Escape (Alliance Book 1) (14 page)

She knew he was the worst of the guards at the compound, everybody did, this Keller, the one with the ugly mustache on his face, always smelling like those disgusting smokesticks. She watched him sneer at the mutes and even at the girls, watched him humiliate Drake, their Drake, in a way that made her blood boil, never quite seeming to care if anyone was around to see it either. He was the worst of them all, and she wished for him to drop dead from the smokesticks or just slip and fall on the freshly wet floor when he was stumbling half-drunk to his room at night and break his neck. She saw in him the people who shot Riley's dog, the ones who took her away from her family, the ones who kicked at Riley's ribs while his hands were bound. She could see him having done all of those things as if she was just watching a memory of it in her mind while she was crouching next to his dead body, and it made her so angry that he just lay there, unable to feel any pain, she kicked him, couldn't help kicking him.

She knew he was already dead and couldn't feel it, and that it didn't matter that she was kicking him now, but she just had to do it. And as soon as she was done, and Laurel pulled her away, she saw Riley standing there with that look in his eyes, as if she was some kind of monster. And maybe she was. Maybe there was something she wasn't aware of about not kicking dead bodies. And all that stuff Drake said about how he died, it made him sound almost decent, but she knew full well he was never decent, and it just made her even more angry that Drake, of all people, seemed to feel pity for him. She didn't want Riley looking at her like that, or Laurel, for that matter, so she sent her back alone, needing to think, needing to figure out what she did that was making them stare at her like that.

And she almost had it in her head, how she would tell Riley, but not quite, and suddenly he was there, demanding it from from her right then, and she wasn't ready yet, and then he lied, and she knew he was lying, and the lying brought all her anger back. She would have known he was lying about wanting to kick dead Keller even if she couldn't see his face. When he said it, she just couldn't picture him doing it. In the same way she knew for sure Riley couldn't have kicked dead Keller in the ribs, she knew that her doing it and wanting to do it made her something that Riley could never be, no matter how many horrible things happened to him. That's how she knew for sure that there was wrongness in what she did to Keller, and she knew that Riley and Laurel saw it in her, and that's why they looked at her like that.

She knew then what was bothering her about all of this so much, making her feel so angry. She couldn't be who Riley thought she was anymore. Maybe she never really was that girl he liked, the one who couldn't shoot him, the one who took care of him. Maybe she was just too scared to shoot him. Whatever it was, she felt like she was lying to Riley about something terribly important, and him liking her felt every kind of wrong after that. She had to stop it, before it got her to a place she couldn't come back from.

It would stop eventually anyway, she knew it would. The next time she did something that was not okay, he'd like her a little bit less, and then even less than that, and soon he wouldn't like her at all, and she didn't want to be there for that. Didn't want to be hurt by him not liking her, so when he offered himself up like that, she hit him, as hard as she could, and it almost killed her to do it to him. She could see the hurt in his eyes, not from the pain either. It was that same hurt she saw when she told him about Ella and how she gave up his name. This was like that, only there were no tears in his eyes this time, just sadness as he watched her hit him. She hated him for not stopping her, for not grabbing her hands. He could have stopped her any time he wanted to, but then he wouldn't be Riley. Riley would take it for as long as she needed him to, and she hated him for that too.

Nobody said anything to her when they made it to the edge or the road and started into the city. Not even Laurel was talking to her, as if they all knew what she did to Riley. Maybe they did. His face was still splotchy and he still hadn't looked at her once. She almost ran up to him a few times when it was still just the two of them and told him everything, but she couldn't find the words for any of it.

Laurel matched her steps to hers now, glancing at her face and deciding to keep whatever she wanted to ask or say to herself. She was putting everybody on edge today. At least they weren't in the woods anymore. They entered into this enormous street, the one with insanely tall buildings, these statues of steel and glass, the windows so tall she couldn't think of how anyone could possibly wash them, but these had no paintings on them. They were looming darkly over them, barely reflecting their faces. Still not a sound anywhere, except for their footsteps and an occasional rusty screech of metal awnings as they swung in the breeze. They walked down this street for a long time, Riley and Drake in front of everybody, guns drawn and buzzing.

They should have seen something by now, a dead body even, or a dog or vultures, her implant reminded her, the birds that always descended on the dead or the dying, the ones probably pecking at Keller now. She couldn't take anymore of this silence, so she turned to her oldest friend in the world, hoping she wasn't still angry at her for last night or for this morning. Hoping her friend at least could forgive her. Laurel was always quick to forgive everybody.

"What do you think we'll find here?"
Anything better than this silence.
"I don't know Ams, but I don't like how it feels being here. Something about this is just wrong. It shouldn't be this clean and this empty if everybody here was killed, you know? There should be something, birds, animals, even wild ones, bugs. There is just nothing, and it scares me," she said it in her little Laurel voice and the silence wasn't so bad after that.

Riley stopped ahead of them, waiting for them to catch up, looking anywhere but at her. She blushed, remembering the hurt in his eyes, the sadness she put there, and looked away from his face. They were standing at the entrance to one of these impossibly tall buildings, and Riley was holding the door open. Drake went in first and Riley stayed back until everyone was inside, and then closed the door behind them and put a metal stick in the handles. The stick was a small sign post of some kind, now missing its sign.

The lobby was dark without the lights, even during the day. They got on the elevator and Drake hit the second to last button at the top, 22. She didn't know buildings could be that tall or that elevators could go that high up, and was petrified it would break and they would fall all these stories down in this giant metal box, and then it would collapse on top of them and squish them into the tiles of the floor, like ants. They would be squished like ants. The thought made her shiver and she shoved herself into the corner away from them, as far as she could press, not looking at anybody, and hoping nobody looked at her.

