Betrayal by Blood

Lydia Morvan pointed a trembling finger across the small living room. "Thalia, I am disgusted with you! Cassia only altered your application for your own good, and you treat her like an enemy? How can you be so vicious to your own sister?"

Cassia huddled beside her on the frayed cushions of the sofa, clutching her swollen cheek where red finger marks stood out in sharp relief. Tears ran down Cassia's face, though her eyes flickered with calculated malice.

Thalia stood motionless in the center of the peeling room. Her knuckles turned white around the stiff parchment in her grip. This paper was supposed to be her formal admission notice into the Ironwood Base Ability Academy. After years of hard labor and bitter scraping, she had finally awakened a Level 1 Harvesting Ability upon reaching her eighteenth birthday. In Ironwood Base, the law was rigid and unforgiving. Every citizen received exactly one bureaucratic window to submit an academy application upon reaching adulthood. If a candidate made an error or missed the deadline, there were no second chances.

Thalia looked down at the official black stamp. Her designated destination had been deliberately swapped. In place of the academy, the bold letters spelled out the Nightbloom Club.

It was an infamous den in the lower city. Everyone who lived near the outer ring knew what went on inside those neon-lit doors. The club took young, vulnerable ability users, exploited their bodies and talents, and cast them aside once their vitality ran dry.

Thalia gripped the parchment with both hands. With a sharp snap, she ripped the document in two, tore the pieces across again, and hurled the shredded fragments straight into Cassia's face.

Paper scraps scattered over Cassia's lap. Cassia shrank against her mother with a high, pitiful whimper. "What is wrong with the Nightbloom Club? The base elites spend their fortunes there every single night. The pay is ten times what a field harvester earns, and you would never have to step outside the defensive perimeter. I made that change because I care about you!"

Cassia pressed a hand against her cheek, though her chin remained tilted in faint defiance. Under her breath, she knew what she had done. A Harvesting Ability was common and low-ranking, but it was still an awakening. If Thalia entered the academy, she would climb into the middle ranks of the base. Cassia could not stomach the idea of her older sister standing above her. Once Thalia was signed over to the club, she would remain stuck in the dirt forever, an obedient resource for the household to drain.

Lydia stroked Cassia's hair, nodding along in eager agreement. "Cassia is speaking sense, Thalia. Think of the danger beyond the walls. Out in the wastes, mutant beasts tear scavengers apart every day. If the club takes you, you will earn steady credits in warmth and luxury."

Lydia leaned forward, her gaze sharpening with cold entitlement. "Once you start bringing home high wages, we can pool the money to buy gene-awakening potions on the black market. Then Cassia and your brother can awaken abilities of their own. The three of you can lift this household out of poverty. That is how we finally establish our name in Ironwood Base."

Thalia stared at the two of them, a bitter taste rising in her throat. "You want me to sell myself in a back-alley brothel so you can buy potions for your precious twins?"

Lydia's expression hardened into anger. "Watch your mouth! It is an honorable business if it provides for your family! A child owes a debt of blood to her mother!"

A dark, hollow laugh slipped from Thalia's chest. Filial duty? Debt?

Since she was ten years old, Thalia had strapped rusted knives to her belt and slipped past the lower gates into the radiation zones. For eight long years, she had carried crates of wild herbs and toxic scrap through the mud just to keep food on their kitchen table. In those early days, she had possessed no awakened ability at all. She had returned home with suppurating sores on her skin and radiation sickness burning through her lungs. If the base clinic had not offered charity treatments to minor scavengers, she would have rotted in a ditch before her twelfth birthday.

Cassia and her twin brother were only two years younger, yet neither of them had ever seen the muddy alleys near the outer perimeter. They had spent their childhoods inside warm rooms, demanding sweet rolls and fine coats.

