(Sorry for taking forever! This chapter is a little less uneventful, but it'll pick up in the future. Thanks as always!)
Kray observed the light of the sun hit the barred window above him at different angles throughout the day, marking the passage of time. Morning bathed the room in a golden hue, setting dust motes on fire. By noon the sun had migrated higher in the sky, which allowed less sunlight into the room, but the whole building was cooking by then. It was the heat of the Wasteland: it caressed everything with its burning touch, and Kray had learned early on that he could either get used to it or drive himself mad trying to avoid its intensity.
Kray and Alex were alone inside the bank. Once the Crimsons had confirmed her identity, they'd shackled them with iron chains on opposite sides of the room and left them there alone. Under normal circumstances Kray wouldn't have minded the reprieve; it would mean more time to catch their breath and think of a plan. But things weren't looking so good for Alex. Her face, already pale from pain and blood loss, was covered in a sheen of sweat. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her lips were bruised and chafed.
She was breathing unevenly. Her chest wound was healing just fine: she'd checked the bandages to make sure it wasn't infected. And she was too clammy-looking to be feelings the effects of heat exhaustion. And as far as he could tell, the scuffle she'd had with the Crimsons yesterday hadn't caused any serious injuries.
There was only one other reason why she was like this. That nasty burn-out mark on her stomach was doing damage internally. His suspicion was confirmed when she got up on her knees at some point and bent over to throw up. There wasn't anything in her stomach because the Crimsons hadn't fed them at all, so it was mostly dry-heaving.
Kray hated feeling helpless, so he wrapped a length of the chain around his forearm and gave it a powerful tug, trying to break the metal bar bolted to the wall next to him. It didn't budge. He paused to inhale a shuddering breath before he yelled, "Hey, assholes! The least you can do is give us some water!"
"Don't waste your energy," Alex said in a soft voice, wiping her mouth. She sat on the floor again and leaned her back against the fading pattered wallpaper. "They're not going to come."
"Yeah?" His tone was a contrast to hers: rough and acidic. "Why's that?"
"Because we're prisoners," she answered, aiming a look at him that said it was the most obvious thing in the world. "They call the shots."
It set him off. "So what the hell are you suggesting? We sit on our asses and wait for them to kill us? Maybe then you can have your honorable death."
Alex's jaw tightened and her eyes flashed a deeper gold, but she didn't respond. Kray swallowed the bitter lump in his throat. He wasn't angry at her. Everything else felt distant and unimportant when he had to watch Alex struggle with an incurable disease that was going to destroy her organs until she died.
"I'm sorry," Kray murmured.
The chain scraped across the floor when Alex stretched out her shackled leg and bent the other, dangling her arm over her knee. "My brother hates me," she said out of nowhere. "I didn't tell you about him when we were kids because I was ashamed."
"I didn't know that," he answered, surprised.
"He was my hero." She gave a wistful smile that softened her features. "This amazing, larger-than-life person. He had so many sponsors and events growing up, but somehow, he always found time for me. We'd drink hot chocolate every Wednesday night on the balcony and he'd tell me stories about what he'd done and seen. What he wanted to do."
Kray watched her, waiting. She swallowed. "When he got sick, I stole everything from him. His dreams. His reputation. His father. I deserve what's happening to me now. I know that. But that doesn't mean I can face Michael after . . . after he finds out the truth. I don't want to see my brother happy because I've failed."
"He would be happy about something like that?" he asked.
"Seeing me succeed has only hurt him so far."
"Did you talk to him about this?" He waved a hand to elaborate. "I don't mean about being sick. I mean about the way he's been treating you and how much it's hurting you."
"No."
Alex said it so matter-of-factly that Kray couldn't help scoffing. "See, that's always been your problem. You keep everything bottled up. Your brother probably thinks you don't care one way or the other about him when it's been killing you all along."
"I don't want to be selfish by dumping my wants and needs on people."
He had a feeling she was talking about him more than she was her brother. It was something in the way she was looking at him right then, the slight drop in the pitch of her voice.
"It's just as selfish to keep the ones who care about you at a distance," he replied. "People want to feel needed and appreciated. These three words—I miss you—can mean everything to someone who thinks you don't give a damn about them."
"Did it mean something to you when I said them yesterday?"
