The outsider, p.1
The Outsider, page 1
The Outsider
Book One
S. Renea
Copyright © 2024 by S. Renea
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact author.s.renea@gmail.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by K.B. Barrett Designs
First edition January 2024
Playlist
"Outsider" – Rachel Grae
"A Thousand Years" – Christina Perri
"I Found" – Amber Run
"Fading Through" – Vancouver Sleep Clinic
"Lost" – Liza Anne
"Fear of the Water" – SYML
"The Fault in Our Stars" – Troye Sivan
"I Can't Make You Love Me" – The March Ahead
"Oceans Apart" – Secret Nation
"Ocean Eyes" – Billie Eilish
"Who Are You" – Aquilo
"White Blood" – Oh Wonder
"Anchor" – Novo Amor
"In My Veins" – Andrew Belle
"Already Gone" – Sleeping At Last
"Heart Like Yours" – Willamette Stone
"Haze" – Amber Run
"Forget I Exist" – Sam MacPherson
"You're Somebody Else" – flora cash
"Heal" – Tom Odell
Content Warnings
This book contains content that could possibly be triggering to some readers, including, but not limited to, depictions of and references to death, sexual themes, graphic depictions of violence/murder, and explores other adult content.
Please take this into careful consideration before reading. Your mental health matters.
(P.S. If you are my family reading this and choosing to ignore my remarks 'To not read,' then this is your reminder to never mention any of the spicy scenes at any holiday ever. Book? What book? I didn't write a book.)
To the ones who believed in me even when I couldn't believe in myself.
Prologue
The world was once a brutal place.
At least that’s what they told me. Society wasn’t the same, a once happy place was now barren and devoid of life. After the wars, the land changed. People turned on each other, creatures mutated into beasts humankind had never witnessed, and the entire world blew into anarchy. It was a place of terror and hate. A place that still stained the streets I walked down.
It had been a century ago, yet they had rebuilt. A place that was pristine and untarnished from the sin of the world. White streets. White walls. White uniforms of the guard. They patrolled the streets as if we could be invaded at any time. But it was impossible. The Inside was made to be protected from the rest of the world. This sector was built with everything in mind. A dome above us to regulate the air into a safe, always clear atmosphere, walls that stretched on for miles that were impenetrable from the amount of guards that always sat atop the guard towers, and the gene.
The gene is what makes us safe. At least that’s what my parents had always told me. Given to us at birth and implanted into our system, the gene is what made us, us. Binding us to our soulmate in a way that past generations would never be able to understand. The gene was what gave us purpose. A purpose to be a good citizen for your person so we could survive together. Bound by the same scars, the same pain, and the same trauma. Our soulmate was given to us when we were ready to respect what it meant. When we were ready to accept the fact that we would forever be bound to this person for our entire life. When we were ready to know what it meant to be loved without any obligations. Our soulmate was ours from the moment we understood the laws of our society. Until we were able to understand the importance of it. The safest implementation after the War.
And yet here we were.
My father held tightly onto my arm to keep me from falling as we stumbled through town square. For a gene that was meant to keep me safe from the impurities of the world, it was the same gene that was slowly killing me. Tearing me apart from the inside out, ripping away every ounce of the civil life we had tried to lead on the Inside.
I wanted to rely on the truth that the gene was what saved society. It had only brought good upon everyone I knew. The gene was what stopped the world from its destruction, tying people together in an unconventional way. Yet it worked. People stopped killing each other over the simplicities of life, pulling people together as one in order to rebuild and strive for a future where they could raise the future generations. After all the violence, they learned to love each other again. No one was willing to risk their own life for their soulmate’s. It was a give and take.
Yet it seemed that the only soulmate who wasn’t interested in the survival of their own, was mine.
Fire swam through my veins and threatened to ignite all of me. The pain was intense and unforgiving, and while my father was worried about my own wellbeing, all I could think about was his. My soulmate. The man genetically engineered to be mine in every sense.
All I could think of was what caused this pain. His pain. Just like every time my father and I were ushered down the streets of our sector and into the hospital. There were so many unanswered questions. So many concerns of whether or not he would be okay. I would be. There was no question of whether or not my wounds would heal, especially with the advancements of technology that the Inside had access to. But he was different. The Outside was different.
And that’s where we assumed he was.
Caught up in the world that had become a barbaric wasteland. That’s where the Rogues went after the War, the people who wouldn’t conform back to our civilized way of living. They were too used to having no rules, nobody to tell them when to stop. They wanted more than what the new government could give them, so they were outcast to the Outside. But that’s what he was. An outcast. A barbarian.
An Outsider. My Soulmate.
Chapter one
Nova
He was beautiful.
