Page 18 of Before Their After

A strong gust of wind slapped me across the face. La Niña had kicked up in aggression with the instability of the atmosphere.

“Because.” Amaia broke into a full sprint. “Why?”

“Because if I accept it, then I’ll let my guard down.”

“Letting your guard down never killed anyone,” she came to a complete halt as the words passed through her ill-filtered lips. “Poor joke.”

I shrugged, coming to a stop a few steps ahead. The same could be said for her. “Only if you’re laughing at yourself too.”

“Ha, funny,” Amaia grumbled and turned down a path leading to another portion of the now fully enclosed Compound.

They’d closed off most of what would have been considered Monterey city-proper in what Amaia referred to as The Before. It was her way of separating realities. We were not the people life had molded us to be before society collapsed. Those who remained the same, died. It was simple. The same could be said for the city of Monterey, the people here were determined to rise from the ashes. We would never be who we were Before but it was who we were in The After that would make all the difference.

A large glass building sat in the center of The Compound next to The Gardens. It wasn’t complete with all the rooms Jax had instructed them to add on. So we ate most meals under an awning that an Earth elemental constructed to keep us shielded.The Kitchens, the Customs and Culture committee had settled on, was far too big for our current population. I still found it an illogical allocation of resources but I wasn’t in charge. I understood the line of thinking though. With the violence of the world slowing down and trade networks securely established, population growth was inevitable—especially if this test of society proved to be sustainable.

“I’m being serious though, Riley,” Amaia pressed on. Her persistence was oddly endearing. “It’s time to accept the truth for what it is, a gift.”

Rolling my eyes, the words slipped past my lips without a second thought. “This has never been a gift.” The response was reflexive.

“Then make it one.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, admittedly curious on her perspective.

“You know, bend that shit to your advantage. Use it to fuel you, to do whatever it is here that you want to do.” I listened as she spoke, her tone shifted to one that was definitive. I wouldn’t be able to fight her on this. Not anymore. “It’s time. You’ve been here for half a year and while everyone’s found their job, their home?—”

“I haven’t.”

“You have,” she said, side-eyeing me. Snapping at her never ended well. Much like London, it was better to bite my tongue and let her say her piece. “My home is your home, you know that. But now you need to find your place. Not just physically, I mean, here at The Compound. It’s time to settle in.”

“Been spending a lot of time with Prescott lately?” I muttered, it sounded more like his words than hers and she had a bad habit of regurgitating his opinion.

It wasn’t something I blamed her for. She was young, not exactly impressionable but Prescott had a lot of knowledge to share. I only wished she put a little more faith in her own line of thinking. There was a lot of pressure though with her being a founding member of The Compound. People looked to her with a certain sense of authority. Saying the wrong thing could make all this shit collapse. The saying ‘Rome didn’t fall in a day’ was stupid because it did. All it took was one bad decision, and the rest was a trickle-down effect.

“Well, yes,” she said, her head tilting side to side as she thought through her next words. “But my point is still valid. You were never crazy, Riley. Your father was never crazy, according to Henry, the symptoms presented as schizophrenia.”

“Can I tell you something I’ve never voiced out loud?”

“Always.” Her voice was gentle, soft, as she took my hand and gave it a light squeeze.

“I knew that,” I said, reflecting back on my childhood. “From the time I was a kid … Just if I said it out loud, it made it real.”

“Denial isn’t really your thing.”

Huffing a laugh, I looped my arm around her shoulder, pulling her in for what had become a comforting embrace over the last few months. “Don’t I know it.”

Henry was a surgeon in The Before but here at The Compound he was multi-faceted. If others with healing gifts or medical training in the past ended up settling here, he could go back to his specialty. With his wife as a former psychiatrist, Amaia had asked them to team up and run some tests, ultimately landing on the diagnosis. Well, a lack thereof. I was not schizophrenic, but my father was, so it would remain a possibility for the next few years until I aged out the range. The whispers I heard were true, and the shadows were my answer. The bugs spoke to me, awaited my command. No one else had these gifts that we were aware of.

“We can’t tell anyone.”

“I know.” She nodded. “Henry and Margot won’t say anything either. We’ll protect you, don’t worry.”

I shook my head. That wasn’t my concern. Yeah, there were people out there who still hunted down those who had more power than them. They ran in groups and often overtook smaller ones to ‘secure their survival.’ Survival of the fittest had taken a tragic turn. Some even claimed they’d seen them tossed into the back of caravans that were headed east. Rumors were of no importance to me, but facts, facts I could work with and I knew exactly how to get them.

We approached the construction site of what would be The Kitchens in a few months. Jax waved to us from the spot we’d become accustomed to eating most of our meals at, though at times the two of them disappeared into Prescott’s quarters through dinner and late into the night. I gripped her wrist, halting her in our approach. She turned, staring up at me in question at the hold up.

“You’re right. It’s time I do more around here. Pull my weight in a more consistent way.”

“Feels like there’s a ‘but’ coming somewhere,” she said as she nibbled on her bottom lip.

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