We've got young blood, Can't destroy us,
We make our own luck in this world
We've got young blood, No one chose us,
We make our own (love) in this world...
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Young Blood
~Bea Miller
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It took us about an hour to reach the outskirts of New Ferry, and the terrifying sight before my very eyes was absolutely devastating. I covered my mouth with my hand in horror, staring at all that was left of the once beautiful and majestic town of New Ferry.
When I was little one time, my parents had shown me pictures of what New Ferry used to look like Before. It used to have this magnificent, towering waterfall and a beautiful, grassy countryside. Tall skyscrapers stretched towards the sky in the city, with quaint little neighborhood houses dotting the posh landscape around it. Looking at it now, though, it didn't look anything like the pictures.
The magnificent skyscrapers were now gone, collapsed and demolished in rubble heaps on the ground; the waterfall no longer streamed clear blue water down the rocks—instead, the rocks had crumbled and fallen into the once serene lake that was now deluded with mud, rocks, radiation, and ash. There were a dozen or so craters dotting the war-ravaged valley below us from the bomb explosions.
A whimper escaped from Jane's lips behind me, but other than that, it was deathly silent among the group as we continued to gaze at the demolished landscape that laid in ruins before us. It only made me hate the NGO even more, fueling the fire of hate inside me into a roaring wildfire.
"The NGO won't get away with this," I swore partly to myself. Beside me, Jackie and Kyle murmured their agreement.
"They'll pay sooner or later," Kyle vowed, pushing the bridge of his glasses back up his nose—a habitual occurrence of his.
Breaking the somber silence, Sal turned to our guide, a look of determination on his tired face. "Now that we have seen the destruction The New Order has wreaked upon your wonderful town, we are more determined than ever to help."
Blake nodded in relief. "Thank you so much. This means a lot to us."
Ella, who had brought along a twentieth-century old camera, started snapping pictures of the destroyed city. She had been put in charge of gathering evidence to take back to our band of misfits at the HQ. They would surely flip when they saw the pictures. Hopefully, it would wipe the smug smile off Alec's face and make him eat his words.
Blake quietly led us down the hill and through the demolished remains of a subdivision, with its crumbling buildings, rotted and blown apart fences with upturned lawns. Ella snapped a few more pictures of the mess while we walked, but most of us just looked around with somber looks on our faces.
THIS was what the evil Reign of Horror NGO had caused. Was this how they were going to force us to obey their commands? 774Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRL48XqLMhe
Well, that was never going to happen, and I was going to make sure of it.774Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEIsyxu578x
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It took us roughly fifteen minutes or more to reach the place where the survivors of the bombing were staying. It was only a small neighborhood, with maybe twenty houses max. We could see kids of all ages out in the yards, on the street, cooking over small campfires, or going in and out of the houses. As we walked through, it, everyone came out to meet us, stopping whatever they were doing to stare at us, their sullen eyes filled with despair and sadness; I could practically taste it in the air. All of them were caked with dirt; their clothes were tattered, and some were all bandaged up.
It was a sorry, depressing sight; like what happened in Haiti and after some hurricane named Katrina so long ago—or that tsunami that ripped through Japan, causing a nuclear meltdown of their power plants. Unfortunately, those were nothing compared to what had happened here.
This was terrorism.
My eyes were immediately drawn to a little dark-haired girl with her thumb in her mouth, standing off to the side of the torn up road we were on. She fixed me with her timid little doe eyes, looking to be about six or seven years old at most. Despite the destruction all around her, she wore a pretty canary yellow dress tattered at the hem, ripped and caked with dirt; She even had a little pink bow pinned in her hair, as if someone had tried to make her look nice even after all the terrible things that had just happened to them.
Her adorable little brown-eyed gaze slipped from mine and went straight to Blake's. Her face lit up like the sun at the sight of him, and she raced over to him. Seeing her advance, Blake knelt to meet her, arms out and ready to embrace her. His once grim mouth was now stretched into a smile as the little girl jumped into his strong arms. There was still a hint of sadness mixed with exhaustion on his face and in his dark eyes.
"BAKE!" The little girl cried in that cute little voice all kids had, wrapping her little arms around his neck. It was such an adorable, heartfelt sight, I could feel my heart clenching in my chest as if someone were lightly squeezing it.
Blake hugged her, patting her back affectionately. "Hey, squirt. Are you staying safe and being nice to the other kids?" he asked her as if he were a parent making sure their child was using good manners. Absolutely ADORABLE and melt-worthy...
