Her of the Wood

by Veronica Watts

  Euodia's has a sudden urge to turn around and head back to Solace, but Ailie can't seem to keep her eyes off the city ahead of them. She trips twice because she isn't looking at the ground in front of her but catches herself before she falls. Euodia moves to the front to walk with Rayne. "You okay?" he asks.

  She isn't sure whether or not she even knows the answer to that question. "Yeah." She tells herself it's not a lie. "You?"

  He's quiet for a minute. "Yeah." His tone matches hers, and she knows it's code for an indefinable internal landscape. She keeps her eyes on the ground, and they're on the other side of the city before she knows it. They can see the road to the gate. The trees intersect the road before the fields, so they follow the tree line and wait.

  They reach a cluster of trees near the road and settle down to rest. Euodia takes a seat next to Ailie. "So, what do you think?"

  "It's certainly impressive. I'm having trouble reconciling the beauty with all the bad I know." Euodia had thought that Ailie was revering the place, but all the time she'd been trying to piece together Euodia's experience of it. She feels guilty for walking away from her, but Ailie doesn't seem aware of it. "How are you?"

  Euodia struggles for words. When they continue to elude her, she puts her head in Ailie's lap. She doesn't cry. She doesn't have an epiphany. She just closes her eyes and feels Ailie's fingers brushing through her hair. She's asleep in minutes, and Ailie doesn't move.

  When Euodia wakes up the group is preparing to move. She isn't the only one rubbing sleep from her eyes, but Rayne tells them the truck should be coming through soon. Euodia spies Broderick in a large tree next to the road, working to break down a significant branch with the small saw from Broderick's pack. At least he's come prepared, Euodia thinks. They need something that looks natural to stop the truck. Rayne asks everyone to stay back in the woods, even when the truck stops. He will talk to the driver. It is very possible that he will know some of the crew. "Besides, if something does go wrong, there's no reason for us all to get caught." The word 'caught' makes Euodia's stomach churn. As the group busy themselves adjusting their packs, she takes a sip of water, but she shakes her head when Ailie holds out a pear.

  She feels strange standing under the cover of trees in silence by the side of a road. She's jittery. She needs to be doing something. She's trying to calm her nerves when she hears the truck. She immediately locks eyes with Ailie, and for the first time, she sees the excitement in her eyes is mingled with fear. Their eyes stay locked for a minute and then they turn to see the truck approaching. As it nears the fallen branch in the road, it slows to a stop, and they watch the driver step out to survey the situation. They can hear others inside the truck talking. Euodia immediately envies the freedom of that, a freedom she didn't have in the City. She forces herself to remember that there are other hardships here. Life isn't easy for these people.

  The driver is tall. He's not a large man like Rayne, but he casts a large enough shadow to make anyone who might wish him harm think twice. He calls back to the truck. "Randall, come help me move this branch." Euodia and the others watch as Rayne steps up behind the man. They see the driver stiffen and turn to see the man behind him. There's a moment of stillness, and Euodia can barely breathe "Rayne?"

  The men hug, and the man Euodia assumes is Randall, walking up behind Rayne, slaps him on the back. "You're alive."

  Rayne's smile fades. "For now, but I need your help." The men are of course apprehensive, and the others are coming out of the truck. Rayne turns back towards the trees. "Come on out guys." One by one, the rest of the group comes out from behind the trees and moves towards the truck. They move slowly, hands open, seeing the fear in the eyes of the men they're approaching. Rayne looks back to the driver. "Can we all talk?"

  "If you make it fast. It's about time for us to have this truck back in." His surprise at seeing Rayne has already faded, and his nerves are showing, particularly when he looks over to Broderick. He turns so that his back isn't towards the man.

  "That's why I'm here." Rayne skims over the community's situation. It turns out that these guys know Henley and Thackery too, and they're sad to hear she's sick. "We just need the truck to get the medicine. We don't want to get you or anyone else in trouble, and if any of you want to go back with us, you're welcome to."

