I awake with paperweights on my eyelids. My tongue flubs in my mouth, a thick cotton against my teeth. I can barely swallow without my throat rasping like sandpaper. Obnoxious car horns blare in the distance, and I almost swear I hear a couple of men shouting nearby.
Ugh.
I roll over. Both of my arms shiver as if I've dipped them in ice. There's a warm body beside me. I snuggle closer, craving the warmth.
Except... why is there a warm body beside me?
I reluctantly crack an eyelid, forcing my eyes open despite the sleep gunk. Erin lays next to me, her arms flopped at her sides. She stares at the ceiling.
I frown. My brain feels fuzzy. Where in the Community are we? I sit upright and then sway as a wave of dizziness splashes through me. I close my eyes to steady myself. The last thing I remember is stumbling through the field of poppies on a hot, dry day before everything ran together like sand on a beach being poured into the ocean between my fingers.
Yet now I'm sleeping in a bed?
The comforters are rough, but fluffy. A boxy window unit provides way more air conditioning than necessary. A domed glass crowns a light on the ceiling. Yellowed paper covers the walls with intricate floral designs, and a simple TV hangs on the wall across from the window.
My stomach rumbles, my throat tight, as if I haven't eaten in days.
Hesitant, I push myself from the bed. My feet wobble, and I hold out my arms to balance myself. I wait until the room stops spinning before I limp to the window. Everything aches, and my throat throbs from the lack of anything to drink.
I peek between the curtains.
My heart skips a beat. There are skyscrapers out there.
And cars, each a different color. Some shiny and new, some rusty and unfit to be on the road. People walk by in such an array of outfits that I might be hallucinating. Some wear long skirts or tunics and keep their heads covered. Others have their arms bare from t-shirts with weird designs on the front. A person rides by on a bike with a basket and handlebar loaded with plastic bags, and they swerve through the crowd without slowing.
This isn't the Community, this isn't the Kariz, and it's definitely not the wasteland David described. If everything was destroyed, what is this? Are we in one of the territories Roy mentioned?
I let out my breath, my hands shaky, and turn to face Erin. She still stares at the ceiling. She doesn't blink for a long time, long enough that I'm about to prod her in the ribs to make sure she's still alive.
Or that I am.
"You feeling any better?" I ask softly. Outside our room, those voices keep arguing. I don't want their attention. At least, not yet.
Erin's eyes flick toward me. Her lips move, but she doesn't speak.
"Erin?" I crawl onto the bed and press my fingers against her forehead. She's no longer as pale as she was after the goat incident, but her head is hot, especially for how cold the room is. I slide from the bed, turn down the air conditioning a couple notches, and then return. "How are you feeling?" I repeat.
"Blank." Her head lolls as she returns to staring at the ceiling. "I didn't like having my powers because nothing felt real. But now everything feels empty. Like you made a banana smoothie and someone else ate it and washed the blender before you got to try any."
Odd analogy, but okay. I stroke the rough covers below my fingers. "Do you remember what happened before you passed out?"
Her throat bobs as she swallows. "I turned that... that beastie into a goat. I think it was a goat." She blinks. "Not sure. I turned him into a goat, a little goat... a baby goat, hopping through the poppies. Do you think it hurt? Now I feel bad. He was human before he was a monster. Did I make him into more of a monster?"
I grimace and rub my arm. My skin is as rough as crinkled paper. I wish I had my powers back. Erin's still really out of it, too, though I'm not sure how much of it is from whatever was used to knock us out, and how much is from her powers being gone.
"Well, he was pretty weird looking after you were done with him," I admit, "but now he's cuter."
Sort of.
"Hmm," she murmurs noncommittally. "I don't like my powers. They're like... having a map... and thinking it's all bumpy and 3D, but when you pick up the mountain, there's nothing there. Only ink on your fingers."
Err... what?
I'm not sure where she's going with this, but okay. "You don't have control of your powers yet. Once you do, it won't be so bad." I glance at the door. I need to get her up and ready to move, so that once we figure out what's going on here, we'll be ready to run.
Where? Not sure.
But we'll be ready for whatever "ready" is.
Come to think of it, I'm not making much sense either, so maybe it's the sedative messing with Erin.
"You've been awake longer than I have," I say. "Have you heard anything about where we are?"
"I can't..." She rocks her head back and forth in the pillow, slowly, as if she's a cat rolling in a patch of catnip. "Everything's fog. Everything's... I'm staring at a screen, and the TV's on, but I can't tell what's playing. There's static. Do you know what static is? I'm not sure I do."
I take in a deep breath and let it out in measured counts. "We're going to get out of here safely, okay?"
"Maybe," she says. "I can't read anything right now. It's all cut off. Pages of a book, torn up and made into poetry. Poetry stinks. Did you forget to throw away the banana smoothie after the other person drank it?"
"Umm..." I tilt my head, perplexed. How in the Community am I supposed to respond? She sure became reliant on her powers fast. But then, if she wasn't sure how she was using them, maybe she didn't know what she was relying on-her own intuition or the insight her powers gave her.
"I'll see what I can find out," I promise.
"Oat milk for the smoothie!" she calls, attempting to rise before swaying and falling back into the covers. "The goat-beast will like it."
I force a smile and scoot off the bed again, careful not to fall on my face. Unfortunately, upon examining the room, there's nothing here I can use as a weapon. Given that my own powers are misty at best-even though my skin doesn't feel as dry as it did a moment ago-I'm definitely not going to be able to use water as a weapon. There's also no way I can yank the TV off the wall and swing it, though it might be something Nia could do if her powers were active.
And if she were here.
What about under the bed?
