Rebirth

by Sophie Littlefield

  After what felt like a long while it occurred to Cass that she could move his hand. She’d just been too disoriented from the dream, that was all, but now she pushed his hand away, only he held it there, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, thumb deep in the hollow below the bone. He had a strong grip on her, and as she struggled against him he pushed back. He would leave bruises, if he wasn’t careful.

  “Let go of me.”

  “No.”

  Their words were whispered, greedily consumed by the silence of the night. Cass sensed the others’ sleep was at its deepest; it must be the hours before dawn, when the soul repaired itself and the unconscious mind decided whether it would fight another day. It was the hour when the innocent dreamed elaborate, fantastical stories and the ravaged slipped gratefully to their deaths-perhaps Malena’s son was dying now in his mother’s arms. There was little risk of waking anyone, but Cass felt a stirring of something like fear.

  “I said let go.”

  Dor hooked a leg across her and then he was on top of her, pinning her. He rested his weight on his elbows, he wasn’t hurting her-but she could feel his arousal and it made her catch her breath.

  “You had no right,” he whispered softly, his breath soft on her face. “Everything you do, everything you’ve ever done, it was someone else who paid your way. You take things, Cass. You came in the Box, you came in my home and you started taking. Smoke paid for you then and he kept paying.”

  No, Cass wanted to say, you’re wrong, but his weight on her chest kept her silent. He didn’t sound angry. But he was wrong. She wasn’t like that. What about all the years when things were taken from her? What about the things she gave away, over and over and over again? Her body, her hopes, her pride?

  “Maybe this is the perfect place for you,” Dor continued. His voice was soft, controlled, emotionless. “Rebuilders are big on taking what’s not theirs. Just like they took Sammi. They took my daughter and they’ll regret it, I’ll make sure of that. But you, you’ll fit right in here, Cass.”

  She struggled under him, pushing at his chest with the flat of her hand. But he just seized her hands and pinned them to the mattress above her head. She pushed against his calves with her feet, grunting with effort, and he hushed her again.

  “You want me off of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right now?”

  “Ye-”

  But he lowered himself against her, very lightly, his physical control exquisite. He brushed against her and her legs opened automatically, treacherously, and Cass realized she didn’t want him gone at all. She-her body, her willful unrestrainable body-wanted him pressed against her, smothering her, taking the breath from her. Entering, stroking, seizing, pummeling, pounding, crushing, drilling, defiling, befouling her. She wanted him and he knew it.

  “See?” he said sharply, his anger showing at last and now it was her turn to shush him, because no one could see, no one could know what she had wrought between them. It didn’t matter that they were pretending to be a couple, that everyone expected them to be together-no, no one could know about her detestable hungers, her faithless betraying core. “How could you do this to him?” he continued, his body rigid above her, unmoving; he had pulled away from her so that the only contact between them was his hands on her hands, his thighs on her thighs, he kept himself apart from her, he’d captured her but he would go no further. “How could you do this to Smoke?”

  Now it was Dor who had no right. No right to say that name, no right to call him up from her bitter heart. Smoke was gone because Smoke had left her and Smoke had put aside her carefully built and given love as though it was nothing. It was for Cass to know and no other; it was for Cass to grieve, and no other.

  “How dare you judge me,” Cass snapped, and for a flashing brief second Dor looked contrite.

  “I didn’t mean-”

  “You don’t get to judge me,” Cass repeated, but she knew what he saw when he looked at her-he saw the girl whose bed didn’t get cold between men, the girl who’d do it in the back of a truck or up against a propane tank or in a gas station bathroom, the girl who didn’t say no to the things nice girls didn’t do, the girl who gave it up and spread it wide and swallowed. The girl who’d find her own cab home and didn’t mind if you passed out after or came over with a six-pack and a hard-on.

  She knew what he saw when he looked at her: he saw her. The real Cass Dollar, the one who’d been gone for a while, banished by the long hard climb to-and through-sobriety, dealt a devastating blow by her love for Smoke. Cass had dared to hope that old self was dead. But no. Dor saw it, he knew it, and now she couldn’t deny it, not even to herself.

