by G. C. Julien
So, I get why these women are all riled up. They’ve been brainwashed into believing all the horrific campaigns operated under President Price’s rulership. He even made announcements online about how pit bulls were Satan’s creations, and how the world would be a better place without them. He made some pretty similar comments about Rottweilers and Dobermans, but pit bulls got the shittiest end of the stick.
“What’s going on here?” comes Vrin’s voice.
She stares at the women, then follows their hateful eyes to Justice.
“If you have any concerns, please direct them to me,” she says, though I can hear the frustration in her voice. “Lockjaw’s a myth, and so is aggression, so unless there’s anything else you’d like to discuss, I’m going to assume this matter is resolved.”
She reaches for Justice and scratches her behind the ear, and it flaps up and down.
“You’re a good man, Gabriel,” she says.
Not knowing how to respond to that, I nod and focus my attention on Justice.
“Seat belts on,” Vrin shouts all of a sudden. “Takeoff is to commence in five minutes.”
Resting my head against the chair’s headrest, I suck in a long breath.
There’s no reason to panic. There’s no reason to panic. There’s no reason to panic.
God, I hate being like this. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. The flight here lasted all of fifteen minutes. I can handle another fifteen minutes again to get back to Area 82. It was shitty and stressful, but I survived. I’ll survive this, too.
I’m about to close my eyes again when I see a young girl sitting a few aisles ahead of me. She’s turned sideways, talking to someone I assume is a friend, so I can see her perfectly. Her hair, a mess of chestnut brown and frizzy waves, hangs over one shoulder, making her already pale skin look even paler.
Why does she look so familiar? I don’t know this kid. But she looks like Castor. A lot. She has the same nose, only much smaller and more feminine-looking, the same thick brown eyebrows, the same soft round jaw.
I swallow hard at the thought of Castor.
* * * * * *
“Hands over your head!”
I’m already on my knees, but I do as told and slowly raise my hands above my head.
“State your name!”
“Rodriguez,” I say. “Gabriel Rodriguez.”
I look up at the guy holding the gun, who jerks it in the air the moment we make eye contact. He reminds me of those over-the-top soldiers, the ones who feel the need to yell every few minutes. His head is shaved, though not cleanly and which is no doubt due to the conditions out here. His eyes, two sparkling blue dots, sit in the middle of his acne-scarred skin which is now red from all the yelling. It’s obvious he’s the one leading the group, and it’s also obvious he’s the last person who should be leading the group.
“You armed, Gabriel?” he asks.
I nod. I’m not going to lie to the guy. Who isn’t armed out here? If I say I’m not and he finds out later, he’ll kill me. That’s how it works in the wild. The part that pisses me off is that I’ve managed to keep under the radar for the last four or so years. Why was I found now? Did I get sloppy? I’m kneeling in a pile of debris alongside an abandoned school.
Guess I wasn’t the only one who thought of looting this place.
He jerks his head sideways, which is obviously translation for Search him, and three of his guys start poking and prodding me. They pull my pistol out of my ankle holster, remove my knife from my belt, and even find the small knife I have tucked inside of my boot.
Goddamn bastards.
“I’m Adam, by the way,” says the guy with the gun. “That right there’s Masterson, McGaver, and Castor. The rest of my boys are waiting in the woods. You’re with us, now. And if you try to run”—he swings his rifle from side to side—“you can expect a bullet in the back of your skull.”
Great.
So now I’m basically a prisoner. I don’t bother making eye contact with the men circling me. I don’t give a shit who they are. But then, one of them taps me on the arm and whispers, “Sorry about this.”
It’s that Castor guy, and he’s looking at me with slanted eyebrows and big doughy eyes. A dark messy beard masks most of his face, and when he opens his mouth again, a rotten smell comes out. “You’ll adjust.”
Was he taken against his will, too? He seems like a decent guy, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like him.
Adam whips his gun over his shoulder, and with a deep, authoritative voice, says, “Let’s go, boys!”
A nasty feeling sinks in my stomach.
I don’t like any of these guys.
* * * * * *
I wish I’d known back then how good of a guy Castor was. Instead, I bunched him in with the rest of those pricks and only got to know the real Castor months later. He was a good guy. A great guy, even, and it’s my fault he’s dead. If I hadn’t run out into the field to save that woman, to confront Adam and his goons head-on, maybe Castor would still be around.
I should’ve planned the attack better.
But then again, I didn’t have the time. The woman was being raped. I couldn’t stand around and let that happen.
I miss Castor. It’s easier not to think about the people I miss, but he gave me hope. He reminded me of the good men—it was hard to remember they existed when I was around Adam every day.
Now, I’m staring at a spitting image of him.
I reach into the pocket of my cargo pants and pull out the keychain Castor used to carry around with him all the time. It’s silver, oval-shaped, and has a capital E engraved at the very center. Although it took him awhile to finally open up about it, he’d told me it belonged to his daughter.
The plane’s engines kick in all of a sudden, and I lean back into my chair, fingers wrapped tightly around the armrests.
It’ll be over soon. There’s no reason to be scared. You’re a goddamn marine. Toughen up.
