by Katie French
He stepped forward and took her hand. Her skinny legs shook as she slowly pushed up from her squat into a crouch. She let him help her, but the minute she was on her feet, she pulled her hand away. Ever since she woke up, she’d been like that, looking at him like he was planning to take something from her the minute her back was turned. He’d done anything and everything she’d asked, but it wasn’t enough.
They walked silently back to the truck. The day was hot as blazes, and the sun felt like needles burying themselves into his flesh. Nolan had lost some of his tan from working inside the Breeders’ hospital, but he was still a sun-kissed brown. Kindy, on the hand, was the color of cream and already had a bloom of red on her nose and cheeks.
They’d spend the middle of the day sweating in the shade of the truck’s cab. Tonight, they’d drive south. Toward the place Sam said might exist.
The whole idea of it twisted Nolan’s insides.
But what choice did he have? He couldn’t go home. Not ever. The Breeders would kill him for taking the girl. Kindy would have to go back into that awful Plan-B room where comatose women slept on while hospital-made babies grew in their bellies.
Nolan had nightmares about that place. He would for many nights to come.
“Why’d you go so far to… er… relieve yourself?” he asked as they slowly climbed the cactus-spotted ridge. Anything to break the tense silence.
She ignored his question, groaning. “I now own one pair of extra-baggy panties; one hospital gown made of see-my-ass-thin cotton; one pair of men’s boots; and one useless body.” She patted her distended stomach. “So really, only the boots are of use.”
What should he say? The only other woman he’d ever spoken to was Dr. Nessa, and she was terrifying.
Although, in her own way, Kindy was, too.
“You shouldn’t go off alone,” he finally said. “You could run into trouble.”
“Trouble?” She laughed, but it was a joyless sound. “I’ve been rescued from the most-powerful organization in the known world by a sixteen-year-old kid. We’re almost out of water, we have nowhere to go, and did I mention I have a dead fetus inside me?” She yelled the last bit. “Let’s find that damn snake and release me from my misery.”
God, she made him feel small. He squared his shoulders. “It’ll be fine. I know where we’re going.”
He walked the last few steps to the white Breeders’ truck, opened the passenger door, and grabbed the map Sam had so carefully procured for him. Procured was one of Nolan’s collected words. One he’d procured from Sam himself, God rest his soul.
When he held the map up to Kindy, she turned her blue eyes to the horizon. “You’ve shown it to me twice already.”
He bit his lip and opened the paper map once again, smoothing it out on the hood of the truck. He could feel the heat through the paper as he pointed to the archaic drawings of roads and towns, worn and crinkled from the hundred times Nolan had opened and closed it. Opened and closed. Opened and closed. Like if he opened it one more time, it would magically show them their destiny.
He angled the map toward her and jabbed it. “Here.”
“We’re driving in circles. We have two days of rations. Three days of water. We’re on the last tank of gas.” She lumbered around the truck. After she opened the passenger door, she hefted herself in and stared out the grimy windshield at the buttes that formed a bumpy border between dirt and sky. “Here would be as good a place as any,” she called out.
Through the window, he saw her open the glove compartment, pull out a brown liquor bottle, and frown as if it were far too light.
Nolan grabbed the map and got into the truck, watching her carefully. “I thought we talked about you drinking.”
“You talked about it,” she said, unscrewing the cap. She took a swig.
“I heard it isn’t good to drink when you’re…” His eyes trailed to her distended stomach.
“When I’m what?” She took another big pull from the bottle.
“With child,” he said in a whisper.
“Ha!” Her laugh startled him.
Nolan looked out the window. “A child is a gift from God.”
She drank again, scowling. “I don’t believe in your god.”
Nolan shrugged. “The child might.”
She put her lips to the bottle. Her face was hard, but he could see tears in her eyes. “The child,” she whispered into the mouth of the bottle, “is dead.”
Kindy
Nolan didn’t say anything. The map lay useless on his lap.
She’d been mean. Trying to quell her anger, Kindy picked up the map. “So, where are we?”
Nolan reached across and pointed. “We started here.” He pressed a finger to Albuquerque, the faded city at the heart of his precious map. It was chock full of veins running in all directions. So many roads out from it.
“I think we’ve driven about two hundred miles.” He inched his fingers down the line winding south. “We’re right about here.” He stopped at the word Socorro.
“And all this empty space is desert,” she said, eyeing the map.
He nodded. “But the Rio Grande is around here somewhere. If we can find it, we’ll have water.”
“What makes you think it still runs?” she asked. “This map is, what, a hundred years old?”
Nolan shrugged. “Sam gave it to me.”
Kindy snorted. The booze was making her head light and her mouth loose.
“What’s funny?” Nolan asked, his face tightening.
Kindy looked away. “Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“I know your friend was some kind of saint, but was he the one who concocted this wonderful plan?”
A slow blush traveled up Nolan’s neck. His words came out slow and controlled. “I don’t want you to talk about Sam.”
