Daniel P.O.V
Me and Hosuh have been walking for a long time. I've lost track of how many minutes have gone by. Hosuh looks determined, but tired and weak. My ribs were aching and I wasn't sure how much longer I could carry Jay. It was cloudy and looked like it would rain soon. I nudged Hosuh and nodded towards a spot where we could rest. He sighed and reluctantly nodded. I gently placed Jay down on the ground and sat next to Hosuh. He looked like he wanted to keep walking, but stayed put.
Do you think we can find people that can help?
I don't know. Hopefully we can. I can check the map and see.
He took out a map and started to trace the roads. After a good five minutes, Hosuh nudged me and pointed to a road on the map. He traced it and pointed to where it leads. I see that there is a town. The town is where the healers stay, everyone knows that. Hosuh sits up, grabs Stephen, and hoists him up and starts walking. I scramble to follow him, lifting up Jay and carrying him bridle style. Me and Hosuh walk for a good three hours before the outline of a town appears on the horizon. I point it out to Hosuh, and he gets all excited. Even though we were both exhausted, we ran along the road. The town was getting larger and larger, my legs were screaming in protest but I kept running. Running this fast alone is difficult but carrying Jay? It was almost impossible, but not hopeless. We only start to slow down once we are at the front gates of the town. I turn to Hosuh and he nods, so we keep going forwards. We scan the buildings, looking for any sign of life. This town looked abandoned, a ghost town almost. Hosuh bumped me with his shoulder and tilted his head to a house. This house had lights on, and shadows moving. I get a boost of adrenaline and almost forget that I have the weight of another full grown human to carry. Hosuh started to advance towards the house and I follow. We get to the front porch, and Hosuh kicks his foot three times on the door. He couldn't use his hands, so that was the best he could do. I hear some shuffling and the door opens. We are grabbed and pulled inside by two pairs of hands. For a moment I lay on the ground on my back, trying to figure out what had just happened. Then I remembered I was carrying Jay, and I looked around for him. He was no longer in my grasp, and Hosuh didn't have a hold of Stephen anymore. I look up to see two guys with Jay and Stephen slung over their shoulders. Hosuh gets up onto his feet and takes his mask off, I did the same.
"Who are you?" He asked.
"I should be asking you that." The man with Jay said. "And why are you in our territory?"
"As embarrassing as it is, we need help." I stepped in. "We got in a crash and both of our friends are injured. We didn't have enough supplies of experience to figure out how to help them."
The two men looked at each other, then back at us. They dumped Stephen and Jay onto the ground and turned their backs on us.
"The Chief will see you soon." One of them said behind their shoulders. And they both disappeared.
Hosuh P.O.V
The two men leave the room and I crumple to the ground. I give out a long, heavy sigh and look up at Daniel.
"We are so freaking skewed." I say to him. " As soon as Jay and Stephen figure out we went to Healers for help, they are going to be so mad."
"But they will also be alive." Daniel says as he sits down next to me. "If we did not seek help, what would have happened?"
"True." I had to admit it. We would have been helpless alone. "I keep on wishing that this was just another one of your stupid pranks."
Dan scoffs at this. "I wouldn't have the heart to do something like this to you." A girl stepped into the room.
"I hear you two have some trouble with your friends." She said.
The girl was about our age with pink hair tied neatly into short pigtails. She was short, a little shorter than me. The girl reaches out her hand and looks at me with expectant eyes.
"The name is Ann. And you two?" She says.
I take her hand and she pulls me up. "I'm Hosuh. And this is Daniel. The two lifeless lumps on the ground are our friends."
"Yeah, we can change the lifeless lumps into alive humans." Says Ann. She seemed like she knew them. "Come on, you guys look like you just ran a marathon."
She leads us to a living room and I plopped onto the couch. Daniel sat down next to me and Ann brought in some tea. The two guys we saw earlier bring in Stephen and Jay and drops them onto another couch. Daniel looks uncomfortable and starts to fidget. I pat him on the back but he doesn't look up. Ann tries to stir up conversation.
"So, how are you guys?"
"Tired." I say. "We walked a long way to get here."
"I assumed so. No one really lives over here but my little team." She says. "I don't exactly go out into the open that much, I just order my people what to do and cook."
"Does your group have a name? Like, our name is the Karambits."
Ann chokes on her tea. Daniel looks up, but still not lifting his head. "Did you say, Karambits?" she asked, making she heard correctly.
"Yeah, have you heard of us?" I ask.
"You know one of your lifeless lumps that has purple hair?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Okay, let me sum this up. My group is the Leitas." Daniel looks up. She continues. "He's my best friend."
Daniel P.O.V
Wait, did I hear that right? This Ann girl is the leader of the Leitas? She claims to be Stephen's best friend? Impossible, we were his friends. My thoughts were interrupted by Ann's voice.
"I have been trying to find Stephen for a long time. I was on vacation when this all started. When I came back, I called Stephen, but he didn't answer. I got worried, and lets just say I have a lot of friends at school. I told them that I would give them protection if they helped me. One of them said that they saw Stephen with a group called the Karambits. So I sent people after you guys. I needed a name for my group so I chose the Leitas. Leita means 'find' in Old Norse so I decided it was a good idea since I started the group to find Stephen."