“Prepare for takeoff,” comes a voice over the plane’s speakers, and within seconds, we start floating up into the air.
It’s smooth and balanced, which makes me feel even dumber. This is one of the softest plane rides I’ve ever been on.
With my thumb, I wipe off the sweaty fingerprints I’ve left on the keychain. Am I imagining things? No way that girl is Castor’s daughter. That’s ridiculous. He even admitted to me there was a chance she wasn’t alive.
I’m sure some kids look like me, too. That doesn’t make them mine.
Closing my eyes, I draw in a deep breath. Now, all I can see is Castor’s goofy face.
“Told you it wasn’t bumpy,” I hear.
I crack my eyes open again to find that same young girl smiling from ear to ear.
Jesus.
She looks even more like him when she smiles.
She pokes at the other girl beside her, which I’m assuming is her way of teasing her about the plane ride.
The other girl, the one with the long red hair, slaps her friend’s hand away and says, “Stop it.”
The Castor look-alike reaches down and tickles her friend’s side.
The redhead laughs and squirms, then in a loud choppy voice, says, “Emily, stop it!”
My stomach sinks.
CHAPTER 15 – LUCY
“Okay, okay,” Emily says, raising two hands by her face. “I’ll stop.”
“Someone’s feeling better,” I say.
She’s probably still feeling like crap, but I think all of the excitement—being on this plane, being around new faces, and heading toward new territory—is getting her all worked up. She’s hyper, and I haven’t seen Emily hyper in forever.
“You think they’ll be like us?” Emily asks.
I’m not sure what she’s referring to when she says us, so I cock an eyebrow and wait for clarification.
“You know, like us. What if they’re all military kids? What if they’ve been trained to be like robots?” She leans in closer, and
the smell of an empty stomach combined with sickness makes me pull away. “Will we get along with the kids our age? Well, if there are kids our age.”
I shake my head. She’s talking to me as if I have all the answers. I don’t know any more than she does and I think she realizes this. She sits up in her seat and breathes out.
“I hope it’s better than where we were before.”
I’m about to say, Me too, but I immediately think of Nola and twirl in my seat, frantically searching the plane.
Where is she? My heart picks up in pace.
Oh God. I was so preoccupied with the puppy, and with Emily, that I forgot to find Nola. She came on board, right? And then, as if having tuned into a specific radio wave frequency, I overhear a conversation behind me.
“It was her decision, Asha. You couldn’t have done anything to make her follow.”
The other woman whose face I can’t see lets out a muffled whimper and sniffles.
“Shhh, it’s okay.”
Who are they talking about? I’ve never heard the name Asha before, so I’m certain they aren’t talking about Nola. I’d have known if Nola had a friend named Asha.
“What’s up with you?” Emily asks.
“D-Did some people stay… stay behind?” I ask.
She must think I’ve lost my mind with my wide eyes, agitated motions, and choppy speech. But I can’t help myself. I’m downright freaking out. Why would she do this? Nola wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t stay behind without at least telling me.
What if she did try telling me, but couldn’t find me? My palms and the back of my neck get clammy.
“Um, yeah, I think so,” Emily says. “I saw a few women hugging goodbye and crying like they were being separated forever. But that was their choice. No one forced them to stay there.”
Oh my God.
“Oh, shut your flipper floppin’ trap!” I hear. “That ain’t true. Never was, never will be!”
Mavis’s familiar voice soothes me, but only for a second. She’s swatting at the air a few rows down from me, glaring at a woman across from her and pointing a crooked finger in her face.
Beside her, Perula sits quietly, eyes rolling and head shaking. They resemble two witches in this crowd. Especially Perula, who’s wearing a black beanie hat that’s obviously far too big for her head. It’s folded at the top and hangs halfway down her face.
Mavis, on the other hand, couldn’t wear a hat if she wanted to. Her hair, a tangled mess, sits atop her head like dried tumbleweed.
If Mavis and Perula are here, where’s Nola?
I can’t do this without her.
* * * * * *
I lift my fist to knock on Aunty Eve’s door, but I stop before I hit the wood.
She’s crying.
Why’s Aunt Eve crying? I was mad at her for telling me not to call her Aunty Eve, but it still makes me sad to know she’s sad. All I wanted to do was come see her. Maybe she’ll say sorry for the hurtful things she said to me when we first got here at this Eden place. She has to say sorry. I need her. I don’t know if I’ll be okay without her.
That Nola lady said she’d take care of me, but it’s not the same. Aunty Eve is like family. Mom always says… said Aunty Eve is like a sister to her. That’s why I call her Aunty Eve. She’s my aunt. Kind of. Mom says… said that Aunty Eve is my godmother. I didn’t know what that was at first, but now I understand. Now that Mom isn’t around, I understand what she meant when she said, “Honey, if anything ever happens to me, Aunty Eve will be the one to look after you, okay?”
She’d brushed her hand along the side of my face and I almost started crying. I was five or six at the time, and I didn’t understand what Mom meant when she said, “If anything ever happens to me.”
Or, maybe I didn’t want to understand. But now, Mom’s gone, and Aunty Eve needs to keep her promise. She needs to be my godmother and she needs to take care of me.
