1. This Cruel World

This world isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s cruel, unlawful, desolate…life is barely scraping by as it is after the world fell a hundred and fifty-nine years ago. What humanity is left has been squared away into regions that function somewhat like cities. There is electric and running water, but it is a crude image of what it used to be like when humanity was at its greatest.

As lawless as it is, it isn’t free. North America and part of South America is ruled by a tyrannical family known as the Crows. They aren’t blood-related but formed from many descendants of once wealthy families before the fall of humanity. This land is theirs if you want to keep living. How they keep control of such a large expanse of land is quite simple. Food, water, electricity, and the slave trade. Whatever is valuable, they control. That is the way it has been for generations since they came into power shortly after the fall.

And who rules the Crows?

The King of course.

He’s as private as a king can be. The digital age has died so anything close to an internet doesn’t exist, but from time to time, a newspaper is released to the public, declaring new changes to whatever the Crows may want. The “newspaper” is merely a printed page with the King’s signature delivered by the Crows’ soldiers to each city inside the Crows’ territory. The form of communication isn’t ideal, but with the Crows’ soldiers not hiding how violent they can be, those who don’t follow the rules made by the Crows are made out to be examples. And the people of such towns tightly kept within the King’s fist, people fall into line very quickly.

However, as there always is a group unjustly ruling people, there are always the rebels. The rebels of this new world and enemies of the King of Crows are ones who call themselves Legion.

***

Rebecca watched her brother shoulder the large gun as he prepared to leave. She clutched the rag she’d been using to wash their small stack of dirty dishes with by the valve of water shared by everyone in town. When she’d come to clean dishes, she hadn’t known she’d see her brother trying to leave with a band of rebels.

“You weren’t even going to say goodbye?” She couldn’t contain the anguish in her voice. Her older brother, the boy who’d save a rodent before killing it, was going to leave their family behind for a promise of freedom. She would have never believed it if it wasn’t happening right in front of her.

Cody shook his head. He didn’t meet her eyes, no doubt filled with shame at what he was doing. “I can’t stay here and watch. I have to do something.”

He was a good man. A good boy who’d grown up into something much better that couldn’t be found in this horrible world. He was too kind-hearted for his own good.

“You’re going to get yourself killed. And for what? To make yourself a martyr that no one asked for? The Crows won’t just kill you if they find you!”

A cry escaped her as she thought about what the Crows’ soldiers did to rebels. Killing them would be too kind for the fucking monsters. Rebels were sold into slavery, raped, tortured, and their bodies desecrated when they finally died after they were put through hell.

To be captured would be so much worse than to live a horrible life like the rest of the people abandoned in the desert lands.

Cody’s jaw clenched. He stared off to where the band of rebels were hoisting boxes of replenishments into their trucks. There were dozens of them, talking freely to the townspeople like their presence wasn’t destructive. If the Crows found out that their town was helping the rebels they would burn the town and the people in it down.

“I’ve made my choice, Rebecca.” He grumbled, shaking his head. “I knew you would argue. I knew you wouldn’t be proud of me!”

He said it like all Rebecca ever did was gripe to him. She bristled as if she’d been insulted because she had!

He started to walk away, but Rebecca went after him, grabbing him by the sleeve of his jacket—a black one that matched what the Legion rebels were wearing. She snatched her hand away when she realized, disgust crossing her features. “You’ve already changed into their uniform? Have you gone insane?”

Cody curled his upper lip. “Go home.”

He turned his back to her. It was more than that. He was turning his back on his family and his city. She couldn’t believe it.

Her feet didn’t move for the longest time. She watched him walk over to the rebels, shake their hands and even hug one as if they’d been friends for years. In a span of just a few hours…what had these rebels promised her brother? What kind of cult-like mantra had they spouted him to make him see this through rose-colored glasses?

It was when he jumped into the back of one of their wagons hitched to a dirty truck that she was able to move her feet. That split second made her realize that this was the last time she was going to see her brother. As much as she wanted to be angry with him, she couldn’t let him leave without saying goodbye.

Tears ran down her face as she pushed through the crowd that was forming around the rebels. Others were blind to the fact that these men and women were never coming back. They weren’t going to save them from the Crows. The Crows were going to savagery devour them and parade their corpses around with taunts that would haunt Rebecca for the rest of her life. She already knew what was going to happen before it did.

Still, she pushed others aside to make it to the truck. There were five truck altogether with wagons hitched to the back. Some of the wagons contained rebels themselves and others were full of supplies. They were taking off when Rebecca made it to the end. She only managed to catch Cody’s gaze when the wagon he was sitting in began to move away.

