Chapter 13
I waited for the panic as the news settled along my bones: Haven was almost out of time.
I refused to accept so many things about life.
Yet this—knowing time was running out—I accepted it.
The small part of me that had died with the ones I loved practically welcomed it.
The survivalist in me anticipated it. I knew this life below wasn’t sustainable.
At some point, these tunnels would become catacombs when the provisions and supplies ran out.
I expected that the date was years in the future—a future I hadn’t considered I would be around to see. I wasn’t anticipating my death. Death clearly had no interest in me. I simply didn’t think about the future anymore. I made no plans, contained no dreams.
Tristian continued. “Haven was provisioned to withstand a ten-year nuclear winter. That’s what they predicted would happen after the war.”
I stared at the others, waiting for their stress—anything. Nothing. Only acceptance. How long had they been carrying this?
“So we should have four more years, right?” I asked. Haven had opened six years ago. We should have four more years. That gave everyone time.
Tristian shook his head. “Assuming the sector leaders are accurately reporting, we don’t. People came down before the war ended, using supplies. More showed up than they anticipated, and people broke the limits for food and medication.”
People like me, who couldn’t let others die.
I had bypassed the regulations of our chart system and continued care to avoid more death.
Yet, had I not ensured more would die, soon, by stealing medications from our reserves?
…What of all the food the Force always had, while other sectors endured heavy restrictions?
What of the medication I saw others in the Ward get when one of their own fell ill? It was all access-based.
“So, how long do we have?” I asked.
No one spoke, like no one wanted to be the one to pull the rip cord. A deathly quiet permeated the room.
Finally Levi said, “Less than a year.”
The world fell out from under my feet as my stomach bottomed out. Reality clanged through me. My heartbeats turned sluggish, as if preserving the limited number of beats it had left. An actual end date awakened that human nature to survive, to fight.
Had we done all of this just to die?
“Who else knows?” I asked. There would be panic if this got out.
Tristian’s eyes found mine. “Command and the Exploratory Units—us, Five, and Twelve.”
“Why aren’t more units looking?”
“The more who know, the harder it will be to keep the peace,” Tristian explained, “to maintain this way of life. Chaos is as destructive as any warfare.”
He was right. Panic and fear had been potent, deadly, and had ruined humanity during the war.
Desperation made little off-limits—theft, murder, and worse.
There had been no end to the atrocities people were capable of.
The target practice and hand-to-hand combat and House simulation missions were not meant for enemies above—there were none.
The Force was preparing for enemies beneath.
“Why are you just now telling me? I’ve been with you for weeks,” I barely got out.
Glances were exchanged among the unit. It was Rumi this time who gave me the truth. “This is classified information. If we have to manage chaos beneath, it hinders our ability to look above.”
“It’s in our bylaws,” Patrick said. “If anyone discloses classified information, you’re kicked out of the Force indefinitely, thrown in an isolation cell, and face a hearing with all sector leaders. There’s no out once you know.”
“But what about the Force members the Exploratory Units drop?” I asked.
“Isolation,” Patrick said. “But typically we aren’t replacing dropped members. They’re replacing dead members. Keeping an injured member alive long enough to get them back here hasn’t worked. Hence your presence.”
He wanted to protect you and give you a choice. Levi’s words from last night swarmed me. Had Tristian been giving me an out by not telling me?
“You were determined to be a liability, unsuited for classified information.” There was no remorse in Rumi’s voice.
“Lyssa cleared you yesterday after Murray.” Tristian didn’t look my way. “You know now. Disclose this information and you face the same consequences as us. This cannot get out. You are stuck with us until we complete this mission.”
They had all mentioned it one way or another.
Had they not been saying since I joined that time was running out?
I thought they meant about the competition Damien had mentioned.
I hadn’t thought the mission was life or death.
Haven needs this mission completed. Haven needed it or we would die. Would humans become extinct?
Images from the war broke free like a film playing on fast-forward.
The carnage, the pleading, the tiny bodies piled high.
Each group yelling their justification on every media source, only to create a greater divide.
Hiding behind the lives of innocents to rationalize their brutality.
Destruction disguised as beliefs, annihilating their humanity until the bloodbath was vindicated.
