Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
As we walked further away from the sounds of Central City’s siren screams, I knew those sirens called out for me.
Somehow, my mother figured out I was gone before she should have, and she was going to tear the entire city apart until she found me.
The good news was that the panic would only buy us time.
Time to disappear into a world she could not control.
And the farther we walked towards that, the more disoriented my thoughts became.
I realized, between the high-pitched cries of the dome and the rambling of a now rebooted 14-year-old, my mind was full of questions I’m not sure I needed to be asking.
There were more pressing things. Urgent things.
But I found myself focusing on one thing.
The man who just saved me.
The man who reset my face with the same hands that used to button my coat.
Who pulled me out of the rooms my mother sent me into crying.
Who always knew how to find me. Even when I didn’t want to be found.
And no. I never saw him as a father figure. More like a constant. The only thing that ever felt solid in a world built on performance.
But now, out here, stripped of the protocol and posturing, I was seeing him for the first time.
And I wasn’t scared. I didn’t doubt him, or why he would have lied to me all those years.
Because somehow, in all of this, he chose me.
So maybe, as I understood it, his loyalty wasn’t ever to the Reign.
And never to her.
Maybe it was always me.
And that…that settled somewhere deep.
Not everything made sense.
But that part did.
And if it didn’t mean what I thought it meant? I didn’t want to know.
And it was comforting.
“How old are you?” I asked, watching as he pulled a cigarette from his bag.
I didn’t know what it was. You do. So I won’t explain it.
The way he lit it—with one smooth motion and a half-smile—was the most masculine thing I’d ever seen.
And suddenly, I felt fifteen again. Curious. Restless. Intrigued.
He was rugged, foreign-sounding, human in a way I’d never seen him be.
Even the sweat on his brow made him feel real.
Not perfect. Not postured. Just… real.
“I’m thirty-five,” he said.
And just like that, I realized the man who raised me, who had always felt worlds older than me, was only ten years ahead.
“Wait—really?”
He kept walking down the abandoned highway towards Fox Hill, as if none of it touched him, and I kept asking questions, hoping that maybe one of them would.
And Mandea stayed quiet, which was strange for her. She just walked beside me with a grin on her face like she knew exactly what was happening.
“So,” I said in Ontack, soft but careful, “are you really a Mari?”
Then sharper:
“Òn Kaès Libera Règna?”[1]
He had lied to the rest of the world, but he didn’t need to lie to me.
He stopped walking.
Then he pulled me—gently, deliberately—up by the waist and sat me on the hood of an old, abandoned car.
Which wasn’t helping the whole “is he hot or am I just unraveling” situation.
“Yes,” he said.
“Tè Kaès.[2] To both.”
He grabbed my wrist and looked at the band, which he had made sure to disable before we left. He brushed his thumb against it, almost as if to confirm with himself that it still wasn’t working.
And then, even quieter:
“And yes—I love you more than you know. In ways you won’t understand right now. It’s complicated and impossible to explain to the version of you standing in front of me now.”
He brushed a piece of hair out of my face. His fingers were so soft, yet still rough from years of work. Years I never really asked about.
And I felt it again.
That weird feeling.
Then he held both my hands, grounding me before I could float into the wrong idea.
“Look around you, Isa.”
He let go of one hand just enough to gesture behind me.
“To what’s behind you—and what’s ahead.”
His voice wasn’t cold.
It was kind, but it was clear.
And it cut deeper than any warning my mother had ever given.
“This right here…” he nodded toward the road, the walkers, the dust, the stretch of nowhere we were about to cross.
“This is what matters.
Not me.
Not whatever you think is happening between us.”
And he held the line.
Not because he didn’t feel it.
But because he did.
And he saw me looking at his mouth again.
And he didn’t soften it.
“Isa, I need you to grow up now.”
And that fucking hurt.
Because I was twenty-five.
Wasn’t I supposed to be grown by now?
I thought that counted for something.
But maybe it didn’t.
Maybe I’d been aging, not growing.
Maybe growth needs space. Choice. Mistakes.
