“You tried to warn him!” said Tiber.
Recks couldn’t answer. Tiber kicked at him again. Recks writhed on the floor while the rest of the tribe watched, some devouring bits of stolen meat.
“I don’t like traitors,” said Tiber. The Tribe jeered and shouted in agreement. Someone handed Tiber some meat, which he ate with his grubby fingers while he circled Recks, watching him through beady eyes. Weevil had the same eyes when he was about to finish someone off. I wanted to scream, but I knew I had to keep my head on. I looked around. What could I do? Running into their camp wasn’t an option. There were at least eight of them that I could see.
A set of ladders glowed in the firelight overhead. Not knowing exactly what I was going to do, I climbed a ladder quickly to a second story landing and scurried over their heads to hide behind some giant pipes. Lucky for me, the Tribe was entranced by Tiber’s ranting. He wiped his greasy fingers on his pants and leaned over Recks, who wasn’t moving. He lay face down on the filth-strewn floor.
I fumbled around in my pockets for the slingshot and something to shoot. Yanking it out of my pocket, several pebbles spilled onto the floor. Feeling in the dark, I found a box of heavy metal tools and round metal nuggets about the size of rocks. I wasn’t about to be picky. I loaded a metal bit in the slingshot and fired it at Tiber, missing him by inches. It slammed into the iron vat behind him with a loud bang, startling the entire Tribe.
“What the hell was that?” said Tiber, looking up at my perch. I hid in the gloom, reloading the slingshot. I took aim and fired again. This time I hit his shoulder. He screamed, more angry than hurt. Some of the other boys ran away.
“Get up there!” he ordered the closest boy. I’d given my location away, and I might be trapped. A stupid slingshot wasn’t going to take them all out. I grabbed a handful of the metal nuggets and jammed them into my pocket before I lifted the tool box to throw it. It was heavier than I expected, and I struggled to get it over the railing. It fell hard, crashing into beams and scattering metal bits everywhere. The remaining Tribe members scattered as the box fell into their camp, nearly hitting Recks.
I turned to face the boy now on the landing coming after me. I thwacked him hard in the face with a shot at close range, and he went down immediately, holding his face. He stumbled and fell over the railing, landing with a smack on the floor by Tiber.
“Get back here!” Tiber screamed at the empty building, deserted by his Tribe. I took another shot at him, grazing his head. This time, he dodged in fear. I fired three more at once, and he ran into the shadows.
I crept down from my perch, carefully listening for any sound. All I heard was the wood burning in the barrel. I hurried to Recks, past the boy who’d fallen and who was as still as death. I never meant to kill him.
My hands on Recks’s back felt his warmth, his shallow breaths. He groaned at my touch and curled into a ball.
“Recks, it’s me.”
“Alana?”
“Yes. Are you hurt bad?”
“I don’t think I can get up.”
“Be still. They won’t come back for a while.”
“Where’d they go?”
“Run off somewhere,” I said. I tried to think of how to treat his injuries.
“Wait … what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I followed you.”
“You saw everything?”
“Yes.”
“You were supposed to stay put.”
“How could I save your life if I did that?”
“It was reckless, but I’m glad you did it.” Recks tried to smile through the pain, but it looked more like a face I would make.
My stomach growled hard. We hadn’t eaten for a long time. The smell of barbecued meat hung in the air around the fire barrel. Glancing around, I found two pieces of meat dropped in the confusion. I picked them up and brushed off the dirt.
“Look, Recks. There’s some left.” I pulled off a bit with my fingers and stuck it between his lips. He chewed it, still lying down, and then opened his mouth for more like a baby bird. My bird. I fed him nearly all the meat like that, saving only a little for myself. I knew I’d find something else, but Recks was helpless.
His arm looked broken. He refused to move it, hugging it close to his body when he was finally able to sit up.
“You shouldn’t stay here. They might come back,” he warned.
“Can you walk?”
“Just get back to the room with the books. I’ll meet you there.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you like this. You come with me or I don’t go.”
“Don’t be stupid! Go!”
I flinched at the anger in his voice. I felt myself shrink for a moment, but I knew he couldn’t make it on his own. “You aren’t my master, remember?”
Recks started to speak again but stopped and smiled at me. I felt myself smile back.
“Help me get up then,” he said, reaching for me with his good arm.
I pulled him up and let him lean on me. He held one foot off the ground as if he couldn’t straighten his leg.
“Can you put any weight on it?”
“Maybe a little,” said Recks, gingerly setting his foot down. He groaned between clenched teeth.
“We can wait a while,” I said, unsure how we could get back to the apartment.
“No, we need to move, at least out of this warehouse.”
“I saw some vacant shops down the street. They weren’t too far.”
“Okay,” Recks said, taking a deep breath. We worked our way to the exit, stopping to rest twice before we got there. Once there, I let him rest against a window frame.
“Wait here and I’ll check to be sure we can get inside,” I told him. Out of breath, he didn’t argue. I ducked outside into the night. It was late now, the light of the bonfire down the street completely gone. A white cat ran across my path, but otherwise, it was completely still. Recks needed a place close but hidden. I followed the cat, hoping it knew of such a place. It scurried down a narrow gap between two buildings, across another deserted street, and inside a broken window.
