Not Even Bones

by Rebecca Schaeffer

  Boulder raised his oar and began jabbing at the water, and Lorenzo did the same. Jorge pulled out his gun and started shooting wildly into the river, eyes searching for movement.

  It was in vain.

  The boat gave a slosh, and Jorge tumbled over the side with a yelp. He surfaced, gasping, and grabbed the side of the boat to haul himself back in. It tipped from his weight, and Boulder snarled, smashing the paddle into Jorge’s head.

  Jorge went limp, grip slackening as he slipped back into the water, and the boat righted itself.

  Lorenzo screamed, dropping to the bottom of the boat and reaching over the side for Jorge. But the dolphins got there first, and his hand flinched back when a pink fin rose from the water.

  Screaming, he turned and launched himself at Boulder. The two of them overbalanced and tumbled over the side, howling and punching and clawing each other the whole way. The splash when they landed rocked the boat to near capsizing.

  Lorenzo surfaced, gasping, but Boulder was swimming away.

  Toward Nita’s boat.

  Nita’s eyes widened, and she quickly raised her oars and began rowing away.

  Boulder was a much faster swimmer than Nita was a rower, and he closed in quickly. Nita gave up on rowing and instead stood in the boat, gripping one oar and waving it at him as he approached, hoping she looked threatening.

  He ignored her and grabbed for the side of her boat, tipping it dangerously. Nita shrieked, smashing the oar down on his fingers.

  He howled and released the boat, but then used his other hand to try to pull himself back up. Nita’s oar came down, but he shifted his hand at the last minute, gripping a different place. And Nita swung, like she was playing a demented game of Whac-A-Mole.

  Gasping, Nita leaned forward, and used her oar like a fishing spear, aiming for the head bobbing in the water. Boulder saw it coming and dove underwater with a slosh. Nita swore, her eyes flicking over the surface of the river, trying to figure out where he’d come up.

  But Boulder didn’t come up.

  Bubbles rose from where he’d disappeared—first many, then fewer, until the river was still again.

  Nita’s breathing was fast and harsh, and her fingers gripped the oar so tightly she thought she might snap it in two.

  A pink fin crested the water and then went back under, back toward Boulder’s boat, where its podmates circled.

  Lorenzo had managed to scramble back into his boat and regain an oar. He’d started paddling toward shore, his eyes fixed on land as if it were his savior.

  The boat flipped before he’d made more than three strokes with the paddle. He tumbled into the water with a scream that was abruptly cut off. More bubbles rose.

  Nita decided she should take a page from Lorenzo’s book and head for land. Right now.

  Her paddling was frenetic, but she knew she’d never make it to land before the dolphins turned their attention to her.

  She was right.

  The boat rocked, and Nita dropped her oars. Shit. What to do?

  She swallowed and leaned over the side, looking into the darkness of the water, eyes searching for a shape. “Mirella? Do you guys know Mirella? She’s a friend of mine.”

  The boat stopped rocking. Nita took that as a hopeful sign.

  “I got out, see? I was a prisoner too.” She swallowed and resisted the urge to look at Kovit, unconscious in the boat. If this was Mirella’s doing, Kovit would never survive discovery. Neither would Nita, if she were being honest. Mirella would never forgive Nita for befriending the man who had tortured her.

  Nita certainly wouldn’t have forgiven Mirella if their positions were reversed.

  The water was still. Sweat slithered down her back.

  “Is it you, Mirella?”

  Still no response.

  Nita sat, leaning over the edge, waiting.

  Her eyes bulged as the water rippled. A gray hand reached up like a zombie from its grave, and grasped the edge of the boat. Nita jerked back, and another hand followed. Then a small face surfaced, long pink hair swirling on the surface of the river like seaweed.

  Mirella.

  She wore no cover on her eye, which was a mess. It looked like it had been sewn closed and then gotten infected. The skin was swollen and almost melted. But her other eye was clear and the same pink-gray it always was.

