My Mother Divinity [Unedited]

Chapter Seventeen

Sammy is slow, dragging hooves across the earth, trekking around the mud from the rain. It flicks up onto my face which is still wet, mostly from the weather. Brodie holds up his hands to his face to block it all out.

The sky is a deep grey when we return to the radio station. You can hardly see the shipping containers; any light is locked inside and the fog obscures the cubic shapes of the metal. The door to the one on the end slides open at our presence and Amon's face hardens when he sees we're missing a person.

"Where is she?" he asks. Sammy hasn't even slowed to a halt by the time I'm jumping off, storming inside to collect our things. Brodie comes face to face with Isla and I know that this look alone will spur on another manhunt, but I can't bring myself to care about anything anymore. We've always been dead, right from the start.

"We're going back north," I decide, "I'm taking Sammy back to Ollie and Isla back to George and Lenny and I don't give a fuck—" I stop for a second to breathe. I'm still shaking, like I have been since I saw my mother collapse under the whack of a shovel. "We'll run. Forever, we'll run. It's just us three we have to concern ourselves with."

"You can't let Isla go back," Amon argues. He doesn't even know what's happened and he dismisses the fact I haven't answered his question about Sally, but the girl is on his mind. "The entire reason she's even still here is for her and her family's protection. George and Lenny haven't been Treated and if anybody sees her—"

"Tell George and Lenny about your temporary solutions," I counter, "really, I don't know why we didn't think of that before. It's not like it's hard."

"You're being completely unreasonable."

"I can't take care of two kids. I can't even take care of myself."

Amon starts packing the bags anyway; he's taken out a map and filled up some of the water bottles. The veins on his neck are popping out and I'm acutely aware all of a sudden that I'm small, I'm small and thin and useless and nothing, and I can't do anything about it. I want to scream.

"My dads would be willing to look into your... temporary Treatment stuff." Isla is unsure about what we mean but she's seen Amon's scars, which don't rival the likes of mine or her own, and she knows they're there for a reason. I'm not sure how much Sally told her about the matter and the fact that I can't even ask her now is infuriating.

"You're not going back there," Amon says, "you don't have to worry about it. You don't have to worry them."

"It won't be worrying them," I proclaim, "they'll be glad to have their daughter back, who for over a year they've assumed to be dead."

"They'll be glad to have her back until she gets them killed," Amon snaps back. He's zipping up the backpacks. Brodie is standing in the corner, swaying back and forth, processing everything that's happened today over in his head. I should take him through to next door and get him some water.

I feel a pang of something emotional in my chest. I look at this kid and know, as always, I would go to hell and back for him, but when I look at Isla, I want to be sick. Am I supposed to blame her, an innocent kid who got caught in a fire? I can't help it.

"Then she'll take that risk," I tell him forcefully, "and George and Lenny will go through a minimal amount of pain to ensure—"

"IT DOESN'T WORK!"

I haven't seen or heard him explode like that before. The echo of his voice is piercing in the small space and Isla even stumbles a step back and raises her hands to cover her ears. Brodie is staring at her and I have no doubt Calista is muttering things in his ear, deciphering where we are.