Page 8 of Bait
“You’ll have like a minute before they come.” Who would come after me? My mind was reeling, and I was certain I was about to lose the sandwich I’d forced myself to eat earlier. “Run to the trees, look for the yellow flag, wait there.” Xavier’s words eventually broke through the chaos in my head. Trees, a yellow flag. I had no idea what the world would look like. I’d seen the pictures of the desert that was supposed to be above us, so why was Xavier talking about trees? I’d never been outside and had no sense of what was left of it. More than thirty years had passed since The Burst. I felt Xavier sliding something into my pocket. It was hard and flat. I hoped it was a knife. “Don’t hesitate to use it.” I nodded, hoping I could.
“Cut her loose.” Becker barked and Xavier shoved me out. Behind me I heard the click of the door being quickly secured. I was not steady on my feet, and the brightness was still too much for my eyes to bear. Once I was able to focus, I noticed two very important things. One was that there was no one around, and two, it didn’t look or feel like the world had ended. The sky was clear and blue, a hundred times brighter than the one projected over us my entire life. There was no choking cloud of ash and no acid rain pelting my skin. Only crisp, clean air that hit my bloodstream like a drug.
I remembered Xavier’s words. His warning that I’d have little time to escape whatever dangers lurked here. And I now knew that sometimes the gravest dangers were hiding in plain sight. My eyes frantically scanned the area looking for the yellow flag. As I got my bearings, I noticed there was a large metal vehicle in the periphery—it looked like one of those eighteen-wheeler trucks I’d seen in movies. It was half concealed behind a rock formation, but it was too big to be fully hidden, and right behind it was a yellow flag.
I began to run.
I couldn’t get caught. I couldn’t get caught. I repeated it like a mantra as I sprinted through the sandy surface. My shoes were not up for this, and it was very hot. Hotter than I’d ever been.
There wasn’t a lot of green right outside the bunker, but like Xavier said, there were some trees in the distance. There was also what looked like a small building almost being swallowed up by them, and amongst the greenery there it was, a sliver of yellow fluttering in the breeze. I actually cried out in relief at the sight and veered in that direction. I ran to the trees and found an opening on the side of the building and crawled in there, hoping that Xavier had not stirred me wrong. I listened to the sound of other footsteps with my blood pounding between my temples. There were others out there, I’d had a head start, but they were after me. I could hear them shouting at each other.
Maybe this was a trap, but they wouldn’t take me without a fight. I would not just give up. I could hear the crunch of dry leaves just outside and hoped that someone would come and help me. I remembered that Xavier slid something in my pocket and almost cried in relief to discover that it was in fact a little knife. The blade was short, and it was thick, almost like poker, whatever I stuck it in, it would do damage. I knew how to use it. A few years before he died, my brother Gregorio had insisted that I learn some defensive maneuvers. I’d grudgingly agreed to receive lessons from Torch. Maybe they both knew this was where things would end. I had no idea who was out here. Were any of the others who had been pushed out still alive? Would they help me? Would they hurt me like Becker insinuated?
My gut clenched thinking of all the dwellers caught down there at the mercy of Becker and his spineless council. I was too distracted by my thoughts about what I’d left behind to notice someone getting closer until I was being tugged out by the leg.
“There you are.” It was a deep, gruff voice. A man’s voice. He was big and bulky and I had barely any time to react, already in his clutches. I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone as large in the bunker. He was wearing something on his head that looked like a cowboy hat—and he had a very frightening grin. “You’re a pretty little thing.” I wasn’t little and the pretty thing was arguable after the week I’d had.
As I was dragged onto the wet grass, I thought of that asshole Xavier probably laughing at me.
“Don’t touch me.” I cried, backing away, but he caught me by the waist. My stomach churned with disgust. He smelled like sweat and something sour. It made my skin crawl. It made me gag.
“I caught you, sweetheart, and I do with my prize whatever I want.” Was this where all the people who had fallen sick or been sent to the hold ended up? To be hunted down like animals?
“No, I’m not your prize. I don’t care what Becker told you.” He frowned at the name, like he had no idea who I was talking about.
