Cargo (The Reservation Trilogy Book 1)

by Castleberry, Jen

  "What's everyone here for?" I say. There was no line yesterday when Nathan brought me by. I don’t think I mind it now. I think I’ll hit Moreau if he asks me to sit in his examination chair again. What will happen to me, if I lose my temper and do that? What will happen to Nathan? If I get into trouble, will he get into trouble too?

  What will happen to him if he did make a mistake? If it turns out that I’m not the right Cassidy Hartinger, after all? What will happen to me? I hardly know what awaits me either way, so I don't know what I should hope for.

  "Probably got a memo, same as me," Eli says with a shrug. He takes a yellow slip of paper out of his pocket. It reminds me of my yellow envelope. "They've moved up the annual exams for some reason. For some of us." This last bit he says to Nathan, who’s not in line, who’s not carrying anything in his hands. I wonder if this is what Moreau was talking about when Nathan and I overheard him last night.

  The word exam makes my stomach turn. I see other girls lined up. None of them look like me; they all have stripes on the right sleeve of their uniforms and their hair is cut short. I wonder if they work for the Order. None of the cargo I've seen in my dormitory have haircuts like that.

  I try to imagine what a physical would be like for someone like Nathan. I don't think it's possible for him, for anyone, to feel as mortified as I did when Moreau touched me with his latex fingertips. I look at Eli, at the officers standing in line, and nobody seems apprehensive, not even the girls, even though they all must know what comes next.

  I start to imagine Nathan sitting in Moreau's examination chair, but I have to stop. The thought of Nathan tugging off his t-shirt makes my stomach pitch. I like the feeling, and liking it makes me like Nathan, even though I'm not sure I should.

  Moreau's door opens and he waves in the next person in line. "We should come back," Nathan says. People have already begun to stand in line behind me. Some of them have yellow slips like Eli's. Some of them lean against the wall with books, passing the time.

  I can imagine how my anxiety will stack up, like bricks falling onto bricks, counting every minute that passes till I'm standing in Moreau's office again.

  "Alright," I say. I’m eager to put off any more one-on-one time with Moreau for as long as possible. Nathan dips down to whisper in my ear when we're a few steps off, too far for Eli to overhear.

  "I've got something to show you," he says.

  My heart skips. I hope it's not just Nathan's breath on my neck that makes it do that. I feel different about him since last night. I'm not sure why. I don't mind him as much. I might even like having him around. This place could be crawling with Moreaus, and I don't want to be alone if one of them finds me.

  It's a silly way to feel. Nathan's been no help to me at all when I've run into trouble before. He's the one who brought me to Moreau’s office yesterday. He's the one who was carrying me through the caverns when I came to. But there's a part of me that wants to trust him, that wants him to be trustworthy. I try to shove off all of my well-placed doubts, but it's not easy to do.

  I wonder if he could mean my file, if he's found it, if he has to take me somewhere secret before he can show it to me. He turns a corner and I follow him down another long corridor.

  "Pay attention to where you are," Nathan says.

  "There's no North Star down here," I say.

  He grins. His eyes dart to the floor, like he hasn't meant to smile, but he keeps on smiling anyway. "I'll get you a compass," he says.

  We turn left, down another hall, and stop in front of a door I haven’t seen before. "4-2-3-9," Nathan says. I dial it in. "You're not supposed to be in here," he says, but he leads me in anyway so I follow behind him.

  "What is all this?" I say when the door is shut behind us. I'm dead in my tracks, stuck in place by a terrible smell like a boot in the mud. Sweat sticks to the air like sap on a tree. We're surrounded by the sound of labored breathing, by the churning and cranking and grunting of machines.

  The floor in this room is not like the floor in the hall. Maybe it's made of concrete, too, but it's been overlain with spongy, rubber mats that stretch from corner to corner. There's a mirror on every wall, long mirrors that catch me even when I'm not looking for myself. I see my reflection, I see what a mess I am, and I look away. Maybe I should've let Adrienne show me how to fix my hair just once.

