Vagrancy

by Stacey Mac

  I come at him again and aim a hammer fist to his torso. My advance is so obvious, that he blocks the strike easily, and this time, I’ve pushed him too far.

  He drops his arms completely, fed up with my half-hearted attempts, and walks straight at me, shoving me backwards.

  I fall, and he leans over me.

  “You know what your problem is?” He says. Sitting on my chest, he holds my wrists against the floor. “You’d rather give up and die, than fight. You concede and claim that your weak, instead of doing the work to win. Is it laziness, or are you really this pathetic?”

  I see nothing but the green of his eyes, his dark eyebrows, the crease between them. It is the same thing I saw the last time I found myself at his mercy.

  The memory bleeds with this, and I remember the staggering weight of his body on mine, the shock as the breath was pressed from my lungs. I’d given up then, admitted defeat. He had heard me say it. I know he’d heard me.

  Anger, undiluted, explodes from me, and I thrust my head forward as hard as I can, not feeling it when it collides with the bridge of his nose. Just like he’d shown me.

  He reels backwards, and I’m on him in a second. Blood is streaming down his face, but I don’t care. I don’t care.

  “My problem,” I yell, inches from his face, “is that I am not a savage! I’m being forced fight and won’t achieve a damn thing. You want me to kill someone? What the fuck for? For Galore? For Resolute? And then what? Who will it help? My problem is that I have no reason to murder someone, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

  I pause, catching my breath. And Dean looks oddly...patient. Expectant. It is infuriating.

  “As for you,” I continue, holding my forearm to his throat. “I don’t hate you because you beat me, or because you hurt me. I hate you because you are a coward! You lie. You manipulate. You are just like everyone else: so desperate for fucking glory that you’d kill for it. You are willing to win at the expense of someone else. You made me believe I was safe, and then you cracked my skull and walked away like you were some fucking champion.”

  Tired now, I let go of him, and slide away.

  Dean sits up slowly, watching me. He wears the same expression now that he did when I met him...when I thought I’d found a friend. I exhale heavily, exhausted. “I hate you because I would have let you win, but you had to finish the job, didn’t you?”

  I’m done. I have no fight left in me.

  I stomp blindly for the door, moisture invading my sight, brought on at some point during my ranting. My feet tumble forwards, one after the other, but I don’t make it to the door.

  Hands grab my shoulders again. They slow me down. They annoy me.

  “Tess, stop.”

  “Let me go.”

  “No. Listen to me.”

  I won’t. I don’t. I wrench myself out of his grasp and reach for the door.

  He is there, suddenly blocking my escape. He holds his hands up. “Enough! Just stop.”

  We both breathe heavily for a moment.

  “You think I tricked you?” Dean says.

  “Get out of the way.”

  He bats away the hands I use to try and shove him aside, and grasps my forearms in his strong hands. “I said, enough. Calm down.” He says it coolly, like I haven’t just broken his nose. “I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you last year, Tessa. I was trying to spare you the beating you would have taken if I had of let someone else take my place.”

  “I... What?” I stutter, uncomprehending.

  He speaks slowly, like one would to the mentally deranged. “It was an exam, Tess. Ain’t no way Trey was going to let you concede, remember? Someone else wouldn’t have knocked you out with one hit, the way I did. They would have made it last for as long as they could to show off for the trainers. They would have got in as many hits as they could before you blacked out, and I couldn’t let them do that.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. You didn’t know me,” I say.

  He nods in agreement. “I know it doesn’t. I promised you that I wouldn’t hurt you. But I had to, so that you wouldn’t be worse off. And also because I was an idiot and couldn’t come up with something more brilliant. I’ll admit it was probably the worst act of chivalry ever. But I was trying to keep you safe. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Trey has it in for you.”

  “You fractured my skull. If you were trying to rescue me, you did a really poor, fucking job.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he says, looking honestly guilty.

  I shake my head. “Why?” I ask. “Why did you try to help me? I never asked you to.”

