Chapter Thirteen
I'm awake for an hour before anyone notices me. Nathan is sitting at the head of the RV in the driver's seat. He's got his hand poised on the steering wheel, even though I know the engines don't work.
He's covered the windshield back up with the sheet, to keep the sun out, I realize. He stares straight ahead with his foot on the gas pedal, like he's really driving somewhere, but nothing moves. He's still and I'm still. The RV is still. Everything on the outside is still.
Inside my chest, everything is in pieces. I'll never get back to the bunker, I realize. I should've never left; I should've tried to resist at least. I should've torn up that yellow envelope and locked myself in the women's quarters. I should've done something. I'll never see Sister Nanette again, I'll never see Nars and Adrienne again. Brant took me away from my parents and Nathan took me away from my friends, and now I have no one.
The skylight opens up and someone drops into the RV from the roof, feet first. My body thunders with disbelief. I'd know those boots anywhere. I have the same pair. They're regulation in the bunker.
Nars's freckled face appears, flushed red with the sun he's absorbed in the desert. His hair swishes over his shoulders. He peers back at me, but he must think I'm still asleep, the way I'm laying motionlessly in the shadows.
I can feel the swollen skin under my eyes, reducing my vision to a sliver. My lashes are low and wet. They blur at the sight of him even though I'm blinking like crazy.
I want to jump up, my head shouts, Jump up! But my body won't move. I feel like the entire desert is inside of me, like someone's opened me up and filled me full of sand.
Nars sits down in the passenger's seat next to Nathan. He kicks his heels up onto the dashboard and taps his toes against the flat, plastic plane. He drums his fingers over the arm rest. He keeps glancing back at me. I wish he'd just come a little bit closer. Then he'd see that I'm awake.
"She's still breathing," he says.
"I know," Nathan says.
I wonder how long I've been asleep. Long enough for Nathan and Nars to get to know each other. Long enough for Nars to worry...that what? That I might've died? I can't believe that. That my whole life might've been terminated in the span of half a day, at the whim of one impulse.
But already, life as I've known it has come to an end. Maybe it's fitting that I should almost die before my new life on the Reservation begins.
I wish I'd made it past the tree. I'm sure I could've made it into the city, if I'd only made it past the tree. But I wouldn't have found Nars in the bunker. That's a jarring thing to realize.
"What's your plan, Narcisse?" Nathan says. He's speaking in French again. For the life of me, I can't decide if it's his first language or not.
It's funny to hear him call Nars Narcisse. No one calls him that to his face except for the nuns, and even they only do it when he's in trouble.
"I guess I'll stick with you guys for a while," Nars says. "I don't want to end up like her."
I wonder what I must look like for them to be making such a big fuss over me.
"What were you thinking, following us out of the bunker?" Nathan says. "You say you lived in the desert for nine years? You should've known better."
"I thought I could find the launch station," Nars says. "My parents were always looking for it."
"There's a reason they never found it."
"Maybe they did find it," Nars says. "You don't know."
I make a sound. I don't mean to, but after I've done it, I wonder if I've been trying to speak this whole time. Nathan and Nars both whip around and stare at me.
Nars leaps out of his seat. He nearly trips over his own feet in his haste to get to me. "You woke up!" he says, like he really thought I might not. The relief in his voice is alarming.
"You found me," I say. My voice is too deep. It scratches my throat. I feel like I've swallowed a fistful of burrs.
"To be fair, he found you by accident," Nathan says. "He wasn't looking for you, Cass."
"Hey, man," Nars says. "Who cares? I found her before you did."
Nathan doesn't have anything to say about that. He hasn't gotten up from the driver's seat, but now he goes to his satchel. He tears off the corners of two new packets of mush. He hands them both to Nars.
"What's this?" Nars says. He takes a sip. The corners of his mouth crinkle up with disgust.
"Space rations," I say. I try to sit, but it’s an awkward struggle. I can hardly convince my crippled muscles to cooperate.
