by Amanda Witt
Another warden was circling around toward me, his gun pointed at Rafe, trying to get a clear shot, and now more wardens were running toward us from the prison, and I would have rushed in again, not because I could help but because I couldn’t stand there and do nothing, but someone caught me and pulled me against him, burying my face in his chest, hiding my eyes, covering my head with his arms.
I knew it was Farrell Dean but I didn’t care that it was him, didn’t care that he was trying to protect me. I fought him but he held me too close and I couldn’t get free though I struggled and kicked and bit.
Rafe’s voice, sounding strangled, called out the same indistinguishable words he’d shouted before. A shot rang out. Farrell Dean’s arms around me tightened.
Behind me, with a dull thud, a body struck the ground.
“Thus ends the first city meeting,” said the voice, and the spotlight went dark.
Chapter 8
In the chaos and darkness Farrell Dean yanked me away, pulling me out of the throng of bodies and into the long silent streets.
“No,” I said, still struggling, trying to dig in my heels, trying to stay. He was hurting me, or I was hurting myself trying to get free. “We have to go back, we have to help him.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Farrell Dean said. “He’s dead.”
But people fell down and got up all the time, that was what they did, and physicians could fix all sorts of things. Just because Rafe had fallen didn’t mean he was dead.
“Don’t say it,” I told Farrell Dean. “Don’t say it again.”
He didn’t say it again but he didn’t let go of me, either. He kept pulling me away from the city circle, toward my dorm, and as the noise of the crowd receded so did hope. The Watchers had wanted to kill Rafe; they’d make sure the job was properly done.
Rafe was dead.
Farrell Dean’s arms went from restraining to supporting, or else I would have sat down right there on the rough pavement, unable to walk, unable to think. He got me to the dormitory steps and up them, and at the top he looked warily around before pushing open the door and guiding me over the threshold.
“Stay here,” he said. “Don’t come out again, not tonight. Please.” In the moonlight his face was unnaturally pale.
“I’ll stay,” I said faintly, one hand on the doorframe for support. My mind was wandering in the darkness—back to the glaring spotlight, the blood and the shouting.
“I hurt you,” Farrell Dean said, touching my arm where he had gripped me, where new bruises would join the ones from the scarred warden. “I’m sorry.” His voice brought me back to the present, to the cold concrete steps, and I understood that he would stand there with me all night unless I released him. His eyes were bleak, too much like my own, and I couldn’t remember any words worth saying, so I reached out, brushed his hand with my fingertips, and went inside.
I was the first one back. I climbed straight up onto my bed and was reaching to pull the gray wool blanket over me when I caught sight of my feet. I had stepped in blood.
I don’t remember the next few minutes, only that I was staring at a meaningless point on the ceiling when the other sisters began to arrive. They moved quietly, talking in hushed voices. I heard one or two crying.
My bunkmate, Kari, came in. I heard her footsteps on the narrow aisle beside our bunk, heard her stop, then leave. After a few moments she came back. She didn’t speak—she never spoke—and I flinched when the warm wet rag touched my foot. She left to rinse the cloth and came back again, then did it two or three times more. Finally she dried my feet and pulled the covers over me, and the bed shifted as she settled into her bunk below.
Soon afterwards the lights went out, and I lay there in the darkness, stunned and disbelieving. Gradually, the knot in my chest loosened and I began to cry, hard but silently, soaking my pillow with hot tears.
Around midnight, exhausted, I drifted into a restless sleep, full of dark dreams, the only light a harsh light that picked out my red hair and followed me only among the people milling around, tracking me wherever I turned. I wanted to hide the color, but all I had to dye it with was Rafe’s blood. Then Meritt was standing in the city meeting circle. I was terrified, but he was laughing, and Cynda watched him laughing and then shrugged. “What will be, will be,” she said, and taking a pair of scissors, cut off my hair.
