Outcasts

by Jill Williamson

  Red gasped and pressed her hand against her gigantic chest. “You’re not going to kill her, are you, Bender?”

  “Not me,” Bender said. “I’ll have Rewl do it.”

  “What?” Shaylinn couldn’t have heard that right. “Kill Kendall?”

  “I wish I didn’t have to,” Bender said, “but without knowing for certain if she’s got those messages and what she’s going to do with them, I don’t have a choice.”

  Of course he had a choice. No one was putting a gun in his hands.

  “You can’t take the risk,” Red said, patting Bender’s knee. She looked at Shaylinn, and those pink eyes seemed electrified, like Red was a robot. “It puts the entire Black Army in jeopardy. And the outsider shells too.”

  Did it? But Shaylinn couldn’t allow them to kill Kendall. “I guess I can try to find out if she has them, but you’re wrong to mistrust her. She hates the Safe Lands government. They took her baby.”

  “You get burned enough, femme, you don’t trust anyone anymore,” Bender said.

  “And why would she care about them taking the kid?” Red said. “It’s what they do. He’s not her baby.”

  Shaylinn folded her arms. “Of course he’s her b — Wait, aren’t you a rebel? Don’t you think the Safe Lands is wrong to take babies?”

  Red snorted and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t like the government telling me what to do. But babies aren’t my interest.”

  Shaylinn pursed her lips. “Men are your interest, right?”

  “That’s right.” Red giggled, low and secretive as if she knew something Shaylinn didn’t. “You’d better not hurt Omar,” Shaylinn said.

  This comment seemed to make Red’s pink eyes even more electric as she glared at Shaylinn. “Omar knows what he wants. And he wants me.”

  A rush of anger welled up in Shaylinn. “No, he doesn’t. He’s sad and confused because of everything that’s happened. And you’re taking advantage of him.”

  Red cackled like an evil witch in an Old movie. “Omar can wipe his own nose, femme. He doesn’t need you sticking your — ”

  “Focus,” Bender said. “Kendall Collin?”

  Shaylinn scowled at Red once more before giving Bender her full attention. “Can you bring her here?”

  “Nooo. She can’t know about this place,” Bender said. “You’re going to be a spy, Miss Shaylinn. Spend time with her. Get her to tell you about the messages without mentioning me or the Black Army.”

  “But how can I go outside when I’m supposed to be hiding?” Shaylinn asked.

  “I’ve got a couple ideas,” Bender said. “I can get you hired at the messenger office as a janitor during Kendall’s shifts. Or Rewl can drive you around, follow Kendall, and you can bump into her when she goes to the G.I.N. or wherever. Or we can get you moved into the apartment beside hers.”

  The idea of having her own place thrilled her. “I’d like the apartment, please. But … Jordan. When he finds me gone, he’ll come and get me and lock me up.” And yell and scream. But if he didn’t know about the apartment, she could always sneak out again.

  “Then you’d better act fast, femme,” Red said.

  Shaylinn didn’t like the way Red looked at her and bossed her, so she kept her side of the conversation between her and Bender. “My picture is on the ColorCast all the time. And Jordan said he saw it on the train too. What if someone recognizes me?”

  “Red is going to give you a little makeover,” Bender said. “No one will recognize you when she’s done.”

  As a last-ditch effort to get them to leave her alone, she said, “But I’m pregnant!”

  “You’re not even showing yet,” Bender said. “You’ll be fine.”

  Shaylinn looked back at Red then, and met those electric-pink eyes. “As long as she doesn’t make me look like her.”

  Red smiled, and it was an ugly, fake smile. “Why would I do that? One of me is all the Safe Lands can handle.”

  Shaylinn hummed as if considering her comment. “It’s all I can handle too.”

  A few hours later, Shaylinn was standing alone in her new apartment that was located next door to Kendall’s in the Belleview Building. The kitchen, sofa, and bed filled one small room. And then there was a tiny bathroom. The whole place was decorated pink and green and reminded Shaylinn of the polka dot chair in Tyra Grant’s office.

