She knew what I was going through, and there was nothing more I could have asked for in a friend.
Outside of my busy learning schedule, I spent most of my time with Nathaniel. It was clear, just by the way he interacted with those around him, that he had been here for the bulk of his 18 years of life and looked forward to being the next in charge. Though he never acted like this made him better than anyone else. Not even Gabby and I, the random uneducated girls who were almost dead when we had arrived.
Not that we were still in that state.
My sister and I had gained back a healthy amount of weight since our arrival, thanks to the steady meals designed especially to give us the nutrients we needed. I hadn't realised before just how thin we'd become living off the limited rations given to our government by Tikorania. I still had trouble accepting the amount of food they piled onto my plate each mealtime.
It seemed too much.
And I always felt guilty knowing that I'd left my mother and Rae to survive on so much less.
We were instructed to always carry a full bottle of water with us. The heat from above almost felt like it was cooking us down there, in that metal confinement. It wasn't particularly hot, so much as uncomfortably warm and stuffy. Humid. I refilled my bottle at the cafeteria every time I was able.
I was never really thirsty anymore, and the absence of hunger was a feeling I had yet to adapt to.
Nathaniel also managed to somehow end up sitting next to me at every meal I didn't share with my sister. Due to her training, her lunch and dinner times moved around a lot, and it wasn't uncommon for me to not see her again after breakfast until she was finished for the day. Considering how easy it was to rely on her always being there at home, and the added closeness we'd gained on our journey here, that was hard to get used to.
At first I'd thought that Nathaniel sat with me because he wanted to help me adapt to life in the underground. But as time went on it became clear that he just wanted sit with me. I couldn't figure out why he'd bothered to be friends with me, but I wasn't going to complain.
"So this has to be the weirdest experience for you right?" He asked on the night of my second day at school, when I was tired from a full day of academics.
"Weirdest? In a way I guess," I responded, picking idly at my bread roll, trying not to shove the whole thing in my mouth.
"What could top it? You've found an underground pocket of soldiers who seem very interested in teaching you maths." I smiled a little at that, but couldn't help but think of the other 'weird' experiences that occurred in my life. Though if I really thought about it for too long Xiet attacks and false accusations weren't that weird to me. I usually tried not to think about it.
"It's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me that hasn't involved a terrorist, let's put it that way." And he did. He dropped the subject and moved on to something else. Something easier. Something more friendly.
One of the things I'd liked the most about Nate was that he knew when to ask questions and when to shut up. And he'd always ask the right questions. He seemed to genuinely care about what I'd been through. He was horrified that I'd seen so much death and never once tried to talk down the way I felt about things. If I flinched at the banging of someone running down the metal walkways, he didn't draw attention to it. If I got too lost in thought and started to struggle for breath he brought me back to the present.
It had taken some getting used to.
Being safe.
Especially when most of the people I cared about in this world still walked streets that were under threat of explosion.
A pang radiated out from my chest whenever I thought about Rae. I had to wonder whether or not he was okay. My brain, my entire being really, refused to just drop him out of my subconscious. I couldn't help but worry.
If the reports I'd overheard in the doorways of some of the offices here were anything to go by, then the attacks in Palla were getting worse. I had no idea where my best friend was likely to be in all of the chaos. With the target he had all but painted on his back by deciding to become a medic.
I had to wonder if he was safe.
Or even alive.
And the same could be said for my mother and brother. Despite my persistent and passionate debates and arguments about it, no one wanted to let Gabby nor I know what was going on with any of my family. I was a constant wreck whenever they crossed my mind.
Apparently it was better that way. They wanted us to be as cut off from our old lives as possible.
I didn't agree.
They didn't seem to notice that by not telling me anything at all, I was more eager to leave this place and try to make my way back to the few people in this world that I loved.
Not that I would.
I never wanted to get caught out in that hellish landscape ever again.
I never wanted to feel that way again.
My feet and legs were still healing from the overuse and exertion.
Our shoes had been replaced once we'd received permission to live here. The soles of our old pairs were completely worn through in places. I had never had brand new shoes before. It was an odd feeling to have them mould to the shape of my feet and the way that I walked, as opposed to somebody else's.
Our shoes weren't the only things to get replaced. Sweat had been long dried into our clothing, creating a smell no one wanted to experience. Now I was dressed in the same attire as most of the other people here. I was informed that it was some kind of uniform for the OTF members, that it mimicked a military uniform. A camo shirt and matching pants. And of course the new combat boots. I was issued back my partially ruined jacket to help me fight against the chill that filled this place at night. I simultaneously hated having it and refused to let it go. It reminded me of home.
I wasn't sure I could handle that half the time.
One major loss was Dad's old bullet-proof vest. They'd confiscated it, of course. I'd refused to take it off for an entire month after Dad was killed. Not even for a second. And now it was gone forever. It made me feel hollow. I'd worn it almost every day for the past ten years. It was like there was a piece of me missing.
