by Stacey Mac
Dean leads me out the door and around a corner. The corridor here is empty and dark.
I wait for him to scold me, berate me even. I don’t know why he has dragged me from the cafeteria. It would have been much more effective to lecture me in front of the wide-eyed crowd of initiates who just witnessed me punching a novice in the mouth without provocation.
“I’m assuming you had a good reason for attacking someone years younger than you?” He asks. His voice sounds indifferent, like he really couldn’t care less who it was that I punched.
“She took the kid’s food,” I say. “Probably wasn’t the first time either, by the looks of it. I - I saw red... I just acted without thinking.” I sound defensive.
“You sure ’bout that?” Dean asks. His green eyes pierce mine again, holding my gaze. Accusing me. “I don’t think so. It looked like you knew exactly what you wanted to do.”
I don’t say anything in response, and he waits. The longer he stares, the weaker my will becomes, and I suddenly find myself blurting it all out.
“That kid is bruised from head to toe. Didn’t you see her? She’s a minor! She’s spent the last week staring at a compass and playing with sticks. Where did she get those bruises from? I doubt she fell into a door frame. Those assholes have obviously been beating the shit out of her.” I inhale deeply, having run out of breath. “Do you really think she was ever going to stand up for herself?” I ask.
“Probably not,” he drawls, tilting his head to the side. “But then, why would that be your problem?”
“She’s my friend, okay?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
He raises his eyebrows, but otherwise doesn’t say anything.
I don’t know why he cares about any of this, but seeing as he isn’t yelling, I decide to stop talking.
After a few minutes, he shakes his head incredulously and begins to walk around me. “Was a damn fine hit.” He says conversationally, heading back for the cafeteria.
I stare, feeling awkward as he walks away, unsure of whether I should stay where I am or follow.
“Go to your dorm,” he orders without turning to look back at me.
I wait until he rounds the corner and disappears.
Leaning against the wall at my back, I rub my face. The skin on my knuckles feels raw. I groan audibly and wrench my hands away. I don’t understand. I don’t know why Dean doesn’t act like the other trainers, Resolute or otherwise. I can’t seem to figure out whose side he’s on, mine or…everyone else’s. I’m not sure if I’ll be punished, but it’s too much to hope that I won’t be.
A large part of me, the rational part, wishes I hadn’t of done it. I imagine how Trey would have reacted, had he been present at the time. He would have stood me up in front of the other initiates and let the pig wail on me. I might have been put in isolation for a few days, without food.
And Dean pulled me outside to compliment my technique. I shake my head.
I move quickly to my dormitory, keeping my head down as I pass a trainer, and then several seniors. When I arrive, the vast, bleak room is blissfully empty, and I weave through the cots so I can collapse on mine.
I have no hope of sleeping yet. My body is wired with adrenaline.
I’ve never willingly engaged in a fight. I’m not designed to fight, I’m not a good soldier. I’ve learnt to survive, rather than win. Yet Dean was right. I hadn’t snapped, I’d deliberated.
Tilly’s scared face swims into mind, and I see the discoloured skin on her cheeks again and find myself devoid of remorse.
As the other seniors gradually file in from dinner and claim their space, I pretend to sleep. I try not to think about what they will do to me, about whether Trey knows yet, about how I should have kicked the pig for good measure. By the time my mind finally slips into violent dreams, light is beginning to collect outside the windows.
Chapter Eight
In the Arena, all initiates stand at-ease. Our lines are perfect. Quite the contrast to the Resolute crowd.
We wait. My eyes search the crowd, and I find her: Tilly. Her skin is still blotched and blooming, though she looks better. She doesn’t shake or cry anymore.
Several lines before her and further to the front, the novice pig stands with a scowl across her wide face. Her upper lip has split and her cheek has swollen.
There’s a twinge of violence in my chest when I compare her face to Tilly’s. It really was too-small of a reckoning.
