The unadjusteds trilogy.., p.53
The Unadjusteds Trilogy: Boxset, page 53
“What? Now?”
“Yes, Silver, now.”
“I can’t, not now.” I dare to look away from her, into the house, at the stairs. Low murmurings float down from the second floor. The nurse speaks to my mother in a soothing tone. “I need to be here. With my mother. I need to help my mother.”
“Silver,” Francesca says gently, retracing her footsteps into the kitchen. “Your mother is in good hands. She will be fine. I need you in the fields, in the lab, solving this problem before all of our crops perish and we find ourselves with no food.”
She stares at me. I return her stare with what I hope is equal determination. She waits me out. There is no way I’m going to leave my mother. I want to try healing her again. It will only take a few minutes. I know I can do it. I felt a shift in my healing power yesterday. It might be growing, like the destroyer ability.
My powers last so much longer than they used to. I can use them for a whole day before tiring. The more I practice the quicker my stamina increases. I’m getting stronger. If I keep practicing, I might be strong enough to heal my mother. I must try again, today, now. I’m sure something will happen.
One of Francesca’s eyebrows arches.
It’s not just about my mother. I don’t want to go to the fields to be confronted with a dream that might not be a dream. I had a vision when I was in Earl’s mountain. Just one. It started with diseased crops. Then there were snakes and insects, a gathering mass of venomous animals that extinguished our camp. I don’t talk about it, but I think about it every day. The similarities between this dream and the reports of failing crops unnerve me. I’m never relaxed in the fields, keeping my eyes open for snakes in the corn.
“I’ll come later.” I won’t be able to avoid it forever, not without explaining my hesitation. There is a kernel of doubt in my mind that Matt’s assessment of my dreams is wrong. That it’s not PTSD, but a vision. But what am I supposed to do about a black wave of terrifying beasts?
I want to pretend, even if it’s only for a day, that there’s nothing wrong with the crops. I want to enjoy my new anxiety-free self.
“I need to try something with my mother first.” Avoiding her gaze, I stare at my flipflops. One of the yellow daisies is coming unstuck from the pink, plastic strap.
“Okay, Silver.” Feeling the weight of her stare, I keep my gaze on my ridiculous flipflops. “But please don’t be long.” She turns and marches out of the kitchen, along the hall, and out the front door, her boots clip-clopping on the wooden floor.
I sag against the wall as the door closes behind her. I thought she might refuse to leave without me. In the street, I hear her car start and pull away from the curb.
“Okay, Mom, let’s get you fixed,” I whisper, as I take the stairs two at a time.
I enter my mother’s room to find her sitting in a chair with a crocheted blanket draped across her lap, almost as if she’s denying the spring morning its pleasantness.
“I’ll leave you for some time alone.” The nurse finishes straightening the bed and leaves the room.
At the window, I pull the drapes wider and fling the window open. Maybe if she hears normal outside noises she’ll be curious enough to emerge from her mental prison. I sigh. Who am I kidding? She’s been stuck in this catatonic state for weeks. I slump onto the bed opposite her and sweep my gaze over her frail figure. Her hair, although combed, hangs limply about her face. Dressed in a T-shirt and thin, cotton sweatpants, her hands lie folded in her lap. She stares at a point above my head, rocking, back and forth, ever so slightly. She does it every day. It makes me seasick. Her lips twitch, as if about to speak, but she only ever mutters. A constant murmuring. Prayer-like.
“Mom.” I speak in a voice used on the deaf and infirmed. “I’m going to try healing you again.”
The rocking pauses, her head tilts. Listening? Can she hear me? Then the rocking recommences and her head returns to its neutral position. Leaning close to her, I place my hands on either side of her head. The healing luminescence flushes over my hands, bringing a pleasant heat that emerges from the middle of my palms and spreads along my fingers. The sight of it always takes my breath away. Sometimes I feel chosen.
