The Isles of Elysium

CHAPTER 20

“How did you know she’d be here?” Gillian asked as she led him up the stairs.

They were moving much slower than they really had to, not that Keo was complaining. Despite everything, being this close to her, smelling her, was still preferable to not seeing her again.

“I took a stab in the dark,” he said. “She’s stuck behind enemy lines at night and she can’t leave the safety of the town. Where would she go? There’s only one person here who she calls a friend. You. There was also her accomplice, but I took a chance that they burned their cover when they rescued her.”

“That’s a big chance.”

“It was fifty-fifty. I’d take those odds any day of the week and twice on Wednesdays.”

“Wednesdays?”

“I don’t like Sundays.”

She smiled, but it was gone quickly, replaced by the very determined Gillian he remembered from the days and nights of trying to survive after The Purge. “She’s bad off, Keo. I almost didn’t recognize her when Dave brought her here.”

Ah. Dave. The cafeteria man.

“Jay almost fainted at the sight,” Gillian continued.

“I thought he was a doctor.”

“He is, but he’s never seen someone get beaten that badly. It’s really bad.”

“I know. I saw her earlier.”

“You saw her earlier?”

“They were torturing her at the marina.”

“Jesus. Why didn’t you-”

“Save her? I did. Steve would have killed her. I spun him a story and he believed me. Then Dave had to go and jump the gun. She would have been fine after a few days.”

“A few weeks, maybe.”

“Or a few weeks. The point is, she would have been fine. She knew what I was doing and she was playing along. Your husband’s a doctor. Did he give her anything?”

Gillian sighed. “He’s not my husband.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“I guess.”

“Maybe live-in lover.”

“Give it a rest. Things are difficult enough without you popping back into my life.”

“My mistake. I only spent the last six months fighting everyone in the world to get to you. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.”

She stopped on the second floor and glared at him. She dropped her voice slightly when she said, “It was hard on me, too. It still is. It’s hard for everyone, okay? You, me, Jay…”

“But he’s the one you’re with. It can’t be that hard on him.”

“I…”

He put a hand on her belly. Four months, and it already looked bigger than a medicine ball. He didn’t want to imagine what she’d be like in four more months. It would be massive and impossible for him to ignore even if he wanted to. All those nights and weeks and months wondering if she was alive, imagining different scenarios about their reunion…

He felt like a two-time chump just thinking about it.

“Your hand’s cold,” she said.

“I’ve been out in the rain.”

“You’re going to catch a cold.”

“I’ll live.” He looked up, seeking out her eyes. “Four months. If you’d just waited a little longer…”

She looked down at his hand, circling her belly over the nightgown. She placed her hand over his and squeezed. “I know.”

“How?”

“How?” she repeated.

“You know what I mean.”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Gillian…”

“It just happened. It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s true. I was one of his helpers and I probably saw him more than anyone in town, including Jordan. One night I was depressed and thinking about…everything. I used to do that a lot, you know. Every face I saw, I wanted it to be you. Every time someone new came through Processing, I wanted them to be you. I thought you were dead, Keo. I tried to be positive, but every day it got harder. And he was lonely, too, and I guess we just thought it would be okay if we weren’t both lonely for one night.”

“Jordan didn’t know?”

“No. I worked in Medical and she was in Agriculture.”

“Do you love him?”

The question blurted out of him. He didn’t know where it came from, and he regretted asking as soon as it left his mouth. Not because it was something he didn’t want to ask, but because it was something he didn’t want to know the answer to.

She didn’t say anything right away, and the wide-open second floor seemed entirely too large. Although she was standing right in front of him and he could feel her belly pressing against the palm of his hand, she was more distant now than she had been in all those days and nights he thought about her, dreamed of her, and rehearsed their reunion over and over again.

Four fucking months.

“No,” she said finally. “He’s a good man, Keo.” She looked up at him. “But I can never love him the way I love you.”

“You say ‘love.’ Not ‘loved’…”

“I know what I said.”

He smiled. “Does he know that?”

“Yes.”

“But he’s still with you.”

