The Final Trade

by Joe Hart

  James sits on the opposite side of the serving area, head down, hair obscuring his features. The two guards move away from the window to light up hand-rolled cigarettes, voices low and steady in conversation.

  “What would you like?” she asks, mind still whirring through possibilities.

  “To know why you poisoned him,” James says, bringing his eyes up to meet hers.

  17

  It’s like she’s fallen off a cliff, spinning out of control toward a rapidly approaching ground.

  “What are you talking about?” Wen manages.

  “Don’t. I’m not an idiot,” James says. “I saw enough poisonings when I was in med school. You don’t forget things like that. And since you’re the one that serves the food . . .”

  Wen holds his gaze for a moment before turning toward the kitchen. She begins taking out the makings of a cold sandwich, her back to the window.

  “Regardless of what you say, I have to do the autopsy. But the outcome can be up to you,” James says. She continues to work. “If you do something for me I’ll say he had a cerebral hemorrhage. That has a lot of symptoms similar to poisoning. But if you choose not to, I’ll tell them that you did it. And when they search this place or your tent, or you, they’ll find the poison.”

  She returns to the counter with his plate and sets it before him along with a tall glass of water. “I don’t know anything about any poison.”

  “Sure you do. I saw the look on your face in the nest, just like now when I called you out on it. You did it. I want to know why.”

  Wen glances past James to the guards. They are still smoking, facing away, voices barely audible. “He tried to rape me last night and he got permission from the Prestons to move me in with him this evening.”

  “I figured it was something like that. But my question is, if you have a poison that’s untraceable except by autopsy, would you really be keeping it only for Vidri?”

  “Are you going to eat that?”

  “You’re going to kill the Prestons, aren’t you?”

  “I have work to do.”

  “It sounds like you’ve already been busy.”

  “What do you really want?”

  James picks up his sandwich, inhales the scent of the bread. “You’ve been the one giving us the cakes every week. It’s really the only thing we look forward to. Knowing someone cares makes all the difference sometimes. A couple of us ration the cakes out to last until the next ones come, but the others eat theirs right away. They say they’re not going to draw out the inevitable if there’s no more. I want you to know how much we appreciate your kindness.”

  “Then tell Elliot that it was a natural death and we’ll be even.”

  James takes a bite, chewing slowly, carefully. “In another life I would. But my wife is in the other container. She’s forty-three, the youngest. She’ll be next to . . .” His voice fails him and he sets down the sandwich, taking a long drink of water. “So you see, I can’t do that. I can’t call it square.”

  “I know what you’re going to ask but the answer is no.”

  “You have to take us with you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “When are you going to try?”

  “James, I’m sorry, but I’ve worked this every way in my head already. Don’t you think I would set you all free if I thought I could? What do you think I see when I lie awake at night?”

  “What’s important to you. What you truly hope for outside of this place.”

  Distantly she hears the ghostly echo of a baby’s laughter.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I am. I’m sorry I’ll have to tell Elliot exactly what happened to Vidri if you won’t take us with you. Because I will. I’ll tell them if you don’t promise me right now you’ll free us.”

  She feels as if she’s being pulled apart inside, her organs stretched and strained until she fears they’ll tear. “You can’t ask that of me. There’s other people involved, I’d be risking their lives as well.”

  “I care about one person, the only person I’ve ever loved in the whole world,” James says, his voice a whispered scream, eyes aflame. “She’s been locked in a steel container, abused, threatened, and soon she’ll be auctioned off like livestock. Her name is Amanda. Don’t talk to me about risking lives.”

  The guards drop the butts of their cigarettes and smash them out on the ground before glancing toward the kitchen.

  “They’re coming back,” Wen says.

  “Then you’d better make your decision.”

  The guards walk toward the serving window, still talking in low voices.

  She looks from them to James who merely stares back.

  “Okay. I’ll get you out.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Here.” He shoves his plate across to her, the single bite missing from the sandwich. “Get that to my wife and tell her I love her.”

  James stands up and meets the guards, who shove him roughly in the direction of the nest. He glances back at her once before they’re out of sight and then she is alone in the kitchen, fingers gripping the plate so hard her hands ache.

  On the edge of dusk Wen sneaks to the side of the women’s container, its hole much higher since it is now on the top of a flatbed truck. She climbs up the two steel steps mounted to the trailer, leaning out to make sure the guards at the rear haven’t noticed her.

  When she is almost even with the hole she whispers in a low voice, “Amanda?” A quiet shuffling meets her ears, a murmur of conversation, then a patch of white skin with a blue eye centered in it appears.

  “Who are you?” Amanda says.

  “No one. You’re husband sent you this.” Wen holds the sandwich wrapped in a plain piece of brown paper up to the hole. After a second it is taken. “And he says he loves you.”

  Quiet crying issues from the hole and Wen grimaces, climbing down quickly.

  “Tell him I love him. Tell him, please!”

