More time passed. The skittering feeling in her brain began to subside. The weakness did not flee her limbs, but she slowly regained some strength in them. The sick feeling went away, thankfully, and she was able to sit up. She could not stand, however. She staggered a few steps and then landed on the floor right on her bottom. She stayed there, unable or unwilling to move again.
She closed her eyes and tried to focus on one thing, but the only thing that would come up in her brain, the only thing that she could think of, was Marik.
Her heart broke. The pain of his betrayal was nearly as great as the pain of the implant that he had placed within her mind.
The implant. Her eyes flew open. Had it broken somehow? In her memories, Marik had said that it would slowly seep its knowledge into her brain and that he would build a wall around it so that she would learn, but not at a high enough rate to kill her.
Had he been both right and wrong? Had it somehow seeped in slowly and then somehow burst, that implant?
She could recall that first day at the hospital, the day she had knelt beside the body of Melinda’s mother. Marik had said to her, “You know what to do. Now do it.”
And she had known. She closed her eyes for a moment, and she had seen how to heal that awful and violent injury.
Her shoulder straightened. Her anger was still great and too high for her to even understand. Anger was not something she had ever felt much in her life. It left her feeling shaken and ill all over again. It was still there though.
No matter what his reasons for doing it, Marik could have killed her with that implant.
She heard a faint and distant clatter and bang. Strength suddenly flooded into her body, riding along a sudden spurt of adrenaline. She managed to stand and to get back to her little metal jug. She hefted it again and stared down at it with a bemused expression on her face. Was she really considering using that as a weapon?
It would have to do. It was the only thing she had.
The door opened. She tucked the metal jug behind her back, clenching it tightly in the fingers of that hand. Ben stood there. He said, “Well. It seems your friends are willing to ransom you. However, they won’t give up the chest until they see you. I knew there was some sort of thing between you and those creatures.”
His face was ugly. Everything about him was ugly. She held onto the metal jug, wondering if she should just go ahead and conk him, on the head with it anyway.
He said, “Don’t stand there, you little bitch. Get moving.”
She tucked the metal jug down into her trousers, making sure her tunic was over it. He asked, “What are you doing?”
She gulped. “I got sick. I’m was just arranging my clothes so that they weren’t so rumpled.”
She let her eyes slide toward the little slick pool of her illness. His eyes went to it too, and a curl of disgust appeared on his lip. He shook his head. “Course you did. I should’ve known.”
He should’ve known? What should he have known? That she’d be sick? He probably thought it was fear. Even better. If he thought she was that afraid, perhaps that would be the greatest weapon that she had against him.
She moved toward the door. Ben followed behind her, and she found herself having to resist the urge to put her hands back behind her and pat at her tunic to make sure that the shape of that little metal jug didn’t show. The fact that she found it comforting was probably stupid, and she knew it. It was one jug against actual weapons. It would probably do her no good at all, but she intended to keep it anyway.
To her surprise, they went up several flights of stairs and then into the front rooms of what must’ve been a grand residence at one time. Ben grabbed her arm then as they passed through the room. At least a hundred Rovers stood or sat about. All of them looked at her with speculation and greed in their faces. Jenny dropped her eyes, not willing to look at them or to have them see her face. She was too afraid that they would see that she was angry and hoping to use her makeshift weapon against Ben.
He hustled her through a series of doors. They stepped outside, and she had to squint. Her head went back, and she looked upward. The sky was there, and so was the sun. She stopped for a moment, her feet stumbling on the steps. Ben snarled, “What are you doing?”
She just stared upward. “The sun. When I arrived, there was so much dust you couldn’t see it. I’ve been in the hospital ever since I got here. I haven’t even had time to go outside. The sky, it’s right there, and I just want to see it.”
Ben actually laughed. “Yes. The sun and the sky they always denied us. Now we can look at it anytime we want while we starve to death.”
He dragged her onward. Her feet went through piles of dust and debris. More Rovers joined them, forming a sort of loose group around them. They marched onward with Ben dragging her every step of the way. She kept her eyes pinned up to that sky. This was the place she had come from, but this was not home. The sky here was not as blue and the sun not as bright and life-giving. These were not the people that she loved and wanted to spend her life with anymore.
What difference did it make where one lived? Above ground or Below? It had once mattered a great deal but those days were gone. The difference now was showing in the actions of those left.
The people who were carrying her forward and the ones who had been busy rebuilding and trying to dispose of the dead, the ones who had been searching through the rubble for lost relatives and who had sat silently alongside their injured and loved family members, those were the humans that she wanted to be with.
She wasn’t even sure Ben and his kind were human. Maybe they had been once, but they had lost something, something that gave them their very humanity, and she didn’t know that they would ever get it back.
Ben gave her a hard little shake. “Move faster!”
She did. She kept her eyes riveted forward now. The sight of the sun in the sky no longer fascinated her. She had seen more beautiful sights in her life after all.
They marched out of the residence and up the street. The Rovers looked decidedly nervous as they went. They had reason to be. At least she was fairly sure they did. They were up against skilled warriors. No matter how vicious they were, their weapons might not be enough to protect them against Marik and Talon. Not to mention Jessica.
