Deliver Us: Ouroboros Archives Book One Read online

  Chapter 10

  EVERY DAY SINCE MEETING Jeremiah, I woke up happy. The days were long and exhausting but flew by when I was thinking about him. His gorgeous smile and the way he laughed when I tried to make a joke, even if I knew it wasn’t really that funny. But most of all, his passion to get out of the Underworld. Like me, he needed to find his family. He was sure his mother and brother survived, and he gave me hope that my family was also alive. We spent hours speculating on what we were going to do, all the possible reasons why we were there, and why only children were there and not adults. And then we’d go back to reminiscing about the past. I guess we both found comfort in it.

  One night Jeremiah stayed longer than he had before. The time flew by so fast that I was shocked when the wake-up bell rang less than an hour after he had left. I was exhausted, but my excitement kept me moving. I went about the rest of the day like I didn’t have a care in the world—like a robot going through mechanical motions. All day I played our discussions back and thought of new things I planned to bring up that night. So much had changed since Jeremiah came into my life.

  When the day’s shift finally ended and we all herded back to our section, I scanned the common room for Jeremiah, but he wasn’t there. He was always there before me. Dinner came and went, and hours passed without him returning. A sick feeling churned in my stomach. Something was wrong. I agonized at the thought that he was hurt during his training.

  After Rachel had gone to sleep, I tiptoed to Sarah’s room. “Are you awake?”

  “Yeah, come in.”

  It had been forever since we had talked like this at night. We still chatted in the evenings and relied on each other as we helped the smaller children with their evening routines, but a long time had passed since we had talked one-on-one.

  “Are you okay?” Sarah broke the silence.

  “I’m worried.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” She really couldn’t say anything else. She didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him any more than I did.

  “I know you’re right, I’m sure he’s fine too. Maybe he got hurt, and they have him in an infirmary.” I was reassuring myself. It wasn’t worth dwelling on where Jeremiah was or what had happened to him, and I didn’t want to make Sarah uncomfortable talking about it, so I changed the subject. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay. Trying to stay positive and do the right thing. I just focus on making the children happy, so they don’t miss their old lives and their families so much.”

  “It’s good that you do that, and you’re good at it.”

  Sarah was the main caretaker of our block. Without her, this place we now call home would be a dismal, unorganized prison. Sarah took a bad situation and found the positive, the silver lining, and turned it into a happy place we could all come back to at the end of our long, grueling workdays.

  Three days passed and I was on the verge of accepting that Jeremiah may be gone for good. It was early in the morning, before the wake-up bell sounded, that the door to our quarters opened and I jumped from my bed. Two large men stood at the entrance with Jeremiah slumped against them. Without taking one step into our block, they shoved him in and he fell hard to the ground. He didn’t move, I thought he was dead. Why did they bring him back here if he’s dead?

  We all ran to him. I gently touched his head and tried to turn him on his side to get his face off the nasty floor. Dry, flaky blood covered his face and arms. His eyes were purple and puffy. I don’t think he could see out of them. A knot crept up my throat at the sight of him. “Bring him some water,” I screamed and a small boy brought it fast. I put it up to Jeremiah’s swollen, chapped lips and tilted the cup so it trickled into his mouth. He swallowed and my shoulders relaxed. He was alive.

  “Let’s get him to his bed.”

  Two teenage boys crouched over the other side of him, each grabbed under Jeremiah’s shoulders and tried to lift him. They were unsteady. “Be careful, don’t drop him.” I snapped but didn’t mean it. I stood in front of him, acting like I was helping, but not doing anything but directing them. When they got him up, it occurred to me that these boys, probably no older than fourteen or fifteen, were extremely strong. I assumed that they had been in the same intense training that Jeremiah had told me about.

  We carried him to his room and laid him on the bed. Sarah followed with water and rags. I sat so close to him that I think the other boys were surprised. Sarah motioned for them to back up, and as they did she stood next to me ready to pass moist rags as I cleaned Jeremiah’s injuries. We didn’t speak, it was like we knew what we had to do, and we did it.

  Jeremiah groaned as I touched the gashes on his face. We needed medicine.

  “Sarah, do we have any more of that ointment from when Ruth cut her finger?”

  She ran out and returned in a flash, handing me a small glass jar. The medicine was clear, and I brought it up to my nose. Eucalyptus. The first and only item in the Underworld reminiscent of home. I applied it to each wound on Jeremiah’s head, face, neck, chest, and arms. His eyes fluttered, he tried to open them, but they were just slits. Maybe the smell of the ointment brought him back to us.

  “Jeremiah, it’s me, Liv. You’re back in section 4.” He tried to crack a smile; his expression was one of relief. Whatever he had been through, he was back in the safety of our block, with people who had become his family.

  I wanted to know what had happened but didn’t want to make him talk, and he was clearly in pain. His breathing was labored and his chest and abdomen so bruised that I thought he may have broken ribs and internal bleeding. He needed a doctor, not some kids taking care of him. What if he didn’t survive?

  When we were done I stayed with him for a long time. I wanted to crawl up next to him and stay all day and night. Sarah finally nudged me and said, “Come on, we should let him rest.”