  This room is small compared to other rooms I've seen already. It seems smaller, I think, because there's so many bodies packed inside of it. I feel my cheeks flush. All around me, boys my age are milling about without their shirts on. The women I see are just as brazen, wearing nothing but their slacks and sports bras. I cross my arms in front of my chest, like I can cover myself and them, too.

  My messiness is not like theirs. I'm unkempt, but they're drenched in sweat, their hair sticks to their faces, their bodies are red with a heat that doesn't come from the sun. I wonder if I looked something like that when Nathan and Nars found me in the desert.

  All around us, there are great, big metal machines. They're bolted to the wall by cylindrical blocks. People run or walk on conveyor belts, or push pedals with their feet. They take in breath by heaves.

  "They're powering generators," Nathan says. "It's a fraction of the power this place gets, but it's pretty smart."

  "What are they doing, though?" I say.

  "They're exercising," Nathan says. "Your bunker didn't have fitness equipment?" I shake my head.

  "We just ran in place," I say, "or did jumping jacks, or scaled the tubes." I wrinkle my nose. "It reeks in here," I say.

  "You’ll get used to it," he says.

  "I don't think I want to."

  "You should," he says. "This place will make you strong."

  I look at my reflection again. My shoulders are hunched and my arms are locked in place across my breast. I unfold them and stand up as straight as I can. I try not to be obvious about it. Nathan tries not to grin.

  I thought Nathan was big, but there are people in this room who are bigger than he is. I'm a twig by comparison, as flimsy as a sheet of wax paper. I think any one of these people could snap me in two.

  "It's just supposed to be contractors in here," Nathan says. "Non-essential personnel, like me. Transport, delivery, inspection. I’ll make sure nobody bothers you.”

  I should thank him, I suppose, but I’m stuck looking at my reflection again. I don't realize I'm doing it till Nathan pinches my arm.

  "Just give it a chance," he says. “It’ll help pass the time.”

  He squeezes my shoulder and then he leaves me alone. He knows people in here, he laughs easier with them than he ever has with me. I feel embarrassed, inspecting the machines, trying to figure out how they work. Nathan sits on an L-shaped bench in the corner and lifts barbells, which seems like the easiest thing. I can’t muster the nerve to join him, not when he’s thronged by a ring of shirtless pals. I’m glad he keeps all of his clothes on, at least.

  I walk on the conveyor belt for a little while. I stare at my reflection the whole time. I’m tall, but I don’t think I’ll ever be big, not like the girls in this room. My bones are flat, my knuckles and elbows and knees jut out like knobs on a bureau. There's a wide, concave space between my thighs. When I lift up my chin, I can count all of the ridges on my throat.

  Adrienne lives for her reflection, but not me. I steer clear of mine most of the time. Even so, I'm used to the way I look. I've seen other girls my age in the shower. I've felt Adrienne's body beside mine every night for eleven years. I never thought I was thin or bony or unusual. I never thought I was scrawny. But I think I am now.

  I walk a little bit faster, but I can't keep that up for long. My chest starts to hurt. My heart thuds against my rib cage, making it sore, so I slow back down. I think of the way Nathan walked through the desert, his long, sure gait, the way he caught himself when he jumped off the sand bags outside of the city, the way he carried me back to the RV in the hot sun.

  I think of the dog that ran beside the jeep, k
eeping its pace, vaulting forward through sand, hardly panting at all.

  I wonder where I would run if I could move as fast as Nathan, as fast as the dog.

  Should I run away when we reach the Reservation? Will I be gutsy enough, to even try?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After dinner, I'm groggy. More than groggy. There's a cap of lead on my head. It makes my chin hang low. I wonder if walking on the conveyor belt is to blame. Eli walks me back to the cargo dorm. I lay on my bunk and am asleep in an instant.

  A blackness buckles shut around me, but I don't feel peaceful. I think I might be dreaming, but it's hard to be sure. I usually dream of Adrienne, of the bunker, or of nothing. Now I wonder if I’m really dreaming at all.

  There's no light, but I can see the shadows of people sleeping all around me. I want to get up and move around, but my limbs are too heavy. I lay still, too still, as still as those dead men in the desert.

