SING.

When Girl busted in, shouting about that stupid mute’s great accomplishment, jealousy flared in my stomach, with an aftertaste of worry. I had never found an oasis; I had never even found a kind word to say unless it was to someone who had been with us over a month. And even then I was stoic as all hell to that newcomer; fresh meat was not something we needed in the desert. Nothing except for the enticing scent of lizard meat and burning nitro could tempt him into fresh meat. I was cajoled by Girl, she pushed me as best she could and I followed Battery, reluctantly dragging my boots across the Better Living soaked ground. It was odd how the dust settled over them differently than they did back in our old home. Back before it was blown to smithereens, that is.

I kept looking down, not willing to look at the traitor that was leading them to whatever salvation she might’ve found. At best it was probably a small spring. As soon as I realized we were out of ear shot, I spoke up, willing myself to be wrong, for Dr. D’s sake.

“So how did you find this ‘oasis’?” I asked as we neared the wall of the crater, where marks of recent climbing lay prominent in the dust. The wall of the crater was high and dangerous; I couldn’t believe she let a ten year old climb that. It was irresponsible, though that was not the problem of the moment.

The Monster casually leaned against the wall, taking off her jacket in preparation for the climb. She motioned for the note pad, which she had previously given to me. I handed it over, not being able to help but notice the very open sides of her shirt. I was a guy, so what? She was still a traitor.

The words she wrote were a surprise to me.

My parents had told me about the Better Living dumping sites, when I cried about them taking my guitar. This was right before they started giving pills to the general public, mind you. They told me that it was going to an oasis, and that it was going to a good place. This was the last comfort they gave me before the pills were issued. I knew that they weren’t lying, so don’t tell me I was wrong to look.

But they didn’t change my mind.

“You were wrong to look, you could have killed Motorbaby in that climb; it was a stupid and rash decision.” She looked down, clearly disappointed and scared at my tone. No wonder she was a spy, she let people walk all over her, making her the perfect cover.

Battery Monster was weak.

The traitor made a shrugging motion, as if she was trying to motion up a whatever-attitude, but her eyes remained downcast. We began our ascension up the wall of dust and rock. It wasn’t as arduous as I would have thought, but we all took different paths. I checked mine with my eyes to make sure there were plenty of handholds, Frank just hopped on and hoped his arms grew, and Battery took what looked like the one she had used before. We continued our climb; I looked down once or twice to see Battery staring at me with hurt in her eyes, she looked away as soon as she saw me. When I had reached the top and pulled myself over the ledge was when I heard a gasp of pain from below. I glanced downwards to see Battery holding onto a large hemorrhaging gash in her side. I winced in pain at how much that must’ve hurt, and, despite myself, gave her a hand getting over.

Once Frank managed his way up, he gave an inquisitive raised eyebrow at me wrapping Battery’s large wound. I shrugged, and we all stood up and turned around to see this so-called oasis.

It was beautiful, as Girl had described, the spring fell into two separate pools, and one flowed into the other lower pool as a waterfall. It was large enough for bathing, but there wasn’t quite enough shrubbery for privacy. The plants were all poisonous, so nothing would be coming here except for a drink. The rocks didn’t look circumspect as they were all large boulders, clearly there for centuries, near impossible for snakes to get underneath. I walked closer, trying not to look awestruck, and looked at the water. It was as clean as it could get in the desert, and the bottom of the water feature was clay, not sand, making it a lot safer to drink. There wouldn’t be water snakes in the desert, so that was fine.

It was almost ideal.

Now was the time, though. Now was the time when I found out the truth, when I saved our team from being destroyed from the inside out. Now was when I was the hero, the prodigy that kept us alive, as I had been previously.

“Frank, go tell Girl she made a good find, come back with the buckets.” BM stared open mouthed at me, clearly shocked that I could still hate her. Frank descended quietly and once I heard the scuffle of his boots away, I had it with her.

“Battery Monster, what are you? Are you a spy? Did you tell Korse my name?” I pushed her against the rocks, nearly pushing her into the water in my anger. She nodded her head in the negative, whimpering softly. Her blue eyes started to brim with liquid, but I had met better spies and better actors than her, I could break her down. It shouldn’t even take that long.

“Why did you befriend Girl? Are you trying to send her back home, huh?” I yelled in her ears, shoving her down flat on one of the rocks, holding her wrists above her head. BM squirmed in my grip, making her wound bleed anew. Good, she deserved it.

“No-o.” Her voice came out hoarse and gravelly, as if there were rocks and mountains where her voice box used to be. That meant she was an actual mute, not just a good actor, but it didn’t make her innocent.

Nothing would make her innocent. Nothing but the truth, and that was not what she was giving me right now.

“Did you spy on us?” I asked, letting go of her wrists, trying to calm myself down and go for a non-violent approach. My hands were shaking in anger, but I wasn’t going to hurt people to get information. That made me worse than Korse, that made me someone with a soul, that hurt people to get what they wanted.

She shook her head vigorously, splaying her hair about, and she also mouthed N-O-I-DID-NOT. BM even wagged her finger at me, gesturing in a way that spelled N-O. It was thorough, but my suspicion still nagged at me in the back of my mind.

“Are you using Dr. Death-Defying?” As soon as I asked that, Battery repeated the previous even more furiously.

“Speak. Speak to me and tell me why I shouldn’t kill you and say that we were ambushed by Dracs, tell me why you’re important to Dr. Death and how you’re going to keep us alive. Tell me how you’ve never spied on us and reported back to BL/ind.” She gaped, open mouthed at me, sitting on the rock and holding her injury to stop the bleeding. Taking a deep breath, Battery Monster tried to speak.

“A- I… loe,” That was clearly supposed to be love, “Yu, gays.” I would have burst out laughing if this wasn’t our livelihoods, our survival on the line, “Yoo, sabed mey.” I love you guys, you saved me? How was that an answer? Her lush lips parted as she looked at me expectantly for a reply. I couldn’t give the young girl one just yet.

She hadn’t lied, that much was for sure, but did that make her above suspicion? What if we had saved her from being a spy and they had tracked her GPS or something? Now I was just creating paranoid fantasies, but it was still a possibility.

For now, though, I had put her through enough. I ripped some fabric off of her the bottom of her shirt, it was too long anyways. I began to try and stop the immense blood that leaked from her laceration. This would require stitches. It extended upwards, sue to tearing, and blood seeped into the white of her exposed bra. There was something that wasn’t white on her bra that distracted me, though. A small black lighted transmitter was clipped to the underwire. I ripped it off, nicking her cut in the process, but I didn’t care. She was a spy.

I was right all along.

I pushed her struggling form off the rock and into the water, further eliminating any and all bugs, “Was this good for you? Was leading them to our home and letting them take it for their own what you consider fun?” I followed her in, pushing her face down into the liquid, hoping she stopped breathing, praying that she stopped breathing for what she did.

No.

I lifted her back up, pressing my lips to hers to make sure she was still breathing; I didn’t want to kill her. I wanted to let the Doctor rip her guts out when he found out. I wanted her to suffer.

That was when I realized my CPR wasn’t CPR anymore, it was a kiss: an anger-filled, tongued kiss. I was kissing the traitor and I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t help my hands going where they went.

I tore away from the passionate frenzy, only able to think:

What have I done?