Vagrancy

by Stacey Mac

  “Stage fright,” he calls to the rest, “Will get you killed. We are going to teach this initiate a little lesson in the importance of shooting first.” Jiyah snatches my rifle and lifts it up over my head. He turns on the safety. “You!” he says, pointing to another senior amongst the rank. “Report!”

  The initiate sprints to Jiyah, halting before him.

  “Take her rifle, and hide it in the range. You have sixty seconds.”

  The senior takes it and swiftly departs, running with the rifle against his chest.

  My breathing becomes erratic, coming out in short bursts of scintillating frost. I look back to the other initiates, desperately searching for a saving grace. But Dean is with his novices, and Vincent can’t do or say anything that can help. I spot Adriel, and he is suitably horrified.

  Less than a minute later the senior returns, and Jiyah sends him back to his place. Then, grinning, he turns to me.

  “Now, initiate, this is a game of hide and seek, wherein you are hiding and also seeking. I am going to give you a thirty-second head start. You will locate your firearm from inside the range, and find a surviving target. After your thirty seconds are up – ” he takes a glock from his leg holster and loads it, “ – I’m coming for you. And you had better pray that I don’t find you first.” His dark, sinister face is alight with adrenaline. His black lips curl. I know what will happen to me in this cat and mouse game if he wins.

  The trainer closes his eyes. “One…”

  Like a mouse, I flee. I spend ten of my precious seconds just sprinting as hard as I can away from Jiyah, before I remember that I should be looking for something. I search desperately, but my eyes dart around too quickly to do any good. Calm, idiot. Calm down. Black gun, white snow, just look.

  I don’t know how many seconds have passed, and I still haven’t found it, and then it’s too late, and I can’t see him through the trees but I hear the distant footfalls approaching; slow in pace, but purposeful, deadly. I break into a sprint again. My time is up, and if I’m found unarmed, my body will be left to decompose in the snow beside Felix’s.

  I break through some bushes, and there I see it. Lying on top of a snow-buried hay bale, in between two thick fern trees, is the rifle, black against pure white. I throw myself towards it, relief breaks through my lips and I snatch the rifle up, throwing it against my shoulder and turning. In this same second, Jiyah rounds the trunk of a tree and spies me, armed and waiting.

  He doesn’t raise the glock. He stops moving, and that lazy smirk, so un-Deanish, reappears, and he seems not the slightest bit perturbed that he is faced by a more heavily armed person than he.

  It angers me, this of all things, that he isn’t afraid of me, that he won’t even raise his weapon as a precaution.

  I want to make him feel fear.

  I’ve proven that I am not a violent person, but make no mistake, in this moment, I am happily picturing all the ways in which I can make his body break.

  He doesn’t raise his gun, but I raise mine.

  I stare him down through the crosshairs, finding the centre of his forehead, and my trigger finger finds its’ home.

  Jiyah freezes, his titan body tensing. The fingers that hold the glock at his side tremble pleasingly.

  There is a moment wherein no sound can be heard. Blankness. Clarity. My adrenalin-ridden body pulses; into my hands, behind my eyes, my heart. I could hurt him, and my hands would feel like a giant’s, and the blast would annihilate him, and make me invincible. I could – can – kill him like he kills: for nothing, for no one. And he sees it, the majesty igniting in me. He sees my supremacy; his eyes grow round with it. His mouth contorts as though to plead. And I beg this of him. I want him to plead for his life.

  But the moment is only a moment, and it disintegrates. I hear a crow high above us give a cry that reunites me with reason, and I change my trajectory. I aim the rifle over the trainer’s shoulder, exhale, pull the trigger. Twenty bullets carve the centre out of a red cross, the very red cross I’d watched Vincent plant just minutes ago.

  The trainer pants, his shoulders slumping ever-so-slightly before he finds composure. But before that, before he remembers to be unfearing, I see the relief that I’d spared his life and it tastes almost as sweet as the pleading would have.

  I smile.

  Jiyah pulls his shoulders back, visibly straightening himself out. “Good girl,” he says, his voice even. “Shoot first, or be shot, initiate, remember that.”

