Chapter 43: The End of The Trip

It was all grunting, hitting, biting, and screaming. My hand shook with the gun as I watched the scene, absorbed. The twins and Ursa were as fast as Sirius, giving those two evil brothers a good fight. I felt angry and helpless for not being capable of throwing myself against them. How I wished I could strike those men.

The two twins caught Antares, biting his arm and the other on the neck, but Apus snatched one of them with one blow, having Ursa almost on top of him, biting his shoulder. Ursa pulled hard and ripped off the flesh while Antares grabbed the other twin and managed to rip the flesh off his arm and then hit the other.

I reacted after seeing blood on the ground.

"We must do something," I asked urgently.

Max was trying to aim, but the evolved moved and shifted very quickly in their savage fight. A scream made me shudder: Ursa. I turned to see. She squeezed her abdomen while the twins mercilessly bit Antares, who was the one who had hurt her.

I was horrified when Apus lunged at Ursa and grabbed her by the neck to slam her to the ground. I took aim and fired without thinking, letting out a short cry as the gun took me back a step; I hadn't remembered to hold it steady. Although luckily for me, the bullet had hit Apus in the shoulder, and he had fallen to the side, screaming. Ursa got to her feet but was rammed by Antares. Geez!

The twins rushed to bite him while Apus did the same with them. Max ran to the truck to find something more practical, perhaps. Ursa ran and got into a nearby fort. Apus freed his forearm from one twin's bite with a blow and a kick that slammed the boy to the ground to run after Ursa.

Max appeared at my side and fired.

I was surprised and fleetingly smiled when I saw that he had shot a steel cable that tangled in the evolved's leg and immobilized him with an electric shock. The two twins acted as a team to beat Antares, but he kept fighting.

I noticed movement from the fort and saw Ursa getting out with Symphony. She was chained and unconscious. The blonde put her down and ran, almost limping to finish helping the twins while I ran with Max to tie up Apus before he woke up.

We wrapped him well with the wire. Max started talking as he finished tying, "If I hit a switch on the weapon, the cable will shoot another shock. You see?" He pointed to the cable's arrow-shaped end that had helped tangle around the man's leg. "There is the battery."

"You should have taught me to use this one," I claimed.

He shrugged and turned to see the others; I did the same. One of the twins had Antares by the jugular, while the other two had him immobilized. He fell unconscious at last.

"Tie his wound," I suggested as I approached.

"Why?" asked Ursa.

"Don't you want to ask him questions? I want to know where Sirius is..."

"They won't tell you even if you threaten to kill them," Ursa interrupted me.

I sighed. Yes, maybe she was right. They were EH, after all. They would rather die.

"Leave him there, let him die," said Max.

"Yes," replied the three EH.

My lips tightened.

"No," I interjected, and the four looked at me, confused. "Sirius didn't kill anyone, so you won't either," I sentenced, looking at the twins. "He wouldn't want this."

Max smiled incredulously, but seeing my serious expression, he stopped. Ursa rolled her eyes as the twins raced to stop Antares's bleeding.

The two evolved men ended up tied up with the electrical wire back-to-back. Ursa and the twins bandaged their wounds while Max tried to help them.

We untied Symphony, and Ursa gave her several vigorous shakes to wake her up. What an attitude. The black-haired girl opened her eyes and was scared to see us.

"Oh, could you stop being such a coward," Ursa complained.

Symphony flexed her legs and hugged her knees.

"Sirius..." she whispered and buried her face in her knees.

"Yes, we know, and it is your fault," attacked Ursa.

I sighed. Again, with that. Symphony looked up with tears and frowned.

"Shut up. It's not my fault! How could I know they would follow me!" she replied almost hysterically.

Ursa grunted at her, showing her fangs. I could see out of my eye that Max was interested in seeing a fight between them.

"How could you not know!"

This time Symphony also growled at her, surprising me. She seemed harmless, but I was sure that she was not.

"I can tell that you didn't appreciate him. You didn't bother to see what Orion was planning and let him know!"

"I appreciated him more than you think! And what you did didn't help him, in case you haven't noticed!"