Watching his eyes for a moment, she noted the gathering of tears he would not let flow. She wanted another drink. “We travel on the last wishes of a dead man? That doesn’t seem like the best—”
Nolan banged his fist on the dash. “He died for you!”
She stared angrily out the windshield. Finally, she said, “I didn’t ask to be saved. My mother…”
“What?” he asked.
Kindy looked down. She didn’t know this boy, and she certainly wasn’t about to tell him her secrets. “Nothing.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
Jerking her head up, she stared hard into his face. “Because all that time you were watching me, constructing some personality for me, I had nothing to do with it. Did it ever cross your mind that I didn’t want to be saved?”
His jaw dropped. “Y-yes you did. You asked for help. And we did. And Samuel died because of it.” He yanked open the truck door.
She held out her hand. “Nolan.”
He stopped, one hand on the truck door. His breath was coming in gulps.
She knew his anger, had felt it when they wheeled her mother down to Plan B because she had the nerve to help Kindy avoid rape at the hands of one of the doctors. The rage she felt then—when orderlies had held her to the ground and then Tased her, dragging her twitching body across the tile floor—that rage could’ve started a hundred fires. It could’ve leveled whole cities. And yet, she could do nothing with the fire in her heart. She kept it burning, feeling it eat through every good thing she’d ever stored there until she was hollow ash.
If she was a bitch, she had good reason. Mother was gone. She was back at Plan B or dead. But now Kindy would never know, would she? Nolan had stolen her only chance at finding her mother. The only person who’d ever loved her. And there was no turning back.
Nolan continued to stare like he could read her thoughts, like he was waiting for her to explain everything. But if she did, she’d have to remember it. Relive it.
She looked at the tattered hem of her hospital gown and picked sarcasm instead. “Get some more booze while you’re out.”
He slammed the door and stormed off in
to the desert.
Nolan
She was beyond impossible.
This… Kindy… was a spoiled, selfish monster. Why he’d ever cared about her, he didn’t know. Sam had given his life for this… this witch. And now he was stuck with her.
He stumbled over a ridge, his head swimming with heat and anger. The temperature had to be in the nineties without a cloud in sight. No wonder the Breeders chose banishment as their favorite form of punishment. Out here in the desert, a person would wish someone had gunned them down instead.
His throat felt like a raw wound, his skin blistering. There was the shade of the truck, but then he’d have to share it with her.
And Nolan couldn’t stand to look at her face anymore.
He kicked at a rock with his steel-toed boot and watched it skitter until it rolled under a boulder. Keeping his head down, he trod on, not really knowing where he was going, the sun baking the skin on the back of his neck.
Soon enough, he noticed a smell drifting on the wind. Something… reedy and wet. His head picked up. He ran up the sandy ridge in front of him, excitement building.
When he found it, all Nolan could think about was the look on Kindy’s face when he showed her.
He tore the few miles back to the truck, gasping and sweating, but not caring because he was so elated. When he got there and yanked the door open, the noise woke Kindy with a start. She sat up in a panic. “What is it?”
“Put your boots on!” He shut his door, walked around, and opened hers. “Come on.”
“If this is a wild goose chase—”
“Angel, just get out of the damn truck.” His heart was pounding. He’d carry her if she wouldn’t make the journey.
She sighed, her breath smelling like rotting fruit. “For the last time, my name is Kindy.”
“Kindy,” he said. “Please.”
She stuffed her feet into the too-big boots and let him help her out of the truck.
He held her hand until she pulled away. She was always giving him that look that said—I don’t trust you. But it would change after she saw this.
He strode ahead a few steps and then circled back for her. Night was falling. The heat seeped into the ground, and the animals were beginning to peek heads out of nooks and crannies. Twice he offered his hand. Twice she refused.
“If I help you up the ridge, we can go faster,” he said.
She took another laboring step. “I don’t want help,” she said. “What I want is another bottle of gin.”
Using his height, he peered over the rise of dirt and scrub brush ahead. “We’re almost there.”
“There better be a spa over that ridge.”
Nolan just smiled.
When they crested the hilltop, a swatch of green nearly blinded them. The ground sloped to a green valley. A river, brown and burbling, cut through. The water foamed white as it tumbled over hidden rocks below the surface. It had been wider and louder than he’d expected. The constant rush of water made him thirsty.
It was glorious.
Nolan turned to see Kindy’s expression as she took it in. All the meanness and pain was washed away. She was once again restored to the beauty he’d first seen in the hospital—cherry-red lips, pink cheeks, and delicate features. He fought the urge to hug her.
“See. I told you I’d find it.” Joy bubbling over, he gave in to his urge, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Come on.”
He took her arm and led her down the hill. But in his excitement, he went too fast. She stumbled on weak legs and began to fall. Nolan held her to him.
“Are you okay?” His skin hummed with the sensation of her skin on his. How long had it been since someone had touched him? Someone who loved instead of hurt? Dah may have clapped him on the back from time to time, but he’d stopped once the cough came.
She pulled away from him, swaying a little before steadying herself. Nolan held his hands out like a nanny ready to catch a wobbly toddler. Giving him a withering glance, she snapped, “I’m fine.”