  Thoughts of the harem’s beauty care specialist sent Shaylinn walking toward the mirror for the fifth time since Bender, Red, and Rewl had dropped her off downstairs. She’d been worried that being underground with no access to InstaWraps and SkinnySticks would have made her get fat again, but it hadn’t. Silver was still the hot trend, set by Finley Gray and Luella Flynn, the hosts of the Safe Lands ColorCast. Shaylinn had refused to allow Red to cut her hair, so the woman had straightened it and given her a tinsel weave, which mixed in strands of metallic silver hair with her natural brown hue. Shaylinn’s hair now reached her elbows in a flat, shaggy mop. Red had also given Shaylinn a pair of contact lenses that made her eyes look a natural green, and black lace gloves with no fingers that held a SimTag so she could enter buildings and pay for taxis or whatever she might need.

  That had been more than enough to transform Shaylinn into a completely different person from the picture of the frightened girl that had been plastered all over the Safe Lands. Red had also given her several sets of clothes, enough to last the week. They were sexy clothes that clung to Shaylinn’s body and showed off her growing chest.

  She hadn’t needed breast implants after all. The pregnancy had taken care of that.

  Shaylinn had always wanted to be beautiful, but she wasn’t certain she liked what Red had done. She looked like someone from C Factor. And even though Red had promised this new look would help her blend in with the other Safe Lands women, Shaylinn was sure it would only call attention to herself.

  A bell chimed. Rewl had rigged up the bell to signal whenever Kendall’s apartment door opened. Shaylinn ran over to the peephole on the wall and looked in.

  Kendall was home. She walked to the kitchen table and set her messenger bag on one of the chairs and a box of chicken from Leghorns on the table.

  Shaylinn drew back. Bender wanted her to wait until she and Kendall bumped into each other on the stairs or outside. To create a coincidental meeting. But Shaylinn had no intention of doing things Bender’s way. The moment Jordan realized she was gone, he would come looking. If Shaylinn was going to help Kendall, she needed to do it now.

  She left her apartment and knocked on Kendall’s front door. She heard footsteps, then saw movement in the peephole. The door opened, the chain keeping it from going farther than a few inches.

  “Yes?” Kendall said.

  “Hi, Kendall.” Shaylinn leaned close and whispered, “It’s Shaylinn. From the harem.”

  Kendall’s eyes narrowed and studied Shaylinn from head to toe. The door pushed closed, the chain rattled, and the door opened again. “Come in.”

  Shaylinn slipped inside, awkward in the high-heeled shoes Red had given her. The smell of fried chicken made her stomach flutter. Oh no.

  Kendall closed the door behind her and came to stand by the kitchen table, arms folded. “You escaped the harem. I’ve seen your picture on the ColorCast. What do you want?”

  Shaylinn pressed up against the front door and fought to hold back the sickness, but the smell of the chicken … She looked around the apartment and spotted the bathroom door in the same place it was located in her new apartment. She ran for it. “Need to use your bathroom.”

  Shaylinn fell to her knees at the toilet and wanted to cry. She had no control over how smells affected her anymore. How was she supposed to keep from throwing up all the time? When she finished, she washed her hands and rinsed out her mouth, then tottered back into Kendall’s kitchen/living room/bedroom.

  “I put the chicken in the oven and opened the windows,” Kendall said. “My morning sickness only ever came in the mornings. But they say if you
get it really bad, it means you’re having a girl.”

  “Maybe,” Shaylinn said, tickled at the idea of a daughter to take care of.

  “What about Jemma and Mia and the others?” Kendall asked.

  “We got out in time. I’m the only one who was made pregnant.”

  “And Naomi?”

  “She’s safe too. And she’s huge! That baby is coming any day, Jemma says. What about you? Have you seen your baby?”

  “Once.” Kendall’s jaw hardened. “They don’t allow that, really, but Lawten had promised I’d be able to hold Elyot whenever I wanted. But after the first time I went to the nursery, they wouldn’t let me back in.” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. She blinked rapidly. “So, who glossed you up? You look like a dancer.”

  “You’re a shell!” a strange voice said. “Tch tch tch.”

  Shaylinn jumped and looked toward the window where a rounded cage sat on a narrow table. Something moved inside the cage, flying from corner to corner. A little bird. It was yellow and blue with black-and-white wings. “What’s that?”

