Notes: There's a hint, or tie-in in this chapter for OU if anyone catches it, it's super small and easily missed! *wicked grin*

Muse cookies and super duper cyber brownies to anyone that catches it! Point it out in the review if you think you know what it is! xD

Chapter Fourteen

Libby stays with me while I get dressed. Then she asks me if I'm ready, I don't have to ask for what I've already been turning over all the things Bryn might say endlessly in my head. I don't know which is worse, imagining what he might say; or knowing it for certain because it is already done with.

"I'm ready." I decide, I have never liked waiting all that much.

Libby nods and we head downstairs. Bryn and Ethan are in the kitchen so we all sit at the table by silent agreement. I resist the urge to fidget in my chair knowing what Griss would say. I clasp my hands together on the tabletop and wait for someone else to speak—I don't know what to say.

"So…this is awkward," Ethan announces a few tense moments later.

"You don't remember anything at all, nothing about what happened this morning?" I shake my head gently no. The more I consider it I'm glad I do not. I stare down at my hands.

"I think…I should leave." I finally get out. Libby immediately rejects the idea shaking her head no and staring at me like I've grown a second head. Which is sorta true, in a way.

"You can't leave! Where would you go?"

"If you want to leave Charlie no one is going to stop you," Bryn talks over her successfully cutting her next words off with a look. He stares at me again. "You're not a prisoner here, but we want you to stay."

"But I'm dangerous,"

"We don't know that!" Libby spouts before falling silent again.

"Libs, Ethan I want to talk to Charlie alone for a minute, can you step outside?"

Ethan gets up immediately grabbing Libby's hand and hauling her out of her chair. She doesn't look happy to go. The clenching knots in my stomach intensify with every step she takes closer to the door. When it shuts Bryn remain silent, crossing his arms over his chest and staring up at the ceiling a moment more. When he drops his face again to me his expression is strained. He won't meet my eyes.

"Charlie…" He stops. "I know some people, in the City, members of this group that opposes the military government, wants to go back to elected leaders like we had before the Turn." I stare at him in confusion, this is not what I expected at all. "I was supposed to go there in the next few days with Ethan, deliver some furniture pick up some supplies. But I think it might be useful to meet with them, they study a lot of the military's projects…they have people who know things."

I blink finally following along. "You think they might know something about me?"

He shrugs meeting my eyes finally, "It's worth a shot, I'd take anything we could get at this moment. Somebodies got to know something about where you came from."

"Bryn," I drop my eyes to my clasped hands in my lap. "What if I'm dangerous?" It's barely a whisper. "I should leave…"

"You're not." His eyes are the same shade as warm honey again.

"How can you say that? Look what I did to your face!" I'm staring at him again, this time I can't look away. One side of his mouth quirks up and his gaze slides away from mine when he speaks.

"It wasn't you, but I deserved it, leaving you like that…I just needed to figure things out."

"Did you?" I ask.

"No, I'm more confused than ever."

And that makes me feel worse. I bury my face in my hands for a moment. "I'm sorry," I tell the space between my hands. I can't meet his eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt you; it didn't hurt before—when you touched me. It felt really good...I thought it was supposed to…"

"You're not talking about my face are you?" He asks voice tight.

I glance at him over half lowered hands, his gaze making my cheeks flush and my eyes dart away again. "I'm sorry for that too, I don't remember doing that."

"It wasn't you," he reminds me. "Charlie, you didn't hurt me before…I stopped because it was hurting you, I didn't mean to hurt you, I don't want to hurt you," he stops looking up again, blowing out a rushed breath. "That's why I didn't want this to happen…I thought you knew…" He stops again looking flustered.

"I understand that you don't want me…like that. I won't do it again."

Bryn's up out of his chair, circling the table. "Stand up,"

I have no reason not to, so I do. He stops standing very close to me I try looking him in the eye but I can't it makes my heart race so I drop my gaze to stare at his chest. He doesn't touch me, just stands there. I feel myself rocking just lightly on my toes. I am not sure what he's trying to demonstrate.

"Do I still make you nervous Charlie?" His tone is tight, I can't look at him only nod. He leans a little closer to me and my palms start to sweat. I close my hands into tight fists at my side trying to keep them from trembling. "Is it because you're afraid if I touch you again it's going to hurt?" I pause for a moment considering that before lifting my chin to stare at him shaking my head no.

"No," I breathe slowly. Lying hurts. I know that now, all to well. I will tell him the truth, even though my voice shakes around it. "It's because I want you to do it again…"

Bryn goes very still in front of me. I'm not even sure he's breathing for a moment. Then his hands raise ever so slowly to the sides of my face and my stomach flips and my head starts to buzz as he leans into me.

