Outcast: A Corporation Novel (The Corporation) (30 page)

“Let’s head to the main road, see if he went that way.”

The sun is all but gone when we walk up to the broken pavement. Raj’s figure is sitting at the edge of the broken road, his pack at his feet. I storm up the best my limp will allow, and jerk the bag from his loose grasp.

“These are mine,” I say through clenched teeth and keep moving.

७

I'm pretty sure we've been walking aimlessly for the better part of a year, but every time I bring it up, Dhevan assures me that it's really only been a few days—a week at most. Right now is one of those times where I'm pretty confident he's wrong. Or intentionally lying to me.

We opened up the jars I found in the cellar. They were canned peaches. Raj managed to put away four before he ran off. Raj wanted to go back and get the rest, but Dhevan and I didn’t want to risk running into any more of those wolves, especially at night.

When we camped for the night, the three of us split a jar. I really did a number on my ankle and I didn’t last long walking on my own. And with my pack back in that cellar, I didn’t have any of Eta’s herbs to help with the pain and swelling. Dhevan’s been carrying half my weight as I lean on him for support.

“If there were anything more out here, we would have reached it by now. Or at least seen some signs of something,” Raj says.

My tongue is heavy and swollen in my sticky mouth. “Maybe the map is wrong, or the scale is different than we though.” We aren’t able to ration out our water enough to do wash away the nausea, headaches, and hallucinations I'm getting.

“I thought you believed in everything the Corporation said?” Dhevan's getting tired of Raj. “A torch-carrying fanatic.”

“I'm not a
torch-carrying fanatic
,” he says. “I have to believe what they say is true.”

“Why?” I say. Dhevan’s dragged my foot over another rock. “Can you please try to avoid those, if at all possible?” He growls at me.

Raj doesn’t answer my question. “If we keep walking this way, we’ll get to where we need to be.”

“If we keep walking this way, we’ll run out of supplies and die,” I say.

“We’re already out of supplies and dead, we just haven’t accepted it yet,” Dhevan says. “And it’s because of you.”

I push myself away from him and do a hop-slash-hobble dance on my good foot. “Me? You’re blaming this whole situation on
me
?”

“Yeah, the way I see it, you’re the root of this whole problem.”

“I think he’s on to something,” Raj says with a grumble.

“Shu—”

“I know,
shut it, Raj.
”

“How in the world is this
my
fault?”

“If you’d have just stayed in Dahn with your father, none of this would be happening. I wouldn’t be out here, everyone I love would be out of danger, and Karis wouldn’t be heartbroken. You’ve been lying to us from the beginning, Ethan. You can’t be trusted. I should never have thought you could be.”

“I saved your life, in case you’ve forgotten.” We’re all thirsty, and hungry, and tired, and hot, I tell myself. He doesn’t mean any of this. We’re all extra short with each other right now. I should just ride it out and pretend it never happened, but because he made the comment about Karis, I can’t.

“I never lied about Karis. I love her and I’m doing this for her.”

“But you’re not who you say you are, are you?”

“What are you even talking about, Dhevan?” I hold my hands up. “I think we all need to just step back and take a break. We’re thirsty and tired; we’re not thinking rationally.” Or seeing clearly, for that matter. Everything is going blurry, and no matter how many times I blink, the focus won’t come back.

“You're avoiding the real issue here, Ethan. I came out here, risking my life, for a lie!” Apparently, saving another’s life doesn’t go far out here.

“No, you didn't, Dhevan. You're seeming to forget that the Untouchable came from
somewhere
. And that my father is sending Guards out here to
somewhere
. That
somewhere
is what we came out here to find.”

“Your father raised you well; you spin the truth and lies together so expertly, they look like they belong together.”

My temper flares into my already red face. “My father may have taught me how to play the game of politics—and win—but unlike my father, I did it for the betterment of Neech. If we want any hope of freedom, we had to come out here and do this.”

“If I never get to see Journey again because of you…”

His unfinished threat is an empty one, but I let him say it because it makes him feel better. It would me, anyway.

“Keep in mind if you never get to see Journey again, I never get to see Karis again. I have just as much at stake as you do. I want to find something out here just as badly.” I hop a few times to maintain my balance. “I'm just getting a little impatient, is all.”

The mood shifts unexpectedly. Dhevan sighs. “We've only been out here about a week, anyway. Anything worth finding has to be out at least that far, right?”

“Sure.”

Dhevan starts to walk again. “Hey!” I call out after him, taking a few spastic jumps in his direction. “Aren't you going to help me?”

Dhevan looks over his shoulder. “You shouldn't have sprained your ankle.”

My mouth drops open. “How quickly you forget what happened, sir.” I gingerly set my foot down on the ground and wince, picking it back up again. My muscles are getting tired. “I sprained it because I was saving your sorry ass from that wild animal.”

“It was a dog no bigger than a house cat.”

“Uh, that's not what you were saying when it was chasing us. You were singing an entirely different tune. And if it weren't for me, your remains would probably be spread out across the Further right now, food for scavengers.” Our relationship is an odd one, and extremely complicated. I find it best to just go where it takes us.

Dhevan stalks back to me, putting my waiting arm around his neck, a little too roughly. “Are you ever going to just let that die?”

“Nope. And I'll be honest,” we start our arduous journey again, “It's only going to get bigger and more impressive by the time we get back home.”

“Figured.”

For the next hour, I try to ignore the dull ache in my ankle, and the fact that I can feel it swelling against the neck of my boot.

“How do our supplies look?” I ask.

“We have three jars of the peaches from Raj’s bag and there's only enough water left for tonight. After that, we'd better hope something comes along.”

“Those peaches should be mine,” Raj mutters.