  “You’re alive.” Nita couldn’t stop staring.

  “Yes.” Mirella shivered, and her skin rippled. “I don’t have much time. Water makes me shift. It’s hard to stay like this.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry I left you behind.” Mirella’s voice was soft.

  “It’s okay.” Nita shifted, uncomfortable for reasons she didn’t fully understand. Her heart twisted in her chest, and she resisted the urge to glance guiltily at Kovit on the floor of the boat. “I got away, didn’t I? I even took the market down with me.”

  Mirella laughed, and then gave Nita a bright smile. “You did. Thank you.”

  Mirella gasped, and her eyes crossed as the muscles beneath her face moved like ocean waves.

  “I have to go,” she whispered. “But I promise, I’ll make sure no one escapes.” Her voice became throaty and raw. “And that they’ll never rebuild the market here again.”

  Before Nita could respond, Mirella had released the boat and sunk beneath the surface.

  There was a soft splash and a single pink-gray fin rose out of the water, as though waving goodbye, before disappearing.

  Thirty-Eight

  KOVIT WOKE SOME TIME LATER. He sat up with a sleepy, slightly contented expression.

  He swallowed, and looked around before croaking, “Water?”

  Nita shook her head, mute, and continued to row as the sun beat down on her and sweat trickled down her face. She could feel her scalp burning but didn’t have the energy to do anything about it.

  Kovit looked down at the river, considering. The water rippled gently as they passed. Close up, it looked clearer than it had from a distance, more drinkable. He licked his lips.

  Then he sighed and turned away from the water and settled himself in the boat. Nita had eyed the river too. But she wasn’t that desperate yet. She knew she could fight off all the microbes in there, but . . . she wasn’t sure she could do it right now. And it would be a real hassle to do it later.

  She wondered when they’d get desperate enough to drink the water, regardless of the danger.

  Kovit held out his hands and Nita passed him the oars, grateful for the respite. He began rowing, clumsily at first, and then slowly improving. The boat shook a little as he found his rhythm, and the water sloshed on the bottom.

  Nita leaned back, letting herself lie down across two benches, and closed her eyes. There was a gap between the benches, and her back sank in between, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable.

  God, she was tired. Not just in body, but in mind. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. Or eaten. Or not had terror-based adrenaline pumping through her system. It would be nice if she could have a meal, maybe some fast food—McDonald’s, KFC, oh, or some of that wonderful street food in Lima, maybe some picarones and causa. She also wanted a big drink of water and a soft mattress. Mmm. Heaven.

  But she was also excited, too excited to actually doze. It was almost over. She was almost out. Almost safe.

  “Nita?” Kovit’s voice was still hoarse.

  She opened her eyes and rolled over to look at him and get a different part of her face crisped. “Yeah?”

  “Did the market . . .”

  “It’s gone.” Nita’s voice was firm. Almost hard.

  “Did anyone escape?” Kovit rowed a little faster.

  Nita thought about the overturned boats on the river, and the pink fin sliding through the water, silent and deadly.

  “No.” A bitter smile crossed Nita’s face.

  Kovit watched her. “We killed a lot of people.”

  “Yes.” Nita looked away.

  “Mmm.” Kovit’s gaze was h
eavy lidded. “Nita, can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have rules?”

  “Rules?”

  “Lines you won’t cross. Things you won’t do.”

  She closed her eyes. “I thought I did. But I don’t.”

  No, things like morals just got in the way. They let her be manipulated by people like Fabricio. They made everything she needed to do to escape harder. She didn’t want them.

  “Ah.” He stopped rowing and knelt beside her. “Look at me.”

  She looked up.

  His eyes were dark and searching, and he sighed. “I never told you about why I turned my mother in, did I?”

  She shook her head, wondering where he was going with this.

