Thrive - Remastered

Chapters 44 - 47

Chapter 44

Jordan followed Rhun and Ward through the hatch of her cell. Rhun didn’t ask for the return of his knife. Jordan wasn’t about to offer it back. It was silly, she knew. However, the knife gave her a tiny sense of safety.

As Jordan stepped out of her cell, she nearly dropped the knife as the world opened in front of her. The first thing she realized was that it was night. The second was that they were dangerously high off the ground. Third, they were on some kind of island made of metal. Water stretched out in every direction as far as she could see.

“Take your time adjusting. It can be a lot when you see it for the first time,” Ward said.

Jordan looked to the man who ignored her glare and instead stared off into the calm body of water. “Where are we?” Jordan asked.

Rhun also stopped, his hands gripping a steel railing that ran the perimeter of the building. “Do you want answers first? Most people in your condition would ask for food or medical treatment.”

Jordan’s mouth hung open as she looked at the exposed sky above and the water below. No matter how hungry she felt or how badly her head pounded, Jordan wouldn’t wait another second for the knowledge she so desperately desired. “Answers; everything else can wait.”

Rhun turned his gaze from the water. He didn’t say a word, but a small smile that spoke of respect played across his lips. “Certainly. Ward, please ready food and a place for Jordan to stay tonight. Tell Grizla she’ll have a patient soon as well.”

Ward nodded without a noise and left at a quick trot down the metal plank and out of sight.

“We’re about a mile from land,” Rhun said. “We live here on this platform.” Before Jordan could ask, Rhun answered her question. “By ‘we’ I mean those who have been thrown out of the six cities and survived until either we found them, or they found us.”

“Six,” Jordan breathed. “There are six entire cities?”

Rhun gave a grim nod. “Six cities that don’t know life outside their own walls exists until their leaders deem it fit. By then it will be too late. By then all the city will want is war. We only know bits and pieces. Only what survivors are able to share about their own experiences inside their own cities.”

Jordan let a long pause elapse before she realized Rhun was staring at her. Her face felt warm as she avoided his gaze and licked her dry cracked lips. Jordan knew the question had to be asked although she was sure she didn’t want the answer that would follow. “Did you find anyone else? Where there any other survivors from—from my city?”

“Initially, yes. I have scouts that patrol the desert. After the tickers ambushed your group there was yourself and at least two others that survived. At the moment we are having trouble finding the remaining two.”

“Do you think they are still alive?”

“It’s hard to say. The desert can be an unforgiving place on its own. When you add in the tickers as a factor, only a few survive.”

Jordan refused to imagine anyone of her friends who had made the initial escape from the attacking machines dead. There was no way she would accept their deaths without proof. “I need to go after them. Two of my friends are somewhere out there, I need to find them.”

Rhun took a deep breath, tilting his head to the side. He was reading her, weighing what she was capable of accomplishing and what she was not. Jordan knew the look well. It was a gaze she endured many times in her own profession as a female climbing the social ladder. “I have no doubt you would go after them. You may even find them on your own. However you have to trust that my men are already searching, men who know this land inside and out. In a day I will know. Give me that much.”