I cast a sideways glance at my father, and he confirms Koi’s words with a silent nod. Our rations bag lies open on the table. My father’s earnings for the week. I use my dagger to slice off a piece of bread from one of the loaves. It crumbles in my fingers when I lift it to my mouth, but I don’t complain. We have learned to be thankful for what little we can get our hands on.
“What if I don’t make it on?” I cast a glance at Koi. “Just tell me again. Please.”
His eyes hold mine for a second, and he smiles. It is something Koi and Peri do often—a rare thing in the Shallows. “You’ll make it on. You do what I’ve told you to do. Everyone else is going to scramble for the first train. It’s a bloodbath, trust me, so you’ll stay back and wait. You get on the second train, and instead of going for the cabin, climb right onto the top of it.”
He made it on the train, three years ago. But he failed his placement test.
He hates himself for it. Every day I see it in his eyes.
“You’ll get on the train,” Koi says again. He reaches forward and places his hand on top of mine. It is something my mother used to do. “You’re strong. When you make it to the test, you’ll pass.”
We are quiet for a while. My brother takes out an old piece of driftwood and starts to carve. I hear the scratching of his knife, the steadiness of his breathing. His carvings are always so real, like little snapshots of life, and I silently thank the world for not taking this little piece of happiness away from him. Tonight, his carving is of my father, cleaning his fishing hooks after the day’s work. Sometimes I feel like I could just sit here forever and watch Koi. It is a simple thing, putting the tip of a blade to wood. But the end result is always something beautiful.
“Why didn’t you pass the test, Koi?” I’ve asked him before. He’s never told me the reason. He has always changed the subject, or gone back to whatever he was doing without a word.
But tonight, he sighs and sets his knife down.
“You remember your training?” Koi asks.
My father walks in and sets a pot of boiled water on the small table. I scoop my hands into the pot, take a mouthful, and let the warm water trickle down my throat. My father leaves without a word, and a few moments later, I hear the rumble of a storm overhead. “We’ve practiced survival for years,” Koi says. “And what does Dad always tell us?”
I look over at Peri. “Kill or be killed,” I whisper.
Koi nods his head. He picks up his knife again, and his knuckles turn white. “When you get into that room, and you will, Meadow,” he says, when he sees me open my mouth to protest, “there will be you and someone else. They’ll test you with questions. The results will be inconclusive. They always are.”
He flips the driftwood over and starts on another carving. “I failed, because I wasn’t strong enough.” His marks become rough. I think I see my mother’s face, but he slams his knife into the tabletop and throws the driftwood aside before I get a close look. “The only reason I made it back is because I’m a coward. I fought my way out of that room so the girl up against me could live.”
“Just because you didn’t kill anyone doesn’t make you a coward,” I say. “It makes you good.” Koi is brave because he still knows how to love, and how to be soft, in a world full of hate.
But me . . . I would kill for my family, even for a single loaf of bread.
“Only one of you will leave that room alive, and with a job, Meadow. And it will be you. You will do what I wasn’t strong enough to do.”
We stare at each. “Kill or be killed,” he says. He goes back to his carving, silent and calm and so different from me.
Because suddenly I know what Koi is trying to tell me.
I am a killer, trained by my father, and I always have been. I stand up and grab the driftwood. Peri will want to keep this one.
“I’m sorry for what I am,” I breathe, as I crawl in bed next to her. She rolls over and I feel her hot breath on my cheek.
Tonight, I am safe.
In the city, safety is a thing of the past. The murder rate has risen to 300 deaths a month and anyone could be next. My mother was.
Tomorrow, I will kill so that it will not be me.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 4
ZEPHYR
“Clean up that mess, 72348! What do you think this is, day care? Get moving, ward!”
The Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination officer is somewhat of a prick. And not just a regular one. He’s a new prick, fresh on the job . . . the worst kind, with brand-new slacks, ironed and washed, probably by his mother, paid for by his wealthy Initiative father.