  “Yes, trainer,” I say, my tone just begging for a lashing, “I will.”

  *

  In the compound’s armoury (the non-secret one), after putting the firearms away, I offer Vincent my arm. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, trying to sound nice. “You deserve better than what Mia dealt you, but if you can settle for the likes of me, I’ll escort you to dinner.”

  He makes a valiant effort to hold it back, but a goofy grin slides onto his face, and he takes the elbow I offer.

  “You’re not gonna kiss me, are you?”

  “Not tonight.”

  We follow the hoard to the cafeteria, but someone grabs my arm before we manage to reach the stairwell, and they drag Vincent and me to a stop.

  Adriel pulls me out of the swarm and against the wall of the corridor. He looks pale and scared. His round face, suddenly drawn. His voice is low and despondent when he talks.

  “Tess,” he says, “I’m so sorry. That…that stuff that Jiyah did…that was all my fault. I was such a moron. It was just a stupid prank. I guess it would have been funny back home. I’m a fucking idiot.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, shrugging. “I’m fine.”

  “No, I feel terrible, Tessa.”

  Suddenly, Vincent pipes up. “You should. You could have gotten her killed.”

  “I know. I didn’t know that at the time, though. You have to believe me! I didn’t know Jiyah would do that to you.”

  “This isn’t Resolute, dickhead,” Vincent says cuttingly. “We don’t hold hands and sing songs here. If we screw up, we die.”

  Adriel nods solemnly. “You’re right, you’re right.”

  “Back off, would you?” I tell Vincent. “The dickhead says he’s sorry.” I turn to Adriel, “You’re forgiven. Just please, the next time you want to orchestrate a prank, aim it towards someone we hate, okay?”

  “Okay,” Adriel says, grimacing.

  “Now,” I say, hauling Vincent, and now Adriel along with me to the stairwell. “Let’s go eat a shitty meal like one big, happy, second-rate family.”

  Adriel still sulks, and Vincent keeps his scowl, but we manage to get to the cafeteria without anyone getting heartbroken or dead.

  I am exhausted. I feel as though I’ve been awake for days, which is partly true. Maybe it was the near-death experience, or Jiyah’s near-death experience, or watching the life of Felix being blown out of him, or a combination. All the death and dying tends to take its toll on the living. But we (the living) make our way through the line and then towards our normal table, and I see Dean talking quietly with Tilly, and everything is, just now, a little better.

  I sit down beside Dean, across from Tilly. With his elbows leaning on the table, he turns, his eyes twinkling conspiratorially.

  “Evening initiates,” Dean says. “How was weapons?”

  “Loud,” I say.

  He nods, the grin widening, and turns back to his food.

  I don’t offer much information throughout the dinner conversation, and when anyone tries to bring up the happenings of today’s expedition, I lead the subject onto something else, in case someone mentions the hide-and-seek shit to Dean.

  Adriel stays atypically quiet as well, his eyes downcast. I notice, also, that Mia sits away from Vincent. She is using Delilah as a buffer between them and I don’t like it. Ordinarily she is all over him; flirting, slapping his arm or giggling hysterically at some terrible joke he has told and whatnot. I don’t understand why she turned Vincent down. Why work so hard to make
someone love you if you don’t want it?

  At one stage during the meal I sneeze, and some loose strands of hair fall across my face. Dean is talking to Vincent, but he glances my way, then brushes them back behind my ear like he does it all the time, and keeps right on talking, forgetting that he’s not supposed to touch me.

  Delilah sees. Our eyes meet and she smirks knowingly. She gives me a wink, and I give her an expression that Trey would have been proud of. Delilah is, as far as I know, the only person who is aware of the Dean-and-Tessa scandal to date. I’d like to keep it that way. Strictly speaking, I didn’t actually ask her to keep her mouth shut, but surely she knows better. Please, god. Tell me she knows better.

  I don’t get to find out. Our table is interrupted by the arrival of a fronter – fully uniformed. By the looks of his snow jacket, he is fresh from the command unit. We all stand in our places immediately, and as I do so, my heart sinks to my socks.

  I think: here we go.

  I think: which one of them? Or is it both?

