It's pretty rough, as you'll see. Just... tear it apart, please? I need as much help as I can get to make this better. Enjoy the read, such as it is.
Chapter Eight
I often think about that mother and her little girl, Nessa. What happened to them, what that mother did for her child, haunts me. Sometimes when I dream I see that woman’s face over and over again, like a broken record, playing and replaying, torturing me with that fact that I did nothing to prevent her death.
A burly man I somehow hadn’t noticed before stood when that horn blasted through the bus. He faced Nessa and her mother. I saw the thick muscles in his arms flexing as he clutched his knife, but I didn’t call out in warning or even move; I was frozen despite the bedlam all around me.
Chubby Boy was leaning over me, frowning. “Get down,” he was saying. “Get under the seat.”
The boy and his mother across the aisle had followed his advice, and my eyes met hers as she crouched over her son, using her own body as a shield for him. Two men just a couple seats away were grappling with each other, murder a clear intent in their wild gazes.
“Someone kill the girl!” the businesswoman was shrieking. “This will all be over if you just get rid of her!”
“No!” Nessa’s mother cried, and she yanked the girl out of the seat and into the aisle. As if she didn’t know where else to go, she began edging toward the door in the front.
The huge man watched her, but I could only see the back of his head. The hysterical woman had finally curled into a ball and was screaming, holding her knife out like she would stab anyone who came near. With a movement so quick for a moment I wondered if I’d dreamed it, the big man reached over and slit her throat.
Time suspended. A cloud of horror was surrounding my head, making everything appear fuzzy, and I stared at her. The woman had stopped screaming now, and her eyes were wide open, her body slumped over. The gash in her throat—the one I tried not to look at but was drawn to as if I had no choice—dripped blood down onto the collar of her pink blouse. And just for an instant, I thought of her husband in the hospital and knew that he’d been the lucky one.
Chubby Boy had apparently decided to take the initiative, because he was gripping my forearm in his sweaty palm and actually shoving me down. I didn’t resist, only stared up at him with dazed eyes. Awkwardly, but with an agility that was surprising for someone his size, Chubby Boy stepped over me and planted himself in the aisle, self-appointing himself my protector.
“Don’t be an idiot, Tommy,” I heard someone hiss. I turned my head from my cool hiding place on the floor, and looked up at the boy in the leather jacket. He was shoving Chubby Boy into another empty seat, and my “protector” wasn’t too happy about it.
“They need someone,” he was insisting. “That girl’s in shock, and—”
“You need to keep yourself alive,” the boy in the leather jacket cut in harshly, turning his back on Chubby Boy to make sure no one was about to attack. “I don’t want to have to explain to Dad if I come home without you.”
Chubby Boy—Tommy, I weakly corrected myself—scowled. “I don’t need you to—”
“Now isn’t the time,” the other boy interrupted again, dark eyes flat and sharp at the same time.
There was the sound of a man shouting out, the businesswoman still crying out her unwarranted opinions, and weeping. It was if I was in my own bubble down under the seat, and I pressed my cheek against the cold, hard floor, for once mindless of filth or germs. The rumbling engine beneath was soothing and slightly detached me from the nightmare I was trapped in.
Then Nessa screamed.
Jumping, I was tempted to cower and ignore what was happening. But a mixture of terror and the need to know consumed me, and I scrambled forward to poke my head out into the aisle to see. My heart stopped when I saw the big man walking toward Nessa and her mother. His knife glinted. Fear making the woman pale, she shoved the little girl behind her and bravely squared her shoulders. The bus driver turned another corner, and she stumbled a bit as the bus tilted.
“My daughter is six,” she said in a low voice to the man, beseeching even as she defied him with her gaze. “She doesn’t have anything dangerous inside of her. Please.”
Someone help her, I thought. Someone go help her.
It wasn’t until I felt eyes on me and looked up to see the boy in the leather jacket studying me that I realized I’d said it out loud. “Help her,” I whispered again, stomach roiling within me with the knowledge that the woman and her child could die in seconds.
He only looked at me from his place in front of Tommy, appraising me. He didn’t move.
