The First City (The Dominion Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  “Thank you. That was the best meal I’ve had in weeks.”

  “I’m not much of a cook, but I had to learn while Ray was sick.” His voice trails off and he begins to wipe the countertop with a towel.

  “Did you lose him?” she asks. He nods without looking up. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. He definitely wouldn’t have wanted any pity. He wasn’t that kind of man.” Lee stops cleaning and arranges the towel on a hanger. “I’m sorry about Eli. He was a good person.”

  Zoey swallows and bites the inside of her lip. “Thanks. He was very special.”

  The light outside continues to change, the blue graying until she can make out the next house over through the window. “You have to go soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I have an idea,” Lee says haltingly. “But it’s risky.”

  “I think anything we come up with will be risky.”

  “Very true. I don’t know if it will work.”

  “Tell me.”

  He does and when he’s finished she sits back in her chair, toying with the cuff of her shirt. “And you think you can build it?”

  “I know I can. I’m just not sure I’ll be able to smuggle everything I need back to the house tonight. But that’s not even the most concerning part. The doctor is still the weak link. There’s no guarantee he won’t raise the alarm as soon as we’re gone.”

  “From what I’ve learned, doctors from before were different than the ones at the ARC. They valued human life above all else.” She pauses, sitting forward again. “I recently read something that said deep down people are generally good.”

  “Something written before the Dearth I’m assuming.”

  “Yes. But it was also during another terrible time, and the person who wrote it didn’t give up hope for humanity.”

  “So you’re saying we just have to trust the doctor won’t yell for a soldier the moment we’re gone?”

  “I’m saying we have to believe not everyone’s lost who they were before.”

  Lee brings a hand up to his forehead, pushing his hair back. He closes his eyes. “I still can’t get my mind around it. That it might be true. That we might have . . .” He takes a deep breath and braces himself on the countertop and blinks. Zoey moves to him, grasping him around the waist as his balance falters.

  “Here, sit down, it’s okay,” she says, guiding him to the floor. He’s shaking but manages to put an arm around her.

  “I’m sorry, it just hit me.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m not ready to be a father. I don’t know anything.”

  She holds him, his head leaning on her shoulder. “We don’t have to be afraid anymore,” she says. “We’ll face everything together.”

  Outside, the rumble of a truck nears and recedes, and the light brightens. Lee turns his face to hers, and slowly leans in, kissing her. She feels the need rise again inside her, the warming flow extending outward from her center to her limbs as if she’s standing before a crackling fire. She begins to pull him closer but stops and strokes the side of his neck.

  “I have to go,” he says huskily. “But last night . . .”

  “Yes. Later,” she says, kissing him once more before standing and pulling him to his feet. He gives her a longing look before moving down the hall to the bedroom, a minute later returning dressed in different clothes. She walks with him to the front entry and he stops, framed there in the growing light of day. For a split second the overwhelming urge to run again steals over her. They could leave the city tonight, together, flee until they are somewhere safe and start their life.

  Their life.

  It has such a beautiful sound to it. But doubt would always be the third occupant of any room they shared. The unsaid wondering would be easy to ignore at first, she’s sure. But time has a way of compacting ideas into dense, terrible things, and she knows eventually it would crush them both.

  “Be careful,” she says, forcing her voice to stay steady.

  “I will. You too.”

  Then he is gone, the door shut behind him, leaving her in the utter silence of the house, so still and complete it’s almost as if he was never there at all.

  29

  The day doesn’t brighten past the early daylight hours.

  The cloud-choked sky hangs like a low ceiling above the buildings Zoey can see on the street in front of the house. For the longest time, she sat in the kitchen, gazing out at the world, mind simply taking in the sight, no real thoughts processing. It was relaxing not thinking about anything. She tries to recall the last time she let herself mentally drift and can’t. Maybe she’s never done it, and the idea saddens her.

  She washes her clothes in the downstairs bathroom, filling the tub with hot soapy water. The washer and dryer would have been faster but she doesn’t want to risk someone passing by hearing the sound. And besides, she’s had enough of washing laundry in machines. Ten lifetimes enough.

  When her soiled clothing is relatively clean she drains the filthy water and hangs them on the shower-curtain rod. Upstairs she finds herself looking through the refrigerator. It’s only been a few hours since she ate, but already she’s hungry again. Ravenous. She finds something that looks like soup and after testing it, dives in and devours every last drop. She drinks several glasses of water before retrieving her handgun from the bedroom. At the kitchen table she sets about disassembling and cleaning it with a rag she found under the sink.

  As her hands work, she has no respite from the thoughts that buffet her. What if Lee can’t find everything they need at the factory? Or worse yet, he’s able to locate all the pieces but gets caught bringing them out. What explanation could he give that would dissolve the guards’ suspicions? Beyond that, she runs through the plan if they are able to execute it. What if the doctor doesn’t have the equipment necessary to test the blood? What if he’s unwilling to help them, even by force? What if . . .

