Cody had wondered off a good way, probably for his ‘alone time’ to ‘think’. I watch Cody, his mind somewhere else entirely. I didn’t like the way the emotions flickered across his face and never seem to settle for very long. He wants to join. Desperately wants to get back at the world in any way he can. And Jack fueled it with this made up ‘opportunity’.

“It’s becoming his conviction, in a way,” Anne comes up beside me.

“And that’ll turn into obsession. And it’ll get him killed in the end,” I look down to her, seeing that her eyes never left Cody.

“It’s already an obsession,” her sharp eyes now on my face. “It’s all he’s thinking about most of the time now.”

And that struck a chord in me and I didn’t like it. It was as if he was pulling himself away. “Cody?” I call for his attention.

He frowns as I interrupt him, “What?”

“Should we go?” I tilt my head a little in the direction towards the exit of the city. It would be best if we move on as quickly as possible. If there’s a war coming, I’d rather be as far away as possible.

He looks between me and Anne before I saw something click in his jaw as he sets it. I mentally grimace.

“I’m staying.”

“No,” I immediately snap on impulse. “You already said you’re just here to get information. And you have. We need to move on.” Somewhere far, far away. Like another continent far away.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Of course he has. I can see the stubborn glint already but I’m not going to back down so easily either. “And what are you going to accomplish exactly?”

“The Fence falling for starters.”

The fucking Fence… “Like that’s going to help. There is a war on the doorstep and I for one don’t want to get mixed up in it. Jack is only going to use you and he won’t bat an eyelid as you’re torn to shreds by machinegun fire.”

“So what? At least I will accomplish something.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m tired of running and living in fear all the fucking time. I want to do something with my sorry life. I want to get back at the people who shut their doors on us. If it weren’t for that, Mum would still be alive!”

I almost growl at him, “And tearing down this wall,” I motion with a free hand towards the damn thing looming over us, “isn’t going to bring her back! It’ll only get you killed.”

“At least it’ll make me feel better.”

“And I’m sure the wall and everyone in it give a shit about your feelings! I don’t want to be even a thousand miles of this when everything comes down around us!”

“Then don’t follow me!”

“Like hell I’m going to let you go off on your own!” I think we’re shouting loudly enough to lure in every fucking soldier in the vicinity. But neither of us particularly care at the moment.

“I’ll be fine! I’ve always been fine-”

“That’s because I was there to stop you from doing something stupid.”

“You’re shitting me right? Half the time you go charging in and make more of a mess of it. If it weren’t for you blundering in, it would have gone quicker and smoother. But instead you waltz in, screw us over and then have the hide to tell me it’s my fault. Don’t fuck with me, Kae.”

“You would’ve ended up dead long before I intervened! You have no concept of danger or the people you’re leaving behind.”

“I leave you behind to keep you safe.”

“The fuck you do! We are the farthest from your thoughts when you go blindly charging off all on your own.”

“And what good are you? You’re the only person outside the Fence who hasn’t developed a single ability. You’re no better than a civ.”

Oh, he so didn’t just go there. My fingers curl into fists at my sides, my nails beginning to bite into my palms as I try to control the emotion threating to spill. I don’t deal well with emotional upheavals and I’m not going to have one now. That was the first time he used that used that term and it was directed at me. This was worse than heaving that gun pointed at my head. “Shut it.”

“You’re even weaker than Anne, or Markus, for that matter.”

The reason I don’t do well with emotion is because I go mentally blank, like I’m doing right now. Fuck.

A dry, cynical laugh escapes his throat, “You’re so scared of everything! Scared of being useless. Scared of bring left behind. That’s probably the reason why you don’t want any of us using our abilities-”

“You’re going too far-”

“The fact of the matter is that you are the weakest-”

“Shut up-”

“Useless-”

“Cody!”

“Person out here and a hypocrite who claims that he knows everything when he fucking knows shit all! You make decisions like you’re Dad. But you’re not and you will never be!”

He seriously just punched holes in all of my insecurities, “I have never once-”

“You have no right to tell me what to do, Kagen! And the fuck I’m listening to you now, you fucking brat! I’m the eldest. I’m in charge. And I say that I’m going. Do whatever the fuck you want. And it’s my choice.”

I almost spit out my remaining futile defence, “Right back at you, you fucking lunatic! As long as you fucking go on your own, I will follow you. I will bring you back. And that is my decision. Not yours. You have as much right as I do! So shut it!”

“Fuck you,” with that, he struts passed me, knocking none too gentle in the shoulder as he does.

