I'd never carried a gun before.
Of course, there had never been any need to. That and the fact that New London had some of the strictest gun laws in the world, which meant you had to be a pretty seasoned criminal to get your hands on one in the first place. The only times I'd even seen them were from behind the barriers of authority: they were carried by security personnel, police offers, soldiers. Not civilians, and certainly not eighteen-year-old girls.
And yet here I was, as up close and personal with one as somebody could get while remaining on the right side of the barrel. I stared at my reflection in my bedroom mirror as I slid the gun into the holster slung on my waist. I didn't look comfortable in the slightest, the weapon a completely foreign object that I could barely work out how to hold. But who could blame me?
For a few blissful moments, storage unit A had seemed like an abstract concept. From its first mention, right up until the second Art slid the key into the lock, it was one big blank – which meant there was no opportunity for it to bear any weight on my current state of mind. What I didn't know couldn't hurt me. But as one swift movement of Art's arm threw open the door, and I got my first look inside, everything changed.
Walls upon walls were hung with weapons: firearms ranging from the tiny handguns I might've been able to handle to full-sized rifles whose weight looked like they could topple me over. All collected from the ruins of the city, picked up from the most haunting places. Concealed cupboards in family living rooms. Garden sheds next to kids' climbing frames and swings. Slipped into the lining of pillow cases.
Even fifty years ago, they were illegal; the people of Birmingham weren't supposed to have guns. But desperate times called for desperate measures – and I guessed people did things they normally wouldn't when faced with the impending threat of starvation.
Perhaps the last scraps of food that would keep you alive were worth killing someone else for.
I tried not to think about it as I pulled my shirt back down over the holster. It stuck out from beneath the fabric, an awkward bulge protruding from my waist, and its weight would certainly take some getting used to. But I didn't have a choice. Under Nova's orders, we all had to carry these now – and it might even save my life.
There had been some training, but it was minimal. Though Nova did her best to maintain an aura of confidence, I wasn't convinced it was particularly authentic: unless there were major gaps in my knowledge about how she'd spent the last two years, she didn't have any experience of handling guns either. There were some basic instructions about safety, aim and pulling the trigger. That was it.
In some ways, it was like the blind leading the blind.
But I guessed that was better than the blind lying on the floor, waiting for death.
We had to carry them at all times: that was the new rule. According to my sister, any moment we let ourselves go without was like placing a target on our backs. And then, in addition to the weapons, there was everything else. With no training and no experience, we had to become a division of BioPlus security overnight – while our most powerful asset was Nova's anger that we'd been left to do it all alone.
There was, however, one positive: Jace was now well on his way to recovery. A couple of days in the makeshift sick bay had treated him kindly, especially with Thomas kept close to change his bandages and administer medicine. We weren't sure if he had the supercharged immune system that was characteristic of modified kids; though he was sure he could remember bouts of illness throughout his life, his entire perception had since been skewed, and his immune defences could well have been as hardy as ours. Still, it seemed silly to take the risk, what with the gaping wound on his leg, so Thomas took antiseptic precautions anyway.
If only instant wound healing had been a trendy DNA addition around the time Jace and I were created. It probably existed, but I guessed most parents hadn't seen a use for something so drastic in a city as safe as New London. We were designed for life in the capital, not a warzone.
Still, there was a weight off my mind now that Jace was back on his feet, even if it was offset by the gun beneath my shirt. Thomas found him an old pair of crutches from the store of medical supplies, which meant he was up and walking, albeit a little unsteady. Every time, it was a relief to catch a glimpse of him, despite his limp and the padded bulge of bandage visible beneath his trouser leg. He'd catch my eye, give me a knowing smile, and suddenly everything would seem a little better.
I craved that feeling, the reassurance I got purely from being near him. Perhaps it was a sign of weakness, that I couldn't muster it up alone. But I couldn't bring myself to care. When the reality of constant surveillance and concealed weaponry hit a little too hard, he was the first place my mind went, a reminder that I didn't have to face everything alone.
I'd never experienced anything like it.
That night, lying in bed, the same feeling came over me. Sleep didn't come easy on the best of nights, but this was in a whole other league. Suddenly, the fact that I was alone in the room seemed overwhelming, like the absence of another heartbeat and rhythmic breathing was squeezing all the life out of me. The gun on my bedside table didn't help. It only emphasised the enormity of the situation, while forcing my brain to revisit the event that had brought us here in the first place... the moment in which I'd emerged from the trees and for the most awful, agonising second, thought I'd been left alone in this world...
