Naturals (6 page)

Chapter 6

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

I could hear his words dancing inside my ears. Tempting me. He always tempted me. Lured me from what was right. Safe.

As I stared at myself in the reflection of the river, I couldn’t see it. At least not the way James did. There was nothing perfect about the construction of my face, but he always said that was what he loved most.

“No. You are,” he said.

I knew it was only a memory talking to me, but I closed my eyes, willing myself to hold onto it as long as I could.

“I… When the other boys would talk about the female naturals, the Templeton girls,” he said, “I never got it. Sure, some were attractive, but I never felt that thing. You know. I mean, I would read about it in books, but I never understood it. Then I saw you in the damn piano room. And I felt it. Want. I wanted you.”

I licked my lips, savoring the moment I knew would next replay in my mind.

“Do you want to kiss me?” I asked him.

The tighter I closed my eyes, the easier it was to pretend I was back there in that room with James. The first boy I ever let kiss me. The only boy I was so desperate to kiss again.

James grabbed me by the arms and pulled me closer. Then he slowly—painfully slowly—leaned toward me. I felt a shiver run down my spine at the mere thought of what was about to happen. When his lips pressed against mine, it was so light I wondered how a kiss could ever be considered a sin. When his hand moved through my hair, I pressed against him harder. My heart sped up. This was the line it was so dangerous to cross. The first boy I ever let kiss me.

All it took was the snap of a twig branch behind me, and just as I had lost the boy I loved, I lost the memory, too—at least for the moment. I ignored Henry as he approached, closing my eyes, trying to pretend I was back there in that room with James. And for just a second more, I could see his face, so close to mine. I licked my lips, savoring the moment.

“We have to keep moving,” Henry said, holding his hand out toward me and shattering my recollection. “Here, I’ll help you. The terrain gets a bit rocky ahead.”

I stared at his hand, and slowly my eyes made their way up his body. Lean. Strong. He never looked like the other compliant boys of the compound. He never knew how to be at rest. My eyes briefly fell on his lips, and I felt my own go dry. I swallowed.

I missed being kissed.

The council had spent years convincing my people that women were to blame for our eventual extinction. We had weakened our men through our lust, infected them with it like some disease that had no cure. It was in our nature to be ruled by our emotions and bodies.

For so long, I tried to deny that I felt any stirring of desire. I saw it as the weakness the council proclaimed it to be. But I couldn’t stop the way desire consumed me when I was with James. He awakened it in me, and I wasn’t sure I could ever go back to the way I was before.

I didn’t want to go back.

I missed being kissed. And I was shamed by it.

The council wasn’t entirely wrong when they proclaimed that these feelings were a bit dangerous.

Henry pushed his hand closer to me. “Let’s go. The sooner we’re out of the woods, the better I’ll feel.”

I hesitantly grabbed onto his hand. He gave mine a quick squeeze before leading me toward where the rest of our crew waited, having graciously given me some time alone.

That night, Henry slept closer to me than he had ever slept before, and I didn’t protest. Our journey to the Isolationist camp had been strenuous. While I welcomed memories of James, when they were gone, replaced by the stress of traveling through the dangerous woods, all I felt was alone.

I missed him so much.

I wasn’t foolish enough to convince myself that Henry was James, but it still felt good to have someone near. I had gone so much of my life shutting off any part of me that desired to feel anything, and I never wanted to go back to that.

Then there was the obvious—I would never see James again.

I liked Henry. I missed our friendship. We
were
friends, and it didn’t seem wrong to sleep close to a friend. So when I went to bed that night, I tried to ignore the guilt that still lived within me.

I’m not sure what woke me in the middle of the night, but when I opened my eyes, it was to find Henry no longer just sleeping close to me—he was right next to me. He lay turned on his side, and I could feel his breath tickling my neck. His pinkie finger lightly grazed mine. Without warning, my whole body erupted in a million little goose bumps.