His skin was covered in scars, telling me a story of war as they slithered along his body. I could tell the places the sun had touched, kissing his skin in ways I only dreamed of. Kissing stories and whispering tales along his skin and finding the most hidden of secrets blessed upon his shoulders. Ink stained his skin, the coloring deep and dark, dotting along arms and legs and spine and chest. A storybook I wanted to read every day for the rest of my life. Wanted to trace with my hands and memorize every ounce of him. He was stunning. In every way. And he was mine.
“Nova,” I turned away from the glass window separating us, my gaze finding my father who had let me admire the man in silence. He was worried. As fathers would be. He was twisting the wedding band around the chain hanging along his neck, a clear sign of his anxious tendencies. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I took in a deep breath as I turned back to look into the room he was in, placing my hand against the cool glass and savoring the feel of it under my fingertips. They had caged him. Made him out to seem like an animal. Yet I suppose in some sense, that’s all he would ever be to them.
He wore nothing but a single piece of fabric that brushed in between his thighs with each movement he made across the room. A loin cloth. I believe they were called. There had been articles from the past that had once included photos of the materials. Barbaric in nature, but something that the Outsiders had acquired throughout history. Every book I had picked up to study what he may be, or may look like was slowly disappearing though. Especially as I watched him from so close. Every image, every drawing, every single thought of what he may look like was gone though. In less than a second. He was real. No longer a thought. No longer an article. No longer research. He was real.
I watched as he bounded from one side of the room to the next, yanking on the door handle with such force that the metal frame shook with each pull. He pounded his fists on the glass, finding himself right in front of me, yet I didn’t flinch. Unlike Dr. Carter and my father, I was entranced by him.
Entranced by the blue eyes that stared into my soul. Even if the glass was one way, I knew he could sense eyes on him. He wasn’t stupid, not like they made him out to be. He was a warrior. A man who could fight his ways out of the pits of hell it seemed. And yet I wasn’t scared. Only taken aback by the beauty he held within his eyes.
“Dad, look at him,” I gestured towards the glass as he pulled away, watching the way his muscles tensed and rippled as he yanked on the door once more. “What do you see?” My voice broke a little as I glanced back towards my father, the tears beginning to form and slide down my cheeks.
I wanted to be strong. And I hated myself for crying, yet as always, my father was there to comfort me. He reached out, his hand stroking away the fallen tears as he spared me a smile. Even if it was forced, I knew he meant well. He always did. He had been with me through it all. Through every fight in the night and every hospital visit, he was there by my side. And now we could understand why.
He was an Outsider. A warrior among the outside walls. Twenty years. Twenty years of searching for a man whose scars matched mine, and we had finally found him. He was the missing part of me. Every ounce of pain that I had felt was etched into his skin as well, stories that I didn’t even know the meaning of yet. The I
The gene was meant to be a peaceful reminder. The others in our sector had nothing but scraped knees and maybe scars from tripping over their own feet, nothing like the scars we were botched with. Nothing like the pain we had endured. The scars that I couldn’t hide. The scars that twisted up my skin and were aching for months. No one could understand the pain I felt. No one except for this man. The one who had stained me in a life of foreign territory. No one except for my soulmate.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Carter drew my attention to him as he clapped his hands, a large grin taking up the majority of his face. He had been curious about my situation since the first bruise appeared on my skin, had been right there analyzing every detail since it began. He had been helpful in many ways, always making us the first priority in a lot of situations. And now, here we were.
Staring at a man I had waited my entire life to meet. I was excited, yet absolutely terrified. There was always a chance he wouldn’t accept me. A chance that he would react badly towards the knowledge of me and choose to abandon the truth if he didn’t understand. There was always a chance for the worst. But there was also a chance that he would accept me as one of his own. Bond with me over the simple fact that he was my soulmate and we were made for each other. But I had to take that leap to know.
My dad put his hand on my spine and ushered me behind Dr. Carter as he began to move. We followed behind him, yet all I could focus on was the ringing in my ears. I ran my hands over the top of my pants, swiping off the sweat that was beginning to form. The nerves were getting to me more than I thought they would. Yet there was no turning back now.
The metal door opened with the shifting of locks, the noise echoing loudly in the tight hallway. My knees began to shake, the blood rushing to flush my cheeks as it was opened slowly. We followed closely behind Dr. Carter until the door shut behind us with another audible shift of the locks. I was trying not to focus on the sounds, but they were ringing in the room. My own heartbeat was suddenly too loud. Especially as I caught the eyes of him.
I stared at him openly. Lips parted, eyes wide, and my lungs gasping for air in a suddenly too hot room. There he stood. And while he wasn’t as shocked as I was, I could see the sudden surprise on his rough features. He took me all in. Drinking in every bit of skin that was on display for him, his eyes following every path. My face, the knuckles of my hands, my neck. His eyes touched and stole every bit of me.
He reached up and let his fingers slide over the mangled side of his face, the same scar that mangled mine. The jagged scar fell from his temple and trailed down his nose, crossing over his high cheekbone, ending at his collarbone. It mirrored mine exactly.