"Alright seriously; You expect us to stand outside all day?!" Libby's voice shouts from the entry way.

Bryn lets his right hand drop to his side quickly, he's still leaning towards me but now he moves to the side so that his lips reach my ear instead of my mouth like I was certain he was going to do a moment before. His left palm sliding back to brush the side of my neck thumb tracing along the line of my jaw before dropping again. "You make me nervous too." Is all he says before stepping back, but it makes my insides clench and my breath catch.

We all make plans for Bryn to take me into the City once Libby and Ethan are back inside. It is not as simple as getting into the truck and just driving there I learn.

Bryn's passport only allows him to bring in one other person, Ethan does not have a passport of his own. So Ethan will not be able to go. He doesn't look surprised by this when Bryn tells me we will be alone so it must be something he already knows, apparently it is something everyone knows...or should. Only two people at a time may enter the City gates on a travel Passport.

"Why only two?" I ask, wanting to understand more. If we are going to the City I do not want to make mistakes like I have before.

"Because three people is an army obviously!" Libby informs me confusing me more, but Bryn keeps talking so I don't get a chance to ask her to explain the difference between two or three or four.

Bryn's paperwork will get us both through the gates, but once inside to move freely it helps to look like we belong there. Which means that Libby will have to change my clothes for something she calls 'trendier' and also involves her adding the little purple clips she wears to change the color of my hair. Which in turn makes her clap her hands excitedly and bounce repeatedly in her chair.

"Don't make her stand out," Bryn grumbles glaring at her.

"Like that's even possible!" Libby shoots back while I squirm in my seat feeling strangely uncomfortable.

"I am sitting right here," I mumble certain that I am blushing, but not understanding why.

Both of them look at me. When Bryn turns back to Libby his eyes narrow. "If I have to kill someone while we're there to keep their hands off her, when we get home I'm blaming you." Libby shrugs.

I don't know what to find more interesting about that sentence, the idea that Bryn would kill someone else for touching me, or the realization that he called this home.

Libby is looking at me intently, "What is it?"

"I've never had a home." Section six was not a home, it was a place. "And I think we are supposed to go un-noticed," I add. "If Bryn has to kill someone will that not ruin the plan?" I stare at her.

"Fine! No purple hair." She finally says looking disappointed.

"No purple hair." Bryn repeats drinking his coffee. Then he mumbles, "I'll probably have to kill someone as it is."

For some reason this makes Libby laugh.

Libby spent almost an hour with me in the barn later that day sorting through clothes and tossing things aside that were in her way. I didn't have much to say throughout the process, no idea exactly what is 'trendy' but Libby apparently knows. I fell asleep shortly after our clothing search, tucked away safe in my own bed with Libby right beside me even in the tiny space. The scent of freshly washed sheets and Libby's sweetness filling my nose. Bryn got us both up early, me to get ready and Libby to help so we could get on the road-the City is hours from his home.

I glance over at Bryn driving the truck, 'trendy' for him is apparently a very different thing. He does not look much different then he usually does, the jeans are a bit tighter, and a darker color, but he is wearing the same boots, and a simple dark black shirt covered by a jacket now thrown into the seat between us.

My shoes are two inches higher than the sneakers I wasn't allowed to wear. But at least Libby was able to locate a shoe that fit both our requirements—hers being 'tall and cute' and mine being something I wouldn't break a leg in. The compromise had been a good two inches shorter then she'd wanted but it was tall over the whole bottom of the shoe, not just the back allowing me to walk without falling off them. They also strapped not just to my foot but continued half-way up my calf ending just below the skin tight black pants Libby put on me. I watched her do the complicated straps several times and I'm still not certain I could get the ribbons to lay flat the way she wanted. I hope I do not have to take them off.

My clothes are simpler then the shoes—which is good, and my hair had been braided back from my face and true to her word Libby did not make any of it purple. I smooth my fingers over the front of my shirt feeling the lace underneath.

"Everything okay?" Bryn is looking at me. I nod and then I stare through the front glass at the long grey patchwork wall stretching out in front of us.

"What is that?" I have not seen this much cement since I left section six.

"It's the Wall of Winchester."

I glance at him, "What?"

"The City, it used to be called Winchester, long time ago. Some of the old signs still have the name, most of the City was built after the Turn so I don't know what it looked like back then but it's all in the walls, it was originally the second defense if the Valley was over-run by the dead. "

"is there not a wall around the Valley too?"