  He laughs without humour, looking at a point over my head. He seems to be deliberating something. It takes him a few seconds, but then he finally meets my confused gaze again. “Because for some reason, I liked you, and I didn’t want to hurt you.” He pauses, closing his eyes briefly. “I still don’t know why. I told you before, I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  I blink to rid my eyes of the remaining moisture in them, and assess Dean. He searches, willing me to believe him. His fingernails are leaving indents in my arms, though he doesn’t seem to notice.

  And I believe him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, softly now, his hands loosening. “I’m sorry about what I did. And I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t want to.”

  Slowly, my hand shaking, I reach up to wipe away the blood from his lips with my sleeve. It comes away red. “I’m sorry I broke your nose,” I say, a small smile finding its way to my mouth. “I guess we’re even.”

  He wipes away the rest of the blood with his own sleeve now. “I told you that a tantrum was imminent. We could’ve avoided all of this if you weren’t so damn stubborn.”

  My smile grows. “I swear, if I hear you say ‘I told you so’ one more time, I’m going to break something more vital.”

  “Better watch my back, then,” he says, smirking. “Truce?”

  I roll my eyes. “Truce.”

  Chapter Ten

  Dean promises to take me outside the fence again the next night.

  “We don’t need to be enemies,” he tells me. “We could try to be friends.”

  That was after condescendingly explaining what a friend was.

  I find myself wishing the seconds would tick by faster while we slog away in the Arena. I am strangely anxious. Perhaps I just want to defy institution again, or perhaps I’m desperate for more freedom.

  Obviously it’s neither, but I’m still in that stupid phase wherein I ignore basic feelings. Bare with me.

  Vincent catches up to me before I leave the dormitory that night. I am retrieving a spare jacket from my locker when he is suddenly beside me, leaning against the rusting doors.

  “Gym, again?”

  “Where else?” I deadpan, though technically, I won’t be going to the gym.

  He eyes me suspiciously as I shrug into the thick, black jacket. “You look kind of keyed-up. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I say, but I’m too quick.

  “It’s only seven-thirty. Don’t you report at eight?”

  “I’m...starting earlier today.”

  “Right,” Vincent smirks. “I hope you are never trusted as a spy, because you’re a terrible liar.”

  I become huffy. “What do you want, Vince?”

  “I want to know what’s going on with this piece-of-shit-Resolute. Sometimes you look like you’d prefer bamboo shoved under your nails, and other times - like now - you look ready to skip off into the sunset with this guy.”

  He is trying to aggravate me, so I can’t become defensive. Instead, I try and give him something truthful. “It’s...a bit of a weird situation,” I hedge. “But we pretty much agreed not to kill each other. Besides, he did spare me from a week in isolation. I owe him.”

  “You owe him?” Vincent scoffs. “So what you’re saying is, you’ve forgiven him for your brain damage and hospital visit and whatnot?”

  “First of all,” I hiss, banging my lo
cker shut. “Everyone bludgeons each other daily. There is always someone in a hospital bed. Secondly, I think I’ll decide for myself who I’ll forgive. That okay with you?”

  Vincent’s dark eyebrows all but disappear into his hairline. “Testy,” he says with a smirk.

  I growl under my breath. Provoked again. I’m an easy target. I let my back fall against my locker and cross my arms over my chest. The senior dormitory is full, with everyone having just arrived back from dinner and preparing themselves for bed in the last minutes they have left before the dim lighting is reduced to complete darkness. So far, I’ve rarely been amongst my peers in the evenings; one of the only opportunities we really get to socialise at all in this place.

  I turn to Vince; my first ever friend. I’ve barely spoken to him about anything that isn’t training-related. Of course he would be curious about where I’ve been spending all my time. I trust him. I can talk to him. God knows I need to talk to someone.

  “I had an argument with him; with the trainer,” I say to Vincent softly, shaking my head. “He told me that the only reason he knocked me out last year was because he was worried someone else would do worse. Do you think he was telling the truth?”

