J. Mitchell - Midnight City

He waited a few beats… then moved to the right.

“One-two-three, one-two-three,” Holt said as he waltzed around the campsite in movements of three, carrying Zoey with him on his feet. Zoey laughed as they moved and turned, circling around the flickering campfire while the music poured from the hissing radio.

As they spun, Holt continued to catch Mira’s gaze, watching him. In the dark of the dying fire, he couldn’t see the black fingers of the Tone in her eyes, could see only the clear emerald green.

Maybe she was pretty, after all, he thought. This time, his rational side made no attempt to discount the notion.

Holt and Zoey danced to the music for several more rotations around the fire. Then the little girl looked up at him excitedly with her blue eyes.

“Dance with Mira now, Holt!” she exclaimed.

Mira laughed from the other side of the camp. “Holt wouldn’t want that. I’d break his toes.”

Holt looked down at Mira, still perched on her elbows, her red hair trailing gently down her shoulders. He saw the smallest question in her green eyes… and he knew he was asking himself the same thing: Did he really want to go there? Doing so was crossing a line, to be sure, a dangerous line for both of them. It would only complicate things. And his life was all about simplicity, keeping things in perspective.

But over the past few days, Holt had found his resolve slipping when it came to her. He was listening less and less to the voice of survival in his head. And right then, as he imagined pulling her close, having her eyes stare into his from just inches away… he stopped listening to it altogether.

“What’s the matter?” he asked quietly, keeping his stare on her. “Can’t keep up?”

The smile on Mira’s face gradually sobered, like she was slowly reaching her own decision. Then she stood up and walked toward Holt.

Holt let Zoey off his feet and took the black stone from her. She moved to where Max was chewing on one of the straps of Holt’s pack, grabbed the dog’s ears, and twisted them gently like motorcycle controls. “Vroom, vroom…,” she mimicked. The dog didn’t seem to mind.

Mira reached Holt. They stood before each other. He took her right hand, opened it, placed the polished black stone in her palm. Her fingers were soft and cool, like stretched silk.

“What makes you think I need that?” she asked, looking up at him.

“I’ve seen you run,” Holt replied. “Trust me. You need it.”

Mira smiled back at him.

Holt took her hands, slowly raised one up to the level of his shoulder, and placed the other one behind his back. He drew Mira close, and felt her press against his chest. She was an impossible combination of soft and firm all at the same time. They looked into each other as their bodies met.

Zoey chuckled from the fire, staring at them.

“What are you laughing at, kid?” Holt asked without taking his eyes off Mira. Zoey chuckled louder.

And then Holt and Mira started to move, spinning slowly with the waltz and static that floated out from the radio’s tiny speakers. The music swelled around them, building toward its finale. But for Holt, the music became irrelevant. Just an audible guideline for when to move his feet and in what direction. His real focus was on the girl in front of him, her soft hands, the smell of her hair, the way the fire sparkled in her eyes.

Holt and Mira waltzed around the camp, their eyes locked on one another. Everything seemed to recede into the distance around them. The starlight, the flickering flames, the breeze that whispered in the leaves—it all faded slowly to black as they spun, faded until there was nothing but them, dancing in slow motion, the thoughts of Assembly walkers and Forsaken and bounties and death marks and plutonium and Fallout Swarms and everything else that had to do with reality vanished, faded until there was the staticky waltz and them and—

The music ended. And when it did, everything stopped.

Holt and Mira’s movement slowed, then ceased altogether. When they were still, they stayed in their positions: close, staring into each other’s eyes. A lock of her red hair hung loose on Mira’s forehead, and Holt gently pushed it back and tucked it behind her ear. They could feel each other’s hearts beating.

Then, from the distance, a sound yanked them both back to reality. Far off, the percussive booming of plasma cannon fire. The muted thumps of the after-explosions. Max, near Zoey, lifted his head up in alarm. The sounds ricocheted quietly off the thin trees, echoing eerily around them all… then faded.

Holt looked down at the girl in his arms and once again remembered all that she represented. A reward. His ticket to escaping the Menagerie for good. The ability to go where he wanted without always having to look over his shoulder. A chance for true freedom.

Holt could see similar thoughts playing behind Mira’s green eyes.

They were back where they had been: She was his prisoner. He was her captor.

But their hands were slow to leave one another, their eyes lingering. Regardless of what the other wanted to believe, for better or worse, something had changed.

They pulled away from each other as a new orchestral piece began to play. Mira moved back to her sleeping bag while Holt reached down and turned off the radio.

“Let’s rest up, we’re moving at first light,” he said. “We haven’t had any sleep in almost a day and a half.”

Zoey’s face formed a disappointed frown, and she left Max and moved to Mira’s sleeping bag. Mira said nothing as the little girl climbed inside, just pulled her close.

Holt climbed into his own bag, heard Max lie down next to him.

The fire was dying, the burning wood had reduced to coals now, glittering orange and red and providing only the dimmest light.

Holt, for his part, was glad for the dark. No one would see him there, his eyes open long after the fire finally died, staring sleeplessly at the stars that filtered in through the treetops above.

HOLT, MIRA, ZOEY, AND MAX STOOD at the top of a gently sloping hill that rolled down to the river valley below. At the bottom, where the river twisted and sparkled through the grass, something stretched from one side of the water to the other: a floating trading post made of all kinds of boats, rafts, barges, and other river craft that had been tied together into a single structure, and Mira saw a hundred or more kids swarming all over it, moving back and forth, trading supplies and necessities.

Floating trading posts like this one had the advantage of being mobile. They could set up shop in a different location every few days so as to avoid Assembly patrols. The permanent depots (like Faust or Midnight City) couldn’t relocate if the aliens came calling, so their only choice was to defend themselves. Fortunately, they rarely had need to.

The four had once again left the trees behind them, and now only the occasional elm and spruce jutted up from the green hills. Holt and Mira stood in the shade of one, leaning against opposite sides of the trunk, while Zoey and Max played together in the tall grass nearby.

Mira stared down at the trading post with a tightness in her chest she hadn’t expected. But why shouldn’t she? After all, the place represented an end to the group dynamic that had formed ever since the strangers were forced to traverse the Drowning Plains together. A dynamic that, in spite of her better judgment, she had grown to like. It was similar to the sense of belonging she had felt in Midnight City. The coming loss of it bothered her far more than she was comfortable with.

Here, Holt would hand off Zoey to one of the congregations or boats below, and the mysteries surrounding her would be left for someone else to solve. Mira would be bound again, and led around like a trophy. Holt would trade for the supplies he needed for the inevitable march north to Midnight City, where she would be returned to her old faction and slated for execution.