by myself but here I was, doing it to by myself and on purpose. I had to get to Cain. My mind ran rampant with all the things that could be wrong. I just knew...

I tried to push all that aside as I eased the door open to peer into the pitch black night. I flipped the switch on the flashlight and looked again. The light beam was shaking along with my hand but I didn’t see anything other than dirt so I shut and locked the door behind me and ran for the Jeep.

It was eerie how quiet it was. The Jeep door shutting sounded like a gunshot it was so loud in the silent dark. I fumbled with the keys and put in into reverse. Stinking stick! I stalled once and then got it into first gear and started on my way, absolutely no idea where I was going or what I’d find, but I had to try.

I knew which way town was so I headed east. It took a while, before I reached anything other than darkness.

I could see it before I reached it. A big blazing ball of fire and smoke. A sane person probably would have slowed down but I sped up, knowing this is where I’d find Cain. Once I stopped the Jeep, in the middle of the road, I jumped out and searched all around the cars. There were two burning and though it was totally trashed and burnt, I could make one of the out as a truck. Cain’s.

“Cain!” I yelled because I didn’t know what else to do.

I continued to look around the blaze, shining my flashlight around but couldn’t see much. The fire was producing a lot of light itself.

“Cain!”

Then I heard a flapping and felt wind on my back. I was knocked to the asphalt by something and felt the keys slide from my grasp. I rolled over quickly, thinking I knew exactly what it was that hit me and as I raised the flashlight, it was the first good look I’d ever gotten at a Marker. I expected nothing less. It looked like pure evil right out of a Hollywood movie.

It’s wing brushed my face as it swooped by. I screamed and scrambled to my feet once it had gone by and was immediately brought down by another object.

Except this one had arms and fingers and they wrapped around my mouth to quiet my scream. And it was laying on top of me to pin me down.

“Shh,” someone whispered in my ear from behind and removed his hand from my lips.

“Cain,” I whispered in relief.

He turned me quickly with a look of horror on his face.

“Lillian? What the hell are you doing here?”

I hugged him around his neck, pulling me to him as close as I could get. He smelled like smoke and was filthy. And I was so happy to see him.

“I had to come find you.”

He pulled back to glare at me.

“What? How? What are-”

“I knew something was wrong. Didn’t I tell you I was cursed? When you were late getting home, I knew. So, here I am.”

“So. You snuck out of the bunker, stole the Jeep and drove the thirty minutes to get here in the dark by yourself and unprotected, on a hunch that I might be in trouble instead of just hanging out somewhere?” he guessed angrily.

“Well, you’re here aren’t-”

I was cut off by another a loud metallic screech.

He rolled off me and grabbed my flashlight, shining it around to see.

“Keys?” he asked briskly.

“Around here somewhere.”

“Never mind.”

We were clear. He grabbed my hand, yanking me up and pulling me fast behind him to the ditch. Once inside, we laid down in the dirt and mud beside each other and he turned the light off.

“I can’t believe you did this,” he growled beside me in the dark.

“What? I knew you were in trouble. I couldn’t just go back to sleep and act like there was nothing wrong.”

“You should have sent someone else.”

“Merrick said he’d go in a little bit if you didn’t turn up, but I didn’t want to wait and I didn’t want to put him in danger either.”

“Oh, but yourself, that’s ok?”

I bristled at his tone and his words.

“What is wrong with you? I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“This isn’t a date, Lillian. No, I’m not happy to see you. You should never have tried to do this-”

“Hey! What is your problem? I came out here to help you!”

“But you’re not helping, are you? I had to run over and save your cute butt once already, remember?”

“If we can just find the keys, we can leave-”

“And die while we’re looking around up there? There are Markers everywhere. I’ve been here for hours Lillian, they aren’t going anywhere. We’ll have to wait until daylight. And now, I’ve got to worry about keeping you alive too, not just me.”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I thought I’d burst with anger. I’d spent the last hour going crazy with worry and instead of being grateful that I tried to help him he’s angry. At me? It was the strangest feeling of complete anger and complete relief. He was ok, but he was ticking me off.

I embarrassingly burst into tears.

“Ah, come on now,” he said still sounding way to angry. “None of that.”

I kept crying, quietly of course, he couldn’t hear me but must feel the shaking of my body. Ladylike, it wasn’t like I was snotting all over the place but still it was embarrassing. I covered my face with my hands and turned away from him, though I knew he couldn’t see me. I bumped into something else. Something warm and hard.

A body. I screamed.

A warm hand covered my mouth again and I felt Cain’s body pressed against my back.

“Shh. It’s ok,” Cain whispered again and took his hand away.

“Hey,” a new voice said. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I just didn’t want to interrupt your fighting.”

“This is enforcer Billings. Billings, this is Lillian.”

Cain sounded a little calmer now but I was still trying to tamp down on my own anger. For some reason, when I get really angry, I cry.

It had always been extremely embarrassing on the playground with the mean girls at school. The only fist fight I’d ever been in in middle school, I cried the entire time.

“Is this lip gloss girl?” Billings asked.

“Yeah. This is her,” Cain answered with a sigh.

“Lip gloss girl?” I asked.

“Yeah, your boy Cain here has been telling me all about you.”

“He has?” I asked surprised.

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask who you are?”

“I’m an enforcer. I pulled Cain over and was arresting him when we were attacked.”

He spoke so nonchalantly and Cain didn’t say anything. It was very strange.

“Ok. And why are an enforcer and a rebel being friendly?”

“Have you seen those things?” Billings asked me emphatically. “You don’t come back the same after seeing something like that. Cain told me all about them and the Lighters and- I gotta say I believe it.”

“Well, like I said, we’ve been here for hours. I wouldn’t have told him anything about you, had I’d known you’d show up like this,” Cain muttered.