by Tracey Ward
“Cool it, Bree,” I tell her calmly. I sit perfectly still, not fighting them. There’s no point. I’ll just get myself hurt, or worse, get one of the girls hurt. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
Nats and Breanne are pulled out into the daylight. Kitten is taken next, her face contorted with rage and disgust when they put their hands on her, but I feel her hand tighten around my shiv as she lets me go. It’s not much. It can’t kill, not unless you use it in just the right spot, but it’s better than nothing. It’s all I could give her because it’s all I have.
Once she’s out, they come for me. Three of them, all armed and angry.
“Kitten!” I shout. “Do we have a deal?!”
One of the guy snorts in disgust. “Couple hours with her and you’re already trying to pimp her? We don’t play that way here.” He grabs my arm, yanking me up onto my feet. “You’re out of a job, buddy.”
The other two get their hands on me. I let them because there’s no sense in fighting. This right now, this is not my moment. But it will come. I know it will.
But will I be alone when it happens?
As they pull me into the light, I find her face. I hold her eyes and I try one last time, “Joss!”
“Yes!” she calls back. She takes a deep breath, frowning as she watches them drag me away. “Yeah, Vin. We have a deal.”
It’s a small relief, but I’m not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.
They’re pulling me toward the building. A big, white and blue monster of a thing sitting at the edge of the water, surrounded by shipping containers in all different colors. They’re stacked two high with men and women in warm gear strolling along the tops, binoculars around their necks and weapons on their hips. Behind us, two containers break the line of the wall. Unlike the containers running long, these two are turned sideways, their doors facing the building on this end and out into the wild on the other. Those are the doors we passed through; an airlock system that allows them to open the gate, bring the trucks inside a container, and seal the first door before opening the second to the interior. That’s going to be almost impossible to get out of.
The grass in the yard to the right of the building is green and maintained, cut low with nothing but a greenhouse and rows of empty, brown fields breaking it up. They pull me to that farm side of the building where there’s an unmarked side door. I don’t bother looking but I know the girls aren’t following behind us.
Inside the MOHAI is surreal. It’s light and warm the way buildings used to be. The brightness of the overhead lights makes my head hurt. The shift from the cold air outside to the hot air inside makes my chest ache. The strong smell of soap burns my nostrils and I frown at the room around me, looking for its source. Turns out, it’s everywhere. We’ve stepped into some kind of big closet full of coats in every color hanging from hooks on the walls. There are boots on the floor and hats and gloves in bins stacked higher than my head. That’s where the soap smell is – in the clothes. The stuff hanging out in the room and the things the men surrounding me are wearing. I’m down to two guards now but they’re smart about it. They keep me sandwiched between them, nudging me forward out of the room and into a long hallway that’s even warmer than the closet.
“Your electric bill must be insane,” I quip dryly.
They don’t answer me.
They take me to a room at the end of the hall that’s smaller than the closet but emptier. There’s nothing but a chair sitting in front of a mirror, a shining metal table that looks like it came straight out of an operating room, and a big woman with big breasts and an even bigger smile. Her eyes are dark almonds, her skin smooth chocolate, and she immediately reminds me of something I can’t think of. Like when you hear a song you swear you know but you’ve never heard it before. The melody just sits right with you. Like it was always supposed to be there.
“Holy shit, look at you,” she exclaims when she sees me. She puts one hand on her hip, the other on her heart. “It isn’t right for a man to be that pretty, you know that?”
I smirk at her, crooked and sexy. “Yeah, I know it.”
“I bet you do. Jesus.”
“Trish,” a guy behind me scolds.
She waves him away. “Don’t be jealous, Gary. You’re alright.”
“Yeah, Gary,” I agree. “Shut the fuck up.”
Gary glares at me but he shuts the fuck up.
Trish waves me into the room. I glance around, searching for surprises, but I come up empty.
“I’m going to give you a haircut, if that’s okay with you,” she tells me.
“Asking or telling?”
“Pardon?”
I look her in the eyes, gesturing to the chair in front of her. “Are you asking if it’s okay with me or telling me it’s okay?”
“Asking,” she answers, smiling mildly. “It doesn’t matter to me. Either I cut your hair now, we make sure you don’t have any creepy crawlers in there, and you get to relax in a nice hot shower after, or you go with the boys to the showers as is and they’ll wash your hair for you. Up to you which sounds more fun. I’m not judging either way.”
I glance at the guys behind me. They don’t look any happier about the idea of bathing me than I am about them doing it. A quick check of the items on the metal table and I see that they aren’t giving me any weapons, either. No scissors. Just clippers.
I rub the coarse hair on my chin, grinning at Trish. “You think I could get a shave while we’re at it?”
“Honey, a face that fine, I’ll work on it all day. Take your coat off. Sit your ass down.”
The guys tell me to drop my coat on the floor in the corner. They’re going to burn it. I know without asking, and the thought pisses me off. I like that coat. I fought for that coat. What right do they have to decide that it’s worthless?
