Zane woke to an argument between Mallory and Daisy.
"I can walk!" Daisy yelled defiantly. "We're leaving this morning!" It was one of the only moments Zane had witnessed Daisy truly angry. In the week or so he had known her, she had been hunky-dory and playful and witty. But this morning, her voice carried intonations of fear and defiance.
Mallory wasn't backing down. "Like shit! You can hardly fucking stand!"
Zane blinked furiously, dispelling the grogginess that clouded his vision. He sat up slowly, his back aching from the stiff metal. Sometime during the night, he had slipped down and his body had come to rest at the bottom of the tunnel. His legs were elevated on one side and his head and shoulders on the other. His legs were numb, so he swung them from the wall and began to rub feeling back into them as the argument between the two girls went on.
"If I can move, I'm getting out of here," Daisy said. "I can't stay in this dump anymore."
Zane lifted his gaze to watch Mallory, who was furiously jabbing her finger at Daisy. "You are not fit to walk. We can't afford you getting hurt again!" Her hair had calmed since the night before, and half of it was plastered to her neck with a mix of sweat and water vapor.
"You know that wasn't my fault," Daisy spat, an accusatory tone entering her usually cheerful tone. "You can't blame me for something that's out of my control."
"I can, and I will," the other girl shot back, placing her hands on her hips. Daisy glared, and her mouth opened to spit our a return comment, perhaps a return insult.
Marcus, who had been standing nearby watching, stepped forward, placing himself between them. "Okay, I understand that the last few days have been difficult and trying," he began, and Zane's head snapped up from where it had returned to his legs moments before. Few days? He had been unconscious with a gun wound for a few days? It was a wonder he didn't bleed out. "But we can't go assigning blame. We all agreed to this and therefore we're all equally responsible." Mallory and Daisy both opened their mouths to retort, but he brushed them off. "If we fight amongst ourselves, Wawrzynski has us beat us again." That statement quieted them. "We need to keep it together and figure out a plan. Wawrzynski will be waiting for us at the tunnel. We go in with no plan, we're as good as dead."
Everyone accepted Marcus's statement. He knew Wawrzynski best, having been a failed experiment multiple times before. Nobody wished to bring that topic up, so they gave up on conversation as a whole to prevent anything slipping out.
A thought rushed to the front of Zane's brain. "What about going back?"
Mallory wasted no breath. "What a stupid idea," she said, turning away from him. Daisy showed no expression, just looked on thoughtfully. She gave him a look that clearly meant go on.
"Hear me out," he said softly, still rubbing his legs.
Mallory didn't turn around.
Zane forged on. "Wawrzynski will be expecting us to try and make a stand at the end of this hallway. He thinks we'll do anything to get away from his facility."
"We will, mate," Marcus said, his eyebrows drawing together. He leaned back against the curved wall and crossed his feet, one cowboy boot slipping over the other. His outfit did not seem so funny now that Zane knew his reason for wearing it. He recalled the blank look that had overtaken the boy's face and shivered.
"What if we don't?" He let the sentence hang for several seconds, letting the others absorb it. "What if we went back? It's something he won't be expecting, maybe even something he overlooked."
Marcus's bright green eyes darkened quickly. "He overlooks nothing."
"Fair enough," Zane conceded. "But he obviously sees it as our secondary choice, seeing as he sent soldiers to nudge us toward the end, and not back where we came." He reached for a nearby box of Froot Loops, but it was snatched immediately away by Daisy. He harrumphed. She may be willing to hear out his crazy plans, but she wouldn't share her beloved fruit-flavoured cereal.
"What makes you think security will be any less tight back at his facility?" Daisy shoved a handful of Froot Loops in her mouth, making overly exaggerated pleasurable noises while fixing Zane with a stink eye that could kill a skunk.
"Intuition," Zane said. He knew it was not always a reliable source, but it was the best they had at this moment. It felt like the right choice, and a feeling in Zane's gut pulled him backward. He couldn't tell if it was eagerness to run away or longing to go back. He decided it was better not to question it.
"All due respect, dude," Mallory said cautiously. "But intuition's not enough to act on." She whirled around, her eyes blazing.
Daisy surprised everybody. "I trust him," she said, dumping more cereal into her mouth, which slightly downplayed her words. She raised an eyebrow as if daring anyone to contradict her. When no one did, she plastered a smug look over her face. She smirked. "I guess that's settled then."
"Yep," came Joseph's rough voice from behind Zane. He jumped, startled. "And if we're to believe Daisy, we should get moving." Daisy nodded and stepped forward. Her limp was reduced, but still noticeable. She didn't appear to be in pain, though. "Upsy daisy," Joseph said, slipping his arms under Zane's own. "Not you, Daisy." He pulled Zane to his feet, who was grinning like a fool.