  A dim light appears like a ribbon. Someone's cracking open the dormitory door. The hallway is dark, but not as dark as this room.

  A candlestick floats in, carried by shadowy hands. I watch the flame billow with the movement of bodies. Two people, I think. And then the door shuts. Somebody, a woman, says, "Over here," and she blows out the candle, chopping off the light like an axe splitting wood.

  I want to blink, but my eyelids won't cooperate. I wait for my vision to adjust to the dark.

  I see Mya. I'm sure it's her. I recognize her bald head, her square chin. Sight comes in and out of focus, sometimes swimming in front of me.

  "Is she awake?" I hear her say. She snaps her fingers in front of my face, but I don't flinch, I don't blink. It feels like all of my faculties have taken a pause. "Her eyes are open."

  "That can happen sometimes." The second voice belongs to a boy. It's a voice I think I recognize. I remember the Beard, how he snuck up on us in the last place I would've expected him to be. But it doesn't sound like him, and it can't be him, I think. Not here. So who is it?

  "She's out," he says, whoever he is, and now another hand is waving over my face. "You didn't need to bring me here," he says. "I've seen her already."

  “I thought you might want a closer look,” Mya says. “You think she’s a fluke?”

  "Of course I do,” the boy says.

  "She's got good color."

  "That's the sun. Her gums are white." A finger slips into my mouth and peels back my lip. I want to wrench myself away, but I can’t. Terror scurries through me, wondering what else Mya and her companion might do.

  "She's had her screen already," the boy says. "I'm sure Moreau suspects her. Just look at her hands. Selectees don't get infections like that."

  "So who is she?"

  "I'll do some digging."

  "Hack first, dig later," Mya says. "Before the Order finds out that you've made a mistake. This isn’t the time-”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” the boy says.

  My vision starts to swim. "Look at her eyes," Mya says.

  "It's off-putting."

  "I think it's neat. Are you sure she can’t see us?

  "She's skin and bones," the boy says. "And I bumped up that dose of Ace by half. Trust me, she's out."

  They say other things, but now their voices are murmurs. I feel as though my ears are slowly filling up to the brim with bath water.

  I can't make out their words anymore. Darkness moves over my eyes like a pendulum, coming and going and coming again. And then suddenly, Mya and the boy are gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I wake up to the sound of screaming. Shrill screams that pierce my ears and my throat. My screams. A blackness and a burning in my eyes.

  Nathan's face is in front of me, and other faces, too. I don't recognize anyone else. Some people I might've seen before in the dormitory, but I don't have the wherewithal to place them.

  Nathan is shaking me. Shaking me awake, I realize. I can't stop screaming. I don't know what I'm screaming about.

  "Someone drugged me," I say. "Mya." I don't know why I say her name. It flies off my tongue like the lost bits of a dream flying out of my head.

  A hoard of whispers erupts when I say it. People cup their hands around the ears of their neighbors. "Stop it," Nathan says. "No one drugged you." He says it too loud, like he's not just saying it to me.

  The voices die off a little bit, but not entirely.

  I feel like I'm in Karsci's cave again, surrounded by strangers, but the room is too bright. Every candle is lit. Some people hold candles on little tins in their hands.

  "You had a nightmare," Nathan says. He's stopped shaking me, but his hands are still firm. His fingernails are short, but they dig into my skin. I think they’ll leave a mark there.

  "I don't have nightmares," I say. I try to wriggle out of his hold. He softens his grip on me. He rubs my arms, from shoulder to elbow and back up again.

  I remember my reflection in the gymnasium mirror, all the sharp, ugly angles of uncushioned bone, the frailness of my figure. I think I know what Nathan sees when he looks at me, and I don't like it. No wonder he treats me like a child.

  He tries to soothe me, but it's with an awkwardness; it's not easy, the way Nars or Adrienne would do it. It's out of practice, I think, and it only makes me feel worse.

  “Don't do that," I say. "Don't touch me."

  “Cass,” he says. But then he’s quiet. Maybe he’s thought better of the words he meant to say.

