Wastelands: A Broken World

CHAPTER 34: A RAT'S TALE

He glanced at me, his eyes momentarily locking with mine, and a mad notion of us never leaving this room suddenly filled my head and I had to break his gaze to stop myself from feeling dizzy.

I hated being holed up anywhere. That sense of being trapped always gave rise to a horrible, gnawing feeling of claustrophobia, but despite the fact that just hours ago the streets outside had been inundated with Greys and we'd had no way to escape, this room had come to feel like a welcome sanctuary, and not a prison. The thought of leaving here now gave rise to a small knot of trepidation in the base of my stomach. Leaving meant returning to reality, that cold, harsh world where everything was different and where I was a human and he was a Grey.

Reaching down, I grabbed at my clothes, and began to dress; shooting surreptitious glances at him every now and then as he returned to the backpack and began zipping it up. When I was done and had managed to tie back my hair into some semblance of a ponytail, I retrieved my own backpack that I'd left at the foot of the bed.

'Here,' Tom said, handing me his bottle of water. 'Have the rest.'

I took it from him gratefully, noting how his lips parted when our fingers brushed and how it stirred a tiny spark of electricity inside me.

Unscrewing the cap, I took a sip, studying him as he went back to sorting out his bag. Visions of Tom organising his bag for work swam into my mind, meticulously loading it up and double-checking he had everything he needed. I pushed them away. Tried to force them under the surface. I needed to be free of that now, so I could think clearly.

'Something bothering you, Evie?'

I glanced up, unaware that I'd even been standing there, rooted to the spot, scratching at the paper label on the water bottle.

Tom's gaze was unsettlingly calm in contrast to my chaotic thoughts. I wasn't sure I even wanted to say anything. It would have been easier to let it go, to bask only in the night before, but if we were about to venture back into the outside world where reality was waiting to haunt me again, then I might as well ask that which was still left unanswered. Even if that meant inviting reality back into my life before we'd even left this room.

I edged closer, leaning against the dresser top. 'When we were talking last night, remember when you said that when you first came here, the Hive didn't hate us? You said it wasn't about hate, but power and dominance. Does that mean they hate us now?'

The coldness in him arose again, brief, fleeting, but it made goosebumps cascade over my skin to see it.

'The Hive despises humanity. Or at least, it did when I was a part of it. I would assume nothing has changed,' he said. 'They hate what they don't understand and they don't understand how some of us can choose to remain in human form.'

I frowned. 'So, they hate us over something which isn't our fault? We can't help what murdering humans and stealing their identities has done to some of you.'

I almost regretted the jibe as soon as it left my mouth, but Tom appeared non-plussed and shrugged in response.

'What makes you think hatred is always rational? Fear makes hatred flourish,' he said.

'Fear of what?' I replied.

'The Hive is afraid, Evie, and we learn to hate what we fear, right?'

'They're afraid of us? How can they be afraid of us?' I said, more than a little stunned. 'What does it matter that the experiement wasn't completely successful? So what if some of you have chosen your human targets over your natural form? Surely that's still a minority of Greys? They've reduced us to nothing. Look at the way we live! At how we have to survive! We survivors live underground. In dark holes and tunnels with the rats and the bugs. We fight over scraps. We're scavengers on our own planet. We're weakened.'