Worst of all was the lie Lydia had spun about their father. Thalia's biological father had discovered Lydia's infidelity years ago and walked out of the base in disgust. Before departing, he had deposited eighteen full years of substantial child support into an account meant solely for Thalia's education and survival. Lydia had drained every credit. She had squandered that fortune on her lover, funding his lavish habits until he fathered the twins. When that man died in a drunken brawl over another woman at an inner-ring tavern, Lydia had shifted the entire financial burden onto Thalia's narrow shoulders.

Thalia had uncovered the truth months ago from Marta, their former neighbor. She had swallowed the fury back then, telling herself that once she awakened her ability and enrolled in the academy, she would walk out forever.

Now, Cassia had sabotaged that single exit.

Worse still was the memory of the dream that had jolted Thalia awake before dawn.

In the dream, the sequence of events had unfolded with terrifying precision. Cassia had altered the form. When Thalia refused to go, Lydia had poured a mild paralytic into her tea, pretending to offer an apology. The two women had dragged her limp body out through the service corridors, handing her over to a scout from the Nightbloom Club for a purse of silver credits. The nightmare had dragged on: Thalia waking in a cold, subterranean room beneath the club, her arms strapped down, thick plastic needles driven deep into her veins. They had kept her sedated, siphoning her blood and cellular vitality day after day to brew rejuvenation serums for wealthy patrons, discarding her drained husk into the municipal furnace when her organs failed.

When Thalia had opened her eyes that morning, she had dismissed the dream as lingering stress. But then she had walked into the living room and found the stamped application on the table, bearing the exact address from her nightmare.

The first part had already occurred. She would not wait around for the tea.

Thalia turned on her heel and walked down the hallway toward her small bedroom.

Panic cracked Lydia's voice as she rose from the sofa. "Thalia! Where do you think you are going?"

Thalia stepped into her room and grabbed her battered canvas rucksack from beneath the narrow cot. She pulled her travel boots from the corner, took her ration tins from the shelf, and shoved her spare tunics, skin salves, and water purification tablets inside.

Lydia and Cassia crowded into the doorway, blocking the exit with outstretched arms.

Lydia glared at the pack. "Put that down! What are you doing with your survival gear?"

Thalia yanked the zipper shut and slung the heavy strap over her shoulder. "The district administrators issued an emergency directive for harvesting candidates. Every graduate must complete a field assessment beyond the perimeter before any certification is finalized. If I do not report to the convoy, my status will be revoked."

Lydia hesitated, suspicion flickering across her lined face. "Is that the truth? You are not running off to hide?"

Thalia met her gaze without blinking. "What reason do I have to lie to you? If I lose my status, I will have no income at all."

Lydia stepped back slightly, though her eyes remained narrow. "Then what about the Nightbloom placement? You still have to report there once you return."

Thalia pushed toward the corridor. "I will handle it when the field run is over."

Cassia lunged forward, grabbing at Thalia’s sleeve with frantic fingers. "Do not go into the wilderness! The Nightbloom Club pays better than any field harvest! If they accepted unawakened civilians, I would go myself! Stay here and let Mother sort this out!"

Thalia swung her arm outward, striking Cassia’s wrists aside with a sharp crack.

Cassia gasped, stumbling back into the doorframe.

Thalia stepped into the narrow hallway, her eyes turning glacial. "Touch me again, and I will snap your fingers. Hear me well, both of you. I am done carrying this household on my back. If you try to corner me again, you will find out what it feels like to starve without my credits."

Neither of them dared to move. The fierce authority in Thalia’s voice pressed them flat against the wall.

Thalia did not look back. She strode through the front entrance, shoved the rusted metal door wide, and went down the concrete stairs two steps at a time.

When she reached the lower street, the midday haze hung heavy over the concrete towers. She raised her hand and flagged an automated transport pod waiting by the curb. Climbing inside, she punched the coordinates for the southern transit checkpoint.

The pod hummed along the elevated highway, carrying her away from the central residential quarter. Ironwood Base was divided by two concentric security walls. The inner ring housed high-tier ability users, wealthy merchants, research labs, and military personnel. The vast outer ring held the working class, low-tier laborers, and displaced refugees who lived in crowded tenements. Beyond the outer wall lay the untamed wild: thousands of miles of mutated forests, radioactive bogs, and predatory beasts.

