The winds raged, howling like wolves across the naked wasteland. Olivia lifted her hands to protect her face from the debris it carried. The mutant had locked her wrists together with a rope before they left.
It was tight—he clearly didn't trust her in the slightest. She didn't blame him for that.
"Move," he said, shoving her from behind.
He walked past her, impatient, a knife dangling from his waist. Her knife.
Olivia thought about reaching for it a couple times.
It was risky, but not impossible. He was gravely wounded, even though he tried to hide his pain behind a mask of stoicism. The cut running along his torso was a horrible sight, the worst among a constellation of cuts and bruises.
But Olivia froze in fear every time she was about to try, remembering how once he wiped out the scout platoon around her.
He stopped, holding her in place by the shoulder, as they arrived at one of the ruins the mutants used as a border outpost.
It was silent. No sign of life within.
"Are those footprints real?" he asked.
She knelt near the shattered stone wall, scanning the ground, when something appeared at the corner of her sight.
A dead mutant nestled within the rubble, staring at her with wide eyes.
Olivia jolted back with a gasp, falling on her behind.
He grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her back to her feet.
"Tell me the truth. Lying won't make things any easier for you. And if something happens because we delayed..." The mutant bit his lip. "I won't be so merciful then."
She looked at them again, following the trail with her eyes, before they stopped at a spot on the ground that seemed more disturbed than its surroundings.
Fake footprints. The army had skillfully brushed the real ones, likely by dragging branches. They were good at covering their tracks, and they had to be, as outrunning mutants was impossible.
Olivia looked up at him and shook her head.
"No." She nodded towards what looked like a completely random direction, but it was the right one. "That way."
He stared at her in silence. His eyes seemed distant, as if he struggled to stay awake.
Whatever he was trying to achieve, wherever he was trying to go, he would die before reaching it.
That's why she didn't bother trying to escape or withhold intel from him.
Olivia was looking at a dead mutant.
He snapped back to himself with a pained hiss, bringing a hand to his wound.
"It seems I made the right choice," he said, panting. "Let's go."
They continued the journey, as she continued to pull the veil from Constantino's tricks for him.
❋ ❋ ❋
Kai noticed her semblant shift as they crossed a certain threshold. There was confidence in her eyes before, even though she tried to conceal it. Now, the deeper they penetrated his people's territory, the worse she got in hiding her mounting dread.
Maybe she had expected something to happen in her favor, a rescue that never came perhaps. Or maybe it was the alien landscape growing around her.
He thought it was the second.
This land they called home was nothing like the greener plains the humans cultivated.
No. Even the earth here was mutated like themselves.
Sandy and cold to the touch, it glowed bright purple at night like a poisonous animal. Nothing would grow here.
Still, they were a long way from the Rifts. That place would humble any human.
A fit of cough took over him. His chest was burning.
He tried to glance her way, to see if the girl would try anything, but it was almost impossible to keep his sight steady.
It receded.
She didn't try anything, thankfully, otherwise Kai might've needed to dispose of her.
Kai wiped his mouth, as the image of her unblurred.
The girl was just standing here, staring at the ground.
"What is this plant?" she asked, almost a murmur, pointing at something.
Kai frowned.
"There is no vegetation..."
She bent down to pluck it, when he realized.
Kai lunged towards her.
"Don't touch it!"
Too late.
The Biter sprung from the ground—a wormlike creature, the size of a baby, flying towards her face. Its mouth, disguised as a harmless little green bush, snapped open, revealing a crooked maw within.
Her eyes widened.
He had a split second, or they would be plucked out.
Kai gritted his teeth from the pain, the knife flashing in the air.
Blue blood splashed on both their faces as he sliced the creature into two, the two halves dropping with a pair of thuds between them.
"Don't touch anything around here."
"Is this normal?" She asked, breathless, still staring at the dead Biter with a smeared face.
He wiped his face.
His homeland was hostile, but not to this point. Someone had brought this creature from the Rifts and planted it here.
Someone very dangerous.
"No. Which only make things worse." He pushed her again, gentler this time. "Let's keep moving."
❋ ❋ ❋
There was a bitter taste in her tongue now. From the disgusting blue blood, and from the fact that he saved her life after she behaved like an irresponsible child. He was getting visibly weaker.
"Do you have a name?" she asked.
He kept walking, his naked back a tapestry of scars.
"Kai," he said, after a while.
Her eyebrows arched slightly. So, they did have names.
I should have expected that...
They were clearly intelligent, perhaps almost as much as humans.
"Olivia," she said.
He coughed.
"Stay quiet, Olivia."
The landscape changed again, some patches of green appearing here and there, too big to be one of the creatures. They must have been even deeper within mutant territory now.
"What will you do where we find Constantino's army?"
"I'll take my family back."
What? Your...
Olivia stopped as fear shot through her.
Kai turned, frowning.
"Keep moving," he said.
She couldn't bring herself to move.
"Will you kill me once we find them?"
He strode towards her and yanked her by the rope between her wrists.
"That depends on weather you do as I say or not. So, keep moving."
This time she did as he bid, taking back control of her legs.
What are you doing, Constantino?
It must have been the first army to venture so deep into mutant territory. It was madness.
For what? Raids? It made no sense.
Olivia's mind raced.
"How many children do you have?" She asked, trying to calm her own nerves with conversation.
His voice was lower, weaker.
"They are not mine, but my brother's."
"I am an only child. Where is your brother now?"
No answer this time.
Olivia scratched her head, her mind spinning in hot circles again.
He's going to kill me. Marcus. I need to get back...
Her eyes fell on the knife bouncing on his waist, her breath growing rapidly as she stared at it.
When he spoke at last.
"Kaden... he..."
Kai staggered slowly as if he was shoved by a ghost. His eyes closed, his muscular body falling like a heavy boulder on the dirt.
It happened as she predicted, at long last.
Olivia ran towards him and snatched the knife out of his waist.
She stopped, the knife between her hands.
Her eyes shot to the blade, then back at him, lying unconscious on her feet.