  Kendall waved her hand as if the topic bored her. “Oh, that’s my bird, Basil.”

  “He talks?”

  “Give me a kiss,” the bird said in a dull, almost electronic voice. “What time is it?”

  “I’m sorry, but … why are you here, Shaylinn?”

  “I have something important to tell you, but I need you to let me finish before you interrupt me or get angry. Do you promise to listen until I’m done?”

  “Okay.”

  Shaylinn took a deep breath. “Well, since we escaped the harem — ”

  “Budgie. Basil’s a budgie. Tch tch tch. Give us a kiss.”

  Shaylinn grinned at the bird.

  “Just a minute.” Kendall walked to the cage and pulled a drape over it. “Good night, Basil.”

  “Good night, Basil. Tch tch tch.”

  “Will he go to sleep?” Shaylinn asked.

  “Yeah. He’s funny that way. You were saying?”

  “Right. Um, the Black Army has been hiding my people. Levi befriended their leader, Bender. Well, Bender is their new leader now that Lonn has been liberated.”

  “Go on.”

  Shaylinn hoped she was explaining things correctly. “Bender thinks you have messages Chord Prezden was meant to deliver. He said if he couldn’t figure out whether or not you were trustworthy, he was going to have you killed. So I volunteered to spy on you so I could warn you.”

  Kendall paled. “Kill me?”

  “I know you’re not a murderer, Kendall. So if you have Chord’s messages, I figure you have a good reason.”

  “I have them,” Kendall said, her eyes glossy with tears.

  Shaylinn breathed out a sigh, hoping Bender would leave Kendall alone once he had the messages in his possession. “Can I have them? To give to Bender?”

  Kendall’s bottom lip trembled. “When I found Chord, he’d been attacked. With his dying words he asked me to deliver the messages to the addressees and no one else. I think Chord knew someone else would come looking.”

  “Maybe Bender is worried the addressees will be exposed to enforcers,” Shaylinn said. “Maybe he’s just trying to protect his rebels.”

  “Maybe Bender killed Chord.”

  What a terrible thought. “Why would he do that? He’s a good guy.”

  “Anyone who threatens to kill someone is not a good guy.”

  Yeah. Good point.

  “I’ve had the messages for three days,” Kendall said, “trying to decide if I should deliver them or destroy them. Let’s read them.”

  “That seems a little nosy,” Shaylinn said.

  “It’s the only way we’ll find out the truth.” Kendall walked to her refrigerator and opened the freezer. She removed the ice bin and dumped its contents into the sink. Then she peeled a plastic bag off the bottom of the bin and left the bin in the sink.

  She carried the bag to the kitchen table and sat down. Shaylinn pulled out the chair beside hers and sat too. It felt good to get off her feet. The high-heeled shoes were painful after wearing them too long.

  Kendall opened the plastic bag and set four messages on the glass tabletop. “Three are private residences. But this one” — she tapped the message addressed to a Ruston Neil — “is an MO Box from my branch.”

  “What’s the difference?” Shaylinn asked.

  “This Ruston doesn’t get mail at a residence. He picks it up at the messenger office.”

  Shaylinn read the names on the envelopes: Ruston Neil, Dane Skott, Domini Bentz, and Charlz Sims. “I know Charlz’s name. He helped Omar get Levi and Jemma out of the RC.” And it had earned him an X after his number, same as Omar.

  “Let’s open that one first, then.” Kendall ripped open the envelope and removed a single white card. There were only three lines of text.

  Want freedom?

  We have answers.

  Cinetopia, Theater 9.

  “Sounds subversive,” Kendall said. “If Chord was involved in some rebel cause … that might explain his death. People who rebel in the Safe Lands don’t rebel for long. As Luella Flynn would say, ‘Rebels are a blemish that must be painted over.’ ”

  “Chord was a rebel,” Shaylinn said, feeling as though that supported Kendall’s theory. “And theater nine is where we meet — the rebels, I mean. To talk about our plans. I bet this is an invitation for Charlz to join the rebels.”