Leave it to Alex to be so straightforward. Kray ran his fingers over the rust on his chain, considering his next words. He decided to dispel the gravity of the moment with a little bit of humor and smiled crookedly. "It's a start."
He expected the tension on her face to relax, but if anything, it seemed to grow. "Kray," she began softly. "Will you tell me how you survived out here?"
It was obvious this was eating away at her. His defenses tightened, as they did any time he thought about the past few years. A protective instinct to shield him from the horrors he'd locked away deep inside him. Alex might be looking at him with earnest eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her much. He managed, "I had to. So I did."
A shadow passed over her face. She understood he didn't want to open up to her. Kray sighed, hating that they were back to square one: tense around each other and afraid of saying the wrong thing. "You should get some rest. You look like hell."
"Okay."
Her complacency surprised him for a second before he realized she had to be drained if she wasn't wasting time putting on her usual brave face. She lay down on her side, her knees drawn into her chest. Silky dark hair fell across her face like a curtain, shielding her in her most vulnerable moment. Her breathing was deep and even in no time flat.
Kray didn't move from where he sat. He couldn't afford to let his guard down. He knew it was a matter of time before the Crimsons decided what to do with them.
And it wouldn't be anything good.
The Crimsons came for them close to dusk. Alex immediately sat upright as Craters and four large men stomped into their prison.
"Rise and shine, children," Craters bellowed.
The Sansers stuck their guns in their faces. Kray lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender as one of them unshackled him and another jerked him to his feet. His skin bristled when one of the men rammed the butt of his weapon into his shoulder. When Craters ordered them to move toward the door, he asked, "Where are you taking us?"
Pain burst across his cheekbone and reverberated through his skull. It dropped him to one knee. Through the ringing in his right ear, he heard Alex call out for him and Craters' rough voice bark, "You don't ask any questions, boy. You here?"
Craters was so close to his face that his spittle landed on Kray's cheek. Gritting his teeth, Kray straightened up and kept walking. He knew he could take him in a fight, but he was severely outnumbered and outgunned. And worse, he was running on fumes. Without sufficient food, Sansers and Metas were about as effective as humans. Keeping them hungry was a tool to control them, much more so than the shackles.
"Are you okay?" Alex dared to ask, earning her a similar smack with a rifle.
"No talking!"
Kray glanced at her to make sure she was alright, wondering what had come over Craters and these Crimsons. They were rougher than they'd been yesterday. More unfriendly. Which probably meant that, because of whatever they'd discovered at the Meta station, they weren't too fond of either him or Alex right now.
Dust swirled outside, blowing across the barren main street as the Crimsons took them away from the bank. They rounded a corner and came across something that shocked Kray. Dozens and dozens of people were milling on the sides of a paved road, but the moment they saw Kray and Alex, they grew agitated. They yelled out insults in English and Aldean. They screamed threats at Alex and called Kray a traitor to his own people.
Craters laughed and traded jests with the bystanders. Alex ignored them, but Kray knew better. The Mainland, and even the Skads, were governed by rules and principles. It wasn't the same out here. The only law was brute force and where there was conflict, a blood sacrifice was needed.
He was ready when the first bystander flung a rock their way. He used his power to create a golden shield between the audience and Alex and him. Using his power sent a tug of pain through his gut as his body expended precious energy to harness his Sen.
Kray's heart was pounding as the audience crowded them. They created two tight corridors on either side of them and pulled at their clothes and hair. The onslaught was dizzying, and it took everything in him to keep them from sucking him into their ranks and beating him to death. He wrapped his arms around Alex when someone tried to shove her to the ground, bracing for pain, but Craters didn't hit him again. He was too busy enjoying their terror.
By the time they made it to the trucks, Kray was drained. His legs felt limp and he could barely support his weight, let alone Alex's. She was in worse shape: the ordeal had taken a toll on her and she was taking small and wheezing gasps of air.
"Did you enjoy that?" Craters goaded as the Crimsons shoved them into the back of the truck. "When our people heard we had special guests, they couldn't stay away. You're lucky Rousseau has plans for you or you would've discovered just how welcoming they can be."
Kray was tempted to retort something about how Craters talked big for someone who couldn't sneeze without Rousseau's input, but he didn't want to be smacked with the butt of a rifle again, so he settled for leveling an angry glare at the man.
