Designed : A Young Adult Dystopian Romance

Snippets of our past conversations flew at me like a swarm of bees, surrounding me and blurring my senses of sight and sound, knocking me off balance.

The way he’d known so much about me and the other kids from the base, about Gebbies. His easy explanation of nanos and their use in the aftermath of the Calamity.

His admission he’d worked with his father at Gideon Corp—in a lab.

The fact he had a Gebby “brother” his father didn’t see as human. And now… the last thing he’d said about his father…

He didn’t give me enough time.

Heath wasn’t helping us escape from Gideon. He worked for him—was still working for him.

The dizzy sensation turned to nausea, and pain bloomed in my chest. I was as much a prisoner now as I’d ever been. And Heath had been lying to me all this time.

But instead of seizing me and marching me down the steps to hand me over, he addressed the men in a pleasant tone.

“Well, I thank you very much for your concern, but it’s not necessary. As you can see, all is well. You can report back that you found us camping and relaxing. Nothing of consequence. Now if you’ll excuse us, we were about to have breakfast.”

He extended a hand toward his wide-eyed brother. “Daniel, come here, buddy.”

The man holding Daniel did not release his grip, though the child squirmed and struggled, trying to obey his brother’s instruction.

“Heath,” he cried out. “Help me.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Gideon,” the lead soldier said, looking decidedly uncomfortable about defying Heath. “I have orders to bring you all back.”

Standing behind Heath as I was, I saw the muscles along his spine contract. His hands tightened into fists at his side, causing the veins in his forearms to stand out more prominently than usual.

“And I’ve already told you—we’re not going back—not yet.”

The leader glanced to one side then the other, nodding at his men. Almost with a single mind, they simultaneously reached for their stun guns, as if programmed to do so on command. Maybe they were.

Maybe they were Gebbies like me and Daniel—nothing would have surprised me at this point.

Heath took a half step back, reaching behind him like he was searching for me. In a low voice he said, “Reya—get back inside the cabin.”

I don’t think so.

I didn’t know why he’d bothered going through the ruse of helping me find the Haven, why he’d pretended he wanted to get away from his father, too, but it didn’t matter anymore. Heath was not my friend.

He was just another liar, another cog in the wheel that had been running over me and my friends our entire lives, leaving its marks—and then erasing them again and again.

Only this time, the ruts went way below the surface. I had never let myself trust anyone the way I’d trusted Heath. I’d believed him when he said he cared about me.

What a fool I was.

Well, I was through being run over. I was out of here.

Instead of going back into the cabin, I lunged to one side and leapt from the porch, breaking into a run as soon as my feet hit the ground. My target was a large gap between the two soldiers positioned toward the right of the cabin.

If I could slip between them, maybe I could blend into the thick forest and find a hiding place. After that… well, I’d figure it out.

“Reya,” Heath shouted after me, and then he barked an order. “Don’t hurt her.”

As I charged the gap, one soldier stepped to his side and closed it, intercepting me. Paying no heed to Heath’s command, he grabbed my shoulder with bruising force and slammed me to the ground. He straddled my stomach and jammed something hard against my hip.

Breathing was difficult, but I still managed a scream. Kicking to free myself, I pummeled his stomach and sides with my fists.

A sudden electric jolt silenced me. My teeth ground together as my muscles went rigid and every hair on my body stood on end.

“Careful.” This time Heath’s voice sounded imperious. Authoritative. Cold. “That subject is valuable.”

Subject. He’d called me a “subject.” The word hurt worse than anything the soldier was doing to me. I guessed there was no need for pretense anymore.

The ruse was up. The subject knew the truth now.

The man who had Daniel answered him in a firm tone, not intimidated. “My orders are to bring you and the boy in alive. I don’t remember your father making any mention of the female’s condition.”

In response, the guy pinning me down smiled and sat on me more heavily. “Hear that, sugar? We can do anything we want to you.”

There was no chance I could overpower this guy. He was twice my weight. I couldn’t even breathe with him sitting on me.

Desperate to fill my lungs, I tried anyway, jerking my knee upward and striking him in the lower spine.