The fire exit opens and two council members enter. That they are from the command unit is obvious; they wear clothes only council would wear; long-sleeved shirts with vests, fancy trousers and long, thick coats. I vaguely recognise these members from various announcements they have given from time to time in town. They join the collection of trainers in the centre of the Arena and shake their hands. One member steps towards the initiates.
“Attention!” shouts Trey. And there is a uniform thud as heels snap together and hands are raised in a salute.
Though I can’t see them, I know the Resolutes will still stand with their hands in their pockets, or crossed over their chests – ignoring the command.
“Good morning,” the council member begins. “I’ve come today with some news to share with you.”
Tension suddenly wafts around me. Council only make surprise announcements in the compound for one reason.
“I’ll be direct – it is our belief in Galore that information within our sector should be free and forthright, and it is our policy that all members of our society be informed of movements and developments in the conflict.” He pauses, looking upon us with a stern gaze. “Recently, a division of frontline soldiers have been conducting a scouting mission over the mountains, collecting intelligence of any hostile movements from our enemies, in particular, the militia known as Scarce.”
A hushed murmur breaks the ranks as everyone hears the threat in the word ‘Scarce’ – our enemy militia. As the closest militia in proximity to us, Galore and Resolute have been at war with Scarce since the sectors were formed.
Scarce’s boundaries lie on the other side of the mountains that encase us, over two hundred miles away. While Galore’s territory is rich in natural resources, Scarce is a wasteland. Council like to tell us it is a breeding ground for savages. I can testify to this. Those savages have stolen across our borders before. I was just nine when it happened. Their army surprised us, shooting on sight, throwing grenades. We were forced into hiding, taking to the bunkers that are situated all over the sector. My parents and I shared the one in the middle of our farm, though I guess others had to huddle up in packs of twenty or more, closer to town. The bunkers are hidden, of course, with shelves of non-perishable food, though only enough for a couple of days, so after three days, everyone was pretty hungry.
My parents and I had, typically, handed our food supplies over to council to supplement our contributions here and there when we would have otherwise come up short. As a result we spent three days in the dark, dank and freezing bunker. No food. No communication. Just the sounds of intermittent explosions and gunfire. It was the first family vacation we had taken, and it ended with my father taking a bullet to the knee.
Basically anyone here who has lost someone over the last two decades, lost them at the hands of a Scarce soldier, and so, naturally, just their name curdles the blood.
Trey barks furiously and we fall silent.
“Thank you,” the speaker says to Trey. “It is with deepest regret that I inform you that this division was attacked by Scarce mercenaries, and there were no survivors. In response to this unfortunate incident, names will be drawn immediately to form a campaign. This campaign will be sent to Scarce to avenge the deaths of our fallen and retrieve their bodies. Grieving family members among you will be granted permission to leave the training compound to attend burials if the campaign is successful.”
His words hang in the air. I hear a soft whimper to my right – someone’s life altering.
“Those whose eligible
family member’s name’s are drawn for the campaign will be notified. Thank you.”
Seconds later, the councillor and his company step out of the Arena, and the door closes behind them with a heavy thud that echoes from the walls.
The silence is absolute, with the exception of the muffled whine that continues somewhere among our ranks. There were at least thirty fronters deployed on that mission: all dead now. How many of us knew them? Loved them?
There is the sound of rustling; fabric against fabric. It is misplaced against the silence that resonates. I turn at the sound and see the Resolutes, holding two fingers to their hearts, standing ramrod straight. A sight to behold.
“Initiates!” Trey yells, and the spell is broken. “Report to your trainers. You are dismissed.”
It takes a few seconds for the movement to begin. All around me, the faces I see are enraged, maddened. But this is all we get, just a few seconds to process, and we are expected to accept, and continue on our way. We will be reminded that we are at war – that casualties are expected. They will tell us again how honourable it is to die for Galore, how atrocious it was for Scarce to take the lives of our brothers and sisters on the frontline, and how it is our duty to honour their deaths, and take their place in the fight to retain freedom.