Within moments, packs were slipped on shoulders and a small breakfast was eaten. Dirty shirts were changed. Joseph smiled when he saw Zane looking in his direction as he slipped a shirt over his bare chest. Zane blushed and diverted his gaze. He was starting to grow accustomed to the unfamiliar desires and feelings he felt when he looked at or thought of Joseph. He didn't know what it was, but he was going to welcome it. It felt better than being injected or abusing a wicked power.
And it proved Zane had some control over his life. Wawrzynski could never have planned for Zane's attraction to Joseph. As far as the man was concerned, they were simply fellow subjects that, by being placed together in his experiment, benefitted him.
In another couple moments, their impromptu hideout had been deserted and they were proceeding back the way they'd come, directly toward the exact place they'd tried to escape. Mallory and Marcus weren't very happy about it, but they were outnumbered and did not object.
Daisy was falling slightly behind on her wounded ankle, so Zane dropped back to slip an arm around her midsection and help her along. Again, she gave him a grateful look.
He returned it. "Thanks for backing me up," he said softly, quiet enough for only her to hear. She hobbled along, her blades swinging on her hip. Marcus and Mallory had strapped their weapons on as well, and Joseph looked out of place with no weapon. However, Zane didn't see himself or anybody else as more dangerous than Joseph. With the power Wawrzynski had given Joseph, he was a weapon on his own. Which is exactly what Wawrzynski wanted.
"No sweat," she answered dutifully. "Your intuition is usually correct. You were right about Wawrzynski wanting us to escape. You were right about him loosening his reins on us as long as we cooperated. And you always know exactly what to say."
Zane scoffed, severely doubting his social abilities. Daisy scoffed right back. "Seriously. You barely said any words when I told you about my family, but I felt immediately better afterward. You're like some gay wizard, working your cheerful magic."
"Why, thanks," he said monotonously. "I feel so much better." He didn't mention the fact that the term gay was partially unfamiliar to him. He'd heard it whispered once or twice in New Vancouver, but he had dismissed it as prejudice on the whisperer's conscience. And she said it so casually, he assumed it was common knowledge outside of his previous life.
But he also assumed, like many things, that it was just a label people used to describe themselves and, partly because of life in New Vancouver, he knew labels were just ways to describe people. What use did he have for describing himself when everybody could clearly see who he was? Especially now since he was almost free of Wawrzynski and New Vancouver. It was an exhilarating feeling that he wasn't sure if he enjoyed.
Daisy disregarded his statement. "Don't worry, I'll talk to Mallory." Her gaze lifted to the other girl. "She likes to hold grudges, but I can work at her." She stumbled, and Zane hugged her closer, keeping her from somersaulting to the floor.
"Thanks,"
"No sweat," she said again. After a moment's pause, she said, "You haven't seen outside the city, have you?" When he shook his head, she dropped hers. "So you've never seen sunshine, or trees, or grass, or the sky."
"Only fake," he said mournfully.
"When we get out," she said, and he noticed she had said when and not if. "It'll be winter. Everything will be blanketed in snow." He creased his eyebrows curiously.
"What's snow?"
Daisy watched him sadly. "You don't know what snow is?" she asked incredulously. She said it as if this definition was common knowledge, something everybody was aware of, everybody knew of, and he felt slightly foolish.
He shrugged. "I guess it wasn't high on New Vancouver's science curriculum." He tried to picture something blanketing the entire world, but he just couldn't comprehend such a foreign concept.
"Oh, screw the curriculum," she spat vehemently. Then her voice quieted. "Snow is like the single most beautiful thing our world can concoct. It falls from the clouds slowly, in giant flakes of white. It covers the ground so it looks covered in clouds. It's soft and cold, a half-frozen form of water."
"Cold?" he asked, shivering. A night in a damp tunnel had not improved his love for cold.
"Yes," she said dreamily. "And all the leaves fall off the trees so they look like skeletons covered in powder. It sticks to your hair and melts, and you can catch it on your tongue."
He bumped her shoulder playfully. "It sounds wonderful,"
"It is,"
They plodded along in comfortable silence, Daisy hobbling slightly less than when they'd started. At a certain point, she shrugged off Zane's arm and assured him she'd be fine on her own. He simply accepted her statement and they hurried forward to catch up with the others.
Marcus was wildly retelling a story from his earlier years to Joseph, who was utterly enthralled, mouth dropped open, eyes wide. Marcus's hands flew in wild directions, gesturing to get his point across.
