Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Icrawled out of bed the next morning and dragged myself into the lounge to find Bee flicking through an old, battered magazine, one we’d read too many times to count.
“You look like shit,” she said without looking up.
“Gee, thanks. Where’s Ryan?”
“Left for duty an hour ago.”
“Why are you up so early on our day off.”
“I could ask you the same question.” She set the magazine down, narrowing her eyes at me. “Where did you go last night?”
“Walking.” The lie came easy.
“Seriously, Rue, are we gonna continue to do this?”
She was right. Time to fess up. I sank into the battered armchair opposite her. “He broke up with me.”
Her jaw tensed. “That bastard.”
I stared at her in surprise. “You’re gonna be pissed at him?”
“He broke up with you.”
“Yeah, and I just admitted I was in a relationship and lied to you about it.”
“I understand,” she said. “Talking about it would make it real.”
I dropped my gaze as her words hit home. “Bee…” I pressed my lips together. “I need him.”
“Need?”
Silence fell between us, thick and pregnant with revelation.
A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed past it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why did he break up with you?”
I couldn’t look at her. “He’s in love with me.”
She exhaled sharply.
“I know you never want to talk about this stuff, honey, but tough shit. It’s time.”
“Bee—”
“No,” she snapped. “I’m done watching you punish yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. I’m done seeing you grieve and deny yourself the most basic thing. Love.”
“I’m denying myself pain.” I glared at her. “Love hurts, Bee. In this age, in our world…you fall in love, and you risk getting your heart torn out.”
“And you think that was any different before the monsters?” Bee asked. “Love is always a risk, but honey, it is so worth it. You can’t let Liam’s death stop you from feeling that again.”
Liam... sunny, crooked smile, that belly laugh that would always make me laugh too. I’d been on his scout team for a year. A year when we’d fallen in love. A year that ended in my having to put a bullet through his head.
“Rue…”
I blinked up at Bee, who had moved to crouch by my seat. “I’m okay.”
“No…you’re not.” She put her arms around me and I relaxed against her, allowing her to hug me. “Think about things, babe,” she said. “Don’t deny yourself something wonderful because it might be taken from you. Life is too short and ugly for us to deny ourselves happiness.”
I nodded and pulled away. “Sissy asked me to come give a talk to the little ones at the schoolhouse. I should go.”
The smile she gave me told me she knew I was retreating, but this time she let me. “You gonna sell them on the merits of being a scout?”
Thank God I wasn’t expected to sell them on being a sweeper. “Something like that.”
“Want to meet up at the radio tower after for a game of chess with base twelve?”
The radio tower was often used for gaming—chess and battleships were favorites—and base twelve was our closest neighbor with the best reception, so most of our tournaments took place with them. But something about the date niggled at me.
“Wait, don’t they have their ascension today?”
“Tonight, yeah, but I’m sure they can fit in a quick game.”
“Fine. I’ll meet you after lunch.”
I lugged my frame out of the armchair and back to my room to get dressed for the day. Jamie and love and all that could wait. I was about to feed the minds of the next generation.
Sissy was all smiles and hugs outside the schoolhouse.
Two years my senior, she’d been teaching since she’d left the schoolroom, replacing old Mrs. Harper, who’d passed away in her sleep at the ripe old age of eighty-two.
Mrs. Harper had been our oldest civilian, probably the oldest person to survive the monsterpocalypse.
The stories she’d told. Most had been penned and put into a book for the young’uns to learn from.
Sissy and I became friends when I’d graced this very schoolroom, and still hung out from time to time on my days off, like today. Even though today wasn’t technically a hangout, more a favor.
Thirty faces jostled for a view out the windows.
Thirty.
Those were all the children we had alongside one hundred and thirty civilians and forty-five force.
Forty-five to protect one hundred and sixty people in total. No wonder the powers that be had decided to keep the serum’s dangers a secret.
“I’m so glad you made it.” Sissy beamed. “The children are so excited.”
I jerked a thumb toward the windows. “I can tell.”
Sissy’s mouth popped into an “o.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at the windows.
The children rushed back to their seats.
I looked her up and down: slender, petite, a brisk wind would blow her over, but she could tame a class of thirty with a look.
“How do you do it?”
She shrugged and winked. “Magic.” She hooked her arm through mine. “Come on, let’s go enlighten some minds.”
Before the monsters came, schools had several classes all organized by age.
At least that’s what I’d been told, but here at base fifteen we had one schoolroom and one class filled with children aged five to fifteen.
Sissy taught the younger ones the basics and the older ones taught themselves, using the schoolroom and resources to devour knowledge.
I’d brought back books too many times to count, and those books lined the shelves proudly, passing on knowledge just as they were meant to.
The younger children fidgeted in their seats, but the older ones sat with their backs ramrod-straight as I entered.