  “Fine,” he said, breathing with difficulty. He was impossibly hard when he brushed against her, he had to be using all his strength not to take her. Say what you will but Cass Dollar was magic with a man, the old Cass Dollar, they might regret it later, they might kick her out before they got their pants back on but in the moment they never said no.

  They never said no.

  And that was Cass Dollar’s only power.

  She bared her teeth and lunged for him, managing to graze his jaw before he jerked away. “So get off me,” she taunted. “If you’re so concerned about Smoke, get off me and neither of us’ll tell him. Our little secret.”

  She spat the word out-and Dor did pull back. How he managed to lift himself off her, propped above her on the strength of his arms, his abs, sweating with the strain of it-only touching her hands, the outside of her legs where his knees were pressed to the mattress. She laughed-the demon from last night; this was how it had ended then, with her laughing maniacally and how it had spurred him, how he had driven himself into her.

  “Go ahead,” she said, “get angry, only it’s not me keeping you here, is it? You’re free to get off me, only…”

  Only no man ever did, and her genius lay in that bitter drink she used to go back for, again and again. She took them to her and in the moment of her triumph, when they crashed into her and lost themselves, was that tiny second where she was suspended between this life and what might have been, and she felt-

  – something. She felt something, wanted perhaps, or loved, or even just connected. Who knew? It was not a thing you could judge because you only understood it when you were in it and then it was over, lost except for the longing, a dream that slips away while you come awake.

  “You can’t,” she panted. “You think you’re so noble treating me like a slut but who’s on top of me now? You’re like a dog, no better than an animal.”

  She lifted her hips and ground them against him and he moaned, deep in his throat, as though he was in pain, as though she was ripping his entrails from him. Her legs were strong, and she pushed against him so hard he had to release her hands to avoid losing his balance, and she seized his ass and pulled him greedily against her. “Kiss me,” she muttered, and when he wasn’t fast enough she grabbed the back of his head and pulled her to him, pulled his hair and bit his lips and knocked her teeth against his and he let go then, didn’t he, a torrent unleashed, a flood bursting its bounds. His mouth was on hers and he was inside her, his arms around her everywhere. All over her body as he drove deep and shuddering. She wrapped her legs around him tight, she met every thrust with her own. She urged him faster she took him harder. His hands found their way into her hair and they pulled hard they yanked her head back and his mouth was on her throat, for a moment she thought he’d tear it open, bleed her out while he fucked her and that was the thought that triggered her laughter one last time but he slammed his hand over her mouth and kept it there while he emptied himself into her and she realized she wasn’t laughing at all but losing herself in a chasm wider than any she’d ever known and she shut her eyes and bit down hard and tasted salt and blood and later, when the last wave rocked her like a rag doll she wondered if this time maybe maybe maybe she wouldn’t have to wake up at all.

  24

  CASS WOKE IN RUTHIE’S BED, WHERE SHE’D
retreated as soon as the thing of the night before was over.

  She opened her eyes without moving and saw that Dor was at the table with Lester, dressed, his hair wet, reading a paperback book. How had she slept through everything-the sounds of people waking, dressing, making coffee?

  Dor turned a page. He lifted his mug to his lips. Set it down.

  Ruthie nestled close against Cass’s chest and Cass tried to put everything out of her mind but her daughter. I am here I am here I am here for you. But only hours ago, there had been nothing in her mind but crazy rage as she bit down on Dor’s hand and silently screamed, not five yards away.

  She had to go to the bathroom. She wanted to clean herself and she had to pee. She grated her teeth against each other and got out of bed as carefully as she could, pulling the covers back in place and smoothing them down.

  “Good morning,” she mumbled, not looking at anyone.

  When she returned a little while later with Lester, feeling a little calmer after a shower of lukewarm water in a public stall, Kaufman was there as well and food trays had arrived. Cass checked on Ruthie, who was still sleeping. Over on the other side of the room, Malena and her son slept, too. The woman had to be exhausted from her round-the-clock vigil. Well-almost around the clock, anyway, Cass thought. No one had been awake besides her and Dor, at least for a little while.