"And then the damned bull broke through the fence and charged straight at me!" Marcus was saying.
Joseph jumped up and down like a child gifted with licorice. "What'd you do? What'd you do?" he asked frantically, his voice filled with excitement, apprehension, and glee. Zane smiled.
Marcus seemed to be enjoying this immensely. "Well, I took out my 12-gauge, I planted my feet wide, and I stared that beast in the face," he said, miming holding a shotgun in front of himself. "I told him, 'you get yer ass back in that pasture, or I'm gonna-'' He was cut off as a bullet pinged off the wall inches from his face. He screamed, startled, and staggered backward.
Zane was glad and slightly mortified that his hands went directly to his waist, where the deer horn knives hung leisurely. His fingers tingled at the prospect of danger, and his eyes scanned the darkness ahead, searching for the shooter.
A dark, hideous, disfigured form crept from the darkness. Its shoulders were hunched forward, and its steps were slow and halting. A pistol was gripped firmly in its right hand, and its arm was stiff, locked up. Zane slipped a knife from his belt and held it at the ready. He didn't know what it was, but he wanted to be ready. He only hoped he didn't have to harm it.
They had flattened themselves against the walls, thinning out their bodies and reducing their chances of being both seen and shot. The figure kept lumbering down the corridor, working its way toward them.
Another shot echoed through the tunnel, terrifyingly loud, but it struck the ground in front of the humanoid figure. Moments later, the gun fell from its hand, clattering to the ground. In an instant, Zane had his own drawn and was proceeding toward it recklessly.
"Step away from the gun!" he yelled, hoping against hope that he wouldn't have to shoot anybody. Instead the figure stepped toward it, stooping down to pick it up. "Hey!" Zane screamed. "Back away!"
A ridiculously long arm stretched past Zane and snatched the gun from the floor. The figure dove for the gun, but Mallory's arm retracted remarkably fast, withdrawing to its normal length and rewarding herself with a gun. She smiled maniacally.
Zane kept his handgun fixed on the shape before him. Its posture had improved considerably, and it now looked extremely human. He could not yet determine facial features or any other defining characteristics he could use to identify the person. It was simply a nameless enemy who had tried to kill them.
This whole situation could come to a close if the person had nowhere to run. They would be cornered and then this predicament could proceed civilly. It appeared to be just the one person, and they could easily be injured with the way they were moving.
An Idea struck Zane and he stretched his arm back. Heaving a deep breath, he threw the gun and it sailed over the person's head. They clawed at it out of midair, but their uncoordinated hands could not grasp it. It struck the ground, and Zane winced, preparing for it to go off. It didn't.
Zane felt his hands disappear first. God, I hate this part, he thought as his arms began to disintegrate into fuzz that floated like pollen in the air. "What are you doing, you asshole?" Mallory yelled from behind him, but his hearing had faded until she sounded like nothing but a whisper.
And then he was seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling with a million eyes, a million ears, a million fingers, and a million noses. He had forgotten how rushed the initial barrage of information was, and his metaphorical human body keeled over in pain. Colors were sharper and scents were tangier. Textures were magnified and sounds were louder. He tried to dim them, but they only came at him faster and more persistent.
His cells swirled in a miniature tornado that swept over the person trying to retrieve the gun. They stumbled and ran headlong into the slanted wall. Zane reformed his body behind them and picked up the gun, effectively cutting off any escape route they may have considered.
"Move, slowly," he said quietly, pointing the gun. The figure stood up, and he recognized that it was a girl, although she was facing away from him. She was not dressed in the attire of Wawrzynski's soldiers. A defect, maybe. Fed up with chasing down and killing rebel children. But what New Vancouver citizen had a conscience? Zane certainly hadn't before he'd been locked in a prison cell and experimented on.
Zane didn't notice the color of her hair until she came into view of the others.
Daisy gasped and dropped to her knees, seemingly gagging on air. Tears were streaming down her face, pooling on her dimpled cheeks caused by the wide smile that was spreading across her face. She was whimpering softly, gazing at the girl Zane had led into her sights. In a few moments she was openly sobbing, her tears dropping rhythmically on the steel floor and making a puddle.
Nobody moved for many seconds. The girl stood, her hands dropped down to her sides, and stared at Daisy uncomprehendingly, as if she were a particularly interesting specimen at a museum.
It was then that Zane noticed the color of her hair. It had grown out, so the roots of her hair were the same black as Daisy's were. And even in the dim light, the dazzling color was vibrant and bright. Zane didn't know how he'd missed it previously.
Bright red.
Daisy sobbed. "Anastasia,"