Naturals (2 page)

“There, sir,” Jones spoke up, pointing his finger to the horizon. Black smoke billowed against the gray of the overcast sky—a color that seemed forever connected to the lives of those forced to live in the compounds.

Henry strode toward the smoke without waiting for any of the rest of us, while McNair took a seat on the ground as if he were settling down for a picnic lunch. “Maybe we should see what’s happening over there,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky to their ears as it did to my own. As curious as I was about the cause of the smoke and the meaning behind McNair’s cryptic words, there was a part of me that recoiled from taking a single step forward.

“I already know what happened. But I think it’s a good idea for you to go,” he replied, looking at his gun rather than me when he spoke. During our first full day of travel, I had found it impossible not to stare at the outlawed weapon he carried so effortlessly. I’d never seen a natural armed besides the images the people who worked on the council’s propaganda sub-committee placed on television.

I tore my eyes away from the weapon and looked up at Robert. His face was still expressionless and he couldn’t meet my eyes. “He’s right. You should follow Henry.”

Neither Jones nor Eric made any attempt to budge, either. I took a deep breath and forced my legs to move. I couldn’t stand in that spot, frozen with fear of the unknown. I had spent a whole lifetime doing that, and it had done me no good. I passed the compound and wondered how a place filled with so many naturals could be so quiet, so still. The ground rolled slightly, and I pushed myself up the hill despite the continuous ache in my thighs.

As I reached the top of the hill, I spotted Henry’s back. He stood completely still, and he fixated me on that hill. The way the breeze stirred the hair on top of his head, how he almost seemed peaceful… I knew the minute I moved one inch forward, it would forever ruin that. Whatever he saw, I would see, too—another image I would never be able to erase from my mind.

The bodies. So many bodies.

Unlike the bodies of the chosen ones I’d helped bury, which had appeared to be sleeping rather than dead, these were not at peace. There had to have been dozens of them—children and elderly alike. No one had tried to protect the people who couldn’t save themselves. Fallen carelessly across the grass like a sea of wildflowers. The bodies were riddled with bullet holes crusted over in deep violet blood. One, that of a child who couldn’t have been older than five or six, had four wounds. Was one bullet not enough?

These were
naturals
, people the council claimed the chosen ones would protect. But someone had failed them. I wanted to cry, sob, wail for these people—people no one seemed to care about. These were
my
people, and I ached deep inside for what they’d had to suffer through.

“They missed,” Henry whispered.

I wanted to turn my head to look at him, but I couldn’t stop staring at the small child whose legs were covered by the bodies of an older woman and man. Were they his parents? Had they tried to protect him? Or were they merely two strangers thrown over him? Discarded like trash—exactly how the council saw us.

“That’s why they shot him so many times. The first bullet must have hit him in the leg or maybe the arm. And he ran. He wanted to live, so they shot him till he was dead.”

I momentarily wondered why Henry was speaking so quietly. We were the only living things around. I cleared my throat. “Who shot them?”

Strangely, I pondered what color eyes the boy had. Were his the same color as Henry’s, another boy who so desperately wanted to live? Henry had survived. He was here on this journey. He’d made the choice to travel with me, and even though I was still mad at him for keeping so many secrets, I clumsily reached my hand toward his, still keeping my eyes trained on the little boy. Henry’s hand found mine without much effort.

“Chosen ones.” McNair’s voice came from behind us. I could hear them, the rest of our crew. The mournful silence had been broken.

“Why?” I managed to squeak out, my throat painfully dry. I realized McNair had stayed back to give Henry and me time to discover the bodies on our own.

There are some things you have to see to believe.

“The council is losing the war. The easterners are getting stronger by the day. You think your government has gone too far playing God? You should hear what the easterners have been rumored to be doing. Talk about abominations. They don’t have time to worry about naturals anymore.”

“But with guns? I thought the council outlawed them,” I said.

“Looks like they changed the rules. Surprised?” McNair asked dryly.

“Besides, it’s quick. Efficient. And, no doubt, caught them all by surprise,” Eric added.

I felt a chill run down my spine. I had learned over the past couple of months that the chosen ones weren’t the monsters I had dreamed them to be, that their existence was more complicated than that. They were as much a product of the council’s propaganda as we naturals were. But I also saw what they were capable of, and I didn’t want to think of what the easterners were creating in their labs. If the council was reacting so quickly and harshly, they must have been petrified.

“But why kill them? Why can’t they just be content to let the naturals die out?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer—we had and would always be expendable. Science had guaranteed that. I just didn’t want to believe it was the case.