  Euodia sees Broderick's eyes flicker at this, but he doesn't speak up. The driver, Faben, talks to his people. Two of them are vocally against it. They're too afraid of what kind of trouble they'll get into, but the other six including Randall and Faben trust Rayne and want to leave with him after they get the medicine.

  Eventually Faben puts a stop to the debate. "We don't have time to keep arguing." He looks back to Rayne. "I'll ride in with you, so you'll need to leave two of yours here."

  "That's not your call," Broderick says. He clearly doesn't trust these strangers any more than they trust him.

  "It is if you want to get in." That's all he says to Broderick before turning to talk to Rayne again. "They scan prints at the entrance now." Rayne starts to hold up his own hand, but Faben cuts him off. "And they take the reassigned out of the system."

  "All right." Rayne thinks for a second. "Ilford, Norten, you guys stay here." Norten nods. He had expected this.

  Ilford looks from person to person in the group, and when no one speaks for him, he shakes his head in anger. "Fine." Hana tries to take his hand, but he pulls away.

  Faben's voice is sure. "We need to get going." They walk towards the doors as the other men walk off the road. Euodia watches Faben take a rope from the truck and hands it to one of his people. Euodia stops to eavesdrop. "In case you need it, but only if you need it."

  She isn't sure if it's for the two who disagreed or the two that they don't know. She follows Ailie into the truck and takes deep breaths to keep the feeling of confinement at bay. She sees Hana and Ailie both looking back out of their windows, completely unaware of how similar they look, sharing looks of guilt. They both look back for a moment and then turn to face forward when the truck starts to move.

  Rayne starts to lay out their plan, but Faben shakes his head. "Honestly, man, I don't need to know. It's probably best if I don't. I just need to know that I can go with you when you're done."

  "You've got it." They sit in silence as the city wall looms closer. Euodia focuses on the people around her. They're tense, stoic, ready for something to go wrong.

  Euodia wills her heart to slow as they pull up to the gate. They see another truck going in before them, workers from another area. The print scanner is portable. The guard walks it over to the truck, and Faben holds his arm out the window, placing his hand on the box. He does not speak to the guard, but there is a nod of recognition. Everyone else is quiet, keeping their heads down, keeping still, drawing no attention. The guard is calm, casual. He's not expecting anything to be wrong, and they will give him no reason to.

  After a few seconds that last a lifetime, the scanner beeps twice, the guard walks back to his post, and the gate opens. They begin the drive into the city.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Euodia, Rayne, and Vaness look forward. They're here for a reason, and that has their focus. They don't want to take in any more of this place than they have to. There's already too much they can't forget. Auston looks around nervously. He remembers enough. Ailie, Hana, and Broderick try to look without looking like they're looking. They've never seen so many people. They duck as a transporter moves overhead, as if it could fall on them, and let out little sighs of relief when it doesn't. Ailie even starts to grin, but Euodia squeezes her hand and shakes her head no.

  Ailie takes the hint and reigns in her behavior. She looks at the floor. Euodia has no idea how they will get around safely if these guys can't pull it together. Thankfully, the quiet seems to spread from Ailie to the others as they pull the truck into the parking deck. It's the third in the row. They get out of the truck, slowly, carefully. No one speaks. They follow Rayne to an exit from the garage and down a flight o
f stairs. There are still plenty of other workers around, but as they circle around and around head lower into the underground system, more and more of the other workers turn off of the staircase onto their respective floors. They must be ten floors down and nearing the bottom when Faben turns. "My floor is back up, but I figured you would need to talk before separating."

  "Separating? Why would we separate?" Ailie's voice is higher than usual. Even someone who doesn't know her well could hear the fear. She and Euodia clasp hands.

  "What, you think that the guards will just ignore seven empty beds next to each other?" He doesn't know that Ailie doesn't understand any of this. Euodia and Rayne immediately look to one another, kicking themselves for not having thought of this sooner.

  Rayne is too stunned to speak. Euodia can feel Ailie looking to her. "He's right." She doesn't look back. "You can disguise two beds, not seven, and if we're caught, you can all get back out before anyone is the wiser." All of the excitement Ailie had felt as they approached is gone. She is starting to understand the severity of what they are doing. The whole atmosphere of the city is oppressive, and it's sinking in.