* * * *
I awoke the next morning numb, and fumbled through the motions of my usual routine. I dressed in clean clothes, brushed my hair, washed my face, brushed my teeth, feeling all the while somehow distant from my body, which dragged itself along while the real me hovered somewhere off to the side, incapable of believing that Rafe was gone—Rafe, the closest thing to a father I’d ever known.
I didn’t want breakfast, but my feet followed habit and took me to the cafeteria. There the big room, crowded, hummed with upset voices as threatening as angry bees. I collected a tray and wandered vaguely up and down the rows of tables, and when I came to an empty spot I sat down. A nanny mother, two mechanics, a laundress, and three women I recognized but didn’t know were already sitting at the table. When I pulled out the chair and sat down, not one of them met my eyes. The laundress across from me looked almost terrified. It took me a second to realize she was terrified of me.
I was baffled. Then it hit me: I’d tried to defend the traitor.
I looked around the room, searching for a friendly face. Two of my old people, Estelle and Mariella, had finished eating and were making their slow, careful way out of the cafeteria. My handful of other friends—the few people who didn’t much care what color my hair was—were sitting at crowded tables without empty chairs. So I shrugged to myself and reached for my spoon.
It was as if I’d flipped a switch. The people on either side of me, and the terrified laundress directly across, all got up and left. In a crowded dining hall there were three seats vacant around me.
I was a pariah.
Blood pounded in my ears. I felt as if the whole room were staring at me. They weren’t, of course—I glanced around to be certain. No. No one was looking at me. They were very carefully not looking at me.
But no one was coming to sit with me, either. A few people were actually eating leaning against a wall rather than be seen associating with me. When I glanced their way they averted their eyes.
My face hot, I forced myself to stay put, to eat, knowing I couldn’t afford to walk out and lose the calories. Fainting from hunger out in the field would definitely bring unwanted attention.
I was estimating the number of bites I had left, trying to get it all down quickly but without choking, when someone plunked a tray on the table beside me and slid into the chair. From the corner of my eye I could tell it was someone dark skinned. Cautiously I cast a sidelong glance and saw that it was Ezzie.
That surprised me. He’d always been polite, but we weren’t exactly friends. When he caught my eye he nodded and then turned his attention to his bowl of applesauce.
Just a few seconds later I stood to go, and he stood as well. The people around us shot suspicious glances his way.
“You’re not doing yourself any favors,” I said under my breath.
Ezzie shrugged. “You’ve got more support than you think. A bunch of the guys wish they’d done something last night.” He winked at me. “Instead, we let a girl show us up.”
He meant well, but I couldn’t muster a smile.
We were halfway to the door when my heart leapt before my brain even realized what my eyes were seeing. It was Meritt, just coming in.
He had a black eye, which merely served to underscore his usual rakish air; other than that he looked healthy and whole. He was listening to Genetic Counselor Roy, and as usual drawing the eyes of everyone in his vicinity. He had an odd sort of presence, Meritt did, simultaneously self-contained and high-energy. The combination tended to make people watch him, just in case he did something brilliant and unexpected.
I couldn’t speak to him with
so many people around, not when associating with me could get him in trouble. I wasn’t even sure he’d see me, focused as he was on his conversation. But as we passed each other his eyes met mine. He lifted his chin slightly, gesturing toward the door, even as he answered some question the genetic counselor had posed.
He’d meet me later, he was saying. The usual place, I assumed, at the usual time.
“Keep moving,” Ezzie said under his breath. “Warden alert.”
He was sitting at a table with a full tray in front of him. The people at his table were angled away from him, eating hurriedly, silently. I was careful not to look him in the face, but I felt his flat cold stare follow me all the way to the door.
* * * *
At lunch that day, Garry came lumbering over to me while I stood in line at the cafeteria truck. He’d worked hard that morning, and maybe I should have been pleased, but all I felt was disgusted. Sure, he’d work now—now that he was afraid of being put in the city meeting circle—just not when we were facing a slow death by starvation.
