First Girl

by Julie Aitcheson

Gabi stifled a gasp. She was home! In her own room! How could she have missed the familiar warmth of her flannel sheets, the dusty, inky smell of her books? This was going to make everything so much easier.

  Once the adult voices disappeared down the hall, she opened her eyes. It was her room, but it wasn’t. Every one of her books was gone. Where were they? Focus, Gabi reminded herself when she began to sink into a wallow of despair at the disappearance of her lifelong companions. Time was short. As she raised herself up to sit, she nearly bit through her tongue to keep from crying out. Her whole body throbbed. A bottle of aspirin and a glass of water were on her nightstand, and she gulped down three before draining the glass.

  A quick look at the IVs on either side of her bed told her which of the hanging bags contained the evil medicine. She would leave the electrolyte drip in as long as possible to speed her recovery, but Gabi quickly ripped the medical tape from the gauze at her other elbow and slid the needle free. It was important that the bag continue to drain normally and the line still appear attached to her. Gabi folded the gauze around the needle point to absorb the medicine, then used more gauze from her bedside table to hold the needle away from her skin. A fresh strip of medical tape concealed her handiwork. She’d just managed to wriggle back down under her blankets when the doorknob turned and Sam entered her room.

  Gabi’s first impulse was to feign sleep to give herself more time to strategize, but time was a luxury she didn’t have. Who knew how long she’d been out and what had happened in the meantime? Sam knew she hadn’t been taking her medicine, but what else did he know? There was only one way to find out. She turned her head toward him as he crossed the threshold of her room and opened her eyes.

  “Gabi, you’re awake!” Sam cried, rushing forward and placing a hand on her forehead. “Are you okay? How do you feel? Do you need anything? Should I call Nurse Sutton back?” He looked terrible. His glasses were so smudged with fingerprints that she wondered how he could see out of them at all, his shirt was splotched with tea stains, and his hair lay in an irregular configuration of spikes and matted patches. Judging from the blanket and Unitas bulletin thrown across the overstuffed armchair in the corner of her room, he’d been keeping vigil by Gabi’s bedside since she’d been home.

  “I don’t need a nurse,” she said, her voice a harsh rasp. “I’m just a little sore. Why am I here instead of the Care Center?”

  Sam dragged the armchair over to Gabi’s bed and slumped into it with a sigh.

  “There’s been a massive conflict in the Pacific Northwest. The Tribes have been stirring up trouble there, trying to destabilize the fellowship. They’ve trained a new fighting force more vicious than anything we’ve seen before. ‘Lilim,’ they’re calling them. There’s been terrible fighting. After seeing what the Lilim are capable of, a record number of refugees petitioned the Witness teams to bring them back to Alder for baptism. It’s an awful situation, but also a gift, I suppose. God’s flock is growing, and soon this kind of senseless violence will be behind us.”

  “How long was I out?” Gabi asked.

  Sam drank in her face as if she might vanish at any moment. “They called me yesterday at work after Trainer Foulkes found you on the trail. Fortunately, the testing center staff is trained in emergency medical care, so they were able to stabilize you before I got there. Thanks to Nurse Sutton, we got you set up here without too much trouble. We had to clear out your books to make room for the equipment, though. They’ve been donated to the Alder High library.” Gabi winced. “I’m sorry, Gabriela, but it was for the best. You’re getting too old to hide away in here with your books now that you’ve been called.”

  “Where’s Mathew? Did he pass? Is he okay?”

  “Mathew’s fine. He keeps calling from the training facility every chance he gets to see if you’re okay. He’ll be lucky if they don’t kick him out for sneaking off to use the phone. You really scared him, Gabi. He thinks this is his fault. He told me he knew you weren’t taking your pills before you went to camp, and he didn’t say anything about it. We need to talk about your deception and willful behavior.”

  Gabi shook her head to clear the cobwebs from the medicine making it hard to keep up with Sam’s words.

  “Wait, why is Mathew still out at the facility?”