I jolted upright in bed, unable to take it any longer. Swinging my legs over the side of the mattress, I left the gun untouched on my bedside table and made for the door.
I knew where I was headed, and I didn't care how many of Nova's rules I was breaking by doing so. It wasn't enough to stop me approaching the door at the other end of the corridor, reaching up and knocking softly.
At first, nothing happened. The silence dragged on long enough for me to wonder whether he was already asleep, deep enough not to hear my knuckles on the wood. But then I heard the creak – the unmistakable sound of weight on the floorboards – and the door cracked open.
As the light from the hallway seeped in, Jace's pale face seemed to glow ethereally against the darkness. Unsteady without his crutches, he reached out to grip the doorframe for support.
"Hey," I said.
His frown softened instantly. "Hey."
I was supposed to say something else: that much was obvious. But as my next words evaded me, I realised I hadn't actually thought this through. So I went with the first thing that came to mind. "Mind some company?"
He didn't even think about it – just pulled the door open wider to let me in. As I stepped into the darkness, I couldn't make out more than the vague shapes of furniture in his room, but the almost identical layout meant I could find my way to his bed easily. I stuck out my hands to feel for the mattress, using them to guide me as I lowered myself onto it. Jace lingered somewhere near the door; I didn't need to see him clearly to know he was there, looking on.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.
"No," I said quietly. "Not really. With everything going on... I guess I've just got a lot on my mind."
He moved closer; I felt the shift of his presence before the mattress sunk down under his weight. "You and me both," he said, and though it was softer than before, his voice had all the more impact up close. "I was actually considering knocking on your door, too."
Without saying anything, I lay back, letting my head sink against his pillow. Jace did the same, and I twisted onto my side to face him. I could only make out the vague outline of his features in the dark, but it was enough to know he was close, and that was all I needed.
"It's hard to sleep with a gun on my bedside table," I said.
"Yeah." He nodded. "Tell me about it."
Under the covers, his legs shifted, and I felt the rough bandage brush against my skin. I swallowed over the lump in my throat. The wound was healing, but the physical reminder was still very much there, and I wasn't sure I'd ever learn to ignore it.
"How are you feeling?" I asked. "With your leg, I mean... but I guess everything else, too."
He let out a long exhale. I didn't just hear the sound; I felt the breath on my cheek as well. "I'm okay," he said, though what had come before didn't exactly convince me. I guessed we were both trying to save face as best we could, despite being able to see straight through the other's mask. "More or less."
"You know you can talk to me, right?" I said. "Any time."
I could hear the slight smile in his voice, even if I couldn't see it. "Isn't that what I'm doing right now?"
I smiled too. "Well, yes – but I mean you can come find me any time. It doesn't have to be in the middle of the night, when one of us ends up sneaking into the other's bed."
"I think you'll find that it's usually you doing the sneaking," he joked. I couldn't help nudging him in the side. "No, of course I know that. Part of me does feel a little guilty about unloading everything onto you, though."
"Like I don't do exactly the same thing."
"But I don't mind listening."
"Neither do I."
A heartbeat's pause lapsed between us. I could tell Jace's eyes were trained right on me, for all that he could manage to see in the dark. "Well," he said, "I guess that settles it, then."
"I just feel like... the guns have changed everything," I admitted. "In the space of a few days... everything's started to feel a little off. I guess we're all trying our best to adapt. It's not like we're trained soldiers, is it?"
"No," he murmured. "It's not."
Purely by his voice, I could tell there was something more on his mind – something that had yet to find its way out into the space between us. Not wanting to push it back with my own words, I stayed quiet.
"I keep going back to that moment," he said eventually. "When it happened. I keep playing it over and over again, and every time I feel that same flash of panic and excruciating pain in my leg... but I can't picture it. I keep trying. I know the others are counting on me for information – especially Nova. If I could just remember the guy's face, remember the kind of gun he was carrying, remember even the slightest detail about him... it could help. But I can't. What use is that?"
Frustration tinged his voice; I could tell he'd been beating himself up about it for a while. "Your mind's probably blocked it out," I told him gently. "It's a perfectly natural response. It was a traumatic experience, so your brain's probably trying to protect you."
"But I'm not natural," he pointed out. "I'm modified. I thought that was supposed to help."
"What do you mean?"
"You always remember," he said. "Don't you?"
I paused, caught off guard. "Well, yes, but..."