I fall back on the couch and exhaled. I hadn't realized I had been holding my breath until I felt the cold sting in my lungs. Hosuh started to ask questions, but I was in my own world. Trying to figure this out is a maze, and I was ending up in dead ends. Why did Stephen not tell us about knowing Ann? How long did he know her for? Was she lying? Did she really know Stephen? My brain was usually buzzing but this was overkill. None of these I could answer right now. I couldn't solve this mystery. Stephen would be really good in this situation. He was great at any riddles I put by him. I look glance over at where the Jay and Stephen were placed. They were gone now, probably in the medic's office. What if this was all a trick, and we were going to die from this hooligans. I tighten me fist as I think of that.
"iel. Daniel. DANIEL!" Someone poked me hard in the side. It was Hosuh. "You were hurting my arm."
I looked down and saw that my hand was wrapped around Hosuh's arm tightly. I release his arm from my grasp and saw that I left red nail marks. He looks at me with a curious tint in his eyes. Hosuh pats me on the shoulder and keeps talking to Ann. I can feel myself getting drowsy and tired. I try sitting back up to keep awake, but just end up closing my eyes. I fell into a spiral of nightmares as sleep washed over me.
I wake up on the same couch, Hosuh and Ann gone. Slowly, my eyes adjust to my surroundings. Around the room was Stephen and Jay sleeping peacefully on a couch. I get up and walk to another room to find Hosuh curled up sleeping on a chair. I move on to a different room to find the kitchen. Ann was making some food by the stove. I walk up to her and tap her on the shoulder.
"Do you really know Stephen?" I asked, looking straight into her eyes. One thing I learned from living with Jay is that if you look right into the eyes of your prey, they become weaker.
"Yes, I do. Do you doubt me?" She was staring back now, keeping a steady gaze. She was good at intimidating.
"It's just that Stephen never told us about you." I kept my guard up, just in case. "It's very strange that the leader of a group that has been trying to hunt us down appears and claims to be Stephen's best friend."
"Isn't everything in the Tainting kind of strange? The fact that humans have split like this, anarchy and bloodshed just because the faults of earlier generations? The way that friends become enemies and family become betrayers that try to sell you to get gas masks? When you see your own brother get slaughtered because he crossed the wrong, invisible lines?"
There was silence, I had nothing to say to that. Ann's eyes were red and her fists were shaking. She breaks eye contact and punches the wall. Some bits of tile crumble onto the counter. I turn around, knowing that I should get Hosuh to deal with this, but he's already there. In the doorway, the little brother of the Karambits was standing against the frame. I walk out to escape the situation that I got everyone into. Hosuh sighs and follows me out. I fall on the couch and he just looks at me.
"I heard the entire thing." He says.
"Well good for you." I say. "It's not my problem. And it's not your problem either."
"I still feel bad." Stephen moves a little. "I think Stephen is awake now."
I look over in time to see Stephen fall off of the other couch. He opens his eyes and quickly gets up. A confused look spread onto his face as his surroundings came into his view. Stephen looks at me and Hosuh, and we look back at him.
"Where the hell are we, Hosuh?" He asked. Stephen was clearly annoyed. "This isn't the car, and why is Jay passed out? How long have I been passed out for?"
"We got in a crash, the car was obliterated. You were dying. You know, a classic Tuesday for you." replied Hosuh. He was being sarcastic, weird for Hosuh. "If we didn't seek help, you and Jay would have died. And yes, we did consider that this goes against everything but I think that you will be happy that we did get help."
"How? We can't trust the healers." Stephen was angry now. He stepped closer to Hosuh, trying to scare him. "They can turn us in. We can lose our freedom and end up rotting in a jail cell until the air pollution kills us."
"Well I think that your idea of going to help is damn stupid." Hosuh was looking up at Stephen for once. This was very strange and has never happened. Hosuh only argues, and never to Stephen or Jay. "You could have died and I carried you for at least six miles to get help. We all could have died if we stayed put trying to fix problems with useless materials."
"Well I think I should step in before one of you kill the other." I say. "Stephen, the leader here claims to be your friend. Her name is Ann."
Stephen turns over to me, breaking eye contact with Hosuh. "Did you say Ann? With pink hair?"
"Yeah, you know her?"
"Where is she? Ann?" he called out. And she appeared from the kitchen doorway. Her face lit up at the sight of Stephen.
Ann ran over to hug Stephen and knocks him onto the couch next to me. They start laughing and hugging while me and Hosuh look at each other. I get up and go over to Jay to try to wake him up. Jay is sleeping silently and still, his face stuck in a neutral expression. I shake him and his arms flinch. His head rises and looks over at Stephen and Ann, who are now sitting next to each other talking. He looks back at me and Hosuh. Hosuh is in the doorway, leaning against the frame and looking at Stephen and Ann. His expression made him look like he was going to kill Ann. And with what happened, I was pretty sure he was going to do it. My gaze falls back on Jay, who was getting up off of the couch. Jay strides over to the kitchen and disappears into the room. I sit down on the couch where Jay had just left, my head spinning and struggling to get a grasp of the situation. What was going on?
TBC