Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Dahlia
I leave Spero in the community play school, where we take turns working. Though, I haven’t been asked to take a shift. One day, maybe, when I can smile and sing for them.
The air is warm and thick. The kind that holds and deepens odours, rich with the scent of flowers and soil.
With my tiny hacksaw in one hand—my nail file—I cross in front of the community cabins toward the greenhouses.
Today, the Redwind merely stirs my hair, the sky-high mountains screening the community from the deadly gale. Dense red fingers creep down from the clouds above, trying to reach for us, but we are too deep in the valley. I don’t even wear my mask some days—most days.
At my shoulder, a sheer mountain wall looms, and a small stream seems to disappear into a gap. The mountain overlays another behind it and another, a hum sailing from that direction. The drone of technology, cars or engines—the community’s defence force.
I’ve never seen it.
Most of us don’t have clearance to see it, kept in an old-world state, simple and minimalistic.
But I know that the community has their own Community Protection operations and that in the gorge between peaks, less than a kilometre away from where I stand now, a small base hides vehicles, weapons, and trained personnel.
We are self-sustained—mostly—but since The Trade and The Crown control all factories and mines, a lot of equipment is raided and salvaged. If we’re completely honest with ourselves, Common Communities are raider encampments. No different to the Endigo or raiders hoarded up in the ruins.
Slightly more sophisticated.
What other choice is there? To conform to The Trade. Live Meaningful Purpose and return to The Crust. Or raid?
I enter the greenhouse in my new ankle-length linen dress, passing two Common women around my age as they pick from the rack of shovels and rakes.
I channel the Dahlia from the Half-tower. The one desperate for friendship. I remember my first week at The Bite, how eager I was to find someone to call a friend… Anyone…
Even an old man.
Even a reluctant House Girl.
I hope Sweets is safe.
Reaching out, I trail my fingertips over the trays of seedlings that line the walls in grids. Hundreds of them. The baby shoots grow, reaching up toward the overhead artificial lights.
“Your seeds have sprouted!” A girl named Lucy stands from between two rows of small tomato bushes, a soil-stained blue apron covering her from chest to knee. Her brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail that flicks when she moves, while my red hair hangs in tendrils all around me. Wild. Rogue.
“I didn’t touch them,” she says, “but you should check them out. You do have a knack for plants.”
I squat at the little plot that is mine to tend to and pat the ground. Healthy baby greens rising from a bed of lush dirt.
“I grew La Mu at the Half-tower,” I mutter to her.
“Never heard of it.” Her voice comes from directly behind me now. “Is it pretty? What does it look like?”
She has never heard of La Mu? The divide between me and the others here grows with each passing day.
I straighten. “It’s not pretty.” It’s poisonous and potent and medicinal, but not pretty.”
Distracted, I gaze across the vast green prism, willing myself to feel the awe of new life and growth all around me, but I can’t catch the beauty of it, the promise and serenity, as if awe is a little wisp of air as elusive as a dream.
I didn’t fit in at The Bite, and I don’t fit in here. The Common Community is filled with optimism and collective grace. A concept I no longer feel a part of.
“Dahlia.”
I look over at Lucy, feeling absent inside and out. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
“I want us to be friends.” Her big blue eyes hold me in a gentle embrace. “I’ve been trying for months. Is it me? Or… Are you too hurt?”
Her words knock me backward, ringing a conversation through my mind with bitter melancholy.
“You pay attention, and you offer something.” He doesn’t look at me as he works. “You did fine at making friends. Some people don’t want it, remember that. I don’t want it. Some people just ain’t made of the right stuff for friendship. I ain’t.”
“How do I know who is?”
“You don’t, so you’ll probably end up gettin’ rejected, hurt, and that’ll shape ya. I’d hate to see that happen.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Her question snaps me to the present.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The man who put the baby inside you?” Her voice softens, laced with uncertainty, as if the very question might shatter something delicate between us. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not on purpose,” I whisper, each word fragile and raw. Just the thought of his body over mine, thrusting inside me, taking me, is agonising. But… things hurt the most while they heal. I’m not sure this applies to broken hearts.
Lucy looks at the hacksaw that I grip with deadly yearning. “Can I borrow that?” she asks. “To cut the tomato stems?”
I clutch it to my chest, and she studies the silly response.