She walked down the ridge alone to prove it.
Kindy
He strode ahead a few steps before coming back to her. Like a faithful Labrador who wanted nothing more than to please, to fetch. She half expected him to stop and take a pointer’s stance.
What was that show Fawn was always watching at the hospital? Lassie? Nolan was like Lassie. Fawn would grab Kindy’s arm and point at the grainy TV screen.
Where did all the dogs go, K? she would whine. Did they die off like us? Why can’t we have dog Breeders like we have human Breeders? I’d kill for a dog.
Kindy had eyed one of the orderlies lurking in a back corner, watching Fawn like she was a delicious morsel he couldn’t wait to roll around in his mouth. The dogs are better off dead, she’d said.
Fawn had put her hand on Kindy’s arm. Can you imagine what it would be like to have something always looking out for you, looking at you with those big, loving eyes?
Yes, she could imagine.
When she’d first seen the river and the spread of lush green, well, she couldn’t help herself. She’d smiled. It was so beautiful.
“Come on,” he said, waving. “I’ll help you.”
She pulled away as he reached for her. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
His smile fell.
Christman Jesus, what was wrong with her? Why did she treat this boy like he was a bedpan and it was her turn to clean? Every time he offered her something, joy in his eyes, she batted it away. It was the worst kind of cruel. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Mother. Was she still down there in the dark basement, half alive, decaying, hoping Kindy would save her?
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook the image away.
They walked to the river, a silent awe falling between them. The air was fresher here, cooler. Kindy shook her feet out of her boots and stepped over the sharp rocks.
The water on her toes was colder than she expected.
Suddenly, her throat ached for a drink.
“Is it safe?” She looked at Nolan. “To drink?”
He shrugged, then nodded. “Safer than dying of thirst.”
She leaned down and scooped water into her hands.
The first drink was delicious.
Night was falling. They had built a small fire on the soft earth beside the river. The grass rustled in the wind, and the frogs were singing.
“What was the hospital like?” Nolan asked. He was lying on his side on the riverbank. The fire softened his features.
“I was asleep for the last part of it. So pretty damn boring.” Kindy splayed her feet out in front of her and rubbed at her legs. How long before her muscles came back?
Nolan playfully tossed a twig at her. “Not that part. Before. You weren’t always asleep in that room, were you?”
“No,” she said, “I had a life before Plan B.”
She looked up at the blanket of stars. They were so clear without the hospital’s artificial lights. She’d always thought the world would spring into focus the farther from the Breeders’ she got.
“I think that’s what makes Plan B so terrifying,” she finally said. “It isn’t the sleeping forever part. It’s knowing all you’ll miss. The people you won’t be able to see.” Why was talking about the hospital? She’d been trying to forget.
Nolan sucked in a breath. He used his poking stick to scatter the burning brush around. “That’s awful.”
Kindy shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now. You were a janitor or something?”
“Yes. Very glamourous.” When he smiled, his teeth were white, which was odd for a townie. “My dah was… sick. I went to the Breeders to earn enough money to save him.” The smile faded.
“Did you?”
He looked at her. “Hmm?”
“Save him?”
Nolan shook his head.
Kindy turned her eyes away. “I guess we’re the same in that.”
“Your parents… Do hospital girls
have parents?”
“Everyone has parents,” she said, tossing a twig on the fire. “My mother protected me. Kept me safe for years. But then, they took her to Plan B.” Her mother had been in Plan B for almost nine months, but Kindy had only been awake for a few weeks of that time. The wound was fresh, so why was she digging at it?
“She was in Plan B, too? Wow.” He reached for her hand, gave it a squeeze, and let go. Nolan was always doing that, trying to comfort her. He was one of those people who thought human touch helped others.
Kindy wiped her face, though it was dry of tears. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s okay, you know, to talk about things. It helps.”
She didn’t answer.
“Okay, well, I’m going to check on the truck and get supplies. It’ll be nice to sleep here tonight.”
She nodded. When he walked up the ridge, she was grateful to be alone. Grief made her more venomous than normal, and she didn’t want to bite Nolan. Not any more than she already had.
Kindy curled up on the riverbank and looked at the stars. There were so many. Her eyes closed, and the world was gone.
And thank goodness, she didn’t dream.
She woke in a panic. Every time she slept, it was like this. A brutal loss of consciousness followed by a startling awakening. She clutched her pounding heart and sat up.
In the gray light of predawn, she looked around. She noted the dying fire and the burbling river. But where was Nolan?
Kindy called his name. Nothing.
She stood and searched for signs of him. There was no indication anything had been touched since she fell asleep. Had he been gone all this time?
She walked down to the river and scanned it, her sense of unease growing. The rushing water and the bank showed no sign of him.
Had he slept in the truck? Had something happened to him? She would absolutely die if Nolan left her. There was no question of that. He was not the type of man to abandon someone. Nolan was a white knight. A saving grace. He wouldn’t leave.
But she’d been nothing but cruel. Maybe he’d realized just how easy it would be without her.