“Who's Jate?”
“Jate’s my team leader. He’s a pretty shrewd guy, but more down-to-earth than Lucio. We’ve worked together a long time.”
I feel awkward asking, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “Are you two ... attached?”
Ryanne's tinkling laughter echoes off the concrete walls, rising above the low murmur of voices from ahead. “Not like that! I was in his gang before Lucio brought us here.”
I can feel my cheeks burning, but Ryanne gives my arm a friendly squeeze. “He was on a scouting mission when he found you and your sister, looking for new recruits. You would've died if he hadn’t brought you here.”
“I thought he was Coalition when I first saw him.”
Ryanne nods. “He does look the type. But we don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with the Coalition. In fact, they’d be happy to wipe us out.” Her tone takes on a bitter note at odds with her friendly personality. “They want people like you and me to simply disappear. Scavs can’t even offer them decent stuff anymore, and I'm not sure salvage was ever worthwhile to them in the first place.” She seems to realize she’s said too much. I watch her pull the bright demeanor back on like a blanket. “Jate used to live in the Undercity. We have several former citizens here. Like them, he was kicked out for some minor infraction or another. That's how the Undercity operates. One false move, and you’re out. After Jate got topside, he formed his own gang, one of the biggest, though not even close to our numbers here. Lucio recruited him. Now Jate’s one of the team leaders.”
My breath comes shallow as I work up my courage to ask, “Is Jate around today?”
Ryanne squeezes my arm again, laughing. “He's topside, leading a raid on one of the Coalition fields in the skyscrapers.”
I feel my cheeks burning once again and curse my thin skin. But Ryanne’s laugh isn’t condescending. It feels as though she understands me.
She leans her head toward mine, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I overheard him say that he was planning to visit you once he got back.”
Her comment makes me absurdly happy and disappointed at the same time. At least I'll have longer to recover and improve my looks before I meet him.
We come to a closed door in the hall. Ryanne holds it open for me. “This is the training room.”
We walk into a large open area that takes up the entire end of the tunnel. Straight ahead is a long concrete wall, and I can see that the tunnel doubles back to the right in a new path headed the direction we just came from.
There are mats on the floor, ropes sectioning off areas. More than a hundred people are scattered throughout the room, working out. Some are squared off, fighting each other with fists and feet. Others are practicing with weapons. Instructors yell directions. The noise echoes off the concrete walls, pounding against my ears. It causes a ringing sound that I’m not sure is imagined or real.
Ryanne has to shout over the noise. “New arrivals who are healthy enough spend several hours a day here, getting into shape.”
“Shape for what?” I retort.
I’ve spotted Mardy across the room. She clumsily blocks the punches of a man with her arms. Each time Mardy misses and the blow lands, she winces. Her face is a mask of concentration, stray wisps of hair sticking to the sweat streaming down her face.
“I told you,” Ryanne says, “everyone here does their part. They all contribute in whatever way is needed. You can’t contribute if you’re sickly and weak.”
I frown. “But I don't think it's right to train children to fight.”
Ryanne follows my eyes and nods toward Mardy. “You want her to be able to defend herself, don't you?”
“I'm the scav, not Mardy.”
“Oh, I get it.” Ryanne lets go of my arm and turns to regard me. Her expression becomes stern. “You're trying to protect her. But what happens when you don't come back one day? What happens if Mardy can’t take care of herself, and you’re not around?”
Her questions make my insides squirm. My world is turning upside-down, and I feel dizzy and disoriented.
“I'm tired,” I say, turning away from the room where Mardy fights, where she’s being indoctrinated into a group I don’t fully understand or believe in. “Take me back, please.”
CHAPTER 10
The long walk with Ryanne wears me out. I sleep more than I ever have before, clear through the AM and into the next PM. I am somewhat aware when Hudson comes in and out of the room, but he does little to disturb me. Gemma said sleep is the best thing for me right now. That, and taking my medicine.
