Beyond The Walls (NOW ON AMAZON!!!)

Liberation

Hadley reached into her backpack and pulled out a small mason jar stuffed with the last of her cotton gauze. It was early morning, a few days after Kiara had given birth. Hadley was sitting outside her and Jamila's tent having thrown up everything she'd tried to put down for breakfast when she'd woken up starving. Warm water was the only thing she could ingest now.

Jael and Yuvan were the only other two awake and it was only because they were the last on night watch duty. The two were talking and laughing and occasionally making out. Hadley wasn't worried though. She could feel Ruqwik in the shadows beyond the camp circle. Anything that attempted to attack them would be sorry. Despite the gulf between them, Ruqwik would die for Hadley.

She directed her focus back to the jar.

The mason jar was filled almost to the brim with wet gauze and covered with a canning ring closed over more gauze to allow for air flow. Around the sides of the clear jar were her five sprouting apple seeds. Her living connection to Aunt Zee. After waking up in that tent from the nightmare that was Mrs. Smith's house and rummaging through her bag for the first time, Hadley had expected to find the dead, dried apple seeds wrapped in the wad of dried out gauze that she had left them in. What she'd found was the seeds carefully transferred into this mason jar, thriving. But Jamila had no idea about them. The only other one who could have done this was Ruqwik.

Hadley didn't ask the vampire about it.

Couldn't.

As she studied the seeds, marvelling at new root hairs and tiny green buds reaching out from the seeds, Hadley wanted to feel how she did when she'd studied the seeds before. Wanted to feel the heartache when her thoughts went back to Aunt Zee. Wanted tears to prick the corner of her eyes as she recalled how she'd found her. But the feelings felt so far removed from Hadley. The fact that she knew what she was supposed to be feeling but was unable to annoyed her, which admittedly was a feeling, just not the right one. Maybe her mother was right.

'Feelings are for the weak. Feelings aren't fact. Never rely on feelings, Hadley.'

Why did she never remember any of Aunt Zee's words? They were the ones that had shaped her more than anything. Why was it only ever that one voice?

"Hey?" Jamila hugged Hadley from the back, kissing her cheek. "You okay?"

Hadley nodded. She replaced the mason jar into her backpack and pulled out Aunt Zee's diary. She opened it to a few pages past the middle.

"Look." Hadley said, pointing out the landmark. She hadn't shared the book with anyone before, not even Jamila, but she was trying her hardest to make sure she didn't come off as distant to Jamila. She needed Jamila to like her. This seemed an appropriate way to keep her close. "We passed this spire yesterday."

Jamila studied the image. "You're right. It's not far from here."

"Exactly," Hadley replied. She pointed to the Wildling camp she was leading them too. "According to Aunt Zee, at this time of year the Wildlings will be at this camp for a few more days. We can use the trails and approach the camp that way, but I'm worried it'll take too long, and we'll miss them."

Jamila traced a straight line from where she assumed they were at the moment, to the Wildling camp.

"You want to go straight through the brush." Jamila said.

Hadley nodded.

Jamila immediately spotted a problem with the plan. One that Hadley hadn't even considered.

"What about Kiara?"

Of course. The mother of twins. Twins. That was still an insane reality to Hadley. At the Compound, new mothers were encouraged to rest for at least a week to recover. So far, to accommodate Kiara and the newborns while still allowing the group to keep moving, Jael had remade one of the sleds that once pulled the children so that it would fit Kiara. Ruqwik had offered to pull the sled for the last few days. However, they wouldn't be able to drag the sled through thick undergrowth if they went through the brush as Hadley was suggesting they do. But if they didn't do this, they'd miss the Wildlings.