Not Even Bones

by Rebecca Schaeffer

  Problem: she had no money.

  She wished she’d stolen those stupid tourists’ cameras. Maybe someone would have taken them in trade.

  She hovered at the side of a building, looking down at the pier, trying to figure out how to proceed. Mirella stood beside her, face blank.

  If they waited until night, they could slip into the pier under the cover of darkness. But even if they did make off with one of those crappy-looking rowboats, heading down the river at night didn’t particularly seem like the smartest plan. Aside from caimans and anacondas and who knew what else in the river, she doubted she’d be able to see well enough to know where she was going. She wasn’t even sure which direction she should go. Maybe Mirella knew?

  “We should just steal a boat.” Mirella’s eyes were fixed on the dock. “There’s no other way out.”

  Nita licked her lips. “There’s a lot of people here.”

  “That’s not going to change anytime soon.”

  Nodding slowly, Nita looked around at the crowds. “What we need is a distraction.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Maybe.” Nita unstuck a strand of hair from her sweaty forehead and eyed the various stalls by the pier. “Go find a boat and untie it. I’m going to make sure no one’s looking.”

  Mirella gave her a mock salute before limping toward the pier.

  Nita headed into the crowd, squeezing between sweaty people and stalls. Her eye found a stall full of various feathers, all wrapped with twine and tucked in baskets. Perfect.

  As she passed, she slipped her leg out and kicked hard against one of the table legs. It didn’t budge. Swallowing, hoping no one noticed, she kicked again, harder.

  It buckled, sending the table, and all its feathery contents flying through the air. Phoenix tail feathers stuck to the sweat of random passersby and glued themselves to their skin. The air was a flurry of exotic colors, and the ground was patterned by the softest-looking leaves imaginable.

  The stall owner cried out and ran around trying to grab feathers. Some of the passersby pocketed the feathers stuck to them. Others brushed them off. No one moved to help the lady.

  No one even paid attention to the brightly colored fiasco.

  Nita looked around at the oblivious people and realized any distraction she made would have to be much more noticeable. Short of burning a building down, she wasn’t sure what would take people’s eyes off the pier.

  So, where could she find a match?

  She looked around, hoping to find someone with a cigarette, but her eyes were instead drawn to the dock, where Mirella had already crept from the shadows and started walking toward the pier.

  The guards were talking to another man, who had his back to Nita. But when he turned, she caught a glimpse of his face in profile.

  Boulder.

  The man who’d bought and eaten Mirella’s eye.

  And he was staring straight at Mirella.

  Nita opened her mouth to cry out, but there was no way her voice would carry over the crowd and reach Mirella in time. She felt like Cassandra of Greek myth, seeing the future but unable to do anything about it.

  Boulder raised a gun.

  Nita took a step forward.

  Too late.

  The bullet hit Mirella’s stomach, shoving it backwards even as the rest of her kept moving. It was like watching a cartoon, but with more blood—as though she had run into an invisible table in the middle of the street, her top and bottom shot forward while her middle caught. Her whole body spasmed from the opposing forces, and she stumbled into the dirt.

  Her fingers clutched at her wound, but the blood seemed to be leaching out of her at an alarming rate, pumping through her fingers and soaking everything around her a deep, vivid red.

  Nita’s brain, ever the analyst, determined that Mirella was as good as dead with a wound like that in these conditions. No medical attention. That pier was filthy, ripe for infection. There were men with guns who might very well shoot her again.

  Nita resisted the urge to go to her. She couldn’t be caught in this. Mirella was gone, and something as silly as pity or sympathy wasn’t going to make Nita go over there and get shot too. There was no way to save Mirella.

  Still, Nita had to cling to the side of the building, holding it like an anchor to prevent the stupid part of her from ignoring logic.

  Mirella opened her mouth, but only a hoarse croak came out, as though she’d used up all her screams during her time with Kovit.

