Moments later I was undressed and sitting on a towel on the shower floor with my legs outstretched. Mother started the water warm and slowly turned down the heat until only cold flowed. It hurt so much at first I could barely breathe, but my legs grew became numb as they adjusted to the cold. I was lucky it was a relatively warm summer evening.
As I sat there, staring at Well’s boot prints on my thighs already turning an ugly shade of black, all the happenings of the past week piled on top of each other. I started crying, deep, heart wrenching sobs from the depths of my being that hurt more than they healed.
Mother reached out uncertainly, and then awkwardly patted the back of my hand. “Come on, no need for that.”
I realised with a start that this was the first sign of tenderness she had shown me since I was twelve and had sided with my father against her.
They had been quarrelling like never before. It started with my father criticising my mother for relentlessly indoctrinating little Karen with the Founders’ teachings, ruthlessly suppressing her questions and doubts. It had quickly descended into a shouting match where Mother brought up slights from the past. With tears in my eyes because of the horrid things she was saying to Father, I told her off good and proper, defending his point of view. That not only ended the argument, but also my relationship with my mother. She didn’t speak to me for days, and then only when she had to. We had never been close to start with, but ever since then she treated me with disdain. As though I was an outsider, not her daughter.
Chapter Twenty-One
The cold shower helped reduce the swelling, though I was still in a great deal of pain. By sundown, I decided I couldn’t spend another moment lying still, cooped up in our room. I rolled off the bed and used the wall to regain my feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mother asked when I opened the door. She was sitting on the chair, using her sewing kit to repair the hem of an old dress.
“Downstairs to look for Sofia.”
“Out of the question! What if those two hoodlums are still in the building?”
“I’m sure they’ve got better things to do than watch us all day and night.”
“Elder Daughter–” She laid the dress aside and stood.
“I’ll be fine, Mother!” I spoke much more strongly than intended and shuffled out the door.
I hobbled for the elevator, clenching my jaw with each step because it felt like someone was hammering nails into my thighs every time I put my foot down. I hoped I could walk tomorrow, otherwise I would not go to work, and if I didn’t, that would compound the situation. No work, no money, and more ‘messages’ from Deacon.
My thoughts strayed back to last Thursday and my aborted escape attempt. If I’d gone through with it, I wouldn’t be in this situation now, battered, bruised, and afraid of what tomorrow could bring. I was tempted yet again to make another escape attempt, but angrily thrust it aside. I would not abandon my mother and sister.
A dozen people were in the foyer, watching an old movie from a few decades ago. As with most films made here, it was corny, second rate, and contained a poorly disguised attempt to indoctrinate us in the Founders’ ways. I hoped Sofia was here. I needed a kindred soul to share my woes with, but alas, there was no sign of her.
Having no desire to watch the movie, I cracked open the front door and sat on the front steps. I noticed the shelter’s gates were locked. It was night now, punctuated by the chirp of crickets and screech of fruit bats. I found it somewhat refreshing.
A furtive movement to my left caught my attention. Straining my eyes in that direction, my mouth dropped open in shock when I recognised the outline of the person squatting beside the man-high rubbish hopper outside. A person wearing baggy clothes and a sports cap.
Brandon!
As I hobbled across the front yard to meet him, I waged an internal war to whether I should hug him or shoot him.
“Where the blazes have you been!” I whispered angrily when I reached the bin. Looked like I was going for the shoot him option.
He came closer, clearly concerned by the sight of me limping towards him. He looked terrible – gaunt, filthy, and pale. Like he hadn’t eaten or slept for a week.
“What’s going on, Chelz? Why are you limping? What are you even doing here? I popped home tonight to see you, but the flat’s empty and a sign on the door told me to come here. How did this happen? Where’s all our stuff? What’s Father done now?” he whispered. Thanks to our enhanced hearing, we might be the only two people in town who could hold a conversation below everyone else’s hearing range.
“I asked where you’ve been, Brandy!”
“Sorry, Sis, I needed time alone. Got some things I have to work through.” Looking at Brandon was like looking in a mirror. Similar face, same colour hair, similar mannerisms and expressions.
“Whatever you’re dealing with, snap out of it and pull yourself together! We need you!”
“I would if I could, Sis, but I can’t face anyone. Not Younger Sister, not Father, and most definitely not Mother.”
“Can’t you at least go back to work?”
“Can’t face them either,” he said, looking down.
“Is this something to do with Dan Smith?” I asked.
His head shot up. “What do you know about that?”
“Just that he was killed in an accident the day you went all mysterious on us and disappeared.”
He looked away again. The wind whistled through the evergreen trees that lined the edge of the property.
“Are you too afraid to go back to work? Was there a failing of workplace safety procedures that lead to Dan’s death? Are you afraid this could happen to you?” I asked.
He shook his head, his expression pained.
“Are the others bullying you? Blaming you for the accident? Come on Brandy, give me something!”
“It’s nothing like that!” he said.
“But it’s got something to do with Dan, yeah?”
He nodded.
“Brandy...”
“Sorry, Chelz, I can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.”
