Page 15 of Fearless
My hands wrapped tighter around the back of his neck, rubbing into the tight knots there as his body tensed.
“My brother, Daren, he—“ His voice cut off abruptly as he cleared his throat.
“Your brother that passed away?”
“Yeah, he…saw things, sometimes.” Reaper’s brow furrowed as he looked at me, as if gauging my reaction. “He had bad seizures as a kid, and had like, visions.”
“Visions?” I repeated. “You mean, like he saw the future?”
“Yeah, but it was weird. He would have dreams of random, mundane shit. Like one day I blew out both tires in my bike and had to wait three hours for Jandro to pick me up in his uncle’s truck. Before it happened, Daren told me I’d taste a clove cigarette for the first time that day. It was because Jandro’s uncle had a pack of cloves in his glove box.”
The explanation tumbled out of him, rushed and unfiltered. I could tell he hardly believed it himself, but was just explaining it as best as he knew how. He didn’t understand his brother’s ability any more than the fast healing and endurance of his dog. It was just a part of his life.
“Anyway,” Reaper scrubbed a hand down his face. “Daren told me one day that I had to come back here and get Mom’s stuff. That was all he told me. But he kept repeating it over and over, like it was really important, like I had to doright then. I kept trying to blow it off like, ‘Okay, I’ll go this weekend.’ And he told me, ‘No, now.’” I asked if they were moving or if anything was wrong, and he kept saying, ‘I don’t know, but you need to get her stuff right now.’”
His fingers curled into my waist, making a fist as he grabbed the fabric of my top. I pressed a hand to his chest and felt his heart racing underneath my palm.
“When I got here,” he went on, “the place looked pretty much like this.” He gestured to the scene before us. “Completely empty. Everyone was gone and left everything behind. I went home,” he nodded up ahead to one of the cabins, “and found Mom’s journal, her clothes, and a few pieces of jewelry she made but hadn’t sold yet.” The silence in his pause permeated deeply, wrapping around us like a cage. “A box of her things are all I have left of her.”
Now my fingers curled into his cut, clinging to him as I willed myself not to cry.
“She could still be alive,” I whispered. “Maybe they got word early that a raid was coming.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Everyone would have packed their belongings if they got word ahead of time. Trust me, sugar. I’ve considered all the possibilities.”
“What about your dads?”
“One died when I was fourteen. Another was drafted to fight at the border. The other had to have been with her.” He licked his lips and sighed. “I can’t imagine him ever leaving her side.”
“I’m sorry.” The words sounded so hollow but I didn’t know what else to say.
“What I think most likely happened was,” he went on, “they stormed the place, but didn’t kill anyone. From the looks of it, everyone went willingly, probably fearing for their lives. Once they rounded everyone up, people got sorted according to their skill. Men probably drafted into the military. Women sold to be used. Kids sent to camps to be further indoctrinated.”
“What about Noelle?”
Reaper smiled for the first time since stepping foot in his former home. “That crafty bitch,” he chuckled. “She hid. Mom had dug out a cellar in the floor of the cabin and Noelle stayed down there, dead quiet for two straight days. She didn’t even say a word when I came poking through until I went down there myself. Then she fought me, nearly scratched my fucking eyes out, ’til she realized who I was.”
“Oh my God.” I brought a hand to my mouth. “That must have been awful for her.”
“What she told me adds to my theory,” he said. “She heard voices threatening to shoot, but no actual gunshots or sounds of struggle. Then footsteps walking away, and then nothing.”
“It’s weird that no one would come back here and loot,” I observed.
“We were a bit hidden and tricky to get to, despite being so close to a tourist spot,” he nodded up the hill to the lookout point where we had our picnic. “But people also thought we were a witch’s coven, so that might have had something to do with it.”
“Witches?” I repeated. “Why, because this place was run by women?”
“Exactly,” Reaper nodded. “There could be no other explanation for women running an independent community, completely self-sufficient and off the grid.”
“I bet that was why they were attacked so often,” I mused sadly. “The people in charge are always afraid of what they can’t control.”
“Correct again.” He loosened his hold on me to resume walking through the central path. “Looking back, I’m honestly surprised they lasted as long as they did. I think ours was among those who hung on the longest. It was about five years before the Collapse.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated, hating that there was nothing else I could say or do. Healing was my specialty, but I couldn’t do anything to alleviate the guilt he must have felt, the helplessness of not knowing what happened to his family.
“This was why I started the Steel Demons.” Reaper kneeled to pick up something half-buried in the dirt. When he stood again, I saw it was a small toy motorcycle. “So the community I called home wouldn’t be left undefended.”
The toy was only a few inches long, cast from metal and encrusted with dirt. I touched it as he held it out for me to see, and the wheels still spun freely.