"There is but it's not complete, not anymore and a lot of it was constructed using something called shipping containers, they were these huge steel boxes used to move things back in the day—they stack well, and ended up being placed pretty much end to end at the other end of the valley, a lot of the mountains don't have any kind of fence. We depend on the elevation to keep Geeks out."

I find myself nodding as he talks staring out the glass as the wall grows closer, towers higher.

"The whole City is built on a grid system. We have to get past the checkpoint at the gate but I know the man there so it should be fine. Once we're inside don't leave my side; ever." He glances at me expression tight.

"Is it not safe?"

"No, it is not safe." He stares at me for a moment more. "If anyone besides me touches you, anywhere you tell me, immediately."

I nod. "Okay."

The wall is nearly three times as tall as the roof of Bryn's house and constructed of patch worked bits of concrete and metal. Sitting over the road are two heavy doors at least twenty feet tall. There are no other vehicles on the road as we pull up the gate, but instead of pulling through we turn down another paved road moving left.

We follow it for a few minutes bouncing over various potholes until we reach a smaller gap in the wall, a single rectangle opening guarded by men with large serious looking guns. "Civilian gate, I have a deal with them." Bryn tells me.

He stops and gets out of the truck instructing me to stay put while he meets with two of them, hands them a small black rectangle they open to pull out papers. I watch them circle to the back of the truck, glance over the items and while back there take another item from Bryn's hands, this one produced from his pocket and passed quickly from hand to hand before disappearing into a camouflage fatigue pocket.

The circle back around the truck not even glancing at me as Bryn climbs back in, we drive forward through the gate into a narrow space between a long row of metal buildings. I lean to the side staring up their walls at the un-uniform windows cut out starting a good ten feet about the ground. Some of them have glass, others have material covers, a few are rimmed at the bottom with roughly hewn boxes sprouting green plants of various shapes and types.

"Herbs," Bryn tells me when I ask about them. Some of them are for food, but most of them are medicine related. "Hard to find a doctor here on the bad side." He grumbles.

We continue on for a while without passing another truck or car in sight until we reach a wider section this one allowing us to drive along passing a few other scattered vehicles on our left side. The City is huge, and mostly filthy; the majority of the buildings are made of various colors of sheet metal, a few are brick or concrete or wood. "Don't open the windows" Bryn cautions me and I glance at him, "Not a lot of working plumbing here, these structures," he indicates one of the metal squares with its un-even windows cut at varying heights in completely different sizes. "The original government put them up; they were only supposed to house people temporarily, and maybe two or three families. Most of them hold closer to ten or fifteen now." He scowls at the next one we pass. "Miserable."

"If it is so miserable, why do they not leave?"

"They can't, in order to get rations everyone has to contribute something to the system—they have to live here because they have to work inside the City. They don't get a choice. Work or starve—though most of them are close to starving already."

"Then how are you and Ethan able to stay out of the City? You do not grow anything, what do you contribute?"

Bryn looks away from me, eyes locked on the road. "I served my time, it cost me enough."

"I don't understand."

He glances at me. "Some other time, we're here." He pulls us onto a side street between several mixed buildings, before turning right into one and taking us down. I press my hands to the dash in surprise when the nose of the truck dips down.

"Where are we?" I follow him out of the truck into a concrete room where we are parked. "Is this where you are taking the furniture?" I stare around the empty space while Bryn leads me to a plain grey steel door.

"No this is where we hopefully get some answers," he tells me holding the door open for me to go through.

We walk up a flight of darkly lit stairs to a metal mesh landing and then down its length to a door. Bryn raps on it with his knuckles and waits. A recessed rectangle in the door slides away there's a suspicious male voice from the other side of the pass. "Who is it?"

"It's Colt, I need to see Will."

A moment of silence follows while something heavy shifts behind the door and I wonder why Bryn would use his second name for this. Then there is a tense, "Hang on," from the other side. The rectangle snaps shut and there's the sound of voices before a few sharp heavy clicks tone from the door. Which I find odd considering how thin the surrounding metal walls are.

Like paper, a disconnected voice notes, and I instantly know that is the weakest spot. I wonder idly if I had on sturdier shoes if I could kick my way through. I glance down at Bryn's heavy scuffed boots. Those would work, some disjointed part of my brain supplies, almost purring in approval.

Bryn follows my downward gaze then leans into me with a quickly whispered. "What?"

I look up again, shrug. The door is opening.

There is a thin blonde young man standing in its opening. He doesn't exactly grin when he sees Bryn, but he doesn't look unfriendly either. "Long time no see. You don't call, you don't write…"

Bryn shrugs. "I have a life. I found something that might interest you, but I need information."