Right , of course, you can.
Clearing my throat, I hand it to her. “Sure. It’s more of a nail file.”
Suddenly, the baby inside me rolls, warping my belly and making it difficult to hold back the tears that threaten to spill.
“Wow.” Her eyes widen as they travel over my pregnant belly, which stretches the fabric of the pretty dress I received when I first arrived at the Common Community.
I curl my toes inside my boots, grounding myself in the present. Forcing my attention back to her, I weave a mask of perceived contentment over my true feelings, a veil that hides and guards my broken heart.
“Would you like to feel the baby move?” I ask, the gentle invitation spilling out.
She brightens. “Ooh, yes, please!”
I take her hand, guiding it to rest on my belly and watch as her eyes sparkle with wonder as she feels the little movements beneath the surface.
“Amazing,” she breathes.
In this moment, I can’t help but think, it’s just a baby… It’s merely a bug, just falling water, a big fan. Nothing remarkable…
“You have a lovely smile,” Lucy says, her gaze on my lips.
I touch my mouth, fingertips tracing the curve that feels so unfamiliar.
The thought of him, my brute, who left this inside me, manages to make me smile. What does that mean? What does that mean?
Is time healing me?
Am I forgetting?
I don’t want to forget.
“Dahlia,” Robert’s voice soars through the greenhouse, drawing my gaze to the entrance. He is walking down the narrow path, greeting everyone he passes, his hazel eyes anchored on me. “You have a visitor.”
His words are a hot flame licking out, forcing a visceral response from me. “What?”
Tomar?
“An old companion of yours.” He looks concerned, but I can barely see straight as my adrenaline spikes. “Are you emotionally ready to see?—”
“Yes!” I wipe my hands on my dress, tiny crumbs of soil dusting my pregnant belly. “I’m fine. Lucy and I were just feeling the baby move.” I don’t know why I say that. It is a feeble attempt to convey my healthy mental status.
Making friends.
Everything is fine here.
Everyone is happy.
Let me see him!
We look at each other. And I wait… For five full heartbeats and one baby kick, during that moment of apprehension, the air stiffens so much that it is hard to inhale.
“Please,” I gasp.
He nods stiffly. “Alright. I will get us clearance to enter the tunnel together .”
Shock. Excitement. Fear.
* * *
My heart thunders, pulse shuddering in my neck as I sit beside Robert, with two armed women—they call themselves Community Protectors—driving us down the tunnel that feeds through the mountain to the entrance.
I vaguely recall the drive through this cement channel months ago when my stomach wasn’t swollen.
Steep grey cement chases the car on all sides, the centre of the road pinned by the headlights. I draw swirls on my leg, aware now of this habit. One I’ve had since I was a child and used to draw swirls on everything.
I wonder how high the mountain above us goes, reaching past the Redwind into the sky. Can the peak see the stars and Missing Moon at night? How strong must the tunnel’s foundations be to hold a mountain on its back? Who built this tunnel? Is it from the old-world?
I find myself on the cusp of hysteria, breathless and jigging but stifling it, instead filling my mind with mundane questions.
Robert stares ahead, stern eyes watching the light at the end of the tunnel steadily grow. “Let me go first, Dahlia.”
“I’m free to go any time I like,” I state, adamant, still keen for confirmation because if it’s Tomar, I am going with him.
I’m going rogue.
“For your protection. Do I have to remind you that when you arrived five months ago, you had a fractured rib and contusions across your nose and eye?”
Tomar won’t hurt me.
Then I see it.
Leaning to the side, I stare between the two front seats through the windscreen. A black dot appears in the glowing exit ahead, the speck growing as we approach, taking form, becoming a figure. A man.
I grab the door handle, tensing my body to prevent my eagerness from throwing me out of the vehicle too soon. It’s him.
It is him.
With the car barely at a stop, I jump from it and run at him. My body hits his. I throw my arms around Tomar, and he envelops me, rocking me like no time has passed.
“You came! You came back!”
“ Dahlia…” My name rushes out through a startled gasp. When he pushes me out in front of him, his hands slide down to my hips and his eyes follow. “You’re… You’re…”
“Did you find him?”
“You’re pregnant?”
On my tippy-toes, I take Tomar’s stunning face in my tiny hands, trying to direct his gaze to mine but it’s arrowed on my swelling abdomen.