The atmosphere was charged with excitement and expectation.
Sissy pulled out a chair for me, but I waved it away, preferring to stand, hands clasped behind my back in classic guard pose.
The children’s eyes went wide. They didn’t have much contact with the guards who kept to the barracks on the other side of the civi gate.
I suppose we were a mystery to them. I’d never had the same air of enigma.
Being the daughter of the man who ran the guard meant that aside from school, I’d barely spent any time on this side of the fence.
Most of my education came from the other guards.
How to throw a punch, how to fall so I didn’t break bones.
How to shoot and stab. It had been an education in survival.
But these children were clueless. They’d get some basic training when they left the schoolroom at fifteen, but not enough to keep them alive outside of these walls.
Not without a scout or sweeper to keep them safe.
In fact, many of them would probably join the guard.
I scanned the faces now, all eager for me to begin. I’d decided that the best way to do this was to take questions. Keep it on their terms and try to make it light for the little ones in the room. If we did our jobs right, they’d never have to know the true awful horror of the outside world.
“I’m sure you all have questions, so let’s do a Q the fact that she didn’t meant we were doing our jobs.
“Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around me. “Thank you for what you do, and for the meds you brought back.”
My eyes pricked because despite the danger we put ourselves in day in and day out, we rarely, if ever, got a thank you. This was our duty, what we’d signed up for, and we didn’t expect gratitude.
Still, it was kinda nice to get it.
I hugged her back. “You’re welcome.”
I left her to her students and headed for the radio tower and the promised game of chess.
The radio tower was our base’s hub of communication with the other bases. It was where trade deals were struck and routes planned, and where the neatly typed communications from the golden city arrived.
The building itself wasn’t anywhere near as tall as the command tower that housed all the senior personnel. But the aerials and satellites bolted to its roof topped the command tower in height.
This was where the officers hung out and played cards, backgammon, and chess. The tournaments between bases had begun just over a year ago and they were a bit of a thing now. We’d even created an imaginary trophy that was passed around from base to base.
Base twelve held the chess trophy, and this game, although not an official tournament match, would allow us to test the other team’s strengths and weaknesses.
I cut across the quad, raising a hand in greeting to Javier, the on-duty officer for the control tower today. He grinned and lifted his chin before going back to the battered novel in his hand.
Javier was an avid reader. I’d wager he’d read every book on the base at least ten times. I made a mental note to ask base ten to drop a few novels into their next shipment of corn before heading into the tower.
Officers were already gathered around one of the radios.
We had two main ones for essential communication only, running on the main frequency all the bases used, and then the smaller radio for casual comms and a different frequency.
This one had a smaller range, which meant we could only chat to a handful of bases on it.
“Started without me?” I snagged a chair, ready to drag it over.
“Not yet.” Bee looked over her shoulder with a frown. “We’re getting static.”
“Oh? They got interference?”
“No storm warning from base five. Clear skies over base twelve from what we know,” Bastian said.
This was Bastian’s department when he wasn’t on sweeper duty.
The guy was built like a tank, fingers like sausages, but when it came to fixing shit, he was the Mozart of tech.
The whole comms setup was courtesy of Bastian’s genius mind.
He’d even helped the other bases set up, traveling as far as base five, the hub of the meteorology experts, with a team of sweepers to do it.
We were lucky to have him.
Static filled the silence as Bastian fiddled with the radio.
“You want me to try them on the main channel?” Bee asked.
She’d been spending a lot of time here since her hookup with Ryan, Bastian’s apprentice, although there was no sign of Ryan now.
“Do it.” Bastian turned in his seat, brows drawn low over his eyes.
He had the kind of rugged face that wasn’t classically handsome, but his eyes always got me. Sea green with thick, dark lashes, his eyes were his feature. He also happened to be Jamie’s best friend and at one time we’d been close. I was pretty sure he knew about Jamie and me.
He locked gazes with me for a moment, searing me with his peepers before tearing his attention away to focus on Bee.
“Anything?” he asked.
She lifted the headphones off one ear. “Nothing for base twelve. Base five says they can’t get in touch with twelve either.”
A look of concern crossed his face but then he shook his head. “Probably a tech issue. They’ll be up and running by this evening what with the ascension ceremony happening.”
But he didn’t look too convinced.
A rattling sound filled the room and Bastian stood, his powerful body unfurling from his seat. “Get it.”
Bee leaned across the desk, tore a strip of paper from the printer, and passed it to Bastian.
He scanned it, frown deepening.
Curiosity drew me a step closer. “What is it?”
“Comm from golden city. They’ve moved up our ascension ceremony.”
We weren’t due an ascension for three weeks. “What? To when?”
His mouth flattened into a thin line. “Tonight.”