“He’s a good man…”

“Stop saying that.”

“It’s the truth. Maybe one day I’ll come to love him, but it’s never going to be the way it was with us. Back at the cabin, all those months together after the end of the world… You can’t replicate something like that.” She put a warm hand against his cheek and traced the long scar. “But it has to be this way now. Because I need him to care for this baby. And I need this place to keep it safe. Do you understand?”

“But it won’t be safe. Not for your baby.”

“It will be.” She took her hand away and wrapped both arms around her stomach. “The doctors have privileges that the others don’t. My baby is going to be spared.”

Classes within classes, right, Steve?

She pursed her lips. “I know it’s selfish. It’s not fair to all the other mothers, but Jay has a special position here. What happened to me was an accident. Or, at least, I thought it was at first. I wasn’t going to keep it, you know. I was going to leave with Jordan. Then one day I felt it.”

“It?”

“The baby. It kicked. After that, I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t leave to raise my baby out there. It wouldn’t have survived for long. But in here, it could. I could watch it grow.”

“In this town…”

“It’s better than out there. Maybe if you had been here earlier, things would be different. But you weren’t, so I made a choice. And I chose my baby.”

She placed her head against his chest and Keo slipped his arms around her. He held her tight and never wanted to let her go, the way he had over six months ago when Pollard’s soldiers attacked the cabin. He had made that choice to save her.

Joke’s on you, pal.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know,” he whispered back.

He kissed her hair and inhaled her scent. Just soap and water, he knew, but it was still better than anything he had smelled in months.

Then, because he couldn’t take it anymore, “Let’s go see Jordan.”

*

Jordan was unconscious and lying on a bed in the guest bedroom. She was pantless and wearing an oversize button-down shirt that went all the way down to her thighs. Her face was still badly bruised, the purple and black swelling over her left eye even uglier now than when he had seen it earlier at the warehouse.

The room was dark, but there was enough LED light coming through the back window to see Jordan and her protector. He was a black man in his thirties with a shaved head, and he stood next to the window looking out at the streets-or at least what little of it he could see through the falling rain. He had a Walther P22 with an attached suppressor that he clenched tightly at his side, and the gun twitched when the door opened and Keo stepped inside with Gillian.

“Hello, Dave,” Keo said.

The man grinned. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“What?” Keo repeated.

“‘Hello, Dave,’” the man said. “From 2001.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a science fiction movie. Stanley Kubrick? That’s where the line’s from.”

“I don’t watch a lot of movies.”

Dave shook his head. “Whatever. That your golf cart down there?”

“You need a ride?”

“Hell yeah.”

“This is Keo,” Gillian said. “He’s a friend of ours.”

“‘Ours’?”

“Jordan and me.”

“What happened to your face?” Dave asked him.

“Shaving accident,” Keo said.

“Oh yeah? I ran out of shaving cream months ago.”

“I use butter.”

“Butter?”

“Yes.”

Dave looked like he was trying to figure out if Keo was kidding him, before finally saying, “Word of advice. You’re not nearly as quiet as you thought you were being. I could hear the two of you talking through the wall.”

“Sorry,” Gillian said, and gave Keo an embarrassed look.

“Anyway, I’m seeing a lot of activity on the streets. Soldiers with flashlights moving through the rain. What’s going on?”

“They’re looking for you,” Keo said. “Going house to house. Two of them are on their way here now. We have about twenty minutes to get you and Jordan to a better hiding spot.”

“Shit,” Dave said. “Where?”

Jay appeared behind them, squeezing through Keo and Gillian. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked to the bed.

“What’s he doing?” Dave asked.

“Getting her ready to move,” Gillian said. “You’re going with her.”

“Where are we going?”

“Downstairs.” When Dave still looked unconvinced, she added, “Trust me, Dave, okay?”

Dave nodded. “All right.”

“Bring her down when you guys are done,” Gillian said, and left them.

Keo watched her go, then looked back at Jay. The doctor was unbuttoning the oversize shirt and checking Jordan’s wounds. Then he opened a black bag he had brought in with him and took out a syringe.

