by Aubrey Rose
“Nope, ain’t seeing anything worth my time,” I finally answer, and he rolls his eyes at me. He can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen. Was I this stupid when I was his age?
“What about her? I bet she’d be great in the—”
“Soldier,” I interrupt, “don’t you have a job to be doing?”
He stares belligerently up at me, and just as I’m certain I’m going to have to knock some sense into him, he nods his head and submits.
“Walkway overlook… keeping watch, sir.”
“Then get to it,” I order. “Now.”
“Sir, yes sir,” he answers, giving me an exaggerated salute, and then he finally turns face and leaves me alone. Thank God.
I leave the crowd behind and turn right at the corner, moving out of the temporarily bright lights of Times Square and heading slowly down 42nd. I’m going to loop around the block, I think, and then make my way back to my perch. I haven’t seen a damned thing out of the ordinary tonight, but I can’t say I expected to. No shifter in its right mind would come out in the open like this—it’d take a brazen lunatic to show up with hundreds of civvies and a lookout with enough firepower to level the whole block.
Still… it’s a bit of a disappointment. I mean, the whole reason I signed up was because of what happened to Ben, and two years later, I ain’t had even one chance to avenge him. Two years in this god-forsaken city and I haven’t run into a single—
“Ow!”
I turn the corner and barrel straight into a civvie going the other direction, nearly knocking the tiny woman clean off her feet.
She yelps in surprise and her metal cane falls to the floor with a clatter as she loses her balance. She grabs tightly onto my arm as I reach out to steady her, and I can feel her nails digging into my arm through all three layers of clothing as if it’s little more than butter. Jesus, she’s got a strong grip for someone so small—if she’s more than five-foot-two, I’ll eat my hat.
“You okay, miss?” I ask, instinctively putting my arm around her protectively. I didn’t mean anything by it, but my hand touches her hip. She stiffens and tries to pull away from me.
“Sorry,” I say. That’s pretty much par for the course for me when it comes to women. “You alright?”
“I… I’m fine,” she stammers, still trying to pull away from me. Or at least… I think that’s what she’s trying to do. She’s squirming against my hand, but something here doesn’t feel quite right.
“This just ain’t your day, huh?” I say, letting go of her and cracking a smile to try to lighten the mood. She finally looks up at me, and it’s as if time stops dead in its tracks.
Before I got a good look, I thought she was older. She’s thin and pale as if she hasn’t eaten in weeks, but damned if she isn’t one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen in my life. Beneath the hood, her dark hair frames her long, narrow face, and her eyes—I can’t tell if they’re green or blue or maybe both—draw me in like nothing I’ve ever felt before. For one short eternity, I’m absolutely speechless.
That’s when the stolen pouch falls out of the pocket of her ratty brown coat and ruins the moment.
The pouch pops open as it hits the ground, upending its contents all over the cracked pavement. Rations better suited for five families than one tiny woman spill out onto the sidewalk along with a small, red-haired rag doll, clearly earmarked for a little girl’s Christmas present.
This really ain’t her day one bit.
I grab her arm, but she breaks free of my grip and leaps backward away from me, grabbing her cane from the ground in one quick, fluid motion as she lands.
I take a step back from her, watching her lithe form as she hits the ground in a crouched position, almost as if she’s deciding whether to run for it or attack me. Her chest rises and falls quickly as she watches me, and her eyes dart wildly back and forth. She’s stunningly beautiful in a strange, wild sort of way.
Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with me? She’s a bloody thief and here I am admiring her. I should just shoot her and be done with it.
But I don’t. I don’t even raise my gun. I actually feel bad for her. We barely give civvies enough food to survive on even the best of days, so I can hardly blame her for grabbing extras.
I turn away as I bend down and pick up the delicate rag doll. Exposing my back to her definitely isn’t the smartest thing I’ve done tonight, but somehow I know she isn’t going to try anything. I just do.