“Tomar! Did you find him? Is he alive?” My eyes burn, tears boiling behind them, quickly finding an escape as I lose control. “Please, please .”
Something changes in Tomar’s expression as he stares at my pregnant belly, blinking. Something shifts…
“No,” he murmurs, his mouth fumbling, eyes deep in thought, before he adds, “I mean, yes. Yes.”
“Yes, what?” I shake his head, and he grips my hands, pulling them from his cheeks. I search him, eyes darting across his frozen features to decipher his unnerving intent.
Tomar swallows over thick hesitation, and then his blue gaze lifts slowly from my belly. “I found him,” he states.
My chest squeezes. “Is he alive?”
He pauses for what feels like a lifetime, an entire rotation of The Cradle…
Then says, “ Yes.”
Lagos.
My Lagos, my Shadow with no smiles, with one great experience—me—is alive.
I close my eyes, holding them like that as tears wash my face, as my mind accepts the moment, and my lips work to form words.
“Is he coming for me?”
“No.”
I open my eyes.
It takes a moment for the word to sink in, blinking, and blinking, and blinking at him.
“Wha- what do you mean?”
Tomar shifts on his feet, checking over my shoulder. “He wants you to move on with your new life, forget about him, don’t look for him.”
A short, painful scoff scratches up my throat, seeming more like broken glass than air.
“I… I can’t.” I huff a mirthless laugh, my brain throbbing with anguish. “I have his child inside me. Won’t he want to know?”
“I’m sorry, Dahlia. He won’t.”
I step backward. “Stop.”
“I told you he grows bored of people, and that he would ruin you,” he says, brows knotting above a stern face. “It was just… You meant nothing to him.”
“Stop.” Short breaths chop from me. I reach out a shaky hand, looking for something to grasp, but find only empty space. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry, Dahlia. You should?—”
“Stop! I don’t believe you. He said he wanted to provide for me. You were there. You heard him.” I shake my head—stop, stop, stop, please stop—fighting anger, wrestling with anguish that digs into the chamber Lagos the Rogue resides in.
“He doesn’t want you,” he whispers.
“You’re a liar!” I launch myself forward and lash out, punching him and wailing, beating my pain against his chest. “You’re a liar! Why are you lying? He loved me!”
“Did he tell you that?”
Tomar catches my fists, and from behind, someone grabs my thrashing arms, hauling me from the man I don’t know.
I don’t know you, Tomar.
“He loved me!”
“He barely knew you, Dahlia!” he spits out, voice shaking because he is lying, the effort of his deceit weighing on his tongue. Or is it sadness… Is it goodbye?
I hate him.
“I hate you, Tomar!” I cry at him as Robert handles me, possessing my upper arms and pulling me back to the vehicle.
“Gentle with her!” Tomar barks at Robert, pretending to care, taking a single step closer, seeming distraught.
Which is another lie.
You’re a liar, Tomar.
“I will be,” Robert says curtly. “She’s pregnant. She needs to settle down. I’ve got her. You should leave now.”
“I can’t. I have to speak with you, Robert,” Tomar calls over to him. “I can’t leave like this.”
“No Xin De in the community!” Robert booms. “Leave.”
“It’s not safe.”
“ I will come back to speak with you. Just me. Wait here.” Robert forces me into the back of the vehicle, belting me in while my body vibrates and my lungs heave.
I lose focus to my unrelenting anguish. In a bleak haze of misery, I feel the car moving, but I focus on my lap, trying to keep a grip on the truth. Hold it. For dear life.
“Even after this. I know how to care for you now. What a young Common girl needs. I want to provide for you. You’re mine.”
I mutter his words to my knees, rocking back and forth. “It's been different. Different he said. He’s been different. You and me. The house… He liked it. He liked me.”
I cover my face with my palms and sob into them, because it doesn’t feel right. A deep, drowning disorientation drills into my brain, damaging it. Making me second-guess everything… Lagos. Me. What happened? I didn’t make it up.
We connected.
It was real. Deep. Beautiful. Wild. One that affected me irrevocably. His possessive touch, his warm lips, his claiming words. The roadhouse, the farmhouse. And the gentle way he touched me when he could so easily have broken me beyond repair…
Like now.
Like right now.