“Oh God, Ophelia,” I hear through the door.
I feel like I’m going to throw up. Why’s she saying my mom’s name like that? It hurts me to hear my mom’s name. I’m not ready to hear it. It makes me miss her even more, and I don’t know how that’s possible since I miss her so much already.
I take a step closer to the door and press my face on it so I can hear better. Aunty Eve sounds like she’s going crazy. She keeps making weird hiccup noises and then talking to herself. I think she’s crying really hard. It makes me feel like I have a frog in my throat. At least that’s how Mom used to describe that feeling before you cry. It used to make me giggle… picturing a frog wiggling around in my throat. But now that I know the feeling, it isn’t so funny.
It’s not a nice feeling at all.
“I-I’m so sorry, Ophelia. Oh God, what have I done?”
What’s she talking about? It isn’t her fault Mom’s gone. I guess it’s like when Fuzzy died. Fuzzy was my cat. A big fat orange cat. Mom kept saying sorry to me while I cried, but I knew it wasn’t her fault. Maybe that’s what Aunty Eve’s doing now. She doesn’t seem to know what else to say, so she says sorry.
I feel bad spying on her now that I know she’s crying, so I take a step back and start walking away from her room. Maybe in a few days, I’ll come back. I’ll try again and see if she can be my godmother, like Mom wanted.
* * * * * *
My hands begin to tremble as I claw at my seat belt.
I need to get up—I need to search this plane until I find Nola. The moment I unlatch the seat belt’s clasp, the military woman’s voice carries throughout the plane. “Listen up, everyone. Please make sure your seat belts are fastened. We’ll be landing in approximately five minutes.”
Turning my head slowly, I realize I’m not the only one who wants out of my seat. Kids are stirring, forcing their mothers and guardians to discipline them. At least the mothers aren’t dealing with toddlers anymore. Eden’s youngest children—the ones who arrived as babies—are all young kids now. I can’t even imagine how hard it was on the mothers to migrate a bunch of babies and toddlers.
“Lucy!” Emily shouts as I get up.
“Excuse me!” comes that military woman’s voice, but instead of turning around, I ignore her and march my way toward the back of the plane.
“Nola?” I ask, swaying my head in every direction. “Nola? Where are you?”
Instead of Nola’s face, all I receive are slanted eyebrows and wide glossy eyes. The women must know how much I’m panicking, and instead of doing anything about it, they sit there, feeling bad for me. It’s as if they know something I don’t—they know Nola stayed behind and they’re too afraid to be the ones to break the news to me. Or, maybe that’s me being paranoid again. Maybe they don’t know anything at all, and they’re simply feeling some empathy for me given my anxious state.
“Nola!”
This time, my voice carries all the way down the plane
“Honey… Sweetheart,” says a sweet-looking woman. She looks old enough to be my grandma with her round glasses, large veiny nose, and curly white hair atop her head. The only difference between her and Grandma is that she has what looks like a snake tattoo running down her neck. It’s withered and blue-looking, but at some point in her life, this woman must have looked pretty badass. “Are you talking about Nola the nurse?”
I’m scared to answer her. I’m afraid that if I tell her yes, she’ll tell me Nola stayed behind. But even though my lips remain sealed, my head starts nodding on its own as if disconnected from my brain.
“Nola’s on the second level, love. She’s with Dr. Lewis, tending to those who are severely sick.”
I follow her eyes to where a metallic gray ceiling sits overhead. Upstairs? What’s she talking about? She must sense my confusion; she smiles, her pale lips looking like dead skin, and points at the far corner of the plane. “There’s a door on your right. The stairwell leads to the second floor.”
A second floor.
Of course.
Why didn’t I think of this? I sa
w how big this plane was. I should have assumed. I should have—
But then a vibration tickles the underneath of my feet, and the women around me start telling me to sit down. The plane must be landing, but it isn’t the kind of landing I’d have expected. It’s smooth—so smooth, in fact, that I don’t understand why we were asked to sit down and wear our seat belts.
I glance back toward the front of the plane to catch the military woman glaring at me. It isn’t a mean glare, but it’s enough to make me realize that my disobedience is being noticed. She crosses her arms over her chest and raises one eyebrow as if to say, Do I really have to repeat myself?
Although I want to rush upstairs to find Nola, this older woman’s affirmation is enough to comfort me. Besides, first impressions only happen once, and I get the feeling this woman’s some sort of boss at the new place.
The last thing I want to do is piss off the big boss.
So I spot the nearest empty seat and plop myself down into it like a stubborn child told to go on a timeout.
The moment I click my seat belt in, the girl sitting next to me nudges me in the ribs as if we’re long-lost friends. I’ve seen her around, and we’re around the same age, but I’ve never actually spoken to her. She grins from ear to ear, her heavily freckled face inches from mine and her narrow, button nose barely visible this close to my face.
I instinctively pull away, which seems to make her want to move closer.
“Did you hear?” she asks, her sour breath making me tighten my lips.
She’s so animated that if I didn’t know any better, I’d think someone told her that this new place has an indoor amusement park. I don’t say anything. I get the feeling she’s chatty—like, super chatty. If I open the floodgates, I’m done for.