Twenty-three
The buildings away from the center of the Southlands are hardly more than a ruin that will, in a few more years, most likely crumble to dust and rubble like on the covers of those fantasy books that I used to love to read so much back home.
I don't say anything about it to Alex. He holds my hand and leads me quickly through the abandoned buildings. We avoid entering any of the buildings and instead find ways alongside them, mostly through a lot of shaded alleyways that make me nervous. It would be easy to trap us inside one of those narrow alleyways, but they'd have to know we were coming first, and Alex is certain that no one will be expecting either of us.
Every so often, we come to a wide open space between buildings like a courtyard, and he races us through and back to cover where he feels most comfortable. My feet slap hard against the concrete, but Alex doesn't say a word about it. Somehow, he manages to run quickly with very little sound.
Further on the outskirts, the buildings change slightly. Instead of tall buildings like workspaces or apartments, they're little houses with dead trees in dirt yards that each look like graveyards. These yards had most likely once been unnaturally green just like those at home with enough space. A garden has always been the sign of status. But it takes upkeep. Without a person to care for it, the garden withers.
Alex stops suddenly, his grip on my hand tightening. He pulls me back, pushing me slightly behind him. Ahead of us there is movement. Someone peeks around the corner of one of the buildings. Alex is tense, his back stiff. His stance changes slightly as a couple other people step out from behind the building. In the bright light of day, they squint at us, some crossing their arms across their chest as if to seem imposing but all I can see are their dirty old clothes, patched in some places, and ill-fitting on most of them. One holds a bat tightly in two hands.
A woman with dirty and worn clothes that are sizes too big for her steps forward. “Neither of you are from here.”
Alex gives me another shove with his fingers, as if trying to be sure I am perfectly aligned with his back. “We need passage. No fighting.”
I can see their eyes on me. One of the ones in front, a more burly man, grins and it sends a shiver down my spine. He's pinpointed me as Alex's weakness. I take a step back.
“Do you have something for us to buy passage?”
Alex doesn't move. I glance down at the bag he handed me back at the abandoned apartment. I saw stuff in there. Food and our canteen. Would that be enough to buy our way?
But Alex doesn't mention it. He shifts his weight, his head moving slightly as he scans the ones in front of us. I glance around. These were the people we ran into on the way in. Do they do this frequently? If so, this can't be their only plan. What are they really hoping to get out of this?
Alex is ready to fight. I see his hand hovering in the air, ready to reach for a weapon of some sort hidden on him. There are more of these people around us though. I can see one peeking around the building still in front of us. A small girl with large eyes who looks sickly from where I stand.
Maybe it's not the best idea, but I speak out, scared to let Alex loose, scared of what he can do when he isn't playfully sparring with someone he's also sleeping with.
“What do you want?” I say, my voice trembling. It's enough to get everyone to stop and turn except for Alex though I know I have his attention too by the way his back straightens and his hand at his side clenches. “We have food we can give you. And water.”
The girl with the bat looks at me and the bag over my shoulder. “I doubt you'd have enough.” She sniffs, but I can see the longing in her eyes. She's hungry. Or worried about the girl with the big eyes who peeks out further from behind the building to look past Alex.
“But it's something.”
I see the woman glance over at the younger girl. “All right.” Her voice is low, but it's clear enough. She looks down at the ground, and instead of looking threatening, she looks tired.
I step forward to hand her the food, but Alex puts a hand out and stops me. “We can't give you the water. We need it.”
That makes the woman angry again. She looks up at him and crosses her arms, the bat dangling from one hand. “Well, we need it too. There's no fresh water sources here in the city.”
I want to say that's a lie. Brandon and Henri had running water. But neither of them drank it. They both had extra water rationed for drinking.
Alex shakes his head. He refuses to budge. “I'll give you the food, but we need the water.”
The woman scowls. She glares at Alex, lowering her hands and the bat with them. There's no way she'll accept the deal, and I fear seeing Alex in action. These people are hungry and obviously thirsty. There's no way that they can fight him. Then her face relaxes and she looks down again.
“All right.”
The others beside her step back in shock. The big one's eyes go so big that they almost pop out. “Myrna, are you insane? We need the water more.” His voice is soft in his surprise as if he might slip some sense into her.
Alex pulls me close enough to grab the packed food out of the bag around my shoulders. Then he tosses it to the surprised large man in front. “That is our deal. Leave us alone.”
There is no desperation in Alex's voice. It's another warning. The large man almost seems to take it as a challenge. He glares at Alex, but he holds the food, and when Alex pulls me away from them, between two buildings, he doesn't move after us.
Alex tugs me along behind him, breaking into a such fast run with his long legs that I have to struggle to keep up. He doesn't stop until we're clear of the buildings and finally out in the open. I have no idea how long we were running, but it's long enough that my legs hurt and my breath is so heavy I have to put a hand to my chest to hold down my lungs.
