† Sage †

Coral’s laughter echoed through the arena as the clock buzzer rang out. My heart was heavy with sadness at the sound of her carefree notes. I finally caught sight of her when she ripped off the mask and her long blond hair fell over the all black suit.

She jumped on the back of a paint splattered boy about her age and ruffled the top of his head. “You did good, Jake. We’ll get her next time.”

Jake grunted, seemingly embarrassed, but brightened under Coral’s attention. The rest of the team stayed close to her, drawn in by her praise as she ran through a series of plans.

“All of you did awesome today. We need to keep the same kind of energy this weekend. The tournament is going to have different props, but I think the layout will be mostly similar. They’ll change out the maze in the middle to confuse us like they always do, but we should start in the left back corner for the best defense.” Coral dropped down from Jake’s back and turned to point at the distant wall.

“How can you be sure?” Mia sided up next to Coral. I smirked, already knowing the answer, and wondering why her best friend was suddenly having doubts.

“It’s right under the lounge and patrons pay for the view.” Coral bumped her hip against the girl’s side. “They’ll have the props spaced out there and it’ll be the perfect place to draw Shawna’s team into the open.”

The rest of the group moved closer, joking and laughing as they surrounded my sister. I bit my lip and crossed my arms over my chest, focusing on ice water so I didn’t break down crying. I’d always known she was charismatic and people flocked to her, but now I had to wonder if it was something in her DNA.

Mutant. Tainted. The words swirled in my mind, but I forcefully pushed them away. If Ethica said there was something wrong with my sister, then they were the ones who were damaged.

“Sage?” Coral whipped her head to the side, catching sight of me in the shadows of the doorway where I waited.

I stepped into the light and shrugged like it was no big deal so I wouldn’t embarrass her in front of her friends, but hoping she could see the urgency in my eyes. “You seriously need to check your phone more often. We’ve got somewhere we need to go.”

*

“I have to talk to Dr. Bradley and see if he can fix this.” Coral paced the kitchen sucking in gulps of air as tears streaked down her red-blotched cheeks. She’d screamed so loud I was still on edge, waiting for the authorities to arrive, but this was better. At least she was forming coherent sentences again.

I leaned against the counter, wishing I had made cookies or something to help soften this blow. “He said he’ll help by getting you into one of the nicer research facilities and that’s all he can do.”

“Don’t make me go there.” The fear in her voice weighed on my heart and strengthened my resolve.

“Never.” I reached for her hand. “We’re leaving. I packed you a bag, but if there’s anything else you want to take, you need to grab it now.”

“Where are we going? When are we going?” She hiccupped as she wiped her face with her shirt. “I need to call Mia. The tournament is in three days. I have finals next week.”

“It’s going to be okay.” I pulled her close to my chest, hating that I couldn’t take this pain away. Our lives were changing so fast and I was powerless to stop the spiral. But we’d been through hard times before. I knew I could do this. I would keep her safe. “Dr. Bradley said he’d give us until the morning to submit the report so we need to leave tonight.”

A fresh round of tears misted her brown eyes, the same color we both shared with our father. “I don’t understand why he is doing this. You didn’t get reported. Why me?”

Ouch, kid. I kept my face neutral, drawing on years of experience and knowing she was lashing out in fear. “Whatever is different with me isn’t in my DNA. It was easier for Dad to cover up.”

“Because your aptitude tests aren’t a part of your chromosomes, you get a free pass?” Anger simmered beneath her skin. “Or did Dad conveniently die before he could do anything for me?”

Grief, anger, denial, blame… Those were the steps, right? I needed this to hurry toward acceptance though. I really should have made some cinnamon peanut butter cookies. It’s hard to stay angry with a mouthful of happiness.

“You don’t want to live this kind of life anyway. Always looking over your shoulder sucks. Even if this could be swept under the rug, I wouldn’t wish this burden on you. We don’t belong here.”

I left out the part where there was no way she’d be able to hide her situation for life. We’d been lucky so far, but she could never visit a medical facility again. Never have children. Even if she could continue to avoid a doctor for the rest of her life, once she reached old age and went into life extending treatment, they’d send her to the research facility then.

The girl was smart. She’d figure it out. There was already enough bad news for one day.

“Is this about you? Do you want to leave because your boyfriend cheated on you and you hate yourself? Because I have friends here and they’d never betray me.” Coral snapped and I could almost imagine that she had claws.

Wait. Do mutants get claws?

I took a steadying breath and ignored the worst of the outburst. “I want to believe that for you, but we both know the risk is too great.

Sympathizers are punished. You’d be putting your friends in jeopardy.”