Trish is quick with the clippers. She meticulously takes my hair almost down to the scalp, the way I used to wear it before barber’s shops became a memory. She talks the entire time, telling me her whole life story and absorbing a fair portion of mine. She was a hairdresser before it all fell apart and the sickness devoured most of her clients. She took up with the Colonies right away. She knew she couldn’t last on her own. The MOHAI is her third home in as many years, a fact that draws a frown to her lips and a deep V on her brow. She didn’t want to move. She doesn’t say it but I can see it, and I wonder if she’s holding that opinion back because it’s personal or because other people are listening. Seeing as she tells me every other detail of her life, including the fact that she’s going through ‘the change’ and randomly starts sweating balls every thirty minutes, I’m gonna say she doesn’t talk about the Colonies moving her around because of the company we’re keeping.
Of course, that tells me I need to get Trish alone. As soon as possible.
When she’s finished with me, she gives me a hug. It catches me off guard but I hug her back because I need the brownie points with her if I want total honesty later. I kiss her cheek for good measure. She blushes, Gary yells at me, and the other guy just stands there like he can’t wait for this day to be over.
He’s another person I might look for alone time with.
Anyone with any amount of annoyance with the Colony is a mark in my mind.
I get my shower in a massive cement room. There’s a drain in the middle that’s still syphoning water away when I get there, and I wonder if the girls were just here. I’m not alone as I strip down, but no one tries to help me clean up, so it’s better than it could have been. And the water is warm. Fuck a duck, it’s warm and it feels so good I want to cry, but I act like it ain’t shit because I don’t want them getting the wrong idea. I don’t want them to believe for one second that bringing me here was a good move.
Once I’m detoxed by lice and flea shampoo and my clothes have disappeared into an incinerator somewhere, they give me something dry to put on. Basic jeans and a thin T-shirt. New underwear with an elastic band that hasn’t dissolved into spider we
bs. But they don’t give me shoes and they don’t give me a new coat, not even a sweater, and I think that’s all on purpose. It’s too cold outside to be running around barefoot without a jacket. No way I could swim through the frigid waters from here to land on the other side of Lake Union, even if I could climb the ten-foot-tall, razor-wired fence they’ve got along the shoreline. And if by some miracle I did make it out, I wouldn’t get very far once I hit land. My feet would get torn up, blood trailing with every step, calling the Risen to me.
These people are assholes, but they’re not idiots.
Gary and What’s-His-Face take me up a flight of stairs to what must have been the building’s cafeteria. There’s a mural on the far wall when you walk in that has the MOHAI emblem on it, proudly reminding everyone that this was the Museum of History and Industry. The room has more of the industry feel to it with a lot of stainless steel, wire mesh over the ceiling, and shining silver floors. The tables are all white, same as the chairs and countertops. And the plates. The mugs and cups. Everything is stark, bone white.
People sit around laughing and talking in fresh, clean clothes, eating hot food that looks like it belongs in a magazine. The place feels like a real diner and the sight of it makes me a little sick inside, that nausea rolling back in like the tide. Is this how they’ve been living all along? Like nothing fucking happened?
The thought makes me want to either puke or punch somebody.
“Get in line,” Gary tells me. “Get something to eat.”
“Where are the girls?”
“Probably getting dressed. Get in line.”
“Not until they get here.”
He rolls his eyes. “Like I care if you eat.”
Gary turns his back on me – big fucking mistake – while What’s-His-Face smiles apologetically.
“They’ll be here soon,” he promises, his voice much friendlier than G-man’s. “Caroline is leading them up and she likes to talk.”
“Who’s in charge?”
Face blinks. “What?”
“Who is in charge of the MOHAI?” I repeat clearly.
“There’s a team of leaders. They control the MOHAI together.”
“When do I meet them?”
“You’ll meet Caroline when she comes up.”
“She’s one of them?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she hot?”
Face frowns. “What?”
“Is she single? Is she young? Is she old? What’s her story?”
“Uh, she’s single, I guess.”
“What’s her job?”
“What?”
I cock my head at him. “Do you have a hearing problem?”
“Wh—no.”
“Caroline. What does she do here?”
“I told you. She’s a leader.”
“That’s it? Nothing else?”
He shrugs. “She makes sure people are happy with their jobs.”
“And are they?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes dart to the left, toward Gary.
I’m taking that as a ‘no’.
“What about you?” I ask him, nodding to the piece on his hip. The matte black butt of a gun I’m itching to get my fingers on. “You’re security?”
“Yeah.”
“What other jobs are there?”
“Uh, well, there’s cooking. Kitchen, I guess. And some people farm. There are seamstresses. Cleaning crew. Laundry. Maintenance. Housekeeping. Really, whatever you want to do, you can do it. Just tell a leader what you’re interested in.”
“I’m interested in leaving,” I tell him brusquely. “Who do I talk to about that?”
Ted hesitates. He looks worried. “You would… I wouldn’t do that.”
I give him a disarming grin. “I’m just kidding, Ted. Take it easy.”
“Oh,” he chuckles nervously. “Okay.”
“Ted!” Gary shouts across the room.
Heads rise, eyes turning to see what the commotion is. Because that, one man shouting another’s name, is what classifies as action in this joint. I get worried in the Hive if I don’t hear people shouting at all hours.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Ted answers tiredly.