He looks at me with worry as if it just occurred to him that this trip might be a little difficult for me, but then he looks past me the way we just came. I'm busy struggling with my breath when Alex suddenly pushes me hard enough that I fall on my side on the hard packed dirt. I roll over to a sitting position just as the large burly man from earlier jumps at Alex.
Alex falls backwards, pulling the man with him and sending him flying over his head with a shove from his foot. The man lands with a thud behind him and Alex is up and with a knife in his hands before the man has even had time to start rolling over to get up.
I hop up from the ground. No one else seems to be following him. Still, I get further away from the building in case someone else is coming after us.
Alex kneels down to the man with his knife pressed to the man's throat and a knee on his chest. I blink and look away, aware that Alex didn't ask for this. He didn't seek this man out. He even tried to go along with my plan.
The man struggles against Alex. Alex has his weight on the man, the knife still pressed firmly, but their eyes are locked. The man has stopped fighting and lays limp on the ground. For a moment, it seems that Alex has managed to knock him out with a look, but he shakes his head and kicks at Alex again.
It seems that Alex's power isn't always a guaranteed success. There is no choice left. If Alex leaves him alive, he could just follow us. It's not as if the man is exactly open to reason.
I turn and walk away from Alex and the man, my eyes to the ground, my hands ready to cover my ears in case death sounds as bad as it should sound. I don't want to know that Alex can kill a person. It doesn't make me feel any safer being with him alone to know he has that capability.
There's a sound behind me of crunching grass. I look back and Alex is walking towards me quickly. “I didn't,” he says and glances back at the man on the ground. “My power didn't work. I hit him.”
The knife is gone. Hidden away again somewhere on him. There is no blood around the man. He lies on the ground, the grass around him flattened out. As far as I can tell from where I stand, he seems to still be breathing.
Alex doesn't say anything else. He takes me by the hand and pulls me along with him into the long grass, off towards what looks to be a forest in the distance.
“What if he follows us?”
Alex looks down at me then back up towards the horizon. “He won't.”
His words sound so final that I don't question him. He has no way of knowing if the man will follow us, but I bite my lip and accept his words without argument.
In the forest, I stick close to Alex. There is nothing like this back home except in the special parks, and those forests are given upkeep to make them passable for the visitors. The natural forest is full of strange sounds and animals that jump across our path. Each time I jump, Alex smiles, but he doesn't laugh or say anything. He just takes my hand and gives it a squeeze before heading off after the animal to catch it for our food. Every so often he gives me water from the canteen, monitoring how much I take in so that we can make it last until we get to our next destination-- an independent village protected by a tribe friendly with the Southlanders.
But that's at least a few days away, and we lack food because I gave it all away to buy us safe passage in a move that didn't really buy us passage at all. Alex never mentions it, not even to remind me that I'm just a stupid Neutral who knows nothing. We both just walk quietly together as Alex listens to the sounds.
At night, Alex builds a fire for us as he works on skinning and cleaning the small animals caught during the day. He's efficient about it just like Aaron. The thought makes my stomach churns though I recognize that it could also be because I'm hungry, and I'm picturing having something cooked for dinner.
“Alex, why don't they live out here instead of next to the city?” I ask him quietly.
He has his knife in his hand and works on slicing from chest to stomach on one small furry animal. I look away from him and lean back, trying to keep the image out of my head though there is something hypnotizing about watching him work.
“They don't know how.” He says. “They are used to scavenging.”
“How have they lived so long there? Isn't there danger from the tribe?”
“Sometimes.” Alex is looking at me. His voice is clear, and so I turn my head, trying to ignore the blood on his hands and the decapitated creature in front of him. “Mr. Smith doesn't allow them to be killed unless they attack first or go where they shouldn't.”
I nod and then quietly look away from him again, out into the dark forest. Jimmy killed one of them. It doesn't make it any better to know that whoever it was most likely attacked him first. But it is strange that Henri would let them be.
“Are they humans?”
Alex hesitates before he nods and gives an affirmative grunt.
They are humans who live in the shadow of the city, scared to move on, possibly unable to. There must be more to it. Henri started a village for humans that he protects. Why wouldn't these people have just put their lot in with him and accepted the protection and regular food? I think of the girl with the big eyes again, and then I have to stop. I need to think of something else, anything else because I will not be able to come up with answers just like that on my own.
After setting all the small animals to cook over the fire, Alex disappears for a short while to clean up and probably use the “restroom.” He comes back with a couple of large leaves plucked from some plant that we use as plates. When we're through eating, we use the leaves to wrap up our leftovers.
Then we settle down for the night, lying on the cold ground. The fire in front of me is already starting to burn low. Alex doesn't feed it anything more. He checks around it to be sure that nothing nearby will catch fire, and then he lies down behind me, wraps an arm around my waist, and pulls me close. There's no point in my pretending I don't want him to hold me. It's cold, and the noises make me jumpy, but in his arms, I feel safe and that feeling makes me want to gag. It's such a cliché, but it's true. He's the only thing familiar to me here. I'm completely out of my element, and he's completely in his element. So I don't fight him. It doesn't take very long before I'm falling asleep, holding onto him tightly.