I turn back to her, reach into my outer coat pocket, and then add my own little Christmas present to the pile as I hand her the doll. Every year, my mother sends me a little case of dark chocolate bars for Christmas—the type I used to love when I was little. I know for a fact that you can’t get them down here in the city; I hunted for them for months after I was first deployed.
I hand her the chocolate bar along with the doll and then back slowly away. I’d like to pretend I maintained eye-contact the whole time out of distrust, but the truth is, I don’t know if I could’ve looked away from those gorgeous, color-shifting eyes if I tried.
It’s Christmas Eve. Live and let live.
“I didn’t see nothing,” I tell her, smiling so she knows it’s no big deal. “Merry Christmas.”
Without another word, I break away from her intense gaze and hurry back the way I came. I can’t let myself be seen with a civvie, especially not one I’ve just let steal extra food, and I sure as hell don’t want her to feel like she owes me anything. The civvies have it hard enough, and they don’t owe me shit.
The woman’s blue-green eyes burn holes in my mind as I head back toward the ration lines, and even though I tell myself not to, I look back over my shoulder.
The street is dark and empty as if she’d never even been there.
Chapter Three
Bindi
I’m most of the way down the A line tunnel when I hear a noise from up ahead. A scrabbling of claws on the wet gravel ground. My eyes squint into the darkness and I freeze mid-stride, clutching the ration packages back at my hip so that I can pounce if I need to. Nothing emerges.
I sniff, but the air in the abandoned subway system is stale with rat droppings and rotted sewage and I can’t smell anything more than twenty feet away without wanting to gag at the stench, even in human form. I take another step and hear the noise again.
This time I see them.
Three pairs of eyes blink at me from the darkness, and in a second the monsters come pouncing out of the shadows.
“Eee!” I pretend to fall backwards as the two bobcats and the small fox barrel into me.
“Get off of me, you little monsters!” I’m laughing, tickling their furry bellies, and we all tumble to the ground together in one happy pile of rowdiness. Even though it’s cold down here, a nice warmth moves through my body as the kids nip and growl in fun.
Lily shifts back first, claws retracting, shaking her white-blond hair out of her eyes.
“Bindi, what did you get us?” She pokes at the rations packages with one finger. She’s too shy as a teenager to show her excitement but too young to hide it completely. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and I realize for the first time that the kids are growing up. They won’t be able to run around naked for much longer, shifting back and forth. They’ll have to pick a form and stick to it. For some reason, that makes me sad.
“Not now,” I say. “Let’s get back to the den first. You guys must be cold.” We’re far enough up the A line that I don’t think the soldiers will be patrolling, especially not with the crowds of survivors they’re watching downtown. Still, I’d rather be back in the den and safe with the kids.
“Three packs!” Logan has shifted back too, the mirror image of his twin sister, and he’s already digging through my pouch. “Did you get any more copper wiring for my projects?” I slap his hand away playfully before he can get to the pocket where I’ve hidden the rag doll.
“Cut it out,” I say, darting a quick glance down at Kit. Her fox snout is up,
sniffing the air, her tail flicking back and forth. “There’s a secret present in there for you-know-who.”
Immediately she shifts back to girl form, wrapping her thin arms around my leg.
“Bindi! Bindi! A present? Really?!”
I tousle her hair. Even in the dim light of Logan’s makeshift lantern I can see her curls, bright red and frizzed beyond belief.
“Only if you promise to behave,” I say. “And if you help me make Christmas dinner.”
“I will, I will!” The boisterous eight-year old shifts back into fox form and bounds forward into the darkness, jumping off the sides of the wall. I’ve never seen anyone who can shift as quickly and easily as she can. It must be because both her parents were shifters. It’s a shame they didn’t get to see their little girl grow up.
“What is it like over there?” Lily asks me. “Did you see a lot of survivors?”
“Lots,” I say. “Hundreds and hundreds. It was like in the old days, when you couldn’t even move on the sidewalk without bumping into people.”
