Splinter (Whisper Walker Series) (3 page)

“Then he went out and killed four more. The other two fled the area. All he got was a couple scratches.” She sighed. “He’s amazing. I don’t know why you don’t tell him about you. You two would be unstoppable.”

I looked over my shoulder at her. “That’s not going to happen.”

As I left, I questioned why I tried so hard to keep this from Drake. I was starting to care more and more about him. Since the day I stumbled up to the Gates and was almost shot by a guard, Drake had been there protecting me. He’d been returning from a mission and he pushed me out of the way just as the guard shot. Drake had been hit in the thigh by the bullet that had been meant for me, but acted like it was nothing, being tough since he thought I needed it.

We were both twelve at the time and that had been five years ago. He assured the Guild Council that I wasn’t dangerous and that he would take care of me. It took a lot of work on his part for them to let me stay. Eventually I started living with him.

The house used to be his dad’s, but he had died a few months before. It was perfect for the two of us. We were very young, but in this world, everyone grew up fast. He was already an Acquisitions Specialist prodigy, and I showed aptitude as an inventor. He had literally provided for us for years, taking on the role of someone much older. I knew without a doubt that he liked taking care of me. It was just the way he was. I’d convinced myself that if he knew I was self-reliant and could take care of myself out in the forest, it would break his heart. It would take away a little joy he had in a world that was very tough and make him feel less needed.

No. No, I definitely needed to keep this a secret. I knew I wouldn’t be able to forever. But I was going to try.

That night I still couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed until late and finally gave it up as futile. I decided to go for a run in the warm, early-summer air. I set off without a real destination in mind and was only minimally surprised to find myself in front of the ominous-looking Gate to the wild.

It was through these Gates that Drake came and went every time he was on a mission. There were four Gates in the tall wall around the Guild. This was the smallest, and the only one Drake would use. Whenever I asked him why he used this one, since it was out of the way and a total pain, he always hedged the question.

That was something he was very good at. I couldn’t help but grin at the thought. He seemed to be able to dodge most any question he was asked if he wanted. Sometimes it was obvious he wanted to get caught, though. Almost as though he liked getting me mad at him.

I stared at the Gate for a while longer and the faint light coming from the guard shack. I thought about talking to the night guard to see if they’d seen Drake. In the end, I knew it was in vain. If Drake had been around, he would have come home to at least shower.

I sighed, admitting defeat. I turned and jogged back towards the house, taking the long route and being careful to not be seen since I was out after curfew. When I got home, I felt like I should at least try to rest. I jumped right into bed and finally drifted off to sleep.

“DRAKE. YOU MADE IT!” A petite blonde squealed as I stumbled in the front door of the small house I shared with her. She jumped up and gave me a tight hug, letting out a relieved sigh in my ear.

I grinned, suddenly remembering how badly I stunk from days in the woods. “Yeah, Kelsie. I survived, somehow. I’m glad you missed me.”

She released my neck, dropping back to the ground. “Of course I missed you, dummy! I’d have to find another roommate if you died. Do you know how hard it is to find a roommate you can live with? It isn’t easy.”

I snorted. “Yeah, tell me about it. Look what I got stuck with last time.”

My reward for that was a hit with probably all the force her little forty-five kilogram frame could muster. I started rubbing my bicep where she’d hit me. “Ouch! Be easy on me. I’ve had a rough week.” I tried for a pouty look.

She punched me in the stomach. “Suck it up! ‘Stuck with.’ Ha! You’re lucky to have
the awesome
me.”

I headed towards the bathroom, having to pick her up under her armpits like a little kid and carry her in front of me since she hadn’t gotten out of the way. The way the living room and entryway had been designed, when you positioned a couch where you could see the rest of the room, it didn’t leave much space for people to stand or move past each other once they came in the door.

“Whew!” I said, grimacing and crinkling my nose. “I know I stink, but when’s the last time
you
took a shower?”