The memory of our father saying his goodbyes before being hauled off to the incinerator was clear in my mind, because that’s what happens when you treat patients with mutations under the table. I wonder what the punishment would be for marrying one?

It couldn’t have been much worse than the one he got.

Coral lowered her face and took a few steadying breaths. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” The fight left her slowly. She’d always reacted strong and fought hard, but loved harder. It was something I wished I could do without drawing attention to myself.

And it also wasn’t in me to hold it against her.

“It’s going to be okay,” I promised like I’d done a thousand times before. I wasn’t about to start lying now.

“What’s the plan?” Coral asked, wiping the tears from her face.

The plan. “I know it’s not ideal, but we’ll head to the outskirts of the Fringes and lay low for a while until we can build a life out there. I’ll get another job. There’s always work for a good cook. We’ll find a place to live, but we need to go now before they put a block on our identification

cards.”

“On mine,” she whispered.

“No.” I reached for her hand, hating the direction her gears were spinning as she began to pace again.

“It’ll only be my card that gets revoked. You don’t have whatever

this is,” she paused to motion to her body and looked back up with a fire in her eyes, “so I’ll go and you can stay here. You’ve already done enough for me.”

“Stop it.” I pulled her to my chest. It wasn’t that long ago she fit snugly in my embrace, but now she was all legs and arms, standing a few inches taller than me.

Still, I’d promised to always protect her and it didn’t matter how big she got. “You’re my little sister. I don’t care what those DNA tests say. The same blood runs through us both. If you don’t belong here, neither do I. Whatever happens, we stick together.”

We breathed in sync for a heartbeat or two until I felt her relax. “The Fringes.” She sniffed. “Is there nowhere else we could go?

Even with this newfound situation of mine, I’m still not sure we’re cut out for that crowd.”

I pressed my face against her shoulder and laughed at her attempt at

a joke.

Man, if this wasn’t the most messed up day.

“Well Dad seems to think we belong in the toxic wastelands.” I

chuckled. “At least in the Fringes we’ll stand a chance.”

“Wait. What do you mean?” She pulled away to look at me.

I sighed, instantly exhausted and we hadn’t even started yet. “He left a note with this cryptic message and coordinates to an area in the blast

zones of no man’s land with your mother’s name on it.”

“We have to go there.” Coral’s eyes were wide and her voice increased to an excited pitch.

Curse science. I hadn’t meant to get her hopes up. “Coral, it’s a joke. We can’t go out there. Everyone knows there is nothing left but

radioactive fallout and death.”

“But why would Dad tell us to go if we couldn’t go?” She turned her palms in the air and stared at me.

“Technically, he didn’t tell us to go. He left a paper with an

address…” My voice trailed off as Coral screeched, rushing out of the kitchen.

“Where is it?” she cried.

“The note? It’s in my purse.” I followed after her as she spilled the contents of my bag over the floor. “And you’re going to pick that up.”

“In a minute.” She waved her hand in the air, reading the three lines on the page with an intensity reserved for a placement test. When she glanced back up, her face was full of childlike hope.

I took a step back. “Don’t even think about it.”

Her bottom lip jutted out and began to tremble a bit. “Sage…” “Absolutely not.” I shook my head. “The last time I checked, there

was only one adult alive in this family, and I’m making the grown-up decision to keep us both in the land of the living.”

“I hate to tell you this, but an hour ago I was just another normal girl and now I’m apparently a mutant. There’s a good chance Dad is trying to tell us something. Like maybe more of what we thought was a lie.” Coral shrugged.

She had a point.

“Why don’t we shelve this thought for now and we’ll do some more research when we get to the Fringes.” I reached out to take the page back.

She held it over my head, dancing away.

“Oh because there is a database and library out there. Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “Please, Sage. Let’s go check it out. What’s the worst that could happen? We can always come back to the Fringes if it’s really as bad as they say out there.”

Frowning, I caught ahold of the paper. But how could I say no when for the first time since she’d heard the news, there was real joy on her face again?

I’d spent most of my life doing everything to make this silly girl smile. “Fine.”

Coral screamed as she crushed me in a hug. “This is going to be so

crazy.”

“Hurry up and finish packing.” I laughed as I shoved her down the

hall, hoping this wasn’t a horrible mistake.

Because the idea of going to the toxic wastelands sounded really, really stupid.

*

Something big was going to happen. I knew it in my gut. The only

time I didn’t trust my intuition was when I dated Jeremy and look how that turned out. A part of me wanted to stop driving and make Coral understand that we shouldn’t rush into this, but it seemed like the more I resisted the idea, the more everything felt wrong.

Coral sat on the passenger seat of the KIA with her face pressed against the window, lost in her own thoughts as we pulled out of the parking garage. The back row was packed with everything we could stuff inside and the trunk had the plants that couldn’t be left behind.