“You’re lucky I’m deciding to let you eat any, after what you pulled.” I see a small copse of dead trees in the near distance. “Let's break up there.” I nod in that direction.

Dhevan grunts his approval.

I ease myself down against the trunk of one of the large trees and sit on the hard ground. A small plume of dust puffs up from around me. I try not to cough. Raj sits a ways off and Dhevan slides down next to me and for the next few minutes, all I hear is the heat cooking the already burnt earth and our raspy, dry breathing.

I close my eyes, seeing red against my eyelids. The sun is so hot I no longer feel its pulsing rays. That, or my body is so far into shutting itself down, I just don't register it anymore.

My eyes feel shriveled inside my head and my eyelids are like sandpaper every time I blink. I can feel my burnt skin tighten against my cheekbones. Every once in a while, I'll squint or smile, pulling at the tight skin. Then I feel the sweet release of tension as the tissue splits, and a brief instant of cool relief as a liquid seeps down and into my shrunken pores. 

When I open my eyes again, the sun is lower in the sky and the temperature is something less blistering. I roll my head against the rock in the direction of Dhevan. He's sleeping fitfully. Muscles on his face twitch and his eyes squint as if in pain. I look down at my foot and pull up my pant leg. The skin is a considerable amount whiter than that of my arms, neck, and face. And besides being dehydrated and a bit shrunken, it looks younger and healthier. I fan out my fingers and study the texture of my skin. It resembles well-worn leather, but not as soft.

A sudden pulse of pain shoots from my ankle, up my calf, and into my thigh. Carefully, I unlace my boot, slipping my foot out. I wince as I peel off the sock. The flesh around my ankle joint is easily twice the size of my left one. It feels like a bowl of porridge has been stuffed into a cloth bag when I poke at it.

It's a bad sprain, it will take weeks to heal, and to continue walking on it like we have been will only make it worse and possibly not allow it to heal at all. I rub at the small of my back. Between my bum ankle and this damn snake bite, I’m a pathetic sight.

I look over again at Dhevan. He's stirring more; he'll be awake soon. Our mission was to find what was out in the Further. To get help. To expose the Corporation. And in my present condition, I'm only slowing us down. In this past day with my injured ankle, we should have traversed at least three times the distance we have. And this bite is really taking its toll. I’ve tried to hide it, but I won’t be able to anymore. I’m nauseous all the time and it takes everything I have to hold my head straight on my shoulders because it feels like it’s loose on a rolling, angry sea and nothing in my line of vision is straight.

I sit up and the world around me tilts and spins. I pinch my eyes shut for a second until it calms down, because it never goes away. When it’s manageable, I try to stand, but my legs aren’t strong enough, so I stay sitting.

“Morning, sunshine,” I say, when Dhevan begins to wake.

He grunts in response. “We shouldn't have stayed here so long.” He pulls out the last of our water and hands it to me. I let it hang in the space between us. I shake my head. “Man, you look worse than a pig who knows he’s off to the slaughter.”

“Thanks. I’ve felt better, that’s for sure.” I take a heavy breath. “Our supplies are low.”

“Low? Try virtually nonexistent.”

“And with my ankle and snake bite, I’m only slowing you down.”

“That’s true.” He glances over at Raj, who’s still sleeping, curled up with his back to us. “But I’m not leaving you here, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“While I’m sure your motives for that are far from sentimental, I still appreciate them. We should be getting to that dome sometime today. They may have medicine for the venom.”

“We’re going to have to sneak in and steal some. It’s risky, but we have to do it. Karis would kill me if I let you die out here.”

“We have a problem, though.”

“Getting into the dome? Yeah, I know. But we’ll have to try and figure it out when we get there.” He walks over to Raj and kicks the bottom of his foot. “Wake up. We need to get moving.”

Raj groans. “You’re not in charge,” he says as he sits up.

“Neither are you. We need to make it to that dome today.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Raj rubs at his eyes and starts to make up his pack. “You can’t promise that we’ll make it there today.”

“If we don’t make it there before sunset today, I will kill you myself.” Something in the tone of Dhevan’s voice makes me wary.

Raj’s eyes are wide and he sputters a response, but it’s incoherent. If he has even a pinch of brains, he’ll have picked up that Dhevan is a man of his word.

७

The sun is low in the sky and Dhevan has my arm slung over his shoulder, taking most of my weight. We’ve been making slow progress all day with no hope in sight. Raj has been keeping his thick form well ahead of us the entire time, occasionally shooting dirty looks back at us and barking a, “Hurry up!”

“Hold up,” I say when we get to another cropping of rocks.

“Oye!” Dhevan yells up to Raj. “Need another rest?” he says to me.

I shake my head and lower myself down to the ground. He offers me water but I push it away. “I’m slowing us down. Your deadline with Raj is coming up and I don’t want you to have to kill him if he hasn’t been really given a fighting chance.”

Dhevan gives a sneer in Raj’s direction, who’s standing impatiently about ten yards away.

“Listen, I want you to go ahead and find the dome. Get what you can and bring it back to me.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Listen,” I say, breathlessly. “We both know this is the smartest choice. It’s getting to be night, it will be cooler and I’ll be safer by myself than I would be if we did this during the day. Go with Raj, find the dome, get me the medicine and come back here. If you take me with you, we’ll never get there in time.”

I see it in his eyes that he knows what I’m saying is true. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” He stands up. He turns around and trots up to Raj, saying something as he passes, and Raj hurries to catch up.

I close my eyes to rest until they come back for me.

७

There’s a rough shake of my shoulder. I feel my head roll on my neck from side to side but I can’t control it. I want to open my eyes, but no matter how hard I pull at my eye lids, they feel like they’re glued shut. There’s a scratching sound in my ears and it hurts my brain. I grimace and try to shake it away, but my body won’t obey what I tell it to do.