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The wall I’m leaning against with my back feels like ice. It’s in sharp contrast with the warmth of Luca’s head on my legs and a sleeping Adam in my arms. I groggily stare past the bars of the room I’m in. How did I end up here? It all feels so unreal. A part of me still hopes that Mark will kiss me awake soon – that it will turn out to be a lazy Sunday morning, one day away from an ordinary workweek. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for that to become a reality. But of course holding out hope is pointless. This is life in all its hideous glory. This is what I’ll have to settle for.
The two guards are on either side of the door and keep a close eye on all our movements, guns cradled in their laps. The rays of sun shining into the prison room are receding with each passing second. Dusk is setting in. It won’t be long before I’ll be subjected to utter darkness once again, like a long-lost friend waiting in the corner to embrace me. A shiver runs down my spine. I can’t say I’m looking forward to meeting him again, fenced in behind bars like this.
I turn my head and carefully observe Steph. The bars between us divide my brother into separate pieces of him, but the cut-up version of Steph is still clearly smiling to himself.
“Why the hell are you smiling?” I snap.
Like me, Steph is sitting on his prison bunk, his legs pulled up. Sasha brought us some pillows an hour ago, as well as some food and drink. She also brought mashed banana for Adam. She said she had to pop out and get something else, but she hasn’t been back since. If I were in Steph’s shoes, I’d feel betrayed and question her motives – not just as a girlfriend, but as a human being in general. Steph, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care one way or another.
My brother shakes his head, still smiling. “This situation makes me smile.”
“You think this is funny?” I ask incredulously.
“Totally. You don’t?”
“How can you possibly...” I swallow the rest of my retort. Instead, I ball my hands into fists and clench my jaw. What the hell is wrong with him? It’s obvious that Sasha’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal – could Steph have lost his mind, too? I stop myself from saying it out loud, though. I don’t want to pick a fight with him. He’s the only family I’ve got left, and even though I had imagined our reunion very differently, I can’t be picky. I should be thankful I even got to find him again at all – that we’re both still alive. And yet... I sigh, nervously biting my nails as I whisper: “Steph. They’re all dead.”
“Who?” The smile remains, though it falters slightly.
“Mom, Dad, Joey, Hannah.” I quickly swallow the lump in my throat.
My statement is followed by silence, which he breaks by saying: “Yeah, I figured.”
Yeah, I figured? What the fuck?!
“That’s all you have to say?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know!” I fume. “But just saying that makes it sound like you don’t give a shit.”
Steph doggedly stares ahead, devoid of emotion. “Well, I could break down and cry, but it won’t bring them back, will it?”
“No, but...” Disbelievingly, I shake my head and decide to try a different angle. “What happened to Kim?”
“Kim?”
“Yeah, you know, the love of your life. The one you professed your undying love to.”
“Ah.” Steph shrugs carelessly. “Haven’t seen her in years.”
“I thought you guys were planning to get married. That didn’t happen, then?”
Steph’s eyes bore into mine. He squints at me before slightly baring his teeth like a dog that’s growling at me. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“But isn’t it...” I say, still confused.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” He flies off the handle, jumping up and gripping the bars between us so tensely that his entire body shakes. Of course, the bars don’t budge at all. “Nothing from our past matters anymore. The past is dead and gone – all of it. There’s no point talking about it or reminiscing about things. It’s gone!”
Adam jolts awake due to my brother’s rant and he looks around frantically, just like Luca. Fortunately, he doesn’t start to cry.
Like this is the final straw for them, the two guards jump up and rush forward, pointing their rifles at Steph.
“Get away from those bars, my friend,” the guard who introduced himself as Harvey an hour ago says. The rifle in Roy’s hands is shaking, but he holds on to it intently.
My heart beats in my throat.
Steph lets go of the bars, grinning again and sticking his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Calm down, boys. My bark’s worse than my bite.”
Luca growls at Steph like the words made sense to him.
Steph sits down on his bunk, staring ahead unyieldingly and at no one in particular.
