She heard her before she saw her, one of the little wives in the making, standing there, timidly knocking on the glass door. Nobody ever came here in the middle of the night, as far as she knew. Something must have happened she didn't know about. They usually were the last to know about anything, and even then, it was by overhearing whispers and notes hastily scribbled and passed around the maid quarters. The girl meant business, as she kept knocking. She might as well let her in then.
She picked up the key and pressed the button, and the girl came inside. She was a tiny looking thing, like all of them. It didn't make any sense that they'd choose such fragile creatures for making babies, but they did. The girl stared at her, as if she'd seen a dead person or insides of a bird for the first time. Something shocking enough for the two huge eyes to stare at her in that way.
"Uhmmm, I need some pain meds and some HealX. My friend has this cut on her arm, and it looks infected, but she doesn't want to lose her chance at the selection, with it being so close... Can you please help?" Her voice sounded kind and full of concern, but she was a lousy liar. She blushed at her own words, looking down, afraid to get caught.
She grabbed a med pad, and in her still neat handwriting jotted down, "What's your friend's name?" She passed her the note, looking at her face, reading her. Confusion, thinking, trying her best to figure out a way out of this. Then, shaking her head, "I can't tell you that. Will you help me?" There was a genuine plea in her voice. And she didn't want to lie to her again, that much was clear.
Whoever it was likely had a lot more than a cut on her arm, but for some reason couldn't go to the med floor during the day, when the doctor was here. She knew she would help her from the first, but something about this girl being here didn't feel right. Something about her felt too desperate. Barging into the med floor in the middle of the night was far too risky for someone who only thinks via that implant they all had and who has been a wife in waiting her whole life.
The girl was still staring at her, "What is your name? I don't know if you have one now, but I imagine you were born with one. Will you tell me?" she asked in a small voice.
Nobody ever asked them their names, for what was the point. They were mutes, and asking them anything really was a waste of effort. And even before they took her voice, no one addressed slaves by their names, there was no need. It's been so long since she had heard her name spoken by anyone, she wasn't sure she still liked the sound of it. "Ella," she jotted down quickly on the pad and handed it to the girl. The girl spoke it back to her, smiling. Ella knew she would give her the meds long before this, when she told her that ridiculous story about her friend, but this, her speaking her name like that, it made her want to hurry up and be rid of the girl. She was making her think about things she didn't want to think about. About Riley, and the warmness of Samson, and the blue smoke of father's pipe.
She raced to the back and put together a temp kit of pain meds, HealX and as many bandages as she could steal without it being noticed. She handed it to the girl with a nod to take it and run to whoever was in trouble, before anyone stumbled on them here. But the girl didn't run. She kept looking her over, as if maybe she'd known her in a past life or something. It was getting unnerving, being stared at like that, but she knew the girl meant her no harm. There was something there, in that look. Recognition. But she didn't know her. She didn't know any fair headed fair eyed people but Brody, and Brody was gone.
She picked up the key and pointed it at the door, as good a sign as any that she needed to leave, but the girl didn't move. Instead, she ran up to the desk she was standing behind, and said, "Riley... That's the name of my friend," and then she ran with her kit through the door, too fast for someone without a voice to stop her.
She plunked down in the chair. She wanted to run after the girl and ask her, ask her everything. The girl knew her Riley. He could be here somewhere, hiding in this giant compound, injured. She could help him. She was trained in this sort of thing. Nothing scared her anymore, not even someone's insides spilling out of their belly. She could certainly take anything that just called for some pain meds and a tube of HealX.
But the girl was long gone, and she was still wearing her slave-band, so she couldn't get very far within the compound without them knowing where she was. Even if she were lucky enough to find the girl again, to recognize her amidst so many girls that looked just like her, she'd never get away with it. And if she was his friend, and he was actually here, she might put him in danger. The girl. She will tell him. She looked around her desk, just now realizing that the pad she wrote her name on was gone. She took a bit of her with her, her handwriting. But Riley wouldn't know her handwriting now, if he ever knew it at all. He was far too young to worry about those things then. Far too young to worry about anything. But worry he did.
The day Brody's parents were gone, he insisted they walk every block of every street in Waller, looking for them. He'd walk into the shops and the pubs and abandoned apartment buildings. He'd ask total strangers if they'd seen his friend's parents, just like that, "Excuse me, but have you seen my friend's parents anywhere? We are looking for them now. So if you see them, please tell them to come home. My friend's name is Brody. Thank you. Thank you so much." He did it for days, and she tagged along. She had to. It was too heartbreaking for him to do it alone, and Brody wouldn't talk to anybody then. He stayed locked up in his room, letting nobody in, not even Riley. He knew they were gone. At the age of six, that kid just knew. And it damn near killed him.
Nobody could get him out of that room, until that uncle of his showed up and didn't ask him anything. He just packed up his stuff and moved him, just like that. And then Brody was Brody again, only his wisecracks had malice in them at times. She'd hear him say something truly mean and cringe, but she couldn't chide him. The kind of mean she thought he was when he made Riley cry like that when he brought him that bug he killed...