My mother’s hair alights in the same luminescent glow. Her skin softens, her eyes became a little brighter. A surge of positive energy builds within me. Building, building until the intensity becomes uncomfortable. The warmth of my palms turns hot. Too hot, burning, and the golden glow turns white with heat. Tiny projectiles of electricity dance between my fingertips. I mentally flinch from this new progression of my power but keep my hands on my mother’s head. She doesn’t seem to notice, until she grabs my wrists and pulls them away from her head.
“No, no, no!” she says firmly.
“Mom?”
Did I reach her? The sparks flicker over my fingers, shining an intense blue color, different from the black lightning. I wait a minute for her unseeing stare to focus on my face. “Mom?”
Nothing. Her eyes cloud over and her hands slip into her lap. She’s gone again. And so are the sparks. But it’s the first time since I found my mom that I elicited a reaction from her. It has to be a good sign.
Rearranging the blanket on her lap, I glance at my fingers where the blue sparks danced over my nails. That was different. That was something else. But is it a good something?
The power inside feels bigger. It’s growing and I don’t know where I’ll end up when the process is complete. Nor do I care. If I can grow powerful enough to help my mother, then nothing else matters.
After nodding my thanks to the nurse in the kitchen, I leave the house and climb into my jeep. I haven’t had a license long. Before the resistance I was escorted to school by armed guard and never needed one. I learned when we got back from the mountain. Thanks, Matt. As I turn the engine on, I swat at a mosquito that’s flown through the open window. Sawyer says they’re all over the city, multiplying in force.
Turning onto the highway, I nudge the jeep in the direction of the farmlands. Fields of wheat flash by, reminding me of my dream. The long stalks sway gently in a soft breeze. Then I notice the black. I shield my eyes against the sun for a better look. The familiar golden-brown color of the wheat is speckled with black spots. It looks familiar, because it was in my dreams. My heart rate picks up, even though I took anxiety out of my DNA. Pushing portentous thoughts out of my head, I swing my attention back to the road. It was just a dream. I won’t let it be anything else. Matt told me to let it go.
As I drive, I think about him. My irritation has faded and I miss him. Ever since the battle with Earl, I hate being apart from him. Especially with my Dad gone. He makes me feel safe in a way no one else can. I sigh. Why are we bickering so much, about my mother, about my abilities? I’ll have to find a better way of making him understand.
To distract myself I sing old songs from the time before. I let the wind tussle my hair and pretend I’m on a road trip with Matt. How amazing it would be to leave everything behind and just drive. No responsibility. No scars. No dreams. I smile at the thought.
A few minutes later I drive into the lot where a large, red barn stands in competition with the sun, casting long shadows over the baking asphalt. In the distance, Central City hovers on the horizon, the forest beyond that. Memories fill my mind. So many. But they are disjointed and feel like they happened to another person.
Shrugging off the sense of nostalgia, I approach the barn which houses all the farming equipment. At the back, there is also a small lab where the two scientists Dad trained perform genetic modifications on the crops.
Beyond the barn is a smaller outhouse where Matt’s three hellcats live. I say Matt’s, but they belong to all of us. Commandeered during our fight with President Bear, they are half alive and half robot. Matt reconfigured their programing to be loyal to us. They prowl the fields at night as sentries. Every time I see them go back to their shelter in the morning I shudder. I will never be comfortable with a hellcat in the vicinity.
Relishing the sun on my back, I start down the dirt track leading to the crops. These fields are mostly wheat and corn. Further along there are carrots, potatoes, green beans, turnips, tomatoes, and strawberries. Truckloads have already been harvested. Many fields are waiting to be sowed. As I walk, I grab a stalk of wheat and use my knife to cut it in half. It’s covered in the black speckle, diseased. I wrinkle my nose as I catch a faint putrid odor in the air. It comes from the wheat. I wave to Matt and Francesca in a neighboring field, indicating I’m on my way to meet them.
As I progress along the dirt track, Adam spots me from the middle of the field and runs over. He’s kept the schoolboy haircut, that much is unchanged, but he’s put on a little weight and something around his eyes appears softer. We met Adam on our way to Earl, living in Koko’s camp of virus survivors. It was him who gave me the unusual power to see the future in visions and dreams. It wasn’t an ability I wanted, but at least there are two of us to share the burden. We have each other to discuss our nightmares, to decide if there is any commonalty and if we need to warn the others.