“Wow,” Lily says softly, and I know she’s trying to picture a street full of people. But she never knew what it was like in the old days, before the war. She was too young when it happened to really remember.
“Lots of soldiers, too?” Logan asks. “Kit, quit it!” Kit is jumping between Logan’s legs, trying to get him to trip over her. She darts away and rolls, ears over tail, somersaulting and then jumping up at Lily. Lily catches the little fox easily in her arms and Kit cuddles against her chest.
“Too many soldiers.”
“How many do you think there are? Like, total?” He’s frowning, and in front of me I see Lily’s jaw tighten. She looks ahead pointedly.
“Too many,” I say again. I know why he’s curious, but I don’t want to encourage him. No answer I give him will bring his parents back.
Darkness clouds my mind. There is too much death here in the Laz, in the cold and radioactive city that used to be the center of the world. The topsiders still call it New York, but that city died years ago with the bomb. Along with my family. Along with everybody else’s families. There aren’t a lot of kids left anymore, topside or elsewhere. Nobody to protect them. Nobody left to care.
All that remains is the radioactive skeleton of a city: the Lazaretto Containment Zone.
“What did you guys do today?” I ask instead, hoping to change the subject.
“We made you something. You’re going to love it,” Lily says, her face brightening.
“Don’t tell her,” Logan says.
“I’m not telling her,” Lily says. “I’m just saying she’ll like it.”
“It’s a surprise,” Logan explains.
“I can’t wait to see it,” I say. I really can’t, especially now that I see how excited they are about showing me. I want to give them their presents right now, but it’s not Christmas morning yet. Kit’s ears perk up when Lily mentions their surprise, and now the small fox wriggles happily up to her shoulder and perches there, looking ahead to where our tunnel begins. I see a faint glow of light from the tunnel underneath the locked door.
Kit can’t wait any longer. She jumps off of Lily’s shoulder and races ahead to where the dark subway bends out and the entryway to our tunnel begins.
“Ow, Kit!” Lily says. “Wait for me!”
Lily shifts back into bobcat form, and Logan follows suit. They bound ahead and I follow slowly, the rations packages feeling light as air now that I am close to home. Lily is already tapping out the secret knock, and the door opens from inside where Nim must be waiting for us.
When I walk through the door and see what they’ve done, I gasp.
“Do you like it?” Kit says, skipping back and pulling me by the hand. I swear, the only reason she shifts into human form is because she can’t drag me around any other way.
“I love it,” I say, letting her tug me forward. Tears well in my eyes and I have to struggle to keep from crying. I let the rations packages fall to the ground. “I love it, Kit. I really do.”
The entrance to our den, once you get past the door, is a circular grate that used to let excess drainage flow through the subway system. The kids have strung lights all through the iron grating, from the floor to the ceiling, and covered them so that they shine in different colors. It’s glowing through the entire tunnel. It looks beautiful. It looks…
“It looks like Christmas,” I whisper.
I walk forward to get a better look. The bulbs are an eclectic collection of lights, some big, some small. There is a double set of lights that I see came from one of Logan’s old toys, an electric truck. He must have taken the headlights off.
Some of the bulbs have been covered with old wrappers - a pink Pepto-Bismol plastic bag, a green bottle. All of the colors twinkle and shine in the darkness of the abandoned drain tunnel. The lights themselves are strung together with copper wire wrapped in straws, hooked up to the generator.
“You wired all this, Logan?”
The bobcat twin is already getting dressed, pulling on his jeans quickly over his underwear.
“Yep,” he says sheepishly. “I know it’s kind of not the best present to make you go out to get the wires, but…”
“It’s beautiful. Who decorated the lights?”
“Me! Me!” Kit squeals, tugging an oversized sweater over her bare limbs. “Me and Lily watched to make sure I did it all right! And Nim went out to find more light bulbs that work!”
“Oh?” I arch one eyebrow over at Nim. “That so?”
Nimrah is leaning against the wall in a leather jacket he found down on one of the subway platforms, too cool for his own good.