  Malena was going to wake up sore. She had pulled a straight-backed chair close to the recliner where her son lay, and leaned against his shoulder, her head at an uncomfortable angle, her hands clasped in her lap. As Cass watched, the woman shifted in her chair, her eyelids fluttering and her mouth forming silent words. She woke with a start, a muffled exhalation, and her hands went straight to her son’s face and her fingers danced under his jaw, searching for a pulse and then, when she found it, clasping his face gently. She caressed his hair as he slept on, unmoving. In the morning light Cass could see that his skin was sallow and waxy. He looked desperately ill, and if Cass had to guess she wouldn’t expect him to live many more days, and the thought was too much and so she busied herself with making the bed.

  When someone touched her shoulder, Cass startled and backed away, but it was only Malena. “You’ll stay with him,” she said urgently. Up close Cass could see the deep grooves in her skin, the bruise-purple smudges beneath her eyes, the sagging of the pale crepey skin under her chin. Her coarse hair was salted with gray, loose strands clinging to the fabric of her coat. She smelled of many days without washing, and her breath made Cass turn away.

  “Stay with Devin. Please. I’ll be just a minute,” she repeated.

  “Come on, Malena,” Lester called from across the room. He sounded indifferent, even irritated, but Cass remembered the night before, his muffled sobs. Cass knew that equation well. He didn’t have enough left over to care about Malena. “Come with me now, you can have a nice shower.”

  “I’ll stay with him.” Dor set down his coffee mug and book. “I’m glad to. I’ll watch him, your boy. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

  The woman’s eyes darted back and forth between Dor and Cass. “But it has to be…”

  Cass knew what she meant: a woman. It has to be a woman, a mother.

  “No. You go with Cass. Take a little time for yourself. I’ll watch him.”

  Dor said it with finality, firmly. It was his way, to take charge, to feel responsible. Cass realized she’d never seen it that way before; she’d always thought of the Box as his trophy, a symbol of his striving and his wealth. But it was also his sanctuary, one he shared with anyone who came along…unselfishly. Bravely. She had wanted to think his controlling and calculating was exclusively for his own gain. But maybe it really was for other people.

  “Come on,” she said, linking her arm with Malena’s, finding it thin and bony. “Let’s go. We need to go for a few minutes. It’s going to be fine. Dor will take good care of your son.”

  Malena allowed herself to be led, like a child, looking over her shoulder at the sleeping young man the whole way. Lester walked in front of them and Malena leaned practically weightless on Cass’s arm. “Devin will be nineteen next March,” she said, and Cass knew that the boy would never see another March.

  “He’s a handsome boy,” she said softly.

  “He needs Beclosterone. Only twenty milligrams twice a day, that’s not so much. And they have it here. You know they have it here, the Rebuilders? You know that?”

  Cass nodded, though she had never heard of Beclosterone and while she was sure that the Rebuilders stockpiled medicine as well as everything else, she also knew that they would not spare medication for a boy who was this sick. After all, he couldn’t work, and even though he looked like he was starving he was still a drain on resources.

  “We find out today if we’re outliers. We get the results today.”

  “Do you think…you are?” Even as Cass asked the question she knew it couldn’t be true, that the woman’s desperate hopes would be dashed.

  “Yes,” Malena said too quickly. “Yes, I’m sure of it. Devin, anyway. He’s always been special, ever since he was born.” Her eyes flickered and burned, and the skin at the corner of her mouth twitched with a manic tic. Cass wondered if she was losing touch with reality after her long journey, little food, little sleep. “Did you see him?”

  “Yes, I did,” Cass said softly.

  “All he needs is just twenty milligrams of Beclosterone. Every day. But even every other day would help. It would be something. Do you know that when he was born he had a full head of hair? A fair child like him-do you know how rare that is?”

