Page 26 of Darkness I Become
“I’m from the Cave,” Asha said. “It’s maybe a day or two’s walk from here. I was assigned to be a high school science teacher. A terrible disappointment for my parents. They were high-ranking officials, but they weren’t in charge of the career assignments, so that’s what I got.”
Cade’s lips twisted with amusement.
“What?” she asked sharply.
“Can’t picture you as a teacher, frankly,” he said with a chuckle. “Aren’t you supposed to be nurturing and all that bullshit?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I was never very good at that part. I did an adequate job…but not much more. Claire was always the better teacher.”
Her name was out of Asha’s mouth before she could think better of it.
Cade’s brow wrinkled. “Who’s Claire?”
“No one,” Asha said too quickly, and he scoffed. “Fine: she was my best friend. But you owe me an answer now: how did you end up outside the Delta?”
“We’re coming back to that,” Cade warned, but then continued: “We left. Deserted on patrol, a couple years back. There was a lot happening in our compound at the time. There’d been an uprising, and some unrest. Then something…unfortunate happened, and I decided to leave rather than be kicked out. Leo and Dom agreed to go with me. Maybe someday, I’ll tell you the story.”
The closed look on his face told her that there was definitely more to it than he let on, but also that he didn’t trust her with it. In a strange way, Asha respected that, if only because his distrust was relatable.
“How did you end up outside the…Cave, was it?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the old stone countertop. “I can’t imagine how a civilian would’ve gotten out.”
She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the images that would inevitably resurface in her brain.
“I didn’t leave,” Asha confirmed. “A faction of our own people attacked. They seized control of the compound and killed everyone who wasn’t in their group. They wore strange masks with gold eyes painted on them.”
Cade shot her a bewildered look. “The military didn’t fight back?”
“No,” she replied with a sigh. “I don’t know why. I can only assume that enough of them were part of the attack that whoever was left couldn’t put up much of a fight. There were no alarms, no firefights…nothing, as far as I could tell.”
“Very strange.”Can’t say I disagree.
“I only escaped because I made it to Claire’s house.”
“What was so special about her place?” Cade asked, leaning back against the counter.
“Nothing, except that her sister was one of the attackers, and she decided to spare Claire’s life and get her out of the compound. When I got to her house, Claire insisted that I be allowed to go with her to the outside. So, her sister escorted us out into the Wasteland, and we never went back.”
“So, everyone else…” he trailed off.
“Dead,” Asha said with a short nod. “My husband. Her husband. My family. As far as I know, I’m the only survivor.”
“The only survivor?” he said, stroking his chin. “So, what happened to your friend?”
She tried to take another breath, but found herself holding it instead. Pain rose up inside her chest, and she covered her hand with her mouth in a desperate bid to hold it in.
“Look,” Cade said, clearly seeing her distress, “it’s okay if you—”
“No,” Asha murmured. “It’s not okay. I did something…bad.”
Chapter 8
Cade frowned. “We’ve all done bad things. If it’s my judgment you’re worried about, I don’t have much of a leg to stand on. You said it yourself.”
The images of her last days with Claire flashed through Asha’s mind. The fear they both felt, cast into a wilderness that nothing in their lives had ever prepared them for. The shock and ache at the loss of everything and everyone they knew, and the knowledge that they had no time to grieve. Survival wouldn’t allow it.
It was enough to make her shudder and avert her eyes from Cade’s. She couldn’t tell him the story if she saw him looking at her with that piercing stare of his.
“At first, we were just scared out of our minds,” Asha said haltingly. “We had no food, no water, nothing to really help us survive beyond a flashlight and some blankets that Claire brought. I had nothing but the clothes on my back. Then, hunger and thirst set in. We drank from a stream that made us sick. We didn’t know to boil the water.”