He bends over when he reaches me. “Hi,” he gasps.
“Hi, yourself.”
He reaches for my arm, then hesitates. He is nervous about touching me, ever since my reaction when I took his ability.
“It’s okay.” I grab his hand and tuck it under my arm.
His face turns serious and he looks over his shoulder. “I had a dream last night.”
I brace myself. Please don’t let him mention the mountain and a black wave with maniacal beasts. Or the failing crops. It’s too sunny for morbid thoughts. And an eleven-year-old child with a dirt-smeared shirt and bruised shins shouldn’t be allowed to have visions of the future.
“There was a helicopter and it crashed into the fields. Everything was burning,” Adam says, standing straight. “The whole city. The whole camp. Everything was in flames. Nothing survived.” He shivers, but there isn’t a cloud in the sky.
“I’m sure it was just a dream, Adam.” I smile. “I had a dream too, but there was no fire.”
He nods, a curt movement, taking in my words. “Phew. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to have normal dreams.”
I chuckle and sock his shoulder.
“At the end of it all,” Adam says, plucking a stalk of wild grass from the edge of the path. “It felt like something was coming. Something big and mean. Something with yellow eyes.”
Pausing in the middle of the dirt track, a chill sinks into my bones. Something with yellow eyes. A creature. A monster. For a brief moment, the prickling grip of fear washes over me. Then I shake it off.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” I pat Adam’s hand, ignoring the ball of dread in my stomach. “There’s no point worrying unnecessarily.”
But I too have the urge to look over my shoulder, suddenly sure when I turn there will be the yellow-eyed monster of my dream.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eli
Sleeping in his small cabin at the edge of the farmland, Eli dreams. It begins pleasantly enough. In his dream, he is lying on the bow of a boat, a yacht, a luxury forty-footer. The sea is calm and smooth, not a ripple to disturb its perfect surface. The sun shines fiercely, making him reach for his tube of sunscreen. A bottle of beer rests by his head. This is the life.
Pulling his sunglasses over his eyes, he tucks a soft beach towel under his head and relaxes into the clean-smelling fabric. It is sunset yellow. A gentle and soothing color that settles the flicker of unease he carries.
He turns his head at a sudden noise. A dull thud followed by a soft scraping, as though the boat rubbed against something. Eli rises to a knee and peers over the side of the boat. He blanches. Something has gone wrong.
There is nothing there. Nothing. No other boats, no harbor, no people walking along the boardwalk bustling from souvenir shop to ice cream parlor. No smell of hotdogs on the breeze. He’s sure he tied the knot securely. There isn’t even a rope. How odd.
Eli scans the horizon. It’s all just blue, blue, blue. He looks the other way to be met with the same wall of color. Panic swells in his stomach. Short, shallow breaths tighten his chest. All he can smell is salt. Looking for a landmark, he pivots in rapid circles. Where the hell is he?
THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN!
Then he realizes something even worse. He doesn’t know how to operate the boat.
Eli springs to his feet and scurries to the hatch leading to the control room. He pulls on the handle. Locked. He searches his swim shorts for a key. Nothing. Not only is he drifting alone in the middle of the ocean without knowing how to pilot the damn boat, but he can’t get to the controls even if he could figure out how to operate the massive vessel. His situation can’t possibly get any worse.
A crack of thunder explodes above his head and a sudden stampede of dark, menacing clouds swarm across the sky. Of course, it can get worse, it can always get worse.
Rain drills into his bare flesh like thousands of tiny needles. Water bounces off the surface of the boat and rebounds at least a foot into the air. The sky darkens. The ocean turns a stormy gray. And the waves begin. Small enough at first, gently rocking the boat, like a fairground ride he remembers when he was a kid, the one that came every year to the small town where he grew up. But then they crash onto the boat, threatening to topple it, building to such a height that they reach the guardrails and wash over the hull.
