The Dead Zone

Chapter 5

After nearly tossing us into the room, Tracy shut the door and slumped against it in an exhausted fashion. "You ok?" I asked after a few minutes. When she finally looked up she looked like she was under a lot of stress. "It's nothing..... I'm fine" she finally muttered. "We didn't mean to cause any trouble, if need be we'll take off..." I started before realizing the sun was starting it's slow decent to the horizon. "Or maybe not." Terri muttered while digging through her bag. I could already tell what she was thinking. We had spent to long on the road but she hated running into other people. I couldn't blame her too much. All those people meant more hiding than usual and the repopulate earth plan everybody seems to think up around girls in this wasteland. Tracy must have seen our silent glare exchange and gotten curious because all of a sudden she startled us with, "you two must not be big on large crowds huh?" At that we both jumped a bit. Looking are her she was still sitting back against the door with her arms around her knees. Now she was looking over at us with a sort of pessimistic curiosity. "If you really wanna leave, then go. But you are welcome here, after all you saved my life." "One of us almost put it back in danger," I thought aloud. At that Terri shrunk a bit at the desk while sifting through supplies. "It's not as bad as you think," Tracy responded. Looking back at her she lifted her sleeve showing off large bruises on her arm that couldn't have come from anything Terri would have been willing to do. Looking at Terri, she suddenly stammered out, " I-I figured I could be a make shift cold compress or something and then it too much and- I didn't know what to do." I could tell she was having trouble with finding the right way to explain it and turned her back to me. When I saw her expression I softened a little. "I'm sorry, I didn't know" She turned into me and looked at my face to try to find a hint of falsifying features before she shrugged a little and started calming down. "I had been on a raid," Tracy started interrupting the awkward moment. "I got caught by a horde and fell out of a window. I didn't break my arm but I'm pretty banged up." Paying closer attention I caught on to the fact that her injuries were why she kept flinching and it explained her pained face. Looking at how the bruises we're positioned, suddenly without thinking I walked to Tracy and lifted up her hoodie before she could say anything, and sighed. Her right side was covered in a swollen black bruise that had dried blood on it in places. I few light prods caused her to cringe and I knew that she had at least one broken rib and more were cracked. Letting her hoodie fall back  I stood up and turned around mentally cursing. Terri must have seen too because her face was caught between curiosity and sympathy. "I'll be fine," Tracy muttered. "Not with those injuries you won't, at least not without some kind of treatment." I replied. "Terri, do we have any bandages?" As if reading my mind she already had them out and was searching for a bag to put ice in. While she nonchalantly used her powers I distracted Tracy with questions about the injury and checked it out a bit more. "Two cracked ribs, another broken, and a nasty bruise." I muttered a little angrily. "Shouldn't you be taking a little more caution," I lectured. Tracy started to pout a little when Terri came over with bandages and I went to look out the window. While zoning out I suddenly became aware of a strange ozone smell in the air. It was familiar in a weird way and a flash of a lightning tattoo flashed in my head. It was a label for one of the Peacekeepers like Terri and I. For the time that we were in captivity, Peacekeepers were forced to get tattoos marking our ability somewhere easily visible. Terri has a snowflake on the back of her neck and I have a burning torch on my shoulder. The girl with the lightning bolt tattoo on her chest. who was nicknamed Zeus, was someone we all knew by the time we left. She was the one who freed us. A small red haired girl. Suddenly I dove into unpleasant memories spurred by my boredom. That girl who helped us escape wasn't exactly a brave one. She got frightened easily and couldn't control her ability well. For the two months we were there she was the hazard nobody wanted around because she would discharge randomly and electrocute anyone nearby. 'But what does that have to do with anything, all I did was recognize smell. I mean it could just mean a storm is coming.' I thought to myself. Suddenly more memories surfaced. Back in the facility you could tell when Zeus was around if you could smell ozone. She was constantly discharging electricity in random bursts so getting close around her was always a gamble none of us prisoners were willing to take. Eventually when she developed some control over it she still gained a wide berth from others due to her personality change. Once she learned how to bend her abilities to her will she was known for getting even with those who mistreated her before. Snapping back from my memory and ignoring the smell to avoid more bad memories I remembered we found a list of images of the Peacekeepers who escaped with us after returning to the lab for supplies a year after it was overrun and abandoned. Pulling it out of Terri's bag, I was looking it over my heart was stuck in my throat. Sitting in the middle of the page was a picture of a freckled red haired girl with green eyes. Looking over at Tracy and the picture the revelation had me petrified. Terri was tensed up all of a sudden and Tracy was leaning against the wall looking up with her eyes closed not knowing her sweater wasn't hiding her tattoo, bandages wrapped around her midsection. "Hey what's wrong?" she asked puzzled. Looking down she saw Terri's face and mine as the picture fell to the floor in front of her. Terri jumped back nearly crossing the room as Tracy's face grew dark. "Well that's unfortunate," she muttered. Suddenly electricity began sparking around her. "I'm sorry," she started, "but I can't let you know who I am."