Chapter 8: Meat Jerky

It’s almost dark by the time I get back to Papa. He and Ambrose sit next to a small fire, holding their hands out for warmth. It’s starting to get cool but will get even colder through the night.

Papa runs to embrace me, thankful I’m safe. When he sees the blood on me, he panics.

“Neeka! What happened? Are you okay?”

I reassure him I’m fine, and the blood isn’t mine. I try to think of how to explain what happened, but the words evade me. I don’t know how to tell him I’ve just killed three men and left another for dead.

“There was a fight,” I tell him.

“Was that big brute there?”

“No,” I say. “There were a few bandits scavenging when I got there.”

“A few?” Even though he knows how powerful and deadly my enhanced legs can be, he’s still shocked to hear the story about how I took them out one by one. I don’t get into the grizzly details, but I do tell him that I killed them.

I think he’ll be upset or try to tell me why killing them was wrong, but he doesn’t. He embraces me and holds me.

“We are not who we were yesterday,” he whispers to me, and I know he’s right.

He lets go and clears his throat, sniffs back silent tears and starts rummaging through the cart. “Let me see what we have here,” he says, letting his natural sense of curiosity take over.

I walk over and sit by the fire, next to Ambrose.

“How is it a little thing like you can take on a group of wasteland bandits and survive?” Ambrose wants to know.

Aside from Papa, no one has any idea of my proths’ enhancements or that I’ve spent the last few years of my life training myself to fight and use makeshift weapons.

“I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve,” I tell him.

“I guess you do.”

Papa walks over and sits beside me, handing us each a piece of meat jerky.

“So, what do we do next, Papa?”

“For now, we are gonna rest. Thanks to you, we have enough water for a couple of days and the jerky is nice too. In the morning, we’ll head East toward Eden and hopefully find a civilized settlement along the way.”

“What if we run into a baldagaar?”

“Well, you know what they say: ‘When a baldagaar attacks the campsite, you don’t have to be faster than the baldagaar. You only need to be faster than the slowest camper.'” He looks at Ambrose with raised eyebrows.

“Very funny Papa,” I chuckle and punch him in the side.

“I’m faster than you think.” Ambrose says. But he is laughing too.

“What about grays?” I ask.

Where baldagaars are big, dumb brutes, grays are quick and cunning and usually hunt in packs. Rather than crush and kill you like a baldagaar would, they’ll start eating you while you’re still alive.

“I don’t think we have to worry about grays,” says Papa. “They are extremely rare.”

Ambrose and I look at each other, our shared skepticism obvious to Papa.

“No one has ever made it back to Eden from the Dread Wastes,” Ambrose says, his hope fading. “And the baldagaars and grays are probably a big part of the reason why.”

“Look,” Papa says. “We’ll be fine. We just need to stay focused and aware. Just because no one has made it back to Eden doesn’t mean no one has ever survived. There are civilized outposts in the Dread Wastes where outcasts are welcomed. Hopefully, we will find one.”

“We are going back to Eden,” I say, surer of that fact than anything else in my life.

“Neeka…” Papa starts.

“We can go to the outposts first. Rest up and get some supplies, but then we make our way back to Eden,” I interrupt Papa, trying to make my voice steely and cold. “Solomon will get what he deserves one way or another.”

Papa puts his hand on my head and strokes my hair. He looks at me, his eyes heavy with sadness and something else—pride, maybe, or fear for what I might become. “If anyone can do it, you can,” he says.

Papa lies back and settles in to get some rest. Ambrose does as well, but before he closes his eyes, he whispers to me.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for taking me with you and not leaving me to die with the others.”

I nod at him. I don’t know how to respond so I just put my hand on the side of his face and smile. Sometimes that’s better than saying anything.

I crawl over to Papa and try to make myself small enough to fit into the crook of his arm, just like I used to do when I was little and the world seemed too big, too scary. We both stare up at the sky full of stars. It’s amazing how it can be so dangerous and deadly in a place so beautiful.

Once Ambrose begins to snore, I finally feel like Papa and I are alone. I like Ambrose, but there’s a way Papa and I talk to one another when no one else is around. A language built from years of just us against the world.

“What are the stars?” I ask Papa. I’ve asked him this before, and he knows what I want him to say. It’s our ritual, our way of finding hope in the darkness.

“They are free,” he says, his voice soft but strong. “They give us direction and hope. Their brilliance is an example for us, that says we can shine as bright as they do when the time is right.”

“When do you think it will be my time, Papa?”

“You never know. It could be years, or it could be tomorrow. So always be ready to seize the moment when it presents itself.” Papa squeezes my shoulder, pulling me closer. “Just like your mother did. She always knew when to act, when to stand up for what was right. You remind me so much of her sometimes.”

“Tell me about when you made my legs,” I whisper. It’s another story I’ve heard a hundred times, but it always makes me feel safe, reminds me of who we are.

“I worked for weeks,” he says, his voice warming with the memory. “Everyone told me it couldn’t be done—proths for someone so young, they said. But I knew I had to try. I remember as you grew and with every new version I would craft, you sitting there, watching me work, asking questions about every gear and spring. You were so brave, never complained once about the pain.” His voice catches. “I knew the older you got, the more unstoppable you would be.”

Ambrose stops snoring and Papa looks over at him.

“He’s stopped breathing. Better go push him over on his side.”

I crawl over and roll him over. Ambrose snorts, catches his breath, and farts.

“Holy goatnuts!” I exclaim, back-crawling to Papa. “It smells worse than the gas clouds of Ashen Falls.”

Papa laughs.

I snuggle back into the crook of his arm and slap him playfully on the chest. “That’s not funny Papa. I think the smell is getting worse.”

Papa belly laughs harder and makes me laugh too. As the joking settles, we become quiet and a little solemn.

“Papa?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I’m scared.”

Papa doesn’t say anything for a brief pause. He just leans over and kisses my forehead. “We’ll be fine,” he says. “Besides, I thought you weren’t scared of anything.”

“I’m scared of spiders,” I say, recalling an incident when I was young and found a spider in the toilet. I cried hysterically while Papa captured it with some of his research notes and tossed it outside our dwelling. Papa chuckles and I know he’s remembering the same moment.

“Well, as long as we don’t see any spiders, we’ll be fine.”

Papa always knows how to make me smile. He’s been my whole world since I can remember—father, protector, teacher, friend. Even here in the Dread Wastes, with him beside me, I feel like anything is possible. I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.