  She stops herself, realizing her hands have forgotten their purpose and sit folded in her lap. If there’s one thing she’s learned since her escape, it is there’s no use in worrying about what will come until it does. There is only planning for possible eventualities, and even that can be futile and frustrating work.

  When the weapon is clean she reloads it and brings it to the bedroom once again, setting it on the nightstand. Mist beads on the window, and for a time, she watches it form droplets that rush down the glass and out of sight before she lies on the bed. The linens smell like Lee, the scent of him so familiar she curls her hands into the loose blankets and breathes it in. A surety comes upon her then. Everything will be all right. Their plan will work; they’ll find a doctor and he’ll be able to tell them the truth about the baby.

  They’ll rescue her, their daughter.

  Save her from that terrible place of walls and sterility.

  She’ll never forsake the girl to years like she spent in hopelessness and despair.

  Never leave her behind like her parents had.

  Never . . .

  The sound of movement in the house brings her up through a collage of dreams so quickly it feels as if she’s been physically jerked.

  The room is dark, everything around her rounded shadows, and it takes her several dizzying seconds to remember where she is.

  A soft scrape comes from the kitchen.

  She reaches out, snagging the pistol from the nightstand, and then she’s on her feet, padding quietly to the door.

  She looks down the hallway and leans out, pointing the gun at the shape that stands at its end.

  “Zoey?”

  Her breath rushes out and she lowers the weapon at the sound of Lee’s voice. “You scared me.”

  “Sorry,” he says, flicking on a light above the kitchen counter. “I figured you were sleeping and didn’t want to wake you.” It’s then that she realizes she’s slept all afternoon and evening. Her body’s sore from the sleep, but her head feels clear and rested.
Lee moves around the kitchen, twitching blinds and curtains shut over the windows as she approaches.

  “How did it go?”

  “As well as it could. I got everything we need.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. But I had to have one of the other workers help smuggle some of it out.”

  She stiffens. “What did you tell him?”

  “Just that I was working on a home project. He was a little leery, but I promised him money from Ray’s retirement stash he had in his apartment.”

  “Can you trust him?”

  “Yes. Besides, he doesn’t know anything about you. No one here does.”

  “You never even told Ray?”

  He pauses at a window in the dining room. “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  He gives her a small smile and comes back to the table, digging in his coat pockets and laying out various pieces of equipment. “I had to disassemble it into as many pieces as I could. Even then I was half sure the soldiers would hear something clanking together when I left.”

  She gazes at the menagerie of screws, bolts, springs, and levers. In a million years she wouldn’t be able to piece it together for what they need. Lee leaves the kitchen, returning a second later from the entry with a small toolkit he spreads out on the table. Immediately he begins assembling the parts, fingers moving deftly among the steel components as the apparatus begins to take shape.

  Zoey watches him, the part of her that’s always admired how Lee’s mind works transfixed by the process. Once again the fact that she’s here, standing beside him, stuns her. She smiles and moves to the stove, finding a kettle in one of the cupboards to heat some water.

  “Do you have tea?”

  “Mmm?” He looks up. “Uh, yeah. There should be some in the drawer left of the sink.” She finds the packets and drops the bags into two cups, pouring the steaming water over them. When she sets his mug down beside him she’s shocked to see the mechanism is almost fully together. Only one piece remains on the table, which he picks up and bolts into place, tightening it with a small ratchet.

  “Done,” he says, setting the tool down.

  “How will it work on its own?”

  “See this part here? That’s a spring timer. Four winds and it will trigger the lever four times, which should be about right. Your gun goes here in this clamp.” He demonstrates, and she watches the machine work, clicking and clacking before it falls silent.

  “It’s . . . perfect,” she says.

  “I don’t know about perfect, but it should work.”

  They stare at the contraption until Zoey says, “What time do you think I should leave?”

  “Somewhere between two and three tomorrow morning. It looks like it will be raining for a while, so that should give you some cover too.”

  She nods before pulling the blood vial from her pocket. “If something happens to me you need to take this.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “It’s easy to say that, but things always happen. If something goes wrong, I’ll hide it on the top floor of the building across from the hospital in the northwest corner of the ceiling. Find it and go through with the test.”

  “Zoey—”

  “Promise me you will.”

  He sighs, looking down before meeting her gaze again. “I promise.”

  She reaches out and takes his hand, and they sit that way for some time, neither moving, taking comfort from each other’s presence. Finally, Zoey stands and goes to the refrigerator. “Are you hungry? I have some leftover stew I can heat up.”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  “I don’t know about perfect, but it should work,” she says, smiling.

  “I would eat just about anything right now. But first I’m going to shower, if you don’t mind?”

  She covers her mouth and nose. “Please do.”

  He narrows his eyes at her before moving down the hallway to the sound of her laughter. She removes the stew from the refrigerator where she stowed it earlier that morning and begins heating it in a pan. A sense of contentment, a rightness, surrounds her, and even with the knowledge that she’ll have to leave in a few hours, she savors the moment. This is what I have to hold on to. These little bits and pieces of warmth between the madness. Maybe that’s all life really is.