  I didn’t even realize that breakfast had arrived. Everyone had gathered their plates and ate in silence, but many only pushed the food around. Somber and scared faces looked up at me for answers.

  “He’s going to be fine.” There was nothing else to say, I turned and went into my room.

  Minutes later the work bell rang. Everyone scurried, as usual, to get into their lines and wait for the heavy metal door to open so they could file out for another day of work. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs or cry into a pillow. I didn’t want to be scared and I didn’t want to leave Jeremiah.

  Could I ask the guards to let me stay and take care of him? Clearly, he was in no shape to work and he shouldn’t be left alone. I got at the end of the line and worked up the courage to tell a guard that someone should stay with Jeremiah. Sarah was the last in her line too, and they filed out first. Before she reached the hall outside our quarters, a guard stopped her and said, “You, stay and watch over the injured one.”

  That was it. He gently pushed her back into the room. She glanced up at me with a confused look as she headed to Jeremiah’s room. A jealous knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to yell, No, I volunteer to stay with him! But I feared a similar fate of being beaten to the brink of death if I made a scene. I was a coward. I dropped my head and filed out for a long and agonizing day.

  When the day finally came to an end, I ran back to our block as fast as I could. I fell into the common room as the door slid open and made a beeline for Jeremiah’s room. He was in the same position I had left him in that morning. He was alone. I hadn’t even bothered to see where Sarah was when I entered the common room. Standing next to his bed, I scanned his face and body to assess his injuries and to see if there was any improvement. He seemed to sense me there and opened his eyes. The swelling had gone down some, not a lot, but enough that the whites of his eyes could be seen. He smiled. I took that as an invitation to sit.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he whispered in a low, raspy voice.

  I smiled and touched his head softly. “I’m glad, I was really worried. Can I bring yo
u anything?”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. I wanted to crawl up next to him.

  After a couple of minutes he said, “Liv,” then paused. “Liv, I um, I need you to go.”

  I didn’t understand him. “What do you need? Can I bring you water? Are you hungry? Dinner will be here soon.”

  “No. I just, I need you to go. Sarah will take care of me. I can’t have you in here.”

  My heart stopped. What was he saying? He didn’t want me in his room? He didn’t want me to care for him? Tears welled in my eyes. I was confused and hurt. I sat there frozen, unable to accept what he was asking.

  He turned his head to the concrete wall and whispered, “Please, just go.”

  I got up and backed out, trying to hold back the tears as I walked to my room. When I got there, I plopped on my bed and buried my face in the thin, cotton-filled pillow. The tears flowed. Not because I was in this horrible place, but because I had fallen for a guy who I didn’t even know existed a few weeks ago and now he wanted nothing to do with me.

  For days I walked around like a zombie. I went to work, came back, and went to sleep. Or at least I tried to sleep, mostly I thought about the past and the future. I couldn’t bear to see Jeremiah, or worse, to see Sarah taking care of him, so I just stayed in my room. Every evening after dinner Rachel asked me to please come play, but I told her I didn’t feel well, and it was the truth, my broken heart made me nauseous.

  But I couldn’t wallow forever and soon I went back to spending time with the children, singing songs, telling stories, and playing games. Jeremiah had made a full recovery and began participating again too. He also went back to his training. I never looked at him, I avoided him completely. A few times I thought I felt him looking at me, but I didn’t dare look. I figured it was my imagination—why would he look at me or try to communicate with me when he basically said he didn’t want me around?

  It was about three weeks after Jeremiah had been beaten half to death that my world turned upside down again. It was late at night, and I was trying hard to get to sleep. I’d been trying harder to get more sleep as a way to escape my reality and dive into my dreams where I could be home on my beach, with my family. My eyes were heavy—I could feel my comforter from home and smell the salty air. Someone was standing near my bed, their heat radiated toward me. I thought it was Jonah. I forced my eyelids open and remembered where I was. Sarah? The darkness fell away and my eyes adjusted. It was Jeremiah.

  I sat up quickly. His expression was strange; he looked nervous, in a scared sort of way, but also concerned.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded and gestured for me to move over so he could sit down. I scooted a bit and he sat next to me. He kept looking at me. I couldn’t stand that we had gone from pouring our souls out to each other as if we were the last people on Earth who could be trusted, to being completely cut off, and then back to staring at each other. Had his memory been erased when he was injured? Maybe he was hit so hard on the head that he had amnesia.

  I came to assume on my own that he had been beaten during training, practicing for the war he insisted would be coming. I thought a lot about it and entertained the possibility that he had been beaten by the guards, but that didn’t make sense—why would the people training him for their war purposely beat him to that extreme? And Jeremiah wasn’t the type of person to make trouble, especially when there was so much more we had to learn about this place and why we were there.

  “What happened to you?”

  This time he lifted his finger and placed it over my lips. He didn’t want to talk, and he didn’t want me to talk. I moved back to fully take in his expression. I tried to read his face, and maybe, I was just reading what I wanted to see.