“The council doesn’t want to waste their resources. Why worry about naturals now that they are in complete control? Their lies about creating the chosen ones to protect us only needed to be carried out until they could build a new world, one where they would never be questioned. They’ll start with compounds like these near the boundaries between territories held by the Isolationists and easterners. And then they’ll destroy them all,” Robert said, coming to stand next to me.

“Like we never even existed,” Henry replied, his somber tone replaced with his usual bitterness.

“You won’t. They’ll erase every mention of the naturals ever recorded,” Robert replied.

“How do you know this?” I asked, unable to keep the skepticism from my voice. How could one erase an entire people from history? They would have to get rid of all the art, music, and books they allowed the chosen ones to hoard.

But hadn’t they been successful taking everything from the naturals?

“I know because I’ve been a chosen one a long time. I was a damn good one, in fact. I used to believe. Don’t turn your eyes from the truth—not now that you’ve come so far. The council was making a list of people from our compound—”

“The deportation list. But I thought that was to cover…”
To cover up my murder
. The council was willing to fake a deportation in order to hide my death because I was able to do what the council had told the naturals was impossible. I could create life, life outside the labs.

“The council is corrupt. It’s all rotten, the whole damn system. That’s why we’re going to bring it down. They’ve worked so hard to make us compliant, but they haven’t won yet,” Henry said through clenched teeth. I looked up at him, and I saw the fire in his eyes. Determination. This was the Henry who could kill young chosen ones and feel justified in doing it.

I thought of the things he’d witnessed as a child. Images like the ones we were looking at now. And for a single brief moment, I didn’t think he was so wrong. It was like a flash of lightning in the sky, this need for bloody revenge that awoke in me—it lit up the darkness for only a matter of seconds, but if it connected, touched anything…

It would be destructive.

I pulled my hand away from Henry’s and turned my back to the pile of bodies. It was important I see them, but that didn’t mean I had to memorize every detail. I had enough hatred still left in me, but I couldn’t go back to being the girl who solely saw what was wrong with the world.

“There’s a training center about two miles up. Should we go check it out?” Eric asked McNair.

“Training center?” I was surprised—they were so rare. A compound was one thing, but a training center seemed unreal. Impossible. What did the council need to hide so badly that they would settle here?

McNair nodded. “Nothing like Templeton. Much smaller. A different kind of training took place here.”

“Mind elaborating on that?” Henry asked gruffly.

“When the council first created the abnorms, they wanted to make them angelic. That way you simpletons would think you were safe. Something so damn pretty couldn’t possibly harm you,” Eric said, rolling his eyes.

“Abnorms?” I interrupted.

“It’s what we call your little chosen one friends,” he replied. “You know, ’cause they’re abnormal.” I wanted to argue, tell him about James, but I held my tongue.

“The easterners
never
wasted their time on looks,” Eric continued. “When they created their weapons, they didn’t decorate their army. They made killing machines. They took over their people by force not by subterfuge. And now the council is trying to play catch up.”

“You think it’s safe to go sneaking around a training center?” Robert asked, changing the subject.

“Of course it’s not safe. Nothing’s safe anymore. But the training center no doubt has something we can salvage, take back to the camp. We can’t risk not going there. Besides, with the war going as badly as it is, and them killing these naturals, they’ve more than likely abandoned this outpost altogether.” McNair didn’t allow any time for arguments as he started walking. We followed silently behind him.

I had run from one training center only to search out another.

Chapter 2

“And they call this small?” Henry asked as we walked through the halls of the training center.

I shrugged. “I guess compared to a place like Templeton, it is.” McNair was right. This training center was a quarter of the size of the one connected to our compound, but I could understand Henry’s dismissal. It was still a lot better than anything we’d grown up in.

The outside of the building was constructed in stone, a meshing of cream and yellow. Neither pure nor stained. Large windows—so large they were most certainly taller than me—faced any visitors. But the grandeur of the outside did not exist inside. Wooden floors replaced marbled ones, and unlike Templeton, the walls were not covered in delicate wallpapers. I didn’t see any fine linens covering furniture to protect against dust. This place was a bit more practical.

Henry let out a low whistle, running his fingers down the crème curtains of the windows overlooking the lawn from the third floor. He looked at me and I gave a lazy shrug. I wasn’t impressed.

“Got used to all that fancy living while you worked at Templeton, huh?” Henry asked. “These lodgings not quite up to your high standards?” He was trying to keep his voice light, but I could hear the tension beneath it. Anytime we talked now, the unasked questions muddled and distorted every word we spoke.

It was always the past versus the present—who we once were and who we had let ourselves become. Henry and I had grown close during our early days in the compound, bonding over our shared sullen natures. I ached for my father, who had been taken from me by the council, and Henry was shattered after watching his mother and sisters brutally attacked and killed during a failed escape attempt. He was my only friend back then, was all I thought I needed. But as I grew older, slowly becoming the woman the council had warned would be so dangerous, our relationship changed. Henry wanted me, and that was too dangerous of a world to enter—at least for me.