Nars helps me, squaring my back with the bed frame. He hands me a packet and I suck it down. It feels like I'm swallowing rocks. Nathan fills up a flask with the last bit of water from the cooler. He caps it and tosses it to Nars, who takes a sip and then gives the rest to me to drink.
Nathan doesn't eat or drink anything. "Sun's going down," he says. "We've got to go. I'm not carrying you this time."
Nars glares at him. "I'll carry you, Cass," he says.
"I can walk," I say. But I'm not sure it's true.
Nars helps me out of the bed. I'm relieved when my rubbery legs bear the weight of me.
I stumble and weave as we exit the RV. Nars makes a panicked effort to keep my gait steady. Nathan just says, "Don't fall too far behind. We've got to beat the sun," and carries on ahead of us like he can't be bothered to babysit me. Not that I would want him to.
I think Nathan's mad at me. I don't know why I should care. I'm mad at him. Nars reaches for my hand and says, "Oh, whoops," when he remembers that it’s all bandaged up. There's new gauze wrapped around my palms. I suppose Nathan was the one to do that, although I can’t remember it being done.
Nars links an arm with mine instead. "Do your hands hurt?" he asks me.
"I can't really feel them anymore," I say. "They're sort of numb. Like when your foot falls asleep."
"Nathan says they're infected," Nars says.
"Oh," I say. Nathan says nothing. He's walking in front of us. I stare at his back.
The moon is up again. It’s not quite as big as it was last night. A breeze rustles the loose, wispy strands of my hair. I can't believe how much the temperature has dropped in the span of just a few hours.
After a while, Nars lets his arm fall away from mine. His pace slows. I feel like, if anyone should be slowing down, it should be me. Everything is sore, right down to the soles of my feet. But I know that Nathan will have something to say if I don't keep up, so I walk even faster than I need to, falling into step right beside him.
"Where were you even going?" he says after we've been walking together for a little while. "Back to the bunker? Back to the first place I'd look for you?"
I sigh. It seems silly now. I hardly have the energy to be annoyed by his caustic tone. "I thought you might not bother," I say.
"Might not bother?" Nathan peers down at me. His eyebrows collide over the bridge of his nose. "I'm your transporter," he says. "It's my job to bring you to the Reservation. I show up at the launch station without you, they have no reason to send me back. You're my ticket."
I hold my tongue, considering that.
"Sometimes, I forget how much you guys don't know about the outside world," Nathan says.
"As if it's our fault," I say.
"I didn't say it was your fault."
He heaves a breath, like being pleasant is a real chore. He was someone else last night, I think, rough lining constellations with the tip of his finger and falling asleep with the ease of a cat. Maybe I do wear his patience thin, like Sister Nanette said. Maybe he's a pleasant enough person when I'm not around to annoy him.
I wonder if Nars would've given him this much trouble, if Nathan had brought him a yellow envelope instead of me. Probably not.
"Next time you sneak off, maybe don't head straight for the most obvious place," Nathan says. "Give me a run for my money, alright?"
He's making a joke. He should be shouting at me for running away, or coddling me after I've almost just died. But he's laughing; behind
that flat mouth, I'm sure he's laughing.
I press my lips together. I don't want to smile, but something about Nathan makes me feel like I should. "What's the launch station?" I say.
"Another bunker," he says. "Government headquarters in the central region. There's an underground rail system on the lower deck that links up with the Reservation."
Another bunker? I peek at Nars over my shoulder. I know him better than anyone, as well as a best friend ever could. I’ve seen him cry; hot, angry tears, broken shouts and terrible curses, and always because he felt trapped. If the launch station really is a bunker, then it’s the last place Nars would voluntarily go. It won’t be his doing if he winds up underground again. He’s called our bunker a cage too many times.
"I've never been on a train before," I say.
Nathan shrugs. "I must've ridden it back and forth a hundred times by now," he says. "People die in the desert looking for the launch station, you know. People like your buddy Nars."