“Cody!”

His eyes met hers. His gaze was hardened, nothing like the brother she used to know.

She waved. “I love you!”

She screamed it at the top of her lungs, but she didn’t know if he could hear it over the roaring of the trucks’ engines. Even still, a smile that was as close as the ones he used to give her could be graced his features. He waved back and that was all it took for Rebecca to break down.

She sobbed as the crowd cheered.

***

That night, the desert was far colder than it usually was. She huddled close to her mother and two younger sisters. The twins were kept away from the eyes of the townspeople. Twins with such dark hair and tan complexion with hazel eyes were strange and beautiful—the ripe pickings for slave traders. The girls were yet fourteen, but Rebecca had seen girls and boys sold for younger in her twenty years.

She shivered as the wind billowed through the shack the four of them lived in. It was even colder without Cody. He’d been the one to hold all of them in his large arms, shielding them from the wind with his body. He was two years older than Rebecca, but Rebecca had always felt like she was the oldest of them all. Perhaps it was Cody’s childlike hope that made him feel years younger. He seemed so naive even when he’d witnessed the horrible travesties that Rebecca had seen as well.

Now it was just her, her mother, and the twins. She would have to be the strong one now. Their mother was paralyzed from the hip down and couldn’t take care of the twins even if she wanted to.

Rebecca held her sobs in. It would do her no good to make the twins worry.

The next day when she woke, she gathered the dirty laundry and went to the water spout to do the weekly cleaning. She’d only just made it when she heard engines in the distance.

“The rebels are back? So soon?” Someone asked behind her. Others were slowly coming out from their homes.

Rebecca felt something horrible in her gut. She dropped the laundry basket and took off running back to her home.

“April! May! Mom!” She screamed their names to the point she damaged her vocal cords. She choked on the pain, but still screamed as she dashed toward where her family was still sleeping.

Screams that weren’t her own rang out as the sounds of evil laughter, gun shots, and loud engines drew nearer. Her naked feet ached as she tripped over them. She slammed headfirst into the ground. Her vision went black.

She groaned as she came to. Her vision swam as her senses were overloaded with screams. She could make out feet running around her. Even someone ran over her, slamming her head into the ground again. There was laughter that made her sick and fearful. She crawled across the ground.

I have to find them…

She didn’t think of anything else as she crawled across the bloody ground toward her home. The ground was wet and sticky. The blood was all over her. She held up her hands and she saw more of it.

No.

She moved as fast as she could. She could barely stand. She swayed on her feet as she staggered to the bed where she’d slept with her family only hours before.

Laying on the mat was the body of her mother. Her face was disfigured, eyes ripped from their sockets, and her body was contorted.

Rebecca cried out as she clutched the blanket. It was soiled with piss and other excrements. She threw it away and sobbed harder as it became clear that her mother’s death hadn’t been a peaceful one.

She had only seconds to mourn before she remembered the twins. She picked herself from the floor, still stumbling as the blow to her head had done more damage than she previously thought. She made it through the doorway and saw something that made her blood go cold.

She felt the heat. It blasted into her in waves that almost knocked her to the ground. The Crows’ soldiers had set fire to the town. The buildings were engulfed in fiery red and blue—the fuel they used was powerful enough to be so hot that it was melting the rocky terrain.

Cattle, dogs, cats, and wild life fled the scene. Through the blaze, Rebecca saw figures moving. She didn’t think as she ran toward the fire. She stopped when she felt her skin almost melting. She didn’t scream as she knew these were Crow soldiers.

She just barely could see through the flames that billowed in the wind, women and children, some men, being forced onto the backs of wagons. They were shoved, some hit when they didn’t comply. Caresses of people she once knew laid randomly dispersed on the ground. It was by shear will that she didn’t puke.

Like she knew it, she saw her sisters April and May sitting in one of the wagons. Their faces were swollen from crying. They huddled together under a blanket that was badly torn. They stuck out amongst the other people that were destined for the slave trade. Their unique features were a curse, but also a saving grace for now.

They could have ended up like their mother.

Rebecca held in a yell though she wanted to scream to them. She wanted to let them know that she was still alive and that she was going to come for them. She wasn’t going to stop until she got them back.

But as the fires engulfed what was left of their home, she was forced to back into the Rocky Mountains that had once served as natural protection. She was forced to turn her back to her sisters and escape the fire that would have killed her.

I’ll save you. I promise.