by Rory Power
“What is all this?” I ask. I know the push of Byatt’s ribs too well. She needs this food. We all do.
“It’s between us,” Welch says. “That’s what it is.”
“It’s okay,” Carson is saying, and I fight to tear my eye away from the pile of cartons. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
“Is this all food? This could feed us for a week.”
“Longer, probably,” Julia says dryly.
They’re all watching me, waiting for something, only I don’t know what. “Is it always like this?” Maybe this is the first time, maybe they’re as surprised as I am, but Welch nods calmly. “I don’t understand. Where does it all go? Why doesn’t it come back to the house?”
Welch steps toward me, her body between me and the food. Julia and Carson slot in alongside her, their faces solemn save the anxious frown blooming on Carson’s brow.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Welch says. “I picked you for a reason. This job is about protecting those girls back at home. Even when it’s hard. Even when it doesn’t look the way you expect it to.”
I shake my head, take a step back. This isn’t right. I can’t make sense of it. “What are you talking about?”
“Some of the food is off,” Welch explains. “They send a lot, but maybe only half of it’s unspoiled. All sorts of bad things in there. Expired products. Pesticides.”
“Pesticides?” I say, incredulous, but Julia and Carson are nodding, grim expressions to match Welch’s. “We’re starving because of pesticides?”
“Your systems are so compromised already. I’m not sure you can afford to take risks with what you eat.”
“So instead, we eat barely anything at all?”
“Yes,” says Welch. Her voice even, her gaze considering and cool. “I told you, Hetty: I picked you because I thought you could handle it. Admittedly, sometimes I’m wrong about people. And if that’s the case, we can take care of that just fine.” She moves slightly, and I watch as her hand rests on the butt of her revolver where it’s tucked in the waistband of her jeans.
I can picture it. One shot right between my eyes, and Welch watching as my body collapses into the sea. Easy enough to explain a missing Boat Shift girl to everybody at school.
“But I hate to be wrong,” Welch goes on. “And I don’t think I am. I think you can handle this, Hetty. Am I right?”
At first I can’t answer. We’ve all fought one another for the smallest scrap of food, and the whole time there was so much more. What makes Welch think she has a right to keep this from us?
But it’s my life on the line if I pick this fight. Welch will have no problem killing me. She won’t lose a second of sleep. After a year and a half of the Tox, we’ve all learned to do what we have to. And honestly, I can’t pretend it doesn’t mean something that they picked me. Me and not Reese.
“Well, Hetty?”
Whatever’s wrong here—and something is, I’m sure of that—it’s nothing I can fix right now. I stand up straighter, look Welch in the eye. I can’t lie like Byatt, but I can try. “Yeah,” I say, “you’re right.”
Welch clasps my shoulder, her smile wide and genuine. “I knew we made a good choice.”
“Well done,” Julia says, and Carson darts in to smack a chapped kiss on my cheek. I jerk back in surprise—Carson is freezing to the touch, her lips even colder than the air around us.
“Good to have you,” she says. Both of them with relief tingeing their smiles, as if they were prepared to go home without me.
And of course they were.
Welch slings her arm around me. “Obviously, we don’t tell the girls,” she says, ushering me toward the cartons, “but just so you know, we also try to keep this off Headmistress’s plate.”
“Off her plate?” I can’t keep from sounding surprised. As strange as all this is, it’s stranger still that Welch and Headmistress could hide anything from each other.
“She’s got a lot going on. No need to bother her with specifics about food delivery.” Welch smiles. “Simpler just to handle it ourselves. You know how she likes to micromanage.”
“Sure,” I say. It seems like the right answer, and she’s made it perfectly clear what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep this secret.
“Great.” She lets go of me. “We’ll get started. It’s a lot to take in, so how about you just watch this time? You’ll pick it up as we go along.”
Carson starts passing the bags to Julia, who loosens the ties and lets the contents spill out onto the ground.