  The stew bubbles and she sets the pan to the side, turning the stove off. She moves down the hallway and enters the bedroom to let Lee know the food is ready.

  He stands at the sink in only a towel, the muscles of his back standing out as he braces himself there. For a second she thinks he’s crying, but then he straightens and turns, pausing when he sees her.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About tomorrow and how I don’t want you to go.” He comes closer and she can’t help that her gaze slides down his torso to where his skin disappears beneath the towel. He stops inches away and she can smell the soap he used as well as an underlying metallic odor she assumes is from the factory. It is familiar, and she realizes he used to smell like this sometimes at the ARC from working in one of the shops.

  “I don’t want to either, but we don’t have a choice.”

  “No. We only have right now.” His hand comes up and his fingers graze her hair. She touches it as well, suddenly self-conscious.

  “I know it’s ugly.”

  “There are a few things you’ll never be. And ugly is one of them,” he says, his breath tickling her cheek. She looks up at him and then his lips are brushing hers, softly at first, then with an urgency that she returns. They stay that way for a moment, embracing, and she can feel the cold speckles of water from his skin soaking into her shirt. Then they’re moving toward the bed, the only light in the room coming from down the hall. It dapples his body with shadows of purple and black that shift as he helps her from her clothes.

  This time it is slower, less frenetic, and her nerve endings hum in each place he touches her until she feels as if her body is lit from the inside. Lee pauses in his caresses, his fingers tracing the scar on her stomach where the Redeye’s bullet entered. And with his touch, even the ugly wound tingles pleasurably. She anticipates the pain like the night before, but it is negligible, only a dulled memory, and in its place is a melting warmth that becomes a heightening desire like she’s never felt before.

  Again Lee starts to whisper her name, his words airy, breathless. “Zoey, I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she manages even as the pleasure surrounds her, encapsulates them both in a single span of time that lasts days and only seconds.

  Then she’s drifting and Lee’s beside her, holding on to her as if she’ll float away and saying something that comforts and allows her to fall into the soft folds of sleep. Something about never leaving her again.

  She opens her eyes sometime in the middle of the night, and by his breathing she knows Lee is awake as well. They rise and dress together before reheating the cold stew for a second time. The house is quiet around them as they eat, only the soft patter of rain and a ticking from the heating registers. When they’re finished, she repacks her bag, adding the apparatus Lee assembled. It’s bulky so she leaves behind a heavy sweatshirt and a pair of pants.

  Zoey moves to the back door that she’d entered by two nights before. It seems like weeks ago now. Time has moved slower in the house with Lee. The rightness hasn’t worn off, and when she opens the door a crack to the rainy night, a hollow ache forms inside her. The yearning to stay is strong, and the sensation that she’s giving up something she’s sought for so long is almost enough to make her shut the door again.

  Instead she says, “Tonight.”

  Lee nods. “Tonight. Before you know it we’ll be out of the city.” She looks at him for a long time, committing every detail she can to memory before kissing him quickly. He tries to hold on to her but she’s already turning and gone into the cold rain.

  And as she cross
es the little backyard to the break in the fence that will let her out into the surrounding neighborhood, she refuses to look back, even if it might be the last time she ever sees him.

  30

  The little steel man balances on the pedestal and rocks back and forth for what must be the thousandth time.

  She had found the toy beside the desk in the office overlooking the hospital’s entrance. It caught her attention after the first true light of day crept into the room, the stainless steel reflecting dimly through the layer of dust covering its surface. When she’d established the best place to wait the day out was the hall since it allowed her opportunity to escape in either direction, she’d carried the steel man and his stand with her, setting it on the floor as she rested against the wall.

  Zoey watches him lean to and fro, his sharpened legs on the pedestal, a little curved wire in his hands with two spheres attached to the ends. She understands the mechanics of the toy, how the spheres are a counterbalance to the little man’s body. It is mesmerizing to watch, the movement soothing to her nerves, which have calmed from the ordeal in the early morning hours.

  After slipping away from Lee’s home, she’d crossed two streets without a problem, not seeing so much as a guard in the distance. Then, as she was about to leave the safety of a deep doorway, a man had appeared without warning from around a corner only a dozen feet away. She’d fled without waiting to see if he would pass by her or not and he’d given chase with a startled yell. It took her three blocks of weaving in and out of alleys to find a suitable hiding place in a basement window alcove. He’d run straight past her and she’d doubled back, making her way without incident to the building she was in now. But for several hours she’d seen flashlights passing by on the street, and once the sound of two men talking several floors below her, their voices floating up the stairwell she’d propped open exactly for that reason. They had moved on not long after and she’d seen no more hurried movement in the streets since. Hopefully the soldiers had chalked it up to one of the city’s men trying to flee, who, after being pursued, returned to his house or apartment building out of fear.