I try to make my legs more comfortable. My ankles are throbbing. “What’s going to happen to David?”
“Why do you care?” Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “Do you know him from back home or something?”
“No, I just met him. But we’re both from New Providence, and he saved my life.”
“Don’t worry about him. Just worry about yourself.”
“I told him we’d come back and rescue him.”
“Then you lied. Accept his fate and move on.”
I can’t accept it, but I don’t want to argue with her. “So are we trapped here?” I whisper. “In this little hole?”
“This little hole,” Gadya repeats mockingly. “You’d be dead without it.”
“I’m not criticizing it. I’m grateful.” We sit in awkward silence. I keep sneaking glances at her. Beneath the piercings and tattoos, and the mane of blue hair, I can see a regular teenage girl. Not too different from me. She catches me looking at her, so I glance away. Now I hear only the cries of tropical birds above us. The robed boys have completely passed us by. “So, your name’s Gadya?” I finally ask.
She nods sharply. Doesn’t offer a last name.
“I’m Alenna.”
She nods again, less sharply. So I finally dare to ask the question that’s on my mind. “No one’s coming to rescue me, are they? I mean, no one from back home.”
Gadya shakes her head. “Nope.”
“Then why did I get sent here? And why are kids like you and David here? I thought everyone on this island was supposed to be an Unanchored Soul. But David and you seem so—”
“Normal?” she interrupts. “Of course we are. Just like you. Nothing they told us in the UNA is true. Not about Island Alpha or anything else.”
“Then tell me what’s really going on. Why were those boys chasing us?”
She glares at me. “Doling out reality checks isn’t part of my job. Our leader will explain everything to you when we get back to the village. My job was just to find any new arrivals and bring you in.” She runs a hand through her blue hair. “Guess I only did the job half right, seeing as your friend didn’t make it. But it doesn’t matter much. Kids always turn up around here, so we take turns searching the area every day.” She sheathes her knife and hides it in the dirt floor of the spider hole, presumably for the next person who needs it.
Then she lifts the roof of our enclosure and peers out. “All clear,” she declares, pushing back the roof the rest of the way, letting light filter in. “I need to get you to the village right away. Get you vaccinated.”
I look at her, startled. “Vaccinated?”
“I bet you only have another hour. After that, it’ll be too late.” She puts her hands on the edge of the hole and pushes herself up and out, in a smooth, practiced gesture. Then she brushes herself off and extends a hand. I take it and struggle my way out, feeling awkward and oafish. I crawl onto the trail and stand there on wobbly, aching legs. Gadya kicks the roof back over the hole.
“You’re scaring me,” I tell her. “Vaccinated against what?”
“You talk too much. You ask too many questions. That’s not a good trait to have here.” Gadya starts heading down the trail again. I start jogging along behind her.
“Then give me some answers. Don’t treat me like I’m a moron.”
“I don’t think you’re a moron. You’re just green.” She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Being green can get people killed.” She lifts up a vine as thick as my wrist, and we pass underneath it.
“At least tell me about the vaccine.”
Gadya looks back at me. “It prevents disease. Trust me, you need it.”
We reach a wider path, lined with magnolia trees. Gadya pauses for a second, listening. All is silent. We start moving again, wading rapidly through the tangled underbrush.
“And the island?” I press, trying to gather as much information as possible. “Where are we exactly? The Atlantic? The Pacific?”
“First of all, no one calls this place ‘the island.’ We call it ‘the wheel,’ because it’s divided into misshapen triangular sectors. Like pie slices. There are six of them. Don’t ask me why—I didn’t make the rules. The UNA did. The Monk controls four sectors—orange, purple, yellow, and red. Our tribe controls one—the blue sector. The sixth one’s called the gray zone. Bad things happen in there.”
Her grim tone gives me a momentary chill.
“We used to control the orange sector,” she continues, “but the Monk’s been expanding his territory. More and more kids keep joining his gang, or religion, or whatever he calls it. You picked a hell of a time to turn up here. We’re in the middle of a war. And we’re losing.”