  I duck my chin against my collarbone. I cover my chest with my knees. I'm hugging my own arms now. Nathan is sitting beside me. When he puts his hands in his lap, I feel a coldness, like he's a mile away.

  "She's fine," he says, but nobody moves. "Hey, beat it," he says.

  I'm happy when the crowd begins to disperse. Some of the stuffiness of the air clears out, too. I try to remember what I was dreaming about, but all of my memories are black.

  "I don't have nightmares," I say again when it's just Nathan and I.

  "You do," Nathan says. "I've heard you saying Adrienne's name in your sleep."

  "That's different," I say. I remember my dreams about Adrienne. Snippets of memory. There's a panic coursing through me now, the remnants of a horror in my blood, draining off as consciousness settles. It’s too heavy to bear.

  I think of Brant, of the little white tabs, of how he must have examined me, violated me. Why was it okay for him to touch me that way without asking, without telling? What might’ve happened to me tonight? Will I ever recover these stolen fragments of time?

  I drop my head into my lap.

  "Get a grip," Nathan says. "Hey." He lifts up my chin. “You’re okay,” he says. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  I want to believe him. I’m desperate to trust him because I want to feel safe. But how can I? In truth, I hardly know him at all.

  "What are you?" I say. I wish I could swallow the words as soon as I've said them, but if Nathan takes any offense, it doesn't show. His eyes aren't narrow like mine, hot and wet and hard. They're open, like he can't see enough of me at once.

  He looks haggard, I realize. He's wearing his bed clothes. He doesn't have on any shoes. Did he hear me screaming all the way from his dormitory? Did someone fetch him? He didn't take his sweet time getting to me, that's for sure.

  I want to pull the question back into my mouth. Will it really matter if Nathan says he’s a hybrid? If he says he’s human like me? Will it make me feel like I know him any better? Will it change the dynamic between us? I thought it might, but now, I don’t think that it will.

  "We're the same," Nathan says.

  "How so?"

  "Just look at yourself."

  For some reason, I find myself peering down at my hands. Nathan takes them, palm up, in his own. With his thumbs, he irons out all of the places where the gauze has bunched up, where it’s damp and soggy with sweat. “You’re brave,” he says.

  I think of myself sneaking into closets, sneaking off across the desert. Things I should'
ve only done with Adrienne at my side. I am brave, I think. Braver than I was in the bunker.

  “You’re stubborn, too,” he says. “Reckless.” He pushes a stray hair over my ear. “I was reckless enough, you know, before you came along.”

  “And now?”

  “Now it’s trickier,” he says, “toeing the line.”

  He pulls a hand over the back of his neck. There’s a look in his eyes that I haven’t seen before; something impetuous, a brightness that animates that stony, pewter sheen. "I can't stand to be around you," he says.

  "Gee, thanks," I say.

  "Knock it off."

  I don't think he's kidding. There's something between us, something I can't see. A filmy tension. I wonder if he feels it there, the way I do, an electric divide, an invisible barrier that will shock us if we get too close.

  "God, how are you doing this?" he says.

  "I don't know what you mean," I say.

  "Of course you don't."

  He clams up. He presses his lips together, tight. It makes his full mouth thin, and now I'm sure he won't tell me what he's thinking, whatever it is.

  He's so cocky and withholding; it stirs up something in me, something I don't like at all. "You can tell me things," I say. "I'm not a child."

  "I know you're not," he says, and he frowns. "I know I've treated you like one." The way he says that, I think it might be an apology. "I transport children, Cass" he says. "We all do. I haven’t transported someone my own age before."

  "I haven't seen any children here," I say.

  "I know," Nathan says. "It's strange."

  There's more, I think. There must be more. His brow is low and he's chewing his cheek the way he does when he's got something worthwhile on his tongue.

  "It's not the only strange thing," I say, because he won't say it. I'm pulling at straws, but he doesn't call me wrong. He doesn't say anything, in fact, which is as good as a yes.

  "What else?" I say. He shakes his head. "You won't tell me?" It's hardly a surprise. I can see him locking up his thoughts and swallowing the key. "It makes sense," I say. "The way you boss me around, every patronizing thing you've ever said to me.”