The Invasion of the Tearling

“We’re taking her in,” the black man announced.

“In there?” One of the shadows detached itself and resolved into a tall man with messy blond hair, dressed in a flamboyant woman’s jacket of bright blue silk. The rest of his clothing was utterly destroyed, and as he drew nearer, Lily realized that she could smell him, a high stink of something rotten. She didn’t like his eyes either; they had a bulging, manic look that Lily recognized from grade school, where several kids in her class had already been addicted to meth. When the man spoke, she saw that his teeth were a black-stained ruin. “She’s not going anywhere near my boss. She could be wired.”

The black man shook his head wearily. “They’ll scan her for IEDs.”

“Not good enough.”

“You’re in our house.” The black man produced a second gun. “That means my leader’s orders stand. When we come down to Manhattan, you can make the decisions.” He turned back to Lily. “Lace your hands on the back of your head.”

Lily did.

“Walk to your right. Stay close to the building, and keep walking until I tell you to stop. Try anything creative and I won’t think twice before I shoot you in the head.”

Lily nodded jerkily.

“Blue Horizon my ass,” the man in the silk jacket muttered. “Bunch of pussies.”

The black man ignored him, prodding Lily forward. “Move. Now.”

Lily walked forward, concentrating on the ground ahead so that she didn’t stumble or stagger. The man with the two guns wasn’t bluffing; he had the air of the war vet about him, a quality Lily recognized from Jonathan. This man would do whatever needed to be done, even if that meant shooting Lily in the head and throwing her body into the harbor. She wondered what time it was, checked the instinctive motion to look at her watch. She was halfway down the corrugated side of the warehouse when the man said, “Stop.”

Another group had emerged from the fog on her right. The leader was hooded, carrying some kind of assault rifle on a strap over one shoulder. But as they neared, the hood came down, and Lily recognized those blonde Goth-girl knots with no trouble at all.

“Rich lady. You’re kidding me.”

Lily had stopped, but now the gun prodded her forward again. “I couldn’t reach Jonathan. They’re coming here. At dawn.”

Dorian’s face was marked up with black paint, but Lily still saw her brow furrow. “Who?”

“Security. All of them. You have to get out of here.”

“Is she nuts, coming down here?” the black man asked. “I didn’t want to take the chance.”

“Not nuts, no,” Dorian replied slowly.

“I’m not,” Lily blurted out. “I swear I’m not. Please … you have to get out of here.”

“We can make her talk,” the man in the blue jacket offered, and the eagerness in his voice made Lily’s stomach turn.

“Not a chance,” Dorian replied, and Lily heard real hatred in her voice. “I know your methods, you prick.”

“You and your precious better world, where everyone’s equal to everyone else. But they aren’t, are they? You and your boss still treat our people like shit.”

“Your people are shit. Shooting up and whoring each other out and killing each other for the clothes off your backs.”

Lily heard a dry click behind her. Dorian looked past her and raised her gun. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m thinking about it, cunt.”

The men behind Dorian moved forward and Lily saw that they were all armed with the same weaponry: gleaming black cylinders that looked like some sort of military hardware. Lily had never heard of a separatist attack on a federal armory … but of course, she wouldn’t have. Security would never release that information to the public.

“We’re wasting time!” the man in the blue jacket snapped.

Dorian ignored him, turning cold eyes back to Lily. “Consider what you’re doing here, Mrs. Mayhew. Because if I find out that you’re here to fuck us over, I’ll watch you die slow.”

“I’m not,” Lily insisted, trying not to let hurt creep into her voice, for she suddenly realized the staggering level of her own arrogance. In those few days in the nursery, she had convinced herself that she and Dorian had built up some sort of trust. But the divide between them was vast, and any dream of bridging it was a rich girl’s fantasy. “Security’s already surrounded this place, water and land. They’re coming in tomorrow.”

“How would a wall bitch know something like that?” asked one of the men behind her.

“This one might,” Dorian replied thoughtfully. “She married into the DOD.”

Lily blushed. Dorian’s tone made it sound as though Lily had married her cousin and joined a family of inbred lunatics in their shack.