A traitorous sigh escaped my lips. Henry, somehow sensing my reaction, shifted in his sleep. He curved his body even closer to mine and his arm snaked around my waist. I could feel the weight of it through my much-too-thin clothes.

It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling. In fact, it felt good.

I could have moved. I should have moved. But Henry was asleep; he wouldn’t be aware of this moment in the morning. It would carry no meaning for him—it would only hurt me. Except it didn’t hurt. For the first time in days, I felt at peace. So I closed my eyes and enjoyed it.

The problem with allowing myself to feel was that I always felt too much, and without Emma, I didn’t know who to talk to about it all.

I only hoped we would reach our destination soon.

Chapter 7

I sucked on the end of my sleeve, hoping to get it as wet as possible. I knew no matter how hard I scrubbed my face, it wouldn’t come clean.

“Stop that,” said Henry, moving my hand from my face. “You aren’t going to get everything off, and now it looks like you slobbered all over your arm.”

“Any idea what’s taking so long?” Henry asked Eric. McNair had informed us that he would be traveling ahead to talk with the community members, to recap our adventure. Then he would send some men to retrieve us. He left Eric behind for our protection, but I wondered if it wasn’t to make sure we wouldn’t run. They had gotten us out of the council’s territory, but that didn’t mean we were free.

“This isn’t a beauty pageant. No need to worry what you look like,” Eric said, leaning against a tree. A few days back, the forest had become less and less dense. Whenever I imagined the life the Isolationists lived, I pictured crude huts nestled in some backwoods place. When we were taught about the Isolationists in school, we were told they were heathens, men and women who lived so immorally that they shunned all social conventions. Uneducated. Unruly. Dangerous. I expected the worst. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. They had created their own city. A settlement of houses made from the very woods that protected it.

Eric had informed me that for years and years, the first settlers scoured for supplies and cleared away buildings damaged by the war. The city’s location was north of where the bombs fell. McNair told us that the community shared several of the larger structures as lodgings at first, but when they gathered enough supplies, they built new structures. They were afraid the old ones would crumble down on them just like the country they’d once belonged to. When I asked how they got food, he revealed that several miles outside the borders, the community operated farms. Every morning those who tended to the land walked miles to the location, rain or shine. Others were given tasks inside the community’s boundaries. If you couldn’t contribute, you had to leave.

I wondered what I had to bring to the table. Besides the obvious.

“What’s a beauty pageant?” Henry asked.

Eric grinned. “One day we’re venturing out into the border cities—real mess they are, but it has to be done sometimes—and we come across this warehouse. The place is covered with paper. Kind of like newspapers but with all these crazy headlines.
Aliens Kidnap the President.
Government Creating Flesh-Eating Virus
.
Miss America is Really a Man
. So, the boys and me get bored and start reading them. Turns out there used to be these competitions where girls sauntered around in their underwear and men gave them scores.”

“In their underwear?” Henry asked, a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Yeah. None of this prim and proper stuff,” Eric replied, throwing a look at the clothes I’d taken from the compound. Gray skirt down to my ankles. White cotton shirt with a high collar and long sleeves. Covered. Hidden.

“Yeah, before the council had everyone convinced that if a girl showed you her elbow, you’d go so bonkers that you wouldn’t be able to control yourself. Poof. There goes rational thought! How can we ever be trusted to control our own emotions?” Eric joked.

Henry let out a low whistle. “Damn. The good old days.”

I scowled at Henry as I pulled self-consciously at my shirt, frayed at the edges from the numerous times it had gotten caught on trees. My skirt was stiff and caked with mud.

“Don’t worry, Tess, you look fine. Everyone in there knows what you’ve been through,” Robert added.

That was true. And what they didn’t know, McNair would tell them. I wondered if they would feel I was worth what they’d lost. And then I had to remind myself it wasn’t about me at all; it was only about what I could do.