"Nars wasn't looking for the launch station," I say. "He's lying about that.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“He doesn't care about the Reservation, and neither do I."
"What do you care about?" Nathan says.
Home, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut. I don't think Nathan will understand what I mean. He called the Reservation his home, and mine, but I know I'll never have a real home again. Not unless, by some miracle, my best friends and I are reunited somewhere. Home for me will always be wherever the three of us are.
I shrug, as if I might care about nothing. A part of me wishes it were true.
"You still haven't figured out where I'm from," I say. It’s an obvious shift. I think Nathan might call me on it.
He says nothing. He sets his eyes on the acres of sand ahead. The seconds tick by, silent and slow, and neither one of us speaks.
“Give me five guesses,” he says at last.
“Three,” I say. He arches a brow. "You're the one whose got an ear for accents, right?”
"Okay, three.” He stops, so I stop, too. He puts out his hand. "You've got to shake on it," he says.
"You're joking," I say. My hands are as heavy as those bags of sand on the outskirts of the city. They're all but worthless, hanging at my sides, bleating with a dull pain. At least they've stopped bleeding.
"Oh, give me a break," Nathan says. He rolls his eyes. That gets my hackles up. I put my hand in his and he squeezes it. I pretend it doesn't hurt. I don't want it to hurt. Something pleasant skips over my spine. I don't want that to happen either.
Nathan’s grip stays firm on my hand. I don't want to be the one to let go first; then he might know he's hurting me, or worse, that he's making my body do something it shouldn't.
He grins and I glare. "You look like you want to hit me," he says.
"I do," I say. And I realize it's true. But I want something else, too. The sort of thing Adrienne would applaud me for.
Nathan releases my hand. I bite my lip to keep from sighing. I'm glad it's dark. My cheeks are hot, but I don't think Nathan can tell.
He's still grinning. I almost wish he would frown again, but he doesn't. So I frown enough for the both of us.
Chapter Fourteen
We stop suddenly in a place where we have no reason to stop. There are no landmarks here, no trees or rocks to pin point our location. Nathan pulls a compass out of his pocket. He glances briefly at its glass face, but it's clear he's been here before. Wherever here is.
He swaps the compass out for a flare gun and shoots up a sizzling, orange light. Then he stretches out on the sand the way he did last night on top of the RV. He stares up at the stars.
"Now what?" Nars says.
"Now we wait," Nathan says.
"What, for morning to come? For us to fry like Cassidy in the sun?"
"Keep walking, then," Nathan says. "I'm not responsible for you, Narcisse."
"I'm not leaving without Cassidy," Nars says.
"Then take a seat and wait."
I sit down, partly because Nathan said to and partly because my legs have been wanting to give out for hours. Nars paces back and forth. His boots sink fast into the desert floor, making deep groves. With every step, he has to free himself, kicking the sand. I bet he wants a wall to kick, or something to throw. He's got a look in his eyes that I recognize, like he's biting back a tantrum.
"You're fanning his temper," I say to Nathan under my breath.
"You've been fanning mine for days," he says. And then he says, "Georgia," and I shake my head.
"Two more guesses," I say. I'm glad he hasn't guessed where I'm from on the first try.
I think he'll guess again, but he just stretches out his arms and bends his elbows back behind his neck. His biceps look even bigger when they're behind his head like that.
His muscles flex, and then his lip twitches like he's holding back a grin. I wonder if he's laughing at me. I look away, too quickly, appalled by the notion that he might have caught me staring at him. I don't want to like him, I don't think I should like him, but right now I do. I hope he can't tell.
Nathan sits up and scoots closer to me. "Look," he says, soft enough so that Nars can't hear. He points up at the sky. "That's the North Star," he says. "The bright one." I'm not sure which one he means. All of the stars look bright to me, impossibly bright. "You can follow that star north from wherever you are."
"What if I'm not going north?" I say.
He shrugs. "If I want you to go north," he says, "I'll just tell you to go south."
I roll my eyes. I'm smiling, but I don't want to be.