Vegetables, fruit, even a pack of bacon. Everything packed up like it’s straight from the grocery store. Except when I look closer, some boxes have been opened, some bags slit and resealed using tape stamped with the Camp Nash crest. A compass and a globe, and a banner with text too small to read.
My stomach growls as Welch picks up a bag of carrots and holds it up to her nose.
“No good,” she says, and throws it over the edge into the ocean. I have to stop myself from diving after it.
The bacon goes next, and then a bag of grapes, and then a bushel of bell peppers, until two bags are empty and the waves around the pier are full of food.
“Here we go,” Welch says. She’s at the third bag now, and inside are cases of water, the labels on the bottles fresh and blazing with the same brand name as always. That’s all we drink now—the school used to run on well water, but after the Tox, the Navy told us to stop, said it might be contaminated.
Carson starts counting the cases of water. Next to her, Julia is sorting out the matches and the soap into piles. I can see the shampoo bottles peeking out of her bag, all pearly and pale and completely unnecessary.
It takes them a while but eventually, they’ve emptied the bags and packed away what they want to keep, food still in its regular packaging, crackers and jerky and even a sleeve of bagels turned hard as rocks, and that’s when Julia pulls out her knife to pry the first of the cartons open. Shavings of paper come flying out in the wind, dusting across the surface of the water like ash.
There are four cartons in all. One is full of medical kits, bags for biohazard material, those masks doctors wear over their mouths, and we chuck about half of it and take the rest. The second is filled to the brim with ammunition, and the third holds a pair of pistols, neatly packed in foam. Welch takes the guns and tucks them away in her bag, passing some of the boxes of bullets to each of us.
And then we open the last box. It’s mostly paper and straw, but buried in the middle is a bar of chocolate, real chocolate, and dark, the good kind. We crowd around Welch as she lifts it out of the carton.
“Is that…?” I say, but I don’t get to finish because Welch is tearing the foil and you can smell it, and I’d forgotten what it was like, the way the sugar climbs out into the air like a vine growing, and before I know it I have my hand outstretched.
Carson laughs. “Hold on, you’ll get some.”
“Have you had this before?” I ask, and Julia nods. I know I should be angry. But jealousy is all I can manage.
It makes the best sound I’ve ever heard when Welch snaps off the first two squares, a thick sound, a real sound, like it’s actually there.
“They send one every time.”
“Well, not every time,” says Welch. The second two squares are in Julia’s hands now. “But often enough.”
And it’s my turn, and it’s already melting against my skin, and I cram it into my mouth so fast I think I might choke, but who cares, honestly, who really cares because it’s so damn good.
When we’re finished, and it’s after a while because I keep licking at my fingers, trying to get every last bit of chocolate, we pick up the bags and carry them back to the road. The pallet is clear. Welch pushed the cartons into the water, too, and when I asked her why, she said it was because if we left anything there, they’d send
us less next time. We leave it bare, even though we’re only taking maybe a third of it.
I know it’s the same road that we took on the way out, but the farther we get from the pier, the more different it looks. Maybe it’s the light, which is more yellow now than it was in the morning, but maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s something else. The seagulls have taken off, and they’re wheeling overhead, cries feverish and sharp. I’m pulling the flaps of my hat more firmly over my ears when Welch stops, so suddenly that Carson stumbles into her.
“Sorry,” she says, but Welch isn’t listening.
“What is it?” says Julia.
Welch turns around to look at us, something pinching at the corners of her mouth. “Something’s coming.” The gulls are gone, leaving a brittle silence in the air. “Split up,” she says. “Pairs. Stay off the road and meet back at the gate. Hetty, you’re with me.”
Julia and Carson exchange a look and then disappear into the brush, until I can’t see the red on their clothes anymore.
Welch leads me into the forest, our pace quick, bark catching on our clothes as we wind our way between the pines. Over my shoulder, the gloom thickening, and every sound an animal prowling through the trees. Deeper and deeper we go, the bag I’m carrying starting to slip in my clammy palms.