  She walks away into the shadows of a large tent, the raucous laughter from inside drowning out the woman’s pleading voice behind her.

  When she enters the kitchen, the light is almost gone from the sky and Robbie is leaning on the counter, a glass of alcohol in one hand. He waits until she’s secured the door before setting his drink down to embrace her.

  For a long time he holds her and she lets the day drain from her as if it’s a noxious chemical in her bloodstream. When she steps back from him his eyes are shining.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here until now. They had me mending fences all day. Are you okay?” he says.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you did it.”

  “That makes two of us.” She takes his glass from the counter and slugs half of it. Her throat screams from the alcohol but then it erupts in nulling warmth in her stomach and she sighs.

  “That was so risky.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t have? Because right now we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d be in Vidri’s tent and—”

  “Of course not. The sonofabitch deserved everything he got.” Robbie studies her. “I heard you were there when it happened. When he . . . you know . . .”

  “Yeah. I was.”

  “And?”

  “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen and I’m ashamed to say there was a part of me that enjoyed it.”

  “I don’t blame you a bit. In fact, you should get a medal.” He mimes opening a box and pinning something to her shirt. “I hereby christen you with the national medal of bastard slaying. It is the highest honor you can receive.”

  She smiles tiredly. “Thanks. But we’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “See, that’s just it. The guy they brought out of the container to do the autopsy, he totally fucked up. He told them it was a cerebral something or other, I can’t remember. Everyone’s talking about it—how it’s not a surprise Vidri’s brain fried since he was such an asshole.”
Robbie stops mid-gesticulation and lowers his hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Ah shit.”

  He listens intently, narrow features growing paler by the minute, until she’s finished.

  “Ah shit,” he says, with less force, and drains the last of the booze. “It won’t work. There’s always three or four guards hanging out at the container doors and there’s no way to cut through the sides; we’d need about half an hour to do that. Fuck! That asshole.”

  “He’s not an asshole. He’s a man who loves his wife and wants to be free. If that’s being an asshole I guess I’m one too.”

  Robbie visibly deflates, sinking down to the floor of the kitchen to rest against one of the cabinets. “God. I just told Fitz today that we’d be going really soon. He’s got the truck primed and everything. It’s ruined. It’s all ruined. What the hell are we going to do?”

  She turns and rests her hands on the sink, looking out the window into the darkness that smothers the camp’s grounds, her own battered and exhausted reflection staring back at her.

  “The only thing we can do. We’re going to leave them behind.”

  18

  Zoey watches the bleeding sunrise, not looking away even as the light grows painful.

  She sits on a heating unit mounted to the roof of the main building, legs dangling over the side, shoulders slumped, fingers and toes numb from the cold. Her vision blurs from looking at the growing dawn but she refuses to blink. The red of the sun churns the longer she stares, swirling, burning brighter and brighter until she can’t stand it anymore and drops her gaze, squeezing her eyes shut.

  In the darkness she sees the last few days play out in a half-remembered dream haze, all details softened, images muddied and broken. She watches Halie twitch and jerk on the bed, feels the life leave her body, sees the gun sights come even with Ken’s face.

  Feels the gun’s recoil.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Then only the openness of the plains after sliding through a narrow gap in the installation’s fence, a crushing avalanche of darkness behind her. After that, nothing for a long time.

  Ian found her huddled beneath an outcropping of rock behind a layer of dead sage. She had run over a mile from the facility with no memory of it. He had talked in a soft, soothing voice that gradually coaxed her out from the fugue she’d barricaded herself behind. After a time he’d guided her back to the installation, dirty, bloody, barely aware of her surroundings. She hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since; she’d met everyone’s attempts to talk to her with simple nods or shakes of her head. Chelsea had gotten her to shower and dress in fresh clothes, but after eating a meager amount of food she’d come to the roof, staying through the night into the morning embracing the biting cold.

  And now the reality of what she’s done is as real and bright as the light in the east.

  Killed them. Killed them all. Just like Lee had said in the dream.

  Maybe that’s truly why he left. Perhaps he could see inside her, see what she was becoming even before she realized it herself. Saw her for what she is.

  A murderer.

  But each time remorse begins to invade her, break her will to hold herself together, the rage returns, almost as strong as the moment she opened the door to the prisoners’ room. It overshadows the guilt.

  And the void grows.

  Zoey swallows. Her throat is dry. She should’ve brought water up here. Then she could stay longer. Away from the others.

  She glances around the facility grounds. All is serene in the gray dawn, morning shadows that will soon be eaten by the day, vague outlines on the soil. She shivers. The nights are getting colder. It won’t be long until the mountaintops are capped with snow and the days will be only brief interludes between darkness.

  A sound draws her attention to the left as the roof’s access door opens and Tia appears. She is wearing her heavier coat and her typical direct demeanor is absent.