  “My mother . . .” Kovit’s expression morphed, shifted into something both sweet and sad. “I loved my mother very much. When I was growing up, she was my idol. She’d fled Myanmar when she was a teenager. Her parents had been involved in some shady things for the government—the kind of things that get you on human rights watch lists. But my mother, she wanted no part of it, and she fled to Thailand.

  “She used to take me around town to try to find places where bad things happened. And we’d try to find some pain to eat.”

  Nita hesitated. “She didn’t hurt people?”

  Kovit laughed. “Oh, she did. We had a basement. There was always someone there. Mom made me join her when I was young—I don’t recall how young, but certainly before I was five. She said it was important for me to know where my food came from. There was a zannie we knew, and his family kept everything from him, and when he realized he’d been eating people’s pain, he committed suicide.”

  Kovit paused, maybe expecting Nita to react. But she was silent, listening.

  “Well, at any rate, my mother didn’t want that to happen to me. So we started young. It was all good fun. I didn’t know anyone there, nothing seemed, well, real.” He hesitated. “But things . . . changed. Slowly. I mean, I didn’t notice at first.”

  He didn’t seem to know how to continue. Finally, he let out a breath, and the words came out in a rush. “You know that children’s pain is stronger? It hurts more, they feel more, I don’t know. But it’s stronger.”

  Nita didn’t like where this was going.

  “I brought a friend over one day, and . . . I thought she went home. There was a lot of pain that night. I mean, Mom always had someone in the basement, and I . . .” He huffed a breath. “When I found . . . found her, I freaked. I tried to stop my mom, and she decided to punish me . . .”

  He stopped, arms falling limp at his sides. He stared at the floor, all his muscles clenched.

  Nita stared at him in growing horror. “She hurt you.”

  He nodded. “The mother I knew . . . the mother I grew up with wouldn’t have done that. She ran away so she could avoid participating in government interrogations. She loved me. She loved my sister. She never would have hurt us.

  “But she changed. It was slow, over time. And by the time I noticed, it was too late.”

  Kovit was silent for a long time. Nita swallowed and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

  “I got away. Obviously. And I called INHUP.” He sighed. “But . . . after that, I started paying attention to other zannies. Talking to people who knew them. Meeting others.

  “I guess I wanted to know what happened. What caused this. And I found patterns, lots of patterns. Zannies, all the ones I met, they were . . . Well, let’s just say you would never, ever want to meet them. Already souls so black there was nothing left of anything human, just an addict’s desire to harm others.”

  He met Nita’s eyes. “I won’t ever say I’m a good person. I don’t want to be. I like who I am—and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose me. Because it felt like that’s what happened to all of them. They’d lost themselves to their monsters.”

  “What did you do?” Nita’s fingers clenched against her side.

  “I made rules. I drew lines. I looked at the things that seemed to make the others fall, and I refused to do them. I won’t hurt my friends or my family. Or their friends. I won’t eat the pain of anyone under fifteen. Even if I’m not the one hurting them. I won’t eat it. I won’t eat any pain that’s sexual in nature.” He grimaced. “You asked why I never went out in the market? It was full of children in brothels. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t go out there.”

  Nita looked at the floor. That was sick. She hadn’t even thought of the brothels in the market more than to notice they existed.

  A thought struck Nita. “There’s a rule about hurting people who can’t feel pain, isn’t there? That’s why you didn’t cut my fingers off when Reyes ordered it. Or Boulder, later.”

  He blinked and nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Do you have rules about killing?” she asked.

  “No. Nor do I have rules on a lot of other things you probably think I should.” He shrugged and gave a self-deprecating smile. “But I also have lots of rules that make very little sense. Including one about teddy bears. I was twelve when I started making my rules, and I’m too scared to ever change them. If I let myself cross one line because I tell myself ‘I was twelve, I didn’t understand,’ then I set a precedent. I won’t allow that.”

  Kovit leaned forward, only inches from Nita’s face. “But you know what? They’ve worked. I’m still me.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “Crazy monster I may be. But still me. So far.”