“Welch,” I say, but she doesn’t answer, just reaches back to grab my jacket and haul me along.
At our left, a crack in the brush. Welch jerks to a halt. Stock-still, her arm thrown across my chest. Around us the pines hemming in, scattered in broken ranks, slicing the horizon into slivers. I can’t see anything moving. Maybe we misheard, I think, maybe we’re home free. But it comes again, and I catch a flicker. Movement. Eyes glassy and yellow before they disappear.
“What was that?” I whisper. My heart stuttering in my chest, and I can feel my lungs tighten as panic clutches them closed.
“Not sure.” She fumbles at her waistband for the pistol she’s carrying, holds it at her side, finger off the trigger. “I didn’t see—”
Something cuts her off, a soft rumble from behind us. A growl, and the snap of a branch. I turn.
It’s a bobcat, gray fur, body long and crouched low. Pointed ears lying flat, teeth glinting as it snarls. Maybe ten yards out and coming closer in careful, stalking steps, the frost crunching underneath it.
Before the Tox they were small and skittish. You could scare them off with a gunshot. This one, though. I can see its muscles rippling under its fur, its massive shoulders nearly up to my waist.
“Get behind me,” Welch whispers. “Slowly.”
I can barely breathe, my eye locked on the bobcat, but I slip in behind Welch, feeling the ground with my boots before I take each step. The cat lets out another growl, drops its chest to the ground. It’s closer now, and I can see dark spots on its back, dried blood crusting where its skin has fallen away in patches. Sores bubbling along the inside of its front legs, bile staining the white fur on its neck.
A step forward, and another, its tail flicking from side to side. Welch pushes me back, and my foot snags on a root. I stumble with a curse. The cat hisses and darts forward. Lets out a grating scream.
Welch fires her gun into the air, the sound exploding into my head, and the bobcat springs back with another growl, circles us with its tail lashing.
“On my signal,” Welch says, “make for the house. I’ll catch up if I can.”
Turning, turning, the gun shaking in Welch’s hand, and I can’t tell anymore which way we came from, which way I should go. But it doesn’t matter. The beat of my pulse telling me run, run, run.
“Ready?” Welch says. The bobcat is still growling, snapping its jaws as she aims the pistol between its eyes.
No, I think. But it’s too late. A squeeze on the trigger, and a scream from the cat as a bullet rips along its side. Welch shoves me away. “Go!” she’s yelling. “Now!”
She’s muffled by the ringing in my ears, but my body hears it. I hoist my bag over my shoulder and break for it. Feet thundering against the earth, and I’m gasping into the cold air, throwing myself forward, pushing as hard as I can. Another gunshot behind me. I don’t look back.
The pines rush past as I weave through them. Fear like a veil, and everything looks like something else, like danger, like hurt. A path opens in front of me. I follow it, the hair on my arms prickling. I’m too exposed out here, too vulnerable, but I think this is one of Mr. Harker’s trails, on the south side of the island. At least I’m heading the right way.
My lungs burning, a cramp starting to set in my leg, my bag thumping painfully against my hip. Ahead I can see a stand of spruce trees, their branches ducking low to the ground. If I get inside, I’ll be hidden from anything following me, and I can wait for Welch.
I shoulder through the thicket of branches and find myself in a small, sheltered space, the air green and spiced, the whole world shredded by a crosshatch of needles. Beyond, the woods look still, nothing moving. No flash of red on Welch’s clothing. I search through my bag for my hat and balance it on one of the branches, so that Welch will see it if she passes by.
If she doesn’t come in a few minutes, I tell myself, I’ll keep moving. But the thought of going out there again turns my stomach. I never spent time out here alone before the Tox. I always had a class of girls with me, all of us on a nature walk for biology, or I had Reese and Byatt as we tramped through the forest to Reese’s house for dinner. And it wasn’t like this, then. The trees didn’t grow so close. There was more air to breathe.