He’s a grade-A bloodsucker. Leeches are protected by a Version 2.0 Pin. The CTSDs seem to age slower than us, and not a single one of them has a wrinkle or scar that shows.
I shove my sponge into the bucket of bleach and wring it out, the thick scent wafting through my nostrils. The familiar wave of nausea rushes through me. Talan is glaring at me as she digs out the TrackPin from the victim’s lifeless arm, nothing but a pair of flimsy latex gloves between her and number 34570’s tendons. The Leech officer comes over and Talan places the Pin in the lockbox. The nanites will be recycled for the next person unlucky enough to be born into the Shallows.
If you ask me, Leeches deserve a bloody death and a shallow grave.
Talan leans over another body, this one with a bludgeoned head. She rolls her baby blues. I chuckle under my breath. I can almost hear her gravelly voice whining, “Oh . . . my . . . GOD . . . Zephyr . . . Ohmigod. It’s not as bad for you. You’re a GUY. I’m seriously considering prostitution over this.”
I flash her a toothy grin and set to work scrubbing the bloodstained pavement. Talan’s not all that bad looking. She’s got sort of a sexy, mysterious look to her; curvy, in a good way, with electric eyes and long dark hair that reaches her slim waist. She’d get rations if she became one of those girls, sure, but she wouldn’t last long. Nothing in the Shallows ever does.
A finger of hot sweat slides down my spine. Scrubbing under the Florida sun is hard work. Today is Sunday. Collection day, the worst day of the week. It’s a day of mourning and reflection.
I take a shovel and slide it beneath a body. All across the city’s cracked pavement, there are bodies. Dead ones. Some days old, some only hours. There are bodies covered in flies, in birds that peck out lunch or steal strands of hair to weave into a nest. But the worst part is the blood. Dried, crusted rivers of it, stuck to the city’s streets like glue. The metallic scent is choking, and when the heat rises from the tar and the sun shines down so strong it’s like we are under one giant magnifying glass, the blood begins to bubble. When it’s boiled for too long it begins to burn.
It’s my job to clean the stuff up. All the Wards are assigned jobs that no one else wants to do. Like trash duty; hauling piles of it to the Graveyard, a big mountain of garbage on the edge of the city where the street gangs will most likely slit your throat. There’s shoe shining, for the Leeches. Uniform washing.
It’s all a bunch of useless skitz, but we’ve got to do it. Commandment One: Honor the Initiative’s commands. Every week, on Sunday, I show up and scan in. I scrub and clean and gag and lose my lunch twice. I sit in a sea of flies and try not to think about the day I found Talan’s daughter lying crooked on the pavement.
The worst part is that Arden was still breathing, lying there soaked in her own blood. The cuts were so deep, even the nanites couldn’t staunch the flow. I watched Talan scoop her up and try to take her away for help, but a Leech held a rifle to her head. One of those big ones, with bullets that would blast a hole through her skull. “Finish her,” he said. “Do the job right.”
I did it instead.
I couldn’t let Talan be the one to do it.
But that’s the price we pay for being Wards. We’re all pawns, orphans with no other choice. We’ll do
anything to survive, and the Leeches make sure it stays that way.
The bell sounds. It’s time for lunch break. All around me, the Wards move as one, like a vast migration, toward the Rations Hall. The building is short and squatty, an old elementary school salvaged from the days before the world went to hell. In the corner, a massive hole in the wall is patched with blue tarps. Probably from an old air strike before the Perimeter went up. The original Survivors say it’s better in here. They say even the trees died from the Plague, and the birds all fell right out of the sky. My theory is that the world’s awful no matter where you go.
“Make it quick. We’ve got a city to keep clean here, Wards,” the Leech barks. Beside me, I can hear Talan huff. We enter the hall and the stench of old meat hits us. Hot. Stifling. Strong enough to ruin anyone’s appetite, but we’re so fluxing starved it doesn’t matter.