"Yes, jus wike you toh'd me!" she told him dutifully as she gave him a wide grin from ear to ear, looking so carefree; she had no idea how much her life was on the line, didn't know what was at stake; she was absolutely lucky.
"Good, now go on and play with your friends. I've got some things to take of." He said, ruffling up the hair at the top of her little brown head.
Giggling, the little girl ran off but not before waving a last goodbye.
When she was gone, Blake got back to his feet. He glanced at me, noticing I was watching him, and he smiled; it was that same somber look he had on earlier. I didn't really know how to respond to it. Should I smile back? Or Would that just make me look stupid?
Instead, I turned away, my face burning at the fact he had caught me looking. Jeez...there was something very wrong with me.
Kyle nudged me back to reality. "Come on, Rox. We need to search for more survivors. There are still a bunch of people missing." He told me, waving me on. Knowing how much this whole situation was bothering me, he didn't ask if I was okay. He was like my personal crutch against all this sadness; a constant reminder that I had to be brave. I was secretly thankful I had him.
I nodded as I cleared my throat a little, collecting myself. "Yeah, alright. Let's go."
However, much to my surprise, Blake walked over. Oh crap! What now? I thought, trying not to show how embarrassed I was.
Come on, Roxy. Get it together!
"May I help with the search?" He asked politely. His dark blues flicked first to me, then to Kyle.
"Yeah, sure. Follow us." Kyle said. "We need another party to add to the search."
The Twins, Jane, and Ella joined us as well, along with Blake's other bodyguard friends.
Jackie caught my eye, wiggling her eyebrows at me as we walked side by side. "And he's good with kids, too! That definitely brings up his Hotness factor." She winked at me.
I couldn't quite get into the spirit of teasing her back. I was only able to manage a light push. "You know that I'm going to seriously hurt you when we get back, right?"
She grinned at me. "I know," she replied matter-of-factly, not at all worried.
I rolled my eyes at her for the umpteenth time. She was infuriating, but her goofy manner always made my mood a LITTLE bit better.
"Let's not waste time, guys." Kyle reminded us, trying to get us moving along.
Jackie and I got down to business then, dropping the teasing for now. We followed Kyle and Blake as he led us to the heart of New Ferry city, where the destruction was the worst.
"So where did the explosions happen?" Kyle asked. Blake was walking on his right side so I took my place on Kyle's left so I could listen in on what Blake had to say. I made sure to keep a safe distance from him and those gorgeous eyes of his...
Wait—what? Did I just call his eyes GORGEOUS! What the hell was wrong with me??
Blake answered Kyle's question while motioning up ahead at a particularly humongous demolished heap of a building that I instantly recognized. It used to be the tallest, most magnificent skyscraper in all of New Ferry, from what I remembered from the postcards and photos my parents had shown me. It had been one of the town's trademark buildings and attractions, with the addition of New Ferry's gigantic waterfall, river ways, and soil-rich valleys.
I remembered my parents telling me about how it used to tower about 50 feet tall. Now it was completely gone, just a huge mound of debris was left where it once stood. As we got closer, Ella took a snapshot of the mound.
"We haven't been able to remove the debris to look for more survivors, but with more people, we actually might be able to now," Blake said, sounding relieved at that fact.
"What is your job here, if you don't mind me asking?" Kyle wondered as he pushed the bridge of his glasses upright on his nose again, rather interested in this Blake character. I was too, to be honest; he was so mysterious that it made me want to know more about him. But hey, I was no stalker, mind you...
"Well, I was in charge of all the guards, but now we have so many, plus there's a new guy who wants to take over, thinking me too—I don't know... They just want someone new I guess." Blake said, with an exasperated sigh at the end. He looked annoyed, poor guy.
"Huh, that really stinks, man. If it helps, you look new enough to me... For us, we have just the opposite; we don't have enough guards to go around." Kyle said conversationally, his mind elsewhere. Blake nodded silently, deep in thought.
We finally reached the mound of the rubble of the demolished skyscraper a while later. It was a mess; soot and ash were everywhere and covered everything. We started hacking, coughing so bad from all the sooty dust still permeating the air around us. The smell of burnt rubber and metal was all that I could smell; it was so horrible that I was ready to upchuck the bread I'd eaten earlier.
"Ew! It smells so gross!" Jane complained, plugging her nose at the putrid smell.
"Agreed," Jackie replied, covering her mouth with the collar of her dusty brown shirt.
"I've got some masks if that will help." said one of Trina's interns who had tagged along with us. Ella, the twins, and Jane took that opportunity to grab some, but I decided to brave it and go without. Probably not one of my finer moments...