And so we lost each other.

By the time I sought him out again, looking for answers concerning the council and the chosen ones, he had changed so much. I still wasn’t entirely sure what part he had played in the murder of thirty incubating chosen ones, which his girlfriend Julia had carried out, but I knew he wasn’t the Henry of my childhood. The boy I grew up with couldn’t kill defenseless people, even if they were chosen ones. Julia had pulled the life system cords while the young ones were deep in a coma-like sleep. They never even opened their eyes.

Standing next to him, I wanted the old Henry back. I wanted a friend. Every step I took from my old life made me feel the loss of what I’d left behind so much more strongly. Maybe we hadn’t completely grown apart, but we couldn’t go back to who we had been, either. I knew that.

At the same time, I didn’t think I had completely figured out the woman I was supposed to be yet, and maybe he was just discovering the man he wanted to become. Perhaps we just missed out on part of our journey.

“Are you with me, Tess?” Henry asked, pulling me from my recollections.

“What were you saying?” I asked with a slight shake of my head.

“I was wondering if you would have liked living in a place like this? Must seem pretty dingy compared to a place like Templeton,” he said.

“My time there was hardly enjoyable,” I replied, leaning against the wall in the hallway. McNair and the other two men were scouring downstairs in the labs for medical supplies while Robert searched the first-floor bedrooms. Henry and I had been asked to search the rooms of the girls who had been branded and forced to serve the young chosen ones. It was the same sentence I had served while back at Templeton.

I reached my hand up and ran my fingers across the brands on the back of my own neck. These two slash marks would always be there, reminders of my sins against the council. They were my connection to the girls who had once lived here, symbols of the girls before and after me—girls the council had abandoned. Of my mother, who had been raised by the council to depend utterly on their handouts, to never ask questions. To never seek the truth. She had sought alcohol because she was too weak to deal with her pain, so when the council took her husband and her home from her, my mother didn’t know how to handle it, and she lost all control. My mother never cared what happened to herself or her family.

She wasn’t the only female in my family who suffered because of the world the council shaped. Emma, my sister who let herself feel too much. Louisa, my younger sister. Motherless, sister-less, abandoned Louisa.

I had abandoned her.

Suddenly, I needed to see this place. I craved to understand the story of the girls who had lived here, hoping that if I could discover more about their plight, I could find a way to make it end for others.

That I could save Louisa.

There were only three bedrooms on the third floor—another sign that this outpost was a far cry from our more centrally located one. We had already searched two of the rooms, only to find them perfect: beds made, clothes ironed and hung, nothing out of place. Not much different than the décor of the rooms at Templeton—basic. Bed. Mirror. Closet.

These girls wouldn’t need much. Their lives were dedicated to serving the needs of the training chosen ones. The girls were merely maids.

“It’s like they woke up, went to work, and never came back,” I whispered to Henry as we searched the rooms, afraid even the sound of my voice was an invasion of these unknown girls’ privacy.

“That’s probably exactly what happened,” Henry replied sourly.

We were both reluctant to search the third room. The faster we were done looking upstairs, the more time we would have to spend searching downstairs, and I didn’t want to look in the labs. My time in a training center’s lower levels had been…traumatic.

Memories of James weren’t the only ones I held on to. I also remembered the darkness. The fear. The terror that threatened to murder whatever soul I had left the moment I stepped foot inside the training center.

“You’re in for a treat,” the man said to me, his voice light with laughter. I had been ordered to report to the lower levels of the training center to assist the doctor with some mysterious task.

As I stepped into the room, I saw the mangled body of the rejected chosen one. He was so small and helpless, lying alone on the examination table. His body was deformed—one arm longer than the other, bruises and cuts covering his skin, his legs bent and broken at unimaginable angles.

I watched as the doctor killed him because he was weak. No good. Didn’t meet the high standards of the council. The young chosen one was expendable, just like the naturals his race was seemingly created to protect.

The council only needed to keep the illusion of their desire to protect us until they had enough power to stop any chance of an uprising by the naturals.

They would use anyone to get that power. Chosen one and natural alike.

And I was asked to clean up the evidence.

“You keep disappearing on me.”

I shuddered and turned my attention back to Henry. He leaned against the wall across from me, his long legs almost causing his toes to touch mine. He stared at me silently, studying me. I recognized the way he looked at me. It wasn’t only out of concern.

My throat went dry, and I found myself looking back.
Lanky but toned everywhere that mattered. His sandy blond hair was still shaggy. And his eyes. Bright green. Entrapment. It felt wrong to want to look back, but I did. I felt my cheeks flush.