I follow Talan into the line. The Leech officer standing here is tall and grossly overweight. Like a wrecking ball. He watches while we scan our Catalogue Numbers, and barks at us to pick up the pace. I glance at the screens showing images of what we’re allowed to eat today. A clump of some meatlike substance. I think of it as refried cat. One glass of recycled water. A woman with hair as short as a man’s hands us our bags of rations through a small hole in the glass barrier. We take it without complaining. If we didn’t, we’d be punished.
Some people, sometimes, are punished to death.
“This is bullskitz,” Talan says as we find a spot at a table. She shoves a handful of meat into her mouth. “The Leeches cut our rations again.”
I look down at my small allotment. “Stars, Talan. You’re right.”
“That word’s never going to catch on,” she says.
I shrug. “If I want the word to catch on, it’ll catch on. They’re practically gods, you know.”
“You’re seeing stars, if you ask me. Did I accidentally hit you in the head with a shovel out there?” She finishes her plate in record time.
Every day it seems like we get less. More for the Leeches to eat. Their towering complex is gated, surrounded by armed guards. Some days I think about reaching through the iron bars and plucking an apple from the tree that stands just out of reach. But then I’d be another body for Talan to scoop up, and as much as she drives me crazy, I can’t let her go through any more of this life alone. She’s the closest thing I have to family.
“God, I’d do anything to be fat,” Talan says. “Wouldn’t you? Think about it, Zephyr. Just imagine being so full you wouldn’t be able to breathe.”
I keep my mouth shut. The Leeches might not care about our well-being, but they do listen to everything we say.
I’m convinced they watch me the closest. As I eat, I can feel their eyes boring into my back. Sometimes I imagine they know me. Really know me, the way that not even my mom or dad did. I shovel my food into my mouth and let it slide down my throat. It tastes of dirt and earthworms.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Talan growls. She stands and I look up.
The Leeches have gathered across the room. They take turns using their short black whips, lashing someone. I wince.
Those who step out of line pay for it. The jagged scars on my back are proof.
“We spend our lives committing ourselves to your safety,” a Leech barks. Everyone goes quiet and every head turns to look at him.
“We devote our lives to making this world a better place! We command you to obey us, because we want to keep you from pain!” he shouts. He’s tall, dark-haired, and lean-faced. Axel Worth. The head Officer of the Wards. “And this is how you repay us?”
Two Leeches haul the bloodied man up to his feet. Blood drips from his nostrils. “This man stole extra rations,” Officer Worth says. “This man spat in the face of our authority. He spat in your faces.”
Talan huffs beside me. “Can we finish eating now?”
I stomp on her foot beneath the table to silence her.
“Do you know what we do to those that disobey?” Worth yells.
No one answers. He scans the crowd, passes right over me, and I look away. I don’t draw attention to myself. That’s why I’m still alive, and Talan should take a lesson from me before she gets a rifle butt slammed in her face.
“We end them!”
Worth pulls out a pistol. I don’t look away as he levels it and squeezes the trigger. Blood splatters against the glass barrier and drips slowly down, like rain on a windowpane.
No one moves. No one gasps, or shouts, or cries, because we’ve all seen it before.
“What. An. Idiot,” Talan says to me.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I say, and we finish our meals. They leave the body on the floor.
After lunch, the Wards will pick it up.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 5
MEDOW
I make it to the train tracks right on time.
There is a hiss and a puff, and in the distance, I can see the Red train coming first, hurtling toward me. The tracks skirt the town for the most part, bordering the beach and marshes. But right in the center of the Shallows, by the Rations Hall, the train runs along the street.
The people desperate enough to try for a spot on one of the trains start to crowd around the tracks like locusts. Some push and shove, while others just stand there and try to scream their way to the front. The ground starts to vibrate, and when the Red train slows to an almost-stop, the fighting begins.