He remembers the war. He was young, but he remembers. I can never keep him underground, even though we’re not safe to roam the streets here. The soldiers could always be just around the corner.
We try to be quiet when the soldiers are above us. Patrols come overhead all the time, but Logan has set us up a little lamp and a system of grocery store sensors so that whenever anyone ventures near either entrance - the tunnel or the ladder - the lamp flashes. It’s ingenious. I wonder, not for the first time, if Logan might have been a scientist or an engineer in this lifetime were it not for the disease that has made us all monsters. His future after the bomb struck was circumscribed by the arc surrounding the whole of New York City.
Strange. I always thought of New York City as a big place, but now that it’s emptied out it seems so small.
“You like it, right?” Nim says, pushing off of the brick wall. His hair is black, his eyes black. Unlike the rest of us, he seems meant to live in darkness. I have to remind myself that he’s a child still. Just a teenager.
“I love it.”
“I thought it would remind you of Christmas, maybe.” He affects nonchalance, but I can tell that under his practiced words there’s a current of nervousness. He wants to please me. All the kids do, but he’s older than the rest, and he’s beginning to get more familiar than familial when I’m around. I don’t know what to do about his crush on me, whether to squelch it or let it run its course. Or to wait.
“It’s wonderful,” I say. “Very Christmassy.”
I give him a hug. A motherly hug. His arms squeeze around mine, holding on for a split second too long. The warm pressure wakes something up in me, and I drive it back down. Not Nim. I can’t. I won’t.
“Let’s start dinner,” I say cheerily. I won’t think about it.
I walk under the grate and follow the others down to the den. The drainage tunnel we’ve set up as our home is in the shape of a long, lower-case T. The door and the grate lead into the tunnel, and at the end there are three little nooks we’ve curtained off for bedrooms. Lily and Kit share a room, as do Logan and Nim. I’m by myself in the middle, where the escape ladder is, and where the storm drain leads out to the sewer. It gets a bit wet, but only in the winter.
In the middle of all our bedrooms is a clearing big enough for us to live – a living room and kitchen
all in one. It’s strange to think how this much space would’ve been a luxury apartment before the war.
Lily and Logan work side by side over the small electric cooktop that I helped Logan rig up last year. Lily watches the pan, searing the side of pork carefully. The pot of small white potatoes and carrots steams white and hot, and the Christmas lights color the steam, tinting it pastel shades of green and red. Logan stirs.
Kit is playing with her paper dolls. I kneel down beside her on the carpet, laying one hand on the back of her head, smoothing down her red curls.
“What are you playing at?” I ask.
“Princes and princesses,” she mutters, intent on the dolls and their journey.
The piece of leftover carpet stretches across half of the den, but right now Kit has decided that the shredded edge of the carpet is the forest in her paper figures’ kingdom.
“Still at princes and princesses,” Nim says. “When are you going to grow out of playing with dolls, Kit?”
“When you shut your butt, Nimrod.”
“Hush, both of you,” I say. “What’s their names? Your princesses?”
“This one is me,” Kit says. “Princess Kit.” The piece of paper is only slightly torn, but smaller than the others. I nod.
“And this one is Princess Lily. And Lily is married to Nim, and I’m married to Logan.”
“What?!” Lily and Logan both look up from the stove at the same time.
“What?” Kit asks.
“I am not marrying Nim!” Lily cries. Her face is flushed red, though Nim’s not even looking at her.
“Do you really want to kiss me, Kit?” Logan asks.
“Eww! Gross! No!” Kit says, throwing Logan’s paper doll at him. It flutters to the ground a foot away, and she picks it back up. “No kissing! We’re just married!”
“Oh, well, as long as there’s no kissing,” Logan says, and winks at us both. Kit sticks out her tongue at him and gives him a raspberry. I reach over and, with my fingers, go to pinch her tongue. She snaps it back in her mouth lickety-spit, as my dad used to say.
“What about me?” I ask her. “Who am I marrying?”