As everyone geared up to start moving the debris, Blake approached me with a mask. "Take this. You'll need it, trust me."
His voice was gentle and it did something to my insides. I was so flustered that I took it without any complaints, my mind a huge mess that my mouth and tongue couldn't form any words at the moment.
I needed to see a psychiatrist—like, really bad.
We immediately got to work moving rubble, which consisted of broken cement slabs, from the pile of the burned skyscraper. Each time we moved something, dust went flying everywhere and everyone started coughing like no tomorrow. Eventually, Trina came around and handed out bottles of water, which helped wash down the grit and dirt that had gotten stuck in our throats. It was disgusting, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
After a couple hours of hard work moving aside debris, we found our first survivor—a man who appeared to be somewhere in his thirties, bruised pretty badly. His hair was caked heavily in dirt and soot, resembling a ghastly kind of ghost. He was laid off to the side, coughing up dirt the entire time, while two guys put him on a stretcher, handed him some water to drink, and then took him away. The next people we found weren't so lucky.
A couple of young guys in their twenties were found under a particularly large slab of cement and metal scaffolding, which had probably killed them on impact. Later, I had the unfortunate honor of finding the dead body of a young girl who appeared to have been crushed by the falling skyscraper after it had been blown up.
I immediately choked up, placing my dirty hands over my mask-covered mouth in absolute shock and horror. She looked almost EERILY like me: pale ginger hair, but the ringlets hung matted and splayed around her head—besides the fact that she had deathly pale skin stretched thin over her bones and dark, and lifeless green eyes that stared into nothingness. She was bloody and bruised, blessed with the soft features of an innocent girl. She was so YOUNG...
I barely noticed the movement out of the corner of my eyes as someone kneeled down next to me, lightly touching my shoulder and snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned to see Blake looking solemn as if he understood my pain.
He looked away to reach out and close the girl's eyes with two fingers, making it appear like she was sleeping. Fully awake now, I carefully rubbed my eyes, barely registering the fact that I was crying —which surprised me; I rarely ever cried much anymore. I was the one with the steely resolve, or so I had thought.
"Are you going to be okay?" Blake asked in a soft voice. It almost didn't sound like a question, that's how gentle it was.
I just nodded, not trusting my voice enough to speak aloud. Somehow I felt more comfortable now —I had no idea how or why, but I did. With Blake there, it made the situation somewhat better, which wasn't what I was used to.
This was seriously getting weird.
Taking me by surprise, Blake got to his feet in one fluid motion, but not before picking the girl up gently, cradling her like a baby in his arms. He carried her over to a barren field where the dead were to be buried.
I got to my feet, trying desperately to compose myself. That girl had scarily resembled me in almost every characteristic way, except my eyes were a lighter green, while hers had been practically hazel.
Blake came back, making sure I was really okay. After I insisted that I was indeed fine, Blake nodded and went back to work—but not before he looked into my eyes one last time, his dark eyes searching. Once he found whatever he'd been looking for, he flashed me a friendly but sad smile and went back to work.
Once I was fully composed and no longer shaking, I too got back to work as well, but my mind was still on Blake. The guy made me nervous, no doubt about that; I freaking BLUSH every time we made eye contact! What the Hell is wrong with me?
I sneaked a peek at him while I worked. Blake was helping Kyle lift a particularly massive cement block off a guy's trapped leg; sadly, the guy was probably going to end up losing that leg.
I couldn't help but notice how strong Blake looked, lifting up that huge thing. He wore a snug T-shirt that showed off his nicely toned arms so I could clearly see the strained muscles showing in his arms as he lifted the slab. I was left awestruck for once in my sad life.
"You're drooling..." Jackie cooed under her breath, all the while grinning like an idiot. I flushed angrily and glared at her. Apparently, I had stopped working and she had taken notice of it, as did Jane and Ella; they were all snickering and laughing at me with glee on their smug faces.
"Just get back to work," I grumbled, my face still pink. My friends sniggered some more but soon went back to working again. There was something definitely wrong with me if I was constantly staring at a guy—drooling, as Jackie would most definitely put it.
There was something seriously wrong with me. I used to never get so worked up or flustered about any guy before now. I guess it was just a girl thing. I must be going through that stage...
Once we had officially cleared out the blast zone, we all headed back to camp to get some much-needed rest. We were completely covered with dust and soot, all sweaty and tired from the relentless hours of clearing up the blast zone.
"Ew, I'm all dirty and gross!" Jane whined. "What I wouldn't give for some deodorant right about now..."
