“I think I know somebody who is about your size,” he says. “I'll see if I can find her. Be back in a while.”
He passes Mardy on his way out.
“They removed the IV!” Mardy says. “That's a good sign, isn't it?”
I grimace, lightly touching my arm where the needle was, now wrapped in a stretchy blue fabric. “Gemma says I can walk around the shelter a little bit.”
Mardy acts nervous, her eyes darting around the room without really settling on anything. “Well, that's good news. It means you're getting better, right?”
“Yeah. We’ll be able to get out of Dupont soon.”
Mardy looks uncomfortable, shuffling her feet and rubbing her fingers together.
I give her a stern look. “What's the matter? What aren’t you telling me?”
Mardy shakes her head and gives me a trembling smile. “Nothing. It's just that—”
“Spit it,” I snap. “You might as well. I'm going to find out sooner or later anyway.”
Mardy takes a deep breath and perches at the bottom of my bed. I move my feet over to make room for her. She swallows hard. Staring down, I notice that she’s wearing new boots, ones with no holes in them. Her clothes are new too—maybe not brand-new, but at least they aren’t full of holes and covered in dirt, like what she used to wear.
“I know that you think we ought to leave,” Mardy begins, her voice quaking just a little. There’s a long pause, and I wait for her to gather courage to speak. “But I like it here. They're teaching me things, making me feel useful.”
“What do you mean, useful?” I asked carefully.
Mardy shrugs, but I can tell it matters more to her than she’s letting on. There’s another long pause in which I study her more carefully. She has the fine features Mother had—at least, I think she does. I don't remember my mother’s face very well anymore. I've forgotten so much of what I used to know.
Mardy has always been thin, even thinner than I am, as though her extra height was achieved by stretching her out. Her long hair hangs around her face, hiding most of it. The skin seems discolored along one side, though I can’t be sure. She keeps that side away from me. I can see the bones in her fingers as she rubs them together.
“They’re ... they’re teaching me how to defend myself.”
“Defend yourself? You mean, fight?”
Mardy simply nods. I suddenly feel as though I’m choking. I struggle to sit up straighter, ignoring the stab of pain the movement sends through my broken arm.
“What does Lucio think he’s doing? You’re only twelve years old! Too young to learn how to fight—too young to need to fight!”
She cowers back against the footboard of the bed. “Don’t yell at me,” she protests.
I clamp down on my anger, speak more calmly, but the emotion threads through my words like a raging river. “That's why we have to get out of here. I'm the scav so you don’t have to be.”
“I knew you’d act like this! That's why it took me so long to tell you.” Mardy gets up, pacing back and forth on the other side of my bed. Her face has turned bright red. She doesn't look at me. “What about what I want, Caelin? I told you over and over again that you should let me help scavenge. Between the two of us, we could find a lot more than you can by yourself. But you never let me! You don't think I can do it, but I can! Lucio thinks I can! He's going to make me a soldier in his army.”
I struggle to push the covers away from me, swing my feet off the bed to the floor. “A soldier? What do you mean, a soldier? You’re not meant to be a soldier in somebody's army. Besides, we don't know anything about Lucio.”
“You don’t know anything about him!” Caelin retorts, finally turning to face me. Her skin flushes even darker, and I can see a bruise standing out along the side of her face. The sight of it tears me up inside. “You’ve been sitting in here for a week all by yourself. I’ve been learning. Lucio has a plan, and it’s a good one. He’s going to take care of everybody in D.C., not just the Undercitizens.”
I have to catch my balance against the chair pushed into the desk as I stumble toward her. My anger is draining me of what little energy I have to begin with. “We don’t know what he’s going to demand as payment for all the expensive care he’s given us! Nobody is this generous out of the pure goodness of their hearts, and I can tell you right now, we’re not going to give him whatever he asks for.” Who does Lucio think he is? He has no right to mess with our lives this way.