The ride ended near the heavy blast gates of the perimeter wall. Dust blew across the concrete tarmac, carrying the bitter stench of ozone and damp earth.

Thalia approached the vehicle staging grounds. A line of commercial transport trucks sat idling, their diesel engines thumping in a low rhythm. Armed guards paced along the metal cat-walks overhead, assault rifles cradled against their vests.

Thalia approached the driver of an open-bed utility truck. "Heading to Camp 42?"

The man nodded, spitting a glob of black tobacco onto the dirt. "Fifty base credits. Climb in the back if you want a spot."

Thalia held up her smartwatch against his handheld terminal. The scanner chimed, deducting fifty credits from her personal balance.

She climbed over the reinforced tailboard and squeezed into the bed. The vehicle was packed with dozens of scavengers. Most of them wore stained canvas coats and heavy rubber boots, clutching dull shovels, collection sacks, or notched machetes. Their faces were hollow and smudged with soot. Gray patches of contamination mottled the necks and forearms of several older men, signs of prolonged exposure to mutant flora. These were the low-tier scavengers of Ironwood Base, people who gambled their lives against the wilderness every single morning just to earn a handful of nutrient cakes.

The truck's hydraulic gate locked with a heavy clang. The massive steel blast doors of the base groaned upward, and the vehicle lurched forward into the open wasteland.

For five hours, the transport bounced across cratered roads and cracked asphalt. Dead trees rose like broken bones against the pale sky, their branches twisted by centuries of environmental fallout.

By late afternoon, the truck slowed, tires grinding against coarse gravel. It turned into a cleared basin bordered by high hills.

Thalia raised her head and looked through the steel bars of the truck bed.

Wilderness Camp 42 stood before them.

A massive defensive perimeter enclosed the camp, consisting of thirty-three-foot reinforced concrete walls crowned with double coils of electrified razor wire. Watchtowers stood at every corner, manned by mercenary sentries armed with heavy coilguns.

Inside the outer perimeter rose nine gigantic circular earthen fortresses. Each fortress measured roughly three hundred and thirty feet across and stood sixty-five feet tall, built from dense, blast-resistant compacted soil reinforced with steel rebar. These multi-tiered structures were engineered to withstand direct assaults from Level 3 mutant beasts. They served as fortified outposts for harvesting squads, roaming traders, and wilderness bounty hunters.

The truck came to a halt in the camp’s central yard. The driver lowered the tailgate with a clatter. "End of the line! Everyone out!"

Thalia jumped down onto the packed soil, pulling her backpack straps tight against her shoulders.

Around her, the weary scavengers began dispersing across the dusty yard. Many of them carried faded canvas tarps, staking them down between wooden posts near the perimeter wall. The warm season had arrived, meaning cold winds would not kill those sleeping outside, but swarms of venomous mosquitoes and mutant gnats infested the night air. Anyone without shelter risked waking up covered in toxic welts or parasite bites.

A few penniless scavengers simply curled up against the base of the wall, using their collection sacks as pillows.

Thalia shook her head. Sleeping in the open yard was out of the question. She had just reached eighteen, and traveling as a solo female harvester in a lawless border camp invited predatory eyes. An exposed camp spot was an open invitation for theft or worse.

She raised her left wrist and tapped the screen of her smartwatch.

Her remaining credit balance displayed in small green numbers: 512 points.

It was enough to rent a small, private room inside one of the circular fortresses for a night or two.

Thalia looked toward the towering earthen walls of the nearest structure. With her awakened Harvesting Ability, identifying safe, low-contamination mutant plants would be far easier than it was for ordinary scavengers. Once she took her first field contract tomorrow, she could gather valuable specimens, sell them to the camp merchants, and replenish her funds.

She took a deep breath of the wilderness air, stepped past the row of tents, and headed toward the fortress entrance.