Born to Fight (Born #2)

"Remember just going in your car and grabbing food?" he mutters and splits a bun open. He stuffs it with meat and cheese.

I do the same and nod, "Yeah. It was so good. My dad never was into the bad food but Granny loved it. She liked those places where the food was spread out and you picked what you wanted."

He grins, "Buffets."

I point, "That’s it. Buffets." The word feels weird on my lips, like it isn’t real.

Will comes in the kitchen. He stands too close. I step away from him, frowning. Bernie grins and shakes his head. He takes another bun and walks back to the living room.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

Will shrugs, "I don’t know—what? Nothing?"

He takes a huge bite and smiles at me.

He never smiles this much.

I finish my bun and pour a glass of juice, "How do you guys have so much juice?" I ask loudly. Bernie looks back at me, "We have orchards. The fruit is trucked in and made into juice."

I scowl, "What a waste of fruit."

He laughs, "We only use the fruit that’s going bad for it."

I sigh and look at Will, "People are starving and the city folks have fruit going bad?"

He shrugs and wraps an arm around me. I want to shove him and maybe stab him with something. He's touching me too much and being too soft and weird. I struggle out of his arms and walk to the window. The lights flicker.

Bernie looks up, "They run on solar power energy that’s stored throughout the day. Our lights never work until the end of dusk."

I look out the window and watch as the lights of the small city all flicker together and then come on. "They're not very bright."

"They get brighter as they heat up. Everything is run on solar power." He points at the small holes in the ceiling, "Those are windows that bring in the light of the day; we don’t need power throughout the day."

I scowl, "I know. I've seen a skylight before."

He chuckles, "Anyway, everything is separate. They run the plug-ins separately from the lights. So the fridge runs all day, but there are no lights on."

I cross my arms, "What's the plan?" I don’t want to hear about how genius the city is. I can tell he had something to do with it all—he's too excited about it.

He narrows his eyes and shakes his head, "You seem awfully bitchy tonight." He looks at Will who has stopped eating and points at him, "Leave her alone." He has the warning tone.

"Stop!" I use my own warning tone.

Will frowns, "Babe…"

"No, we get the shit we need for Anna and we figure out how and where for the explosives, and we go."

Bernie crosses his arms, "You two are like the same person, only you keep switching roles and moods."

I look at him to argue but a laugh bursts from my lips. It's so true.

Will shakes his head and finishes stuffing his face. I turn my back, looking out at the lights starting to glow brightly. I wonder where Leo is and if he's safe. I wonder if I would know in my heart, if he weren't.

We leave the apartment through the same creepy hallway, but this time it's lit and not scary. The parkade is, as well. The lights turn on as we walk.

"Motion sensors so the lights don’t just stay on."

I smile and nod at the pride in his voice, "You all are clever."

He nudges me, "You don’t impress easily do you?"

Will scoffs. I look back at him. He grins and walks up to open the door for me. I choose the other side of the truck and climb in, getting my own door. Bernie laughs at it all. Will scowls at me, "What's your deal?"

I shake my head and look at Bernie. I don’t want to talk about it. Not in front of another person.

I still hate the parkade, but at least I can see where we are going. The lights turn on as we get to them and turn off as we leave. It is pretty genius.

We drive out onto the road.

"Where are the other cars?"

Bernie looks at me in the rearview, "Most people walk. There are buses that bring the doctors and nurses to and from the farms, but hardly anyone has a car."

I feel panic in my stomach, "Stop the truck."

He does. I jump out and start walking down the road.

"What are you doing, "You two are idiots. No one drives, but we're driving along drawing attention to ourselves."

Will catches up, "You might have mentioned that, Bernie."

He shrugs, "I drive everywhere."

I shoot him a glare, "try to fit in. Blend—like Star says."

He shrugs, "Okay, it's a long walk though."

I snort, "You have no idea what a long walk is."

Will laughs. We walk in silence, like the people we pass on the sidewalk. They give us a wide birth, probably thinking we are like the kids who travel in packs. We don’t pass anyone with more than two people in their crowd.

"We should split up," I mutter.

"Bernie, you walk up ahead, keep a good pace."