I tried not to dwell on it too much.
I was sat in the cafeteria with Gabby a month after we'd arrived, listening to her prattle on about guns — something I never would have guessed her to be so interested in — when Isabel and Nathaniel plopped their trays next to ours and sat down on the uncomfortably low benches. Most mornings Gabby and I were left alone, though it wasn't completely out of the ordinary for them to appear. But the paper clutched in Nate's hand had me a bit concerned.
"Good morning fellow humans," Isabel chirped, before stuffing food into her mouth. Nice.
She was either starving or wanting to escape something she knew was coming. My eyes zeroed in on the sheet of paper, neatly folded in half.
"Hi," Gabby replied, self-consciously checking for nonexistent crumbs in the corners of her mouth. Well mannered as always.
She dropped the topic of weaponry and started picking at her porridge with her spoon. She always acted a bit odd when Nate was here. Him being the son of the people in charge, she didn't know how she was meant to treat him. Especially when we were still here on uncertain terms.
Technically we could have still been kicked out at any minute. So I couldn't really blame her for being cautious. But I trusted Nate to keep us here.
He was my friend now.
He wouldn't cast me out like that.
I hoped.
"So, I come bearing news." Gabby's eyes looked up from her bowl of mush at his tone.
"Someone sitting at this table has been in specialty training for a little while now. And this piece of documentation contains the results of whether or not they've passed. And their resulting placement."
Gabby just about dived over the table to grab it out of his hands. Chuckling lightly he flicked it towards her in an attempt to protect himself. I'd never seen Gabby so excited about something. Or nervous. At
least over something non-life-threatening.
She met my gaze before unfolding the all important paper. She read it silently to herself before looking back up at me with wide eyes.
Did that mean it was good or bad?
"Gabby?"
"I'm going to be the head of weapons maintenance." She sounded dumbfounded, her voice coming out almost breathless.
And to be honest I kind of felt that way too. Mixed with a flooding wave of relief.
This meant we were safe. They couldn't kick us out so easily if she was contributing to their efforts. Not with a role like that.
"Apparently you have a natural gift with weapons, which seems concerning to me, but it allows the current head to join the fighting ranks. Which is where he wanted to be when he first showed up, so really you're fixing our biggest pain in the ass. He would not stop complaining until you showed up. He saw your potential during your first session."
"I can't believe this," Gabby muttered to herself, looking down at the sheet in her hands. As though the words might have reformed in the time since she'd read them.
"Wait, is that what you were wanting to tell them?" Isabel snapped, glaring towards Nathaniel. "You made me think you had bad news. That they were going to get angry. You tricked me."
"Well yeah. I couldn't have you give away the surprise," he replied with a wink my way.
Who winked anymore?
Before I had much chance to react a spoonful of porridge hit him right in the middle of his forehead. A startled laugh broke out of my throat, even as my mind flinched at the waste of food.
What had just happened?
I glanced over to see Isabel smirking from her seat next to Gabby as she delicately lifted another spoonful of the gloppy substance. She raised an eyebrow at Nate.
"Time and place old man. Time and place."
He rolled his eyes and wiped the sludge from his face.
"You're never gonna drop that name are you. It's Alderman."
"Older man? Okay."
He sighed and looked towards me in exasperation. I just chuckled and turned my attention back to eating my food. Unlike some people I wanted it to go in my stomach, not on someone else's face.
We were happy here.
That was something I was surprised to realise.
In this weird, unheard of hideout, my sister and I had found a place to belong. Gabby was proving herself to be capable of taking care of us, and I was given the unexpected chance to be a real teenager.
The kind we didn't get to have back home.
The kind I'd thought had become extinct.
ELEVEN
It didn't seem to matter how long we'd been here, I still felt like I was some kind of subspecies. Something other in comparison to the hundreds of people who'd been here for years, if not their whole lives. Sometimes I would feel the overwhelming urge to stab them all in their eyes. Maybe then they'd stop staring at me. The feeling of being watched every time I did anything, or went anywhere, was very quickly driving me crazy.
Despite what they all said, I knew a good chunk of them didn't like me. My desire to be left alone and my lack of attempts to make friends really seemed to get on their nerves. I was beginning to wonder when they'd realise that them talking to me all the time really got on mine. How could they not understand that there was no way in hell I was going to befriend hundreds of people that had nothing in common with me? Why didn't they get that, no matter how much I wanted to, there was just no way I was going to be able to trust them like that? My entire country had decided to blame my brother for a terrorist act I knew he didn't commit. My entire country had rallied behind the idea of murdering him. If I couldn't even trust them how was I supposed to trust people who I'd never even dreamed existed?
It didn't really matter though.
I had Nate and Isabel. I didn't need a big group of people surrounding me in order to feel safe. If anything it would have only put me more on edge.
