The Union

by T. H. Hernandez

  “You okay, Evan?” Marcus startles me out of my daydream, concern coloring his usually jovial face.

  I blink, realizing I was staring into space, my hands hanging at my sides while everyone else was working. “Yeah, sorry. Homesick, I guess.”

  “Oh, get over yourself.” The level of Draya’s hostility catches me by surprise. “We all miss our families. We’ve all lost someone they care about or left someone behind. Stop acting like you’re the only one.”

  Lucien opens his mouth to say something but Cyrus reaches out to grab his arm, stopping him. Whatever truce Cyrus and I came to earlier is clearly over.

  My gaze bounces between them and my anger resurges. “What the hell is your problem? I get you don’t want me here, but I didn’t ask to come. I was drugged, kidnapped, nearly raped, and I almost died. You may have rescued me, but that doesn’t give you the right to dump on me every five minutes. I’m done taking your shit, Draya.”

  She raises her chin in defiance and I stare right back, never breaking eye contact until she turns away. I snatch a towel from the counter and dry the clean dishes stacked up in the sink while Ally and Sonia put them away. We work in silence, giving me a chance to cool off. By the time we’re done, I’m calm.

  When I turn around, everyone is settling into their evening routine. Candles provide a warm glow throughout the living room where the younger kids are playing a game with a wooden board and painted rocks. The rest are taking seats at the dining room table with a deck of cards. After my tirade, I’m feeling a little persona non grata, so I head out the front door.

  The night air is warm and pleasant with a sweet earthy odor that is richer than earlier. I glance at the chairs on the porch before spotting the large chunk of granite, and make my way over to it, hoisting myself up.

  I lie on my back and close my eyes, letting the heat from the rock, baked by a day spent in the sun, penetrate my muscles. When I open my eyes, I gasp, caught off guard by the sheer number and vibrancy of the stars. I’ve never seen stars like these, that spill endlessly across the night sky, as if reminding me just how small and insignificant I am.

  My mind wanders as I take in the artistry and beauty of my environment.

  “Mind if I join you?” Cyrus’s deep baritone startles me from my thoughts.

  I scoot over to make room. “Be my guest.”

  He pulls himself up and sits beside me “What’re you doing?”

  “Looking at the stars. We don’t see them like this back home, there’s always lights interfering.”

  He lies next to me and looks up, but I doubt it has the same effect on him. This is his view every night.

  I wonder if the others sent him out here to talk to me. Sonia’s the obvious choice to broker a peace deal. Cyrus must have drawn the short straw. He seems on the verge of saying something, but when a full minute passes without him uttering a word, I close my eyes again and tune in to the desert night sounds.

  “You can come inside.”

  When I open my eyes and turn to him, our faces are less than a foot apart, his eyes searching mine. He’s so close I can smell something earthy, like warm sunshine, and something else that is all boy.

  “It’s pretty clear Draya would rather I didn’t.” I turn back to the stars. “But I like it out here. It helps me think.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “How everything got so screwed up. Can you believe that the whole reason any of this happened was because I was trying to figure out where I belong?” I let out a jaded laugh. “And now I’m more lost than ever.”

  “Maybe it’s fate.”

  “What? Me being here?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah. You unloaded a mouthful inside, but I got the gist of it. That’s a lot for just random chance.”

  I stare at him, his golden eyes sparkling in the moonlight, clearly believing in destiny. “I don’t buy into the idea that my life is predetermined and I just have to wait for it to unfold.”

  He gives me a thoughtful look. “I think it’s more like you have a purpose to fulfill, but it’s up to you if you embrace it.” He speaks with the same odd accent everyone here does, as if they’re drawing out the vowels in each word.

  “That’s an interesting philosophy, but it seems too preposterous.”

  “Maybe.” He smiles up at the stars. “Maybe it was just coincidence that everything happened the way it did, and that we left the Summer Fest two days earlier than planned. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have found you in time.” He turns to me, an intensity in those pale eyes of his. “Maybe it’s all random, but maybe you’re on this earth for a reason, and being here fits into it somehow.”

  I roll to my side and prop my head up on my hand. “You really believe that?”

  It’s dark, but I swear color is creeping up his neck. “I believe everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t understand it.”

  I’ve never met anyone like him before. With the way he lives, he still finds a way to put it all into perspective and find some meaning in it. I move to get up. “I should go apologize to Draya.”

  “She’ll respect you more if you don’t.”

  I turn back to him, pieces falling into place. When he stopped Lucien from saying something to Draya in the kitchen, I assumed it was because he agreed with her, but maybe not. Based on our interaction last night, he may have figured I’d go all rabid dog on Draya if she pushed me hard enough. I’m not sure I totally get him, but I think I misjudged him. Maybe I misjudged Draya, too.

  “What’s her problem with me anyway?”

  The corners of his mouth twitch up. “How much time do you have?”

  I laugh for the first time since I was kidnapped, and it feels good.

  He sits, pulling his legs up and resting his forearms across his knees. “She sees you as a threat.”

  “A threat? Have you seen me? I’m barely alive, hardly anything to fear.”