Once I finally wake up, I’m groggy. I eat my lunch slowly from the tray on my lap. Mardy fiddles with her mosaic on the table next to me. She says she’s doing a portrait this time, but she won’t tell me who it is.
Lunch today is some type of soup, loaded with vegetables and a little meat, a far cry from the watery stuff they served at Lincoln Shelter.
I spoon up a piece of light, tender meat from the soup. It’s a novelty to have a spoon. “What do you think the mystery meat is?”
“It’s chicken,” Mardy says absently. “Keldon told me. They have a pen of birds they keep down at the other end of the tunnels.”
I pop the morsel into my mouth, savoring the thought that I don’t have to eat bugs for once. “And who is Keldon?”
For some reason, her cheeks color slightly under the freckles. “He’s a tech assistant. He helps fix the electronic stuff.”
Before I can quiz her more about Keldon, there’s a sharp rap on the door. Hudson doesn’t wait for me to reply before opening it. I’m getting used to his disregard for my privacy. He’s even come into the bathroom if he hears that I’m vomiting. At least in Lincoln Shelter, I could throw up by myself in peace. Not that I get nauseated very much anymore. Gemma’s medicine seems to be working.
“You have a visitor,” Hudson says a little too cheerfully. “And here’s your medicine. You thought I forgot, didn’t you?”
He hands me a small clear cup with the white pills inside. I wonder why he likes to deliver the medicine this way. I reach for my glass of water, but my hand freezes when another person comes to the doorway and stops, looking around the room.
His face has haunted my dreams ever since I woke up in this place. It’s a nice face, the jawline clearly defined in strong angles under more than a day’s growth of stubble. He has the fair skin of most people who spend their time below, those who aren’t dark like Ryanne and Gemma. I wonder at that. I know he’s spent time topside since that’s where I first encountered him, but the radiation leaking through the ash cloud doesn’t seem to have affected him.
As he enters the room, I jerk upright. The tray on my lap teeters precariously. Hudson grabs it. I start to set the pills on the tray as he pulls it away, but he gives me a sharp look. Rolling my eyes, I toss them into my mouth and wash them down quickly.
Mardy stands, knocking half her mosaic to the floor, ruining the picture. “Oh! Hi!” Her face is so bright it practically glows.
“Hi.” When he smiles, his eyes are reduced to slits inside the horde of lashes, hiding the intense blue of his pupils. “Sorry to interrupt. Can I come in?” He looks at me expectantly, and I nod.
Hudson coughs to cover an escaped laugh, and I wish I was strong enough to kick him. He ducks out of the room with my half-finished tray.
“I’m Jate,” the newcomer says. His voice is mellow, a soothing baritone. “I brought you here the other day.”
“I know.” It takes me two tries to get the words out. My voice doesn’t want to work.
“My sister’s name is Caelin.” Mardy gives me a look as though reprimanding me for my lack of manners.
“And you’re Mardy, right?”
She beams. “You found out my name!”
“Ryanne told me. What are you making?” Jate steps a little closer and examines Mardy’s mosaic.
She starts to put some of the pieces back into place with a finger. “It’s a face.”
“A
nyone I know?”
She shrugs.
“Well, maybe I can figure it out when you’re finished.” He holds out a round object to me on the palm of his hand. “I brought you something.” It appears to be some kind of fruit or vegetable. It’s a reddish color mixed with yellow, a little shriveled.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s an apple. I think it’s the first tree fruit they’ve been able to produce since the explosion. I want you to have it.”
I take it from him gingerly, turning it over in my good hand and examining it. I remember apples. This doesn’t resemble it much. “Is it safe to eat?”
He laughs, a throaty, robust sound. “With the buffers they keep over the fields, it should be. It’ll probably go bad and start to smell if you keep it too long.”
I don’t want to ask where he got the fruit. I still haven’t decided how I feel about the Duponts taking food from Coalition fields.
“So, how are you doing? Is Doc treating you well?”