“Just where are you going now?” I whir around after him. He just bruised my shoulder. The fucking asshole.

“Away. From you. Before I smack you so high I might just toss you over that fucking thing,” He motions towards the wall as he heads towards it.

What is he? Five? Immediately resorting to physical threats. I was about to snap back something but Cody had stopped, his back stiff.

“Makky,” Cody whispers our brother’s name, all of his built up anger now vanished, replaced with shock.

My eyesight falls to the front of him and saw it was Markus.

And the hear-wrenching look on his face as tears began to spill over made we want to burst out crying myself. It was heart-shattering and we caused it. Guilt immediately replaced my own anger.

“Makky,” Cody repeated, taking a step forward.

But on the verge of tears, he takes a step back, “Why are you fighting?”

“We weren’t-”

“Liar! You were shouting.”

“We-

“Liar.”

“Makky,” Cody exasperates with a plea, trying to get closer to him.

“Liar! Liar! Liar! You said you wouldn’t leave! You lie! You hate us! Always hate us!”

“Markus…no. I could never,” Cody’s hands were actually shaking as he reached out to him.

But Markus shakes his head, “No!” He takes a step back from us. “No!” he repeats between gasps and sobs. “No!”

I take a step towards him and he backs off. Oh no. he’s going to run.

“No!”

“Markus?” I ask quietly.

“No!” and with that he spurs off into the night, down a street and into the dead city.

Shit.

I shoot a glare at Cody as I run passed, trying to catch up to Markus.

Cody catches up to me and for once was silent. Good. If he’s going to give me the cold shoulder, at least he’ll be quiet about it. By the looks of it, he was heading back towards the bonfire in Deadside. Maybe he was seeking out Yvette? No. Like Cody, he goes into a blind rage and has no idea where he’s going. Just as I thought, he slips passed everyone who was staring blankly at us, probably hearing our fight in its entirety. Wonderful. Let’s add melodrama to tonight’s menu. Jack would love that.

“Markus!” I call again, trying to catch up to him. When he wanted to, he can be slippery and hard to catch.

And like that, he was on the other end of the camp it five seconds. Shit.

Just as was about to turn, Anne comes up beside me, “He’s going down a dead end.”

I nod, spurning to my left to cut him off. I saw the alley he was heading into before, and I could catching if I went through a broken house. As I did, I felt something very wrong, but ignored it. The silence. The fear. None of it mattered to me at the moment. Markus mattered. If Markus got hurt…

I stop just in front of him and he balks and takes a hasty step back from me, “Don’t touch me!”

Ok, that hurt more than being called a ‘civ’. I swallow the hurt and take a step towards him, “Makky.”

“No! You’ll lie.”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

The question seemed to have stopped him. His desperate mind thinks and think until eventually his lips formed the word weakly, “No…”

“Makky. I’m not going to-”

A loud bang from a gun sounded behind me, just as Markus’s eyes went wide with fear. A wet, dark patch begging to pool from his shoulder as he stands there, frozen in shock. No! Oh No!

“Kae!” I hear Cody’s voice tremble behind me just as a sickening thud reverberates behind me with the sound of something cracking against a wall with a clouded grunt.

“Makky…” I begin, my eyes never tearing away from his frightened form.

He then looks up at me. A fearful squeaks from his lungs. His mouth tries to work to form words but nothing coherent escapes as he points to me. I frown, confused. That was when I felt something burning through my shoulder like a hot iron trying to set my blood aflame. I reach up to my shoulder and found my neck was covered in something thick, sticky and warm.

I pull my hand away and sure enough, it was covered in dark blood. The starlight giving it a shiny, slick surface. I look back at over at him, my own shock beginning to make my hand tremble. But that didn’t matter as I realised the shock that had masked Markus from his own pain was wearing off.

His eyes bulge as he realises what’s just happened to his body. He places a shaky hand up to his shoulder. His hand comes down to his face and he sees what I had never. Never. Never in my lifetime ever wanted him to see. He begins screaming as pain courses through his system. Pain, fear and shock override his mind. He takes off into the night. Blindly. Horribly.

“Kae!” Cody comes but behind me, supporting me as I realised that there was suddenly no stengh in my legs. “Kae talk to me.”

“Markus,” I whisper hoarsely, “We need to find Markus. Now!” I take a step forward, ignoring the pain and the blood seeping from my left shoulder. My legs are shaky but they manage to hold me. In the pit of my stomach I knew that if we didn’t get him now, the war that had just started would consume him in hellfire.