“Hey freak,” Garry said, jostling past a couple of people to get to me. He had yet another complaint, no doubt, and as usual it would be about something I could do absolutely nothing to remedy.
Hiding my dislike, I presented a blank face to him. Though the day was chilly he was sweating heavily, and his face, always red, looked almost purple.
“So tell me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “What did Rafe say to you last night?”
I mastered the urge to take a step away from him. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, and I didn’t.
He snorted. “He said something just before they shot him, and you were right there. What was it?”
I didn’t want to think about Rafe getting shot. I’d been trying all day to think about something else, not about Rafe. But now that Garry mentioned it, I realized he was right. Rafe had called out something, just a couple of words, while Farrell Dean was pulling me away.
Felix sidled up. “You just had to get involved, didn’t you?” he said to me, his whiny voice spiteful. “Why don’t you just paint a bull’s eye on your back and be done with it?” He’d been keeping his distance from me all morning, pointedly separating himself from whatever contagion I carried. Well, he’d be free of me soon enough. It was almost time for the field workers to be redistributed for winter jobs.
“Don’t interrupt,” Garry told Felix, then stuck out an arm when I tried to walk away.
“I’m talking to you,” he said. “Are you deaf?”
The people in line at the cafeteria truck glanced over and, when they saw Garry’s belligerent stance, edged prudently away. “Rafe was talking right to you,” Garry said, pointing at me with an accusing finger. “I saw it with my own eyes. Soon as he knew he was going to die he started twisting away from that warden, shouting something to you. I want to know what it was.”
I was willing myself to sound calm and probably failing miserably. “I couldn’t hear him over all the yelling,” I said, and then gave Garry’s shoulder an exaggerated pat. “But don’t worry. If I get in trouble the first thing I’ll tell them is, Garry had nothing to do with it.”
Garry’s face, if possible, turned an even darker purple. He was taking a deep breath, like he was about to start yelling at me, when a quiet voice spoke from up ahead. “If she didn’t hear it, she didn’t hear it. And I’m about to close the lunch truck, so if you intend to eat, you’d better get moving.”
Garry wheeled around to see who’d dare to cross him. It was the older cafeteria worker, Marta. She had a thin, angular face and a lot of straight gray hair, and while I wouldn’t have thought she could stare down Garry, lo and behold she did just that. He snatched up his tray, spluttered something—I didn’t exactly catch it, but I was pretty sure he was cussing at us both—and stalked heavily away.
I was alone now, except for the three cafeteria truck workers. The two younger women had their backs to me—whether intentionally or not, I didn’t know.
“Thanks,” I said to Marta as she handed me a plate.
She nodded briskly and put one hand on her hip. “Hold on,” she said. “Lena, Terri—do we have more ham sandwiches?”
“No,” one said sadly, eyeing my food. “That’s the last one.”
“Maybe B Truck has extras. Why don’t you two go see?”
The two girls vanished instantly.
Marta watched them go, then leaned across the truck counter toward me. “I couldn’t hear what Rafe said either,” she said. “But like that idiot Garry, I’m pretty sure Rafe was trying to tell you something. You or the boy.”
“I can hear him call out, in my mind,” I said. “But it’s just sound. It isn’t words.”
“I understand. Don’t worry about it. But—” she lowered her voice, tucked a strand of gray hair behind her ear. “There might be another way.”
I waited, not understanding.
“Rafe knew anything was possible, once the city meeting was announced,” she said. “He would never put all his eggs in one basket.”
I stared at her. “You think maybe he left a message?”
Marta gave the smallest of nods and ran a wet rag over the counter.
Could that have been why we’d been going to meet him? Because he wanted to tell Meritt something?
“Maybe at the school, maybe at his house,” Marta said, because of course she didn’t know we’d been going to meet him in person.
“He wouldn’t put anything in writing,” I said. “Too dangerous. The wardens might find it. Rafe was careful. He was always careful.”
