Demitria Lunetta - In the End

“ I should be sorry. I acted like . . . I should have gone with you. You could have been hurt.” He holds me tighter. Through my synth-suit, I can feel his arms, his chest. We’re the right size for each other—our bodies fit together perfectly.

“If something had happened to you . . .”

He pulls away and looks at me for a moment, studying my face; his dark eyes shine with a fierce intensity. And then it happens. Jacks is kissing me.

I can’t say I haven’t thought about what it would be like. Lying in my bunk at night, listening to him breathing, or watching his flexed back, marked with tattoos. I’ve thought about kissing Jacks. Even though I knew I shouldn’t. Any distraction is a bad distraction. And then there’s Rice, who creeps into my thoughts unbidden. I don’t know where I stand with Rice—he hasn’t tried to contact me, hasn’t kept his promise of keeping Baby safe.

But these thoughts vanish because now Jacks’s lips are on mine, his tongue uncertainly searching. And I can’t help it. I press into him, kissing him back, hard. It feels good. Right. And something happens to my legs—left to stand on my own right now, I know I’d drop to the floor.

He pulls me closer, his arms moving down my back.

“Ahem.” Someone clears his throat loudly and I jump back out of Jacks’s arms. My legs do work, but the skin on my face, my body, is hot and tingling. A man stands in the doorway, smirking. “Sorry to interrupt. That looks like it could have gotten . . . interesting.”

“Who the hell are you?” Jacks demands.

“I’m here for Amy.” He looks at me. “That’s you, right?”

“Yeah? What do you want?” I ask, my voice shaky.

“I’m here to take you to Ken Oh.”

“You can’t go,” Jacks says, turning back to me. “Not now. Not with all those people killing one another out there.”

“I’ll be fine.” I don’t look at him. My face is still burning, but I’ve snapped out of the spell. “I’m not a Florae.”

“Do you think that matters anymore? They’re out for blood. No one is safe.”

“I’m going,” I say forcefully. I can’t waste time right now. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for.

“What if it’s a trap? What if Doc sold you out to that Reynolds guy?”

The thought had crossed my mind. “It’s not, Jacks. Doc said Ken would be contacting me. This is it.” And if it’s not . . . I’m willing to take the risk.

“Then I’m coming with you,” he says.

“Sorry,” the man from the doorway says. “I was told to bring her only.”

“I’m ready,” I say. Jacks grabs my arm, but I wrench it from him.

“I won’t let your feelings get in the way of what I have to do. You know what I’m here for.”

Jacks steps back, that stony look returning. “Yeah. I do. Because you don’t let me forget it for a second.”

“Well, maybe for a second,” the messenger chortles, listening. “She seemed to be concentrating pretty hard on you when I got here.”

“Let’s go,” I say, before things get uglier. I look at Jacks. “I’ll see you later.”

“Sure,” he says with a cold nod.

I follow Ken’s messenger down the stairs and out into the Yard. Things have quieted down a little, though it looks to me as though nearly all the makeshift homes have been demolished. The messenger leads me away from the Yard, back between the cellblocks. There are more agitated people here, and their screams echo off the concrete. Two men wrestle on the ground and I skirt around them.

We go all the way to the back wall, where the messenger nods to a guard and opens a door, the same door I saw Ken disappear through a few weeks ago. The door through which they take the Pox victims. I expect to see a dark, dank holding cell, filled with the dead and the dying. Instead, when I step inside, I am blasted with cold air. Air-conditioning. The door thunks shut behind me. The corridor is well lit and smells of lemon cleaner. Standing here, you have no idea of the turmoil raging outside.

“Where are all the sick people?” I ask the messenger.

He tilts his head, considering what I’ve asked. For a moment I think he’s going to ignore my question, but then he relents. “We have beds for them in the rooms back here. We try to keep them comfortable.” He holds up his arm, showing me the POX mark above the square tattoo on his wrist. “I tend to the weak and nurse the survivors back to health. What survivors there are, anyway.”

I nod. “And Ken?”

“This way.” The messenger leads me past several doors until we reach the one he wants. He pushes it open and motions me inside.

Inside is an office, much like Doc’s. The man sitting at the desk looks up at me. He’s Asian and has a heart-shaped mole on his left cheek.

The door snaps shut behind me.

I’m filled with so much joy, I can’t help but grin. My pulse is up so high, I think I’m going to rocket out of the ceiling.

Finally.

“You’re Ken?” My voice is shaking with anticipation.

He taps his pen on his desk. “Yes, and you’re Amy. You desperately needed to see me. What do you want?”

His abruptness throws me off. “I . . . I’m friends with Kay.”

“Friends? Right.” His lip curls meanly. “Because of you, my sister was demoted. I was briefed all about you when you escaped from the Ward last month. You’re paranoid delusional with a disposition toward violent outbursts. You killed an orderly, and somehow my sister was blamed for it all. You are not Kay’s friend.”

I take a deep breath. “I know what they probably told you, but I didn’t kill anyone. The orderly’s death was a lie,” I say, making myself speak in short, calm sentences. Losing my cool now would only make matters worse. “I’m not delusional. I was placed in the Ward because I found out about the Floraes, information that you all don’t want New Hope to know. Dr. Reynolds wanted me silenced. He wanted me out of my mother’s thoughts. He wanted me gone. I had to escape. Kay helped me because she cares about me.”

He shakes his head. “Kay doesn’t care about you. Kay cares about one thing, and that’s Kay.”

“Then why has she been contacting me to make sure I’m okay?”

“If that’s true, she’s taking another pointless risk.”

“It’s not pointless. She does care about me. She cares about you, too. She told me not to put you in danger.”

“And you’ve done a fantastic job. Threatening Doc with a knife? After that stunt, he had to tell New Hope that you were here. Dr. Reynolds was very eager to hear that bit of information.”

I take a step back and have to fight an overwhelming urge to run. Will he come for me now that he knows I’m in Fort Black, or is he just glad I’m out of his way?

I hold my ground. I have to see if Ken will help me with Baby, or at least tell me about her. “Kay said to tell you, ‘Ted doesn’t need you.’”

Ken looks at me a long time, his face unreadable. Then he stands, places a finger to his lips, and moves around me to the door. He opens it, waves for me to follow, and walks down the corridor. I follow him to another door and into a tiny, closet-sized room packed with a cot and a dresser. On the sparse dresser is a single notebook and a picture of two children, a boy and a girl, about ten years old. Their arms are around each other’s shoulders. The boy has a heart-shaped mole on his cheek.

Ken reaches to his ear, takes out his earpiece, and turns it off. He places it on the dresser next to the photograph. “This room is clean,” he tells me. “It was a broom closet, but I made it my bedroom in case I needed a quiet place . . . with no one listening.”