Naturally though, everyone loved my sister. That didn't surprise me in the slightest. She'd always been the more amiable of the two of us. Open and eager to make friends. She had yet to grasp the fact that the more people you became friends with, the more chances there were for them to be ripped away from you.
Inevitably there were times when I felt a bit lonely, and my mind would drag up thoughts of Rae. I wished I could talk to him. He'd always known what I'd needed, and I just kind of took it for granted. Friendship like that didn’t just happen every day. Despite the hordes of people here, not one of them was like Rae. Not in the ways that mattered. And with each day that passed I missed him more and more.
And I hated it.
He could've been dead already. Being a medic, even just one in training, pointed a spotlight at you for all Xiet sympathisers to take advantage of.
I shuddered to think of it.
I also missed Liam. My big brother. My protector. He was someone who I'd thought I'd always have by my side.
He was probably dead now too.
It became increasingly difficult to think about. But we'd been been gone from Palla for a long time now. I was going to have to accept his death, all of their deaths really, at some point.
So I threw myself into my studies, glad for the excuse to fill my brain with things that didn't make me cry in the middle of the night. When there was no one else awake to hear me. Just my sister who'd reach out an arm in her sleep, so used to chasing away my pain that she didn't even need consciousness to do it.
✽✽✽
He flopped down onto his unmade bed having finally been granted a chance to rest in his own house.
He was just so tired.
After being awake for a continuous and unforgiving 36 hours straight, Rae felt as though his brain was going to melt through his body and form a puddle around his feet. He'd had to force his eyelids open against the heavy weight of exhaustion.
The increase in attacks was making his workload even more unmanageable.
Four gunmen had been arrested and publicly executed in the past six weeks. Blood painted the walls outside the bank-turned-prison. Dripped down the streets to leave a bright red stain on the already bruised ground. It was messy. And Rae didn't like knowing that children would have to walk past it everyday. Another reason to hate Xiet blood.
If these public executions were supposed to threaten the Xiets, Rae didn't think they were doing a very good job. If anything he thought it was probably pissing them off. Aggravating an enemy stronger than your own forces didn't seem like a good idea to him.
But what did he know?
Other than the fact that injuries and death rates were increasing throughout Palla. That more often than not the people who showed up on his doorstep seeking help were long past the point of recovery.
Rae wasn't convinced that they had the people to spare for this.
But he couldn't dwell on it. The things that plagued him in his waking hours, that had infuriated him even, were often cast aside with the promise of sleep.
And as he slept his mind drifted.
More often than he dared to admit, it fell back to Rosa. The never-ending worry and anxiety that settled over his entire being whenever she crossed his mind did not translate into the world of his unconscious thoughts. He saw her as he always did. Glowing from within, filled with a warmth she didn't know she possessed.
The way he missed her was like a physical pain stabbing through his chest.
Rae tried his best to distract himself from thinking about her, something that wasn't that hard in his working hours. His rations had lasted longer than usual, as he hardly had the time to scarf down a few bites of food between patients and running to the latest attack locations.
He had found that he'd grown too used to the smell of blood.
Rae hadn't had a chance to check up on Jacki either. And it made him feel guilty. But there was really nothing he could do about it. Even when he had managed to get a few moments to run down the street to the Nye house, she'd never let him in. He
could no longer afford to waste his limited free time like that.
Thankfully he did know a bit about what was going on with Liam. There was still one part of his promise to Rosa he could fulfil. Due to the rising number of Xiets in the city, Liam had remained in police captivity since his two sisters had left. They hadn't had a chance to fully interrogate him, and were putting most of their effort into the confirmed murderers. The ones who stepped through the door guns in hand.
This meant that Liam, for the meantime, was safe. And to add to that the public had almost forgotten about him. They were far too worried about injured loved ones, and the glistening, wet blood adorning their home. The urgency surrounding his execution was almost non-existent.
So whenever he had any time to himself Rae slept.
His brain waded through the flood of his thoughts, struggling to find a quiet spot to rest and recuperate. Come sunrise he would set off for work again. He would resume his place in the chain of beings living in the country he called home.
He would pretend that one day it would be better.
That he would get enough sleep. Or enough to eat.
That he would see Rosa again.
In the dead of night he found it easier to believe.
✽✽✽
"I can't believe you still care about any of those bastards back in Palla. They wanted your brother dead Rosa." I fought the urge to scream back at Isabel in my frustration. It wasn't that simple.
And she'd said it like he was already dead.
I couldn't abandon the hope that Liam was okay. But even if he wasn't — and just the thought of it made me feel sick — my mother was still there. And Rae.
I had already discovered it was too hard to explain my predicament to the people here. The way they saw it, everyone who hadn't come here with us might as well be dead. They thought they weren't worth my time if they hadn't risked everything to find freedom.
But they didn't know what I did.
They didn't understand how fear could control someone so easily.
Bright Cold Day Page 10