  He looked up at the ceiling, scanned the room, and immediately looked back at me. He put his index finger up to his own lips. He was telling me that they were listening. I understood him; in a flash, it was like we were talking again. He was telling me that we had talked too much, the Ghosts had been listening and they didn’t like it. I touched his face, his ribs, his arms, and looked at him with concern as if to ask, Did they do this to you because of our talks?

  He slowly nodded.

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe he was beaten because we were trying to figure out why we were there and what we were going to do to get out. The sour taste of bile filled my mouth as I resisted throwing up. We were all alone—all thirty of us together in these quarters, but each of us completely alone.

  Jeremiah took my hand in his and sat there for a minute, then he pulled me toward him. I moved in closer as he scooted back to rest against the wall. I laid my head on his chest and his right hand softly cradled and caressed my head. My body hadn’t been this close to another person in a long time, and I had never been close to anyone like that who wasn’t family. In an instant the nausea dissipated, I was happy again. We stayed there for about an hour. His heart was beating like the rhythm of a low drum. I didn’t ever want it to end, I could stay there in his arms forever. Though I knew it would end and before long it was time for him to go back to his room.

  Then he did something I never expected. He looked down at me, moved his face close to mine, and kissed me. My heart raced and butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I was so nervous I didn’t know what to do. I had never kissed anyone before. Well, not like that. He kissed me for several minutes and I liked it, I didn’t want it to stop. He pulled back and looked at me with his intense eyes and smiled, probably the biggest smile I’d ever seen on him. I smiled too and then looked away with my cheeks burning. He turned my head back to look at him and gently kissed me again before getting up. As he stood up in front of me, he bent down and kissed my head. Then he walked out.

  I laid down, but it was like I was floating, my entire body tingling. Jeremiah was back in my life, and he felt the same way I felt about him.

  The next morning, I jumped up at the sound of the first alarm. I had a renewed sense of hope and looked forward to what was ahead, not just the prospect of being with Jeremiah again, but also making plans for the future, for learning more about our strange captors and getting out of there.

  Jeremiah wasn’t in the common room so I peeked into his room, but he wasn’t there either. He had already left. It was strange, but it had happened in the past. I tried not to think of it as a bad sign. Heading to the lab, I counted the hours until I’d be back in our section. I couldn’t wait to be in his arms again.

  When the workday ended, he still hadn’t returned. I waited. I couldn’t eat, so I sat at the table closest to the entrance for hours playing with the kids, but mostly preoccupied with where he was and whether he would be coming back.

  He never entered the door. I agonized all night about where he was. I would never forgive myself if he was beaten again because of the previous night. I played the night back in my head—I had never spoken his name when we were together, and he never said a word. There was no way they would’ve known about us being together. Unless, there were cameras in the rooms.

  Was that possible? The thought made me sick. Could they see everything we do?

  Chapter 11

  THERE’S A MOTIVATION inside me, a burning in my chest that’s rising to my head. It may explode. If I had the means, I’d destroy every last Ghost on this ship. Patience. I’ll get us out of this situation and the Ghosts will pay.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Last night Liv was in my arms, the fresh smell of her body—the memory sends a rush through my limbs. It was only a few weeks ago that I got the courage to talk to her. There’s something about her. Maybe how she holds herself with confidence, or that she organizes the children of the block with a firm hand, but gentle voice. She speaks articulately; each word thoughtful, her ideas flow easily out of her mouth and into everyone’s ears.

  Our situation is dire—captives stolen from our homes and forced to fight a war that’s not ours—but Liv doesn’t dwell on that, she seems to accept our circumstances
and help us get through each day as best as we can. We won’t wallow in sadness. No, we’ll play games, tell stories, and sing songs. So many things I wouldn’t have participated in just a few months ago. I had more adult things to do than carry on with preschoolers.

  And she isn’t hard to look at. Her hair a lighter brown than most people I know, her eyes a striking deep gray, something as rare as a diamond, but they sparkle just the same.

  Two strict rules exist in the Underworld: we can’t talk to the girls, and we can’t talk about our previous lives or our missions. But I couldn’t help it, I had to talk to her. I was going crazy watching her, and she was watching me. It was maddening not to be able to introduce myself to at least one person my age who seemed to have their shit together.

  So, I did. One night when everyone was asleep, I went to her room. My heart drummed heavily in my chest and my palms were slick, but to my surprise she invited me in, and we talked for hours. Rule number one was officially broken.

  We continued to talk at night for weeks. I hadn’t felt this happy in as long as I could remember. There’s no one else like her. The girls from my village are cruel, conceited. The only other girlfriend I’ve had left me in the dust for another guy. My heart was broken, until now. She never listened to me like Liv does. Liv actually cares.

  A few nights after our first real battle, I broke rule number two. We’d probably broken it before, talking about our lives before the invasion, but this time I brought up the mission. I didn’t mention that we had already fought and possibly killed some of the Ghosts’ enemies.

  She was shocked that we were fighting a war, she was working on microchips and had no idea why. I guessed that they were for the laser guns, electromagnetic spears, or the tracking devices we wear on our wrists. Every person in the Underworld is working for the war effort. We just needed to figure out what, if anything, we could do to stop it. There was something in Liv’s eyes—a fire deep inside, propelling her to do something to get us out of our situation.