by Scott McCord
Usually I’d have a dozen Scorpions with me for something like this. A show of force keeps people from doing stupid things in emotional situations, but I’ve decided to ask nicely for the girl instead of just taking her. I’m hoping for a volunteer, not a prisoner. And since no one will believe the girl came willingly with a squad of soldiers outside her mom’s tent, I only bring Knox and Thatcher along. I want the child to be a hero, not a victim. Thatcher doesn’t like any of this.
“This is stupid, Will. We shouldn’t be baiting Slitters with a little kid when I could do it instead,” Thatcher says as he limps, struggling to keep up.
“You’re not pretty enough, and you stink. We’d have more luck with a dead skunk than your crippled ass,” Knox says.
“Both of you shut up, and let’s do what we came to do.”
We take a few more steps.
“How do you know this girl?” Knox asks.
“A friend of mine helped her get through a rough time a while back,” I say.
“And now you’re just balancing the scale,” Thatcher adds. It’s the last thing said before we enter Group 14.
Any fondness I held for my former group evaporates as people stop what they’re doing to stare at us walking past. They’re no different than all the others. No one thanks us for our service or calls out like they do for dangerballers. They bury us in silent suspicion as we move by. Not one of them considers we’re here to protect them. No one knows I’ve saved their entire group from destruction by devising a counter plan to Ven’s. All they see are monsters in their midst—a necessary evil and not a force for good. They’ll cry when we take the child, but they’ll be killed if Slitters come instead. I shake my head in disgust. These people are narrow as sheep, barely aware of anything beyond their own noses. It’s easy to regard them as a watchdog does an ignorant flock. I can’t believe I was once one of them.
A father takes his daughter’s hand and a mother gathers a boy into her arms. I suppose either of those children would do if I didn’t have my mind set on the one I remember. I hope she comes without issue.
“Over here,” I say, moving toward a woman and two girls working deer hides into buckskin.
“Get inside,” the mother hisses to her daughters when she notices us. The girls disappear into their tent as we arrive. The woman stands up from her work.
“Will, how’ve you been? What can I do for you?”
I’m not surprised she calls me by name, even though I don’t know hers.
“I see you’re making buckskins—I want to thank you for that.”
The woman drops her eyes and forces a hollow smile.
“We’re just doing our part, you know, for the war.” Over her shoulder, the tent flutters with the girls inside trying to overhear our conversation. The woman rubs her hands down the lap of her dress in a futile effort to control her nerves.
“I’m sorry about your folks,” she says. “We miss you, Gas, and Mim around here….and dear sweet Ellie.” She glances up for the first time to see if there is any kinship left between us and finds none. She drops her head again, and the tent ripples behind her.
“Thank you,” I say. “Your service is appreciated, but there is something more you can do for Community.”
“Anything,” she mutters, knowing she has no choice.
Men and women of Group 14 gather at a distance to watch our conversation.
“Good,” I say. “We need your daughter—the little one.”
It’s almost as if the woman goes into some kind of trance, staring into the ground, oblivious to the world—willing me away, hoping when she raises her eyes I’ll be gone, and her daughter will remain. My patience is thin, but I do my best to scrape it together for another attempt. “Did you hear me?” I ask. “It would be better if you volunteered her.”
The people of Group 14 tighten in to hear what is being said. I focus on the woman, but Knox is becoming uneasy. He moves around behind me, glaring at the crowd to keep them from their courage. The woman raises her head and pushes her hair back so there will be no mistake in her face. Her fingers clench to balls of rock at her side as her eyes burn into mine. The woman transforms to oak right in front of me. The exhausted, unassuming mother is instantly dangerous. Without flinching, she tightens her fists and snarls, “No.”
I grit my teeth, run my hand through my hair, and glance at Thatcher. He’s worried. I turn my attention back to the woman and lean forward so she hears me clearly.
“You act like I’m taking everything, but you have two daughters. Maybe you’d better consider what’s best for the one you have left…unless you prefer I conscript them both.”
A blood curdling scream, and she’s on me like a Lopper. Going for my eyes, she slashes with her nails, gashing my left cheek before I knock her to the ground. The crowd is stunned by the attack, and Knox moves into position to keep everyone calm. I touch my face, checking my fingertips for blood. The two girls emerge from the tent. I seethe with fury and embarrassment at the sight of red. I drop my hand to the knife on my hip as the woman staggers to her feet, and Knox growls for everyone else to back off.
“This should have been easy,” I bark at the woman. She’s dazed. I hit her harder than I thought.
“Will, what are you doing?” someone who sounds like Dad yells from the crowd.
“Mommy, mommy,” the two girls wail.
“Don’t do it, Will,” Thatcher says.
The woman sneers as she shakes off the cobwebs, but I’m ready this time, and if she comes at me again, I’ll drop her like a hot rock. If I catch her in the face with the grip of my knife, I’ll tear the jaw clean off her head. I want her to come for me…and she does.
She lunges.
I pull my blade.
Her girls scream.
I cock my arm, ready to send her broken to the dirt, but before I put her down, she’s swept from range in a blur, tackled to the dust and pinned to the ground by Thatcher. She struggles and writhes, but he gets her wrists and wraps his legs around her waist to smother any attempts to escape.