  Tia looks at her before glancing away. “We’re going to bury Halie this morning. The others wanted you to know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So you’ll be down?”

  “Yes.”

  Tia begins to turn but stops. “I know how it feels when you think no one understands what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to be truly alone. If you want to talk, I’m around.”

  Zoey tries to respond but when the words won’t come she nods and Tia disappears down the stairway.

  The wind picks up and swirls shrunken tornados across the plain and tugs at her hair. There is nothing left but to go forward. She can’t stay on the roof for the rest of her life, no matter how much she wants to.

  She finds Chelsea, Merrill, Rita, and Sherell in the front entryway on the ground level. As she approaches Merrill stiffens though his eyes don’t leave hers and the same softness is still there. The door to the prisoners’ room is partially open. Someone has tried to clean it, though the wall is stained and the smell of blood is still a suggestion in the air. Chelsea spots her looking at it and shuts the door. A sense of claustrophobia grips her and it feels like the walls are closing in. Or maybe it’s simply being around more of the group again, wondering what they’re thinking, if they’re judging her.

  Merrill nods before saying, “Okay. We put Halie in the back of the Suburban. The ground looks soft at the far north corner of the compound—”

  “We’re not burying her inside the fence,” Zoey says.

  “No,” Sherell says.

  “I’m sorry. Of course not,” Merrill says. “I’ll drive everyone out and we’ll find a different place.”

  “We’ll do it,” Rita says. “We knew her.”

  Merrill frowns but finally holds out the keys, letting Zoey take them from him. “Be careful. If you’re not back before noon, we’ll come looking.”

  The three of them file out of the front entrance and climb into the waiting vehicle. Halie’s body lies in the very back, wrapped tightly in a white sheet. Several shovels and a pickax rest on the second-to-last seat. Zoey starts the vehicle. Eli leans out from the guard tower and waves. Rita and Sherell wave back as she drives past and heads out the gate, which rumbles open with their approach.

  They travel across the small bridge and wind down the dry dirt road toward the main highway, the facility fading in the rearview mirror until it is swallowed completely by a hill that they turn at and leave the drive.

  Zoey follows an opening in the scrub and heads up a wide washout studded with boulders half buried like enormous bones from some forgotten race. None of them speak over the sound of the engine. The washout crests at the shoulder of the hill and she turns left out of instinct, the ground leveling before rising again to a plateau that looks out over the sprawling landscape below. She stops the Suburban and shuts the engine off.

  “This is perfect,” Sherell says.

  They climb out, bringing the tools with them to the edge of the natural lookout. Without saying anything else they begin to dig. Rita uses the pickax, wielding it with an ease that surprises Zoey even though she knows the other girl is strong. She and Sherell shovel the loose dirt free and soon the hole takes shape as the sun moves above them in the sky.

  The work is mindless, repetitive, therapeutic. Zoey loses herself in it, imagines the hole is for the last several days and that she will leave them here when they go.

  Finally the grave looks deep enough and they stand beside it for a moment before returning to the vehicle. Halie’s body looks much too small and it’s this more than anything that wrenches at Zoey’s insides.

  They gather her gently and carry her between them to the grave, lowering the body into the earth. The sheet is very white against the dark clay and sand. Together they begin to fill in the hole and Zoey tries not to listen to the sound the dirt makes as it lands.

  When it’s done they collect as many stones as they can find and cover the loose
earth with them. Sherell finds a large, flat rock that takes all three of them to carry and they set it in the center of the grave, flecks of quartz catching the sun’s rays in its edges.

  Zoey begins to say something. Something about Halie and how kind she always was to the younger women at the ARC. But the words are sharp edged and lodge in her throat. She feels the tears rise and recede, turning the quartz shine of the gravestone into a thousand diamond points.

  “I never thanked you for getting us out,” Rita says. Zoey glances at the other woman, who is staring out across the valley. “Since that night I’ve been trying to find the right things to say but couldn’t ever come up with them. I was even going to put it down on paper, but I wasn’t ever very good at writing, you both know that. But seeing what happened to Halie put everything in a whole new perspective. And when they grabbed me . . .” She shudders and turns to Zoey, her face red, eyes shimmering. “That could be me in the ground, or Sherell. We were cruel to you and Meeka and Lily, and you didn’t have to come back for us, and you didn’t have to go into that room after me, but you did, and I don’t know how to ever thank you.”

  Zoey shakes her head, completely speechless. Rita has treated her warmly ever since the escape, but never have they broached the topic of their relationship before that.

  “Yeah, we were real bitches,” Sherell says, beginning to tear up too. “It was that place. What they did to us. What they were going to do to us. Everything. I’ve told you I was sorry before, but Rita’s right. What happened to Halie was worse than death. I would’ve slit my own throat before going through it.” Zoey can only nod and gaze down at the grave.

  “And now you’ve given us what we never thought we’d have: our names, the names of our parents, knowing what little life we had before the ARC,” Rita says.