I gripped the wheel tight as we drove away from the apartment complex and toward the business district, thankful that the directions I’d printed led through the northern gate because I didn’t want Coral anywhere near the research facilities down south.

The sun was just setting and the streets were lighting up as the crowds began moving onto the conveyer belt walkways. Entertainment in Ethica began after dark. While the city was coming alive, we were sneaking away in the shadows.

Surprisingly, I was calm and numb, drawing on an inner strength to keep the vehicle steady as we left it all behind.

Our lives behind.

Potentially life itself behind as we headed into the toxic wastelands.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t as calm as I’d like to believe, but for Coral’s sake, I’d fake it.

“How are you doing?” I bit my lip as we approached the gate’s guard tower. There were only two vehicles in front of us and the authorities were

taking their time as they talked.

“I’m fine.” Coral pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top of them, but she was picking at the hem of her pants near her ankles with an anxious fury.

My fingers drummed against the steering wheel. What is taking so long? Citizens were allowed outside the city walls even though most of them never set foot in the Fringes. It wasn’t illegal to leave even if the entertainment they went there for was. We weren’t prisoners; history has shown that isolated utopias breed doubt and suspicion. Plus, it was a good reminder that there were haves and have nots to show citizens all the things they could lose.

The city walls were only there for protection against the horrors of this world.

Monsters. Mutants.

I looked at Coral who was busy shoving earbuds into her ears as some cheesy pop song played through the speakers.

Finally, the vehicle in front of us passed through the well lit gate and into the darkness beyond. I powered down the window as the guard waved us forward.

“Where are you two going tonight?” His blue tinted LED flashlight swept over our faces as I dug out my identification card from my purse.

It’s none of his business. We’re still citizens until tomorrow. That thought kept my hand steady as I handed over the card and nudged Coral to get hers out. “I’m taking my sister to visit our distant cousin.”

“How distant?” He arched an eyebrow as Coral reached past me, thrusting her card into his hand.

“Distant enough to live outside the city.” I shrugged. Coral fell back against the seat with a laugh.

The guard’s flashlight swept over the back of the vehicle before he ran our IDs through the scanner. “Your sister is seventeen. She’ll need parental authorization to leave the gate after sunset.”

I clung to frustration instead of fear, letting the impatience roll from me in waves. There were few times in life that I let negative emotions show, but sometimes the situation called for it. Let us go. “I am her legal guardian and I’d like to get to my cousin’s place before it gets much darker.”

To prove it, I handed over the certificate.

“Sorry for the hold up.” He gave our documents back and the worry on his face wasn’t meant to scare me, but it did. “You girls stay safe and don’t get too close to the outer edges. There’s been some issues with the

fence line lately. Set off the alert signal on your vehicle if you need any help and we can send a rescue pod.”

“Good to know.” The mask of calm I’d worn my entire life slipped back into place. I put the car in drive and headed through the gate, leaving the safety of Ethica behind us.

*

“There’s no way we can live here,” Coral broke the tense silence as we drove through the sprawling mass of metal shacks that clung to the

outside of Ethica’s walls.

Electric lights were glowing, illuminating the dirty faces peering from the crowded structures where laundry hung from balconies and painted ladies called out their prices to the bar fighters stumbling on the streets.

“It’s not so bad.” I grimaced as I looked in the rearview mirror. I planned to settle down somewhere for the night on the outskirts once the

bustle of the nightlife was behind us, but the ghetto out here seemed a little more sinister now that it was shrouded in dark.

Then again, if we could find a spot to park, I should be able to lock the doors until the sun rose again. Everything would seem better in the light of the day.

“Let’s keep going.” Coral shuddered, turning to stare out the front windshield with a sheen of tears reflecting the scant light in her eyes. “I want to get as far away as possible.”

I chewed my lip as I watched the headlight beams sweep over the dusty roads. If there was any nature out here, it had long since been destroyed by the bombs.

Somehow, I could sense the fence line before the warning signs

came into view on an outcropping of rocks that sat to the side of the broken road. The low static hum of electricity that permeated everything in our

lives was stronger in this spot.

I eased to a stop and looked over to Coral. “We could stay here for the night and then check it out in the morning.” It was too dark to see anything past the rocks and if we were going to die from radiation poisoning right away, I’d at least like to see the end of the world first.

“Just drive.” Coral wiped the tears from her eyes and I felt the heartbreak in her voice.

Straight to possible death it is. I flipped on the overhead light and pulled out some pages I’d printed, pressing them against the steering wheel.

“What’s that?” she asked, leaning closer.

I couldn’t resist teasing her. “Oh, you know, just some ancient piece of technology they call a map.”

