The Brothers

In the third installment of The Breeders series, Clay, Riley, and Ethan leave the shopping mall turned Citadel to free Auntie Bell from the vile Warden. The trio soon runs out of food and spots a campfire over the ridge. Desperate, they decide to attack the man at the fire and take what they need, but when they get there, they find a bender tied up. Riley learns that the bender, Nada, has been captured and that there is a bounty for the genderless humans. They’re being sold into slavery.

While Clay and Riley debate what to do with Nada, she escapes, but not before savagely killing her enslaver. Clay, Riley, and Ethan travel on, stopping at Riley and Ethan’s old farmhouse. The memories of their dead parents are haunting. They don’t tarry long before heading into town, where Clay plans to drum up enough of his former friends to take down the Warden. His friend, Kimber, says he’ll help, but betrays them into the hands of the very woman they were trying to avoid: Nessa Vandewater, Breeders’ Enforcer and Clay’s mother.

Nessa, vile as ever, takes Clay and Ethan and sells Riley into slavery. Riley finds herself in a compound filled with benders, including Nada. When she first arrives, they make her see the doctor for a medical exam. Afraid he’ll learn she’s a girl, she tries to hide her true identity, but she soon realizes this is impossible. She trusts the benders’ doctor, Doc, with her secret. He knows Nada after all. But when he orders her beaten, she believes he’s her enemy, too.

Riley is put to work making bullets. She and Nada are given the most dangerous job, mixing gunpowder. Nada tells her about the compound and its ruler, Lord Merrick. He’s obsessed with medieval culture and even dresses like a king. If Merrick finds out Riley is a girl, he’ll force her to become one of his wives. Riley knows she must keep her gender a secret and only hopes Nada and Doc will stay silent.

In the meantime, Clay wakes up to find Nessa has abducted him and Ethan. She wants to kindle a relationship with her son, but in the strangest ways possible—operating on his injured hand so it can function again and making Clay think Ethan is Cole, his dead brother. Nessa also employs Betsy, Riley’s former roommate from the Breeders’ hospital, to keep Ethan in line. However, it’s clear Betsy isn’t right in the head. Clay feels both sorry for and wary of her.

Back at the compound, Riley learns of a tournament in honor of Lord Merrick’s birthday. The winner gets freedom for herself and one other person. Riley knows she must enter and win freedom for her and Auntie, who she discovers has also been sold to Merrick. The games are brutal. The first event, a joust, involves driving at your opponent on a four-wheeler while wielding a lance. The second event is a bloody tandem race through booby-trapped warehouses while Merrick and his crew hunt contestants. Riley and Nada manage to make it through, but watch in horror as other benders die.

Meanwhile, Clay continues to fight Nessa’s advances to make him her son. He tries to escape with Ethan when the Air Force base is bombed. When he’s caught, Nessa decides the only way to control Clay is to tamper with his brain. Clay wakes up lost, bewildered, and with major memory gaps.

In the game, Riley faces a fight to the death with real swords, an overzealous swordsman named Mister, and hungry coyotes. She struggles to protect Nada, but Mister cuts Nada down. The benders finally revolt against their captors and take over. Riley can find no joy in her freedom. Nada is dead, and Clay and Ethan are still prisoners. Riley decides the only thing to do is take Auntie and Doc to rescue her boys.

Back at the base, they’re under attack. The Free Colonies are trying to kill Nessa and the military installation. Betsy and Ethan decide this is the time to free Clay and escape. On the way, they face Nessa Vandewater. Clay, brain addled, doesn’t know who to go with, Nessa, his mother, or Betsy and Ethan. In the end, he chooses Ethan, shooting Nessa. The three walk out of the compound toward Riley and hope for the future.

“Clay!” comes out as a ragged gasp of a word, raw and strangled. As I sit up, sweat rolls down my back, chilling me. I stare out the windshield and try to remember where I am.

Auntie’s soft snores in the backseat draw me in. Back to the Jeep—to the pain of knowing the people I love are somewhere out there.

Outside, the day is bright and hot, but in the shade of the mesquite trees, it’s cool enough to try to catch some rest before Doc, Auntie, and I travel on. The green trees, with their feathered leaves and angled branches, were a sight for sore eyes after twelve hours of driving. Now their thin branches dance above the windshield, making layers of shade and sunlight on the hood. They blanket us from the searing sun, but their dance brings no comfort.

I lean back and look Auntie over. She’s curled up, one arm thrown over her face to block the light. Her eye patch is visible, something I can’t help but gawk at. The webbed scar tissue around her eye is one more mark I will grow accustomed to, and one day, I won’t notice it at all. Just like the burns on Mama’s face or the hole in Clay’s palm. It’s funny how hurts that seem so gut-wrenching eventually become ordinary. I worry one day my mama’s death will mold into something I can simply give a sidelong glance. I never,
never
want that to happen. Pain is a tether. Without it, Mama could drift away.

Thinking of drifting reminds me of Clay. Thinking of Clay makes my hands crawl toward the steering wheel. Auntie will kill me if I don’t at least pretend to rest.

I stare out past this grove of trees to the highway. The sand-encrusted slab of blacktop looks like every other road I’ve been on, but this spread of tar and rock is different. Ethan and Clay are out there somewhere, and this is the only road that can take us to them. Since we busted out of Merrick Bullets and Ammo, we’ve spent fourteen hours white knuckling it toward Kirtland Air Force Base. Auntie can’t see well and Doc never learned to drive, so that left me at the wheel, driving like my life depended on it. Like Clay and Ethan’s lives depended on it.