  “So this Bender man wants to kill me in case I might expose his potential recruits?” Kendall asked. “That doesn’t seem like adequate motive.”

  “Let’s open the others,” Shaylinn said, curious if they were all the same.

  The messages to Dane Skott and Domini Bentz were identical to the one addressed to Charlz Sims, but the message to Ruston Neil was totally different.

  Mr. Neil,

  Zane told me to contact you if I ever needed someone to trust and he wasn’t around. Since Zane didn’t answer my tap today, and I didn’t think it was safe to leave a voicemail, I’m writing to you.

  I left my messenger bag at the warehouse yesterday, and when I went back to retrieve it, I overheard Bender take a tap from General Otley. I couldn’t hear what Otley said, but Bender asked how Otley’s plans were coming along. He also said that once Otley was the task director general, Bender would be the enforcer general.

  Nothing else notable was said, but before Bender ended the call, he said he’d take care of it, whatever that means.

  While I can’t imagine that I misheard, I felt the best plan was to bring this to your attention. Bender summoned me to the warehouse today. I’m afraid he somehow found out I’d overheard his tap, so I decided to write this letter in case something happened to me.

  Thanks for your time,

  Chord Prezden

  “Bender must have killed Chord,” Kendall said. “What are we going to do?”

  Shaylinn’s head tingled. So did her arms. Hot and cold all at once. Bender kill Chord? She jumped up and trotted toward the door. “I have to go! I have to tell Jordan and Levi.”

  “Wait!”

  Shaylinn reached the door and slammed her glove to the SimPad. It swung inward, but Kendall arrived and pushed it shut.

  “What are you doing?” Shaylinn pounded her fist against the SimPad again, tears blurring her vision. “Let me out! If Bender killed Chord, he could kill any of us. Whenever he wants! I have to warn them!”

  But Kendall closed the door again and this time took hold of Shaylinn’s shoulders. “Just think for a minute, Shaylinn. Please. We have to be very careful and very smart. If Bender sent you here, he could be outside, watching. If you go running out of here, upset like you are … It will look bad, okay?”

  “Okay.” Shaylinn scanned the room, wishing there were another exit, but Kendall’s words slowly sank in. She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “Come back and sit at the table so we can decide what to do.”

  Shaylinn obeyed, rubbing her eyes as sh
e clomped across the kitchen. She fell onto the chair and took another huge breath. “What if we delivered them but kept copies of the messages. We’d need new envelopes, and we’d have to make them look as dirty and rumpled as these. But I could take the copies to Bender, and you could mail the real ones.”

  “I don’t know.” Kendall paced to the fridge and back to the table. “What if we get caught? If Bender never delivers any of the messages, then these people show up at your theater meeting with the original letters …”

  Good point. “Then we’ll make new envelopes and give these originals to Bender.” Shay gathered the recruitment cards. “But we need to deliver the original letter to Mr. Neil and give Bender a copy. That’s the only way to make Bender leave you alone and still honor what Chord risked his life for.”

  Kendall stared at the letter to Ruston. “I suppose. But won’t Ruston’s letter expose Bender? If Bender gets proof that Chord saw him and wrote a letter telling someone, he might assume that Chord told others as well. And if he thinks any rebels know about his deal with Otley, he might — ”

  “Tell Otley where my people are hiding!” Or worse, kill them. That left only one option that Shaylinn could see. “So we give Bender the three recruitment letters and that’s it. But we also have to go to Levi right away and hope he can come up with a plan before Bender betrays us all.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  You sent her where?” Levi fought to bottle his anger — Refrain from anger, and turn from wrath — but the careless look on Bender’s face almost put him over the edge. They were in the main room in the underground bunker. Levi had brought Bender and Rewl in for a quick discussion about recruiting Omar’s friends Charlz Sims and Dane Skott, but instead had found Jemma in hysterics over her missing sister.

  Bender had confessed straight away, as if his forcing Shaylinn to work for him was no big deal. “You worry too much.” Bender leaned back on the sofa and set his arms along the top. “The girl is stronger than you think.”

  “That’s not the point.” Levi tapped his chest. “Where my people are concerned, I say, not you.”

  “Where did you send her?” Jemma asked, her voice quavering.