Lucy

Cold seeps in from the hard stone beneath me, cutting through my skin and muscles, latching onto my bones and injecting them with ice. My teeth chatter, the sound echoing in the small chamber—the same way my gasping cries echoed the hour before as they waterboarded me.

Finney, the youngest of the brutes who tortured me, is standing guard outside my cell.

I can feel him.

This is new. My grandmother, my father’s mother, had what we all called the Sight. JT has it too: a sense of things to come.

I’ve felt something similar in myself. Seen it in the way I am able to argue, always knowing where the person’s emotions are leading them next. It’s why I did so well in law school, how I could always win at any game where you needed to guess the opponent’s next move.

But I’ve never felt what I just experienced: the raw edge of the emotions around me, the rage, hate, and fear pressing into me, cutting right through me just like the cold. More terrifying than being held captive, this ‘knowing’ is worse than having water poured over my face until my lungs burn and spots dance across my vision.

Death, fighting, illness, survival: these are all things I understand now. They are real.

But now the way I can feel Finney’s nervousness, the way I can almost see him despite the stone walls between us—that’s real too. He’s a presence I recognize. I don’t know how to explain it, how to turn it into words, because it’s so sensory, otherworldly, even mystical.

I can’t feel him and I can’t see him. I know him.

As I struggled to breathe, water pressing to my sealed lips, knowing blasted through me. It came from the other side.

Finney is vulnerable. He doesn’t want to be here. He certainly doesn’t want to hurt me. There is a softness about him; maybe I remind him of someone, his mother or sister.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out my strange new knowledge, these almost oppressive sensations, trying to concentrate on how to survive.

Think logically, Lucille.

I’m pretty sure the guy holding me is Dwight Kane, Jolene’s brother, who Cash said he killed. A part of the hero of Grimesville story is that Kane was killed in the raid that freed Jolene and began the resurgence of decency, of community, of working together to go on the offensive against Great Nation America.

How is Kane alive?

I roll onto my side, curling my body around itself, covering my ears with my hands. As if that will help. As if what I’m sensing is coming in through my ears. Ha!

But where is it coming from?

Hot tears seep out of my eyes, and they are the only warm thing about me.

What would Nando say? His face flashes in my mind’s eye, smiling, his dark eyes sparkling with good humor, the warm scent of tomato sauce filling my nostrils for just a moment. Just a brief, wondrous moment.

Use it. Nando’s voice is in my head. Use it to free yourself.

A sob wrenches from my chest and I feel as the sound of it hits Finney. It shakes him. It hurts him. Guilt churns in his stomach, tightens his throat. He was raised better than this.

I sit up and look around the dark space again. There’s nothing to use here. I tried to get that leg off the chair. But, big surprise, I can’t get it loose.

I’ve never even hung a shelf. I thought I was going to disassemble a chair and use the pieces to defend myself against armed, dangerous, hate-filled men?

That’s not my skill set. I’m good at mind games, at getting my way.

And clearly, so is Dwight Kane.

He tortured me and enjoyed every second of it. I shiver, the memory swamping me with nausea as my stomach clenches on itself. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. Don’t know when I’ll have food again.

But I’m not going to die here. This is so not where I’m going to die. I hear Nando laughing, like he’d just seen something funny. Nando loved slapstick comedy. Nothing got him going like a person falling downstairs in a dramatic and hysterical fashion.

My heart squeezes, as it has so many times since he passed. But I miss him a little less. He is here with me.

No. That’s crazy. I just wish Nando was here.

Dwight Kane is going to come back—and he’s going to chop off one of my freaking fingers! I curl my hands into fists, looking down at them, pale against dark stone. There are goose bumps all over my body—every hair is at attention, vibrating, trying to warm me as I continue to shiver.

I need to prepare some lies for when Kane returns. Prepare some details about what the Haven is like that sound true but are not. Lies that might get Kane killed would be best…

But I need my lies to be bulletproof. He’s good at reading people—we have that in common.

I shiver more, because I sensed his rage in my gut, almost like it started there, rather than coming from him. When I looked up into his eyes, he jerked back for just a second, recognizing the hate reflected in my gaze. I’d surprised him, perhaps confused him, if only for a moment.

When Dwight Kane recognized his rage in me, that’s when I realized it wasn’t mine. It was his.

I’m a lover, not a hater. I’m a big mushball just like Nando, except with heels and big hair…well, they cut some of that off, but it’ll grow back. Whatever, like I care about my hair. Dwight Kane can cut off my hair, chop off a finger, do anything he wants but take more of the lives I love.

Love.

That’s what I need to help get me out of here. Roan’s face is in my mind again.

Finney takes a couple of steps and I glance up to see his figure on the other side of the bars.

“You okay?”

He knows I’m not. “So cold.” My voice wavers as my teeth clatter together. “Can I have some dry clothing?” I bite my lip and look at him from under my eyelashes. A bolt of lust shoots through him. He wants to see me change out of these wet clothes.

“I know you need me alive and this is the kind of thing that would make a girl catch pneumonia. Or Scorch Flu.” Fear. Oh yes, he is afraid of Scorch Flu.

He must’ve been vaccinated by now, though. It’s highly unlikely that a boy his age could have survived without a vaccine from Kane. Scorch Flu goes after the young and strong—the working heart of society.

Dwight Kane is all that Finney has in this messed-up world.

At the Haven, we are so lucky. We get to live in a safe place while the rest of the country struggles. All the things I have because of my family, because of our bond, our love, Finney gets from Kane—and hate’s a poor substitute.

“I don’t have any dry clothing.” Finney keeps his voice low.

“Maybe you could go get me some?”

Finney rubs the back of his neck and looks down at his big feet. He is already tall, but still skinny with narrow shoulders. He probably isn’t even done growing yet.

Maybe Finney still has a chance to become a good person. He doesn’t harbor the same rage that infuses Kane. He isn’t yet infected with hate.

He’s just afraid. Scared, like me. Scared like every one of us left alive in this strange new world after the Scorching.

“Please.” I beg. “I’m so cold.” I’m not ashamed to beg—I need warmth. I need Finney to begin to trust me, to begin to care for me.

I can use this boy to save myself. And save my family.

I know everything about the Haven’s security. I can’t, I won’t give that information up to Kane. I’d rather die, but he probably won’t let me. Escape is my only choice.

“I guess I could give you my shirt.” Finney looks at me, his brows raised.

I smile, the grin stilling the chattering of my jaw. “That’s so nice of you. So kind.”

The boy’s crooked teeth flash for just a moment in the dim light as he reaches for the hem of his shirt. Satisfaction and pride swell out of him. Helping me makes him happy.

Yes, this is the way. Not fighting, not killing, but kindness and compassion. Love is the answer. Love will set me free.