"Then why can't I?" he asked. "Why isn't this helping me? I thought this whole modification thing was supposed to give me an advantage, actually do something for me... but what's the point of losing my identity when I haven't even got anything to show for it? I'm a failure."
His pain cut right through my chest, lurching into my heart with all the precision of a blunt knife. "Jace," I said, reaching out for his hand in the dark. There was a moment of hesitation before he let his fingers link with mine. "That's not true. How can you think that?"
"I can't do anything useful. I'm the one who went wandering and got myself shot. I scared the hell out of you when you came to find me. I wasted everybody's time when they had to drop what they were doing to come help me. And how much time and effort has Thomas spent patching me up? I've run down supplies of bandages, antibiotics... and now what? Everybody's living in fear, terrifying themselves by carrying weapons they barely know how to use, and I can't even manage the most basic job of remembering one thing about the guy who shot me."
"What are you talking about?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing, how brutal Jace was being to himself – and he couldn't even see it. "You can't blame yourself for this."
"Why not? It's true."
"No, it's not," I said adamantly. "You can't think that way. There was a guy in the woods for a reason, and if he hadn't come across you out there, I'm willing to bet he wouldn't have just given up and walked away."
He didn't say anything, but a shift of the pillow seemed to suggest he'd ducked his head, so we were no longer at eye level. "Jace," I breathed, my insistence seeping away as desperation began to weave its way in. "What's going on? You can't think like this. There was nothing about what happened this week that was in any way your fault. And you are not a failure. In fact, you're about the furthest from it you can get."
I waited for the silence, but instead there came a sniff, and my heart dropped.
"I'm sorry," he said, the words unsteady and wavering. "I just... I don't know what's going on in my head sometimes. Some days... I just can't seem to get a grip on anything. I don't know whether it's what happened this week, or knowing I'm modified, or just being so far away from everything I know... but sometimes I want to make a break for it and never come back."
"Hey." He hadn't moved his hand, leaving our fingers still intertwined, and I gave a reassuring squeeze. "It's okay, you know. To not be okay with all this. For us especially. Our whole lives have been turned upside down in, what? The space of a few weeks? It was only a month or two ago that we were at Old Stratford. If you're finding it difficult, it's not because you're a failure... it just shows you're not a robot."
He didn't say anything, but his face lifted in my direction.
"And I, for one, am very glad you're not a robot," I said, managing a smile that I hoped translated into my voice. "Because, to say the least, it would make how I feel about you very, very weird."
Another movement, and suddenly our eyes were level with each other again, except this time our faces had moved a lot closer on the pillow. The valley of separation spanned mere inches, and somewhere along the way our legs had tangled together too. If it had been possible to deny it before, it certainly wasn't now. Neither of us could ignore this if we tried.
"Honestly," I continued, because it still didn't seem like he was about to volunteer to say more, "I couldn't do this without you. I couldn't be here without you. When I found you in those woods, and I saw all that blood... I swear, for a second, it felt like my whole world came crashing down around me. And if you're the person that's stopping that from happening, then... well, that doesn't seem like a failure to me."
At first, this was met with silence. And without a clear view of his expression, it was long enough to make me wonder if I'd said the wrong thing.
But then I knew I hadn't.
"You mean everything to me, Astrid," he breathed. "You're the one thing that makes it all worth it. I couldn't do any of this without you."
Despite everything, despite the fact that I'd seen the darkest thoughts inside Jace's head, despite the whole reason for taking solace here in the first place being that I was struggling with the realities of this cold, violent world, an undeniable warmth rose inside me. From inside my chest, it spread throughout my entire body, a pleasant tingle stretching out towards my fingertips and creeping up my neck and sharpening every nerve ending. The outside world couldn't touch me here. Curled up in this cocoon of covers, my limbs tangled with Jace's until we could barely tell ourselves apart, we were safe in our own little haven. This wasn't Birmingham, this wasn't anywhere we knew, and we didn't have to define it by the horrors of the outside.
I only wished we could stay here forever.
I didn't really think about what to do next; it just happened. My hand broke away from Jace's, and joining my free one, found its way to his face. With that, I pulled him closer, and it was only a moment before our lips collided for a second time.
He kissed like everything I remembered, and somehow more. His hands snaked around my bank, trailing upwards until they tangled themselves in my long curls, his body pressing closer to mine like the space between us was toxic. If we wanted to stay in our world forever, this had to be the way to do it.
