Immortals

Chapter Seven // Ashe

"You made it."

Vin was waiting for me in the shadows by the pawn shop as I walked down the worn dirt roads of the Land of Escapees to him. Earlier in the day, we had agreed to meet up with each other that night, everything we wanted to talk about and tell each other during the day needing more time to come to the light.

We had chosen to meet in secret at sunset, hiding us from my friends. The only one that had even met Vin, to the best of my knowledge, was Mia, and she seemed to not be fond of him. She didn't say anything outright, but it was clear in her body language that she felt uncomfortable by his presence. And I was sure that Parker, who was the most cautious out of all of us, would react similarly, if not worse, than she did if he were to meet Vin. Emery's reaction was something I could not guess, but also wasn't something I would risk.

I already knew Vin was completely harmless, just a kid who was trying to hide, someone just like us. But they didn't, and I did not have the energy to do the amount of convincing it would take for them to see it.

"Yeah, I'm here."

Vin smiled. "I was going to ask you what you wanted to do, but I found something cool earlier and wanted to show you," he said, hardly containing his excitement as he explained. "I found an old abandoned suburb not too far from here and, get this, they actually left stuff from before this mess behind. I wanted to show you the finds and maybe they'll even be useful at your shop. You could probably sell some of these items for a great exchange, or a lot of money, or however it works here."

If I was being fully honest, what Vin was describing was not what I was expecting or something I was fully interested in, but he made some solid points. This could be very useful for business. More importantly, it was something with Vin.

"Yeah, let's go."

And so we went into the night, out of the Land of Escapees and into the real world, into abandoned rural lands I had not seen in the longest time.

It wasn't often that I ventured out of the Land of Escapees. No one really left often. There was a common fear amongst those who were hidden that leaving was toeing the line of a death sentence, the lighting of a beacon that would lead danger to all of us. The only ones who left frequently were the ones nominated as traders, usually those who were marked as Unfavorable due to being kleptomaniacs in the world before, who were assigned to retrieve items from the outside world. Whatever food, clothing, hygiene products, even the rare luxuries they could find to bring back were all fair game. It was how we made our economy, with the exchanges of traders and pawn shop owners like myself and Mia and other folks who were willing to exchange for what they needed.

I had not been afraid of the outside world before Shane was taken. There was no reason to be scared, considering how well hidden I had believed us to be.

But now, I knew better. I knew we weren't as hidden as I wanted us to be, as anyone would want us to be. Danger was right outside our borders, waiting to strike at any given moment.

But it didn't matter, because with Vin, I felt safe. I felt like nothing could touch us and take us away. Not when we had each other.

"So, where were you from before all of this?"

Vin's question drew me from my musings, brought me back to real life, to him. A deeply personal question, one I had a slight suspicion in the back of my mind that he would ask, but one that I still wasn't prepared to answer. There were some things I hated talking about, that I didn't even tell Mia, Shane, or the boys.

But yet, with Vin, I was more comfortable. Not enough so to tell him everything I had seen, especially from after the government's takeover, but enough for him to know some of my backstory.