  “The situation on the Northwest coast is deteriorating rapidly, and all mission teams, including new Junior Witnesses, are being put through a training intensive before being deployed to the region. We have to take drastic measures to deal with this Lilim threat before more lives are lost. They are without mercy, Gab, without souls, and they will do whatever it takes to gain control.”

  “So Mathew is going to fight? Like in a war?”

  Sam sighed and kneaded the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. “It’s always been a war, honey. God’s Word alone used to be enough to win it, but now it’s not. The devil has found his stronghold in these Lilim, so our actions need to be strong too. Your brother ships out in a couple of days. You’ll get to see him before he goes, though. There’s a big send-off planned in the plaza before the convoys roll out.”

  Gabi knew she should keep hounding Sam for answers. What about Marnie? Where was she and why had she been taken out of the test? Had Jordan passed? Was he going to the Northwest too? But all she could think about was Mathew, what she had put him through, and how he would be headed right into the heart of danger believing she had betrayed him.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in, Gabriela,” Sam said, “but we have to talk about you now. Why on earth did you stop taking your medication, and what led you to believe that taking the Witness exam was a good idea? I am truly baffled by your behavior, not to mention the lengths you must have gone to in order to carry out this deception. Your actions are an insult to God, your family, and the fellowship.”

  Sam’s words enraged her. “An insult to God, your family, and the fellowship” was exactly how she would describe his actions as a member of the Unitas council. It reminded her that failure was not an option.

  “In my closet, under my laundry, is a suitcase,” Gabi said slowly. “Would you bring it to me, please?”

  “Gabi, this is no time for games. I expect some answers from you, young lady.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to give you,” she said, pressing up tall as ragged agony sliced up her arms. “I need to show you something.”

  Sam hesitated, then rose and retrieved the suitcase. He laid the small piece of luggage across her lap, then brought her the hairpin she requested to jimmy the lock. When it clicked, Gabi opened the case just enough to withdraw a clear plastic bag heavy with pills and laid it on top of the lid. Sam gaped at its bulk.

  “Gabi, are those what I think they are?”

  “I stopped taking them awhile back. Gram suggested it before she died.”

  “But why would she do that?” Sam asked, unable to take his eyes from the cascade of tablets.

  “I was late taking them once, and I got a little better. She said I should just try skipping one at a time and see how I felt. I thought it was strange but then, on the day she got sick, I missed one so I could be with her at the Care Center. I started to feel better almost immediately. I could breathe easier and do things I’d never been able to do.” Sam’s eyes shuttered as he leaned back in his chair. Gabi continued in a breathless rush. “When I had my last spell and woke up at the Care Center hooked up to that IV, I was weak all over again, just like I’ve felt my whole life. The pills don’t help. They hurt. You have to believe me. The doctors made a mistake.”

  Gabi paused to catch her breath and let the words sink in. She expected Sam to be shocked at her revelation, but his face was stoic. After a few long minutes, he glanced back at the pills and said, “No. There’s no mistake.” She recognized that tone. It was the same flat, disconnected one he’d used after Messenger Nystrom came to tell them Gram was dead.

  “What do you mean ‘there’s no mistake’?”

  Sam’s face hardened as he
clenched his jaw. “The pills are necessary, Gabriela, and you will continue taking them.”

  That was it, the proof she’d feared. The pills had nothing to do with her health and everything to do with control. But as much as she feared the consequences and the deathblow her actions might deal to her relationship with Sam, Gabi had to get that control back. When she raised the lid of the suitcase again, there was a tremor in her hand and a rush of soft clicks as the pills tumbled against each other. She reached in and extracted the envelope. Without opening it she extended it toward Sam.

  “What is this?”

  “I know,” Gabi said, matching the cold calm of his tone and hoping it was enough to conceal the lie. Did she imagine it or were Sam’s hands shaking too, as he pulled the letter from the envelope? When he was finished reading, Sam laid the letter on his lap and looked at Gabi.

  “What do you know, exactly?” he asked.