  “G00232…?” The fronter says lazily, glancing around at our small circle.

  Tilly, several feet below eye level, speaks up. “Yes?”

  “From the command unit.” He hands her a notice, sealed with wax.

  I think: not mine.

  I think: thank god.

  But there really is no god to thank for this; watching the world of a ten-year-old implode. I see the stamp leaking though the page: the soldier and his tree, and a wretchedness fills me. But the guilt of my own selfish thoughts does not outweigh the relief, and it is because of this that I will never count myself a good person.

  Tilly trembles. Her cheeks grow whiter, devoid of their usual blood, and she is mouthing the words that she reads, like she didn’t quite understand them the first time.

  The fronter clears his throat, “Could you please sign this, agreeing that you are, in fact, Matilda G00232, and that you have received the possessions found on the deceased who we have identified as Romelda G00012.”

  The fronter holds before him a burn bag: a small woven sack. When Tilly makes no move to take it, he drops it onto the table, and moves the clipboard he carries in front of her face, insistent. “I need you to sign this, please.” He holds out a pencil.

  Taking it, Tilly writes slowly on the clipboard, and it occurs to me that she wouldn’t be old enough yet to have a signature, but here she is, signing for the remnants of her dead Aunt’s life.

  The second the pencil leaves the paper, the fronter takes it from her. “Thank you for your sacrifice,” he says, and then leaves.

  The others pat Tilly on the shoulder gently, conveying their sympathy, and then return to their seats.

  “Sorry, Tilly,” Delilah says, finishing her meal. “Who was it, your mum?”

  Tilly takes her seat as well, her skin like the snow. “No,” she utters. “My Aunt.”

  “Oh, well,” Mia says, like losing an Aunt doesn’t equate to the loss of a mother, “That’s a shame, has your mum been deployed as well?”

  “My mum is dead.”

  “Oh,” Mia, says, dejected. “That does suck, then.”

  These are the first and last words of condolence that Tilly hears from my linguistically-tactful friends, and so she returns to her meal as well, tears quietly sliding down her cheeks.

  Minutes later, the trainers are calling for us to pack up and leave to our dorms, and Tilly rises with the rest. She rounds the table and begins to blend with the crowd heading for the exit. On the table lies her Aunt’s possessions, still in the burn bag, and I pick it up.

  “Tilly!” I call. She turns at her name. “Wait up, you forgot this.”

  But she shakes her head at me. “I don’t want it.”

  I stand and watch as she disappears with the rest. Then I look at the bag in my hand; I can’t just throw it away. The last person to touch its contents is now dead.

  I am deep in thought as I walk out the doors. I should have said something to her, something… I don’t know… reassuring. Nice.

  It isn’t until I am at the stairwell that I realise I’m not alone.

  “Are you going to keep that?” Dean’s voice asks from behind me.

  I turn, startled. He has his hands inside his jacket pockets, and he stares at the burn bag I hold. The joviality I saw in him earlier is gone.

  I shrug. “Um…yeah. I think someone should. She might change her mind.”

  He nods, taking the last few steps towards me. He looks over his shoulder, obviously noticing the pair of Galore trainers who linger near the cafeteria doors. He puts a hand above my elbow and pulls me gently into the storage cupboard directly to my left, its door already open.

  Once inside, he puts both hands on my upper arms. “You okay?”

  “You know,” I say, smiling teasingly, “you ask me if I’m okay a lot.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “Whatever I am, Tilly is worse.”

  He hesitates, and then asks, “Why didn’t you say anything to her?”

  Because I am an asshole. Because I’m happy that my parents aren’t dead yet. “I…I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make it worse.”

  “I think your friends took care of that for you.”

  I nod, and then exhale heavily, “I didn’t feel like I could say anything that would help. I don’t know what it’s like, losing a parent or an aunt or whoever.” Again, the truth of this, alone, is a miracle. Miraculous-me has no advice to give.

  “But still,” Dean is saying, “you’re the person in here that she is closest to. You don’t have to give her advice. Just be her friend.” He smiles crookedly, and brushes my hair back again like he had at dinner. “I happen to know that you are excellent at talking. Some people would say that you talk too much. But me? I like a girl who never shuts up.”