  Boulder put his gun away and turned back to the guards he’d been talking to, dismissing Mirella. It was like the man she’d seen last night had been there for pleasure, on his off time, and Mirella was his sport. But now that it was daylight and he was working, he didn’t have time to care about his hobbies.

  Something left Mirella when he did that, something in his casual dismissal of her. Her whole body seemed to shrink, shoulders slumping, chin falling, muscles losing their tension. Nita saw the moment when Mirella gave up.

  One of the guards said something, and Boulder laughed and began walking toward Mirella. He hefted his gun, and Mirella rolled away, bloody fingers scrabbling on the wooden slats of the dock. With one final heave, she pulled herself over the edge and tumbled into the waters of the Amazon River below. There was a splash when she landed, then silence. No thrashing. No voice.

  All around Nita, the market continued. The stall was standing again, the feathers collected. People had glanced over to see what Boulder had shot at, but then turned away when it was over. Boulder continued talking to the men on the dock before leaving with one. He walked right across the bloodstained pier and descended into a small boat at the end of the dock.

  The river continued to flow, absorbing its gift, the red of the blood mixing into the water and disappearing.

  No one would be selling any part of Mirella ever again.

  Eighteen

  NITA FLED.

  She pushed her way down the streets, using her elbows to jab people out of the way. There were too many people, all of them sweating and laughing and touching her, arms brushing hers as they moved through the market. Bodies stuck together and peeled apart. The air was hot, too hot, and Nita was a fever, consumed by heat and sweat and sickness.

  She broke out of the market area and into a colorless cramped street not much better than an alley. Sweat glued her baggy T-shirt to her body. Part of her wanted to rest against the side of a building, but the other part didn’t want to touch anything, even a piece of wood.

  Her breathing was harsh and ragged, but she didn’t cry.

  Nita had never seen someone die before. Sure, she’d seen dead bodies, but she’d never seen the moment when a person went from alive, breathing and speaking and living, to dead. Silent. In her mind, living and dead people were almost different species, completely disconnected from each other. The idea that Mirella’s life had been snuffed out, her annoying, whiny voice silent forever—it didn’t seem right. And then Boulder just boated away.

  In movies, whenever the bad guys fell, it was “what they deserved” and “karmic retribution.” The thought had crossed Nita’s mind that she deserved this after everything she’d done in her life. But that wasn’t true. There was no karma; there was no balance. Nita wasn’t making amends for her actions by experiencing this. She was experiencing this because her mother had betrayed her. There was nothing deeper.

  If there had been deeper meaning in the world, Boulder would be the one at the bottom of the river, not Mirella. Heck, this whole market wouldn’t exist.

  But it still felt like a revelation to Nita. Because, on some childish level, she’d expected Mirella to get her justice. Because that’s what happened in stories—the good guys reached their goal before they died. It was a rule. But it was a rule of fiction.

  Stories here didn’t get neat endings tied up in a bow.

  Nita breathed, and let herself grieve for a girl she barely knew, who had the worst life Nita could have imagined. She remembered Mirella’s sq
ueaks as she hid under her blankets and the rage on her face when she saw Boulder. Nita closed her eyes and watched her sink into a watery grave.

  Waste of a body.

  Nope. That was not how you grieved. You did not imagine the person’s dead body up for dissection.

  The hum of cicadas mixed with the chirps of crickets and laughter of people. A bird soared the sky above, nothing more than a colorful speck. A toucan or a macaw. It was too far to tell.

  Nita took a deep breath and examined her surroundings. Casinos lined the street, glittery neon lights switched off in the bright daylight. A sign on the building beside her advertised pishtaco liposuction services. It promised pinpoint precision body shaping as only a fat-eating unnatural could do. Nita remembered wishing for a pishtaco to dissect. It felt like a different lifetime.

  Nita’s fingers curled into a fist, and she slammed the wall of the building next to her, her breath hiccupping into a frustrated sob. She pressed her forehead against the wood. What was she going to do?