"About what?"

"I don't know yet."

"Kinda cryptic bullshit is that Colt?!"

"The kind that might help you."

The blond grumbles under his breath shifting on his feet. Apparently notices me for the first time. "Hello Goddess of the apocalypse!" He jerks his head to me staring at Bryn, "She with you?"

"Touch her and I'll pick you apart limb from limb, very, very slowly Will." The threat sounds very real in that tone.

Will shrugs, "Can't blame a guy for trying, come on in, you know the way." He levels his eyes at Bryn who purposely looks away.

We follow Will inside, down a metal hall and into what I instantly recognize as a lab. My pulse leaps up staring at the metal table and the instruments.

"So what's this information you need, don't tell me it's your standard rush pregnancy test please…"

"It's not." Bryn snarls not looking at me. "Will, this is Charlie." Will greets me and I answer with a quiet hello. "Charlie was on Highway One in the middle of the night during one of my runs, right between the lines of district five and six. She says she escaped from a military base there."

Will is looking at me. "We both know there's no military base there Colt." His tone is peculiar, his expression doesn't match…I stare back and forth between them both.

Bryn stares back at him. "Except for Section Six."

I whip my head around so quick to stare up at him my neck spasms.

"Oh, well yes except for that. Doesn't exist, total malarkey, it's like area 51 in the good old days…are you an Alien Charlie?" Will asks leaning closer to me. I turn my head to look at him again, narrowing my eyes.

"It exists." I tell him staring back before rattling off the only location I know for six, a string of numbers that mean nothing to me but that I have heard many times.

Will stares back at me before glancing at Bryn again. "Colt is she serious?"

"As a Geek bite." Bryn tells him.

Which I would imagine is pretty serious stuff.

Several minutes later I'm sitting on a cold metal table that makes my spine shudder and my skin prickle with too many unpleasant memories to name. Bryn is standing next to me while Will gathers things to take my blood.

"How do you know about section six?" My stomach is churning.

Bryn stares at me then shrugs and looks away, "It's a rumor, there's lots of them; rumors that is. It's what Will's group runs on. Rumors of a cure—not just for bites but to actually prevent them; Rumors that there are people who can control the Geeks not just go un-noticed by them. Like the Tweens, only way more powerful, like Geek-whispers." He shrugs again.

"Tweens?" I stare at him.

"The Betweens; people who were born immune, not just to the bite but to the freak's hunger completely. If a Tween was standing in the yard with you that night the Geek would have walked right past them as long as they were standing still, it would ignore them completely and try to eat you—nobody knows why. It's rare though. Most of the real ones get taken into military service from childhood."

"How could someone control the Geeks?" I could see them, the real them locked away inside…but that has always been the extent of it.

"No one can, it's a load of crap, but people want to believe in something, and God's not doing so hot right now what with the dead walking around eating people. Theory with the Tweens used to be they weren't completely human, not alive but not dead. Hence the label Between. But now that we know the Turn was caused by a mutated protozoa attaching to the base of the spinal column—no one knew exactly what they were looking for back then, and it's so microscopic in normal people that you can't see it at all without this super fancy microscope—"

"Which as you can imagine," Will butts in, "was more than a little difficult to get our hands on after the world went to Hell." He sets a tray on the table and keeps talking. "We have two very important Tween Retrievers to thank for that miracle, Chance and Church, they did great work back in their day. Anyway so this tiny creature, a Naegleria fowleri, it mutates right? No one knows why just one day Wham! It's in everybody; I mean it's normally found in water and soil so who knows maybe we all had it a long time and then something turned it on and that's why when you die you get back up and eat people."

"Because of the Naggy leera—"

"Naegleria fowleri," Will repeats. "Comfy?"

"What?" I stare at him wondering if he might be related to Libs with his topic change.

"Are you comfortable, I need to take blood." He indicates my arm.

I nod offering him my arm."It is best to try for that vein." I tell him.

Will nods, "That's very helpful, thank you." He takes a moment getting himself ready before taking my arm and bracing it against the table so he can take a sample there.

I try not to move as he pokes me, filling little vials with dark red blood. I turn my head to see Bryn watching the needle in my arm; he looks a little green. "Bryn, he is touching me." I tell him seriously.

He stares back at me one side of his mouth quirking north, "Charlie. Did you just make a joke?"

I think I did.

I turn back to Will who seems to be almost done. "What does that have to do with section six?" I ask.

Will blinks up at me his large rimmed glasses making him appear a bit owlish. "Well only everything!" He says. "It's been almost eighteen years since that discovery, eighteen years! And we've had the vaccine to stop the bite from activating the individual strands by blocking the spores in the bloodstream," He trails off noting my expression.