"Girls," one of the boys tried to stop them.

"He was more important to me, believe it or not," said Symphony with a cracking voice.

"Seeing who appreciated him more will not bring him back. Shut up!" I scolded them both with immense pain.

Now, I didn't know who of the three of us loved him more since they were able to hide their feelings, but that no longer mattered. What was my love useful for? It didn't save him.

The night had already fallen. Apus and Antares woke up and were watching us very angrily.

"Why didn't you kill us?" asked one.

That stupid question repulsed me.

"Shut up," I ordered between clenched teeth, grabbing Max's gun and pressing the button. The electricity knocked them unconscious again, and Max looked at me in shock for a couple of seconds. "Do you even know where they took him?" I asked Symphony.

She frowned, searching in her mind, and shook her head.

"I think north... I don't know well." She clutched her head at some memory and pressed her fingers into her hair. "They left me tied here."

Max's cell phone rang suddenly, making me jump with fright. He answered and raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah... interesting," he murmured. "Thanks. It's just what we needed."

He hung up and looked at me with a half-smile.

"What?" I wanted to know.

"Acrux returned to the city." I was surprised. "He says he managed to find out they took Sirius to a certain fort called... Mars...?"

"Yes, they use those names..."

"He said he supposed you wanted to go... to see..."

"Yes, he guessed well," I muttered with pain.

"That's a day from here," said one of the twins. "If we run."

"We'll go in the truck," Max reminded them. "Rather, let's go away to sleep even a little and move on." He stood up, and we followed him.

It tortured me the idea that they had not followed Sirius to help him, and I was also tortured by the idea that he had been alive for at least two days, and I was wasting time in the hospital.

Dammit! I was starting to hate my weakness; I was beginning to hate myself.

"I'll go to the town," Symphony warned.

"You're crazy. They could follow you," Ursa scolded. Symphony frowned. "I'm pretty sure you got into trouble on purpose to get Sirius to help you," she added.

"Don't start another fight, girls," Max asked.

They both growled at him, and I couldn't help but smile.

We got into the truck and left. The twins were between Symphony and me. She was huddled next to the window, trying to have the slightest contact with the one beside her. Maybe she felt like me...

After one hour, Max stopped near a river and said we would sleep. Symphony ran towards the river and got lost in the vegetation.

We stayed around a small campfire on the side of the truck.

"I'll turn it off soon," Max clarified.

I wasn't interested in sleeping; I just wanted to keep moving forward, but I didn't want to be weak and sleepy if I found Orion out there. I backed off a few inches and lay on the side of the truck, falling asleep almost immediately.

My mind wandered between various fleeting dreams: evolved people haunting me, the moonlight making a pair of eyes shine, the lab, my old life, and my parents. Sirius... He was sometimes by my side, occasionally smiling at me, kissing me in some beautiful garden, sometimes just his warmth, or his body burning on top of mine, loving me... How could I not dream of him? He was impregnated in me. The only thing most of these dreams had in common was anguish. I felt that grief would not go away.

***

I opened my eyes, feeling the tightness in my chest. I took a deep breath as I looked around my surroundings. I felt cold and empty, as always. The twins were lying together, Ursa beside them and Symphony just beyond. Max was also leaning against the truck next to me. Now, it just occurred to me that someone could have slept inside it and taken turns.

By the aspect of the sky, it was perhaps close to five in the morning, but I couldn't sleep anymore. I got up and went to the river. I'd take a bath and prepare before they did to save time.

The cold water hit my skin, but it was irrelevant. I submerged myself up to my neck and closed my eyes. The unwanted memory came when an EH wanted to attack me while bathing in that lake.

I took a deep breath and dove completely to get the memories out of my head. The water flooded my ears, and I heard it move inside for a few seconds. I came to the surface, wiped the water from my eyes, and opened them. Soon, I would find him.

After getting ready, I went back to the truck. They were already awake and almost prepared, too. Maybe Max had woken them up.

"Hurry, we'll get to that place soon," said Ursa.