And I’d never really had any of that.
Just expectation. Direction and obedience dressed up as success.
So, when he said that, it didn’t sound like advice; it sounded more like an audit.
And I came up short.
Ouch.
But there wasn’t time to unpack that.
I would add that to the pile of shit I have to deal with later.
“Why are we going to Fox Hill if I’m supposed to go to Manta City?” I asked, climbing down off the hood, brushing the moment off of me. “What’s even there?”
I was trying to grow up, like he suggested.
“Lennai,” Coen said, offering his hand to help me back onto the path. “He is our way into Manta City.”
“But who’s Lennai?” Mandea asked, eyes wide, far too invested. “Is she pretty?”
He looked at me first—a long, knowing glance.
A warning.
“My husband.”
Right. Of course. He told me. Said it clearly. But something about hearing it now made it land like a betrayal I had no right to claim.
But still...
It hurt.
Almost as much as when he told me to grow up.
“And what’ll we do with her when we get there?” I asked, nodding toward Mandea—desperate for a change of subject.
He looked down at our uninvited glitch like he’d just registered her again.
“The Fox Hill Mission will take her. They look after all the Prosper orphans who are too young to be relegated.”
Orphans.
Plural.
“You mean… There are more like her?”
He nodded.
“Most of them are there. With all the science in the world, they still couldn’t bypass the glitch of puberty.”
And he wasn’t wrong.
Most human traits were seen as glitches.
Empathy. Curiosity.
Even the capacity to feel too much.
They found ways to program most of that out.
Genetic edits. Neuro patches. Environmental control.
But to grow, the body still had to pass through one biological gate.
Puberty.
Chemical or natural—didn’t matter.
And with it came the one thing no system could control:
Hormones.
And the breakdown of whatever walls they built.
That’s why there were never any babies. Too many variables. Too many things they couldn’t control.
I guess with teenagers, they didn’t think too far ahead.
But then, I remembered something.
I vividly remember being no more than 3 or 4 years old, living in Sonacrest.
But -
How is that possible if there are no children younger than 12?
I stopped in my tracks as if the cracked pavement had grabbed my ankles and refused to let go.
“Well then, why was I a child?”
Coen kept walking as if answering wasn’t his job.
And I refused to move until I got an answer.
“I distinctly remember being a child!”
Still nothing.
“Coen,” I snapped, channeling those Harred lungs.
His silence obviously meant he knew something.
“Am I some kind of experiment?”
“No,” he said quickly. Almost too quickly, still facing forward.
“Then what am I?” I pushed, stepping closer.
He paused.
Not just his stride.
His entire body halted, shoulders drawn tight like he was holding a secret deep inside.
I could tell. He wasn’t hiding a truth. He was protecting me from the consequences of knowing it.
He had one job. Get me to Manta City. Nothing more. Nothing less.
To tell me anything too soon could possibly derail me from my journey.
But part of him knew that his silence was no longer kind.
I was asking the kind of questions that demanded an answer.
“COEN”
He turned.
He could see in my eyes that now was the time to say something. Say what, I don’t know.
And what he said, he didn’t say it for drama. Or out of anger.
He said it because I deserved to know.
“You are a child stolen out of time,” he said.
“And you exist in a timeline you were never meant to be in.”
And just like that, I wasn’t standing on the cracked pavement anymore; I was falling through it.
Unmoored and untethered, like I was floating in the ache of a statement that sounded like prophecy.
He said nothing else.
And I had nothing to ask.
He just picked me back up, and we continued walking.
A few steps later, Mandea—blessed, broken timing and all—looked between us and smiled like we’d just argued over a board game.
“Soooo, do you think there will be snacks at Fox Hill?” She was skipping again, voice high and hopeful. “I’ve never had snacks before. But this girl at Horn Point said she had snacks, and snacks were good. Said they made her feel normal.”
Then, quieter, as if it had accidentally slipped out.
“Right before she disappeared.”
I stopped walking, but she didn’t.