My head is buzzing as we walk, filled with a million more questions. “A war against the Monk? Who is he?”
“An old man who’s been here longer than anyone else. He claims he has supernatural powers. He tells everyone that the wheel is a test, and if they do what he says, they’ll get off it one day—or find their reward in the afterlife. Crazy, desperate kids turn to him, looking for meaning.” She lowers her voice. “We call him the Cannibal Monk.”
I stop in my tracks, horrified. “Cannibal? As in, like, he eats people?”
Gadya chuckles. “Not flesh. Souls. That’s what he’s after.” She glances back and sees the stricken look on my face. “It’s a figure of speech.” She increases her pace. “C’mon.”
The path is wide enough to walk shoulder to shoulder, although it’s hard keeping up with Gadya. “So how long have you been here?”
“Fourteen months,” she replies, like that’s nothing. Then she points up ahead. “Look, we’re almost at the village. We’re rebuilding from a nighttime raid. If we build huts, eventually the Monk’s drones burn ’em down.” The trees thin as we crest a ridge and approach a grassy clearing the size of a baseball diamond. “This island is allergic to civilization. The Monk makes sure of that.”
I don’t fully understand, but I’m too dazed and distracted to ask any more questions. We’ve reached the edge of the trees and I’m gazing out at the clearing. I see about a hundred teenagers, my age or older, hammering and assembling makeshift shacks around the edges of the clearing. Hammocks hang between crooked palm trees. So this is how exiles live.
Most of the kids are dirty and unkempt, with ragged hair. A few even have wispy beards. But none look particularly crazy or dangerous, not like the boys in robes. These kids are mostly wearing T-shirts and jeans, or shorts. I wonder if the blue-eyed boy will be among them, if he’s still alive, and if this is his village. I look for him, hoping to see him, but don’t find his face anywhere.
A huge stone fire pit sits in the center of the clearing, about twelve feet in diameter. It holds only ashes at the moment, but the odor of smoke and greasy barbecued meat hovers in the air.
As Gadya and I emerge, some of the villagers stare in our direction.
“Took you long enough!” a boy yells at Gadya. He’s got muscular shoulders, and he’s lugging a large sheet of warped plywood. Gadya flicks him off with a callused middle finger. He laughs. I barely know Gadya, but I already wish I could be as confident and brash as she is. Especially here on this island.
I’m surprised there aren’t more people at the village. The island is supposed to hold tens of thousands of Unanchored Souls. So where is everyone? Maybe they’ve joined forces with the Monk already. Despite Gadya’s advice to forget about David, I’m worried about what’s happening to him right now. He probably needs the same vaccine that I’m about to get.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gadya murmurs. “This village is small, and it looks like crap, right?”
I don’t reply.
“There’s more of us in the blue sector than just these kids,” Gadya elaborates. “But it’s safest to keep each village small and spread out. Easier to mobilize, and easier to move and rebuild. There’s another village thirty miles east. Another thirty miles south. There are fifteen villages total in our sector, but w
e don’t communicate with them much unless we need to. Each village is pretty self-sufficient.”
I’m half-listening, distracted by thoughts of the vaccine, and also by the sight of a boy and a girl fast approaching across the clearing. Both are fair-haired, slender and attractive. A few years older than me. The girl is wearing a white sundress, and the boy is wearing a white T-shirt and slacks.
The boy waves at Gadya as he nears. “Trouble?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Just some drones. I set ’em straight and—”
“Where’s your gun?” the girl interrupts, frowning.
Gadya glares at her. “Up a drone’s ass. Why?”
The boy laughs, but the girl keeps frowning. I want to speak up for Gadya and explain that if she hadn’t thrown the gun, we wouldn’t be here right now. But I stay quiet.
The boy and the girl scrutinize me. I’m struck by the way their pale skin seems to glow. They both have delicate features, straight noses, and expressive blue eyes. I wonder if they’re siblings—maybe even twins.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the boy says. “Well, not you specifically, but for the next arrivals.”
“There was another one, but the Monk’s drones got him,” Gadya explains. “He’s either dead already or the drones are brainwashing him into joining ’em. It’s too late to go back for him.”