She looked at the ceiling in thought as I carried her. “Umm, I’m going to say yesterday morning, I think. But I went for a run last night. I couldn’t sleep, worrying about you.” She laid her big green eyes on me, opening them wide and wrinkling her brow in simulated worry.

“Well, you could have at least taken a shower afterward, like, you know,
before
you tackled me at the door and invaded my olfactory senses.” I was rewarded with a soft smack. This girl liked to hit me, that’s for sure.

I headed us down the hallway, carrying her in front of me. She was still in her PJs, a short and lightweight pair of running shorts and a white spaghetti-strap tank top. I dropped her off right outside the bathroom door. “I have something to tell you as soon as I’m out. Okay? I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“Okay,” she said, going on her tiptoes and giving my cheek a peck.

As the hot water poured off me in rivulets and the relaxing steam filled the small bathroom, I went over the last few days in my head and the events that led up to them.

Kelsie and I are part of a small community known as a Guild. It’s been around eighty years since WWIII ended. There wasn’t much left after it. Many areas were uninhabitable from toxins and radiation. The survivors had ventured to obscure areas and started the Guilds, which are basically tribes or miniature countries.

We lived in the Sven Guild, which I had been born into as the son of an Acquisitions Specialist and thus had become one myself. Acquisitions Specialists were pretty high in the caste system. Our job was to acquire materials and other supplies for manufacturing and survival. Kelsie was born to a different caste, in a different Guild. The Briln Water Guild.

On an island in what used to be Washington State, the Briln Water Guild was from the southern end, the Sven from the northern end. With the limited resources available even this late after the war, Guilds were extremely territorial and were known to kill traitors and the other Guild’s people on sight.

One of the many negative effects from the war, aside from the world ending, of course, were mutants. The creeps were
everywhere
, and they all wanted to kill you and eat your face off…though not necessarily in that order.

Mutants were created a long time ago by toxins and radiation from the war. A lot of the mutants had been human, though animals were just as susceptible as humans to the mutations and deformations that took place both mentally and physically. They might have been humans at one time, but they weren’t anymore. When they bred, their children were mutants just like them, sometimes worse from having gotten different diseases and attributes from both sides. Anything that ate infected flesh had a strong likelihood of dying or getting infected themselves.

The shower curtain rippled against my leg, signaling the bathroom door had been opened. I stuck my head out the curtain and saw Kelsie getting ready, wearing only a bra and her shorts. She grinned at me as I yanked the curtain closed, partially in surprise, partly in embarrassment. I mean, it’s not like I’d never seen her in a bra before. After all, we’d lived with each other since we were kids. But it just felt different now.

“Sorry, hope you don’t mind. You’ve been in here forever, and I have to get to work,” Kelsie said loudly over the rush of the water…and the blood pounding in my temples.

“Ahh. All right. I was almost done anyway.”

This wasn’t the first time. Or even a rare occurrence. We often used the bathroom to get ready for the day while the other was in the shower. It had always been one of our favorite places to talk.

I peeked back out the curtain just as she turned around, and that’s when I saw the fresh red cut on her shoulder.

“Kelsie?” I started, nearly stepping out of the shower before I caught myself. I reached out and touched her shoulder near the wound, careful not to slip on the wet shower floor.

“Yes?”

“What did you do? Where did you get this cut?” I poked the inflamed edges as if to show which one I was referring to.

She turned to face me, so I couldn’t see it anymore, but looked down, like she was adjusting her belt. “Just an accident at work. Something fell on me.”

“Yeah, what? Like a knife? I know wounds. This was done by a sharp blade. Something made to slice skin.”

“Well, it was just a metal shelf. Guess you’re wrong. Sorry.”

I didn’t have a reason not to believe her, I decided. But still, I was sure it was a knife wound. I shrugged and withdrew back into the shower. I tried to act like her standing in front of me in her underwear wasn’t a big deal as I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.