He let out a surprised yelp and slapped my face so hard my cheek went numb. My capturer extended an open glove toward the nearest soldier.

“Throw me your wand—mine must be defective. It didn’t knock her out, and this bitch is starting to piss me off.”

“Hit her over the head with it,” his buddy said with a chuckle as he tossed the guy his weapon. “She’ll stop squirming.”

From somewhere above me there was a surprising roar, and then I saw something that shocked me. Heath vaulted from the porch, knocking the soldier off of my body and engaging him in a rolling, grunting, hand-to-hand battle.

As I scooted away and sucked in huge lungs-full of replenishing air, the other soldier jumped into the fray, pulling Heath from atop his buddy and hitting him in the face.

When Heath’s head swung to the side from the impact, our eyes met.

“Fight them, Reya,” he urged through gritted blood-covered teeth. “You’re stronger than you know. Use your power.”

My power? What was he talking about? I’d never been particularly strong or fast compared to my school mates.

And why was he encouraging me to fight the men working for his father? Why was he fighting them?

There was no time to figure it all out. A soldier was running at me from across the clearing, and the one holding Daniel was dragging him away. The terrified child was shrieking for help, calling Heath’s name, calling my name.

I had to do something.

Scrambling to my feet, I snatched the taser wand from the belt of the guy who’d struck Heath and jammed the business end of it into the back of his neck.

He instantly stiffened and let out a garbled noise, falling away from Heath and writhing in the dirt and pine needles.

Then I spun around and jabbed it into the neck of the soldier who’d just reached me, using the element of surprise to my advantage. He dropped to the ground, out cold.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Heath had only one soldier left to contend with, so I turned to face the remaining ones.

With the stun wand in my hand and Heath fighting alongside me, I felt like we had at least a chance. Not much of one, but a chance.

As anticipated, two men headed my way—one of them was the lead soldier who’d captured Daniel at the beginning of this mess. Glancing around quickly, I saw he’d locked Daniel inside the vehicle they’d arrived in.

The boy’s eyes were huge as his small fists pounded the window glass.

The men crouched and crept toward me slowly. “Watch her,” one cautioned the other. “She’s got a wand.”

Behind me I heard grappling and growling as Heath struggled with his opponent. I’d have to deal with both these guys on my own. Somehow.

The only exposed skin on their bodies was on their necks and faces. They’d expect me to try to use the wand on them there. They’d be ready for that.

What were my other options? They were almost upon me, and if they each grabbed an arm, I’d be helpless.

Without even really planning it, I charged toward them. Reaching the man closest to me, I planted a foot on his thigh and used the leverage to spring upward, palming the side of his head and yanking it to one side.

He fell, knocking into his partner and sending him to the ground as well. I landed atop the pile and drove the tip of the wand into the cheek of the soldier beneath me. He went limp, and his considerable weight prevented the soldier under him from escaping long enough for me to touch the stun device to his Adam’s apple.

His hand gripped his throat before flopping to the ground beside him.

I scrambled off the unconscious men and sat on the ground, catching my breath and looking around. Looking for Heath.

He stood on the other side of the clearing, nudging one of his attackers with his foot. Moving to the other, he did the same. Heath appeared to be okay apart from some scratches on his arms and back.

Everything was so quiet after the ferocious sounds of hand-to-hand combat. Birds sang in the trees overhead, and the chipmunk Daniel had been admiring skittered across one of the porch railings.

The five soldiers lay in a jumble around us, either unconscious or dead, I wasn’t sure which. I’d never tapped into my own strength before, and I wasn’t sure how far it went. A moan from the one nearest me let me know at least he had survived the battle.

Heath picked up the stun wand lying near him, walked over, and zapped the guy with it. The moaning stopped.

He dropped the wand and took a step closer to me, meeting my gaze with cautious eyes. “You okay?”

Then he reached out and offered a hand to help me up. Ha. As if I’d actually let him touch me.

I glared at him, struggling to stand on my own. “Why did you do that? Why did you fight them?”

“They were hurting you,” he said, as if the answer was obvious. “They were threatening Daniel.”