  He looks as if he’s biting back another smile. “She’s wary of anyone and anything from the Union. You represent what she fears and distrusts most. Give her time, she’ll come around.”

  I doubt I’ll be here long enough for that, but I can cut her some slack for now. I hop down to head inside then glance back to ask one more thing. “What time do you all get started in the morning?”

  “Sunrise.”

  “Okay. See you then.” It’s time to start pulling my weight around here.

  After saying good night to the others as I pass through the living room, I go upstairs to the room I’m staying in. On the chest of drawers is a stack of books that wasn’t there earlier. Real books. I’ve only seen paper books in museums and private collections.

  I pick up one and pull it to my face, inhaling deeply. It smells acidic but also like grass…with a hint of vanilla. The binding is beat up and inside the pages are yellowed and dog-eared, but otherwise it’s in remarkable shape. Someone has taken very good care of it.

  I crawl into bed with Pride and Prejudice and wonder who left them for me. This simple act of kindness, once again, forces me to reevaluate everything I thought about Lucien and his gang.

  16

  Pulling My Weight

  Although I read late into the night, I still manage to drag myself out of bed at dawn. When I pick up my clothes, I’m hit by such a foul stench I blink back tears. I really need to wash them. I run a hand through my hair and my fingers catch in the tangles. And I need a shower. Bad.

  Ally is in the kitchen when I get downstairs. I help her set the table then crack the eggs before going out to the garden to pick berries. After I finish, I wander over to the barn.

  Lucien glances up from milking. “Good morning.”

  “Hi. So, I found some books last night. Do you know where they came from?”

  A smile pulls at his lips. “I might.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “No. If they wanted you to know, they would’ve handed them to you instead of leaving them for you to find.”

 
Now I’m even more curious. “They’re in remarkable shape. Most books in the Union are in private collections. Where did they come from?”

  He continues milking, his back to me. “Many are from before the war, people value and take care of them. But you can purchase newer ones at the trading post.”

  “Why would someone leave them for me if they’re so valued?”

  “Because whoever it is trusts you to respect them. And because we assume you can read. Books are meant to be read.”

  I stare at his back, not sure I heard right. “You can’t read?”

  “Some, not much,” he says matter-of-factly.

  That’s crazy, everyone knows how to read. “I don’t understand—”

  “What’s not to understand?” He shrugs. “We learn what we need to survive. In most cases, reading is a luxury, not a priority.”

  “Then why do you have books?”

  He’s quiet for a few beats, and the only sound is the tinny hiss of milk hitting the pail and the gentle snorting of the cows. “They represent something we want. We all want to be able to read books, and lots of people can. Most of it depends on where you grow up, if your parents can read, or if you live somewhere with a school.”

  “But…” I pause, thinking how best to phrase this without coming off as arrogant. “Well, you just sound so, I don’t know, you don’t speak like someone who’s illiterate.”

  He glances at me over his shoulder, a thoughtful expression on his handsome face. “I imagine you learn to speak the way you’re spoken to.”

  I guess you don’t need to read and write to speak well. Even with my Union education, I have a lot to learn about people in general and about the Ruins specifically. I pick up a rake to groom the straw after realizing I’ve been standing around while he works. “Why do some places have schools and some not?”

  “After the bombings, big cities were too dangerous. People were afraid living in large groups made them targets for more Union attacks.” He runs a hand through his hair and arches his back before returning to his work. “People banded together in small communities, but every time they’d get a power system up, the jets would bomb it. Eventually they stopped trying to rebuild modern societies and decided to live like early settlers.”

  When he’s done milking, we head back to the house. “Towns tend to be small and tight-knit. If you’re lucky, you find people you can trust. Those are the people you want to build a community with.”

  After breakfast, I look for Sonia and find her at the kitchen sink. “Hey, is there somewhere I can bathe or clean up?”

  A broad smile lights up her face and she raises her left brow, nodding. “We have a shower.” She leads me to her room where she sizes me up before pulling some clothes out of her dresser. Back downstairs, she grabs a plastic bucket from the kitchen before heading outside.

  We pass the pen and gardens to a dirt path curving away from the house. Soon I hear the constant murmur of running water. When we round the corner, a wide rocky creek comes into view. We hike upstream and around another bend before stopping beside a small pool surrounded by jagged rock walls. On one side of the pool is a twenty-foot-high waterfall, and in this moment, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.

  Sonia reaches behind one of the rocks and pulls out a long branch with a pink flag on the end, jamming it in the ground. “This will alert anyone coming along that the girls are using the shower now.”

  I begin to strip, feeling awkward in front of Sonia, but I guess if I’m going to take a shower in the great outdoors, I need to get over it. I dip my toe in the water and yank it back. The air around me might be hot, but the water is definitely not. Holding my breath, I tense and plunge in. Icy fingers dance across my skin, stunning me.

  Sonia tosses me a bar of soap, and I wade over to the rock behind the waterfall and climb up. The soap has a clean, slightly sweet scent, not at all like the perfumed soaps of the Union. I rub the bar into the mess that is my hair and work up a good lather before rinsing off in the falls. The cold water rushing over me and igniting goose bumps across every inch of skin is nothing like the perfect one-hundred-five-degree showers I take back home, but there’s something pure and natural about this.