Nars comes and sits next to me. Nathan settles back down onto the sand. He links his hands together on top of his chest. None of us says anything.
The desert floor is soft. I prop myself up on my forearms and submerge my elbows in the powdery grit. Nars lays down next to me. I hear him start to snore. I look over to see if Nathan's falling asleep, too, but his eyes are wide open, watching the sky.
"I was six," Nathan says.
"What?"
"When I went to the Reservation for the first time, I was six years old. I had two sisters, and my mom. The Order only took me."
I think I should tell him about my mom and dad, but I don't. I have more memories with Nars and Adrienne than I have with my own parents. They're a truer family to me than anyone. I wonder if Nathan has friends like that waiting for him on the Reservation.
"Do you like it there?" I say.
He shakes his head. "It's the loneliest place I've ever been," he says. "It's lovely there, it doesn't have to be lonely. I think you'll be lonely, though. Like me."
He turns on his side to look at me. I meet his gaze, but after a while, I have to look away. I can feel his breath stirring up my hair. He's too close to me. My heartbeat is humming and I'm sure he can hear it. I look up at the sky and watch a pair of red lights zip in and out of sight.
"What was that?" I say, just to break up the silence.
"A satellite," he says. "They're mostly obsolete now, but no one's recovered them."
He's still watching me. I can feel his eyes on my cheek. I wonder what color they are, but I think if I look at him now, he might get the wrong idea.
Overhead, another satellite dips into orbit. The sky stretches on like a map without edges. I can hardly believe there's so much space in the world, so much space beyond it. The bunker has been my entire world for so long.
I thought it would be my whole world forever.
The sand is flatter, closer to the city. Out here, it scoops up, scraped into a grainy, transient mountain range by gusts of wind. The way we're sprawled out in the center of things, with hills of sand surrounding us, I feel like we could be smack dab in the center of the universe. Can anyone really tell me I'm wrong?
There's something special about this place. I reach out to hold Nars's hand even though he's asleep. I'm glad he's here with us.
I look at my toes. They point straight ahead, like they could d
ash off without me into the snowy white abyss. I remember snow, even though I haven't seen it in eleven years and haven't thought of it for nearly as long. I feel a nostalgia whip through me, the onset of winter in my bones, the wet chill of frost in my hair, in my mother's hair. I wonder what winter will be like when we get to the Reservation, if there will be snow. Six-year-old-me didn't know that she might never see snow again, the last time she saw it.
Nathan's toes are angled towards mine. I wonder if he's still looking at me. I don't want to meet his gaze accidentally, if I turn my head and find that he is. So I keep my gaze steady, straight ahead like my feet.
A dog comes bounding towards us, breaking suddenly into view and moving swiftly across the sand. Nathan moves like that, swift. He's so sure of his footing. I don't like the way the desert collapses under my feet with every step, making my calves burn, making me stumble. I wonder how many times Nathan has made this trek across the desert. I wonder how many yellow envelopes he's given out; how many lives have been knocked over on their heads at his hands.
I remember seeing feral dogs before Brant brought me to the bunker. They were mostly blue and patchy with mange. This doesn't look like any dog I've ever seen before.
"What's he barking about?" I say. I nudge Nathan with my elbow and he notices the dog now.
I'm sure the dog is barking at us, even though I can't hear him. His jowls quiver and his flat, white incisors flash against the night. His eyes are pinned to us like he's got something important to say. The wind swallows his voice so we hear nothing but a great, barreling whistle sweeping through pillars of sand.
Nathan stands up. I stand beside him. Nars snorts and rubs an arm across his face. I kick him in the shin so he'll wake up.
"Not good," Nathan says. The dog is three feet in front of us now and it looks like he won't come any closer.
"It's just a dog," Nars says.
"It's a working dog," Nathan says, like Nars and I should know the difference. He lifts up his satchel and says, "Volno." I don't know what language that is, but it must mean something like go because the dog takes off and we follow him.
Cargo (The Reservation Trilogy Book 1) Page 7