“Pity. I’m sure you’ll do better next time.” It takes me a moment to place the unusual lilt in the girl’s voice. The boy has it too. Then I realize they must be from far up north. The place once called Canada.
The boy extends his hand to me. “My name’s Matthieu Veidman,” he says. “I run things around here.”
I tell him my name as I return his handshake. His grip is firm and dry, despite the heat.
He gestures at his companion. “This is Meira.”
The girl extends her hand coolly, and I shake it, too. “Did Gadya explain about the vaccine?” she asks.
“Kind of.”
“My predecessor discovered how to make it,” Veidman says. “It prevents a malarial fever that used to be common around here.” He pauses. “Come with me to my cabin, and I’ll get you sorted out.” He turns to Meira and Gadya. “Bring me ten cc’s of the new batch.”
“Sure,” Meira says, heading away at once with Gadya. I’m pretty surprised they even have needles and vaccines here.
Veidman calls after Meira, a few final words in French. Then he turns back to me. “I’m from Montreal— in Quebec,” he explains. “I mean, before it all became part of the UNA and Minister Harka renamed everything.”
Sensing that he probably has a lot more answers than Gadya, I blurt, “So tell me everything I need to know about this island! Is there any way to get off it?”
Surprised by my outburst, he laughs. “Look, on the wheel you have to learn as you go. That’s how most of us have made it this far.” He cocks an eyebrow at me. “You gotta use your wits. I’m nineteen and a half. That’s one year and six months beyond my life expectancy, and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.” Veidman puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and starts steering me toward a shack about a hundred paces away. “But feel free to ask me whatever questions you want.”
I don’t know where to begin. “I thought only Unanchored Souls got sent here. But I’m not like that. And neither are any of you. Why would the government lie?”
“We don’t know. There are definitely some evil people here on the wheel, but a lot of regular ones as well. It’s not too different from back home, I guess.”
“Gadya told me about the Cannibal Monk,” I say. “That you guys are at war with him.”
“The boys you met in the forest today are the Monk’s warriors, his hunters,” Veidman tells me. “We call them drones. They’re like worker bees protecting the hive. Other groups exist in the sectors controlled by the Monk, like gatherers, builders, and cooks. His people worship him, and they’ve been taking over the island one sector at a time for years. We’re the only sector of kids left who oppose him.”
We reach some colorful blankets on the ground outside Veidman’s shack. We both sit down, cross-legged.
“Actually, we think some drones might have infiltrated our sector,” Veidman continues. “That they’re living among us, maybe even in this village, pretending to be on our side. But waiting for the perfect moment to sabotage everything . . .”
His words trail off as Meira and Gadya reappear. Meira is holding a medical syringe in her left hand. It’s just dangling there, filled with dark fluid. Red, like blood. She walks over and hands the syringe to Veidman.
Veidman glances over at me. “I was planning on becoming a doctor before I got sent to the wheel.” He holds up the syringe and squirts a little liquid into the air. “Now I just get to play one.” He smiles. “Show me your arm.”
Suddenly I’m back in the scanning cell, with the tech in the white lab coat leaning over me.
“Flashback,” I croak, breaking out in a cold sweat. I feel woozy. Faint. And embarrassed.
“Happens sometimes.” Veidman leans forward, pushing up my right sleeve. He taps the inside of my arm, searching for a vein.
“You know why you felt like crap when you landed here?” Gadya asks from behind me.
Veidman frowns. “Probably not the best time—”
Gadya keeps talking: “Why your head hurt? Why your thoughts were all fuzzy?”
I glance back at her over my shoulder. “No. Tell me.”
“Gadya.” I hear a cold note of warning in Meira’s voice. But I don’t want Gadya to be quiet. I want to know what happened to me. It’s my body. I have a right.
Gadya moves forward into my view. “Ever heard of ECT?” she asks. “Also known as electroshock therapy? That metal band in the testing cell didn’t scan your mind. It delivered an eight-hundred milliamp jolt of electricity, right into your frontal lobes!”