I sighed in exasperation. “At least tell me where you’ve been. I know you haven’t been staying with your forager friends.”
That got me another look. “Somewhere no one will find me – a basement under an abandoned house. Now tell me why you’re in this place and why you’re limping.”
Against my better judgement, because I wanted to keep badgering him until he answered my questions to my satisfaction, I told him everything that happened since he ran off, including my efforts to impersonate him and go out foraging. His gaunt face went through a whole gamut of expressions, anger, shock, despair, rage, and finally defeat.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I wanna find those two guys and kill ‘em – slowly – but I...I just can’t deal with it right now. Sorry.” He looked at me apologetically, hoping I’d understand.
I looked at his sallow face and the way his baggy clothes hung loose on his lean frame.
“I can see that.” I took his calloused hands in mine. “But you gotta eat, okay? And I mean properly. Get your strength back pronto, and then you’ll be able to think more clearly.”
“I’m trying, but I can’t keep it down.”
“You sick?” I placed a palm on his forehead, expecting to find him burning up with fever. But no, his skin was cool to the touch.
“Chelz, I know you’re trying to help by foraging, but you gotta stop, okay? It’s too dangerous. And I don’t just mean the Skel. There’s other things out there far more dangerous. And then there’s the Custodians. If they catch you masquerading as me, you’re gonna be in a world of pain. Those prison factories are no place for an innocent girl like you.”
“I’m done being smothered by this place’s rules and regulations, Brandy. I’m just as capable as you guys, and you know it.”
My brother sighed. “Just as capable, yes, but also dangerously naive. You’ve been in my sh
oes for what, one week? All it’s gonna take is one small slip up and it’s over. You hearing me?”
“I’m the one who took down a Skel and saved the team, Brandy. Not Con, Matt or Jack – even with their years of experience.”
“I don’t doubt your ability, Sis, but stuff’s going down, dangerous stuff that you don’t want to stumble across or get involved in.”
“Stop speaking in riddles and tell me what you’re talking about!”
“I can’t!” He gave me that frustrated look he did when I wouldn’t cooperate. “Now please, stop masquerading as me.”
“Newsflash, we need to eat and pay off Father’s gambling debt. Go back to work and I’ll quit.”
Brandon reached into his pocket and pressed several notes into my hands. “This is all I’ve got on me today. Don’t put it in your room. Hide it somewhere no one will think to look, okay?”
“You got much more? Enough to pay off the eight weeks rent we owe?” I asked, suddenly hopeful. If he did, maybe we could move back to our flat and get away from this hole.
“I’ve got more back at the basement, but not enough to pay off the rent.” He paused and searched my eyes, trying to reach a difficult decision.
“What?”
“Father stole the rest. At least I think he did. I mean, I never saved that much in the first place, but I hid over a thousand in my bedroom. It disappeared a couple of weeks ago,” Brandon said.
“Did you confront him about it?”
“He denied it was him.”
A terrible, insidious thought suddenly flashed into my mind. “Did you have drugs in your room too?”
His eyes widened, and he nodded, clearly ashamed. “Ah, yeah. They disappeared with the money.”
“A dozen white pills in a plastic packet?” I asked.
He nodded. “Wait, are those are the drugs Father had? The ones they arrested him for?”
“So they weren’t his at all?” My mind worked frantically through the implications of what that meant. “So why were they under his bed? Why did he tell the Custodians they were his?”
“Maybe he hid them to stop me using them, and then owned up to them to stop me taking the fall?”
“You didn’t dob him in to the Custodians, did you?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Don’t be daft, Chelz! Why would I do that?” He was genuinely shocked by my accusation.
“So who tipped off the Custodians then? I don’t get it. Who else could have known he had your drugs under his bed?” I was even more baffled than I had been before.
“Mother?”
I shook my head. “No way. She can’t stand the sight of him, but she wouldn’t cut off the family’s only breadwinner just to spite him.”
“I don’t know, he was giving Mother less and less money all the time. Maybe she got sick of it.”
I thought of my mother and her shocked reaction when they found the drugs under his bed. I was sure it wasn’t her. “I don’t believe it.”
“You’re going to keep impersonating me, aren’t you? Regardless of what I say?” Brandon asked a moment later.
“Until you come back to work, I don’t have any choice.”
I could tell he wanted to come back so I didn’t have to, but he just couldn’t face it. “Okay. Look, I’m sure you’ll be fine, you’re just as capable as me–”
“Just as?”
“Okay, probably more so. Certainly more motivated. Just keep your wits about you, and don’t get involved with Con and the others. Keep them at arm’s length. I’ll let you know as soon as I can return to work. Okay?”
“Got it. We’re in Room 505 on the fifth floor, by the way.”
Brandon nodded and gripped my shoulder. “I’d better go before someone sees me. Thanks for stepping up and looking after Mother and Karen.”
I wrapped my arms around him, noticing how much less there was of him. “Thanks. Now go and eat something. If you can’t eat much at a time, nibble all day. Get your strength back!”
He returned the hug, scaled the fence, and was gone. I listened for the slightest evidence of his footfalls outside in the street, but got nothing. He was like a ghost!