I shift a little, sitting up straighter in my bed. “I’m doing okay.”
“Hudson has to threaten to get her to take the medicine,” Mardy supplies all too helpfully. I glare at her.
“Well, you obey Hudson and Doc, and you’ll be back home in no time.”
I frown. Unlike Lucio, Jate seems to expect that I’ll leave as soon as I’m well enough.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I say.
“It was either that or watching you die on the street. I don’t enjoy watching people die.”
I pick at a loose string on the blanket, focusing hard on it until I can work up the courage to ask, “Why were you following me?”
Mardy looks at me, then back at Jate. “You were following her?”
Jate seems taken aback by the question. He shifts his feet, rubbing a hand on the side of his jeans. “I wasn’t following you exactly. You just ... you caught Lucio’s attention. He wanted me to keep an eye on you.”
“You were with Lucio, that PM at the apartment.” The revelation leaves me gaping at him. Jate must have been the shadow in the background. “Did you see everything that happened?”
He moves his hand to the back of his neck, disturbing the dark curls that fall almost to his shoulders. “Three scavs attacked you, but you didn’t just roll over and take it. You fought back. You didn’t give up.”
I see Mardy’s eyes bulging, her body tensing with fear for me. I hasten to tell her, “They just wanted my stash, then they ran off.”
“They left you alive because they thought you were dangerous enough to hurt them,” Jate says. “You weren’t worth the risk. Nobody can afford doctors anymore.”
Nobody but Lucio, apparently. “But you followed me again the next day,” I stubbornly accuse him.
“Lucio wanted me to bring you in, but you were with that shady character. I thought maybe you’d need some backup. I was right.”
Mardy’s expression has turned dark with anger. “Torres tricked us,” she snaps. “He and that other man just wanted Caelin to do all the work. Then they stabbed her.”
I swallow hard, picking at the thread again. “Thanks for keeping those scavs from finding me.”
“You ran off before I could help you. By the time I found you again, you’d walked halfway across the city.”
Hearing it all from his perspective makes me realize just how stupid I was to trust Torres. I’m a scav. I should’ve known better than to rely on a stranger like that, whether he rescued my jacket from the toilet or not.
“Don’t feel bad,” Jate says. He seems to guess my thoughts, and I wonder that my expression is so transparent. “He promised you something you needed, right? That’s usually the way it works.”
I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice. “Well, people don’t give things out for free. There’s always a price, always a catch one way or another.”
I watch him carefully to see how he’ll react to this. Will he be like Lucio, insisting that our stay here will cost us nothing? Or will he tell me the truth?
He studies me for several long moments until I squirm. I didn’t comb my hair today. I’m probably a mess.
His voice is quiet when he finally replies, “Everybody needs something. It’s to our mutual advantage to trade.” He turns toward the door, breaking the intensity of his gaze. “I’ll let you work on your art project. I need to make a report to Lucio.”
“You mean, you only just got back?” Mardy seems reluctant to let him go.
There’s a twinkle in his eye as he looks over his shoulder at me, and I notice a dimple in one cheek I hadn’t seen before. “I thought I’d better deliver that apple before it shrivels up and blows away.”
“Thank you,” I stammer. “For the apple, I mean.” I bite my lower lip. “And for bringing me here. For saving my life.”
He raises one slender dark eyebrow at me. “Don’t thank me quite yet, not until you know how it all pans out.”
His words send questions flying through my brain. With a quick wave, he leaves the room before I can voice any of them.
“I haven’t seen him since he brought us here,” Mardy says breathlessly. She returns to placing white plastic pieces into her mosaic. “I guess he’s pretty busy, being a team leader and all that.”
“Ryanne told me he would come.” I’m examining the apple again, rubbing a thumb across its shriveled waxy surface. It has little pockmarks in it, with a dark spot on one side. But I’m impressed with Jate’s gift, that he came here to visit me first before reporting to Lucio.
“You should’ve warned me,” Mardy says, patting at her braid.
“Well, I forgot.”
