CHAPTER FOUR

The next day Ryan sat feeling slightly embarrassed as Astrid changed his dressings. She noticed the flush in his cheeks and the way he refused to meet her eyes. She smirked.

"Fine time to be modest." She dabbed peroxide on his back wound. "You got nothing I haven't already seen."

"I know." Ryan blushed harder. "It's just... I've only... my wife is the only... one I've been with."

Astrid looked at the back of his shaggy head. "How sweet. And I had you pegged for a ladies man.'

"Who me?" Ryan didn't pick up on her obvious joke. "Naw. I was never good with the girls. Lex got all the girls. I was just lucky to get Salene."

"Was she lucky to get you?"

The question made him frown and think deeply. Once upon a time Salene herself would have answered "Yes!" Ryan thought back to that day in the train car. The day he rescued Salene and promised to look after her always. She looked so happy and put complete faith in him. He loved how she trusted him and depended on him to be her rock. Then he tried to remember when all that changed. It was almost overnight. One day Sal was happy and the next, everything he did was wrong. Instead of smiles of genuine happiness, she gave him looks of exasperation. As though she hated him for not being Bray.

Astrid looked at his face. "I was kidding."

Ryan met her eyes and gave a weak smile. "Uh yeah. I knew that."

"Ya know, I've heard of Lex. Quite a reputation on that one." She began to wrap Ryan's chest. "Gambling and drinking all the time. Couldn't keep his hands off the cards or the booze."

Ryan thought back to Lex's collapse. "It's because his wife died. Kid too."

"Lex was married!"

"Yeah. She died some time ago. His first wife." His eyes clouded as he remembered Eagle mountain.

"Married twice." Astrid whistled. "Wow. For all your bad luck you Mallrats certainly aren't afraid of the alter."

Ryan turned and looked at her. "How'd you know I was a Mallrat?"

"Your tattoo."

"Tattoo?" Ryan whispered confused.

Astrid touched his left arm, near the shoulder. He looked down and there it was. A chain gang tattoo of the famous pentacle. Gently he brushed his fingers over it trying to remember where it came from.

"I thought it was strange since most of you just wear a stamp on your hands. Then again, what isn't strange in this world?"

Ryan thought to himself as his fingers softly traced the lines of the tattoo. He remembered now. He'd been in the mines for weeks which felt like months. He'd given up hope. Wishing Luke had carried out his execution instead of showing this freakish version of mercy. He was kept chained in a small dugout in the rocky walls, shrouded in darkness. All he could hear around him was crying and moaning. Some days the Chosen would leave a single torch in the long dreary hall and it was barely enough light to see the scraps of bread they were meant to survive on.

Then one day he was let out of his hovel for more than a bathroom break. He was sent to work detail further in the cave. He realized how large this place was and that the chances of finding a way out were minute. Then he found her. Patsy. She'd been sent away only days before him for being a spy for the Mallrats.

"Patsy!"

"Ryan!"

They embraced one another and Ryan could feel how thin she'd become. At first he had no words. He simply held her as she clung to him. Finally he pulled her at arms length to get a better look at her. Her face was gaunt and her wrists badly chaffed from the shackles. She'd wasted away to almost nothing in only three weeks. If her young eyes were windows to her soul than he could see she was full of fear and despair.

"We... we thought you were dead." He finally gasped in disbelief. "Luke said he hadn't been able to get to you in time. What happened?"

Patsy shook her head. "I dunno. Someone didn't do their job right I guess."

"Thank God for that." Ryan tried to smile.

"Oh Ryan," Her voice broke. "I've been so scared. I don't even know how they found out. They just came and took me away." She shuddered. "When I realized they were sending me to the mines I thought I'd at least find Cloe but..." The tears spilled from her eyes as she weeped. "They chained me in this hole and they only gave me moldy bread to eat. God Ryan it's been awful!"

She fell into his arms and Ryan held her while she sobbed into his shoulder. He knew the rest because the same thing had been done to him. Solitary confinement. Alone in the dark with only the shouts and cries of others for company. Your memories haunting you to the point of self torture.