Mardy’s expression is more determined than I’ve ever seen it. “You're not my mother, Caelin. You can't stop me from being strong. I'm not going to stay behind anymore.”
Her words sting. “You don’t even remember Mother! I’m the one who's taken care of you since you were three years old! I promised Mother, every time she and Papa went topside, that I would watch out for you. I’m going to keep that promise, Mardy, whether you want me to or not.”
Mardy huffs out a breath and turns her back to me.
I sink down wearily onto the bed, my anger spent. “Don't you see, Mardy?” I plead. “You and me, we’re all we have left. Mother is gone. Papa is gone. If we don't look after each other, we’ll be alone.”
A heavy silence falls between us. My right hand is trembling where it holds me upright against the bed. I want to collapse, but I don't let myself fall—not until I get Mardy's promise that she’ll stay with me.
Finally, Mardy speaks. Her voice is low and strangled. “You don’t get it, Caelin. That's exactly what I'm asking for—that we look after each other. It’s not just you looking after me. I want you to give me a little credit for once.”
Without turning around, she walks out of the room.
CHAPTER 9
An hour later, I’m still stewing over my argument with Mardy when Hudson brings a girl into my room. She has dark skin, a little bit lighter than Gemma's, but her hair is black. It flies away from her head in millions of kinky little curls. Her face looks thin and stretched inside the halo of hair. She wears blue jeans and an off-white tank top under a blue sweater open at the front. She looks about the same build as me, though I think she’s taller. She carries an armload of clothes.
“Caelin, this is Ryanne,” Hudson says. He thrusts a small cup into my hands containing the white pills he’s been trying to get me to take for a couple of days. “Swallow your iodine and your antibiotic, and then you can go with Ryanne to have a look around.”
I frown down at the little pills.
“Caelin,” Hudson says with a warning tone, “you promised Doc.”
I roll my eyes at him, but put the pills on my tongue and take the glass of water with my good hand. I'm not used to swallowing pills, and I don't like the feel of them going down my throat, but I have to get better so Mardy and I can get out of here and back to our own lives.
Ryanne comes forward, dropping the clothes on the floor at the foot of my bed. “Hudson thinks we're about the same size,” she says. I notice that her eyes twinkle when she smiles. She's probably a little younger than I am, somewhere between Mardy and me. She begins picking through the clothes, holding them up critically against me. “Yep. I think red is your color.” She tosses a deep maroon shirt and a gray pair of pants on the bed, along with a pair of low shoes that don’t have laces. “Put these on, and then I'll take you on the grand tour.”
Ryanne turns to leave the room. Hudson is still bustling around at the desk.
“Hudson?” she says. He turns to her with a question in his expression, and she gives him a meaningful look, then tips her head toward me.
“Oh! Sure. You get changed, Caelin. Ryanne will be waiting for you just outside the door.”
They both leave the room, closing the door behind them, and I feel a sense of gratitude toward Ryanne for recognizing that I need my privacy. That's something Gemma and Hudson don't seem to consider very important. I begin to think that Ryanne could be my friend.
Now that they’re gone, I carefully get out of bed. The carpet feels soft and u
nfamiliar as it squishes up between my toes. I've gotten up for short periods of time ever since I first woke, usually with Hudson's help, simply to walk around the room. It’s strange to be getting up by myself this time, but I feel strong enough. The food here is unlike anything I've experienced since I was a child. Soups and casseroles filled with good vegetables and bits of meat, thick slices of bread, and even eggs. I wonder where they cook all this. I hope Ryanne will show me on the tour.
I have to sit to pull the pants on and to keep myself from falling over. They’re made of a cotton material, more flexible than jeans and easier to pull on with only one arm. I’m impressed once again at Ryanne’s sensitivity. I manage to get the pants up. They have an elastic waist, so I don't have to navigate buttons and zippers.
The shirt is harder. After a couple of tries that leave me wincing and sore, I realize that I have to put my left arm through the hole first, then pull the stretchy material down over my head and my left arm. Once I’m dressed, I rest on the bed for a few moments. I’m surprised at how quickly I run out of energy.
