Waterproof (11 page)

“This way, miss.” Another, more polite,
female guard directed me to right. She pointed to several large circular walled structures that reminded me of the communal showers at my old high school.

I followed the wet footprints to the first wall
. Just as I rounded the corner, I ran into a tiled bench and hit my shins.

“Shit,” I mumbled, rubbing the indents in the hopes of avoiding more bruises
. A dozen women stood in front of me, showering and smiling and laughing. Where I may have normally been modest, the sound of a fresh shower won out. I didn’t see their emaciated, broken, and wilting bodies, I only saw salvation.

Stripping down to not
hing, I tossed my dirty, raggedy clothes to the side. I tried to untie my hair, but the knotted mess wouldn’t cooperate. Dark stands fell down my back and I dreamt about running shampoo through each one of them. Multiple times.

A young girl about my age stepped out from under the shower, the smile on her face match
ed by no other. I quickly jumped under the stream, amazed at how fast it warmed my body. An odd mixture of chills and fever swept through me, my senses unable to comprehend how I felt.

“Shampoo?”

I opened my eyes to s
ee an older lady holding a plain white container out toward me. Smiling, I grabbed the bottle and stuck my nose up to the opening. Strawberries. They gave us strawberry shampoo.

After three washes, I finally
started to feel like I’d removed the grime from my hair. Now on to my body. The metal pipe supplying the water had been built with a circular shelf that sat halfway up the pole. I reached forward to snatch the bar of soap before anyone else could, and began the luxurious task of washing five years of war off me.

I don’t know how long I was in there, but when someone cleared their throat, I noticed all of the other ladies had disappeared and only I stood under the fantastic flow. Sud
denly, the water stopped and all thirst for life shut off with it. It felt like the world ended again.

“Come,” a guard said to me. Although male and young, he stayed polite and averted his eyes while I wrapped the towel around my torso.
Departing the shower area left an empty feeling lingering in my gut. I wanted to rush back inside and spend another day under the water. Maybe it would wash away all of the bad in my life and take me to a different place.

The guard picked up a bundle loosely wrapped in brown paper and a piece of twine.
Without saying another word, he pushed it in my hands and pointed to a set of double doors on the far wall.

Alone, I walked in the direction like an obedient dog, wondering if there would be a treat waiting on the other side.
As I got closer and heard the sound of laughter, I thought I’d entered a dream.

“Vee, look!”
Hunter jumped in front of me, startling my heart and making me jump in to a reflexive fighting stance. “Come here.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the room.

To say I’d died and gone to heaven
would be dramatic, but the sight of a hundred beds and warm blankets brought tears to my eyes.

“Maybe this won’t
be so bad after all,” Hunter said as he pulled me over to a set of bunks. He jumped up on the top one with surprising grace and bounced up and down.

“Beds, Vee!
They have beds, and showers, and I bet we’ll get food next.” His contagious enthusiasm spread to my smile, and I warmed at hearing my nickname.

I sat down on the bottom bunk, patted the perfectly firm mattress, and sighed. How I wished Zach could be here too, instead of out there somewhere hurt or dead or gone.
I felt guilty for enjoying the creature comforts so foreign to us now. I opened the package to find a standard issue jumpsuit, undergarments, and combat boots. Just like everyone else had on.

I nestled myself into the corner and quickly dressed
underneath my towel - a skill I’d mastered many years ago. Hunter still bounced on his bed, trying out every position he could think of to see which one felt best.

Lying back on my own mattress
, I let the guilt wash over me like the warm water had moments ago. A roof over our heads, clean clothes, food, water…being captured by the government was proving to be anything but a death sentence. Still, something didn’t feel right, and I needed to keep focused.

I let my
eyes close as I contemplated our next steps and calculated a way to get out of here.

ELEVEN

Zach

“I don’t think they went this way,” Trevor said for the twentieth time in the last five minutes.

I watched Jackson grip the crossbow until his knuckles turned white. A part of me wanted to see how much longer he’d last, but I knew he had much more patience than me. We’d been following several sets of tire tracks, but none had led to anything significant yet. One made a large circle around the camp only to be intercepted by another set that looped us back to the beginning. So now we were focusing on a single set of tread marks that led through the twists and turns of the forest.

“I’m telling you-”

“Shut up, Trevor.” Sasha cut him off just before yanking the wheel hard to the right. The brakes squeaked under the pressure of her foot and the off-road vehicle lurched to a halt inches from an unwelcome boulder in the middle of the path.

“Damn it!”
Sasha slammed her hand against the plastic dashboard several times. It creaked and groaned but none of us stopped her.

Rachael made some sort of noise that sounded too much like a laugh, even through her muffled mouth. Sasha whipped her head around and glared at the girl. My blood ran cold with the look in her eyes. I’d never seen our leader so out of control.

“Sasha, don’t…” I said, but it was too late.