“What’s that?” Dave asked.

“Sedatives to keep her asleep for a while,” Jay said.

“She gonna be okay?”

“If you’re worried about the cuts, don’t be; they’ll heal as long as they don’t get infected. And the swelling around her eye will go down soon.”

Keo looked at Dave. “You didn’t exactly think this through, did you? You didn’t think the soldiers would start going house to house looking for you?”

Dave shook his head. “I thought I had at least an hour to get her out of town.”

“You took a big risk rescuing her from Bannerman’s. Why?”

“I thought they were going to interrogate her for information.”

“What kind of information?”

“I don’t know. The group’s whereabouts, what Tobias is planning, that sort of thing. I thought it was worth blowing my cover to make sure she got away. I was going to take her to the safe location in the woods, but the goddamn storm clouds…” He sighed, exasperated-maybe with himself, maybe with everything. “Things went to shit fast after that. If she didn’t tell me to come here, we’d still be running around out there.”

Keo thought about telling Dave that he was protecting a ghost, because Tobias was gone and the last time he saw the man, Keo had a feeling he might never come back. But Dave didn’t know that, since people didn’t walk around with cell phones and texting had ceased to become a viable communication tool these days. Where was social media when you needed them?

#UBscrewedDave.

“Tobias is going to be pissed,” Dave said.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Keo said.

Dave gave him a questioning look, but Keo didn’t elaborate.

Jay finally finished what he was doing and stood up, then glanced over at Keo. “Can you carry her downstairs?”

“I can do it,” Dave said.

“No,” Keo said. “I’ll do it. She’s my friend.”

*

He carried Jordan down to the first floor, then followed Jay to the back hallway connected to the garage. They stopped at the laundry room, where Gillian was already waiting inside.

Like most homes before the end of the world, Gillian’s used to get its heated water from a tank. The tall, smooth, stainless forty-gallon container rested on top of a three-foot-high shelf in the back of the laundry room inside its own closet. Gillian had discovered a few weeks after she moved in that the previous owner had holed out the shelf and had been using it to store old parts for the heating unit. She had removed everything, leaving an empty three-by-four-feet extra area.

Dave peered into the tight space before sighing. “Are you sure she’ll be fine in there?”

“I gave her plenty of morphine,” Jay said. “She won’t feel a thing no matter how cramped it is.”

“You claustrophobic?” Keo asked.

“Hell yeah,” Dave said. “But I guess it’s better than nothing.”

Dave went back-first into the enclosed space, basically folding over into a ball to squeeze inside. He didn’t stop scooting until he bumped into the back wall. Keo laid down a duvet, then lowered Jordan’s unconscious body on top of it. Dave took hold of one end of the blanket and pulled it inside with him, but it took both of them to curl up Jordan’s legs and head to fit. She looked so peaceful that Keo found himself staring at her for a few seconds.

“What happens if they don’t buy it?” Dave asked.

“They’ll buy it,” Keo said. Then to Jay, “Right?”

Jay nodded. “They should. Definitely.”

Keo smiled. Jay really was a terrible liar, but it looked as if Dave believed him anyway.

“Man, this is going to be a tight squeeze,” Dave said. “How long do we have to stay in here?”

“As long as it takes,” Keo said. “Just pretend you’re a pretzel.”

“Oh, great. That helps a lot, thanks.”

Keo handed Dave his P22. “Just in case.”

“Just in case. Right.”

“Where’d you get that little beauty, anyway?”

“One of the soldiers gave it to me in return for some off-the-books rations. The guy told me it was the same gun that James Bond used in the movies.”

“Bond carries a Walther PPK. This is a Walther P22.”

“What, not the same?”

“Not the same.”

“Shit,” Dave said. Then, “I thought you don’t watch a lot of movies.”

“I don’t, but I do read,” Keo said, closing the shelf up. He straightened and wiped his hands on his wet pant legs. He was still dripping a little water from his clothes, but not nearly as much as before. “Sorry about the mess, Doc.”

Jay gave him a forced smile. “It’s okay. Tomorrow’s cleaning day anyway.”