Trying the doorknob, I found it already broken open and stepped into a room so black I had to stop to let my eyes adjust. A set of stairs led to a second floor where a small couch sat underneath a tiny window.
Getting Recks there was no small feat. By the time we reached the stairs, the first glimmers of dawn were on the horizon. I put him to bed on the couch and found a pillow for myself. I curled up on the floor beside him, more exhausted than I had been in a long while, and sank into oblivion.
***
“Hey,” someone whispered. A hand on my shoulder startled me out of my stupor. I sat up quickly, squinting in the afternoon sun coming through the window.
“Stay down!” ordered Recks. “The window isn’t covered.” He lay on the cot above me. I crouched back down, my neck stiff from sleeping wrong. I rubbed my eyes and crept to the window to peek out. Seeing the street empty, I closed the raggedy curtain. Golden light filtered through it. Now I could see how swollen and purple Recks’s left eye was.
“Oh,” I said, trying not to betray how bad it really looked. “I need to find us some water.” My throat craved moisture. I imagined how his felt.
“You should wait till dark.”
“You can’t wait that long. I won’t be recognized. Tiber never saw me.”
“No.”
“Are you going to stop me?” I asked, moving out of his reach.
“I would if I could.” Recks closed his good eye.
“But you can’t. I won’t be long,” I said, moving toward the stairs.
“Alana?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.” He stared at me with his good eye. The gesture probably meant little to him, but to think that someone actually cared what happened to me made my heart flutter. Suddenly the summer day seemed very hot, but I smiled at him.
&n
bsp; “I will.”
Out on the street, my hooded shirt made me too warm, and I felt my armpits sweating. Still, I kept the hood over my hair like Recks wanted me to and hurried back toward the river.
This river was much larger than the one I knew back in Roma, wide, flat, and brown. I could see even more buildings on the far side. The banks were lined with tall brick walls crisscrossed with bridges. Walking along the wall, I found a staircase to the water. I knelt and scooped water into my mouth when I was sure no one was watching. Other than a slightly muddy taste, it soothed my tongue and coated my dry throat. I drank until my belly was full. Then I remembered Recks and wished for my water bag. How was I going to bring him water?
I ran back to a trash pile I’d passed and dug through it until I found a large plastic jug. It was cracked at the top, but it could still hold quite a bit of water if it didn’t crumble. Some plastics shattered when they got older. Others were more durable. We used them in Roma to store various items. I hoped it wasn’t taboo in this city. If someone saw me using plastic here, after what I’d seen the night before, I wasn’t so sure they wouldn’t burn me too.
I rinsed it out and filled it with water as high as the crack would allow. The hot afternoon seemed to keep the streets quiet, and I passed through unnoticed by many. If anyone disapproved, they didn’t bother telling me so.
The plastic jug made it far enough. Recks winced at the taste, but he drank it without a word. His eye, swollen shut, needed valerian root. I’d have to go out in the woods to find it. I knew how to get there, but it would take a couple hours.
I had hunted for food plenty of times but usually only to supplement what Dine gave me. This time it meant survival. It’d been nearly two days, and the gnawing in the pit of my stomach threatened to drive me mad. If it went on much longer, the pain would become too much to forage. I had to find something or our very short journey would come to a very abrupt end. Recks had saved me, and now it was my turn to return the favor.
I dug through all the cupboards and closets in the place looking for useful items. Scavenging was already second nature to me, but the habit came in handy now. Deep in one of the kitchen drawers, under some rags and bent spoons, I found a knife barely the length of an apple. I took that along with a canvas sack I’d found in a corner. I slung the bag over my shoulder. It hung as empty across my back as my stomach inside me. I wouldn’t go back without it filled. I made Recks as comfortable as I could and set out again. This time he didn’t argue.
I saw a few people, kids playing ball on the street, but no crowds like before. Maybe Anders was gone. Perhaps he’d moved on to the next village. The thought of him burning things, burning humans all summer long, sickened me. I pushed it out of my mind and focused on foraging. I headed west until I reached the woods, which silently crept into the broken pavement, Nature reclaiming what once was hers. I set as many deadfall traps as I could find rocks. I stripped some willow branches for the traps, saving the bark for medicine, and then moved deeper into the woods to look for roots.
Finding caysha, I dug it up with my bare hands, breaking my short fingernails. I hoped we wouldn’t have to eat it, that something better would present itself. I gathered valerian root too. It helped any swelling. For the millionth time, I wished I had my supplies from home, the ones I’d meant to bring. I remembered Dine’s ugly face watching us leave and shuddered, glad to be rid of him. I decided I’d die before I’d ever go back to what I was before.
All the while, the sun sank lower and lower in the sky. As I wandered deeper into the woods, I found berries and mushrooms. Soon my bag and my belly were full. We were lucky it was warm and things were growing. I looked up and found myself on the edge of the forest, looking out across a huge clearing toward a compound of some sort. It glowed unnaturally.