I didn’t ask again, and I didn’t watch when the big man killed Nessa’s mother. Something inside me died a little when I heard the girl scream, but I was too much of a coward to do anything. Guess I’m more like you than I realized, Dad, I thought, and felt my face contort in shame and pain. And when the man went after Nessa, who kept ripping my heart to shreds each time she screamed, still I did nothing. Because I was as selfish as the rest of them. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to face death. And if that little girl had the bomb in her, it was all of us or one person. Just one person has to die to save all of us, I tried to comfort myself, tears stinging my eyes. Now this will all be over soon.
Something wet was soaking my jeans. I’d buried my face in my arms, and I lifted my head a little to glance at it. My throat clogged when I saw the river of blood sliding down the entire length of the bus. The scarlet stain on my thigh grew as the blood continued to flow, and I couldn’t stand it. Making sounds in my throat, whimpering, I edged out from beneath the seat and jumped up on it, holding my knees to my chest.
It made seeing everything that was going on easier. The big man was sitting again, also, in the seat he’d been in before. The people that had been sitting near him now gave the man a wide berth, crowding into the left side of the bus. The killing had stopped. When I glanced to the two men who I’d seen fighting, there was only one man left standing. I saw the body of the other flopped down over a seat, and I was thankful I couldn’t see his face. Why had the two even fought?
“He won’t touch you,” the man said in a throaty voice. I noted that he was talking to the girl in the university sweater, and behind her black-rimmed glasses her eyes were wet with tears, just like mine.
“H-he just jumped at me,” she hiccupped.
That was when the horn blew a second time, signaling—too late—the end of the bloodbath. We all fell silent. Tommy shoved past the boy in the leather jacket and lumbered over to me, leaning down to be at my level. His cheeks sagged.
“Are you all right?” he asked solemnly.
The death of Nessa seemed to have calmed everyone. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help glancing around to see where the bodies were. There were seven total. Besides the girl and her mother, and the hysterical woman, none of them were people I recognized, but the sight of them hit me like a blow, anyway. There was one lying right smack in the middle of the aisle, another resting against a window, as if he was merely sleeping instead of making that final, terrifying journey. Then I realized that one of the bodies—he was in a sitting position, his head slumped to the side—was the man in the jogging suit.
Trembling, I clenched my jaw. “I’m fine.” The words were hard, clipped. I was drawing into myself, picturing a stone. A stone, a stone, I chanted silently, needing something to focus on, a goal to have that I was capable of carrying out.
Tommy chewed his big lip, glancing over his shoulder at the boy. The boy who had just stood there when I’d asked him to help Nessa and her mother. My soul turned black with rage and guilt, and I turned my glare on him.
He noticed, and a small, sardonic smile hovered around his lips. “I look out for me and my own, girl,” he said lightly. And that was all. No remorse showed in his face—his nice-looking face, I suddenly noticed—and no trace of regret. Then I drew into myself even further, resenting who I’d become. How is it possible to notice a good-looking boy at a time like this? I ranted. Who are you, Wren After? I answered my own question: You’re a person I wouldn’t want to know, if it was someone else.
I pictured again Nessa and her mother, the hysterical woman’s throat bleeding and soaking her shirt. They were images I knew I would never, ever be free of, and I wanted to sob.
“Here.” I was faintly aware of Tommy fumbling around for something in his pocket. He produced a bottle of water and thrust it in front of me, just like he had done with that knife. The knife. I looked for it and spotted the weapon on the floor, right where I’d dropped it. It had slid a little when the bus had turned, of course, so now it was resting against my foot. I didn’t pick it up.
“It will help,” Tommy spoke again, wiggling the water a little. It sloshed in the bottle, and I took it reluctantly.
“I hate warm water.”
“Hey, it’s water,” Tommy said. “You can’t be picky at a time like this, right?” I was shamed to hear the relief in his voice. Why would he worry about me? He didn’t know me, and I was no one compared to the people who had just died. I’d hidden, watched it all happen, and just complained about the water he’d given me. What was wrong with him?
“I don’t want it,” I snapped, and held it out. Tommy—I would always think of him as Chubby Boy, though, no matter what his name was—took it back hesitantly, trying to look nonchalant about it but clearly hurt by my rebuttal.