  She should be beyond disappointment by now, Gabi thought, but Sam continued to let her down at every turn. She’d given him so many chances to be better, to tell the truth, and he’d ignored them all. Her next words were a gamble, but if Sam refused to tell the truth, then Gabi had to. And pray there was solid ground beneath her when she did.

  “I know that I’m Naomi.”

  Sam held her gaze, but his body jerked in the chair so that the letter slid off his lap and sailed to the floor. So it’s true, she thought, looking at the man who’d always called himself her father.

  “Who gave you this?” Sam whispered, looking at Gabi as though he feared her. “Gabriela, this isn’t a game. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “It doesn’t matter who gave it to me,” Gabi answered, sliding the letter farther under her bed with her toe. Its power was evident in Sam’s reaction, and she might need that kind of leverage again soon. “What I want to know is, why didn’t you ever tell me? People adopt here all the time. It would make sense for a leader of the community to bring an orphaned child into his home.”

  “Gabriela, you have to understand. Things were so much more complicated than you know.”

  “So tell me,” Gabi insisted. “I think I deserve to know who my real parents are. You owe me that much.”

  Sam’s eyes were pleading as he slumped back in his chair. “I am going to tell you because you do deserve to know, not because I regret anything. You would have died if we hadn’t taken you in. We did it to save your life.” Gabi gave him nothing, though a bitter wind had begun to howl in her ears as Sam’s words dismantled her life. “Your birth mother was one of the Returned. She was already in labor by the time Apostle Walker got her to the Care Center. The labor was harrowing. Both of you almost died. It lasted two days, and within hours of your birth, your biological mother decided to give you up for adoption. You had certain… birth defects that made your condition very delicate, and she knew she couldn’t give you the care you needed long-term. After we took you in, she disappeared from the Care Center without a trace. We brought you home, and then Therese was killed in the accident. You weren’t getting better, so I took you back to the Intensive Care Unit, and it was more than six months before they discharged you again. It took the doctors that long to figure out how to keep you alive.”

  “What about my father?” Gabi choked out.

  Her question visibly wounded Sam. “No one knew anything about him, but I have loved you like my own every day of your life. You must know that. I would do anything for you.”

  “Not anything,” Gabi shot back. “You won’t accept that this medicine makes me sick or that maybe there are some things more important than maintaining the fellowship.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sam asked, genuine puzzlement wrinkling his brow. “Yes, I have my duties. A fellow’s relationship to God is primary, you know that.”

  Gabi sighed. “I know that all you really care about is Unitas, and all I care about is the truth, so maybe we’re not so different.” She was hurting him more with every word, but doing what she had to do would be impossible if she allowed herself to pity him.

  “That’s not true, Gabi,” Sam insisted. “I’ve always put you and Mathew first when I could, but it’s God’s Will that we devote ourselves to his will. The very world we live in depends upon that. I won’t apologize for being a man of God.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Gabi said, then peeled the bandages from her inner elbows and removed the needles.

  “Gabi, don’t—” But she raised a hand to silence him and swung her legs over the edge of the bed so she could retrieve the letter and face him directly.

  “I’m going to ask you for something, and if you want to continue serving as an executive councilman, you’ll give it to me. Sixteen years of deceiving your own daughter, not to mention your fellows, would certainly be sufficient cause for—” She broke off here, because the pain in her body was nothing compared to how vile it felt to threaten the man who had raised her with such love.

  “Excommunication,” Sam finished for her, tears filling his eyes.

  GABI HAD never been to the group home. Marnie avoided it herself for everything but sleeping and meals. The building was covered in cheap plastic siding, squat and featureless except for a few tiny windows and some planters filled with plastic flowers on the crumbling stoop. Gabi pressed the doorbell, gritting her teeth against the spasm the movement caused in her arm and shoulder. No one answered, so she let herself in. The house was filled with mismatched furniture and cheap curios scavenged from the reclamation shelter at the dump, and was completely, eerily silent. Today was the big send-off for Witness teams headed to the Pacific Northwest, and apparently it was an occasion that no one, including the group-home orphans, wanted to miss. It was imperative that Gabi get to the send-off in time, but she knew there was still one person left in that depressing house, and she couldn’t leave without her.