It was only because he was nice to look at. And I was tired. Light headed. I had seen a lot of terrible things, and it was comforting to know there could still be beauty—that being a natural could still be beautiful. It couldn’t be wrong to acknowledge that he looked good. I just wished he didn’t make it feel so wrong.

Another pair of eyes, mismatched, haunting, flashed in my mind—James.

I would never see those eyes again. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I could get him back; he was gone to me forever. I had no hope of even knowing where the council had assigned him to work once his training was over.

“What?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious, tucking a strand of my no doubt insane-looking red hair behind my ear. I hadn’t showered in days, and here, among the finery of the chosen ones’ world, I felt the days of travel mark me even more. I was aware of the sweat and dirt that covered my skin. I was even more aware that I was alone with Henry, something I still hadn’t gotten used to after our years of silence—the many days that saw him turn from boy to man.

“You doing all right? I know that what we saw earlier was upsetting,” he said, looking at me like no matter how I responded, he was expecting me to fall apart at any second.

I pushed my shoulders off the wall and stood up straight. “I’m fine,” I said with as much determination as I could muster. “Should we go search the last room?” I would have preferred looking through the labs to talking about our feelings. The whole reason our friendship had worked when we were younger was because of our refusal to deal with such things.

“After you,” Henry replied, moving ahead of me and pushing the door open so I could exit.

The third room was just like the other two. There was nothing worth taking in there, just fine linens and porcelain washing basins. Why would we need such things in the darkness of the woods that lay before us? I casually walked around, running my hands over the dresser and bed frame—wondering how much the girl who lived here was like me. Did she suffer for someone else like I had? Or was she some sort of rebel, punished for speaking her mind?

“This floorboard is loose,” Henry said, shaking me from my thoughts. I knelt down next to him, and his hands went to work prying the wood plank from the floor. In a matter of moments, Henry was reaching down into the hole. “It’s a book,” he said, surprised, holding it out to me.

My hand jutted from my side, and I grabbed the book. No matter how many I had read with James in secret, the sight of one still caused a rush of excitement to overcome me. I brushed some dirt from the cover and read the title. “
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
,” I whispered.

“Now ain’t that something,” said Henry.

I flipped furiously through the pages, searching for any notes. James had filled books with his musings on life and his questions about me, and I hoped the girl who had lived here had done the same, but the pages were blank except for the words that had been printed on them so long ago. I remembered James telling me about this story but saying I wasn’t ready for it.

“Kind of weird, us finding a book with your namesake,” Henry said, nudging my shoulder with his.

It wasn’t weird. It was a gift. Maybe from God, maybe from Fate. Or maybe just from one trapped girl to another. I tucked
Tess
under my arm. “It’s just a book,” I replied, hoping my voice sounded casual.

Henry rolled his eyes. “Tell that to the council.” He sighed, stretching his arms high above his head. “I guess we should go help downstairs so we can get moving. Abandoned or not, this place doesn’t feel safe.”

I nodded. “You go on. I want to head back through the rooms and see if one of the girls was my size. Find some clothes.”

A slow grin appeared on Henry’s face. “Don’t worry, Tess. I’ve always had a bad sense of smell.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Well, I don’t. Maybe you should see if
you
can find something new to wear, too.”

“Are you telling me I stink?” Henry asked in a mock-serious voice.

“We
all
stink. You don’t get to be special,” I countered, moving to the closet door and pulling it open.

“Says the most special one of us all,” he replied quietly. “Before you get pissed, hear me out. I know we’re both as stubborn as mules, but bottling everything up that bothers us has never really worked in either of our favors. So, let’s have at it.”

My hand stilled, the closet door only a quarter of the way open. “Stop trying to get me to talk about stuff that I don’t want to discuss.”

“You need to talk about it eventually, and who knows when we’re going to get this time alone together again?”

Alone.

Yes, we were alone. Together. I cleared my throat and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“No. What I need, what I’ve always needed, is everyone to stop telling me what I need,” I countered, yanking the door the rest of the way open. He didn’t get to berate me about secrets. He was just as good at keeping them as I was.

Before Henry could mutter a single syllable, my eyes found her.

“Oh, my God. Is that—”

“Yes,” I gasped. “It’s a girl.”

Sitting in the closet was a girl. The waist of her dress was soaked with blood. Her eyes blinked.

She was still alive.

I stumbled back from the barely breathing girl. “Robert!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Help me! We have to get her out of there,” Henry pleaded, already moving toward the girl. “Tess!” he yelled. I hadn’t realized that I had frozen. In my mind, I had reached for the girl as well.

There was so much blood.