Pain radiates through my entire body. I try and catch my breath, but I can’t seem to find my lungs. Terrance picks me up and carries me down a grassy hill away from the stadium as the brightness of the outside world encloses around me, blinding me.
Chapter 13
“Don’t touch her,” a far off voice shouts.
I know the voice…a familiar voice I haven’t heard in months…a voice that belongs to the dead.
I want to see Quin’s face when I open my eyes, but I’m afraid of what I will see, knowing he’s dead, yet still able to hear him.
“Meg,” Quin says to me. His voice is closer now, as if it was right next to me. “Meg, wake up.”
I take a deep breath and open my eyes.
Quin’s face looks down onto mine. His hair is slightly longer now, his eyes older. The sun is shining brightly behind him. Light cascades down between the leaves from branches that hang over us. I sit up, feeling grass and dried leaves under my palms. Terrance squats down next to Quin.
“I thought you were dead,” I squeak out, as I stare at him.
“I almost was,” he says, as he helps me lean myself against a trunk of a tree. “I managed to grab the syringe you had pulled out for me and inject myself before passing out. When I was well enough to walk, I made it back to the Refuge and told Terrance and Rena what had happened. It took some time to track you, and then Terrance wound up getting collected. I followed the people who took him and have been camping here on the outskirts of Tyre trying to figure out a way to get in.”
I look around, but I don’t see the city.
“Where are we?” I ask, as Quin hands me a roll to eat.
“We are about a day’s hike north of Tyre. When the group of Laics came out of the door at the base of the stadium, I managed to cut away the wire fence surrounding the perimeter to allow them to escape. I waited to see if Terrance would come out, and he eventually did…carrying you.”
“They were Laics? I thought they were rejects the Collectors couldn’t sell.”
“Not all of them. Terrance and one of the women were the only ones from the Collectors, the rest were Laics from the south Boroughs.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’ve entered the Wasteland.” Quin hands me some water to help me wash down the roll. “We should be heading back there as well.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“We need to get to Acheron. I believe another Antaean is there.”
“Hold on, wait. Let’s think about this.” Quin sits down next to me. “We can’t just hop on a shuttle and waltz into Acheron. From what the Laics told me while they were fleeing was that your demonstration was broadcast all over Sirain, including Acheron. They’re going to know what you look like, and since they will obviously know you escaped from Tyre, they’re going to be looking for you.”
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take.” I stand up, brush myself free of leaves, and look around for my Levin gun, noticing it’s sticking out of Quin’s rucksack. I reach inside and retrieve it. “Are you coming with me or not?”
Quin glances up at me with an apprehensive look. Terrance quickly springs to his feet and is at my side in seconds.
“No, Terrance,” Quin begins, “it’ll be too dangerous for you in your weakened condition. Go back to the Refuge.”
Terrance looks pained, but he knows Quin is right. He will only slow us down.
I give him a hug, while Quin stuffs his pockets with goods for the trip home. He turns around and sets off down the hill, only turning back once.
“You’re going to need a change of clothes,” Quin says to me as soon as we’ve lost sight of Terrance.
We clean up Quin’s make-shift campsite, leaving anything we don’t really need, like the tent he constructed out of tree branches and vinyl sheets. I notice my motorbike buried under two feet of fallen leaves and unearth it. The wheels are flat, there’s no fuel, and the engine is fried. I rebury it, making sure to say goodbye to my old friend. We have enough food to last us three days if we ration it out. I think about heading back towards Tyre, but Quin nixes the idea immediately. He says there is an Oasis about a two days hike to the east of us.
We begin our journey in the late afternoon.
The seasons are beginning to change so we have fewer daylight hours to work with. Rain pours down on us the closer we get to the mountains. Night falls fast, so we take shelter in a cave just before the mountain’s height begins to dramatically rise. Quin collects firewood while I make bedrolls out of whatever I can find. The wood he brings back is hard to light as it’s wet, but it dries enough to build a fire. We heat a can of baked beans with the Tyre logo on them, passing the one can between the two of us. I decide not to tell him about the extravagant meals I’ve been eating, though I have to admit, the beans are a sad substitute.
“I have something for you,” Quin says, as he picks up his rucksack from the cave floor and extracts the tablet I left in the barn.
“What made you think to bring this?”
“It seemed important to you.”
I take it from
