Redux by A.L. Davroe

Author:A.L. Davroe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Marissa Meyer;Cinder;artificial intelligence;gaming;Avatar;Across the Universe;Beth Revis
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

chapter sixteen

Post-American Date: 7/7/232

Longitudinal Timestamp: 5:57 p.m.

Location: Disfavored Tunnel System

Quent comes back to the mouth of the tunnel and hands me a small pack. “Faulk and Aaron have disappeared. I assume they went back to report what happened to Mac.”

“Or maybe they’re looking for us?”

“Maybe. It looks like the cannibals are gone, at any rate.” He gestures to the pack between us. “These are all the useful things I could find.”

I reach into the pack. A few light-sticks. A couple of nutra-packs. A water jug. A sticky thermal-blanket. A few lost personal items, including Angelique’s scratch-pad. I close the pack up and struggle to put it on. “Any sign of the others?”

“None who are alive, no.”

His words force me to halt, a sudden stillness in my chest. “Who?”

He avoids my eyes. “Don’t ask me to tell you that.”

I cover my mouth to keep my lips from trembling. He means someone I know is dead, someone whose death would matter. Of course, I care that any of them are dead. That our small group of survivors had gotten this far made me want to cheer for all of them and their survival. “I…I need to see.”

“Elle…”

“Please, Quent, I need to see them. There’s no one else to remember them in death. Just us. We need to do this for them.”

I squint at his frowning face. “You’ll have more nightmares,” he warns.

“What’s a few more out of the thousands to choose from?”

Lips tight, he grasps my elbow and helps me limp back into the cavern.

The first body we come across is Beau’s. His eyes stare upward at the ceiling, he lies in a near-perfect circle of his own blood. Seeing his face makes my stomach turn, but I fight to keep the contents down as, wincing against the pain in my reinjured leg, I crouch close to him and close his cold eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I took too long,” Quent says, voice distant. “Too long to get them food and water. If I’d come back, led them away…”

“No,” I say, “don’t start thinking that way. You’ll go mad.”

He looks away. “He was my responsibility. My Doll.”

“Your Dolls came down here with you willingly. They knew the risks.”

He makes a growling noise in his throat. “Then why do I feel so guilty?”

“For the same reason I feel guilty? Because you’re a good person, and you feel like the things you’ve done are the cause of it, even though they aren’t. We’re one drop of many in a bucket of lies and deceit.”

Shoulders slumping, he stops moving and gives me a pained expression.

I force myself to stand and turn away from Beau. Then I take Quent by the hand. He’s shaking. “It’s not our fault he’s dead, that any of these people are dead. The cannibals killed them. Not us,” I say, trying to believe it myself. I lift his hand, kiss his knuckles. “We were trying to save them, to make them safe. We need to remember that.”

“I know.” His voice sounds raw.

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