“So? They work for your father—and so do you.”

“You don’t understand. They were way out of line. I told you—I’d do anything for you, Reya. If they’d had guns instead of stun wands, I would have still done the same.”

I smirked. “You don’t care about me.”

The door to one of the cabins in the semi-circle opened a crack then closed quickly again when both Heath and I looked up.

He moved closer, speaking quietly. “You’re wrong. You and Daniel are the most important people in the world to me.”

I did not keep my voice down. “Oh, I’m a person now? A little while ago, you called me a ‘subject.’”

“I said that for their sake,” he said, using an isn’t-it-obvious? tone. “I didn’t want them to know what’s really going on here.”

I lifted my chin. “And what’s that?”

“What we’re doing—searching for the Haven, leaving Gideon Corp and the military base behind.”

“No. What’s going on here is that you’ve been lying to me from the second I met you, and I’m leaving you behind.”

I moved as quickly as I could toward the cabin, intending to gather a few MRE’s and my clothes and then get the hell out of there. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very quickly at all. A limp slowed my progress. One of the soldiers had gotten in a few good licks.

“You’re hurt,” Heath said, sounding for all the world like that troubled him.

I shot a disdainful glance over my shoulder without stopping. “I’ll heal. Superhuman android, remember?”

“Reya. Stop. Don’t call yourself that.” When I didn’t stop or even turn around again, he let out an exasperated noise. “Where are you planning to go?”

“Anywhere you’re not.”

“Please—don’t leave like this. Give me a chance to explain.”

Now I did stop and turn around—I couldn’t help myself.

“Explain? I think it’s pretty clear. It was no accident that you ‘happened’ to arrive at Gideon Corp at the same time I did yesterday. You were sent to intercept me, weren’t you? This whole thing has been some sort of… game to you. You’re nothing more than a… a spoiled rich pretty boy, rebelling against Daddy’s rules, getting your jollies by fooling around with the ‘merchandise.’”

His jaw stiffened. “That’s not true. I love you. You know that.”

“I don’t even know what that word means. I’ve never been loved. I’ve been kept, and studied, and manipulated, all while people claimed to love me. I wasn’t even created in love. I was conceived in a lab, manufactured on an assembly line and grown in a plastic bag.”

Heath drew in a deep breath and let it out, his face appearing pained.

“That’s not how it was. Yes, you were conceived in a lab, you developed in an artificial womb, but after you were born you were cared for and raised like any human baby.”

“But not loved like a human baby, like a child who was wanted. I always felt it. Now I know why.” I shook my head and turned away, starting up the porch steps. “It doesn’t even matter. Let me go.”

“I can’t.” Heath let out a choked sound. “You’re my soul mate.”

A harsh laugh preceded my blistering words. I turned back around, looking down at him now from the porch.

“I don’t have a soul, remember?”

To my dismay, a tear ran down my cheek. I swept it away with an angry swipe.

“That’s not true. The Pioutisticals are wrong. Those zealots have never even met you. You do have a soul. I’ve seen it in action. You care, you love. And I do love you. If you don’t know what that means, then try this—how about being willing to walk away from your whole life for the person you love, choosing them over everything and everyone else? Look around you, Reya.”

He twisted side to side, gesturing to the bodies strewn across the clearing.

“I can’t go back to my old life, to my job and family. And I don’t want to. I’ve already made my choice. I chose you—and Daniel. You don’t have to choose me. I can’t force you to stay with me. But if you send me away, I’m still going to love you. And I won’t be going back to Atlanta.”

His words struck me, kept my feet planted to the boards beneath them when every nerve in my body instructed me to run.

“What will you do?”

His shoulders lifted and fell. “I guess Daniel and I will keep trying to find the Haven on our own.”

I stood on the porch facing him, silent as my gaze moved from him to the unconscious men around him, to the dense perimeter of trees stretching out in every direction around us, and then to Daniel’s face watching us from the windshield of the soldier’s transport.

“Your brother needs you.”

Turning away from Heath’s crestfallen expression, I went into the cabin to pack.