“Stay back!” Knox commands the onlookers. “I said stay back,” he shouts again.
Pressing my fingers to my face to stop the blood, I look around for the man who sounded like Dad, but I can’t figure out who he is. Thatcher has his lips buried in the woman’s ear, whispering as all the fight runs out of her. She finally nods, agreeing with whatever he’s saying. As the woman relaxes so does the crowd, easing the tension in the standoff with Knox.
“Mommy, mommy.” Her daughters try to go to her, but she orders them back inside the tent. They sniffle, hesitating, as their mother remains pressed to the ground.
“I said go inside, girls, and I mean right now,” she snaps. They do as they’re told.
Thatcher releases the woman and helps her up. She’s surprisingly compliant. I move in to take her by the wrist—an assault on a Scorpion will not go unpunished—but Thatcher steps between us before I can arrest her.
“Go wait with your girls,” he says. The woman nods and disappears to her tent.
“I know we have a job to do, Will, but holy crap, you’re from here. Look around, didn’t you save any of yourself when you became a Scorpion?” Thatcher asks.
“It’s all over. Back your asses up,” Knox barks behind me.
“Not enough to come back for,” I answer, “now get the girl.”
“And her mother?”
I want her punished for embarrassing me, but I relent anyway…for Thatcher. “No charges as long as she lets us leave without any more bullshit,” I mumble.
Thatcher hobbles over and steps inside the woman’s tent. I turn to stand with Knox. The crowd is full of angry, frightened faces that used to ask me if I found water or what kind of dangerball season we were going to have.
“This doesn’t concern you,” I announce. “Break it up before I bring in a squad of Scorpions and toss every tent in this group!” I’m met with blank stares. “If I recognize a single face in the next two
minutes, I’ll roll in a world of hurt like you’ve never seen! Get out of here right now!”
My threat turns the tide, and the crowd splits apart. People who used to save me an extra piece of meat or ladle my mush, move away whispering, looking over their shoulders and wondering who I am. Good question. I put my palm to my cheek and come away with more drops of red. That woman got me good.
“Next time you want to tussle, bring a few more troops. We were a hair away from getting the bum’s rush from the whole mob. If Thatch hadn’t—”
“Shut-up, Knox, since when did you start wetting your britches over a bunch of grass whackers?”
“Aren’t they your grass whackers, Will?”
“Maybe…maybe not anymore.” I shake my head. “All I know for sure is they don’t understand the things we have to do to keep them safe.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Knox scratches his head and looks around as people shuffle by, pretending to be about their business. “What’s taking Thatch so long?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get him,” I say, but as I step toward the tent, Thatcher emerges with the girl. Her mother and sister sob gently inside, but the child holding Thatcher’s hand is dry-eyed and fearless. They move aside so the mother and sister can follow them out. Passersby slow down to watch, careful not to fully stop.
“Are you ready?” Thatcher asks. Her mother and sister cup their hands over their mouths and weep quietly, shuddering when the child nods yes. “Okay,” Thatcher says, and they walk to me. “This is Will.”
The little girl looks up into my face, undaunted by the Scorpion who just beat her mother down. “I remember you,” she says. “You’re Mim’s friend.”
“I remember you, too,” I say.
Her eyes narrow slightly like she doesn’t believe me. “My name is Jeni.”
“Okay, Jeni…are you as brave as Mim?”
“She’s dead.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to take me anyway.”
“I know.”
“So, what does it matter how brave I am?”
Knox’s eyes flash, betraying an invisible grin at the brassy child’s response.
“It doesn’t,” I say.
Jeni stares up like she’s trying to read something illegible scrawled across my forehead. She makes me uncomfortable, and I feel like smacking her. “I have a secret,” she says.
“I told her mom I’d look after her,” Thatcher confesses.
Jeni shakes her head. “That’s not the secret.”
“Are you going to spit it out?”
“I don’t know if I can, it’s Mim’s secret.”
I don’t care what this kid has to say, it won’t change anything, but the mention of Mim’s name has me oddly curious…and terribly impatient. I glare down at the girl while she considers whether or not to tell.
“It’s okay, you can tell Will. He and Mim used to be friends,” Thatcher says.
Jeni looks at her mother and sister holding one another as their silent tears drop to earth and disappear in the sand. She regards them sadly for a moment before turning back to me.
“My sister has a red falcon feather, which means I’m coming home, even if the rest of you don’t.” Her voice is ice cold. She believes what she says, but it’s nothing more than a stupid bedtime story an old friend once told to help a scared kid get through the night. I don’t like her tone…or her self-assurance.
“Bring her,” I snap, and whirl around for Community Center at a pace I’m not sure Thatcher can manage. Jeni’s mother wails, quaking, and sobbing into her palms as her daughter is led away. I don’t glance back until we’re midway through Group 13, and the maternal cries have faded out with distance. Thatcher whisks the child to his shoulders, and she wraps her arms under his chin as he skip-limps to keep up.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this kid before we leave, so I decide to get started. We’ll head out, make camp and get an early jump on the mission. I’ll let Thatcher handle the girl. They seem to be getting along.