“Hey, thanks for the info man,” I tell him graciously. I shake his hand, squeezing it hard to tell him we’re friends. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you later. Um…”
“Vin.”
He smiles faintly. “See you later, Vin.”
I hang on the edge of the room with the wall at my back, waiting for the girls. I people watch to pass the time. It’s crazy, a whole other world than what I’m used to, but if I squint my eyes real hard and hold my breath so I can’t smell how clean this place is, it doesn’t seem that different from the outside. It’s all people living together the only way they know how. The best way they can think of.
And just like in the Hive, there are no kids. Not a single, solitary body under thirteen years old. That bothers me in a way I don’t totally understand yet.
“Vin!” Breanne shouts.
I smile when I see her come running at me. Heads turn to watch her the they watched Ted and Gary have their little spat, but they don’t look alarmed by Breanne. They’re smiling as they watch her run into my arms, jumping up into them until I have to support her, her feet dangling just above the floor.
Nats is behind her. Kitten too, along with a gaggle of Colony women that look like caricatures of each other. My girls look clean and intact hovering in the doorway. Not a mark on them. I set Breanne down, leading her back to the other two. I feel a little more whole seeing my tiny flock intact.
“You girls clean up well,” I tell them heartily.
“So do you,” Nats chuckles, checking me out. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hair that short.”
I smile, running my hand over my head to feel the bristles of hair tickle my palm. “They have barber’s sheers and I haven’t had a real haircut in years. Figured why not.” I toss my smile at Kitten. “What do you think, Kitten? Does it suit me?”
“I lost my shiv,” she answers immediately, her voice quiet and irritated.
I look to make sure the caricatures can’t hear us. “Yeah, me too,” I mumble, thinking of my knife they took on the street.
The blondest of the girls behind Kitten steps forward. She smiles like a lighthouse at me, her eyes taking it all in. This must be Caroline. “I’m glad you found each other again. Excellent. Why don’t you all get in line, eat some lunch, and then we’ll give you the tour.”
I smile back, crooked and slow. “Sounds great, thank you.”
Her eyes linger on me a little longer. She glances at each of the girls, smiling the brightest at Breanne and looking crazy as a three-way, before she and her troops finally leave.
Kitten must catch me frowning after her because she suddenly tells me, “I don’t like her either.”
I nod in agreement. “She’s trouble. Watch out for her.”
“Can we eat now?” Breanne asks eagerly.
“Yeah, Bree,” I answer absently, watching Crazy get gone. She stops at the top of the stairs to look over her shoulder. She smiles when she sees me watching her. “Go ahead. I’m right behind ya.”
Nats and Breanne hop in the food line with me trailing close behind them. There’s twenty or more people in the room but only six of them are in line. It moves fast. Anything behind the glass you want, you can have, and there’s a lot. Veggies and fruit and bread and butter. I’m gonna get so much damn butter.
I look over my shoulder to ask Kitten what she’s getting, but she’s not there. I stress for a split second before I spot her up against the wall, right next to the doorway. She hasn’t moved since we got here.
“You okay?” I call to her.
Kitten shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she lies breathlessly.
I frown, touching Nats’ elbow. “I’ll be right back.”
Nats nods without question.
I
saunter up to Kitten nice and slow. Easy, like I’m coming up on an animal because that’s what she looks like right then. Fear in eyes but murder in her heart.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s…” She pauses to take a breath but it sticks in her throat. “There are too— too many people. It’s overwh—whelming. They’re so loud and what if… what if one gets bitten? We’ll all die. There are just too many!”
There it is, I think smugly. There’s the damage. You’ve been alone too long and now you can’t do crowds.
It’s a problem, but it’s not near enough to make me give up on her. Not yet.
“Whoa, slow down,” I coo calmly. I move in close to her, probably closer than I should, but I’m trying to pin her down. Not on the outside, but inside. She can’t handle all the bodies in the room so I block them out, bringing the world down to just the two of us. “Breathe slowly and deeply. Don’t worry. Risen aren’t getting in here. That’s not what you need to worry about.”
“They’re always what I need to worry about.” Her eyes roll in her head like a doll’s. “Them and you.”
“Me as in gangs?”
“You as in ev—everyone else on the planet. Gangs, Colonists, d—dead, undead.”
She’s spiraling out. She’s turning to jelly, and I’m going to lose her to the panic if I don’t yank her spine back into her body.
“How big of a problem is this going to be?” I ask sharply.
“What?”
“Can I count on you or is this fear going to make you useless?”
She shoves me. I willingly fall back a step, letting her feel her own strength. Her power.
“It’s not a fear, it’s—” She stops herself short. “Screw you.”
“No, you get it together. You’re tougher than this, you have to be. No way you made it as long as you did alone if you can’t adapt.” I press in on her again, my words quiet and quick. “Those two girls I’m with, I can’t count on them. Nats is solid but she’s no fighter and Breanne is nothing but a pretty face. These people have taken a lot of guys from the Hive and I’m hoping to find some in here and get their help getting out, but who knows? Maybe they’ve gone native. Maybe they tried to escape and they’re dead.”