“You know, you blink like someone taught you not to cry,” she added, suddenly staring straight at me. “But I know you’re still crying on the inside.”
She wasn’t wrong. But I needed her to stop.
Her voice was too loud. Too bright,
Too knowing.
She walked ahead of us, unraveled and humming, like she hadn’t just thrown a dart straight into the heart of me.
I didn’t respond.
Not because I didn’t care.
But because I was still navigating the silence truth had just fed me.
So, I let her go ahead.
And in the quiet she left behind, I repeated the only thing I could.
Pay attention to your surroundings.
And so, I did.
But part of me kind of wished I hadn’t.
Maybe if I’d kept walking with tunnel vision, I wouldn’t have seen how wrecked the Outworld was—Or at least this part of it.
It had never recovered from the war.
Left behind.
Left open and ruined, it was nothing more than a dumping ground for everything Central City didn’t want to look at.
Old Highway 50, the one that once led out of the Silver Grid, looked more like a graveyard for broken systems, lined with junked cars and street vendors. And overrun with drifters who couldn’t seem to get out of their way.
And I don’t know why Mandea could think about food, the air was rancid, and it smelled like decaying flesh, body odor, and smokehouses left to rot in the median—rat jerky and raccoon stew simmering over rusted drums.
And the land on either side?
It was even more crowded, more sad.
Lined with tents, RVs, and makeshift homes, it housed more subsyndics than Central City could ever dare admit had existed.
And we were barely a mile out.
I could still feel the chill of Silver Grid on my bones. So, ot wasn’t a place we lingered too long.
There was no law, no sense of order. Just people who couldn’t see past the edge of their demise, who hadn’t made peace with their exile. Who still hovered near the perimeter like loyal dogs waiting at a locked door.
They lived off scraps of food, memory, and the faintest whispers from a woman who had long since forgotten them.
And still, they waited.
As if staying to rot might earn them forgiveness.
As if misery, endured faithfully, might grant them a way back in.
Just then, I nearly tripped over a man slumped across the path.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked, instinctively reaching for his arm.
Coen’s hand shot out, pulling me back hard. “Don’t touch him.”
The edge of his voice stopped me. So, I paused, really looking.
The man, like so many others scattered along the roadside, looked…frozen. Mid-step. Limbs slack. Eyes open, but vacant. Like he was stuck inside a dream he couldn’t wake from.
“Lethergee Gin,” Coen muttered through gritted teeth. “The Federation’s answer to overpopulation.”
He explained it quickly. How Lethergee was a synthetic hallucinogen. One of their early chemical weapons was dressed as compassion. Harmless when appropriately used. But mixed with alcohol, or taken, uncut, out here?
It just unraveled them.
Some got violent, but most drifted.
And some never woke up.
I stared at the man again, this time with something curling in my gut. Not pity. Something worse. Something much deeper.
I couldn’t look away. His pupils had exploded wide open, and his jaw was twitching from a dream I couldn’t hear.
It felt like being smacked in the face by the human condition, and not the kind that any curated broadcast or textbook could have filtered, but the kind that smelled like rot and rain and a waking death you welcomed.
The Deliverance Reign couldn’t have lived here.
These people weren’t rebels. They definitely didn’t believe in free will.
And that made them worse-worse than the ones who never even knew they had a choice.
Was it like this everywhere?
Should I be excited to get to Fox Hill?
However, as we continued to move forward, I began to slow down. Not on purpose, my legs just stopped trusting the ground.
They were tired. And every step seemed to pull me closer to a sky that was no longer just gray.
It was darkening now, growing colder and heavier.
The kind of dark that would make someone like me afraid.
And in that moment, I think Coen realized just how raw this still was.
Even the raindrops that would soon begin to pelt us would be more than my brain could handle.
It had been decades since I had felt a natural rain shower on my skin.
Even if I didn’t remember it.
“It’s ok,” he chuckled, grabbing my hand and pulling me close. “It’s just rain.”
But I flinched every time it struck my face.
Scrunched my nose as it stung my cheeks.
I didn’t like it.