She'd heard rumors a few years ago that he went to some big city on one of the few X-planes that still flew. He saved and then sold everything he could to get on it, and when he got to where he was going, he rented a room, and shot himself through the head. She never believed it. She didn't think Riley ever believed it either, but that's what they said about Brody. And if he had done that thing, with Riley hurting so bad, she'd never forgive him.
The girl brought all her Riley memories flooding in. But she also brought hope, hope that Riley was still alive and close by, close enough for the girl to know him. And these girls didn't get to know boys until after the selection, which was still 62 days away. Those boys, too, wouldn't be Zorin-born. They'd be fair-headed, light-eyed boys that never quite seemed to grow enough hair on their chests to turn into men. And then it hit her, the thing that she should have thought of so much earlier... Drake. Drake was guarding the damned compound. He'd know. He was a mute too now, if he was here, but it didn't matter. If her Riley was here, Drake would know.
She put what little dust she collected off the floors in the chute, locked up the cleaning supplies, and ran from the room to the guard tower, making sure she stayed in the shadows of the wall. She couldn't risk it now. She had to be careful, and so she was.
The light in the cabin at the top was out. Drake was likely asleep at his post, not an uncommon thing for him to be doing in the middle of the night. She climbed, ignoring the sick feeling in the pit of her belly, daring herself not to look down. She forgot the whole fear of heights thing, but there was no other way to get to Drake's. If nothing else, she'd know the girl was lying for some reason, and she wouldn't have to worry about it so much anymore. She would go back to this life she was now inhabiting, not quite hers, but not as terrible as some had it outside these walls.
She made it to the door, still not looking down, and knocked, not too timidly. She had to wake him up. He owed her at least that for letting him cheat on his exams and for telling everyone in school to lay off of him. And the damn kitten that she had to pull off his roof and make pretend he did it, be
cause she didn't want them to keep picking on him. Drake was far too nice and far too easy to pick on. The door swung open just enough for her to see two sleepy brown eyes staring at her, and immediately swung all the way open. He knew her. That was a start at least.
"You've come about Riley?" He didn't mime it or write it down. He said it, just like that. She knew she was staring at him. But this, this didn't make any sense. Everyone working at the compound but the essentials were mute. Everybody knew that. They sat you down in this white room, strapped you in and talked the speech right out of your voice box. They talked you to sleep and you couldn't fight it, and so you went to sleep with your voice and woke up without it. Just like that. It only took a few minutes for them to do it, too. They were all about efficiency with non-essentials. Yet, he just spoke to her. Asking her something. Something about Riley.
She looked about frantically. She needed a piece of paper and a pen or anything really to write with. She didn't think to bring one of the pads from the med floor. She hoped Drake had something. He did. "Is he here? Is he injured?" She handed the crumpled up sheet back to him.
"He came looking for you a few days ago. Hassinger got him. She hurt him, Ella. I'm so sorry, but she did, and I couldn't stop it. And then he ran, back outside the wall. He had to, but he meant to come back for you. He will come back for you."
She grabbed the paper from him again, "A girl came to see me seeking HealX and pain meds. She said it was for Riley. If he is back here already, where would he hide? Where would you hide?" She shoved it at him, impatient with her inability to speak getting the better of her. She needed to calm down. Drake was a friend. An old friend.
"I'm not sure, El. The library or the loft. Nobody here ever uses either. The loft would be better to hide in, it's higher than anything else here but the roof. But I don't think he is back. I would have seen him coming over the wall. He would have needed my help to do it. They will kill you if you aren't where you are supposed to be. Your being here now isn't so smart. These things, the bands, they track you. I'll go looking for him, but you can't, not yet, not until the band is off. Please..."
For such a big man, he sounded like a pleading child. Or maybe he really cared about what happened to her. She wished she had that gift - to care about what happened to her - but she lost it years ago. Riley, him she could wrap all her caring around. She could spend every moment of every day looking for him. She could find the girl again, maybe. She had to. She looked at her old friend. He was shaking his head, in that way he used to as a kid, when he didn't want the kids to ruin his screens that had his lessons on them. He'd shake his head, slowly, smiling at them, and they'd do it anyway. They'd stomp on his stuff, grinding the thin glass into the coal dusted street, sneering at him. She didn't want to do that to him. To make him feel like that again. So she nodded, and then walked over and wrapped her hands around his neck, wishing she didn't have the band on and could hug him properly, waited for him to register that she understood, and that she will wait, and left.
She waited all these years. A few more days, and she'd know. She could take it. She had to.
Jess
Cassandra, February 17, 2107, Manchester
She saw the ad the day it appeared on the door of her escort service, Lexi's, the one she'd been at for about two months now. She knew it was hers as soon as she saw it. That she finally made it happen. She had to see her. Next week it'll be eleven years of celebrating the bad sister, or rather, the bad half-sister day, as she jokingly called it when she'd just turned eleven and Sandra was gone. Gone to the prep school and then med school. And then gone to the headlines and death threats to her and to mom.
That school morning of waking up to a small cardboard box outside their front door with a tiny finger in it. The kids she had known her whole life looking at her like she had two heads. Her sister, her half sister, was working on the cure from babies. That's what her friends said. That's what everybody said then, and she was angry. And then, later, she was ashamed.