I yank my arm out of Veidman’s grasp, horrified. “Electroshock! But that was banned years ago!” Tears spring into my eyes. The government tried to fry my mind?
“It’s no big deal,” Veidman says, sounding resigned. “Happens to everyone who gets sent to the wheel. They use a low dose to disorient us. To make us forget how we got here.” He pulls my arm forward again, ignoring my dismay. Before I’m even ready, he jabs me with the needle on the inside of my elbow. Just like the scanning tech.
Veidman stands up and hands the empty syringe back to Meira.
“So what happens now?” I ask. “Am I going to be okay?”
Veidman looks down at me. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.” His tone is fairly jocular, but his eyes are distant and veiled. I look over at Gadya and Meira. Meira is now half shrouded in the shadow of a tree; Gadya is still watching me closely.
“I’ll take the good news first,” I mutter. I try to stand up, then realize that my whole body feels heavy. I sit back down again as a sensation of heat rushes through me. “Does anyone ever have an allergic reaction to this vaccine?”
Veidman is about to speak, but Gadya cuts him off. “It’s not a vaccine!” she exclaims, like she’s unable to stay silent. I look up at her, confused, as my head starts swimming.
“Gadya, keep your fat mouth shut,” Meira warns.
“It’s not a vaccine. It’s a truth serum!” Gadya continues. “They’re gonna ask you questions and find out who you really are. They think you’re a secret spy for the Monk. They think you’ve been sent here to kill us all!”
THE VILLAGE
FIVE MINUTES LATER, THE truth serum—or whatever it is—has completely taken hold. I’m caught in a weird state between waking and sleeping. I’ve been dragged inside Veidman’s cabin and stretched out on a hammock. Veidman, Gadya, Meira, and several other villagers cluster around me.
The questions come in rapid succession from a chorus of voices. They ask me what my real name is. Where I’m really from. Who sent me here, and why. What I know about the wheel and about the Monk. They ask me about David. And if I’m here to hu
rt anyone, among a hundred other things. For once ignorance truly is bliss. I know nothing. Less than any of these kids do.
But the questions don’t stop. Veidman and Meira are certain I have secrets. Their voices grow as sharp as knives, slicing deeply. They think I’m lying, despite the truth serum.
“You’re an orphan,” their voices insist. “You claim your parents were dissidents, so what did they do? Tell us!”
But of course I don’t have an easy answer for that one. I never have. I can hear my own voice explaining all of this, calm but deadened, inside an echo chamber of numbness. I tell them I was only ten when my parents got taken away. If they did anything radically subversive, beyond minor infractions, then they hid it from me.
Finally, after what feels like hours, my interrogators begin to sound tired. The questions wane.
“She doesn’t know squat,” I hear Gadya mutter. “Just like I figured.” She’s the only one who hasn’t asked me a single thing. “She’s not the one you’re looking for, Veidman.”
“Maybe,” I hear Meira say, still unconvinced.
Gadya and another girl eventually lead me out of the hut and back into the grassy clearing. The sun is lower on the horizon, the sky a deeper shade of blue. I sit down. The girl splashes cold water across my face before heading away with a dismissive glance. I’m still groggy, but starting to come around.
“I told you I didn’t know anything,” I murmur to Gadya.
“I know, but I don’t make the rules, remember?” She forces a plastic water jug into my hands. “Drink. It’ll help you pee the serum out faster.”
With trembling fingers, I raise the jug to my lips and take a sip. Then I lower it. “You tricked me.” As my senses return, I’m starting to get angry. “You lied about the vaccine.”
“I didn’t have a choice. There was no way to know if you were a spy or not. You and David could have just been pretending to be new to the wheel.” She crosses her arms. “It wasn’t my idea, if that helps any. Veidman and Meira are the ones who figured out how to make the truth serum—from henbane seeds and grain alcohol. They’re crazy smart. They know things we don’t, and they’ve been here longer than anyone else in our village. They’ve started using their truth serum on every new arrival.”
The Forsaken (Forsaken - Trilogy) Page 5