It felt aggressive and intrusive.
It felt like the world was touching me without asking.
So, he wiped the drops from my face with his sleeve, then tugged me under his jacket, shielding me from the worst of it.
“We need to find a stretch of road where the tents have thinned out,” he said quietly. “The fewer people, the better.”
That’s when he broke off from me just for a moment and stole a lantern from a frozen man.
We understood that he would never need it again.
“Once we find a spot, we will rest there for the night.”
I wasn’t sure exactly how long we had been walking. The sky hadn’t drifted so much as collapsed—folding into night before we even earned a sunset.
But from what I could see, the road had thinned, and people disappeared. But the rain didn’t.
Eventually, we found a dry patch beneath an old collapsed Billboard.
It wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t warm. But it was dry.
“We’ll stop here,” he said, lowering the lantern.
I nodded. Not because I was ok with this idea, but because my legs had nothing left to offer.
I stood there, shivering, while he gathered debris. My body didn’t recognize this kind of cold.
It felt like dying. And somehow, Mandea knew.
She ran up behind me, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and just held on.
“You’ll be ok,” she said warmly. “I don’t have the same kind of body heat you do. But I can pull yours out of you.”
Who was this girl? Strange? Yes. But smart. Too smart.
And that made her dangerous.
“Thank you,” I said, gently pushing her off, “but I’m good.”
She stepped back slowly. No argument, just the softest pout…like I had taken a toy from her that she wasn’t done playing with.
I turned toward Coen, who was crouched by the debris, coaxing a fire to life beneath the kindling. And when the orange glow caught the edge of his face, I just sat there and watched.
And she watched me watching him.
With an eerie smile on her face. Like she had already cataloged it to save the shape of my desire, just to try it on later.
Once the fire caught, Coen dropped to the ground and leaned back against the wall just to rest for a moment. Then, without a word, he opened his legs and patted the ground, inviting me in.
He had the same idea as Mandea and knew that I wouldn’t survive the night in this kind of cold.
So I dropped into the space in between him, fitting perfectly into his inviting arms.
And just as I started to settle into the quiet rhythm of his breath…she was there.
No words. No hesitation. Just Mandea slipping beside us as if she always had a place there.
Her head found his shoulder like it had been waiting for it. And I honestly hated how easy it looked. How quickly she let go. And how fast she fell asleep.
As if she hadn’t even noticed that I was still trying not to need him that much.
But as safe as he tried to make me, every sound made me flinch.
Every raindrop that snuck through seemed to feel like a test.
I was in so much pain.
And though the thought of being in his arms would have comforted me.
I wanted the morning and with it the sun.
But at some point, I must’ve blacked out. It wasn’t exactly sleep. I must have just… shut down.
I just disappeared for a while.
Then, a sound. Sharp and shattering. And I jolted upright before I even understood why, breath caught in my throat.
Even though Coen was already awake, he didn’t move. He was still holding me, still steady.
“It was just a bird,” he said quietly, nodding toward a hole that sat directly above us.
“See, he’s harmless.”
I followed his gaze.
And sure enough, there he was, black as tar, blinking down at us through the rusted opening, head cocked like were the strange ones.
And that is when my eyes began to glitch under the pressure of a sight I had never seen before.
Above us, the bird blinked once more—then fluttered off, knocking another loose screw from the billboard.
That’s when Mandea sat up like she’d been shot out of a dream.
“A bird?” she gasped, blinking hard. “Wait—like a real bird? Did I miss it?”
She was on her feet in seconds, spinning in place like it might’ve circled back just for her.
Coen shook his head, showing me that smile I missed.
This moment, however short, was exactly what we both needed.
He pulled his bag from behind him, reached in, and handed me something wrapped in paper.
“Eat this,” he offered, standing. “We need to get back on the road.”
He looked out beyond the edge of our makeshift shelter.
“Fox Hill is only a couple more hours away.”
So, we finished our food, collected ourselves, and made our way down the old broken highway until it ended in a place very different than where we had just been.