Another campaign raffle. Another game of revenge. What names will be drawn tomorrow in front of the Council headquarters?
It has been a year since my father’s name was drawn; it is only luck that he hasn’t been called since. My mother hasn’t had her name drawn in nearly three years.
I close my eyes.
“Tess?
There is Vincent. His pupils dilate, his face looks all wrong without his white smile splitting the dark skin. I know this look he wears. Despair grips me, he has lost so much already. “Who?”
“My Uncle,” he says stiffly.
“Sorry, Vince,” I say, touching his arm tentatively.
He nods. “One day, it will be my turn to slaughter their families.” He says it calmly, factually, but I can see what others might not: the wrath that burns just beneath the control, the hatred clawing his insides. “I’ll just have to be patient.”
I don’t know what to say to him. I never seem to know what to say about feelings, so I put my arm around his shoulders as best I can, and take him over to the rest of our ranks.
Only the seniors remain in the Arena. It is difficult to tell if anyone else is now mourning the loss of a loved one, the expressions I see are similar to Vincent’s – hatred, fury, determination. Most are muttering to one another in small groups, buzzing with the recent developments, so I don’t realise anyone is standing so close to me until I feel the warm breath on the back of my neck.
“You’re making a habit of pissing me off, initiate.” Trey’s voice sends a deadly shiver through me.
So Dean did report to him. Cringing, I turn and move deftly backwards, saluting Trey.
“At ease,” he says lazily.
My hand drops to my side.
“Initiate,” he shouts, and the seniors who hadn’t yet realised Trey’s presence whip around hastily. All chatter dies. “What rule have you broken?”
“Obey,” I tell him.
“Why don’t you enlighten the rest of your rank of your actions yesterday?”
“I – I struck a novice.”
“And what will it take for you to learn some obedience? Will you turn on your own in combat? Do you plan to betray your comrades?”
“No, trainer.” Dread floods me. Here it comes...
“Let’s make sure of that,” he says, and that deadly grin creeps into his expression. My eyes flicker to his hands. I wait for a tell-tale twitch, a warning before the strike.
“A week in isolation,” he says instead. “Scrap food, ration water only.”
My body sags. Worse. So much worse than I’d feared.
Trey’s eyes trail over me; a butcher eyeing a pig. I recognise it as gluttony. Like all good villains, Trey doesn’t admonish resistance, he craves it.
Around me, the bodies of my peers are rigid, stunned. Isolation is saved for some of the worst infractions, but a whole week. A week with no proper food, no light, no warmth, no interactions.
“Begging your pardon, last time I checked it’s my duty to discipline this initiate. I was the one who broke up the fight.”
I look up, and Dean is walking towards Trey, followed by his group of seniors. I hadn’t noticed that they had lingered behind.
Trey takes several steps towards him. “It was also your duty to report the incident to me, but that didn’t happen either, did it?” Trey keeps his voice low. He doesn’t want the rest of us thinking that another trainer is defying him, especially a Resolute trainer.
Dean shrugs. “The kid assaulted another initiate under my supervision. I’ll deal with her.”
Trey’s head tilts to the side. “Like you dealt with her disobedience last week?”
Dean doesn’t flinch, though his eyes harden. “I misjudged her. Clearly she hasn’t learnt a thing. Let me fix that.”
My eyes dart between the two, one sizing up the other.
“Alright,” says Trey. “She’s your problem. If she screws up again, she’ll be mine, and so will you. Got it?”
“I ain’t following orders from Galore superiors,” Dean says quietly. “Don’t forget that.”
“You are in my institution,” hisses Trey. I’m sure that no one else can hear the exchange but me. “Don’t forget that.” Trey steps backwards. He comes towards me.
I feel a droplet of sweat roll down the back of my neck.
“Lucky again,” Trey says to me in a low voice. Without warning he reaches around and grabs my hair, ripping it backwards so that my face is tilted back to the extreme. I feel hair break away from my scalp. His heavy chest is against mine, and his breath is in my throat when I gasp.