Everyone is unforgiving and deadly, and I stay far away.
I wait until the Blue train comes, just like Koi told me to. It is no better than the Red, and I stand back and watch as citizens tear at each other like wild animals.
The last car glides past me, a rusted metal box with a ladder on the back for maintenance. There are already others doing what I am about to do. Soon there will be no more spots left on top. I run, pushing myself onto the balls of my feet, dodging left then right. I spread my arms and leap.
My hands grasp a rung and I hold on tight, legs dangling, swinging dangerously close to a man stretching to yank me off. I kick him, hard, right in the face, and scramble up the ladder as he grabs at the air.
The top of the train is covered in seagull waste, but it keeps the metal from getting too hot. I haul myself up onto my stomach and lie there with the others, heaving for air. The boy closest to me looks away the second I glare at him. He will not be a threat today.
At some point the tracks will fork. One train will go east, toward the Perimeter. The other will go west, past the Graveyard, toward the Initiative Headquarters. I hope that I have made the right choice.
If only Koi could see me now. I smile, and watch as the buildings recede. Thousands of tents litter the surrounding marshlands. Homes for Wards of the State. Sometimes I imagine that if I were a Ward, things would be easier. If I didn’t have Peri or Koi to take care of, I could live free. I could do whatever I wanted, when I wanted, and if I died, I would not leave anyone behind.
But my brother and sister are the little piece of happiness I can call my own in this world. I can never lose them.
The Graveyard stands like a ghostly mountain range in the distance, piles of trash stretching to the sky. Four steam towers drop a constant fog over the Graveyard, working in vain to conceal the stench. Seagulls swoop down, picking at the piles.
Everyone in the Shallows knows to avoid the Graveyard at all costs. The Pirates are not the only dangerous gang out there. The Gravers are by far the worst. As the train barrels past, I start edging my way toward the back of the car, ready to leap if I have to. But the Blue train stays true to course, racing in the direction I want it to go. I watch as the Red train fades into the distance. I wonder if the people inside and clinging to the roof will find a better life. It’s possible their lives will end today.
No one who leaves ever comes back.
The train rolls to a stop and everyone piles out, the kids my age rushing for the gates at the front of the building. The older people, the ones who made the wrong train choice, run for the marshes, hoping to get lost in the undergrowth before they are shot.
Half of us entering this building will not come back out. Not alive, at least.
I look at the scarred girl standing beside me. I wish I had a pair of heels like the ones she is wearing. They are red, shiny, and pointed at the toe. She wears them with pride, as if she’s killed someone for those shoes. Her scars tell me that she probably did. I stand 5’4” in my mother’s old leather boots. They are cracked and worn, and suddenly I feel hopeless.
An Initiative officer approaches me, Catalogue Scanner in hand. He holds the scanner up to my forehead and it reads my number out loud. “72049. Meadow Woodson.”
His eyebrows lift for a fraction of a second. “Woodson?” he asks me. “You got a brother?”
I sigh. Not now. “Does it matter?” I say, and clap a hand to my mouth. My mother’s seashell charm dangles from my wrist, silver and bright under the hot sun. I expect him to correct me with a slap across the face. My other hand slides around my back, where my father’s dagger is concealed. But the officer only studies me for a moment, a smile on his lips, and then he turns and moves farther down the hastily assembled line.
Inside the building, the ceiling fans churn above my head. Another Initiative officer sends the boys left, the girls right. We are ushered toward a waiting room. The second I walk in I wish I could turn around and go right back out. The walls shine and shimmer under the lights, and black Pins, from floor to ceiling, fill every square inch of space. Each one belonged to a citizen. The nanites have been removed, recycled for someone else. But the Pins bear our catalog numbers. Each Pin represents someone who maybe came to this building in hopes of a job, who stood in the middle of this floor and probably had the same thoughts I am having now.
The Murder Complex Page 2