But there's one more thing I want to do. There’s a chance that I might run into the stranger on this tour who brought me here. And so I shuffle slowly into the adjoining bathroom.
Turning on the light by touching a switch on the wall is still a novelty to me. I've seen a lot of light switches in buildings topside, but none of them ever work.
I stare at myself in the mirror above the sink. Hudson brought me a comb a couple of days ago, but I found that it was pointless to use it when I was lying in bed. Anything I did with my hair always got messed up.
Now I run the comb through my hair again. It’s thin and a dull brown color that’s not nearly as pretty as Mardy’s. Now that it’s clean, though, I can see a few red highlights brought out by the bright lights above the mirror. The ends are jagged and uneven, curling slightly into my chin. I’ve always cut it myself with a makeshift knife. I never thought much before about my appearance. Most scavs look like this, and worse.
There are purple smudges under my eyes. My skin is darker than Mardy’s, thanks to my time topside, but it looks bruised and gray. Suddenly I hope I won’t run into the handsome stranger after all. Maybe when I've had a few more days to recover, I’ll look better.
I finish with the comb and rest on the bed for a few more minutes. But the thought of Ryanne waiting nags at me, so I force myself to stand and move to the door.
When I come out of the room, I enter a hallway lined with doors on both sides. The carpet is different here, flatter and a lighter color. There are more pictures on the walls, and soft lighting overhead illuminates everything. It looks vaguely familiar, though the ceiling in my memory is much higher than the ceiling here.
Ryanne is leaning against a wall, reading a small paper book. It’s missing a cover. She looks up and gives a low whistle. “Wow! You really look great!”
“There is a mirror in the bathroom,” I say with more than a little sarcasm.
Ryanne laughs. The sound is like the tinkling metal chimes I scavenged once at a house in a swanky neighborhood. I like it.
Hudson comes out of a room at the far end of the hall and hustles toward us, holding a piece of blue cloth with white straps.
“This is a sling.” I allow him to thread my arm through the cloth. He pulls the strap up over my head and fastens it around my shoulder. “It’ll keep your arm in place so you don’t have to hold it up all the time.”
Ryanne wraps something around her book and tucks it into the back pocket of her jeans, where it bulges absurdly.
“Time for the grand tour!” She slides her arm around my good one, a touch I find somewhat uncomfortable, but I don't pull away. “First, the hotel.”
She leads me down the hallway. Some of the doors are open, and I can see small rooms like mine, but crowded with extra beds.
“Hotel?” I ask.
“Yep. This is the basement of a swanky hotel topside. They’d just finished building it before the explosion. These were supposed to be the luxury rooms—really chic.” Her eyes crinkle into slits when she laughs. “I guess it was unusual to sleep underground back then.”
We pass a few people as we walk along the hallway. Everyone seems to know Ryanne. They smile and offer friendly greetings. Most are dressed in long-sleeved knit shirts or button-down cotton. They wear jeans and boots or sturdy shoes. Some have sweaters like Ryanne’s, or a jacket or vest. The clothing is so neat and clean. I wonder where they get all of these goods. Scavenge like this is rare, and I thought most of it went to the Undercity anyway.
“That’s the old elevator shaft that goes to the hotel above.” Ryanne points to a boarded-up doorway. “We collapsed it after we moved in here so there’d only be one entrance to guard.”
“My family stayed here right after the explosion.” I bite my lower lip, wondering if I should even bring this up. “It used to be a Coalition shelter.”
She gives me a sidelong look. “It was, until we took it over a couple of years ago. We take care of the people here better than the Coalition ever did, and we don’t require payment.” I’m not sure I believe that.
There are people in the rooms we’re passing now, some hooked up to IVs with bags that drip liquid into their bodies, others simply sleeping. The tiny rooms are stuffed with two and sometimes three beds. I realize with a start that I’ve had a room to myself while these people shared. I remember that Mardy said something about Lucio giving up his own room for me because there wasn’t anything else available.
