The Freaks

chapter five

Zaire and my old friends come back to me in my dream.

I remember this moment vividly, like it could have happened yesterday instead of two years ago. This memory is now two years old, and I don't think I'll be forgetting it any time soon. All of the torment I've encountered—both physical and mental—are shallow wounds compared to this moment.

Zaire handed me over a can of beans with a spoon and settled next to me on the floor, heaving a sigh as he pressed his back comfortably against the wall. "It's been over an hour," he said, taking a bite of his own food. "He should be back by now."

"Give him a few more minutes," Dara said, keeping her voice calm despite the tension in the room. She spooned some beans in her mouth and sat up straighter, sighing through her nose loudly. "You know we can't go back upstairs until the Soldiers leave."

"I know that," Zaire mumbled, slouching against the wall. "But Leo is a curious person, Dara. What if he's still watching the Soldiers and waiting to, I don't know, kill them or something?"

Dara and Leo were two of the oldest generation of Freaks. They had found each other long before Zaire and I had found them. They knew what the Soldiers were like before we did. They knew how dangerous and ruthless they were, no matter how old we were.

"He wouldn't do that," I said slowly, quietly, waiting for Zaire to look at me. "He's not that kind of person. He may be curious, but he's not a killer."

"Luca's right," Dara cut in, placing her tin of food on the floor in front of her. "Leo's not a murderer. He's not like the Soldiers." She paused for a moment. "In fact, I think I hear him coming, so we can all relax now."

The door opened a second after her sentence, revealing a dark figure that looked so familiar yet foreign at the same time. It was a figure I had seen only from a certain, safe distance a handful of times. Far enough away where they wouldn't have seen me.

Because this person wasn't Leo.

It was a Soldier.

"I thought I could smell you," he snarled, his accent strange yet so frighteningly familiar, the glint of his gun shining against the light. "Love it when I'm right."

In a flash, Dara was up from the ground and in front of Zaire and I, her palm out against the Soldier, her usual lightning ready and crackling at her fingertips—

But she didn't have time to use it.

The Soldier held up his gun, pointing it at Dara's head like the weight of what it could do meant nothing to him. His finger was inching towards the trigger as he shook his head slowly at her, a wicked smile spreading across his mouth. "No, no, no," he said, dragging the words out tauntingly. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, girly."

Dara slowly lowered her hand and stood up straighter, each one of her muscles tensed and ready under her T-shirt. "You can take me," she said calmly, no trace of hesitation in her voice. "Just don't take these two. Let them go."

The Soldier laughed at her as he slowly walked down the few stairs below the door, farther into our basement. "That's not how this is going to work, girl Freak," he spat, "since I have the gun and you"—he looked at her for a moment—"do not."

"But I have something far more dangerous than a gun," Dara said, her voice sharp like a knife.

"Indeed..." The Soldier took a step forward into the dim light of the basement, where we could finally fully see his face.

He had a square jaw with hollowed cheeks like he hadn't eaten in months. His eyes were sharp and alert, too bright a colour to seem natural. But the thing that stood out the most was the jagged scar that ran from the bottom of the left side of his jaw and up, to the side of his nose. It was grotesque, I couldn't look at it for too long.