"Look it's like mixing two different blood types right? You already have an infection, your body thinks that's normal; but Bryn bites you—" my eyes dart to Bryn for a moment and he shakes his head, "and now you've got Bryn spores in your blood!" I continue to stare at him picturing tiny spores of Bryn. "The spores! They cause the meningeal reaction to take place; it's literally one organism fighting the other for your brain…which unfortunately causes your body to go haywire and all the winner is left with is the tendrils it grows into your dendrites and spinal column to get you up and moving and BAM!" I jump. "It's in the driver's seat!"

Will stares at me practically quivering with excitement over a bug inside people's brains. "You are an odd man." I tell him resisting the urge to raise my fingers to my scalp and scratch like I can feel one there...under my skin. I've got enough problems in my head without adding bugs in the mix. I frown.

"Right well we can't all be nerds," he sniffs turning away with my blood to start up several machines.

"What does that have to do with section six?" I try again. But it's Bryn who answers.

"Will and the others believe the government has had a cure for this whole mess a long time ago, but that the military leaders are keeping it secret for themselves."

"No they're keeping it secret because they like all of us toiling away as slaves while they sit on gold gilded thrones lording over our every breath!" Will spits viciously, he rounds on us pointing his finger at me savagely. "They know Charlie, they know!"

When he turns back to the machine I stare at Bryn wide eyed until he leans closer to me. "Is he crazy?" I ask quietly.

"You're the expert you tell me," Bryn returns and his lips turn up.

Great.

"Now let's talk about this condition," Will pipes back up moving closer again.

"Charlie changed the other day, and I think it's happened before this too. She got stronger…reaction times quicker, she ripped a few Geeks apart."

"You did what?" Will is blinking at me again. I have the sudden urge to rip the glasses off his face and throw them on the floor. I stare at him instead.

"I don't remember."

"Well that's really interesting, It could be an emotional response." He turns away from me sifting through a few items on the tray before selecting one. He turns back around and promptly stabs me in the thigh with a long sharp needle. The shock of it zings of my leg sharp and bright making me gasp.

"The Fuck do you think you're doing?!" Bryn's got Will pinned to the wall, his forearm almost crushing his throat. I realize Will's feet are two inches off the ground. Will chokes and garbles something unintelligible.

"Are you alright Charlie?" Bryn's glancing at me over his shoulder, ignoring the fact that Will is turning a bit purple.

"Let him down," I grip the needle in my hand and pull it out. If there is blood it doesn't show through the dark material covering my leg.

Bryn lets him drop to the floor before slamming him back into the wall once more. "You out of your god damn mind?! Try that shit again Foster and see what happens!" His tone is harsh making Will flinch away from him; or maybe that's because he doesn't want to get slammed into the wall again…

"Alright, alright I'm sorry!" Will shrugs his jacket back onto his shoulder. He looks at me then at Bryn again. "It's not brought on by pain, at least not to the extent that I'm willing to duplicate in the lab…" He clears his throat maybe because Bryn is glaring at him again. "Something triggers it though; could be severe emotional response, it could be a life or death instinct."

"No, Charlie was attacked a few days ago by a Geek in the yard, nothing like that happened." Bryn crosses his arms, waiting I guess to hear more theories.

"Maybe the threat wasn't real enough," Will suggests.

"She was pinned down by a hungry corpse, I think that's real enough." Bryn growls.

"Okay, I'm just guessing here! I'll have to run some blood work, but that takes time—"

"How long?"

"Few hours?"

"We'll make the delivery then come back."

Will nods, "That should work."

"If you tell anyone!"

Will throws his hands up in the air Bryn's finger inches from his face. "Dude whoa! I want to bring those motherfuckers down as much as the next honest guy! Remember that? Relax, whatever they're working on it's a big secret and when it comes to these guys that's rarely good. I won't breathe a word to anyone. Few hours, tops."

Bryn turns back to me to grab my elbow helping me off the table an unnecessary, "Come on, let's go" verbalized with him leading me back out of the building and to the truck.

"Is everything okay?"

He glances at me starting it up. "Yeah, I just didn't really want to leave without answers."

"Do you not trust him?" I ask.

"If he thinks there's a chance it could change things, destabilize the government's position he's on our side. He won't say anything until he knows for sure."

"So he is okay?"

Bryn looks conflicted once more. He shrugs. "Sorta."

Sorta doesn't make my stomach feel that good.

Notes: Anyone catch it? anyone? xD