31
Mim
Too much is on my mind to sleep, but the long day and the rabbit stew suck me away just the same. I dream, but I don’t remember, and when I wake I have no idea how long I’ve been out. The air is cool and my tent is dark. It would be easy to roll over and cover up, but I’m no longer too exhausted to worry, and thoughts of Will and Community settle in to haunt me. It’s time to go…and it’s better that Dad is still at New Hope.
I tie Will’s knife to my hip and tuck mine into the other side of my belt. I take my bow and quiver and slide out through the tent flap, stepping right into Jack. His sudden appearance startles me, but I make no noise. Jack puts a single finger to his lips to keep me quiet. I nod I understand. Jack looks around, listening carefully into the night before tilting his head, signaling me to follow. We weave silently among the dozing tents to the edge of camp. With Dad’s men gone, there are plenty of gaps in our sentries’ patrol, so Jack and I easily steal away undetected. I follow as he moves through the dark trees until we are beyond earshot of the Utugi guards.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, but Jack doesn’t answer. “How long were you waiting for me?”
“All night,” he says without turning around.
“All night, why?”
“Because I didn’t know when you were leaving.”
“What?”
He stops abruptly, keeping his voice low. “I knew I couldn’t talk you out of going, so I decided to come along. Things could go to hell in a handbasket pretty quick, and you’ll need someone to pull your bacon out of the fire if that happens.”
“I can take care of my own bacon.”
“Most times, maybe, but this time it’s too dangerous.”
“Ah Jack, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Don’t get cute with me, princess, this isn’t a joke, and the whole thing has me so bent out of shape I can’t see straight. Until you get this crap with your old friends out of your system, none of us is safe.”
There’s just enough moonlight to outline Jack’s body. His gray silhouette looms in the shadows. “We’re far enough out now so they won’t follow us. They’ll probably think we went hunting, so have a seat and let’s wait on some light before one of us breaks an ankle.” Jack slides to the ground with his back against a tree, and I sit directly across from him.
We don’t speak a long while, and patience becomes a struggle. Jack hasn’t moved, and unless I look at him slightly askew, it’s impossible to distinguish him from the tree. His breathing is faint and regular. I adjust my backside to get more comfortable.
“Where you going, princess?” Jack asks.
“Damn, nowhere. My butt is falling asleep. Can we go?”
“Not yet.” Jack takes a deep breath—the way he does when he has more to say. “The boy you’re going to see isn’t some seed-picker or a tent-bound bowyer. He’ll have friends with him. Even if you do get him alone, the conversation probably won’t go the way you see it in your head. If you tell him about us, and he doesn’t take it like you hope—”
“You’ll kill him.”
“I’ll have to.”
I love Jack, but he thinks he knows more than he does.
“Mim, if things go bad and we get caught, you tell them you’ve been a prisoner this whole time. Don’t make any big speeches or try to sway people with talk of a better life. You’ve been bound and kept in a pit. You don’t know anything at all…you’re just glad to be home.”
“Will is going to know it’s a lie.”
“If he is everything you think he is, it won’t matter…but if he’s not, he won’t be walking around much longer anyway. Your dad won’t go through this again. The options are narrow, princess. When I said this was dangerous, I didn’t mean just for us. We can always turn back.”
Go back…give up…no way. I want my friends to see what a real future looks like. They deserve it, and I won’t abandon them. I can’t leave them behind. They’ll
listen…they have to.
“No,” I say. “It will be okay.”
“I hope so.”
We wait without any more conversation until the forest lightens to gray and then on to silver. Jack stands, and we head for Middle Ground. I know he doesn’t want to go, but since there’s no stopping me, he leads on anyway.
Jack is graceful in the woods, and I’ve come to rely on the kinship we built while he was training me. Sometimes…most times…I feel closer to him than I do my own father. He’s one of my favorite people, but he worries too much and has a hard time seeing the bright side of anything. If Dad is right and the Ark is headed for New Hope, Jack’s problem with Jeremy is solved. He, Mary, Rosie, and the boys will have a clean start without all this crap. They can build a permanent house with a bunch of milk goats and live right next door to Gas and Ellie. I smile. Jack and Gas will get along great. Everything is going to be fine. I just have to talk to Will and keep Jack from killing him.
We travel at a solid pace for hours, covering the initial ground with speed instead of stealth. Pretty soon we’ll need to dial it back, go quiet and keep from leaving evidence we ever passed this way. I’m a few lengths behind, when Jack breaks into a sprint and I lose sight of him around a wide oak.
“Shit!” I take off, dodging around the tree, expecting to find Jack gone, but almost colliding with him instead. I skid to an abrupt halt, and when I do, I hear the brief echo of other feet trying to keep up as well. They stop. Someone is out there.
Jack pulls his knife, and I slide sideways into the privet. I nock an arrow and ease down, quietly doubling back to get eyes on our pursuer. I wait, managing every breath until one boy…and then another appears from the trees. They move well, like timid deer, but even so, Jack’s trick was enough to trap them, and now they’re mine. I rise from the brush with my bow drawn and an arrow locked on the first boy.