"It'll be okay." Ryan finally whispered into her hair. The strange thing was that he actually believed it. He'd lost all hope until he saw Patsy and now he knew he was going to be okay. He had to be okay, for her.

"But how?" She whimpered.

Ryan tried to smile. "I dunno but we're gonna make it. I promise not to let anything happen to you."

Patsy looked up at him sniffling. "You promise?"

He nodded. "We're gonna get out of here together. I'm not gonna leave you."

The next day Ryan took Patsy aside. In his hands he held a sharp rock and a palm sized piece of charcoal. She blanched as she watched him carve into his arm.

"Ryan! What are you doing?"

He looked at her, determination in his eyes. "We have to remember who we are."

Patsy tried to hide the horror in her face as Ryan continued his mutilating work of art. When it was finished she understood though she still looked ashen at the blood. Ryan then rubbed the charcoal into the wound seemingly immune to the pain. Finally he looked up and reached for Patsy's arm.

"Your turn."

Patsy bit her lip as Ryan took her thin arm. She tried her hardest not to cry out as he cut into her pale flesh. By the time he was finished with the outer circle, tears were streaming down her dirty cheeks.

"I'm sorry." Ryan whispered earnestly before going on. When he was finished and they were both scarred Ryan squeezed Patsy's hand. "Never forget."

She nodded as she rubbed the wetness from her face.

"Wow." Astrid said quietly, a strange look on her face. She'd finished with Ryan's dressing and was sitting across from him as they shared a drink. "Did she get out?" She asked a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

Ryan thought for a moment as if it were suddenly dawning on him. "I... I'm not sure." He looked at Astrid. Her expression was pained as she stared at the floor. "What? What is it?"

She looked at him slowly. "I... I didn't wanna tell you." She whispered.

"Tell me what?" Ryan's heart feared what he knew was coming.

"When I found you..." Astrid swallowed and looked toward the window. "You were... there was a girl in your arms. Like you'd been holding her... carrying her when you fell."

"No." Ryan whimpered.

"She was so young." Astrid closed her eyes. "She had two arrows in her side. Bled out. I didn't know who she was to you. Later I thought she was Salene but now..."

Silence filled the room as the uncensored memory came back to Ryan. The day the Chosen lost control. Ryan had no idea who started it and he wasn't going to ask questions. Instead he grabbed Patsy down in work detail and they both started running. Neither of them knew the way out but they followed the crowd of screaming kids. The air became thinner, less choked with dust and Ryan knew they were close. And then he could see it. The light. The mouth of the mine.

Patsy was weak and sick. She'd been unable to work and had been left in her hole for weeks. Finally she'd reemerged under the pretense that she was feeling better. But it was clear she wasn't. Ryan found himself practically dragging her, his mind only on getting them both out of there.

He could hear kids fighting Chosen who were determined not to let them leave. Unlike other Chosen warriors, those in charge of the mine were the Guardian's Praetorian guards. They were true believers of Zoot and didn't question any order seemingly given by him. They lived by Zoot's words. They would die by Zoot's words. And worse, they'd kill anyone who went against Zoot's words.

"Hang on Pats." He panted. "Almost there."

Beyond the light he could see the trees and below them was a war zone. If they could just get past the fighting into the trees. He burst out of the mine, Patsy under his arm. The light nearly blinded him as he plowed through the crowd. He didn't pause for one moment to look around or gather his bearings. He only wanted away from the mine, toward freedom.

Ryan didn't even stop wen Patsy cried out and went limp. He used what was left of his strength to pick her up and kept running. The first hit to his leg only made him stumble. He didn't have time to feel the pain. He was almost to the trees. He could see others making past the clearing to the safety of the forest.

The blow to his back stopped him dead. Ryan's gaze drifted from the trees to the sky as he collapsed. As kids ran over him, Ryan pulled Patsy tighter into his embraced as though protecting her. Not knowing she had already died in his arms. Slowly it all went silent until all he could hear was his heartbeat slowing it's rhythm in his ears. Then, just before the light faded out he saw Salene's face.