In one quick move, she jumped from her seat and pulled the girl out of the back by her hair. The sound of stifled cries
and scuffling boots consumed the otherwise quiet morning. Jackson, Trevor, and I scrambled to run around the other side, where Sasha now kicked our prisoner over and over, oblivious to the fact that she barely moved anymore.

“Jackson, do something!” Trevor yelled, too afraid to get in between the wrath of Sasha and her punching bag.

Instead of making a comment, Jackson set his crossbow on the ground, moved stealthily behind Sasha, and wrapped his arms around her. She continued to scream and spew one curse after another, fighting to break free. Her hair whipped around her face like an invisible wind had been conjured by her anger. The redness in her pale skin contrasted sharply with Jackson’s dark arms, and I worried about her blood pressure. He held tight until she finally began to calm down.

“She has to tell us,” Sasha whispered.

Trevor stepped closer to Rachael, who miraculously held on to consciousness. She coughed and spit blood out of her mouth, but still managed a look of arrogance.

“I don’t think she can talk,” Trevor said. He bent down to observe better.

“She has to tell us,” Sasha said again, although the fight no longer tainted her words. Jackson dropped his arms and stepped away to grab his crossbow. Sasha collapsed to the ground on her knees, breathing deeply in an attempt to regain her composure.

“Rachael?” Trevor cooed. “Do you know which way they went?”

I doubted his kindness would get us very far.

“Fuck you,” Rachael spat and kicked at him.

I hated being right all of the time. Stepping forward, I bent down and pulled our only chance at finding our friends up off the ground. Rachael continued to wear a smirk reserved only for mercenaries and crazy people.

“You’re kind of cute,” she said as my arm brushed lightly across her breasts.

I slammed her hard against the nearest tree, pushing my face as close to hers as I could stomach. “Tell us.”

“It’s too bad you’re
deserter scum. The girls would have liked you. You could’ve lived like a king.” Rachael continued to smile and push herself up against me in a way that reeked of insanity.

I didn’t know what kind of “training” the mercenaries received but I guessed brainwashing might be a part of the ritual.

“Your girlfriend’s already dead. Sucked dry by now, I’m sure.”

“What?” I asked, not sure if Sasha had damaged Rachael
’s skull during the one-sided boxing match.

She made a sucking sound with her mouth.
“Young and feisty. They’re always the best.”

I must have loosened my grip in the confusion, because the next thing I knew, a piercing w
ave of pain shot through my face when Rachael’s head smashed into my nose. I jumped away, momentarily stunned by the sheer agony and thick, liquid now running down the back of my throat.

“Pinch it
,” Trevor said, shoving something into my hand.

I put the piece of cloth over my nose and took a few seconds to orient myself again. As soon as my vision cleared, I looked at Rachael
and her egotistical smirk…and lost control.

In two steps I reached her face and felt my fist crack into her cheek. Her head snapped back and to the right seconds before she fell to the ground. My knuckles hurt, my nose was broken, and I’d just knocked out the one person who could keep us moving forward.

Shaking out my hand, I stepped back and gently wiped the blood off my chin. “I’m sorry,” I said to whoever wanted to listen. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Sasha said. She hadn’t moved from her knees, but her skin finally started to look its normal
, sickly pale again.

“
She wasn’t gonna tell you nothing anyway,” a new voice chimed in behind us.

“Shit,” Jackson cursed as
he turned around and pointed the crossbow at our intruder.

Sasha jumped to her feet, gun already outstretched and aimed.
“Don’t move!”

A branch cracked to my side and I instinctively reached for my knife. Two men emerged from behind the boulder in front of our vehicle, guns raised and pointed at Trevor and me.

“I’ve got two over here,” I yelled.

“Who are you?” Sasha asked.

“We don’t want
no trouble,” the man said, hands held out to his sides in surrender. The loosely hanging fishing vest looked worn and tired, and the tan shirt and pans hid years of caked on dirt. His short hair had been cut by a razor and the fresh scar across his left cheek appeared infected.

“
Don’t move! Who are you?” Sasha demanded, all earlier signs of weakness gone.

He stepped closer
, forcing Sasha and Jackson to lift their weapons higher. The man stopped moving and lowered his arms slightly. “My name’s Lew. And that girl behind you ain’t gonna tell you nothing.”

“Why?” I asked. Watching the two on my flank, I spared a quick glance at Lew. “How do you know that?” My heart hammered in my chest, but I tried to speak calmly. I didn’t know if I could handle another fight
to the death right now.

“May I?” Lew asked Sasha, jerking his head behind him. “I’ll show you why.”

Sasha gave him a quick nod but didn’t lower her gun. Lew motioned someone forward with his hand. Trevor took that chance to shuffle a few steps away and grab something out of our vehicle in front of him. The distinct sound of metal scraping metal nearly knocked me to the ground in grief. He had Vee’s sword.

“Where did you get that?” I whispered to him, but he didn’t have a chance to answer.

