No Shelter Trilogy (Omnibus, Books 1-3) Page 3

  “Tablets and ointment, or just tablets?”

  “Both.”

  “Six gallons,” Dr. Henry replies.

  “I have five,” I reply, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

  “You can have the tablets for four.”

  “How many tablets are in there?”

  “Standard thirty. Three tablets a day for ten days.”

  Isaac has already had three days of antibiotics. “How about twenty tablets and the ointment for five gallons?” I reply.

  Dr. Henry shrugs. “Fine. Five gallons it is.”

  But Dr. Henry gives me the entire bottle of thirty tablets and the ointment for five gallons claiming he doesn’t have time to take the ten tablets out of the bottle.

  “Thank you so much, Dr.,” I say with a bow of my head.

  “Next!” he shouts and Daedric and I duck out of the marketplace without another word.

  “You did pretty good back there,” Daedric says when we’re almost home.

  “Isaac usually does all the talking. I guess I picked up some of his techniques.”

  “I don’t think you need Isaac. You seem to do just fine without him.”

  “You don’t know what I need,” I say. “So, how did you lose your sister?”

  Daedric is silent for a moment. “Salton Sea. The Guardians got her locked her up.”

  My heart nearly stops. I never would have agreed to help Daedric find his sister if I had known she’s imprisoned at the Salton Sea.

  The Salton Sea, a village surrounding a fifteen-mile-wide saline lake, is the last functioning city in the Western Sector. The water in the lake has been filtered to sustain the residents for over two years. Before the storms, the Salton Sea was a ghetto of hippies preaching against the evils of capitalism. Now it’s the only sanctuary for those in the West, but no outsiders are allowed.

  “How did she get in there?” I ask.

  “I didn’t think they’d take her,” Daedric replies, the guilt in his voice is palpable. “We heard about the Salton Sea a few months ago. They said it was the safest place outside Umbra.”

  “You can’t get into the Salton Sea,” I say.

  “I know that now,” he replies.

  “Then, how did your sister get in?”

  Daedric holds out a hand to help me over a steep area of the hill we’re walking on. I tread past him and grab a thick vine to pull myself up.

  “Well?” I say.

  “She was kidnapped,” he replies.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Safety and population control are their first priority in the Salton Sea. They wouldn’t kidnap an outsider.”

  Daedric walks briskly ahead of me and I jog a few paces to catch up. “They found out who she is… Actually, I told them who she is. I thought it would give us a better chance of getting in. I didn’t think they would take her.”

  I’m not sure what Daedric is getting at, but I don’t like the sound of it. I have to ask the question firing like a shotgun in my mind because he won’t tell me unless I ask.

  “Daedric, who exactly is your sister?”

  He heaves a long sigh and stops in the middle of a clearing surrounded by soaring pines that glow with the warmth of the setting sun. “She’s the illegitimate daughter of President Kane.”

  CHAPTER 5

  President Edward Kane was elected three years before the event. The president before him, Horace Waters, had refused to heed the signs of impending natural disaster. He was ousted when Kane promised radical changes that would help save the environment and prevent the end of the world. It didn’t take long for people to realize Kane was in way over his head—literally.

  There was nothing Kane or anyone else could do. Still, it didn’t stop millions of people from becoming Kane loyalists. And President Kane and his family were the first people welcomed into Umbra.

  “Is this a joke, because it’s not funny, at all?” I say, but I can already tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t find it funny either. The stupid grin he’s been sporting the past few days is gone.

  We walk in silence until we reach the cave. I don’t know how I’m going to tell the others what Daedric has told me. Maybe I won’t need to tell them. Maybe I can back out of our deal and tell him to find someone else to help him. Maybe if Isaac could talk he would tell me that Daedric didn’t even save his life. Maybe Daedric attacked Isaac and the cougar had the misfortune of getting between them.

  That’s way too many maybes. I decide to forget Daedric and his sister, President Kane’s lovechild. I’ll deal with Daedric in the morning.

  After two more proper doses of penicillin, a good smattering of antibiotic ointment, and a good night’s rest, Isaac is alert enough to ask for some fried cornbread. Cornmeal and water stirred up then fried in animal fat is a luxury, but it’s something I can give as we still have some cornmeal and lard left in our stores.

  Mary fries up the bread and I feed it to Isaac while Daedric and Eve are outside. Eve is showing Daedric how to set up a rabbit trap. I’ve been trying to keep Daedric occupied outside the cave in case Isaac wakes up. I don’t want him to get upset at the sight of an outsider in our home. I’m not sure he remembers Daedric or the fact that Daedric saved his life.

  After a few mouthfuls of cornbread Isaac is stuffed. He takes a sip of water and lays back.

  “Lay with me,” he whispers. “Please. I’m so cold.”

  I squeeze into the nook between his body and the cave wall so I’m on the side of his good leg. He holds his arm out for me and I lay my head on his shoulder. I pull the blanket up so it covers him all the way up to his chin.

  He falls asleep instantly and, though I’m relieved he’s getting his rest, I can’t help but feel a bit claustrophobic. I try to slide out from underneath his arm, but he tightens his grip. Finally, I give in and shut my eyes.