  He’s changing the subject to stop me from feeling uncomfortable, and I like him for it. I play along, shoving him. “Some friend you are.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I was hoping we were out of the friend zone, to be honest.”

  “For the eyes of our audience, we are securely inside the friend zone. As for these conveniently hidden, enclosed spaces you keep shoving me into…”

  His hands find my face in the faint light and he kisses me.

  It is quick, dying before it can ignite, and even so it still shakes me, disturbs me. I relish in the few seconds I have before I feel his lips pull away. I even step towards him as his mouth leaves mine to prolong it.

  He laughs a little. “I actually did bring you in here to ask you something. The guns you used today, were they the same rifles I showed you in the bunker?”

  I nod, “point-four calibre bullets.”

  Dean chews on his lip, deep in thought. “Hmm, there goes that theory.”

  “Which theory?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  I think it over for a few seconds. “No, I don’t actually. I’m rather fond of you. Bad enough that my first boyfriend is a trainer, and a Resolute. I don’t want to think he’s crazy as well.”

  He gives me his smirk again. “You said ‘boyfriend’.”

  I open my mouth to retort, but then my lips purse closed again. Fuck. My eyes narrow. “So I did.”

  “Hm.”

  “Hm.”

  And then we hear footsteps passing the cupboard door and ascending the stairs, and I jump. Before I can turn back to Dean, his lips touch my forehead briefly, and then he is slinking out of the door, still slightly ajar. Before he is gone completely, he looks back. “Do me a favour, and keep your head down, okay? Like, for instance, don’t point a rifle at any more trainers.”

  And he leaves.

  The guy knows everything.

  *

  Sitting cross-legged on the thin mattress of my cot, I work the twine ties away from the bag. A burn bag is a small woven sack that all soldiers from Galore, and from Resolute, I’d imagine, carry on them in combat. To ensure you aren’t killed by your own com
rades, you need some kind of identification to prove which team you play for. At the same time, if you’re caught by the enemy, not having any way to prove which side you’re from might buy you some time. The idea of a burn bag is that it keeps your I.D. safe, but it also makes the evidence easy and quick to destroy. The twine ties are coated in phosphorus and chlorate. Whip them against something solid, like a rock for example, and the whole things ignites, disintegrating everything inside it rather instantly. Handy, but really sort of superfluous. If you are caught by the enemy you are capital d–Doomed. Burn bags are really just used to hold keepsakes – a rare piece of jewellery or a photo. A note for your loved ones in case you bite it, things like that. It is for this reason that I have absolutely no business opening the burn bag of someone else’s Aunt. I guess I can’t bring myself to leave it lying in the bottom of my locker, with no one having ever known what Romelda left behind.

  So I lay the twine aside, and over-turn the bag. Just as I go to pinch the corners, I see the spots of blood trapped in the seams. I shake the contents onto my mattress. There is a lighter, a pen (long ago used up and dried-out), a silver pendant that I recall is called a crucifix, and two tiny photos, cut into crude circles. The first photo shows a picture of a toddler, maybe two-years-old, and I recognise her immediately as Tilly. Her dark hair and red cheeks are the same. The child in the other photo is much younger, an infant. Her hair, too, is dark, but her cheeks are rounder, her eyes a different colour – Tilly’s sister. I turn this photo – the size of my thumb print – over in my hand, and on the back is the name: Julie, written in ink.

  The lights in the dorm go out. The seniors in the room gradually become quiet and still, until I am sure I am the only one still awake. I can no longer see the baby face in the picture, but I think about her: Julie. I think about how her parents are dead, and her Aunt is dead, and her sister is here, and she is in a house on the outskirts of Galore. For a second I visualise little Julie with an Uncle whom I’ve never seen, but the vision disintegrates when I remember that the burn bag came to Tilly, who, at the age of ten, is now the oldest member of her family.

  I remember hearing the fronter call her name at dinner tonight, and how a warm shudder of relief flooded through me. And let me be blunt – I was glad that this burn bag had not been meant for me. It feels like a trade; guilt instead of grief. Liberation at her expense.