I hobbled back into the building, wondering how Mother would react to the news that Brandon finally turned up but was in no condition to help us. One good thing came out of the conversation though. I knew why he ran away now.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I had to massage the life back into my thighs just to be able to get out of bed when I woke. After that, I walked around the apartment, stretching as much as I was able. There was no way I was going to let those thugs stop me from going to work.
I threw down a barely nutritious meal from the kitchen downstairs and left for work an hour earlier than normal. Turned out to be a wise decision, as I had to stop frequently to rest my legs in spite of my determination to keep walking no matter how much it hurt.
In the end, I distracted myself from the near-crippling pain by replaying mother’s reaction to Brandon’s reappearance over and over in my mind. As expected, she didn’t take it well, spending hour after hour venting her frustration and anger. And not just at Father this time, but at Brandon too – the first time I recalled her doing so. Oh, and at men in general. Men were useless, unreliable, and cowards who were unable to get back on their feet when life tripped them up. I tried to stick up for Brandon, but barely got a word in edgeways.
* * *
“Whoa, Brandon, what happened to you?” Ryan asked when I hobbled into the Recycling Works. He was standing awkwardly beside Matt and Jack, with zero conversation going on.
“Tried using the stairs this morning and tripped. Got myself a whole new batch of bruises.” I spoke gruffly and snorted as though amused.
“You weren’t happy with the ones the Skel gave you?” Jack asked.
“Nah, you can never get enough of a good thing.”
“You tripped down the stairs? This from the guy who owned a Skel?” Matt stared at me sceptically.
The door to the office swung open and Con strode out. He took one look at me walking and shook his head. “I don’t even want to know.”
He clambered into the truck, got behind the wheel, and stuck his head out the window. “In case you’ve forgotten, today’s the day those idiots from the manufacturies are staging their stop-work protest. Need I remind you that we don’t want to be here when things go pear shaped.”
“Stop-work protest?” Ryan asked as he climbed into the truck.
“You didn’t hear about that?” Matt asked, all innocent like.
I forgot he wasn’t there in the Foragers’ Club that night Richardson dropped in to see us.
“Nope.”
“Well, you didn’t miss nothing. Just a bunch of twits from a factory or two trying to stir up trouble,” Con snapped. “Now quit your chatter and get in!”
Jack bounced into the truck and noticed me eyeing the step dubiously. “Need a hand, Hermie?”
“Hermie?” I gave him my best Brandon-style death stare.
“You know, for hermaphrodite,” Matt whispered loudly into my ear as he pushed past and climbed into the cab, forcing Jack aside.
“The backpack was my sisters!” So much for hoping they would forget about the sanitary pad.
“We believe you, Hermie.” Jack chuckled and hi-fived Matt.
“You two are so dead!” My face went red with embarrassment. Was I ever going to live down that minor slip up?
Ryan gave me a sympathetic smile from where he sat beside Con.
“You and whose army, Hermie?” Matt laughed.
This was going to be a long day.
Con dropped off me and Ryan in the street we worked yesterday. He whispered they had to do another shift at the lab, and then announced aloud for Ryan’s benefit that they’d work some houses a couple of streets away. After that, they drove off.
“Alone again,” Ryan grunted.
“Yep.”
He shrugged, and we got to work. The door
on the first townhouse we tried was stuck fast, so we climbed in through the shattered front window. We were in a long, narrow lounge-room with a cracked plasma-TV and sofas that used to be beige but were turning brown. The plaster walls were damp and covered by large patches of yellow and black mould that stank like rotten eggs.
“This place reeks!” I held my sleeve over my nose.
“Upstairs first then?” Ryan suggested, pointing to the iron spiral staircase at the back of the room.
“Stairs?” My spirits sank, thinking of how much the climb would hurt my thighs.
“Oh, right. You supposedly took a tumble down the stairs this morning.”
“Supposedly? I did!” I tried to look offended.
“Come on Brandon, those stooges may have bought your story, but it’s got more holes in it than a leaky boat.”
“It’s no story.” I glared at him, irritated now.
He took a step closer. “You keep massaging your thighs and rubbing your side, but not your arms. That sound like injuries someone would get falling down stairs?”
“What are you, a detective?”
“I’m just concerned, that’s all. Come on, tell me what really happened.” His genuine, caring expression almost cracked my defences. I wanted to tell him the truth, but would die from humiliation if I did – he would learn about my father’s gambling habits and that we lived in the homeless shelter.
“Fell. Down. Stairs.”
“Thought we were man enough to be honest with each other.”
“Really. Let’s talk about you, then.” I stuck my chin out defiantly. Two could play this game.
“What about me?”
“What happened at your last job? Why did you quit?”
Ryan looked exasperated. “This isn’t about me, Brandon. It’s about your inexplicable injuries. Considering your history, I’m worried you may have gotten yourself into some hot water.”
“What history? What exactly are you implying?”
“Your father – the drugs? Whoever he got them from aren’t your average model citizens. They’re scum without a conscience. If you’re involved with them somehow, I can understand your reluctance to talk about it.”
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 86