He speeds up as I stop and play with the laces in my boots. Will waits for me.

"What's up with you?" he asks.

I glance at Bernie, "This feels wrong."

He drops to his knee too, "What does? Us? I thought it felt pretty right."

"What? No, this. The near empty streets, the way we got into the city so easy, and the way Bernie has zero survival skills. It feels wrong." I look at the way his lip curls and can't fight the smile that crosses my lips, "Me and you is the only thing that doesn’t feel wrong. Beyond you acting like a girl from Granny's romance novels, that is."

He grabs my face and plants a gentle kiss on my lips, "I just want to be the person you want me to be. I want to pretend all the other things didn’t happen."

I shake my head, "But they did and I can't stop myself from loving you through them, so I guess they don’t matter much."

The grin I love and hate breaks out across his face, "What was that you just threw in there? You love me?"

I shove him lightly, "Shut up."

We start walking again. I look up at him, "You need to focus. The thing I LIKE about you is your common sense and survival skills." I make sure I emphasize like. "Don’t make me regret it."

He shakes his head, "Yeah well, the thing I LIKE about you is the way you manage to get under my skin constantly. In good and bad ways."

I nudge him and notice we are the only animated people on the road. We walk past a lady who is old enough to be my mom. She gives me a weird look. I drop my gaze.

"We need to blend."

He nods, "I see that. It's like these people died inside. The infected have more emotions than these people."

We walk past a man carrying a paper bag. He smiles at me kindly. I smile back.

"How did they choose who got to be a city person and who didn’t?" I mutter.

Will shakes his head, "I would guess the politicians, scientists, professors, artists, engineers, and doctors. People who mattered."

I look up at him, "It's gonna sound weird, but I like the borderlands better."

"Me too."

We pass by an alley and I see three young teenagers walking away from us. They walk with swagger and attitude, not like the other people here. I look down at the road we're walking on. It's smooth and flat, like the old roads were. Everything is tidy and clean. The buildings are made of metal and glass and they sparkle along with the night sky and the streetlights.

"I remember being in the city with my dad, and not being able to see the night sky, ‘cause the lights were so bright," I say looking up at the stars I can see.

"Yeah, the pollution too. There is no haze here. We lived just outside of Los Angeles. It was bad there. Mom went to work and got sick right away. Dad took us before the first tidal waves came. He had a bad feeling. We went to the desert and hung there for a while. Then we made our way north. He thought Canada was a good idea. But none of the cars worked near where we were. Someone had let off an EMP and killed the power. We hid at a house with a swimming pool for a while."

I watch Bernie saunter down the road and listen to Will's story.

We round a corner as he continues, "Dad didn’t come back one day. It was late, dinnertime and we were starving. Anna was pretty young, but she had paid attention to the things he was always trying to teach us. We were close to starving, by the time we decided to move on; he wasn’t coming back. We moved on to a new place and found some food in the cupboards. We ate too much and ran out again. We didn’t have any common sense back then."

I snicker, "Jake still doesn’t."

He laughs, "No, he doesn't. He was worse then though, believe it or not. We were close to the breeder farms, we just didn't know it. We'd made it all the way to Washington, close to Canada. Anna and Jake were inside of a house, raiding it. She was so tiny and yet able. More able than me or Jake. I heard the others outside. One of them heard a noise inside— Jake of course. So I ran, drawing them after me. I let them take me. I knew Jakey and Anna were basically going to die. I didn’t think he'd even have enough sense to get them out of there. But we'd seen the others taking girls as young as Anna. So I figured their best shot was me getting chased. I got taken and when I escaped I made my way back to where they were last—they were gone though. I spent a long while going back over our steps, retracing them. I didn’t think I would ever find them. So I went and made a burial for them and just tried to get past it."

We round another corner.

I look up, "You did the right thing. It's the things I would have done."

He shrugs, "When we found you and you knew where they were, I nearly died inside."

I nod, "I didn’t think you really cared that much."

He looks down, "I'm not good at caring. I turned that all off a while back."

I feel the sad look taking over my face, "I was wrong. I see that now. You were willing to risk me to get Anna back. You cared about them."