"Aw, poor Janie," Rickie empathized sarcastically, which earned him a dirty look from Jane. She absolutely hated being called Janie, and so Rickie constantly called her that just to annoy the hell out of her.
"Shut up, Jerk-Face!" She retorted. Before the argument got heated and ended badly, I decided it would be an excellent time to I cut in. I hated it when they fought; they were like this twenty-four seven!
"Okay, you two! Enough. Can't you just act like you like each other?"
"NO!" They said in perfect unison. I sighed, throwing my hands up in defeat. They were a lost cause; I don't know why I even bothered...
"Idiots," I muttered.
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The day rolled on, not getting any cheerier. A dozen more bodies were buried out in the nearby field and given a respectful burial —even the bodies that no one had claimed. It was truly such a sad ordeal. I hated all the sadness and despair; it always put a damper on everything good and happy. But that was life for ya, wasn't it? That was the life for us Old Americans—if we could even be called that anymore.
My friends and I helped distribute the clean clothes, food, and water to the survivors of New Ferry, or what was left of them, and we were immersed in our work for the rest of the day. When the sun began to set and everything became dark, a cold breeze picked up, and the temperature dropped a good twenty degrees. That's when we all gathered around our own campfires for warmth, chowing down on our much-deserved dinner.
Our group was given our own campfire to keep us warm. Since we didn't have anything available to us to really keep us warm with—besides the campfire—my friends and I huddled close together on a log for body warmth, sitting as close to the fire as we could without getting burnt. Thankfully, Blake the Muscle God came to our rescue with a bundle of blankets in his arms, giving one to each of us.
"Ohmygosh, THANKS!" Jackie exclaimed, taking the blanket he handed her.
"No problem," He handed one to me and flashed me one of his sad-but-grateful smiles. "Thank you for coming to our aid. Sal told me how you backed him up in the meeting, and how everyone followed suit. I hear you're a pretty good leader yourself."
I flushed at his praise. "Uh... thanks? It was nothing, really..." I mumbled, turning even pinker. Ugh, what was was up with me? I was sure asking myself that a lot lately.
"We're glad we came!" Jackie said, saving my butt. She may drive me crazy like the rest of my friends, but I would truly be lost without her; I owed her a lot.
After Blake walked away and was out of earshot, Jane took a bite of her roasted rabbit and gave me a knowing look. "Jackie's right, you DO like him! Plus, he is super hot." she giggled, her eyes twinkling mischievously.
I gave Jackie a piercing glare. "Traitor," I hissed.
She just grinned and shrugged her shoulders innocently.
"AND clearly he likes you back. It's perfect!" Ella jumped in.
I smacked a hand to my forehead. Great, now I was getting ganged up on. They were traitors—ALL of them!!
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Suddenly, there was a massive explosion near our encampment, making all of us jump in surprise. Screams erupted around us, with people running around panicking and looking absolutely scared. What was going on?
I immediately was on high alert. My friends and I got to our feet. I looked around me, trying to find out where the sound had come from. All heads did the same.
"What just freakin' happened?" Jackie wondered, freaked out. She wasn't the only one.
"Is the NGO attacking again?" Jane fretted, on the verge of tears.
I scanned the terrain. Once I spotted Sal, I raced over to him with my friends following right behind. "Sal, what the hell is happening?" I demanded. "Are we being attacked? Have they found us?" I really didn't need to clarify who 'they' were, because Sal would know what I meant. I looked around in case the enemy was flying above us, ready to bomb us yet again.
I turned to my right and saw a billowing column of smoke coming from a suburb off in the distance. Thankfully, it had only been a mini-explosion and nothing like the first.
Sal didn't say anything at first. Instead, he stared at the smoke rising from the mini-explosion, a look of guilt all over his face.
"Sal, what's wrong?" I repeated, waiting to hear the worst. Blake, who stood next to me, leaned in, his expression braced as well.
Sal pried his gaze from the blast. "Rox, I sent Kyle over there to search for more survivors..." Sal didn't finish his sentence—and he didn't have to.
My blood ran ice cold. I turned and looked towards the rising column of smoke again, noticing how it began to wane and blow away by the chilling winds. "We need to get over there!" I insisted. I wanted to know that Kyle was okay and that it wasn't him who had caused that explosion. I wasn't even sure if it was a mine bomb or if the NGO had been lying in wait. I wanted to get over there to find out as soon as possible.
Sal sent Blake, Jane, Ella, the Twins, and I over to investigate, followed by a handful of New Ferry guards just in case. We headed out right away, not wasting any time.
Please, please be okay...
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