  I wake to find Daedric staring at Isaac and me from where he sits at the mouth of the cave. He turns away quickly and starts poking the fire.

  It’s pitch black outside. We must have slept all day. I never take naps during the day. I guess I was exhausted from the trip to the marketplace.

  I try to sit up without waking Isaac but his eyelids flutter open.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “You need your medicine.”

  I grab the bottle of pills and pop one in his mouth. When I hand him the canteen he grabs my hand.

  He pulls me close and whispers in my ear. “Why is he still here?”

  I look him in the eye searching for some sign that I might be wrong about Daedric. “He saved your life.”

  Isaac sneers as he lays back. “It’s easy to fight off a cougar with a baseball bat.”

  Baseball bat? That must be one of the items Daedric claims to have found with the baseball cap. So that’s how he saved Isaac.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say to Isaac.

  I slip my feet into my boots and step outside into the darkness. Daedric follows me, as I expected.

  “Come with me,” I tell him. “Bring Eve.”

  Daedric and Eve meet me outside where Mary is busy gutting a rabbit they must have pulled from a trap.

  “Tell them what you told me,” I say to Daedric.

  Without hesitation, he tells Eve and Mary everything he told me, even adding a few details about how his mother disclosed the truth about his sister’s father just before she died. Eve is quiet, but I can tell this new information has only made her even more anxious. Mary, on the other hand, has a lot to say.

  “I’m not going to the Salton Sea. Your sister can rot in there for all I care,” she says as she cleans her knife on the dry grass.

  Sometimes, I don’t know if I trust Mary.

  She materialized eight months ago the same way Daedric did. Isaac and I had been going it alone for over a year, and doing just fine, when Isaac shows up at the cave with Mary after a trip to the marketplace. She was clearly starving, but there was something about her I didn’t trust. Isaac insisted I w
as paranoid. I insisted it was her proclivity for knives. I always wondered if there was more than friendship between them because everything changed between Isaac and me with Mary around—until last week.

  “How about you, Eve?” I ask, as Eve tries to shrink into the forest behind us.

  She steps forward and shrugs. “I don’t want to go, either.”

  After keeping Daedric around for four days, dragging him to the marketplace, and making him help with the hunting and gathering, I would feel awful backing out on my offer to help him. But my loyalty is to our little tribe.

  “We can’t help you,” I tell him. “I’m sorry, but it’s just too dangerous.”

  Daedric runs his hand through his shoulder-length blonde hair as he contemplates this news. “There’s somethin’ else I haven’t told you guys.”

  “Something,” Mary corrects him and I shoot her a look. “What? He has to learn to stop dropping his g’s.”

  “Go on,” I say to Daedric.

  He takes a seat on a log before he speaks. “I have something I can offer you in exchange for your help.”

  “Unless you’re carrying a few thousand gallons of water in your pocket, I don’t see what you have to offer.”

  “How about a few million gallons?” he replies. “I know where we can find shelter and enough food and watuh to last for years.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Elysia’s father—President Kane—had a shelter built in California before he got elected,” Daedric continues. “My mom was a clerk in his campaign. He took her there sometimes. A love nest or somethin’. She said it’s got enough food, power, and watuh to last for years. It’s right next to a lake.”

  “Those kinds of places don’t exist anymore,” Mary says as she slides chunks of rabbit meat onto skewers made from sharpened twigs. “Everything’s destroyed, dried up, or ransacked.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” he replies. “But my mom described it in so much detail. She was kind of sick, but I don’t think she was that sick. She remembered everything as if she was staring at a picture right in front of her. She said those were… They were the happiest days of her life.”

  I try to recall the president’s face in my mind. It’s been almost three years since I’ve watched a news broadcast and even longer since I’ve seen President Kane. I was fourteen then, but I remember my mother saying he was handsome.

  “If you know where this bomb shelter is, why did you even go to the Salton Sea?” Mary says, as she hands us each a skewer of meat and sets aside an extra skewer with the most meat for Isaac. I know she’s done this because Isaac is sick and he needs it more than we do, but it doesn’t stop me from imagining she’s favoring him.

  We move to the mouth of the cave and sit around the fire to roast our skewers.

  “Elysia didn’t like the idea of being alone, just me and her, for all those years,” Daedric says, as he throws a small bunch of twigs onto the fire. “She wanted to see if we could get into Salton Sea or at least make a few friends first. She’s pissed at Kane for not bein’ around for her. The shelter was a last resort for her.”

  “What kind of proof do you have for any of this?” I say. “We can’t risk our lives on the word of a stranger.”

  “Yeah, Stranger. Where’s your proof?” Isaac’s voice calls from the back of the cave startling Mary so much she drops her skewer of meat into the fire.

  I snatch it up quickly and hand it back to her.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  Isaac is sitting up and appears more alert than ever.

  “You hungry?” I ask him and he nods.

  I grab the extra skewer and hold it over the fire with my free hand as Mary wipes the black ashes off her meat.

  “You heard everything?” Daedric asks though he doesn’t look at Isaac.

  “I heard enough,” Isaac replies. “Where’s this secret shelter you’re talking about?”