We broke apart naturally after a few seconds, our faces still so close on the pillow that I could feel his jagged breath on my skin. Up close, I noticed things that had never occurred to me before. The solid muscle in his arms, making for a comfortingly strong grip, even though he'd always struck me as fairly skinny. The way, when I ran my hand over his chest, I could feel his heart racing in the heat of the moment. The shape of his neck and shoulders, which seemed to carve out the perfect space for my head to fit into. Suddenly, it was all as clear as day.
"Do you think we'll make it out of this?" he asked, after we'd been still for a while, his voice daring to edge across and break the silence.
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"This halfway existence," he said. "Being here, fighting, for something that may or may not ever happen. We just want to be free, don't we? I keep dreaming of the day we might be able to go back to New London, where everything will have blown over and all the problems will have been solved... where nobody will even mention the word modification, and if they do, they won't have an inherent problem with it. Do you think we'll ever get there?"
It caused me to stop, think, really consider it. The vision contrasted sharply with something already in my mind, though I couldn't quite pinpoint what. Truthfully, what had I been expecting to come of all this? I knew it wasn't a permanent arrangement; it would've taken a great deal more strength to keep me going with that kind of weight on my mind.
And yet I couldn't conjure up my real vision for the future. It felt too far away to comprehend, not just temporally, but in its unfamiliarity too. For things to right themselves again, there would have to be seismic shifts in the world, the moral compass of an entire population changed. People would have to stop thinking that modified humans were some kind of enemy, something to be feared and locked away for everyone's safety. They would have to start seeing us as people, who deserved the same rights and respect as those with perfectly natural DNA.
The way things were right now, I just couldn't quite imagine it.
"I don't know," I told him honestly. "I don't know where all this will lead. I mean, I know what we're fighting for, but I don't know where it leads."
"I keep thinking about what I had before," he said. "Before everything kicked off, before my dad set up BioNeutral, before my life got turned upside down. My last memory of normality. I should want to go back there, right? It would make sense. But when I think about it, and I mean really think about it... I start to remember things. How my dad would lie to me, and I'd be naïve enough to believe the terrible excuses. How he dictated so much of my life. How he refused to tell me about my mother, because for some reason I didn't deserve to know..."
He trailed off, his words disappearing into nothing as he attempted to straighten out his next set. "I don't want to go back," he said. "Not now I've realised. Not now I've changed. I want to move forward, and the only thing I can figure out right now is that I want to do that with you."
My breath caught in my throat, and I blinked, holding Jace's gaze with a pounding in my chest. It was a startling admission, broaching the territory of commitment, one I hadn't expected to hear. But it didn't scare me. The unexpectedness and unfamiliarity didn't push me away. In fact, it only made me want to pull him closer.
"We will get out of here," I told him, renewed by a sudden sense of confidence, a firm belief that I hadn't even realised was held in me. "There's nothing I want more than to make sure of that. When this is all over, we'll go back to New London, together, and finally live how we were supposed to. No picking sides. Just the two of us, the rest of our lives, and however we want to spend them."
I watched the corner of his lip curl as a genuine smile crept onto his face. "That sounds good to me," he said, as his hand reached for mine again. The tiny brush of our skin alone was capable of making my heart skip a beat, and I wondered whether I'd ever get used to it. "Although I wouldn't mind something a little more definite."
As his thumb stroked my skin, over and over in a soothingly repetitive motion, I blinked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"Do you promise?" he asked. "Promise that we'll make it out of here together?"
There it was, right in front of me: his biggest and most far-fetched hope, waiting for me to take it in and confirm it. Of course, I had no means to give a guarantee. Our future was as much in my control as the weather, and I couldn't predict anything particularly accurately. All I could give him was the best of my word.
But somehow, that felt like it would be enough.
"I promise," I said, pulling up my hand to place a gentle kiss on the back of his. "I wouldn't want it any other way."
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Hi, guys! Sorry for the slight delay in uploading this chapter -- it was giving me a bit of grief and I couldn't seem to get it the way I wanted. HOWEVER, I think I'm finally happy with it (or at least happy enough to upload).
I'm REALLY excited about this one for obvious reasons (#jastrid) and I REALLY hope you guys have joined me on board THE SHIP THAT IS ALREADY SAILING. I know we have a few rogue shippers among us (those who prefer Astrid with Art/Henry) but I hope this makes a fair few people happy.
Let's have a chat in the comments! There are so many of you following this story and faithfully voting on each chapter but I'd LOVE for everyone to get more vocal! I'll hop into the comments section to reply, so be sure to let me know :-)
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Leigh