Chapter 17 Kali
KALI
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The red skirt billowing in the breeze as a petite woman crossed the street served as my focus point as my feet mimicked the footfalls racing behind me.
“Hey!” someone yelped far behind me and the string of thuds turned erratic.
Distance, distance, I was gaining distance. I poured my energy into my feet to carry me faster, faster, faster.
Wind tousled my hair, and my calves burned, but I paid no attention to the sweat clumping my eyelashes together or the jabbing pain under the left side of my ribs.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The rhythmic beat of sneakers hitting the concrete sidewalk gained speed, growing louder and louder, blurring together like the buildings on my left, the loose red skirt thirty feet in front of me glowing like a beacon of freedom, because I knew, I knew, if I blended into the throng the brown-haired woman was about to dive into, I could lose Ryder.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thu— Thu— Th— Th— T—
A sudden grip on my upper arm nearly snatched my feet from under me as he wrenched me to a sudden stop.
The red skirt floated farther away, ten feet, fifteen, twenty, and then vanished in the heap of colors, my beacon of freedom melting into the crowd.
“Not so fast.” Ryder gently spun me around and withdrew right away, not touching me for half a second longer than it took for me to face him. “You don’t really want to run away.”
My breaths quick, the underside of my breasts slick, I tugged my white t-shirt from sticking to them.
I inhaled the heavy air parching my tongue and licked my dry lips.
“You’ve said this is a bright new world, where we are free.
So what freedom did you have in mind, if not mine?
” I shook my head in disbelief. “For all you speak, how do I know what is the truth and what’s a lie?
You want to show me around, ask me to trust you, but how can I if I’m a bigger prisoner here than I was in Ilasall? ”
He nodded in greeting to a woman walking past us, clad in a cropped, yellow tank top, its hem scrunched up by the wooden crate full of peaches she carried, and her white shorts stained in splotches, probably from fruit juices leaking from the gaps between the wooden planks.
“See you at Jayce’s barbecue!” Her high blonde ponytail swayed as she strolled away, smile wide and unwavering, unassuming of what had transpired between us.
Ryder dabbed the sheen of sweat glistening on his tanned forehead, most of the freckles concentrated above his eyebrows and around his nose.
“I won’t let you go because it’s a mistake to go back.
And you know how I know it? Because you’re not the first to try.
You can’t win a war by yourself. And it’s not a jab at your capabilities or you as a person.
The truth is simple: none of us can do it alone.
So call me names if you want, I don’t care.
All I ask of you is to see what we have.
Experience it for yourself. We’re all working toward a common goal. ”
I used my t-shirt to wipe the sweat beads rolling between my breasts, unconcerned that it soaked the fabric. I had to do something to process his words.
One blink of an eye to the next, and the noise around us cleared up.
A young voice exclaimed, “Peaches,” promptly followed by the blonde woman’s playful scolding, “You could have asked!” as a boy snatched the fruit from her crate.
A man’s voice boomed, “Give that back, Ian!” from across the street, and she placated who I guessed was Ian’s caretaker.
“It’s no problem, Nash. He can have it.”
Ryder spread his arms wide. “Look me in the eye and tell me your life in Ilasall is better than it could be here.”
It wasn’t. But I’d built my way up there and I couldn’t give all that up for a vague idea of a war upcoming someday.
Here, I’d have to sit and wait for the day they’d decide it was time.
And eat peaches. Lick the sweet juices flowing down to my elbow while nutritional bars scratched up the black-banded throats in the city. While Alora endured her survival.
“Stay for today. Let me or Eislyn take you on a tour.” He scratched his chin in thought and heaved a sigh, his shoulders slumping. “If you still don’t like it at the end of the day, I’ll help you pack a bag and sneak out in the middle of the night. And I won’t tell them you left.”
I searched his face for a lie, a deceit, or a trick. Not a hint of it was painted in the freckles dotting his under eyes.
Weird.
Technically, I could survive one more day. And having someone help me make my escape could prove useful. I had no idea how to navigate the streets in their compound and find my way back to Ilasall.
And my mouth had salivated at the idea of a peach.
Perhaps a bit of curiosity at what this place was also played a part in me resigning to loathe myself tomorrow as I asked, “Where to?”
He gestured toward the opposite end of the street from where I’d been running off to. “Where we prepare for war.”