  Finding Marnie wasn’t difficult. All the doors bore pastel construction-paper crosses with the names of each resident written on them in cheery letters. The curls of cigarette smoke wafting from under the door, and a powder blue cross bearing the name Marian Randolph were all Gabi needed to find her target. She pushed open the door and searched through the haze of smoke for Marnie. The girl was huddled on her bed with knees pulled up and a singed filter between her lips, her hair in an unsculpted snarl.

  “Get out,” Marnie growled without looking away from the hole she was busy staring into the wall.

  “But I brought cigarettes,” Gabi coaxed, walking over to the foot of Marnie’s bed. “And by the looks of it, you’re fresh out.”

  “Gabi?” Marnie yelped, lowering her knees and lunging toward her friend to lock her arms around her neck. “I can’t believe they let you come see me!”

  “Why not?” Gabi gasped, trying to reposition herself so Marnie’s shoulder wasn’t digging directly into her throat.

  Marnie pulled back abruptly and gaped at her. “Don’t you know?”

  “Know what?” Gabi asked, checking her watch and rubbing her throat. “Tell me while you get your shoes on. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “Where?”

  “Shoes, then story,” Gabi ordered.

  The tale rushed out of Marnie in a torrent as she laced up her battered sneakers. “It was the letters I traded with Beth. The analysts found something they didn’t like, and they asked Beth about them while we were in the testing hall. She told them I’d been flirting with her since camp, trying to get her to leave Alder with me so we could be together. Obviously that wasn’t in the letters, but she told them we’d been meeting secretly too.”

  “But why would she do that?” Gabi sputtered.

  “To save her own ass is why. You can’t have a victim without a villain. The worse Beth made me look, the better she looked. You can’t be a villain and a hero at the same time, so no Witness team for me.”

  “What did they do to you? I was so worried!” Gabi searched Marnie for signs that she’d been harmed, but other than looking more wan than usu
al, she seemed fine.

  “Oh, just your basic interrogation under a bare lightbulb, followed by a forced bullshit confession.”

  “You confessed?” Gabi screeched. “But none of it was true! Come on, let’s walk.”

  “Walk where?” Marnie protested as Gabi hustled her down the hall and out the front door. Gabi’s pace was incompatible with the complaints of her ravaged body, but another glance at her watch propelled her.

  “Don’t you want some fresh air? You’re so pale you’re starting to look like me. Why did you confess?”

  “They tried a few threats, all lame, but then they said if I didn’t sign the confession, they would automatically fail you and Jordan and neither of you would make a team. Beth must have told them we got close during camp. It was already over for me. Even if I did confess, there’s no way they were going to let me be a Witness. It seemed dumb to drag you all down with me, so I signed the stupid thing.”

  “Was it the council that interrogated you?” Gabi asked as she hauled Marnie down the street.

  “Nah, that’s way beneath them. It was that hatchet-faced lady from registration and her Minder thugs. The specifics weren’t important to them, just as long as I admitted to breaking doctrine. I have to get tutored privately until I get my diploma, then I can start my exciting new job in custodial services at the temple complex. I have to stay in the group home until I’m eighteen or until I can afford my own place, which, judging by what temple custodians get paid, should be about thirty years from now.”

  “Well, I failed anyway, all on my own,” Gabi huffed as they race-walked toward the plaza parking lot where a convoy of Witness shuttles were lined up at the edge of a crowd of well-wishers.

  “You did? Oh, shit, Lowell, I’m sorry. What happened? Why are we at the plaza? I would think this is the last place you would want to be today. Unless Mathew passed?”

  “Of course he passed,” Gabi said as she towed Marnie through the crowd. “So did Jordan. He got the second-highest score on the written part.”