  Euodia looks over to Vaness. Vaness understands that she's the second. She has a suit. She knows where the medicine is. She nods.

  "You are not going up there on your own." Ailie includes Vaness in her line of sight, but they all know whom she's talking to.

  Euodia keeps her voice steady. "We don't have time to argue. You're already going to have to skip dinner to make it to your beds by curfew since we're using this time to talk."

  "God, this place sucks." Auston's words are those of a petulant child, but his tone isn't so off-handed. He means it with every fiber of his being. Euodia can feel his disgust, like he wants to crawl out of here and wipe every molecule of this place off of him.

  Rayne finally steps in. "Euodia and Vaness will do what they need to do and meet us back here in the morning." He places a hand on Ailie's shoulder. "But we have to go to the dorms, to keep them safe." That snaps her out of it.

  She hands Euodia the bag she's been carrying. It contains the suits. Then she leans forward and kisses Euodia on the cheek, gentle and sweet. "I'll see you in the morning."

  Rayne and the others head upstairs, and as soon as they are out of sight, Euodia and Vaness change clothes. Pulling the tight material onto her skin feels like covering up every trace of who she's become. When the clasps are done, she can barely breathe, but it isn't because of the uniform. She knew that she hated this suit, but it's worse now that she's gotten used to life without it.

  The shoes drag her back to who she was in this place more than anything else. With her posture rigidly controlled and her feet weighted down, she feels herself slipping back into silence and obedience. She assumes that Vaness feels the same since she neither speaks nor looks up as they climb the stairs back to the trains, a few levels below the surface. They leave the bag in the space under the last level of stairs. She doesn't know what the door down there leads to, but she hopes it isn't used often.

  Euodia brushes against a wall as they crowd onto the platform, trying to avoid a guard. She's wiping the dust from the crumbling bricks off of her hip and thinks of the last time that she was in these tunnels. At least now she knows where the dust came from. They step onto the next train silently and head further into Dracon.

  They are two of four who get off at a city center stop. They don't pause. They can't look like they're thinking about what they're doing. Workers just do. They know. And they both know where they're going. They follow the tunnels to the tower. She and Vaness have been slowly putting space between themselves since the platform. She watches Vaness slip around the corner and speeds up a bit to keep her in view. She doesn't know where in the building the medicine is stored so she can't get too far behind.

  She turns the next corner to find Vaness stopped almost directly in front of her. Vaness is holding a stack of papers, and when Euodia bumps into her, they go falling to the floor. Vaness speaks quickly but quietly, barely moving her lips. "I needed a reason to talk to you. Help me pick these up." On camera, with their heads tilted down, it would look like one worker helping another pick up dropped papers, but Vaness needs to speak, which is a huge risk. Something is wrong. Euodia doesn't answer as she kneels to the floor.

  "There's a retinal scan." Euodia looks up for a moment, but she remembers herself and turns back to the paper, picking them up quickly enough to look natural, but drawing it out so they can talk. "They'll have wiped mine form the system."

  Faben said they removed the scans for reassigned workers, but when Euodia left the tower, she had been heading to a new position, so unless Orchid turned her in as missing, she could still be in the system. It's dangerous. If she tries it, and she fails, there will be guards here in a less than minute, and even if she runs, the place is covered by cameras. They would follow her.

  She thinks of Ailie, but then she thinks of Henley and Thackery and Callie. She realizes her hands have stopped moving and looks up to see that Vaness's have, too. She hands the papers to Vaness and speaks quickly as they stand. "Mine might still be there. You need to be close enough to follow me in if it works, but far enough away to get out if it doesn't."

  She walks away without waiting for a response. She moves over to the door, an entrance she's used a thousand times. Only the retinal scanner is new. She doesn't pause long, just enough to take in a breath before leaning in to open her eye wide.

  There's a heavy thud, and she can't help but close her eyes in a wince. It takes her a second to realize that that was the noise she wanted to hear. That was the sound of the door lock disengaging. She opens quickly and enters slowly, lingering so Vaness can enter behind and work her way back around to the front.