I don’t know what I expected. No. That’s a lie. This moment had played over and over in my head throughout the journey: I imagined the Isolationists would line the road as I walked by, taking me in, judging. The men would salivate. Not because I was some great beauty, but because they would see in me their chance to never die. I could bear their children. I would be a prize sought after.

I never felt that it made me prideful to think these things. I didn’t seek out this moment. I was used to being treated as an object—the chosen ones in Templeton were forced to see us girls as such, to use and abuse us knowing we would never fight against them. I assumed these people would see me the same way. Knowing that even if I spoke out, my only option was to run back into the forest—the unknown.

But there was no parade. No pageant like Eric had talked about. Henry, Robert, and I followed behind the group of men that had now joined McNair and Eric. While there were a few people milling about, none of them more than glanced our way.

And Eric was right. No one in this place would care what I looked like. Despite the fact that I had spent the past month of my life on the run, most of the community members appeared little better than I did. Haggard. Much too thin. Clothes too big or too small.

Desperate.

The majority of the people who wandered from building to building were old. Much too old to work, but the roughness of their skin, the way the sun had claimed them as tributes, indicated they had given much of their lives to seeing this place survive.

Makeshift barriers of barbed wire and wood protected the border of the settlement. About every twenty feet or so stood a man, rifle in hand. They were the only evidence that youth existed in this place. And much like the elderly, these men didn’t seem to care that we had arrived.

There were four housing buildings, each three to four floors high. The front of the buildings were accented with a porch, but otherwise there wasn’t much to them. Slightly better than the compound, but nothing compared to the elegance of Templeton.

“You’ll be stationed in building two,” McNair told us as we passed. “There are about twenty other families in there. We roomed you all together. I assume you don’t mind.”

None of us answered. Would they care if we did?

“Now, I believe it’s best I tell you upfront that the living out here will be mighty different than what you’re used to. Everyone’s rations are based on what they need; we got nothing to spare here. We have little running water. You get a bath once a week. There are latrines located between each of the buildings,” Eric instructed.

“Latrines?” Henry asked.

“Fancy holes in the ground for you to piss and—”

“They get the picture, Eric,” said McNair before turning to us. “You’ll meet before the community leaders, and then Eric will show you to your rooms. After that, you get one day to rest.”

“And then what?” asked Robert.

“You work. Tess and Henry will join the farmers,” said McNair.

“And me?”

“Well, Robert, we’ve got a special project for you. We couldn’t just let a man with your skills go without a purpose,” Eric said with a grin.

I shuddered. Robert nodded.

“And what if I don’t want to be a farmer?” Henry asked.

“Everybody works. If you can prove you bring something else that’s useful to the community, then we’ll let you do that. Till then, you help where we need it,” McNair replied.

Henry opened his mouth to object, but McNair cut him off. “Look, we took a mighty big risk bringing y’all here. And we don’t have a lot of rules we ask you to follow. But the ones we do, we expect you to keep. What’s yours is yours, and don’t worry about anyone else’s. Contribute to the community. Pull your weight and don’t complain. And if you do got a complaint, you bring it to the leaders.”

“Sounds fair to me,” I spoke up. I could tell Henry already had a lot of objections, but I wanted to find our rooms. I wanted to sleep in a real bed. I wanted that bath. There would be time to figure out our place soon enough.

I was informed that my meeting with the community’s leaders would be alone. Or at least without my people. Despite both Henry’s and Robert’s objections, I was rushed to them without any thought of ceremony. As we walked toward the building, I tried to focus my breathing. Keep calm. This was an important meeting. First impression. I couldn’t come across as weak—I would have to convince the community members to go on another rescue mission. Persuading them also meant proving that I could handle going back.

I wasn’t weak.

I had survived.