Laughing, Craters swaggered out of sight. A few seconds later, the truck roared to life and they were off across the choking desert of the Wasteland.
"Where do you think they're taking us?" Kray asked, bracing a weak hand on the truck bed as it veered around a sharp bend.
"I don't know." Alex slide back until her back was pressed against the opposite wall of the truck. Her bottom lip was sucked between her teeth in pain. He caught her hand start moving toward her stomach before she stopped herself, and he knew then that it wasn't the injury that was hurting her. It was her sickness.
"How bad is it?" he murmured, afraid to know.
"It'll pass."
She said this through gritted teeth, which wasn't very reassuring, but Kray held on to that feeble hope. He suddenly felt too much like a child who needed to be told that everything would be okay. Which was stupid. Alex was the one who needed comfort, not him.
But he didn't know how to comfort her, so he focused instead on a problem he could solve: getting them out of this mess. The Crimsons might've taken precautions at their base by keeping them shackled to a wall, but it was clear they'd only done so because they didn't want them to try to escape the traditional way. They had no idea that Kray could planeshift.
He knew he couldn't in his current condition. Not without enough fuel to make the trip across half the continent in a split second. He would bide his time and the second he was strong enough, he would planeshift them away. He had no other choice.
"Too bad Noodle isn't around today," Alex said suddenly.
"Who?"
"The gifted Sanser boy. The one who found us."
"Why would you want him around?" Kray asked in confusion.
"He can help us."
He couldn't help it: he laughed at that. "No, he won't."
The truck shuddered over potholes, jostling them, and she winced in response. "Why not? They mutilated him. They're keeping him prisoner. It's obvious he doesn't want to be here. We'll convince him that he can come with us if—"
"He's not going anywhere."
She looked utterly baffled. "Because he doesn't trust us?"
"Trust? Out here that's the most useless word in the English or Aldean dictionary. You don't trust anyone. That's like cozying up with a hungry lion and expecting it not to eat you. At best, you can try to offer it something better. That's what Noodle's been doing. A kid like that who's been born and raised in this godforsaken wasteland knows better than to go against his masters. He's never had a good life, but he's known plenty of pain. There's nothing you can offer him that will be bigger than the fear Rousseau's already planted in him."
Alex digested those harsh words, hearing traces of the tar-black darkness he was fostering inside him. She opened her mouth once, seemed to think better of it, but then a gleam of determination entered her eyes.
"You told me to stop pushing people away. That it would make things worse. I'm going to tell you the same thing now, Kray. I can't begin to imagine what—"
"No, you can't," he snapped.
"I'm only saying—"
"You want me to tell you how shitty it's been the past few years so that you'll feel better about yourself? You get me to open up and start the healing process or some mumbo jumbo like that? The last thing I need is to talk about it with you, sweetheart."
She seemed taken aback by his venom. He was surprised by it, too. Maybe he was angry at her after all. "There's no point in talking about it," he said more softly. "It won't change the past. Or the present. I made it out the first time around, but this living hell exists whether I'm in it or not. Your human guilt is meaningless here."
"I don't feel guilty about creating the Wasteland," Alex said, her eyes downcast. "That's no on me. But I am guilty for bringing you to it. Before and now."
"You want to make it up to me?" he asked.
Her gaze whipped up to his. She searched his face like there was some chance he wasn't serious with her, like he was going to snatch away her hope at any second.
"How?" she said.
Kray shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know yet. But until I do, you're just going to have to stick around. You owe me that much."
No more stunts, was what he was saying. No more attempts to kill herself in some glorious and heroic way that would earn her fame to last for generations. No more giving up and just waiting to die.
She seemed to understand him.
"I owe you that much," Alex agreed.
Kray didn't have much time to think about how this promise might mean nothing in the face of her disease. Or how he was mostly doing it to make her feel better because even now, he longed to see her eyes soften with joy and her lips quirk up because of some stupid joke he'd made. He didn't have time to consider what she could do to make up for the bitterness between them, which clearly hadn't gone away overnight.
The truck jerked to a sudden stop. He heard the slam of a car door shut, followed by voices. He shared a wary look with Alex, who had pushed herself up straighter.
Today had been a bubble away from the harshness of their reality, but now it had caught up with them. Alex had made it clear she wanted to know more about his life in the Wasteland. He hoped she wasn't about to learn the hard way.