Something in me warned to keep hidden. I peered out through thick shrubs to see a structure unlike anything I’d ever imagined, a tall, curved, windowless tower with smoke billowing from the top. The bizarre quality of the constant light was unlike the flicker of a normal flame. What was it? Slowly, I realized this was the same light Recks and I had seen on the horizon from the apartment. I should tell him about it, I thought. Looking at the sun lowering in the sky, I realized how long I’d been gone. He must be starving!
I left the strange building and ran back toward the city. I’d been gone for hours. Of all the traps I’d set, only one managed to snare a vole. I stuffed it in the bag too and made a plan to check them again tomorrow. At the edge of the forest, I slowed to a trot in danger of losing my breath altogether if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t want anyone to notice me, either. As soon as I left the inhabited streets, I picked up my pace again. All Recks had eaten was a tiny bit of dirty meat and some water.
I ran up the stairs two at a time. Recks lay on the cot, undisturbed by my noisy entrance. I touched his shoulder, but he didn’t move.
“Recks? Recks, wake up.” I shook him until he moved. Groaning, he pulled away from me. “I’ve got some food for you.”
I fished the berries out of the bag, the smashed ones staining my fingers, and held them to his lips. He ate them out of my hand.
“Those are good. Where’d you get them?”
“In the woods. I have more,” I said, opening my bag. Recks struggled to pull himself up to sit on the cot.
“I found some matches and a candle,” he said, pointing to the tiny table next to the cot. I struck one and lit the stub of candle on the table. The dried blood on Recks’s face gave him a monstrous look in the candlelight. He must look like me. I put the rest of the berries in his hand.
“Take these so I can make you some dinner. I found some medicine for your eye too.”
Recks wolfed down the fruit, licking his fingers, while I smashed up the valerian with the flat of my little knife. When the milky juice ran, I filled his hand with the pulp and pressed his hand against his eye.
“That feels cool,” he said, holding it gently to his face.
“I don’t know why, but it helps,” I said, looking in my bag for some wood splinters I had cut. I skinned the tiny vole I caught in one of my deadfalls and skewered it so I could toast it over the candle. I gave it to Recks when it was mostly cooked.
“What about you?” he asked.
“I ate in the woods.” It was sort of true. I’d eaten some berries and shoots but no meat. While he ate the meat, I brushed the dust off a mushroom and ate it. It tasted like wood, but I pretended it was meat. They’d gotten me by many times before.
“I need to check your arm, see if it’s broken,” I told him when the food was gone.
“How do you do that?”
“Just feel it. Try to move it.”
“What if I can’t?”
I wasn’t trained by a healer, but I’d seen healing done. Dine even secretly consulted a healer for me after my burn, careful not to let his wives know. The healer used valerian to cool my burns and told me it was good for any swelling. I didn’t really know about fixing broken arms, though.
“If you can’t, we’ll wrap it tight until we find a healer.”
I sat next to him on the cot and touched his injured arm at the wrist, which he held close to his body. His skin was on fire. I felt him relax his wrist as I massaged the joint.
“No pain?” I asked.
“Not there. It’s more in the elbow.”
I gave his forearm a gentle squeeze to be sure. There seemed to be no pain there, so I pushed his sleeve up over his elbow to see the swollen joint.
“Can you straighten it?”
Recks tried to move his arm and he did a little with a gasp of pain. I felt for breaks above and below the elbow; as far as I could tell, everything was in the proper place. The swelling made his elbow impossible to feel. I shook my head.
“I can’t tell. It may just be sprained. A sprain can hurt pretty bad. I can make you some willow tea. That’s good for pain.” I turned back to my bag for the willow bark I’d
collected.
“Alana?”
“Hmm?” The bottom of the bag was getting harder to see in the dim light.
“Thank you for feeding me. I would’ve been dead by now if it weren’t for you.”
“You would have managed,” I said as I dug around in the bag.
“I don’t think so.”
“I saw the place with all the lights.”
“You did? What was it?”
Finding the willow bark, I set the bag aside and shredded the bark, piling it on my lap as I worked. Longer fingernails would’ve made the job easier.
“I don’t know exactly. There were several buildings and a huge smoking chimney. It’s like another town. There’s something strange about it.”
“What?”
“The lights. They weren’t fires. They didn’t flicker.”
“An artifact of the Dark Days?”
“How could they still work? Didn’t Mother Sun destroy the machines?”
“They stopped working, but nothing was actually destroyed. The Cleansings are destroying the machines. Men are doing that.”
“True.” I found a cup in the kitchenette, filled it with the bark, and poured some of our water over it.
“It would steep faster if the water were hot. You’ll have to give it some time before you drink it.” I set the cup by Recks and took the valerian from his eye. Wiping his eyes with a rag soaked in water, I was pleased to find the puffiness was already going down.
“I think once you feel well enough to walk, we should move on,” I said. “It’s much easier to find food in the woods than the city.”
“And we don’t want to run into Tiber again. Have you seen him?”
“No, but I’m sure he’s around. We didn’t get too far from their camp.”
“Maybe we should move tonight? Put some distance between us and them.”
“Are you up for it?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll have to go out first, try to find a place to go.”
“Wait until it’s darker, just to be safe.”
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