  Not steal a boat, apparently.

  Trying at night would be no better; navigating a boat in the dark was a recipe for failure. Perhaps she could go into the water and hide under the boat as it went away. She’d need to figure out how to hold her breath for an extended period of time—she figured if she increased hemoglobin levels in her blood and slowed her heart rate, she could up her lung capacity to maybe twenty minutes, but beyond that, things got doubtful. And how would she hold on to the bottom of the boat while it was moving? She might just slide off.

  No, none of this was worth the risk. Failure meant instant death. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  So she would have to buy passage. And possibly bribes too. For that, she needed money.

  Where was she going to get this money? She could attempt to pickpocket people in the market, except that she’d never stolen from anyone and was pretty sure she’d be caught.

  Nita pressed her hands to her temple. She needed a way out of here, and she needed it fast. Who knew when Reyes would come back and notice Nita’s escape? If she deployed the guards, Nita would have no hope of escaping by boat.

  Her breath caught. Reyes.

  Reyes had money—the woman was running an unnatural-trafficking ring and selling body parts. She had to have money.

  Nita could steal from her.

  If Reyes hadn’t already discovered Nita’s escape, that is. If she hadn’t, then Nita could go back to the compound, lay a trap for her and her bodyguards, rob them, and flee.

  Nita didn’t fool herself. It wasn’t the best plan. It was high risk. But she was desperate, and it was better than going back to the pier and ending up like Mirella.

  What if Reyes was already there when she got back?

  Run. Nita would just run straight back to the pier and take her chances swimming. It might be a four-hour boat ride, but Nita could enhance her muscles. She might make it. Maybe.

  It was better than the alternative. Nita wasn’t going back in the cage.

  The stones crunched beneath her feet as she wound her way through the market. It seemed endless, each street a copy of the last, like a video game that had reused the same background design in a repeating pattern. Dips in the ground collected water and made surprisingly deep puddles. Sometimes people had put planks of wood across the puddles to walk across, and sometimes they hadn’t bothered.

  In the depths of the market, Nita started seeing other signs, not for hotels, but for “curiosities.” Come see the creatures for only a small entry fee. If you like them, you can buy them, or even just rent them. Other signs advertised places of entertainment for the more exotically minded. Sometimes there were pictures of women with scales or scantily clad girls with tails. Sometimes there were just directions.

  Hawkers held up mummified limbs and waved bags of powders. A living shadow sat in a glass box, while a group of gawkers poked at the glass, watching it skitter away from their fingers. Nita turned down another street and found it crowded with produce and fish. She relaxed a little until she passed a stand that had a large yellow nectarine-like fruit with eyes. They blinked.

  Nita looked away and picked up her pace.

  She passed a man wearing a University of Toronto T-shirt, and her heart clenched. For years she’d been saving up for college. She wanted to be a researcher, to have people pay her to dissect bodies, legally. Like the people whose articles she read in scientific magazines. She wanted to go to conferences, to present research to her peers.

  And she suddenly realized she couldn’t. Ever.

  Reyes had taken that from her too.

  Her face was all over the internet, in all the wrong circles. Even if she escaped from here, even if she managed to get to safety, what then? Say she managed to get a new identity and afford college. What about when she started presenting about unnatural biology at conferences? Only a fool would think the black market didn’t keep an eye on all the newest information. And then they would see Nita, and all her hiding would be for nothing. Because pictures on the internet didn’t just disappear, and someone as potentially valuable as Nita wouldn’t be forgotten.

  And then this would happen all over again.

  Nita would be leaving a conference one day, and someone would try to grab her. And she’d just end up back in the cage, cut up for customers, pieces of her hacked off and sold.

  Reyes and her promotional video had ruined Nita’s life.

  Nita’s jaw clenched. She wasn’t going to end up like Mirella. She was going to escape, to survive, no matter what the cost.