  Vincent chews on his lip, deliberating. “Doesn’t make much sense. You gave up, right? Why would he knock you out after he’d already won?”

  “He hadn’t. Trey got all impatient and told us that we had to keep fighting until someone was close to dead. He was going to pull Dean out and put that big fronter kid in – Kale.” I nod to a brutish boy across the room.

  Vincent seems surprised by this information. Up until now, he has shared my dislike of ‘that piece-of-shit Resolute’. Vincent might like a good fight, but he’d never be in favour beating girls into oblivion.

  “Hmm,” he says. “I guess that makes more sense. Explains the staring at least...” he says, his voice trailing. His head snaps back around to me. “Question is, what now?”

  I was about to ask him something, but now I’m side-tracked. “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “It’s complicated. Sometimes he seems like a nice person, and other times I want to kill him. But it’s not just that, he’s a trainer.”

  Vincent shrugs. “He’s a Resolute trainer, they aren’t the same. I doubt they have any rules about trainers fraternising with initiates in those camps of theirs. Their trainers probably tuck the kids in at night.”

  He is probably right. The way Dean talks about his initiates sometimes, it’s with camaraderie, like they’re his family. Longing and bitterness hit me again, to think of that. They are so different from us.

  “Either way,” Vince continues, “you’re stuck with him every night until Trey says otherwise, so I guess you have to decide whether you trust him or not.”

  I groan tiredly. “I think the real question is, why does he want to be friends with me?”

  My eyes have been glued to my feet, but when Vincent doesn’t respond, I finally look up.

  His eyes are narrowed, his smile patronises. “Tess, I doubt he wants to be friends.”

  *

  By the time I reach the stairwell, it is already eight o’clock. Dean asked me to meet him on the third floor; so that it at least looks like I’m heading for the gym.

  I reach the third floor and walk down the corridor to the Resolute dorms. I stop when I reach the door, and from this side of it, it sounds like a brawl is ensuing. I can hear raised voices, someone shouting, a thunk as an object hits a wall.

  I gulp, what am I doing here? Hesitantly, I knock on the door.

  I was sure no one would hear me over the ruckus occurring within, but the door swings open suddenly, and I recognise the face of the girl standing there. Her short, brown hair soaking wet, she holds a towel in her hand, smiling derisively as she appraises me. “Something I can help you with, Scum?”

  Scum is the name other sectors give Galore’s. I’m surprised to hear it fly out of her mouth so blatantly. It is a dirty word around here.

  “You should be more careful,” I say, scowling. And I’m not kidding. Trey would skin her.

  Behind her, I see bodies flying back and forth as they run between the cots, and I realise that the voices I heard are not argumentative, but hysterical.

  They are playing a game.

  “I’m looking for one of your trainers?” I tell the girl.

  She looks over her shoulder and yells, “Hey, Dean! There is a present here for you!” she winks at me, and departs.

  Suddenly, Dean comes through the door, carrying his jacket in his hand, and to a loud chorus of “Ooooooooo’s.”

  “Shut up, animals,” he yells to the initiates with a lob-sided smile, and closes the door behind him. He turns to me, and begins to shrug into his jacket. “I think they like you.”

  I roll my eyes. “Are you a trainer, or a babysitter?”

  “Both,” he says. “Now, just to be clear, you’ve agreed to put an end to the silent treatments, dagger eyes, insults, and general hatred, and in return, I’ll promise not to be a dick.”

  “I don’t know that I agreed to the ‘no insults’ rule, but the rest sounds accurate.”

  “Take what I can get,” he drawls, “Let’s get on.”

  Like last time, he leads me out of the compound and along the fence line. It doesn’t take him long to find the weak point in the fence’s wiring, and he holds it up as I crawl under it.

  “Alright, Contessa Tyrell,” he says, rubbing his hands together from where they made contact with the frozen ground. “I’ll give you a head start. Run.”