A place where the air still carried a toxic edge, but it was lighter there. Less burdened.
There was a breeze there, too. Not clean, but warmer. Carried the smell of rust, food, and sweat. But it wasn’t the scent of rot—it was the scent of work.
Like the rot hadn’t made its way in. As if hope had carved out its place to survive.
Built in and around the ruins of an old town, Fox Hill rose from the remnants of what once was. Behind the crumbling façades of forgotten buildings, new life had taken shape—stacked shipping containers and corrugated metal sheds, piled forty or fifty high, forming a skyline of repurposed survival.
Stacked like steel Lincoln Logs, crisscrossed and zig-zagged into a maze that stretched out in every direction.
The dirt roads coiled through them like veins, lined with vendors, patchwork awnings, solar-lit strings, and voices that didn’t sound afraid to be loud.
And color. It was everywhere! It wasn’t curated or planned. It was just alive.
The tarps, the clothes, the painted crates and containers- they clashed on purpose. Reds slammed against oranges. Purples flared beside acid yellow. Even black—yes, black—was worn boldly, like a protest or a prayer.
Oh, the color black! It was invigorating, chaotic, and human. I couldn’t stop staring.
And more faces, more eyes roaming the streets.
More lives.
And then, I noticed something else.
Children.
Not many.
But enough.
Enough to prove that not all people were clones after all—and that sterility wasn’t nearly as widespread as the Federation claimed.
Out here, they didn’t have control.
So out here, life, no matter how crude, still happened. And happened better.
I didn’t expect it to be beautiful. Not like this.
There was no Federation law in Fox Hill.
Everything we saw?
Built by the people.
Run by the people.
For the people.
And it was incredible.
“Welcome to my home,” Coen said proudly. “My real home.”
I saw it then—a gleam in his eye, quiet and reverent, like every face passing by was someone he used to love.
“Three years,” he said. “Yeah, I miss it.”
He spun once, slow and loose, like his whole body was trying to remember how it felt to belong somewhere.
“Him or it,” I snarked under my breath, but not quite loud enough to demand an answer.
But he heard me anyway.
He kissed the top of my head, as if to say Nice try, then kept walking.
“So now what?” Mandea asked, feeling left out.
He turned, walking backwards, still with a smile on his face.
“Now you go to the Fox Hill Mission,” he replied.
Her face crumpled in that way only hers could—like confusion was trying to hold back heartbreak.
She then turned to me, full panic rising in her throat.
“But why? I thought I was staying with you.”
I started to feel a little bad for her. And grown slightly attached.
Just a little.
“You can’t go where I’m going,” I replied, trying to sound like someone who knew what came next. “I don’t even know why I am going there.”
Ahead of us, Mandea spotted the sign for the Fox Hill Mission.
It couldn’t help but catch anyone’s attention. It was stunning. Like a beacon in the center of a wasteland.
The building itself was old and grand. Cathedral style. Stone arches covered in faded murals.
And it looked full already.
But the women at the door—nuns, maybe—opened their arms like she was expected.
She looked back at me once. Just once. Like she wanted me to say something. Like she needed a reason not to let go so fast.
But I couldn’t give it to her.
So, she ran into their arms like we never existed.
“Wow, no loyalty,” I scoffed, watching her hug a woman at the door.
But I had none to her either, only to the man dragging me deeper into this chaotic town.
And the deeper he took me. The more mesmerized I became.
But I made sure to memorize details and store sensations. Grow up – like he said.
Trying to archive everything in a brain already short-circuiting.
“I think I get it now,” I whispered.
“No, baby girl,” he said softly. “You only think you do.”
He pointed to the top of a forty-story structure—a container tower stitched together with rusted steel and impossible faith.
“There’s still so much more you need to learn.”
He stepped toward the narrow staircase that zigzagged through the complex.
“And that starts with seeing Lennai.”
I looked up at the staircase and began to climb.
He looked back and smiled.
Neither one of us realizing what we were about to lose.
But we climbed them anyway.
[1] Are you Deliverance Reign?
[2] I am.