The way he exploded shocked me, but I can understand he’s been through a lot. I can’t hold that against him. “What happened to you?” I inquire softly.
He remains silent for a beat before he looks at me. “The same thing that happened to you, I suppose.”
I don’t truly get what he means by that, but I decide to let it rest for now. I don’t want to scare him off. And yet, I can’t resist asking him something else. “What about Sasha?”
“What about her?” Steph sighs.
“I don’t know. Something’s off about her. Something...”
“What?”
“Something weird is going on.”
Steph shrugs. “Nothing’s wrong with her, trust me.” Apparently, that’s all I’m getting.
Four more hours pass slowly. The dark has embraced us, interrupted only by the pale light of the moon that pours in through the window. Roy has fallen asleep in his chair, being the top-notch sentinel that he is. He’s slightly sagging down in his seat, the rifle balancing on his stomach. His colleague doesn’t tell him off – he’s not far off from falling asleep himself. His eyelids droop lower with each passing second. It’s a battle he’s bound to lose soon. Not that it matters – it doesn’t change our situation in the least. We’re trapped in here with no way out. And to be honest, I’m not even trying to figure out how to escape. I can only applaud these people for locking us up, and a part of me is strangely convinced that this council of theirs will see that we pose no threat. They’ll let us out of here and make us a part of their tribe.
A soft, murmuring sound pulls me out of the dream world I unwittingly slipped into. I open my eyes and look around in surprise. Luca is curled up into a ball next to me, his nose blowing warm air against my arm. Adam is kicking his little legs in his sleep. Other than that, I see nothing remarkable. Well, by now both Roy and Harvey are out like a light and Roy’s almost slipping off his chair... but not Steph. He’s staring ahead, fully awake, the moonlight glistening in his eyes.
For a split second I consider the possibility that the sound was only present in my dream, but then I hear it again. Sharp and gurgling.
“Can you hear it too, Steph?” I whisper.
My brother turns his head to face me and nods. The look in his eyes frightens me – so intense, so fixed on me.
“She’s coming.”
“Who?”
Before he can reply, the front door slowly swings open with an ominous creak.
Roy and Harvey don’t take notice.
In the doorway is one of the guards who was posted outside when we came in. He gives me a glassy look. I eye both him and the world behind the guard suspiciously, holding my breath when I see the shoes and legs belonging to his colleague appear beside him.
The man opens his mouth to call out to his colleague, reaches out with his hand, then stands rooted to the spot. The moonlight is only illuminating his feet, but I can still see something black running down his chin. Instinctively I know it is blood. When the man tumbles forward and hits the floor with a dull thud, not moving anymore, I let out a shriek. Both Roy and Harvey jump to attention. In a panic, they scan the room, but they miss the dark figure storming into the prison behind their backs. One hand slips over Harvey’s mouth to muffle his cries, the other is wielding a knife. Harvey’s throat is slit and blood gushes out of the cut. Harvey drops his rifle and claws at his throat, but drops down before his fingers have reached their destination. Roy whips around and aims his rifle at the woman, but she’s much quicker. She plunges the knife into his heart and pulls it out with ease, then snatches the keys to the cell doors out of his pocket just before he hits the floor.
Luca’s barking frantically. Strangely enough, the ruckus hasn’t even woken Adam. Again, I envy his innocent ignorance.
“Here. Make yourself useful.” The woman sticks her hand between the bars of Steph’s cell and tosses him the keys. Then, she turns around and steps outside to cast a furtive look around before she starts dragging the second guard’s lifeless body into the prison building.
“You took your sweet time, Sasha.” Steph gets up with a grin. He tries a few keys before finding the right one to free himself. He opens the door and steps outside.
Sasha seems to have no trouble at all with dragging the heavy corpse inside. She’s pulling his left leg and in her hands he seems light as a feather. Once she’s back inside, she closes the front door. “I had to take out the mountain guards who were keeping an eye on the prison first.”