“You forgot?” Mardy gives me an incredulous look.
I shrug. “Ryanne wore me out yesterday. I’m tired.”
Mardy instantly becomes contrite. “I’m sorry, Caelin.” She touches my good arm briefly. “Hopefully you’ll regain your strength soon now. Doc should be back in a few days. By then, maybe you’ll be ready to get out more.”
I hope she’s right. Jate’s words have made me more determined than ever to get out of here as soon as we can.
CHAPTER 11
I spend the next week sitting in my room, sleeping, looking through a book Hudson brought me one day. There aren't very many pictures, and I can't decipher the words, so I mostly just flip the pages, wondering at the paper that was used to create this thing.
I go on a daily walk with Mardy, but we never leave the hall of the hotel. We avoid the topic of her training, even though I notice new bruises blossoming on her face and arms occasionally. She talks endlessly about how amazing life is here, how much easier and more comfortable than it was in Lincoln Shelter. She tells me the stories of the books she’s reading. They have a small library here, with a handful of real paper books scavenged from topside. She’s thrilled to have more than one choice of reading material.
Ryanne also visits me daily. Her cheerful attitude is a welcome relief from the boring routines of my day. I’ll miss her, when Mardy and I finally get out of here.
Sometimes, I find myself thinking this shelter isn’t so bad, that maybe we should stay here, after all. It’s certainly better than Lincoln Shelter, and probably almost as good as the Undercity. But then I remember the price. Jate as good as told me there would be one. My stomach clenches into knots every time I try to figure out what it might be.
Three meals a day are becoming routine, and I imagine my face is filling out more when I look into the mirror in the bathroom. I think that I’ll soon be as fat as Hudson. When I tell him that, he laughs.
Most of the food is good, although I can’t choke down the mush they call oatmeal. It’s too much like what they served in Lincoln Shelter.
One PM, I’m crouched by the side of the bed, sliding a leftover potato from my dinner up under the bedframe next to the apple. I hope this food will last long enough to feed us once Mardy and I get out of here.
There’s a knock. I jump and scramble to get back into bed, bu
t Hudson is already walking in. He gives me a curious glance, but doesn’t say anything about it. It occurs to me that maybe he’s seen patients stashing food before.
He has a big grin on his face that makes him look like an overgrown kid. “There's somebody here to visit you!”
My heart starts to pound. I haven’t seen Jate since he gave me the apple a week ago. I’ve been careful to comb my hair every day just in case he showed up. But the visitor isn’t Jate.
Lucio strides in with a benign smile. Disappointment stabs me.
“Hello, Caelin. How are you today?” he asks.
“Okay, I guess.” I glare at Hudson as he hands me another pill. I could swear he’s giving me extra just to torture me.
“I'm so glad to hear it!” Lucio says with a wink. The tiny lines at the corners of his eyes deepen when he smiles.
“Her radiations levels are way down,” Hudson reports. “And her wound is healing well. No more sign of infection. It’ll be a few more weeks until she can get that cast off, but it doesn’t seem to hurt her as much as it did.”
“I've heard from Gemma,” Lucio says, coming up to the foot of my bed. I bend my knee, thinking that he’ll touch my foot again, but he doesn't. “She says that you’re ready to be moved.”
“Then you can finally get your room back,” I say.
“I don’t regret offering you my quarters. It warms my heart to see you recovering.” He leans over conspiratorially and lowers his voice to a false whisper. “But it is getting rather tedious, sleeping with Deice. He snores.”
Hudson chuckles, and I wonder who Deice is. Lucio doesn’t explain.
“We’ll put you in more permanent quarters with your sister. Hudson, would you be good enough to make the arrangements?”
Nodding, Hudson scurries from the room, leaving me alone with Lucio. I watch him carefully as he pulls the chair from the desk up to my bed. He’s one of the few visitors to do this. It feels like a friendly gesture, as though he cares about my comfort. But I school myself to be wary, to remember Torres.
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