  While Sonia takes her shower, I lie on the warm rocks, letting the sun lick the remaining drops from my skin. When I’m dry, I dress in the clean clothes Sonia brought and fold up my dirty ones until I can ask about doing laundry. My hand brushes across something in the back pocket of my jeans, something I forgot I still had.

  Sonia dresses and pulls a wooden pick from the bucket. “Let me help you with your hair. When we get back to the house, I’ll check your feet.”

  “Where did you learn so much about medicine?” I ask, clawing at a particularly stubborn knot.

  “From my mother.”

  “How long did it take to learn everything?”

  “I can’t remember a time I wasn’t learning. I probably started as soon as I was old enough to help my mom, but there’s still a lot I don’t know.”

  We’re both quiet as she picks a couple of twigs from my hair that have stubbornly stuck around post-shower. I use my fingers to untwist the tangled curls from one another. “How’d you meet everyone here?” I ask.

  “I grew up with Draya, Lucien, and Cyrus. Same with Marcus.” A smile fills her voice at his name. “We — Marcus, me, Lucien, Draya, and Cy — were swimming nearby when a tornado hit. The storm came up so fast we had to duck into a cave and hope for the best instead of trying to make it home. When it was over, we ran back home, but the town was…only half the buildings remained. Lucien and Cyrus’s family didn’t get to a storm cellar in time. We found them…their bodies about a mile away.”

  A fist-sized lump lodges in my throat and my heart breaks for people I barely know.

  “Lucien and Cy said they couldn’t stay.” She pauses for a few moments and clears her throat before continuing. “I think being there was too hard…after what happened.”

  Draya’s right, I need to get over myself. At least I still have a family to go back to.

  “Marcus said he was going with them, and even though I was only fourteen, I convinced my parents to let me go, too.” She stares at her hands, twisting them. “Marcus, Draya, and I packed up what we could carry and joined Lucien and Cy. We walked several weeks before we found this place.”

  “Have you seen your family since?”

  “No.” She lifts her head and gazes east. “We hike a couple of days in one direction or another to hunt or trade, and we go to Summer Festivals, but not back home. I miss my family, but I knew I wanted to be with Marcus before I even knew what it meant to be in love.” A small smile graces her lips. “Once he decided to go, my decision was made for me. I’d follow him anywhere.”

  Wow. She left everything behind to be with Marcus. I always thought following a boy was weak and pathetic, but she makes it sound powerful.

  We stand and Sonia turns me to face her, pushing a piece of hair away from my face. “We’re going to help you get home, I promise.”

  Intense feelings of gratitude engulf me, and I remember what I found in my pocket. “I want to ask you something, but I’m not sure how, exactly.”

  She studies me for a long moment then sits back down, patting the ground next to her. “You can ask me anything, but I can’t guarantee I’ll answer your question.”

  “It’s nothing personal, but, well, I don’t want to offend you.” I sit, curling one leg under me. “I already made some terrible assumptions and don’t want to do it again.”

  “Oh.” She laughs. “Well in that case, I promise I won’t be offended.”

  Reaching into the back pocket of my dirty jeans, I pull out a wad of Union cash. It’s what’s left of the money Joe gave me at the train station. “I know you trade for what you need, but I was wondering if this has any value here.”

  Her gaze locks onto the bills in my hand, rises to meet mine, then shifts back to my hand. “Evan, where did you get that m
uch money?”

  “Uh, I just…I got it from my stepfather for incidentals and stuff. I forgot I had it.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” she whispers. “You need to put it away before anyone sees it.”

  “I want you to have it. It’s the least I can do to repay you for all you’ve done.”

  “We can’t take it, it’s too much.”

  “Sonia, I don’t need it.” I put the cash in her hands. “Maybe you can use it for something.”

  Her eyes are bright, reflecting the smile radiating from her face. “We can buy a generator.”

  I can tell that’s a big deal, even without her ginormous grin, but her gratitude makes me uncomfortable. “Sonia, can I ask you to do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t tell anyone about the money until after I’m gone. Not even Marcus.”

  Her smile slips. “Why?”

  “Because. How you are right now? I can’t handle that from everyone else. It’s not that much money to me. Some new clothes or shoes. Fun money. For you, it’s, well, I don’t even know what it is.”

  “It’s all the difference in the world,” she whispers.

  God, I really am a princess. “So, you promise, right?”

  “I promise.” She reaches over and hugs me, filling me with unexpected warmth.

  I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t offered to help Will dig the new latrine this morning. Even though I wore gloves, fresh blisters pop up on the pads below my fingers. I hope Sonia has something I can put on them.

  On my way downstairs, I poke my head into the room she shares with Marcus, but she’s not in there or in the kitchen. Ben and Connor are folding laundry on the dining room table while Ty pushes dirt around the floor with a broom in his four-year-old attempt at sweeping.

  “Hey, guys,” I say. “Have you seen Sonia?”

  “She’s outside,” Connor says.

  “They’re watching the gun show,” Ben says with a roll of his dark eyes.