We navigated the bustling streets, our faces shining more and more with each turn taken, and gradually, the conversations of passersby transformed into shouts, grunts, and curses, most of them smothered by dull thumps, metal grating against metal, and the grit of gravel under our sneakers.
We emerged into a large square and heat blasted my face, both from the midday sun and the horde of bodies hovering too close to each other.
Their training rings.
Blinded by the sunlight, I blinked my tears away.
Tall, dilapidated buildings towered over the square from three sides and a grassy field beckoned you from the fourth, creating a sense of open and endless space.
A gust of wind carried over the tangy and sour odor of sweat as yelling and chanting groups of half-dressed people mingled around the makeshift circles.
Teenagers mixed with adults and seniors, as if age held no sway over them.
“See the ones on the left?” Ryder indicated the five groups, bodies knitted so closely together they formed an impenetrable wall my sight couldn’t pierce.
“That’s close combat. Zion usually teaches the classes.
Upfront—knives. That’s Eli’s specialty.” He pointed out a gathering of a dozen participants or so.
Instead of a circle, they stood in a line, facing a row of wooden targets, some round, some vertical rectangles, some shaped like human dummies.
“Throwing, advance, and defense in a battle, all of it. On the right—anything goes. One-on-one coaching, or a space for more creative methods, as Zion likes to put it,” he detailed as we passed a chalk-drawn ring where a teenage girl swayed a curved metal rod against a bald man, a senior based on how withered his face was, but quick on his feet nevertheless as he ducked her strike and used her momentum to snatch it out of her grasp.
A curvy woman entered their ring and demonstrated to the girl why she’d lost the grip on her weapon. She nodded in agreement and repeated the exercise anew, this time in slow motion, drawing back at the last second so the man couldn’t seize the rod from her.
Ryder carried on. “The middle is usually reserved for group training and formations. Ava leads them. You haven’t met her yet,” he clarified at my confused look. “And our shooting range is on the other side of the compound. Ezra teaches that one. That’s it.”
“You have a shooting range?” Seriously? How did they get guns here?
“We steal gun parts from the city and assemble them, and bullets are easy enough to manufacture ourselves,” he explained so easily, like it was identical to boiling an egg.
A commotion broke out around a ring in the far corner, cheers and shouts catching everyone’s attention. A large part of onlookers from other rings broke away and hurried to join them.
I rose onto my tiptoes to see better. “What’s happening?”
“I’m not sure,” Ryder said. “But we can check it out.”
We strode across the square, the throng surrounding the action rendering it invisible to the outsiders of the ring.
A voice from inside penetrated the overwhelming noise. “Maybe I should take your bird for a ride and make her bleed for me.” A pained grunt mixed with a roaring laugh. “Now that’s better. Come on, pretty boy, let’s play.”
“So Eli is fighting with Zion again,” Ryder clarified as he cleared the way for us to the front of the crowd. “It’s like a third time these past few days.”
“Why?” Zion definitely didn’t need any extra provocation. He was already unhinged enough, from what I’d seen.
Yet he was also a bit…cute? He didn’t seem freaked out by my outbursts. More like willing to join me in them.
“Because he gets restless if he doesn’t get his dose of blood. And he’s been sulking the entire class, muttering something about being far away from his pet bird.” A round-cheeked woman poked my side with an elbow and shrugged. “Same as always.”
My mouth went dry.
Glistening beads of sweat rolled between the planes of Zion’s muscular and scarred chest, down the tensed and pulsing abdomen, and soaked into the top of his gray sweatpants as he circled Eli in the ring.
Steel gleamed in their fists, Zion’s blade encased in a black rubber handle and Eli’s in a silver one.
He was a couple of inches shorter than Eli and not as lean with a straight waist, but who the hell had sculpted those shoulders? My teeth ached with the need to bite them.
I shut my open mouth. Whatever had come over me, I was not succumbing to it.
Maybe just a little bit.
Watching didn’t count.
“Which one usually wins?” I asked.
Zion blocked Eli’s punch and his left inner forearm caught my attention. Swirls and lines of discoloration formed fine wrinkles and stretched his skin.
Burn scars.
“Neither. The first to draw blood wins. Otherwise, it would take forever.” Ryder shuffled to make space for a teenage boy and a girl—siblings? They looked similar—to stand in front of him. They shot him grateful looks.