  I am distracted, astounded that he remembered – and used – my real name. “What?”

  “You afraid I’ll beat you?” He taunts. “Run...now.”

  We size each other up for a second.

  “One...” he says, bouncing on his feet, “two...”

  And I take off. A laugh breaks free from my lungs. I sprint faster.

  Dean’s footfalls thunder behind me, surprisingly close together, coming closer.

  I’ve forgotten to tie back my hair and it whips out behind me, leaving my face clear to feel the freezing air rush past. It burns my skin, exhilarates me.

  He doesn’t run past me like I expect him to. Instead, we run together, at a steady pace now, slowing naturally when we begin to pass the rubble. I assume we are again heading to the train tracks that we found last time. When I go to turn down the alleyway that will take us to the old boom gates, Dean catches my hand, stopping me. “Follow me,” he says. “I found something I want to show you.”

  The contact of his fingers on my palm is strange. Strange, perhaps, because it isn’t weighted anymore with my deep distrust of him. We’ve coexisted in too many hours of unease. Now, casualness feels foreign.

  It also feels good.

  We jog steadily past more burnt out, disintegrating structures that used to house people, now just ghosts. The further we follow the winding, cracked road down this forgotten street, the more I wonder how Dean even knows where he is going.

  “Just how often do you jailbreak?” I ask.

  He shrugs noncommittally. “On occasion.”

  I find this unexpected, because by day, Dean is with his seniors and by night, he has mostly been ‘disciplining’ me. How has he found all this spare time to wander around the ruins of Galore?

  “Over here,” Dean calls suddenly, and he veers off onto another broken road, and down another. It is half an hour perhaps before he finally stops.

  We have reached another fence. It is different from the fence that encases the training centre. This fence is lower, but is topped with barbed wire, coiling through the diamond mesh.

  “Can you climb?” Dean asks me. He is watching me, his cheeks pink with the chill in the air. His chest rises and falls softly as his breathing slows from our run.

  I raise my eyebrows. “There had better be something really good on the other side.”

  Instead of answering he smiles, a roguish glint in his eye. Suddenly, he bends forwards.
His arms wrap tightly around my legs and he lifts me onto his shoulder. “Over you go,” he says.

  “God, you are so pushy.”

  He laughs, “Just grab the fence, would you?”

  I lean forward and find purchase on the wire. “What about the dangerous, sharp things that will slice me open?” I ask, looking upward to the rusted barbs.

  He helps me place my feet on the fence, and then takes off his jacket, throwing it over the barbs above my fingertips. “There you go, princess.”

  I heave myself up and over the fence, being careful not to let any part of my clothing catch on the barbs that are uncovered. Once I have both legs swung over the other side, I let myself drop the short distance to the ground. My knees absorb the impact.

  Ahead of me is a steep embankment, with a gully at the bottom of the hill. Sharp rocks jut out of the earth, and they will make it easy to step safely down the decline.

  I turn back to glare at Dean, who still stands on the other side of the fence. “Does the princess get another head start?”

  His expression becomes apprehensive. “Tessa, don’t.”

  I take a step backward, taunting him.

  “I ain’t kidding,” he places his hands on the fence. “It’s really steep. Wait for me.”

  I roll my eyes at him, and then turn and jump. My feet land safely on a boulder a short way down, and I laugh again. I hop from one rock to another until I reach the gully, then I take one last leap onto the solid ground below.

  When I turn and look up, Dean is following my path down the embankment, and after a few minutes, he jumps down to stand by my side.

  “Didn’t know you were such a rebel.”

  “That’s me,” I say, distractedly. I survey my surroundings. Before us lies more detritus, broken concrete, shards of glass, all left untouched from the time it collapsed – whenever that was.

  “So, did you bring me here to kill me and bury the body?”

  “And break the truce? Of course not.” He walks ahead.

  I follow his footsteps, carefully placing my feet where he does as he leads us over the rubble.

  “There,” Dean says suddenly, pointing, “you see that?”