Forget Me Not by Stacey Nash Page A

air. “Every night I have the same dream. I’m home, Dad’s in front of the television. When I say hello he turns in his chair… his face, oh, Will… his face is blank. There’s not a glimmer of recognition.” I speak into his chest where my head rests. “Dad says, ‘who are you?’ I tell him I’m his daughter, but he just looks confused and he says he has no children.”
    Tears roll down my cheek and soak into Will’s shirt.
    He waits for me to continue.
    “Will, he thinks I’m dead.” Sobs jerk through me.
    He strokes my hair, smoothing it down over my head. Showing me he cares and listening without the need to say it.
    “I’m scared, so scared it’s real.” I pull away from him and sweep my hand around the small room. “Scared this is forever,” I say, “and that I can’t go home to him.”
    I lower myself onto the edge of his bed with my insides feeling like a big, twisted mess.
    “I won’t let that happen.” He squeezes my hand.
    “I want to go home.” I curl around myself like a cat on the small single bed.
    “We will find a way. Every day we get stronger and learn more about them.” He sits on the bed behind me and strokes my hair back from my face. I let out a long sigh. Mom used to do the same thing when I woke with nightmares as little girl. Letting go of the tension, I sink into his bed.
    “We’ll be able to go home soon,” he says.
    My eyes drop closed like heavy drapes.
    “I promise we’ll live a long and happy life away from this place.” His baritone voice rumbles with the whispered pitch.
    My anguish slips away with my consciousness.
    When I wake in the morning, he’s curled up behind me with his hand resting on my shoulder.
     

     

C hapter Eight
     
     
    Days later, Jax finally decides my evasion skills are good enough to move onto the next stage of training. It’s like they—or he—has a whole training routine, which makes me wonder how often they ‘help’ people. After a brief discussion about different weapons, he takes me to the armory wall. Swords, knives, daggers, sticks, and batons hang from it like beautiful, deadly wall art. There are no guns, no arrows, no projectile weapons at all.
    “Why do you fight with such old weapons?” I pick up a bronze dagger. “A gun would be quicker and deadlier.” I turn the small blade in my hands. It’s surprisingly light.
    “The Collective have protection. Force fields. Personal ones that surround the wearer an inch from their skin like a suit. Projectiles bounce straight off,” Jax says.
    “Then how can these penetrate it?” I sweep my hand to take in the wall of arsenals, and the dagger in my hand slices through the air. Jax plucks it from my grip.
    “These tech weapons are the only thing that works against it.”
    I run my hand over a baton supple as soft leather. “Aren’t there tech guns?”
    “It’s not the guns that are tech. It’s the bullets—and no. We can’t produce them or get our hands on a constant supply.” A hint of excitement twinkles in his eye. “Hand-to-hand weapons are the cheapest and easiest to make. We can’t afford to produce single shot, disposable guns.”
    “I get it.” The old television, the veggie garden, the livestock I’m almost certain we eat. They don’t have the resources. Selling fruit and other produce at the markets wouldn’t bring in much cash. Even with the farm’s deeds gifted years ago, there’s still a lot to pay for.
    “Hand-to-hand combat is the only option,” he says.
    “Do we have any of those personal force fields?”
    “A few,” he says. “Enough for them to think all our fighters are protected.”
    “Is that how you beat that scout? What happened to him, anyway?”
    Jax throws me a half smile. “He’s taking a vacation without his tech. It’s a long walk home.”
    My mind ticks with the talk of weapons and fighting. The resistance is an insurgence; everyone seems to have a reason for being here. Lilly because of her parents, Beau gives