Hudson passes us, entering one of the rooms and talking to a man there. He gives the man medicine in a cup, just like mine. How many people has Lucio saved from radiation sickness? Why does he do it? What does he want from them? My experience has been that people don’t do things for others without expecting something in return.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but I have to know for sure. “You’re a Duponter, aren’t you?”
Ryanne's face screws up in a funny expression of amusement. “I guess that's what everybody's calling us, but that's not what Lucio calls us. He says we're Impartialists. We want everybody to have their basic needs met, not just the privileged few who live in the Undercity.”
We come to the end of the hallway and a door that looks different from the rest. Instead of wood, it’s made of glass with a metal bar in the center. Ryanne presses against the bar to open it, and we step out into a concrete tunnel that reminds me vaguely of Lincoln Shelter. It’s long, instead of a big open room, but has the same musty odor, though not the offensive smells.
Ryanne keeps pace with my slow steps, allowing me to rest and catch my breath every few steps. I realize the real reason behind her arm threaded through mine. She’s supporting me, allowing me to keep my balance against her.
“So, Dupont Circle is up there?” I point at the high ceiling.
“Yep! Well, it’s actually back over the hotel part. These tunnels stretch for blocks in both directions. See those tracks in the center? Trolleys ran along here a super-long time ago. There’s an art gallery on the other side of the circle, but we have to walk all the way down this tunnel and back another way to get there, so I probably won’t show you that today.”
I’m starting to get a sense of how vast this place is, and my heart sinks. How will Mardy and I ever find the exit to topside?
“Lucio says he won’t take scavenge in exchange for my lodging,” I venture.
Ryanne nods. “We’re Impartialists. We want everybody to have the things they need.”
“Then why aren’t there more people down here? This place looks like it could hold at least twice as many as Lincoln Shelter.”
“Is that where you lived, you and Mardy?”
“It was the best Coalition shelter I could afford.”
Ryanne nods. “I lived there for a while myself. I was impressed that they had running water and handed out two meals a day. Most places I stayed, you couldn't get a meal at all. I ended up eating cockroaches most of the time.”
“Hopefully not live ones.”
Ryanne laughs at my joke, and I realize she never answered my original question—why Lucio doesn’t let more people into his shelter. Before I can repeat it, she leads me through another door, this one wooden.
“Most of us spend the PM in here,” she says. The tunnel has been partitioned off into sections with walls that look cruder and more hastily built than the hotel. Openings lead from one section to the next. There are tables and chairs clustered around this first room, and the enticing smell of cooking food makes my stomach growl.
“This room will fill up in a couple of hours for supper,” Ryanne explains. “We eat in shifts, since everybody can’t fit in here at once. After Doc gives you the go-ahead to get up and about more, you can eat with me during my shift.”
I nod. “I think I’d like that.”
“We brought the kitchen down here from the topside part of the hotel. Believe me, it was tough without a working elevator.” She leads me through the opening into the next partitioned section.
To the side, a half wall opens up into a space full of cooking appliances. There’s even a refrigerator. Several people move through the room, chopping vegetables at a table, stirring the contents of pots on a stove. Some look up and wave a greeting to Ryanne.
“Once you’re well enough, you’ll have kitchen duty, cooking and cleaning up. Everybody pitches in here. We all work together so everybody can get what they need.”
I think about the shelters I’ve been in before, everyone crammed into a small space, practically sitting on laps, but studiously ignoring each other. Helping out sounds like a better way to do it. I wonder if the man who rescued me believes in this philosophy.
Ryanne leads me through another opening into a narrow hallway. Small doors line the hall, but we don’t open any of them.
My mouth feels dry, but I ask the question nagging me since we left the hotel. “Do you know who brought me here?”
Ryanne gives me another sidelong look. It’s a knowing look, as though she’s guessed a secret I'm hoarding. “That would be Jate.”
Rebel Bound Page 6
