MERMAID SCAVENGERS | By @WendyyWolfe

6. Only To Be With You

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

U2

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"Zephy! Stop hollering! It's only a tiny cut!" Jenaro jerked her arm towards himself positioning his body to hold her arm under his so she'd be still.

But she still struggled and he gave Delta an exasperated glance. "I knew we should have done her first," he panted, completely fed up.

Delta gave him a sigh and grabbed Zephy. "Be still," she threatened. "If you want to go with us we have to take out the chip, now be still and be quiet!"

Quill stood at the back of the dilapidated lean-to that was nestled in a tree line on the edge of the city. Solaris stood nearby her and they held hands. Solaris fiddled with Quill's hair off and on and Zoey sat at their feet. He still hadn't uttered as much as a word since they left, but now he was pulling Quill's pant leg. "I'm hungry," he whispered.

Quill and Solaris sat down beside him. "Here," Quill dug around in her backpack and gave him a protein nugget. "That will have to do, until we get further away."

He popped it in his mouth and chewed, resuming his watching of Zephy as they tried to remove the chip from the top of her arm. He looked down at his own little cut. Jenaro put super glue on it. He liked that. It seemed cool to him so he couldn't understand why Zephy was such a baby. He was only ten and besides, it didn't even hurt.

Delta grew more panicked by the moment. She looked at Rayde and Vaughn. "Help Jenaro will ya, because I'm about to knock her out."

They did as she asked and she backed up until she stood close to Quill and knelt down to her. "Are you sure they won't notice?"

"I'm sure," she nodded. "You know, I don't want to get caught either Delta," she scoffed.

"Well it might have helped if you'd told me," Delta shot back. "All of this could have been avoided--"

"No Delta. It could have been avoided if you just didn't think you were smarter than anyone else," she rounded back curtly stopping Delta's words in her mouth. "I thought I was one of you, and now, I'm not so sure," she pouted.

Solaris leaned over and hugged her. "Don't be stupid Quill. Of course you're part of us. Delta is kind of right. We should have told her."

Quill shrugged. "It still shouldn't have mattered."

"It shouldn't have mattered Quill," Delta agreed with her. "And if this were any other situation it wouldn't have, you surely know that, and I just don't want any hard feelings between us. It will only make things more stressful. I said I was sorry and I need you to believe me Quill, please. You know how hard I've worked to build the trust between all of us. Please, try to see it from my point of view."

Quill sighed looking at Solaris. Her eyes were full of dark, silent hope. It was important to her, Quill knew. She looked at Delta with a subdued glance. "Alright," she breathed. "But it's only for Solaris' sake, mind you. It's important to her and our relationship."

"That's all I ask," Delta whispered.

Tears welled up in Quill's eyes and she squeezed them shut, blinking back the fears she had stifled at the idea of being left behind. She twisted and threw herself into Delta's arms crying because there was no way for her to suppress it any longer. "I love you Delta," she sobbed. "I couldn't let you leave us behind."

Delta put her arms around Quill and held her until the wracking sobs subsided. She softly smoothed her hair patting her back.

Solaris gave her a long, knowing gaze and Delta felt her own stress reside if only a little. They still had a long way to go. Quill disengaged from Delta's arms and Solaris pulled her close, Quill laid her head on her lap and Solaris wiped the tears from her cheek.

With a deeply held breath Delta stood up to check on Zephy hoping they had managed to remove that chip.

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Eero cringed as an ice cold drop of water fell from a leaf above him, directly on the top of his head as he rested on his haunches beneath a large Crabapple tree. He used a pair of ancient binoculars to survey the area below the craggy mountainside cliff he clung to. The binoculars weren't as good as the drones used by the Federation, but he hadn't seen any drones in these parts for a good long while.

He was sure all that would change though, as soon as it was discovered Delta had absconded. The Federation didn't take lightly to runaways. They were always, always hunted. Steadily for the first three years at first. Then, sporadically. If you ever let down your guard and got caught you'd be taken in and promptly executed. That was the law.

The SC0FT wasn't fooling around. And they didn't feed prisoners.

Eero had been lurking about for three days waiting for the sign of Delta's arrival. He had to admit he couldn't understand her desire to flee. Not when it was so much easier to exist in the back pocket of Hugh Alitto's Kingdom. There were times when Eeros wished he could just waltz into the city and live and have a nice little job and a life all planned out for you.

But like his parents, he was stuck out here in no-mans land. They, like so many others he had helped to escape Alitto City did not relish the life of forced 'anything.' Oh, he'd heard the stories about the past. They meant little to him though. The only thing he or the others could do now was try to stay one step ahead of the bounty officers Hugh hired to continually to hunt them down like animals. Once you excaped one of the Federation Cities, there was no going back. Unless you had a death wish.

The only thing left out here were ghost towns. There were a few trading posts but you had to really know someone to access those. Open country-side was strictly governed and used for the raising of cattle and other livestock or the cutting edge, advanced grow factories where produce was grown and shipped to City-Sates across the Territories. Every single thing was done exclusively for the lives of the people who lived within the walls.

It was done that way on purpose as an attractive lure to keep their inhabitants docile and controlled, his father told him. It was all owned and operated by one family.

The Delano's. And Soraka Delano hated absconders. She hated them with a passion.

Eero pulled the tattered remnants of a sleeping bag around his shoulders and made himself comfortable beneath the tree. He may as well get some sleep. At some point tonight he would get the sign that Delta was waiting for him. If he didn't get the sign, that meant she'd been caught. If that happened he didn't know what he would do.

He didn't care for the feelings he'd developed for her over the months since Jenaro had hooked them up, but the fact remained that she did something to him he couldn't quite shake off.

Yeah, if she got caught, he didn't know what he would do.