“I don’t ever see them folks, just wait until they sound that siren and we know to wait for one of you little underground critters to come crawling out.” He flashed me a set of surprisingly white teeth as he reached for me, but I skidded away. “I gave them ten bottles of shine to hunt. You’re mine now.” He almost pinned me down me then, but I managed to grab my knife. I flashed it at him, and he swatted it out of my hand with a raucous laugh. “I’ve always been curious about what fucking one of you is like. I heard you’ll beg for cock. Cry and whimper for it.” His teeth might have been white, but his breath was foul, and the sour smell was getting bad enough to make me retch.
“Get away from me,” I screamed as he backed me into a wall. I opened my mouth again but only got out a hoarse “Help” before he grabbed me.
“I like the skittish ones.” I didn’t think there was much more that could happen to me that would make me more scared than I’d been when Xavier pushed me out, but here I was, terrified and trapped.
“No, no.” I tried to push him off, but he was so big. If he managed to get me on the ground, I was done for.
“If you keep moving, it’ll take longer.” He was out of breath now, panting as he struggled to take my clothes off. He pulled my shirt so hard it tore, exposing the tank underneath and tugging it down until one of my breasts was out. I hated being defenseless. I was useless on the surface, just sitting prey. We all were, and Becker used it to his advantage. We were his currency to get what he wanted now that the money his family accrued for generations was worthless in this new world. While I fought him off, I heard some pops in the distance that sounded like gunshots, but he didn’t seem bothered by the approaching gunfire.
“Stop.” I kept saying it again and again, getting louder, but no one could hear me back here. I kicked and attacked him, but he pinned my legs under his. When I tried to bite him, he slammed my head against the ground so hard my ears rang. One of my hands was free and felt around frantically, hoping to recover my knife, but all I grabbed onto was a rock. I was about to hit him with it when the man bucked on top of me, he made a strange sound, like he was surprised, and a gush of blood came out of his mouth.
Then he was gone, and standing over me was a woman. I couldn’t see her with the sun in my eyes, but her outline looked familiar somehow.
“Always starting trouble.” I frowned at the voice my body recognized before my brain caught up.
“Candela?” Valeria Candelario was my rescuer? She was alive? The swell of emotion choked me up and the question came out as barely a whisper. But it was her. I had no doubt. The brown skin, those full lips, the lean, strong arms. I hadn’t seen her in almost ten years, but I knew her.I knew her.
“Always saving your ass, Almita.” She extended a hand to pull me up, but instead of grabbing it, I held up a finger and turned my head to the side to retch. The last hour, the last couple of days, finally caught up with me and suddenly tears were flowing down too. When I was done, I stood up on my own two feet, then launched myself at her. Candela was here. Alive. A million questions rushed to my head all at once.
The last time I’d seen her was when we got caught making out in my room. We’d been hanging out, listening to music on my mom’s pre-Burst phone and one thing led to another, and I found myself under her on my bed. Our mouths fused together and our hands all over each other. It didn’t go very far, but I’d wanted it to. Same-sex romantic relationships had been virtually forbidden in the bunker as the Population Revitalization Project increased its hold on our lives. The council went out of its way to remind us that those behaviors were not conducive to our mission of reviving the world when the time came.
My dad believed the council's words. Though my mother’s hand in the project was some kind of divine intervention—even after she began to regret her involvement. My father had been irate when he walked in on us, then he reported it to the council. My mom was furious with him. They fought bitterly about it. She told him he’d betrayed his own family for the benefit. But my dad didn’t back down. I ended up only getting a private reprimand, but I didn’t see Candela again. Not long after, there was a bulletin saying her dad had gotten in trouble for unbecoming behavior.
How had I been so blind for so long?
“They said you all got moved to the hold because of your dad. A flash of pain crossed Cande’s honey-colored eyes, but then she hugged me tighter. I soaked in the touch, the closeness. I hadn’t been touched since my brother died, other than by Becker, and my skin was starving for it. I’d been deprived of affection for so long. I rubbed myself against her, and she made a sound that made my skin tingle.
“I missed you, Brains.” She said it in that gruff way of hers and my heart skipped hearing the old nickname. Even with everything that had just happened, my body reacted to her. Candela’s touch had always made me burn. Only one other person ever compared, but I didn’t know if I could ask her about him. I didn’t know if I could bear being responsible for Torch’s death.
“I have a lot of questions.” Candela’s lips ticked up, and she shook her head indulgently.
“Of course you do, first we have to deal with this.” She pointed at the man lying face down on the floor.