Marta nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “He was careful enough to make contingency plans. And if he left a message, he wouldn’t have left it in plain sight. It will take someone who knows him well to find it.”
Then, with a brisk nod, she pulled down the serving flap and left me facing a rusting metal wall.
* * * *
By the time the city siren sounded to end the work day, I was weak with hunger. Even so, the memory of being ostracized at breakfast made me dread the cafeteria. Maybe I’d go by the dorm and shower before dinner. I’d end up getting the dregs of whatever we were having, but at least by then there’d plenty of empty spots at the tables.
On my way to the dorm I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I knew what it was without looking—Petey and Judd horsing around—though I couldn’t believe they were playing their usual games, not after what had happened last night. For a second I was appalled, disgusted with them, but then I imagined them behaving like the laundress at breakfast this morning, white-faced with fear. This was better.
So I mustered a little energy and strolled down the street as if I hadn’t noticed their dash from doorway to doorway. I pretended to be utterly absorbed in the goings-on around me: I took in the weary-looking physician carrying two large boxes into the infirmary; the dorm mother sweeping the front steps of her dormitory; a knot of older women moving slowly toward the cafeteria, helping each other over uneven places and up steps. The way they clung to each other gave me the uneasy feeling that if one slipped, they’d all go down in a heap, shattering hips and arms and who knows what all.
I was trying to see if any of my old people were in the group when Mariella caught sight of me. Her face lit up and, daringly, she let go of the arm she was holding for balance and waved gently in my direction. Heads turned; they all saw me, all smiled, all lifted their hands in greeting, all swayed unsteadily.
I smiled and waved back, the pain in my heart easing just a little. My old people weren’t hiding from me. They never had. They’d always made time for me back when I was a lonely little girl. They’d told me stories, taken me for walks, watched me play in the dirt in the yard of the children’s dormitory, listened to my secrets. Sometimes they touched my hair wonderingly, but they never called me a freak.
They moved carefully on, and I watched them until they were safely inside the cafeteria. Then I started down the street again.
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Finally I was within range, and my stalkers pounced. They leapt out from the shadow of the prison house, shouting something incomprehensible, grabbing my arms and spinning me in a circle, their own arms and legs flying in all directions. “We got you!” they yelled. “We win!”
A passerby edged around us, shaking his head disapprovingly.
“Did you see us?” Petey asked anxiously as we stumbled to a stop. He was a thin boy, eleven years old, with an oddly round face.
“If I’d seen you, would I have let you catch me?”
Judd saw through my evasion and snorted. “Yeah, you would. You keep thinking we’re babies.” Judd was twelve, stockily built, and blond. I had been his partner at school, after Meritt left, so he wasn’t afraid of me and my odd hair, like most of the younger kids were.
“Don’t cheat for us,” Petey said. “If you see us, you have to tell. Otherwise how can we get better?”
I considered this. “Okay, I saw you,” I said. Petey’s face fell. “But just barely. You moved faster than everyone else on the street, and that caught my attention.”
“Right, blend in,” Judd said, “You’re so very good at that, Red. Thanks for the tip.”
He shot me a smile before he ran off. I hoped being seen with me wouldn’t get him and Petey into trouble.
* * * *
When I finally got back to my dormitory, the bathroom was blessedly empty, except for Meri, who was never one to chatter. In a dorm room full of girls, I liked that about her. She wouldn’t be here much longer; she’d just turned nineteen, and soon would be moved to the adult quarters—assuming, of course, we survived that long.
As I stripped my clothes off in the steamy shower area, I wondered who she’d be assigned to. There was quite a crop of guys who’d recently turned nineteen or soon would—Ezzie, Cline, Joe, Harding, Errol, Farrell Dean. Though I didn’t want Farrell Dean for myself, I couldn’t picture him with Meri. Or with anyone, actually. And when Meritt was assigned . . .