I crouch down at the base of one of the spruces and push some of the dead needles into a pile to sit on, to keep me farther from the frosted ground. But there’s something here, hidden under the brush, something hard and hollow.
I scrape off the dead leaves, ignore the scattering beetles that cascade like glossy black beads. Something tangy and rotten tickles my nose the more dead foliage I move, until what’s hidden underneath is clear—a cooler, vivid blue plastic and folded handle, like someone’s left it behind after a picnic.
I glance over my shoulder before prying the cooler open with my dirty fingernails. Probably just an old tackle box of Mr. Harker’s, but worth checking.
I’m expecting moldy bait, a bundle of hooks and some fishing line, but it’s not that at all. The outside of the cooler is covered in grime, but inside is clean, as though it’s been wiped down. And sitting there at the bottom, in a clear plastic bag sealed with bright red tape, is a vial of blood, labeled “Potential RAX009” in handwriting I almost know.
“Hetty?” Welch’s voice drifts through the trees, urgent and clipped.
I slam the cooler shut and pile the leaves back onto it. Whatever this is, I don’t think I was ever supposed to see it.
“Are you there?” Welch calls again, and I get to my feet, hoist my bag back up over my shoulder.
“Here,” I say, pulling my hat from the branches and climbing from the spruce stand.
She comes hustling through the trees, all noise and frantic steps. Blood on her cheek, a rip in her jacket, her hair coming out of its braid. In a second she’s in front of me, and she grabs my shoulders, gives me a shake.
“What the hell, Hetty?” she says, and she’s not Miss Welch, scolding me for missing curfew. She’s just another girl left threadbare by the Tox, left worried and worn. “You were supposed to keep going.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just…I was worried about you.” I was scared to be on my own, that’s the truth, but I’m not about to tell it. “What about the bobcat?”
“It’s dead,” she says. “But, Hetty, I gave you an order. Next time you have to follow it, okay?”
I nod quickly. “I will.”
She checks over my shoulder, eyes lingering on the spruce trees, and I shift a little. I want to ask if she knows about the cooler, if she knows what RAX009 means, but I remember the w
ay she looked at me on the dock. The way we know things we’re not supposed to talk about. Is this another test? Is keeping this secret part of my job, too?
Welch frowns. “You okay?”
Better safe than sorry.
“Yeah,” I say, and paste on a smile. “Let’s get home.”
* * *
—
We cut back to the road, move quick toward the house. Here the beginning of a path, there an open patch of grass, rubble scattered like gravestones. I blink hard, feeling the blindness in my right eye.
Sweat turning cold in the late fall air, and I’m shivering by the time we near the gate, deep in the afternoon. I forgot what it was like to see the white crest rising over the trees. Up on the flattop roof the Gun girls are two silhouettes. I wonder what I look like to them.
There’s a dead coyote by the gate, flies swarming around its bloodied face. Julia and Carson are waiting just beyond it, sitting propped up against the fence, and they get to their feet as we approach, weaving around the carcass.
“Remember,” says Welch, low and close to my ear. “Big smile. It’s our job to show the girls inside that everything’s fine.”
My lungs are still tight from running, my hands heavy with the food we threw over the side, but I stand up straight and do my best to put it all away. These secrets are mine to keep now. They picked me because they thought I could handle it, so I will.
Welch unlocks the gate and we slip through single file, and through the front doors of the house. I set down my bag, look pointedly away from the girls clamoring around to get their shot at what’s inside. There’s Byatt waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me. And tilting her head, and not saying anything.
“Where’s Reese?” I ask once I’m close enough.
“Haven’t seen her all day.” Byatt reaches for me. I want to sag against her, to let her hold me up, but I’m not supposed to let anybody see. “Okay?”
“Tired.”
Behind me, a set of measured footsteps, and when I turn it’s Headmistress, concern shaping her face into something almost motherly.