  She closes her eyes tight for a moment to adjust to the darkness of these hallways. She opens her eyes to see the lights running along the floor. She has not missed these. Several of those in front of her are already lit up, and she sees Vaness at the corner. Vaness is not looking back, but she has paused to be certain that Euodia sees her. Then she moves on. As they make their way down the hallways, Euodia can feel her heart racing. The part of her that thought that she would never be back here is screaming, and the part of her that is still trained by this place is resigned.

  Vaness is waiting at the elevator with two other workers when Euodia rounds the corner. She steps up to the group and waits with them in silence. When they enter the elevator, she is a few feet behind Vaness. She doesn't see what floor Vaness hits, so she just presses the highest number that's lit. If Vaness gets off at an earlier floor, she'll follow her, hopefully without anyone noticing the discrepancy. She sees that one of the workers is carrying an empty tray with one plate, one glass, one of everything. This is going to one of the Girls, and Euodia has to close her mind to images of shared meals with Orchid. She sees her smile as a glass comes to her lips. She remembers feeding her sliced fruit and laughing as the juice ran down their arms and wonders if she's picked up with anyone else.

  Euodia almost loses her balance as the elevator stops. She had forgotten about the speed, lost as she was in her thoughts. At the second stop, Vaness works her way quickly forward and off the elevator. Just to be on the safe side, Euodia turns in the opposite direction as she exits, only turning around after the doors close. She has to speed up to catch up, and when she hits a turn, she follows the direction where the lights are lit. It's not like there's heavy traffic on these floors, at least not that she's aware of, so the direction that's lit should be Vaness.

  She's starting to get nervous that the path isn't hers when she turns another corner and sees Vaness opening a door. Euodia slows and debates whether or not to follow her into the room or wait in the hallway. Both will look conspicuous. She stops at the door, looking through the glass panel. The room is full of shelves. Some with boxes and some with jars. She sees Vaness in the far corner of the room in front of a locked cabinet. She has a moment of panic, but then she watches as Vaness
confidently types in a number and opens the door. As much as Euodia wants to go into the room, to talk to her friend, she doesn't. Her curiosity, as it would be seen on the security screens, is frowned upon, but communication is punishable. She pulls herself away from the door as Vaness takes a small black bag from the wall and begins to fill it with bottles and heads slowly back to the elevator.

  A minute later, Vaness joins her. Euodia presses the up button, hoping that no guards watching the screens noticed that she hadn't pressed it before, and answers quietly. "I've got a plan." She doesn't look over, but she guesses that the shining up button is probably confusing for Vaness. She likes that there are no questions. There's a sense of trust. She takes pride in this for a moment before remembering that Vaness doesn't have much choice. They ride up to some of the highest floors, watching as other workers get on and off. There's no one else with them when they stop at the second to last floor, and the doors open. "Turn left and enter the last room on your right. I'll be there in a few minutes." They both exit, but Euodia turns right as Vaness turns left. Euodia can only hope that the room hasn't been changed, that the camera hasn't been fixed, that there's no one else there. As much as she wants to stay with her friend, she has to be careful in case someone is watching.

  To any onlookers, Vaness is on a supply run, so of course she would be in storage, but it would look strange for she and Euodia to need the same storage room at the same time, especially if the viewer notices they've come from the same floor. Euodia instead enters a room down the hall and picks up shampoo. She sees a stack of pink dye as she heads back to the door and allows herself to stop, just for a moment. This area, unlike the lower levels, is the storage she knows. This storage is just for the Girls. She gets back on the elevator and chooses a random set of rooms, opening the secret door into the bathroom, and leaving the bottle next to the bath. The girl living there would simply think that a worker had made a delivery mistake, and any guards watching the screens would think that Euodia is a night worker, making deliveries from storage, and all would be safe in the world. She rides the elevator up and takes a left to join Vaness. Surely no one is paying enough attention to put all of that together. She opens the door to see Vaness staring out of the windows over mid-city and the edges, into the old lands towards home.