“Learn to obey,” he says menacingly. “Or get. Out.”
At that, he lets me go, and leaves.
I feel a lump in my throat and swallow convulsively. Dean has gathered the Resolutes together and is speaking to them. He doesn’t look at me.
“Let’s go,” Vincent says, tugging on my arm, and we begin to run laps with the others. I stumble often and almost go sprawling several times. I can’t focus. So Dean didn’t tell Trey what I had done? Why not? And does he really want to teach me a lesson? It seemed more like he was doing me a favour.
Lately, it feels like he has given me a few favours.
An old thought occurs to me, resurfacing: that maybe Dean is a friend. But a different Dean keeps fluttering to mind, promising he won’t hurt me, right before my head cracks against the floor.
He isn’t a friend.
*
I make sure I find Tilly as soon as I enter the cafeteria when the day is through. Mia and I guide her to our table again.
Her dark hair is pulled back from her face today, and she doesn’t look quite as childish this way. Her expression, too, is stronger, though the sleeves of her black jacket are rolled up several times so that she can use her hands.
I take a bite of my stew (rabbit tonight) and nudge her with my elbow. “Did you have a better day today?”
“Yes!” she says breathlessly. “I passed the fire-starting exam.”
“Good,” I say, but then I blind-side her. “When did your face become a punching bag?”
She drops her spoon noisily, and clears her throat, hesitating.
I wait patiently.
“After the first day,” she says, her eyes on her food. “I fell over and bumped into that girl and her food spilled everywhere. A trainer got mad at her, and she had to do extra clean up chores. She’s been making me give her my dinner every day since then.” The corners of her mouth dip.
“Why didn’t you come and find me?”
“I didn’t want to bother you again,” she murmurs. And I know her mind is with mine, back to the first day, when she had asked me to help her find her way. Can’t you find th
e other minors? She had frustrated me.
I struggle to make my expression softer. “Come to me if it happens again,” I say, when what I want to tell her is: I’m sorry.
My friends do a good job of making Tilly feel comfortable, considering she is half our age. It turns out Adriel has a little sister back in Resolute who is nine, and by the time I get up to leave, Tilly is giggling uncontrollably as he flings bits of rice across the table at her.
“Do you want to come with me?” I ask her when she calms down. “I seem to remember making you a promise when first we met.”
Awareness lights up her pretty face, and she jumps to her feet.
We are some of the first to arrive back to the senior dorms, but the initiates that are already here stare at Tilly and I. “Ignore them,” I whisper to her.
We sit down on my cot, and I take the playing cards from the inside of my pillowcase. “I’m going to teach you how to play a game called ‘snap’ first,” I say, smiling. It is the first ever game my father taught me to play.
Tilly looks enraptured as I explain the markings on the cards, and I ask her to repeat the names of the suits back to me after I’ve shown her.
We play a few rounds, and she laughs hysterically every time we bring our hands down on top of one another.
It is like this, pink-faced and silly, that I imagine her life away from the compound, doing things a child should do. Instead she is here, inside a chain-link fence, learning about how alone she is. In a few weeks they will put a gun in her hand, though I doubt she’ll be able to hold it upright with those too-long-sleeves.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, after our tenth game.
“Okay,” she says easily.
“Can you tell me about the jewellery you brought with you?”
She looks up at me, and hesitates. I watch her mind’s wheels turn as she decides just how much she trusts me. After a second, she looks around carefully and pulls out the gold chain from the inside pocket of her jacket. An oval pendant hangs from it, and she pushes it into my hand.
“It’s a locket,” she says. “It has a little clasp just there, and it opens up. See...” She clicks open the face of the oval, and on the inside, the halves frame two pictures: one of a woman and the other of a man. By the looks of the curly, black hair on the woman, I can guess who these people are. They look young. The clothes that they wear are colourful and impractical – free-world clothing. These photos of her parents must have been taken before the end.