The water is cold, freezing, causing goosebumps to form over his skin and his teeth to clatter against each other violently. Eli loses his footing and goes down on his hip, hard. He grabs for the rope guardrail. But the boat is rocking all over the place. The fairground ride has turned bad. This isn’t fun anymore.
With the next crack of thunder comes a flash of lightning and a wave so large that Eli is sure he’s about to be washed away. He grabs for the rope again, grits his teeth, and determines not to be beaten. Looking at the black sky, within the darkest of the storm clouds, he swears he sees two yellow eyes staring down at him.
He wakes. In his cabin on the edge of the farmland. Eli lies there unmoving on his bed and stares at the ceiling, waiting for the dream to recede, waiting for reality to return, waiting for his heartrate to slow.
The cabin shakes, as if it’s situated on a fault line and a tremor has run underground. But there are no earthquakes around here.
He sits up slowly and swivels his feet to the floor. He is wet. But it isn’t the ocean spray that covers his skin in a thin, glistening layer; it’s his own sweat. Running his fingers through his damp hair, he smells the ocean, salt. How odd.
Eli attempts to shrug off the dream while he dresses, brushes his teeth, and eats a small breakfast of a buttered roll, but his mood remains somber. He swears he can still smell the ocean wafting through his small home. A headache lands. It pounds at the base of his skull like a drunk in lock-up demanding to be released. He squints against the painfully bright sun streaking through his front window.
Popping a couple of painkillers into his mouth, he wonders if the headaches are a side effect of the things Earl did to him. He told Silver he refused to follow Earl into the madness of genetic mutations – and that is true, for the most part - but that didn’t stop Earl from experimenting on him. There are powers inside him, difficult to control.
Back in the mountain, if something went wrong, Earl fixed it, often bringing Eli back from the brink of death. As a result, Eli possesses more powers than Earl, genetic mutations considered failed that Eli now must now find a way to contain. He tries to bottle them, to push them away, but the harder he attempts to blot the existence of his abilities from his consciousness, the more powerful they become. Silver is not the most powerful altered at Camp Fortitude.
Eli doesn’t want to end up like Earl. He was a crazy screwball at the end there. If Eli examines his abilities, if he uncovers and tests them, then what’s to stop him ending up like Earl? Better to bury them, forget he has them. Be normal. Settle down.
The headache continues to throb. Every pulse of pain brings the sensation of clawing fingers as if there’s a skeletal hand in his head trying to scrape out his brains. Scratch, scratch, scratch, a bit here, a bit there. It isn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation and reminds him of the satisfaction he experienced when he was a kid and picked his scabs. Flacking off the crusty cover brought such a sweet pain.
The dishes on the rack above the sink rattle and Eli curses Earl once again. The occasional juddering that shakes his cabin is a result of his attempts to clamp down on all that he is. Control. He must control it. If he can’t do that, who is he? Who will he become?
He hasn’t dealt with it yet. Earl. And everything that happened. He doesn’t want to deal with it. Ever. Any time he thinks of Earl and the things he did, he pushes it away and instead evokes his mother’s face in his mind’s eye. She was beautiful, right until the moment she died. He prefers to think about how gentle she was, about her lopsided smile that warmed his insides, and her long summer skirts which floated around her ankles. Everything a woman should be.
Eli paces in his small cabin, breathing deep, pushing the nightmare and thoughts of Earl away. He flexes and fists his hands, performs a serious of squats and sit ups. Exercise helps. It exorcizes his demons, allows the control to come, allows him to prepare. His guard must come up and stay up. He can’t afford for anyone to discover his secret.
But he craves companionship, something deeper, a purpose to his life, a point to his freedom. Something beyond the monotony of planting seeds. Dig, plant, cover, repeat. On and on. Day after day. He won’t complain. It’s better than the mountain, which still features heavily in his dreams. At least, he thinks they’re dreams.
Eli reaches for his sunglasses, wipes them with his T-shirt when he notices they are speckled with water, and then catches a glimpse of Delta in the fields, planting seeds. His heart flips inside his chest. Like an idiot, he stands there, alone in his cabin, smiling at her as if she can see him.