Finally, the doors slid open with a ding that made her jump, and they were out of this box. She stopped for a minute to get her breathing back to normal. She just needed a minute. She bent over, hands on her knees, forcing herself to breathe, in and out, and then she saw him standing there, looking at her, just not in the way she wanted him to look at her, as if she were a small child who needed help using a knife or something. "I'm okay, I just needed a minute," she said quickly, needing him gone. He nodded and walked away, and it took longer than a minute now because of him being there.

They were all in the enormous room at the end of the hall when she caught up to them, sitting on various furniture that looked entirely unlike the furniture she was used to. The couches and the chairs here all looked too large for a normal sized person, and they looked comfortable. A large wooden table with 18 chairs around it occupied the middle of the room, and there were paintings and photographs hanging on the walls.

She sat in the chair in one of the corners, farthest away from where Riley was by the window. He was addressing everyone from there, while looking out, "This looked like the tallest building in this city, so we should camp out here for a little bit to try to figure out what happened. This should give us the best vantage point. We'll split up and keep watch on both sides of the building, so we don't miss anything. But we should be safe enough and comfortable enough here for a bit, provided we can find some food. Drake volunteered to go searching for some after we rest up a bit. I'm staying here with whoever wants to join me. We need two people at least at the other side."

She knew she had to get out of this room, any room that had Riley in it, so she got up and walked out into the long winding hallway, not looking to see if anyone followed her, not really wanting anyone to, not even Laurel. She followed it all the way around to the other side of the building and there it was, another enormous room with the same everything in it. She couldn't figure out why anybody would need two of exactly the same rooms that weren't bathrooms or for sleeping. It didn't make any sense to her. She walked over to the window and looked through the glass at the street below, and it made her almost faint, this looking from so high up. She felt herself go dizzy and had to grab onto the windowsill to not fall.

"You'll get use to it, Amelia. The height. It's normal, what you are feeling."
He said it matter of fact like, and she couldn't take it, this Riley, still helping her, "Please leave, Riley." She hoped it came out less choked than it sounded to her.

"I can't do that, Amelia. It takes at least two people to keep watch, and nobody else wanted to come, so it'll have to be me." He didn't sound angry. Just flat. And him calling her Amelia made her insides hurt. She couldn't turn around to look at him, not until she was calm enough, but between him being here and looking at the world from this inhuman height, she couldn't do it, couldn't get her heart to stop racing. She heard him walking toward her and just closed her eyes, not knowing what else to do, feeling more scared of what he'd say or do than she ever had of anything before, even Drake that night when she thought she got caught.

"I won't hurt you, Ams. Even if I ever wanted to, I owe you for what you did for me when we first met. I couldn't ever hurt you." His voice quiet and soft now, more like old Riley, but there was tension in it too. It made her ache, hearing his soft voice, and him calling her Ams again.

She felt him move and then felt his hands on her shoulders and she jumped at the touch. She didn't mean to do it, didn't know why it hurt so much just to have his hands on her like that, and she felt bad for it, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump like that. I'm sorry." She felt like she was holding her insides from breaking apart in her by sheer force of will, and everything was threatening it. Riley and his soft voice was threatening it. She needed him gone, but couldn't say anything to him, not without letting more of the tension that held her together go, so she stood still, not looking at him, digging her hands into the windowsill, holding her breath.

His hands were gone, but she could feel him standing right next to her, so close she could hear him breathing. Too close.

"Just bloody talk to me, Ams. We can't keep going at it like this. I can see it's killing you, and it hurts to watch you like this, and I want to wrap my arms around you, but I can't, not after what you did to me. Not until I know why you did it. Please, Ams, tell me what the hell happened today," he said softly and took her by the shoulders and turned her around, not letting go now, trying to get her to look at him, but she didn't trust herself not to cry if she saw any of what she did still on his face, so she kept her eyes closed, while she told him all about Keller and how it scared her afterwards, the way he and Laurel were looking at her, and how she felt the wrongness of what she did, but she couldn't help it.

And she told him that all of it made her feel that it was wrong for him to like her, that she never wanted to see him look at her like that again, like she was a monster, so she did the only thing she could think of to make him not like her anymore. And how she wished he'd stop her, but she knew he wouldn't and how she felt like an even bigger monster because then she was truly angry at him for letting her do it to him. He was holding her tightly to his chest, and she was sobbing into him, feeling like the biggest idiot for it, and knowing that she didn't deserve his comforting her now, but she couldn't move away, couldn't move at all.

"You are not a monster, Ams. You are just doing an awful lot of growing up in a hurry, that's all. Please stop hiding from me. I have to tell you something, and you have to let me." He moved a little back from her and lifted her face up to his by her chin, and looking at her still tear-filled eyes leaned in and very gently planted a soft kiss on her lips, "I've been meaning to do this for weeks now, only you weren't supposed to be crying for it. You are stuck with me, Ams, if you'll still have me, at least until you truly want to walk away. But no more secrets, Ams. I can't do that with you."

It was almost morning when she woke up on the couch, under a pile of blankets. This was the most comfortable sleep she's had since they ran. Riley was at the window, looking into the emptiness below, "Drake found us enough food to last for a week at least, but he didn't find anything else. It's like all the people disappeared from here, but everything else seems entirely intact. It doesn't make any sense. Even the lights work, and the water. Just nobody to use any of it. I can't figure it out, Ams." He was supposed to wake her up so he could get some sleep, that was the deal.

She walked up to him and peeked out through the glass. Nothing's changed. Not that she expected it to. Something in her already decided that they were the only people here. She heard Drake at the door, "Nothing on our side, Riley. Ella's made everybody breakfast. I'll bring you some," and he was gone. She always wondered how such a large man moved so quietly. Drake moved like a ghost. If it wasn't for that sage smell on him, she'd never know when he was there at all.