The community’s main center reminded me of the dining hall back in the compound. It was filled with row after row of tables. All wooden. Gone were the metal and steel I had grown accustomed to. The place was empty with the exception of a small group of adults who sat at the end of one of the tables. I was pleased to see the group was made up of both males and females. The council had worked so hard to convince the naturals that women were to blame for our countless defeats in war, that it was our natural, inborn wantonness that affected the men around us, rendering them useless, emotionally driven simpletons.

If these were the leaders of the community, it was obvious that some things here had changed for the better. That was a small comfort.

“Don’t be shy. What’s your name?” asked a man with longish dirty blond hair. His face, like many of the other men’s, was covered in a beard.

I cleared my throat and took a small step toward the group. “Tess,” I replied.

“Did you think about searching her?” asked a second man, who was focused on a cup in front of him that was filled with a mystery liquid. I wasn’t even sure he had seen me at all. He was balding, and a scar ran across the crown of his head, almost as if someone had tried to cut his scalp clean off.

“Search her? She’s just a girl,” McNair said.

“Yeah. We’ve traveled with her for quite a bit, and trust me, there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to this one,” Eric replied, playfully punching me in the arm. I wanted to contest his branding of me, but the throbbing in my arm let me know that perhaps he was spot on. Years of merely existing hadn’t formed me into the kind of people who now stood before me.

“This girl you’re so quick to label as weak sure does have the council scared. Unless I’ve been misinformed, she seduced a chosen one, took on the punishment of a fellow natural, and tried to escape. On her own. I think she packs a bigger punch then you give her credit for,” one of the leaders said. I didn’t know the man’s name, but I suddenly liked him. I couldn’t help but stand a little taller.

“That may be true, but you two are idiots for thinking she won’t betray us,” the unnamed man continued.

“Excuse me? Betray you?” I asked indignantly.

“You abandoned your own people. And worse than that, you’ve…well…you’ve had sexual relations with a chosen one,” he charged.

My face heated up. They were all looking at me now. And if I wasn’t mistaken, Eric took a step away from me. I could see it in their eyes, could hear it in my head. All the words they wanted to say.

All the words within which men tried to trap women.

I lifted my chin. “My sex life, or lack thereof, is none of your business.”

The man with the cup sat back in his chair and looked me up and down. “Isn’t it, though?”

“Stop that, Al. You’re scaring the poor thing,” spoke a woman. She couldn’t have been much older than forty. Her long hair was clumsily thrown into a ponytail, pieces escaping and framing her face. Her eyes looked kind, but I knew how deceiving appearances could be.

“Yes, enough. Sharon’s right. You’re scaring her,” McNair chided. “I brought her in here to meet you. She knows the rules. There’s no need to search her. I vouch for her, and my word should be good here.”

I’d never liked McNair so much.

The woman called Sharon offered me a smile before pushing out of her chair. When she stood up, I saw it. The bump. She was pregnant.

I felt the color drain from my face and had to force down the images of Emma and Julia that always came to my mind when I thought about sex and children. Sharon reached out a hand to me and I cringed. I didn’t want her to touch me. Not now. Not ever.

She was death personified.

Sharon put her hand over her swollen abdomen. “Don’t worry, dear. I am like you. This will be my fifth.”

The words echoed inside my head:
like me
. No, I hadn’t chosen
that
life. Just because I could…that didn’t mean I had to. Right? I felt the weight of everyone’s stares on me. Was this what I was brought here for? Not to be studied—no, that I expected. That I understood. But was I to be a breeding machine? I looked at Sharon. Haggard. Her hips large from many years of carrying children.

A walking, breathing scientific lab.

Salvation.

I shook my head and backed away. “I didn’t come here to do this,” I said, pointing a shaky finger toward Sharon’s abdomen.

“Easy. No one said that was your job,” McNair soothed.

“None of that has to be decided right now. You are, no doubt, tired and need your rest,” Sharon said.

“Can I go to my lodgings?” I whispered. I could feel a panic attack stirring inside. It was one thing to throw my ability in McNair’s face while trouncing through the woods, but it was entirely different to hear my worst fear spoken aloud.