That beast scraped its claws down my insides. I shook the images away. Were humans even worth saving? Did that question mean the war had won? I closed my eyes and the images shifted, a memory coming forth in such clarity I wondered, if I reached my hands out, whether I could touch them.
“Sasha, it’ll be okay. Watch this. Watch this,” Eli begged, coaxing me out of another negative spiral.
My mother had died three months ago, our parents both gone.
The patchy radio broadcast, our last technology, informing me the battles were getting closer.
That countries had fallen completely. Nuclear warfare breaking out across the globe, warning about air quality, radiation levels, and the health effects.
Eli began doing a ridiculous dance. Acting like a wolf, howling and prancing about.
His auburn hair bounced along with his silliness.
My hair, our father’s hair. I only saw how bony he was, how much rationing had affected his growing body.
Lara laughed next to me, her smile my mother’s. I grimaced, the stress too much.
“We should eat,” I told them, leaving to grab rations. Eli stopped abruptly, crestfallen.
“I’ll be right back, sweetheart,” I heard Lara reassure him. Light steps followed me; Lara leaned against the doorframe, her face serious, stern even. Only fourteen, two years younger than I was, but she looked decades older, the war stealing her childhood.
“You could try for Eli. He’s eight,” she shot at me, her clothes baggy. We were approaching the fourteenth month of the war. She was nurturing. Maternal, slow to anger, kind, and empathic. All the things I had never been.
“I am trying for Eli,” I snarled as I put more food on their plates than mine.
Before my thumb rested on my father’s gun, knowing I had other weapons on me.
That I hadn’t been able to breathe since our mother had died.
Not as I wrapped the body, burying her alone.
My siblings too bereaved to help. That I spent every heartbeat in a state of alertness that wore on my soul. For them.
“He’s scared. Yet he’s comforting you. Trying to make you laugh because you’re falling apart. I thought you were supposed to take care of us,” Lara said, disgusted.
I turned toward her, something erupting in my chest. Her petite, delicate features were more pronounced after our rationing. She would grow to be beautiful beyond words. The kind of beauty people would seek out and be envious of. If I could just keep her alive.
“Falling apart?” I demanded. “I have listened to every broadcast. I ration the food, calculating the days, our needs. I took care of the intruders. We still eat because of me. I take watch every night. I am taking care of you. If I am falling apart, it is because I am carrying it alone,” I spat, my voice growing louder as that thing in my chest devoured my insides.
Lara’s eyes darkened. “Carrying it alone? I hold Eli every night as he falls asleep. I sit with him when he needs to talk about Mom and Dad. I reassure him. I am there when the nightmares chase him from sleep. Where the fuck are you, Sasha?”
Something fractured in me. “I’m making sure he’s alive to have the nightmares, Lara.”
“Guys.” Eli’s small voice came from behind Lara. Her eyes flashed as she turned, reassuring him, holding him. His wide eyes locked on me, but he smiled. “I love you, Sash,” he mouthed at me.
He died several months later. I did not deserve his love.
The memory drifted away. I stared at Unit Seven.
The beast pacing in the void left from losing them.
I think it was born that day. Lara’s words giving it life as I realized I was failing them already.
Maybe it was birthed the day I shot the intruders.
Maybe the day the letter came telling me my father had died. Maybe the day I dug a grave alone.
“So what are you doing about it?” I asked the room.
“I’m sure you noticed how far the creators went to ensure we would stand a chance,” Tristian continued. “They left something else for us. Some vague information on more reserves. Our mission is to find them.”
“Problem is, they left a fucking scavenger hunt and a shit ton of booby traps,” Damien told me.
“Booby traps?” I asked.
“Yeah, we discovered them on Mission If All Else Fails,” Damien continued. “Patty took a step and these huge metal stakes came from the ground. Rumi knocked him out of the way. We’ve discovered eleven—”
“Twelve. Unit Five noted another one,” Rumi stated.
“Cool, twelve death traps.”
“It’s why we need you, Sasha,” Tristian said. “Before, injuries were minimal. It’s why medics were forgotten. But then, we started to discover explosives and traps. When I petitioned to bring back medics, Burdon said the mission was worth our lives.”