  “Well, if I told you then—”

  “Yeah, that line’s not going to work with me. Where is it?” Isaac demands.

  Daedric bites off a chunk of rabbit meat and chews it slowly. “A couple hundred miles north of Yosemite. The volcanoes haven’t touched it.”

  I take a bite of my meat as I wait for Isaac’s to finish cooking. Rabbit is my favorite game meat. I haven’t had chicken since Whitmore, and even then it was canned chicken. Rabbit is the closest thing to what I remember chicken tasting like. I finish my skewer and crawl to Isaac to hand him his.

  He stares into my eyes as I hand him the meat. He wants to say something but he’s holding back because we’re not alone—probably something about Daedric.

  I turn around and crawl back to the fire.

  “Nada?” he calls.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say, as I stand and leave the cave in a hurry.

  Daedric follows me into the forest. “You shouldn’t be out here this late.”

  He sounds like me whenever Isaac storms off in the middle of the night. “I’ll be fine. I’m good at hiding. Go back to the cave.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’ll tag along,” he says. “The atmosphere in there is a little intense for me right now.”

  We walk in silence for a few moments with Daedric following one step behind me. Somehow, we end up at the cliff. Me and Isaac’s spot. Isaac once told me we stopped going to the spot once Mary came along because he didn’t trust her enough to stand next to a cliff with her.

  I step closer to the edge and Daedric grabs my arm.

  “What are you doing?” he says.

  The smell of the ocean carries on the wind and lifts the hair away from my face. I close my eyes and breathe it in.

  “I’m just taking it in,” I say. “Do you mind?”

  He releases my arm and I take my usual seat on the edge of the cliff. Daedric hesitates for a moment before he sits next to me.

  “My cousins and I used to jump off the cliffs in Maine in the summah,” he says. “I mean, summer.”

  The reflection of the Moon on the ocean is dim. The water must be really choppy tonight. I gaze below me. The water crashes and explodes against what used to be another level on the side of the cliff. Now the rising sea has claimed this cliff and transformed it into ocean rocks.

  “How do we know we can trust you?” I say.

  Daedric stares at me and I hold his gaze. “Because I need you more than you need me.”

  Something about the way he says this makes me uneasy. I’ve never been comfortable needing anyone until Isaac and I became a team. After my dad left, I became my own father figure. I learned to fix my own bicycle and I became an expert at repairing leaky faucets. The idea that someone other than Isaac could need me feels strange.

  “So… Are you and that Isaac dude together, or somethin’?”

  “Something,” I correct him, though it’s really a stall tactic. “No, we’re not. He’s my best friend.”

  At least I think that’s what he is.

  “Good,” he says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothin’, I just… I think you’re pretty… nice.”

  “Pretty nice?” I reply. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

  He chuckles. “Nah, I just like you. You seem like you got a good heart. That’s all.”

  I can’t help but smile. After my dad left, my grades started dropping. Whenever my aunts and uncles asked how I was coping, my mom never told them I was failing, but she always made a point of telling everyone I had a good heart.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He stands and holds out a hand to help me up. When I rise, we come face to face and I can’t help but stare at the way the moonlight reflects off his green eyes. He leans forward and his lips touch mine ever so softly. I taste charred meat and back away instantly.

  I turn to leave and notice Eve standing at the top of the hillside staring at us.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Isaac sent me to get you,” she says as I approach her. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t spying
on you.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t see anything.”

  I continue walking back to the cave, trying to ignore the confused expression on Eve’s face. Though she’s extremely anxious and a bit too polite sometimes, Eve is not stupid. I don’t worry she’ll tell Isaac. I worry she’ll stop trusting me.

  “You were looking for me?” I say as I enter the cave and kick off my boots.

  I sit down in the corner of the cave opposite Isaac and pick up a book to pretend to read.

  I can feel Isaac staring at me. “I need you to help me with my bandage.”

  I throw the book down and crawl to him. “Sorry. I totally forgot.”

  I begin peeling off the old bandages and he winces. The bandage is stuck to the outer edge of the wound. I didn’t apply enough cream last night.

  “Sorry,” I say. It’s all I can say.

  “What were you doing out there?” he asks as I flush the wound with more iodine. “Be careful with that!”

  I’ve accidentally poured iodine all over his crotch.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to soak it up with the used bandage.

  He laughs and grabs my hand. “Hey! Don’t do that. You’re making it worse.”

  The sly grin on his face makes me want to throw up. I set the ointment and the clean bandages on the ground and stand.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, you’ve said that a million times. What’s going on?”

  I glance at Daedric. He’s leaning against the mouth of the cave with his eyes closed.

  “I’m fine,” I say as I sit back down and finish bandaging his thigh. “I’m just a little freaked out about this whole thing.”

  I pull the blanket over Isaac as he lies down. “Come here,” he says, beckoning me to his side.

  Isaac and I used to sleep like this every night. It was one of the things I missed the most after Mary arrived. So why do I suddenly feel as if I’m being forced to lay with him?

  “I’m going to read a little first,” I say, as I move toward the other corner of the cave.

  His face is chockfull of rejection, but I pretend not to notice as I open the book and commence staring at the words on the page.