Gasping for breath, I press my back against the wall while my eyes flit from left to right. I’m trying to make sense of the events of the past few minutes, but I’m having a hard time with it. “Steph, what’s going on?”
Steph grabs a rifle off the floor and turns around. “Oh, come on, sis. You can’t be that stupid.”
“She’s related to you, though,” Sasha teases him. She sits down on her haunches and wipes her bloody knife on Roy’s shirt. In the dim light, she’s nothing more than a vague shadow.
“She’s related to Steph, not to me,” my brother replies.
Only then do I connect the dots. “You were both pretending. You’re angels.”
“Correct,” Steph confirms. He walks over to my cell door, fiddles around with the keys until he finds the right one and opens the squeaky door for me. “Just like you.”
“I’m not like you.” I put a protective hand on Adam’s head, feeling my rage flare up inside. How could I have been this stupid? Why didn’t I see this coming?
“Sure you are,” Steph replies. “It’s just that your soul has managed to suppress the angel in you.”
“Touch her, Memphis,” Sasha says. “Give her celestial alter ego a hand.”
Steph shakes his head. “I don’t think that’ll help. Will it?” He looks at me inquisitively. In the moonlight all I can make out are his forehead and eyes. His soulless eyes... how did I miss that before? “You’re stronger than him, aren’t you?”
I don’t say anything. Instead, I furtively look around, searching for a way out. I’m considering the possibility of calling out for help, but I’m afraid of what they will do to me, Luca, and Adam if I do.
“If you’re not planning on giving him back control over her body, why didn’t you just shoot her earlier today?” Sasha wants to know.
“I don’t know about you, but it pains me to kill one of our own kind,” comes the reply. “Besides, I was hoping to use her to find out if and where the humans were hiding, and I could sense the angel in her. And then I saw the child and got an even better idea.”
“Which is?”
“Easy – we’re taking the baby with us. If she ever wants to see him again, she’ll have to surrender to her inner angel.” He shoots me a devilish grin. “Since only angels can sense where the other angels are located.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do with a baby?” Sasha raises her eyebrows.
“We’re not supposed to do anything with him. You’re the one who’s going to keep him alive.”
“Dream on.” She gives him a scathing look. “Besides, I don’t get it. If she really allowed the angel within to resurface, she’d be able to find him, sure, but what would be the point? The angel trapped inside will kill the baby with his bare hands, given the chance.”
“What a predicament to be confronted with, right?” Steph says almost gleefully.
I shoot him a baffled look and feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“Not kidding, darling.” And with those words, he takes a menacing step forward. Luca growls, snapping his teeth at him, but Steph doesn’t seem to care.
“I say we just shoot them.” Sasha grabs the other rifle and points it at me.
“No, you don’t.” Steph pushes the muzzle away. “Lower your weapon or I’ll make you.”
Sasha laughs. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Pull that trigger and the next bullet’s for you, I swear.”
Both Sasha and I ogle Steph disbelievingly now. What the hell’s he up to? Is it possible that Steph – the real one, my brother’s soul, locked up deep within the recesses of his own mind – can still partially control this body and mind? Is this some strange way of protecting me or a cruel way to torture me by giving me hope?
Sasha shakes her head and sighs before lowering the weapon. “Whatever. If you feel like wasting time, be my guest. As soon as we tell the others how many people are hiding out here, it won’t be long before they come here and kill everyone, including her. And even if no other angels come round, they’re still doomed. During the few weeks I spent with these survivors, I’ve counted at least ten whose teeth are beginning to fall out or whose excrement is mixed with blood. Radiation is a sly killer.” She wags an authoritative finger at him as she continues: “And get this: you’ll be the one carrying the damn baby.”
“We’ll see about that.” Steph approaches me. I utter a cry and flinch. Luca’s barking his lungs out. Surely someone will hear him and come have a look? I can see Steph raising the stock of his rifle in the air, but I miss the next moment: him slamming it against my temple with brute force. “Good luck making your choice, sweetheart,” I hear him say. Pain lances through me, but dissipates just as quickly as it overpowered me.