I could see the confusion in his eyes, the bushy eyebrows drawing together as he kept touching the skin. We were one. And he could see that. Whether he wanted to or not.
He stepped forward and immediately the room got quiet, the only sound being his bare feet across the linoleum floors. His stride was long. Powerful, Assertive.
The officials that had followed us into the room stepped forward, ready to stop him in his tracks, yet before they could stop them, his hand was already on my cheek. I couldn’t breathe. Not when the touch of his skin was enough to send me spiraling. Not when his calloused hand was touching the scar so tenderly. Running one finger over the scar as his eyes traced every moment.
I watched Dr. Carter shoo the officials away with a wave of his hand, his eyes documenting every second the Outsider and I spent together. The curiosity. My escalated breathing. My flushed cheeks. He watched it all.
I closed my eyes as his fingers stroked the skin around my eyes before they brushed over my eyelids, trailing down my nose and to my lips before they fell to my neck. His touch was warm and calculated as he studied me, taking in all of me that matched him. I opened my eyes to stare back at him. To take him all in. To watch the fire burning within his eyes. He was confused. Intrigued. But then it seemed as if I had burned him.
He pulled away quickly, his eyes darting everywhere as if he understood now. As if he understood me. As if someone had told him all the secrets of our people in a mere second. He shook his head, the unruly hair of his being thrown in the air, his hands coming up to brush though it. He was mumbling something incoherent. Something that had the officials on edge and my father stepping to my side. I was confused at his actions, but if I had been thrown into a world I didn’t know, I would be too.
“We need you to calm down.” Dr. Carter held his hands up as if he were waving a white flag, stepping closer to him as if that would solve the confusion my soulmate felt. They thought he was a savage. A barbarian. They believed in the horror stories and rumors that kids used to spread behind closed doors. Horror stories of tainted Outsiders and wild beasts. And I could see by the way everyone stared at him that they believed them. They believed him to be anything but one of us.
“Take me back,” A brutal voice. A barbaric voice escaped his throat and bubbled up along mine. Suffocating me. Strangling me to the point where I stepped back against the door. There was a fire burning within his eyes. Yet this time, instead of the confusion. Instead of the shock. It was anger. A rage I’d never seen. A storm brewing in those oceans. Hurricanes spewing out and drowning us within this glass cage they had thrown him in. “I don’t belong here. Take me home.”
I wanted to ask him where home was. To ask him to take me there. Far away from the Inside walls. Far away from the suffocating interior that was my home. Far away from the people who strangled me with their eyes each time the sun met my skin. Take me home. His home was my home. I wanted to believe it. I ached for it even. Take me home away from here.
“We will return you as soon as you are able to understand.” Dr. Carter’s voice was patronizing. Like a teacher trying to teach an unruly student. Poison leaked from his lips and slid along the floor, breaking through the crevices. The poison from his lips flooded his bloodstream and pushed fire from his stormy eyes. We will burn. I wanted to scream, but I was silent. My palms were no longer sweating. My tongue was achingly dry. A desert I wished for the man with the ocean eyes to quench. Cracking. Longing.
“You do not understand who you are speaking to.” He spoke through clenched teeth, a wild look in his eyes. His chest heaved, his tattoos dancing with every breath. His scars giving orders to stand back. Storms met mine. His eyes held my gaze, beckoning me towards him, but I was shoved back with a singular breath. Pinned against metal. Unable to move. I was captivated.
“Just calm down.”
“I’m not your fucking experiment.” He hissed. His eyes darted to everyone in the room before they softened as they passed over me. Or maybe I thought they softened. Hoped was the correct word. I wasn’t quite sure. I wanted to believe he loved me. Right then and now. I ached for him to love me even. But I knew he wasn’t conditioned to love me. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. Not with his entire life outside the Wall.
“Let him leave.” My voice was paper within a room where everyone carried a sword. It waved and tried to stand but fell over and was stomped on by bleeding feet. Spat on by stormy weather. But it was heard. All eyes turned to me. My father’s hand grabbed my arm softly to try and pull me away from my crazy ideas, but I couldn’t turn away from him. I was completely captivated by him.
“Nova, I don’t think that’s–”
“I said let him leave,” My voice was a rock now. Cutting down and bending the same swords as I cut off Dr. Carter. I saw his face tighten, his eyes narrow. But he pinched the bridge of his nose and he nodded. I turned back to the man who stared at me. Curiosity. It was back again, swirling blue and with fire in his gaze. “Let me come with you.”
“No.”
“Nova, no.”
Both Dr. Carter and my father spoke over each other. A mixture of no’s but they both knew none of them mattered. It wasn’t their decision. I rarely spoke for myself in a society that was already programmed out for me. Safe walls. Safe laws. Everything was already predestined and laid out for me. But they knew nothing could stand in the way of this.