“Okay, fine. Whatever.” He plopped down in the seat behind me, and I somehow knew he had that sullen look again.
“When that horn blows again, I want you to take your own advice and get down,” Leather Jacket said, sitting down beside Tommy. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“That girl’s dead,” I whipped around to growl at him. “There isn’t going to be anymore killing.”
He cocked his head at me, dark brows rising in challenge. “I’d say that we can’t know anything for sure in circumstances like this. After all, you didn’t think you were going to be here, did you?”
“That’s different.” I glared. “If the bomb’s gone, there’s no more reason to hurt anyone.”
“Ah, but the bomb might not be gone.” Leather Jacket grinned for the first time, and I tried not to show how affected I was by it. But he did have a beautiful, white-teethed smile.
“What do you mean?” I asked through my teeth.
“We can’t know for sure that the girl was the living, time-ticking bomb. We just think she was. And I’d be willing to bet that Mr. Bad-Ass over there isn’t willing to take that chance. He seems pretty bent on living, judged on the way he sliced that woman’s—”
“Are you trying to get everyone panicked again?” I noticed that we were getting some attention. The college girl had begun to listen to us, and an elderly woman was actually leaning towards our seat, her brown eyes wide.
Leather Jacket leaned back, shrugging easily. I wanted to smack that smug grin right off of his handsome face. “Just telling you the truth, princess. If you don’t like it, I doubt you’re going to last long.”
“Don’t call me that. And you don’t know everything. The killing’s done,” I repeated. “We’re safe.”
Tommy started to shake his head, and Leather Jacket snickered. “Did you really just say that word? Safe? Safe? No experiment is safe. Haven’t you watched any of them in the past year and a half?
“And I might not know everything,” he went on, “but I know damn enough. More than you. Those scientists, the government, everyone watching us on live television right now—they all want us to die. It’s good ratings, fodder for study, and just entertaining. They’ll be throwing something at us soon, princess.” He sneered. “Just wait.”
I hated his confidence, his cockiness, that roguish grin that threatened to disarm me. And how dare he pull that princess shit? I may not have been the beautiful, tough-looking tattooed girl up in the front, watching us with speculation, and, sure, I was wearing a cute outfit. Since when did a lace tank top and caprice earn me the Miss Priss title?
And I’d always been a survivor, hadn’t I? When Mom had sunk into that pit of depression, I’d been there to pull her out. When all my friends moved away and only called once or twice a month, I endured the loneliness and kept going. For myself, for my mother, and for Mattie.
So I pulled as tactic that Mattie had stopped falling for long ago but still worked on some other boys—I laughed in Leather Jacket’s face. I’d surprised him; my stomach fluttered at the brief flash of grudging admiration in his eyes before I spoke, “Just you wait, little boy.” I flashed my own arrogant grin at him, needing to put very little effort behind the act, surprisingly. Or maybe it wasn’t. “Have you watched the experiments since they started? They’re all about surprises, yeah, but most of those surprises come from the people. You don’t know me, and you don’t know what I’m capable of. So just watch your back.”
That grin was gone, and his dark eyes were narrowed. I felt a flicker of fear seeing the glint in them, noting the intensity and calculation. “Are you threatening me?” he growled.
“Hey, come on, Knight. She was just kidding. You were just kidding, right?” Tommy pleaded with me with his expression before turning back to Leather Jacket. Or maybe I would dub him as something else, like Tall Dark and Asshole. Knight? I mentally scoffed. Hardly.
T.D.A. pulled that electric gaze from me and grinned at Tommy, intense and terrifying in one second and relaxed and uncaring the next. He leaned back against the seat he shared with Chubby Boy, but for the first time I saw the tense veins standing out in his arms. He moved with grace, brushing a dark strand of hair out of his face, and I had the impression of a coiled snake, pretending to be a friendly face but prepared to strike at any chance.
Something inside me hardened. Determination and resignation swept through me and wrapped around my core. I was going to live to see Mattie again, to hold my mom again. I was going to have that little chat with my father, too. I wanted answers. I couldn’t afford to die—not now.
Which meant that I might have to use the knife that had been given to me. Because judging from the way Knight watched me, it was clear he was just waiting for the horn to blow again.