“Gentlemen, lady, this is why I know she ain’t gonna talk.”

Lew picked some items
out of a bag and tossed them in our direction. A severed arm, a hand, and a scalp landed in front of us with three appalling thuds. The arm rolled back several inches before coming to a stop. We all looked up at Lew at the same time.

“He was one of ‘
em,” he answered. “Refused to tell us where they took them, even as we cut pieces off.” He lifted a medium sized duffel bag in the air, the bottom dripping with something dark. No human could have fit inside.

Well no human still in one piece.

“They’d rather die,” Lew spit on the ground and handed the bag back to his companion. “She ain’t gonna tell you where but we think we know why.”

None of us spoke. I don’t think we knew wh
at to say. Rachael stirred at my feet and I had a sudden urge to protect her from these new deserters. Not out of fear for her life, but fear we’d never find our friends.

“Why what?”
Sasha finally asked.

Lew stepped forward again and Sasha slowly lowered her gun. Jackson kept the crossbow at full attention while the two men to my side moved closer to Lew.

“Why they’re taking them,” he said matter-of-factly.

“To serve their time in the factories,
” Sasha stated. “We know why they’ve been collected.”

Lew shook his head and looked at her in pity.
“How many come back?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped, fully aware of the answer. “It doesn’t matter. Once we find the place, we can get our friends and run away again.”

Lew may not have noticed, but I heard the tears in her shaking voice. Sasha was on the verge of another breakdown.

“How many they’d take of yours?” Lew asked. His group had gathered behind him now a
llowing me to count four in total. Well four plus a body in the bag.

“Three,” Jackson said when it was obvious Sasha wouldn’t, or couldn’t
, answer.

Lew dropped his head. “They got three of ours
, too.” He pointed toward a man and woman standing on his right. “Harvey’s brother and Annie’s cousin.” Then he looked back at us with years of pain scorching his broken face. “And my wife.”

Sasha sucked in a breath and my heart ached for
all of us. She nodded without offering up any more information about our missing friends.

“How’
d you find us?” Trevor asked. A smart question for once.

“Well, Number zero-five-zero
blah, blah, blah over there,” he gestured to the body parts lying by our feet, “left quite a trail for us.”

We l
ooked at Lew in confusion again and he snorted in understanding.

“He thought he’d
make it back with one leg.”

“You let him leave?” Trevor asked, sounding not nearly as disgusted as I would have expected.

“We let him
think
he could leave. The tire tracks weren’t too far away, and once we found the trail it was easy to follow.”

“And that led you here?” Sasha asked.

“Well, down over that hill a bit. But when we heard all the yellin’ up here…” he shrugged. “We thought maybe we’d find us another one.”

“Another what?”
Trevor asked.

“Another mercenary.
They’re crawling through these parts.”

I
spared a glance at Sasha who met my eyes. We’d walked directly into a trap and Carrie, Vee, Hunter, and Max might pay the ultimate price for our carelessness.

“You guys got any wate
r?” Lew asked. “We can trade you for some meat.”

My eyes shifted to the severed hand
, the arm, and the bloody scalp as I tried to stop my thoughts from going somewhere very dark. Jackson shuffled by my side, crossbow coming back up into position.

“We don’t have much,” Sasha said.
She walked to the back of our vehicle and dug through her bag with one hand. The other never left the gun. “Here.”

She threw
a bottle to Lew who snatched it out of mid air. He unscrewed the lid and proceeded to pour a little in everyone’s mouth before taking a sip himself. As the oldest of the group, at least as far as I could tell, he clearly felt responsible.

When they finished half the bottle, Lew tossed it back to Sasha. “Thank you.” Wiping his mouth and smacking his lips, he tilted his head up to the sky. The female in the group had dampened the bottom part of her shirt, and she started to wipe some of the grim
e off the faces of the other two men.

“Why don’t they come back?” Trevor asked, barely audible enough for me to hear.

Lew took in a deep breath and lowered his eyes to meet Trevor’s. “Because there’s nothing left of them to come back.”

I swallowed hard and gripped my knife until my nails dug into my palm. Even though I knew what
might happen when deserters were collected, I didn’t want to admit this is what would happen to Vee.

“Rachael said they’
ll suck the life out of them,” I added. “Do you know what she means?”

“Rachael?” Lew asked with amusement. “You got a name out of her?” He huffed. “Well,
good for you, Casanova.” Running his hand over his chin he shook his head.

“Do you know what she means?” I asked a little more forcefully
, annoyed with the comment.

“Yeah, I think so.” Lew grew very quiet.

“And…” I prodded.

“They
ain’t going there to work in factories that produce water. They’re going there to be the water.”

Our blank faces must have encouraged him to continue.

“The government is harvesting water
from
them. Using the draft and the deserters to keep the elite alive.” He looked at us and threw up his hands in frustration. “Blood! They’re harvesting our blood!”