“Cleaning day?”

“That’s when Gillian and I spend an hour just cleaning the house. We do it every week. This place was a mess when we first moved in.”

“Huh,” Keo said. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

“Do you, uh, need something for the pain?” Jay asked.

“Pain?”

Jay was staring at the still-red gash on his forehead.

“No, thanks,” Keo said. “I still get some headaches, but I’ve been taking these.”

He took out the bottle of painkillers and Jay took a look at them.

Then the doctor nodded. “I can give you something better. Stronger.”

“I’d appreciate that. They let you carry meds home?”

“I guess they trust me.”

Gillian appeared at the open laundry door and looked in at Keo, then at Jay, as if sensing that something had happened between them while she wasn’t there.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Good to go,” Keo said.

“Fine,” Jay smiled. Or tried to.

“Let’s get everything ready before they show up,” Gillian said. She gave the two of them another glance before leaving again.

He and Jay followed her out.

“I’ll go clean the mess you guys left on the first floor,” Jay said, and disappeared into the living room.

Keo looked after him, then at Gillian.

She sighed. “This has been an all-around tough day for him. First you, then Jordan…and now you again.”

“He seems to be holding up fine.”

“He’s tougher than he looks.”

“Hunh.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you’re thinking it.”

He shrugged.

“He is, though,” Gillian said. “You’d be surprised at what he’ll do if he believes in the cause. Like helping me hide Jordan and Dave. He didn’t have to do that, but he did.”

Keo nodded. She had a point there. Maybe he was letting pettiness get in the way of appreciating the sacrifice Jay was making. Then again, maybe he didn’t care to give Jay the benefit of the doubt.

Screw you, Jay.

He followed her back up to the second floor. He wanted to say something during the walk up the flight of stairs, like last time, but couldn’t think of anything that hadn’t already been said or would change the outcome of the last six months.

Gillian couldn’t, either, so they walked in silence instead.

They went to another room, where Grant was snoring on the bed. His boots were on the floor and the sheets around him were still wet. Jay had injected Grant with something called synthetic opioid etorphine that had put him to sleep. According to Jay, some of the soldiers had found the opiate at an animal clinic. It took Grant a few minutes to lose consciousness, but once he did, Keo wasn’t sure he could have woken the man up with a grenade.

“Jay says he should be asleep until morning,” Gillian said. “So you have that long to decide what to do with him. That is, if we actually get away with tonight.”

Keo chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Just like old times.”

She gave him a wry smile. “The old times weren’t that great, Keo. As I recall, we were running for our lives most of the time.”

“Not always. The six months at the cabin was nice.”

“Except for that. Those were okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Maybe good.”

“They were more than that.”

She sighed. “Maybe.”

“You still miss it, don’t you? You still miss me.”

“I told you. I’ll always miss you. That’s never going to change. The rest…the rest isn’t possible anymore.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe whatever you want-”

He kissed her.

She let out some muffled sounds at first, and he expected her to push him away again, but instead she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down harder against her mouth. Keo slid his hands along her side, skirted around her protruding belly, and squeezed her breasts. They were a lot bigger than he remembered.

Thunder crackled outside and lightning flashing across the back window, and he swore the room shook for a brief second.

“The earth moved,” he grinned.

“You’re so corny,” she smiled.

“Hmm,” he said, and kissed her again.

Harder this time, pulling her against him. He didn’t even care about the baby bump anymore.

“Keo,” she whispered in between the brief moments that he allowed her to breathe. “Keo. Stop it.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Jay’s downstairs.”

“Fuck Jay.”

“Stop it. Please.”

“No.”

“God, I hate you.”

“Liar.”

She tried to say something else, but he wouldn’t let her. She moaned incoherently against him, and he had reached one hand into her shirt to see just how big her breasts really had gotten-

Bang bang bang!

Pounding. From downstairs.

The front door.

He pulled back, annoyed and frustrated with the night, with the entire world.

“It’s time,” she said, gasping for breath against him. “Try not to get us killed, okay? All of us?”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said.