  Nita looked into his dark eyes. “You think I need rules.”

  “I think in the past few days, you’ve discarded a lot. I think the girl who came here a week ago would never have asked me to torture someone, or shot people, or burned the entire market down to the ground.”

  He was right about that.

  “I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m not here to preach morality.” He gave her a wicked grin. “But the problem with losing your morality is that sometimes it takes other things with it. You don’t realize the things that are important to you, in order to be the person you want to be, until you’ve already damaged them beyond repair.”

  He sighed. “I just want to make you think about the lines you thought you had before. I’d hate to see you lose yourself.”

  Lose herself? Had Nita lost herself?

  She’d murdered people. She’d asked Kovit to torture someone. She’d dissected someone she’d killed.

  She closed her eyes and decided Kovit was right: she didn’t like it. Because when she looked at her actions, they were too close to what her mother might have done. And Nita never, ever, wanted to become her mother.

  She didn’t realize she was crying until Kovit put a hand on her uninjured shoulder.

  Wiping the tears off, she looked up at Kovit. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For asking you to kill people. For assuming you would.”

  His eyes curled like upside down smiles. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Thank you.”

  He leaned back, a faint smile on his face. “You’re welcome.”

  Nita took a deep breath and started making rules for herself. She would never cross a line she didn’t want to again. Not because of something as transient as a conscience, but because of something more concrete. Resolve.

  Thirty-Nine

  THE HOURS BLENDED together as Nita and Kovit took turns rowing the boat under the blistering heat. What would have been four hours in a high-speed motorboat took significantly longer in a shitty old rowboat.

  Sometimes they talked. Mostly, they were silent, trying to conserve water.

  At one point, when Nita’s sunburn started to throb and she didn’t have the energy to heal it, Kovit dragged a bloody hand over her shoulder and the pain instantly numbed. Zannie blood was a famous analgesic, excellent for lessening pain, but it was Nita’s first time experiencing it. She could see why it was so high in demand on the black market.

  Later, when it was
Kovit’s turn to row again, he suddenly burst into laughter and nearly dropped the oars into the river.

  Nita blinked and stared at him, his hair with its shampoo commercial glow, and his skin looking like it had been Photoshopped. She wondered if the heat and his still-oozing bullet wound had finally gotten to him.

  “Is something funny?”

  He smiled, relaxed, and returned to rowing at normal speed. “The Family. I just realized. They’ll assume I’m dead.”

  She let a smile cross her face. No INHUP on the hunt for him, no face posted on the Dangerous Unnaturals List. She was glad. “Looks like we both escaped.”

  Kovit laughed. He knew she wasn’t just talking about the market. She liked that about him—he understood. She never needed to explain.

  “Have you thought about what you’re going to do now?” he asked her, after a few minutes.

  She hesitated, almost afraid to say the words out loud. “I’m going to INHUP.”

  “INHUP?” He raised his eyebrows. “Is your new plan to be their scientist so they can protect you?”

  “Not a chance in hell.” Nita’s response was fast. “I would never join INHUP.”

  His eyes were laughing. “Oh? Why?”

  “Where to start?” she snorted. “They wouldn’t approve of my past—I’m sure they’d be more than eager to put me in jail if they ever got a whiff of my family’s activities.” She met his eyes. “Or if they found out I was associated with you. INHUP would put you to death.”

  Kovit’s smile fell, and he looked at her with sad eyes. “They would.”

  Nita leaned in close, so she was only a few inches from his face. A strand of hair fell in front of his eyes, and she resisted the urge to reach out and brush it aside. “I would never let that happen.”

  She knew it was true the moment she said it. She’d always believed the Dangerous Unnaturals List was one of the best things about INHUP. She still did. Just not when it came to people she knew.

  Kovit looked lost, uncertain how to respond. His brows pinched, and his eyes examined her face, flicking back and forth, as though looking for the lie.