“A map to where?” Coral pulled out her phone. “I’ll plug it into the

GPS.”

My smile faltered. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think there

will be service where we are going.”

She froze, her eyes widening in shock, and then slowly shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a life to connect to anymore.”

And with that, I pressed on the gas and gave her an award-winning smile. “Are you ready for our next adventure?”

Radiation poisoning isn’t instant. I held to that truth as we passed through the electric fence line and actually didn’t die. In fact, a weird feeling filled my chest as if this was what it meant to fully expand my lungs for the first time.

I turned to my sister. “We made… “Stop the car!” she screamed.

“What is it?” I slammed on the brakes while my heart slammed against my ribcage.

Coral yanked open the door and jumped from the car before I could put it in park.

I sprinted out after her, scanning the open area around us. Shadows lined the distant horizon but there was nothing out here.

Except the night sky.

I looked up, mesmerized by how clear it was. Like a holograph picture of the galaxy, stars twinkled and stretched around the world.

“Can you feel it?” Coral cried, shaking as she stood on the remains of an old road with her hands outstretched.

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded before realizing her back was turned to me. “It feels cleaner out here, like I can finally breathe.”

“No.” She spun around and caught my arm, dragging me over the broken chunks of asphalt. “Touch it.”

I wiggled my fingers in the air, watching her from the corner of my eye. “I can’t physically feel it but I know we passed through.”

“I messed up.” Coral ran her fingers through her hair as she started to pace while the moon played peekaboo with the clouds and the stars continued to shine above.

“What are you feeling?” I sucked in another deep breath, trying to focus on her instead of marveling at the sky. It never looked like this in the

city. A deep sense of loss hit me when I realized how much we had missed.

Are they lying about the radiation?

Coral thrust her hand into the invisible electric line hovering above the ground and sparks shot up her wrist. She yanked her arm back, cradling it to her chest as she fell to her knees with a cry of pain.

I stood frozen watching as if this was some type of horror movie, not able to process what just happened.

She turned to me with eyes full of fear. “I can’t go back.”

“Oh shit.” I rushed to her side and scooped her up, guiding her back to the car before she collapsed on the road as she started to sob.

This is my fault. I hadn’t been thinking clearly because I’d let

emotions override my senses. Panic raced through me as I forced myself to breathe.

“Shh.” I soothed, tucking her hair behind her ears and pressing my forehead against her forehead, trying to absorb her pain. “It’s okay.”

But this was not okay.

The fence line was there to protect citizens and the Fringes from feral beasts.

I should have known that the science behind these borders was advanced enough to keep anyone with impure blood out.

But my sister isn’t a threat!

Coral took in little gulps of air, quieting herself as shame and hurt twisted the features of her face. My heart ached for her and the life she’d lost.

I tilted her chin up to stare into her eyes. “Screw them. We don’t need their city anyway.”

She gave a broken little smile and nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

I hurried around the side of the car, berating myself for not thinking this through. There had to be a way to get someone to turn off the fence or something and I’d damn sure find out how.

I slid behind the wheel with a wink. “Adventure time, part two?”

Coral laughed and the sound soothed my soul. “Do we have anything to eat?”

My head whipped to the side so fast that I was surprised I didn’t

dislocate my neck. “It’s like you don’t even know who I am. When have I ever forgotten the snacks?”

*

Solar powered vehicles need sun. Ask me how I know.

We ran out of juice sometime in the middle of the night and coasted to the side of a dirt road.

The battery charging ball of fire in the sky warmed my closed eyelids, waking me from my restless dreams. But we were still alive and hadn’t succumbed to radiation sickness yet, so I was calling that a win.

I inhaled deeply, still clutching the butcher’s knife to my chest, and let the crisp morning air into my lungs. That toxic air was tasting pretty sweet.

Moving quietly so I didn’t wake my sister, I opened my eyes and stretched out my back.

It took me a second of sheer panic to register she wasn’t in her seat anymore.

“Coral!” I cried out, jumping from the car and scanning the empty field while holding the knife in my shaking hands.

There was nothing out here for miles besides the rock formation we’d left in the distance, but up ahead was a hill with what looked like real freaking trees.

I shouldn’t have gone to sleep.

The adrenaline from last night was fading, leaving me jumpy and ready to fight.

I’d kill whoever took my sister.

“I’m right here.” Coral was leaning against the side of the car with her arms folded over her chest as she watched the rising sun.

“Are you alright?” I looked to the large knife awkwardly, unsure of where to put it. If I slid it in the waistband of my jeans, the sharpened blade was sure to slice my skin.

Coral turned away from the sun with a heavy sigh. A hint of golden light reflected in her brown eyes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”