Around hour eight, Auntie began to fuss. Said I was too tired. An hour or so later, Doc started fussing, too. I put them off for three more hours ‘til I dozed off and nearly flipped the Jeep. To my credit, I managed to dodge the grove of trees and only scraped paint off the doors. Sleep was ordered and keys taken, so here I sit on my ass with no sleep on the horizon and my loved ones in jeopardy.

But where is Doc now? I scan the nearby clump of trees, but no luck. A flutter of fear picks up in my chest. He insisted on coming when he heard Auntie and I were headed out to Kirtland. I guess, with Nada gone, he couldn’t stay at the compound. The other benders begged him not to go. They needed a leader, but I could see it in his eyes—nothing could keep him rooted in the place where Nada died.

Nada
. Her death flashes before me, and I wince.
Oh, Nada
. The image of her throat cut open… No. I can’t go back there.

I spot a lean shadow near a distant grove of trees.
Doc
. Deciding sleep is futile, I ease myself out of the Jeep, careful not to wake Auntie, and walk through the shimmering shade.

Maybe he’s learning to let go of Nada. Perhaps he’ll know how to help me.

Doc stands under the tallest tree, his back against the rough trunk, his head tucked down to his chest. The clothes from the compound—jeans, a white T-shirt with “Wisconsin” printed in black font, and heavy, worn, steel-toed boots—are still clean. Won’t take long to rough them up.

“You should be resting,” he says without even turning.

I walk up until I’m level with him. He turns a blotchy, tear-soaked face from me. “You don’t gotta hide,” I say, kicking at a stone. “I did my fair share of crying before we left.”

He swallows hard. “Your aunt asleep?”

I nod, leaning back against a tree trunk close to his. “Snoring like a mule with a head cold.”

He snorts. “I thought Dareen was bad. Your aunt could wake people in China. If there are still people in China.” He quiets, and I can watch him fold into himself.

“It’s not too late to go back.” I wipe sweat that’s gathered on my forehead. “We’re only a day’s drive from the compound.” What I don’t say is that I can’t afford to lose a day in my search. If he decides to go back, I’ll go forward on foot.

Doc sighs and slides down to sit at the base of the tree. I sit beside him. The ground is hot, but not unbearable.

“I don’t wanna go back,” Doc says morosely, picking up a rock and skittering it across the ground. “Just feel bad for leaving them like that.” The pain makes him look younger, with his sandy-brown hair hanging over his eyes, his pink lips pouting. He’s beautiful. It’s hard to see him in such pain.

“You think they’ll be okay?” I ask.

Doc sniffs, dropping his head. “Honestly? I don’t know. Dareen’s an honest person. A good leader. And Hanson—the one that kinda took over when the fighting started…” He looks at me to see if I understand, and I nod. “He really knows how to rally them when everything’s mass chaos.”

“What about the wounded benders?”

Doc shrugs, his shirt making a scratching sound against the tree bark. “The two remaining midwives are capable. They can take care of them.”

I glance back at the Jeep and my sleeping aunt. Until about twenty-four hours ago, she was one of Merek’s midwives, too. “I sure hope so,” I say.

His green eyes flash with anger. “You think I like that I left those people without a doctor?”

I lean away from him. “I didn’t say that. You’re the one who—”

“You think it was easy for me to leave?” His delicate features have hardened into sharp lines. He stands, kicking up a puff of dust. “I just couldn’t
stay
there. Not after Nada.” Tears pool in his eyes. He turns away from me. “I’ll probably never see her grave again.”

I push off the ground, not sure what to do. Finally, I put my hand on his back as it shakes with silent sobs. “My mama is buried in some…mall parking lot,” I begin, my voice a whisper. “I couldn’t tell you where to find it if you gave me all the maps in New Mexico.”

That old urge bubbles up. The urge to dig a hole and cover myself with dirt. To let it fill my ears, my mouth. Since Nada died, I can’t feel much of anything and I’m afraid if I do, I’ll find a shovel and start digging. I stuff the feeling down into my boots and straighten my shoulders.
Steady on,
I tell myself.
For Clay and Ethan
.

“We gotta focus on the living,” I say, clearing my throat. “We gotta keep going.”

Doc sniffs and turns back to me. “You really love Clay, don’t you?”

I try not to see the want in Doc’s face. The memory of his kiss, the desire that flowed from him as his lips groped for my own, looms large between us. He’s beautiful and hurting and so much of me wants to help him heal. But I can’t. Not in the way he wants me to.

I lift my eyes up to the arching branches of the mesquite tree and watch the leaves tremble. “I do love Clay, yes.”

“And you think your brother is with him?”

“Yes.” Dear God, he has to be. They’re both alive, or… There is no or.

“Then we should get some rest.” He nods toward the Jeep. “We’ll be at Kirtland’s gates at nightfall.”

Tension tightens my stomach. We’ve got guns and all the ammo we could shake a stick at, but no idea what we’ll find at Kirtland. Merek told us the base had been under attack by the Free Colonies. Who knows what condition the place is in? Who knows who controls it? And the thought of seeing Nessa Vandewater…that snake of a woman. She’ll try to kill Ethan or me if it means keeping Clay to herself.

“Yeah, we should rest.” I nod toward the Jeep. “You go on. I have to use the little girl’s room.”

One corner of his mouth lifts at my joke. “Need someone to stand watch?”

I shake my head. “I can handle taking a tinkle by myself.”