King Eden

Chapter Two: Fix

He was tied like a dog to a sagging bedpost. The rope around his ankle cut deep enough to hew sores into his skin. He had enough slack to pace the room and relieve himself in a pot by the window, but not enough to reach the door. I didn't have anything to cut it with. I'd lost my knife in someone's neck a few miles back and my spear in the chest of a corrupted brute. The blade was better suited for the son of a bitch that did this to him.

We needed to move but he wouldn't let go of me. He sat in my lap while I untied the rope, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face in my combat jacket. He was dirty, dehydrated, and too skinny. I had trouble keeping weight on him in the first place even though our table was never empty. Three weeks in the wastelands left him emaciated. I could feel his ribs through his shirt. His skin, a rich brown deepened by the summer sun, was stretched thin across the bones of his face, and a layer of dirt concealed the generous smattering of freckles on his cheeks.

I was wasteland scum. I grew up navigating the wilds with other parentless children like me. I swore that I would never let Eli know what that kind of hunger was like. To see him resemble the frail-limbed wanderer I used to be, my stomach distended, my guts full of worms from the stagnant pools of water we drank, I think that's when I started to lose focus.

I unclipped my canteen and helped him drink. He couldn't find the canister with his hands. Every time he looked up at me it was as if he was confused about who I was, then, remembering, he would lie his head against my chest.

I shook him and said, "Eli, can you hear me?"

I feared he'd loll his head over his collarbones and pass out from exhaustion, but he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and reached for the water. I clipped it to my belt and tucked it under my jacket. "We have to save the rest. Were you injected with something? Like a needle? Or did they force you to drink something?"

He slurred, "No, no, nothing to drink."

I wiped his tears with my thumbs, smearing the dirt across his freckles. "We have to get you somewhere safe. Help me up, will you?"

He refused. He put his face in his palms and sobbed into them, his bony shoulders shaking under his threadbare shirt. "I'm sorry," he said.

"It's okay."

"I didn't mean to get lost."

I didn't know what to say. Of course, I was angry that he'd wandered off, but that wasn't his fault, was it? I was the one who wasn't there to watch him. I nudged him off my lap and used the wall to help me stand, then shuffled to the window.

My arm was stiff. The wound pulsated with a heartbeat and the makeshift bandage was soaked in pus. He wrapped his fingers in my combat jacket and hung onto me as a deadweight, dragging his blistered toes across the floor while I limped toward the voices outside. I sat him below the windowsill and took off my boots.

"Put these on," I said. "I'll carry you most of the way but you'll have to walk and run a little. Hurry now."

He struggled with the laces while I looked for a way to escape the city. The sound of his labored breathing surfaced at times beneath the steady rhythm of airship engines. The forces of Pallas made Colossus' towers look like toys. The ships perched on the rooftops and peered at the streets, searching for the undead hidden in the city's bowels while rows of armored soldiers spilled from their stomachs. We called them cockroaches. Their armor bore no resemblance to the insects but they were an infestation all the same. They were quick to swarm the streets, their obsidian helmets gleaming under the market tents and the shredded flags of Cyrus. Even if we traversed the alleyways and shadows, it would be difficult to travel unseen.