We left again, and Max wanted me to go to his side this time. Ursa gave him the odd indication as he advanced. The boys started telling stories about them.

"So... A rebellious boy," Max muttered.

"He helped us," said one of the twins.

"He taught us to fight, although we had forgotten some of that, somehow... If I get angry, I attack with claws and fangs," added the other.

"We were so excited about fighting that we once went with Ursa to seek a fight against one of the big guys."

"Big guys?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know. A guy about four years older than us somehow looked down on us for being young. Typical."

"They hit us and took our food in school, but nobody believed us."

"Yes, they were perfect in the eyes of the elders, and no one can refute the elders."

"Except Sirius."

"Anyway, we went with Ursa, and we thought they would behave, but when they were alone with us, they couldn't resist."

"And they beat all three of us... We weren't that strong back then."

It surprised me how they cared about being strong. I was sure what they said had happened when they were just teens.

"Sirius appeared and faced them."

"It was when they realized he had an advantage over them somehow, and they began to fight seriously."

"Biting..."

"Ripping skin..."

"But he counterattacked the same way."

"He beat them, knocked them out, and they didn't mess with us again."

Another ghost of a smile appeared on my face, but it was also fleeting. Max quickly handed me some headphones and told me to connect them to the computer. A small television was displayed in front of my seat.

"I warn you that seeing this can hurt you, but... it would be good if you see it. It just made the news," he warned me.

"I can bear it," I mumbled, a little scared but wanting to see what it was.

It was the news; new recordings had been revealed. My heart clenched when I saw Sirius running around the circuit and then rammed by the giant ball. What struck me the most was seeing me approaching and then kissing him. I swallowed hard, and my throat started to hurt, wanting to release a moan or sob—the memory of his lips.

It continued to show various scenes of the evolved men training, including them in the dining room on a day-to-day basis, chatting with the soldiers, and even laughing. It seemed the cities we passed through had shared recordings of their streets, as I could also see the time when Sirius saved a child from being run over.

I couldn't contain my trembling lips when I saw another scene in which I walked with him, hand in hand, towards our room with Rosy, who looked as happy as ever when we stayed in the training field.

A couple of tears fell down my cheeks. Seeing him there, in the video, as if he was still here with me and as if he still existed, was so weird. How did the images last longer than the people themselves? How could it capture their essence at that moment and keep it intact?

Why couldn't I open the screen and go back to then...?

The announcers began to speak.

"And there you have it. Can someone explain it?... I'm shocked. Evolved people with humans?... And look, look." They repeated the brief scenes in which I was with him. "An evolved man in love?... According to Officer Turner and the previous recording of that fight we saw, this evolved young man agreed to go with those others to prevent them from killing the soldiers, our people, knowing they would kill him.

"So now, many things add up. Our government experimenting with them is what caused them to attack us and hate us again. Why don't many other states have these problems? I think it is time for the president to open an investigation."

I breathed deeply. After that, comments from the citizens followed. Many asked for justice for what was happening. They said that evolved people could be reasoned with and asked for the walls to be broken down. They also noted that rules could be given to cross or be in our cities and vice versa, considering cultural differences.

I removed my headphones.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"It's the least we can do."

"There it is," said Ursa.

I looked ahead and saw a few one-story buildings—there were only about five. We stopped nearby and got off. It seemed to be empty, and it was rare that no one appeared to attack. We walked to the closest one.

"Oh... There he is," Ursa muttered.

I was suddenly distressed; she was looking towards the place. I didn't hesitate a second more and approached at a brisk pace. I could see about three mounds of earth that looked like tombs and stopped suddenly. One of those would be. Tears began to flow from my eyes as I smiled helplessly.

This didn't end there. I would ensure that things between humans and evolved people could improve. I would fight for it, for my parents' idea and his memory.

My Sirius...

I fell to my knees with tears running like rivers on my cheeks.

"What the hell are you doing, silly?!" I heard Ursa ask. "He's not there, move!"

She and the others came running.

"What?"

"Run!" she ordered. "They-" She was rammed by two EHs who burst out of the building, and I got scared.

I stood up. Now what?!