I closed my eyes again, trying not to think about it.
Hunting. Think about hunting animals. The adrenaline rush, the excitement as you killed your first mutant. Dammit, that didn’t work. New tactic. She’s your best friend, Drake. You don’t want to screw that up. It’s obvious that she doesn’t feel like that about you. Otherwise she’d get on the List. Wait, I wonder if she is on the List and just hasn’t told me. Nah, surely she would’ve told me.
I shook my head to clear it. Gradually, I felt my pulse slow.

“Drake, you okay?”

“Hmm?” Opening my eyes, I grinned. If she’d noticed anything a moment ago, like me trying my best to look only at her face and at the cut, she hadn’t shown it.

“You’ve just been standing there with your eyes closed for a while. Wondered if you fell asleep standing up. It would be understandable since you haven’t slept much in days.”

Crap, she did notice. “No, sorry, I’m fine.” I withdrew into the shower quickly before she asked any more questions. I hurried up and washed out the conditioner, grabbed a towel and jumped out.

“I forgot you had to work. When you get back, I want to show you something,” I said, slipping out of the bathroom quickly before I was caught doing something stupid.

She nodded acknowledgment in the mirror.

Hiding out in my bedroom until she left because I still felt awkward about the whole scene, I took a nap for a few hours, planning to wake right before she got home from work.

DRAKE HOGGING THE BATHROOM almost made me late for work. I had to rush to get there in time. I breezed into the Development facility and set down my stuff in the break room. Rebecca was sitting in there at a small round table, drinking a nasty herbal concoction that she said was healthy. She looked at me thoughtfully, then glanced at the clock. It was right on the dot, as opposed to my usual routine of getting there early.

“I guess Drake made it back?” she asked, taking a sip of the greenish viscous contents of her cup.

I smiled. “That obvious, huh?”

“Yes. I would say so. You’re practically glowing. I figure that means either Drake got back, or you’re getting far too close to one of your experiments. Logically, it’s Drake. See, you had nothing to worry about.”

My grin slipped a little. Even though she said it with a reassuring smile, I felt like she was judging me for having fallen apart over Drake’s absence.

“Yeah. Nothing to worry about,” I said and turned quickly before I had to speak to her anymore, grabbing the hot pot of
real
tea off the counter and pouring me a cup.

“Are you sure you don’t want some of my therapeutic tea?” she asked, holding her cup up in case I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about.

Hurriedly, I held up my steaming cup and took a scalding sip that resulted in a burned tongue. “Nope, thanks, but I’m…uh, I wouldn’t want to drink up your limited supply.”

“Nonsense, Julia can make me more in a jiffy.”

Julia was the town herbalist, who had organic fixes for all sorts of things. I’d never met her, but knew Drake and her were pretty much mortal enemies for an unknown reason.

“No, really, I’m fine.” With a hop to my step, I headed out and down the hall to my workbench.

Past three open doorways down the hall and even with the fourth door on the left, my workspace, which I shared with a senior designer, was on the right. The senior designer was out testing a new type of organic battery, so I was supposed to have the room to myself. Only, there was a boy in there sitting at my bench.

“Who are you? Get away from my workbench. You aren’t allowed in here,” I snarled.

The boy, who looked to be around my age, opened his mouth to respond but didn’t have a chance to get anything out before I yanked him off the stool by his wrist and shoved him out the door into the hall. I slammed the door behind him and latched it from the inside.

Over the next thirty minutes, I thoroughly went through all of my boxes and projects. I flipped through my notes and schematics, checking for anything that had been tampered with. Being the top apprentice here meant that I was one of the only ones that got my own bench and tool drawers. It also meant I had to work on high-priority projects that were sensitive and secretive, lest the other Guilds get their hands on them. The door to this room was supposed to be locked.

All the others had to store their tools in the break room in lockers and fight over workbench space. Some of the other apprentices held it against me, but I didn’t really care. It’s not like I asked to be treated well or anything. I simply was really good at my job and was rewarded accordingly. If they got off their asses and started being creative with their work, they might get better treatment, too. But instead, they scraped by without giving a damn. They wanted the pay, without the work.