She didn't do anything stupid or dangerous in her angry years. She just kept to herself, picked up smoking, when she could sneak a pack from her mother, but other than that she was functional. Quiet, but functional. She got her period later than most girls in her class, at 14, and then she was no longer angry. She was scared and ashamed.
This, being a woman, the conversations she had with her mother about what it all meant, the consequences of these belly aches, that's what Sandra was trying to stop. It felt wrong. Not that she thought even back then of ever having kids, she already knew she didn't want them, but it, what Sandra was doing, she knew was wrong.
After her first birthday as a woman, she was no longer keeping to herself. She went everywhere the older kids went. Crashing impromptu parties in old warehouses and abandoned apartments. Somehow the boys could always find enough liquor to keep everyone drunk through the night. Few of these same boys could ever find enough to eat, but the liquor was stealable. So they stole ample amounts of it every week.
Later, she'd steal it with them, sneaking a bottle of Vodka or Gin under her winter coat. Her breasts grew enough by then to cover the protruding shapes of the bottles, and her face, still that of a little girl, would be the last one anyone thought of. She was okay with it then -the drinking, the boys, the music. She never thought about Sandra in those moments, and that felt good. Until the night Jess called her, in tears.
That night her best friend, Jess, learned she was pregnant. She ran over to see her at the old ball park they used to hang out at. She didn't know what to do about this pregnant Jess, but she knew she needed to be there, if only to listen to her sob, something she couldn't do over the phone from her house without her parents noticing.
Jess was early with everything. She stopped looking like a little girl long before anyone else in their class. He body changed over one summer to something fluid, something ill suited to run in or swim or climb fences. And Jess seemed awkward in it. She kept hiding her new curves under old boy sweaters she stole from her brother, the one who died in the war, but she still felt guilty about taking his stuff.
Jess was a genuinely good sort. She still blushed at everything dirty, and couldn't bring herself to lie with a straight face, couldn't bring herself to steal liquor and no one ever asked her to. But she was always there, tugging along with her to every overnight gathering, so Cassie never had to walk home alone, half-drunk, or rely on some boy to take her.
And now she was waiting for her to talk her out of being pregnant or if that wasn't an option and she was irrevocably pregnant, talk her out of feeling helpless and sad, only she didn't know how to do any of that. Sandra might know or her mom, but she hadn't talked to or seen Sandra in three years and she couldn't tell her mum. Mum, who was always fawning over everything Jess did or said. Mum, who spent half her awake time wishing Cassandra would magically turn into Jess by association, by being around her all the time. That she'd pick up all the Jess goodness, like a virus, and then mum would have at least one child to be proud of.
She saw her before she could think of anything to say, and far too late to fall back into the shadows of the trees. Jess looked flushed. She was sitting, primly enough, on a wooden bench in the old bleachers, legs crossed, hair flowing just right. It always did that, even at their sleepovers, her hair fell in these soft light brown waves around her face. Nothing stuck out any which way, like Cassandra's.
"Hey Cassie," - a sob, "I think I'm going to kill myself..." Jess whispered and smiled at her, but her eyes were wet and reddish at the rims. She'd been crying, there was no mistaking it. She meant the kill herself part too. Jess never joked about serious stuff, and this was definitely serious. She hugged her close, smelling her shampoo, rose petals and lavender, wiping the tears from her face, holding her for as long as she could without having to say something.
She hugged her for so long that night that all the stars changed their places, and all the birds, even the nocturnal ones stopped making their racket, and then she
let her go. She didn't know what one could do if they were pregnant already to suddenly not be pregnant anymore. There was no cure for that.
She walked her home the long way, by the canal, and then through the bad part of town, almost hoping to run into a group of thugs to take her mind of the thing making her friend so unbearably sad now, but all was quiet. She waited for her to go inside, and stood by her front door until she saw the light go on in her small upstairs bedroom, one she used to share with the now dead brother. She threw a tiny nothing of a pebble at her window, and waved at the dark silhouette, and then walked home, slowly, thinking of something to say to her tomorrow at school.
She almost had it, that something when she opened the door to her small house. She could help Jess fix this. And then she saw her mother hovering over a teapot at the stove. Her mother was making bloody tea at four twenty two in the morning, if the clock on the stove was right. Her mother, who hardly ever made tea anymore, was scalding the pot and carefully measuring out two teaspoons of dark leaves, and putting her hands around the now brewing pot in that way she had, as if the heat didn't bother her at all.
She knew something was wrong, her mother did. She also knew that she couldn't make Cassie tell her. So she made tea and set out two cups, remnants of their old life, when tea cups were still more pretty than useful, and they sat there quietly sipping their tea out of tiny and easily breakable porcelain cups until the pot was drained.
She wanted to tell her about Jess, but it wasn't her secret to tell. And maybe she didn't need to. She almost thought of a way to fix it anyway. It just had to wait until tomorrow, and maybe, maybe all of this would be okay, and she'd have her not crying Jess back, the easy to make laugh, gullible Jess, the knew-all-her-secrets Jess.
Escape (Alliance Book 1) Page 6