I nearly shriek as I come face-to-face with the smushed nose of the weird, not quite goat-like monster with fine white and brown fur. The monster naahs at me and shuffles out like a small dog from under a couch. I scramble back from him. He's the beast Erin... changed. He sniffs my pants and promptly clamps his teeth around the hem.
"Oh no you don't," I mutter, tugging my pants away. The creature baahs protest and bumps his knubby horns against my shin. He's...
Why is he cute?
When I don't move, the monster makes another weird nah sound and returns to trying to eat my pants. At least he doesn't seem interested in eating me.
"See? Erin flops over on the bed and grins. "Cute little goatie."
"Uh-huh." I glower at the creature and my now-slobbery pants. I guess it's safe enough to keep looking around. As I kneel and look under the bed again, I do my best not to kick the creature. I nearly get rug burn from the rough carpet, but I find a pair of stinky slippers.
Half of one is covered in slobber, a hole chewed through the heel. Ick. I doubt there's much I can do with these. Still, I grab them. I'm going to want to wash my hands later, because they stink like someone forgot to pull a potato out from a cupboard and it got all rotted and drippy. But it's better than nothing.
Armed with stinky slippers, I tiptoe to the door and carefully test the handle.
Locked.
No real surprise, given that I'm pretty sure we've been kidnapped. I press my ear against the door. After a moment, I'm able to puzzle out two muffled voices, both throaty and leaning masculine.
"You double-checked that the injections worked?" His accent is thick, difficult for me to understand. I squint at the window unit, concentrating on the words.
"How am I supposed to tell if they worked?" This guy's voice is higher pitched, the accent more familiar, though blended with another. Like David's, come to think of it. "I gave them the right injections, if that's what you mean."
"Well, after that fire guy roasted Jamil's beard, seems pretty obvious he didn't get adominogen."
"Jamil didn't give me the right syringe," Familiar-Accent grumbles. There's shuffling, and then a thunk on something that might be a table. "Either way, we got paid. Speaking of which-"
"No. Not this again. We're handing them over to whoever David asks. He's paying us, and that's final."
"But she's a damn reality bender, Zaid. You saw what she did to poor Leo! I'm not sure what she was trying to do, but you know those Community kids. They've never been trained. She did all that without training. Imagine what she could do if she actually knew what she was doing."
"I'm imagining and I'd rather not. David will sell her to the Camaraderie, they'll kill her, and we won't have to worry about her coming back for us."
My breath catches in my throat. That's all the evidence I need that David isn't on our side. But sell us to the Camaraderie to have them kill us? Cold.
"Yeah, and you know how much more Sharifa would pay? She doesn't mess around, and she's got telepaths to do that weird crap that makes them compliant. She won't come back after us, and we'll have enough money to get out of this backwards town. Maybe settle down in South Africa. Or if you want something closer to the Community, there's Singapore. Maybe we could find an OA buyer. I bet their military would pay real nice for a reality bender..."
"No."
"Think about it! We can stay here for the rest of our miserable lives, or" -he draws out the word- "we can make the trade of a lifetime, disappear, and live the rest of our lives in luxury."
"The problem is the disappearing, Carl. You know what David would do if he thought we were planning to double-cross him?"
"That hinges on him knowing before we're out of the city."
Zaid grunts. I hold my breath. Obviously, they've kidnapped us because they know Erin is a reality bender. David must have figured it out. He's had plenty of opportunities.
But we've got one advantage-these two want different things. Zaid wants to keep the deal he originally planned, while Carl wants to sell us elsewhere for a bigger profit. Or he wants to sell Erin, anyway. My heart rackets against my chest. I'm not sure what they have in mind for me.
So how do we get out of here?
They probably have powers. At least one of their group has portal capabilities. I've only heard these two so far, but that doesn't mean there aren't more around, or that one of these two isn't the portal person.
Unfortunately, both my powers and Erin's are cut off. We could try escaping through the window, but it's at least a three-story fall. Maybe we could shout for help? The raiders know English, so the people outside might, too.
If they care.
My gut twists into knots. How'd we get into this mess? We escaped that horrible facility, only to end up... here.
I don't care. I'm getting us out. I'll bluff my way out if I have to. But I still don't have all the details. How much money are they getting for selling me and Erin to David's buyer? Can I convince them there's a better option? And if I do, should I backstab them?
Am I okay with backstabbing them?
Something flops against my legs, almost sending me off balance. The goat-creature has plopped on top of my feet and stares at me, as if waiting for me to open the door.
That creature was human once.
So yeah... yeah, I think I'm willing to backstab these guys, given the opportunity. They don't seem to mind double-crossing a person, or Carl doesn't, anyway, and I'm not keen on their plans for Erin.
So they'll get what they deserve.
I take a deep breath.
Should I go for aggressive? Or the scared, silent type?
I turn to see how Erin's doing-
Community!
I jump back and end up slamming awkwardly against the door, which sends the poor beast scrambling. Erin sits upright on the bed, the covers flopped around her in an untidy pool. And she's staring at me. Blank, her eyes almost void of emotion.
It's creepy.
"Hey... Erin..." I swallow hard. "Can you not do that?"
She tilts her head, and her short black hair flops against her shoulder. It does nothing to get rid of the creepy factor. "Why am I floating?"
"Floating?" I repeat. The beastie slinks back to my feet and nips at my pants, as if to demonstrate his annoyance before settling against me again.
Erin nods, her head still tilted almost to her shoulder. "Nothing's grounding me. My head's a balloon and at any moment I'm going to fly away."
I blink. Did they put something extra in her sedative? Is that why she's acting so much weirder than I am?
That's it, I'm going for aggressive.
These raiders won't know what hit them.
* * *
Thanks for reading! Come back next Monday for chapter eighteen! :-D
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