SPECTRE

CHAPTER IX

Harlot leaned against the steel balcony outside the building. Children below played in the rubble, kicking a ball around. Explosions boomed at a low tune beyond the black mountains in the distance. Each boom was followed by a flash of light that shimmered a bit before dimming black. She looked down at her left hand that constantly twitched. She noticed AJ also had that problem with his. Maybe the twitching signified that something was wrong, she didn’t know. To her it felt like a side effect from being wounded.

AJ appeared beside her followed by the whoosh of wind traveling behind him. He turned around and leaned back against the balcony. With a cool posture he smiled at her. She glanced down at his fingers and like she suspected, they were twitching.

“So is everything alright?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I’ve found nothing out of the ordinary,” he told her.

“M’ask ya something, why does your hand constantly twitch?”

He looked down at his hand. “I subconsciously think I’m in constant danger. My hand it trying to grab my sword.”

“My hand also does that.”

“Your hand it trying to grab your gun. It feels you’re in danger and trying to protect you.”

Days ago when Harlot was transporting the vaccine, her convoy was attacked by russian soldiers and a russian spectre. It was the first time she’d been under shot at in a long time. She remembered the bullets piercing through the metal frame of the truck. The bullets splattering the brains of her comrades against the sides.

When she looked down at her hand it was completed splintered. Flesh was torn and ripped from it. She hadn’t been shot, but it was injured. She stared down and saw at the base of her feet, the half breathing body of the a Atom. Atom had been the spectre sent to protect them from russian forces. He lied in the puddle of his own blood that spilled from his torso and mouth.

Ever since that moment, her hand had been twitching. Her trigger finger flinching, trying to shoot a gun she didn’t hold.

“AJ how old are ya really?” she asked.

He hesitated to answer, caught off guard by a strange question. Anyone who looked at him could easily have said his age.

“Why do you ask?”

“You look eighteen but...you don’t act or seem eighteen.”

He smiled. “Physically I’m eighteen but mentally I’m much older. It’s one of the curses of being a spectre. You live longer than anyone else but...at the same time you die younger.”

She smiled because she didn’t understand what he meant. She guessed it was an inside spectre joke or saying.

“So how is Sev doing?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The last time I saw him, he was riding his bike out with his girlfriend. I kept my distance from him for the past three days.”

“Are you two close?”

“I don’t think so. Him and I, we’re just soldiers who work together so much we learned to bear each other's presence. I guess you can call that friendship.” He looked down over his shoulder at the children playing below.

“I noticed Carter and that one soldier talking earlier,” she said.

“You mean Mike?”

“Yeah, It was when Mike first rolled up in the truck. They were whispering something to one another and glancing back at us.”

“I noticed that too,” he said.

“Is that why you went out scouting?”

He shook his head. “No, I felt something and wanted to check it out.”