  Nineteen

  IT TOOK NITA longer than she expected to find the concrete building she’d been held in. Partly because the sun was setting, and it was hard to see. There were some electric lights, but almost all of them were in the gambling areas, which were behind Nita. The rest of the market was dark. Darker than anything Nita had experienced before. It seemed to absorb the light, suck it in and create only a void—she couldn’t even see where buildings ended and the jungle started.

  Nita used the cell phone flashlight to pick her way through the streets, cautious of dangers. A lot of monsters lived in this jungle, and that didn’t even count things like jaguars.

  Even though it was darker, it wasn’t any less humid. Nita’s shirt was actually dripping, and her baggy sweatpants clung to her like skinny jeans. Wet, sticky, skinny jeans. The sweat snuck through her hair, sort of dried, only to be layered with more sweat, making her scalp ridiculously itchy. Or maybe that was the mosquitos.

  When she finally found the building, she resisted the urge to fling herself inside. She had to be cautious. She didn’t know if Reyes had discovered her escape yet.

  She watched the building for ten minutes, but saw no sign of anyone. Silent, careful, she pulled open the door, still unlocked from when she left. She slipped inside and closed it gently behind her.

  Air conditioning is the best invention in the world.

  Nita paused after she closed the door, listening. There was no sound except the hum of the air conditioner. She closed her eyes and opened them again, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness of the fluorescents after the darkness outside.

  She crept into the first room, the dissection room. It was cramped, with white walls, a tray of implements, and a metal cart in the middle. The room was empty.

  She didn’t see any scalpels, but there was a large pair of scissors, so she took that for a weapon. Just in case.

  Next, she went to the security room, with its hanging laundry and mini fridge. She glanced in the washroom. Empty. Nita took a deep breath and removed the T-shirt from the monitor—dry now, which was probably why Kovit was hanging his laundry in here instead of outside.

  Kovit was lying on the cot, arms above his head as though reaching for the ceiling. He seemed bored, his eyes occasionally flicking to the security camera.

  Nita sank down in the chair in front of the monitor. No Reyes. Not yet, anyway. The cameras covered the whole cage room, and this w
as the only other room in the building. Nita was safe.

  She closed her eyes, and relished the air conditioning. She could see the glow of the fluorescents through her closed eyes, but they didn’t bother her. Despite the heat and exhaustion, she wasn’t tired. Her body was still wired with adrenaline.

  Before she could forget, she rose and locked the entrance to the building. She was sure Reyes had a key, but at least Nita would have some warning. She should start setting her trap immediately, so she’d be ready.

  But she stood there, hesitating. Then she took Kovit’s phone out of her pocket and finally did the thing she’d been both dying to do and dreading.

  She called her mother.

  The phone didn’t even ring, just went straight to the customer you are calling is unavailable. Nita hadn’t really expected anything else. Her mother had probably ditched her phone after Fabricio left and Nita was kidnapped—sold.

  Part of Nita was glad it hadn’t connected. She didn’t know what she’d do if she were in front of her mother. That rage still smoldered just beneath the surface, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

  What about her father? Could Nita call him?

  She considered the shitty keypad phone. It wouldn’t have international calling, right? But it didn’t hurt to check, so Nita dialed her father’s number.

  And it rang.

  Heart leaping, she pressed the phone to her ear with both hands, trying to keep her arms from shaking. If she could just get him, he could rescue her. No need for elaborate plans to steal money. As long as Nita could stay under the radar for a day, he would have enough time to come pick her up. Nita closed her eyes, almost tasting freedom.

  “Hello.”

  That was not her father’s voice.

  “Who is this?” Anger and confusion crept into her voice. Had she dialed the wrong number?

  “This is Sergeant Mike Blaswell of the Chicago Police Department. To whom am I speaking?”

  Nita’s throat dried. Police. What was her father’s phone doing in the police department?