  Cass murmured sympathetically, but Malena didn’t seem to hear; she went right on talking.

  “He took his first steps before he was eleven months old. Never crawled. Just that determined, he was. When they diagnosed his asthma, they said I’d always have to limit his activities. But I said no. I said, Devin will never allow that. He needs to be up and around, with all the other boys. He played varsity soccer his sophomore year. And that’s on a team that went to State three of the five years he was in high school. And he never sat out a game. With his meds he does perfectly well.”

  They had arrived at the bathroom, Lester nodding at them to go in. Cass led Malena inside and she looked around as though surprised to find herself there. “I’ll just be a moment,” she said, with a trace of dignity, and Cass saw a shadow of the woman she must have once been-a suburban mother who had a weekly manicure and sat in the stands at every one of her son’s games, cheering every time he even came close to making a goal.

  But when Malena emerged from the stall, she began talking again, not even looking in the mirror as she made a halfhearted effort to wash her hands.

  “They say if Devin’s an outlier he can have his medication. Then he’ll be just fine again. They do so much for the outliers.”

  “Like what?”

  “They get all the best things. Everything they need. Medicine. Food. Everything. And they don’t have to work, not hard labor anyway.” She flapped her damp hands. “Devin’s not cut out for manual labor.”

  “He’s… You take good care of him.”

  “In Tapp,” Malena continued, not listening. “We had the whole day in Tapp, all those tests, there was a lady who talked to us. She liked Devin. She could tell he was special. I think she could tell he was an outlier.”

  She was clearly teetering on the line between reality and wild hope. Maybe someone in the clinic really had talked to Malena, given her a false sense of promise. Felt sorry for her, no doubt-one look at her son’s poor ravaged body would pull anyone’s heartstrings. Cass wondered if it was worth trying to tease out the facts from the fantasy. “What about families? Do they break them up? I mean, if one of them’s an outlier?”

  Malena’s face, which had been bright with possibility, lost some of its energy. She stared down at the basin of water, the thin film of grime on top, and frowned. “Well. I don’t know. I mean. I think I would go with him, as his caretaker. I’ve been th
ere for Devin his whole life. It wouldn’t make sense for me not to.”

  Cass sighed, and decided she’d pushed Malena as far as she could without sending her into an anxious spin. She thought about the first time she met Evangeline, how excited she had been that Cass was an outlier, the promises she’d made for a privileged future. Was it so hard to believe that the Rebuilders would cherish their outliers, treat them with a measure of respect? Was that why Evangeline had come to despise her, knowing Cass had turned away from the privileges the Rebuilders promised? Privileges maybe even she didn’t get?

  They were still half a dozen paces from Ellis’s front door when Malena suddenly stopped and clutched Cass’s arm.

  “Mr. Pace is back,” she whispered, “There he is.”

  And indeed, Pace stood in the doorway, sipping from a bottle of water, looking well rested in a fresh, ironed camo shirt, his hair damp and combed back from his forehead. Cass could feel her hands tremble as Malena tugged her closer.

  “This means he’s in. Mr. Pace must be here to get him. Oh my God, I knew it, this mean’s Devin’s in!”

  She broke away and ran the rest of the way, Cass close behind. Her anxiety swelled into full-scale dread. If Pace really was here to greet outliers… Suddenly she wished she’d been honest with Malena from the start, if only to have prevented this moment, this false gift of hope which now seemed like the greatest cruelty.

  Malena rushed up to Pace as though she might embrace him, and then stood awkwardly with her arms hanging at her sides. Suddenly she seemed uncertain of herself.

  Pace extended a hand. “Malena Fowler, isn’t it? Welcome to Colima.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you.” Hastily Malena shook the offered hand. Two other people stepped from behind Pace-Lester and Kaufman. Malena craned her head around the group, looking into the room. Cass could see through the open door: it was empty, except for Ruthie sitting on a chair at the dinette table, with a bowl in front of her. When Ruthie saw her she slipped off the chair and ran to her, darting around Pace and the guards. Cass picked her up and Ruthie held on tight.