It made sense now. I knew what it was like to need the warmth of a stranger— that weird necessity that was only about survival and not about awkward implications. Survival was intimate in a different way— a purer way, and personal space took on new meanings in this world. No matter how much I distrusted someone, I could always trust in their warmth. I didn’t know this boy’s name, but, when it came down to it, his heat was universal. We all have in us an energy that can light fires in the coldest of situations.
I knew it now, but I didn’t know it then.
I wish I had.
Xavi helped me re-dress. He tugged the beanie cap over my tangled hair and pulled up the hood of my jacket. It was all so surgical that I didn’t think to blush. A part of me wanted it to be different— wanted a reason to blush— wanted him to look at me like he did under the canopy that day we met Randolf, but that was so far gone it wasn’t worth thinking about.
“Randolf? You awake?” he yelled out to the other tent as he unzipped ours. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but the air suggested it may as well have been. The cold front had been unexpected and terrifying, and luck had not been on our side. Train after train had passed us by— none of them slow enough to hitch onto. But I felt hopeful about today. Today had to be different. I could just feel it.
I stepped out into the sting after Xavi, and wished we were still wrapped up in the sleeping bags. “Randolf! Rise and shine, buddy. Let’s get out of this hell-hole before it gets worse,” Xavi continued.
But silence dripped off the old man’s tent like blood running cold.
“Randolf?” Xavi asked, but I knew without needing to know.
I didn’t want to see, but I watched anyways, as Xavi unzipped Randolf’s tent.
Later, when Xavi began to dig through Randolf’s pack, I protested. We could at least leave his things be. Besides, what if he woke up? But I knew that was just a fantasy. Death looked blank in ways life did not. “It’s the Bond of the Vagabond,” Xavi answered my thoughts. “He’d want you to have it.”
I held the pack in my hands and felt a volley of shivers that had nothing to do with the cold. I knew Randolf wouldn’t have taken offense. He’d have wanted me to take it so that I had one instead of none. We took his synth-e-down vest too. It was entirely too big on me, but I wore it like a memory. His boots were too small for Xavi, so we left those. There was money in his pocket, and Xavi also took his belt. “Can never have too many of these. Good for strapping things together,” he explained as he began to pull Randolf from the tent. The old man was too heavy, and I had to help carry him. The weight of his body was different— like life existed only to add a bit of buoyancy to a body.
He must have died in his sleep, because his eyes were closed. He almost looked peaceful as we set him up under the tree.
“I should have known,” Xavi whispered. “He’d stopped shivering. I should have known that was a bad sign and not a good one! Hypothermia.”
Seeing Xavi cry poured molten hot guilt into my veins. It pounded against me harder than the cold, and I searched for any excuse not to break down as Xavi packed up.
Xavi inventoried what was left of Randolf: things that could never add up completely to who Randolf was. A tent to trade. An extra sleeping bag. Money. Food. A compass. A water purifier.
And the picture. A little girl and a small woman. Names were written under each face. Lilly. Margaret. I knew they too were dead. Xavi put the picture in Randolf’s breast pocket before folding up his jacket. “Some of this’ll be bulky to carry, but it will help keep us warm until we can trade it,” Xavi explained.
Then, he knelt down next to Randolf and said something into his ear. I didn’t know what he whispered. I didn’t know what else I could say.
We left Randolf sitting under the tree as if he were taking a nap— peaceful in ways I’d never seen him before.
And I walked away— carrying a burden I’d never known before.
The boy was startled. He crammed his body into the corner of my small tent, and looked like a trapped animal— exactly how I looked often enough not too long ago. “I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered again. His eyes darted back and forth, as if by simply touching a girl, he’d sent out some invisible beacon and the Militia would find us.
“I’m pretty sure we have bigger worries. I’m sorry I turned into you. I thought you were someone else.”
At that his eyes went wide and the colors bent inside of them. “You? You sleep like this often?”
“Pretty much every night.” I was starting to see why Xavi’d found me so entertaining during those first months. This guy’s reactions were priceless.
“With who?”
And there it was. Who? A great question, because as far as he knew, I was alone, and he was right. “Doesn’t matter. He’s gone.” Admitting it in words was hard. It made if final. Real. And I took the words like medicine to the heart. I acted calloused, because this stranger needed to see me that way. He needed to know that he’d be wise not to mess with or depend on me. He needed to believe that I needed no one.
I needed to believe it too.
Being ditched is a long process… and a short one. Denial makes it go on longer than needed, and I clung to what was no longer there. It made me despise, want, and disbelieve the truth, even when it was right there in the open.
The others had left without Legs.
Legs.
That’s all I could see in my head when I thought of her or looked at her.
The next few nights, Xavi insisted I sleep in the tent while he kept watch. “We’re near the Rebels, and it’s not safe here. You get some sleep, Niko.”
So, the first night, I did.
The second night, I heard her giggles.
The third night, I heard the moans and sighs.
The fourth day, they started laying out the rest of the hints.
But I didn’t believe any of it. I wasn’t a Vagabond at heart. I didn’t know what it meant to move on. I didn’t know how to un-suture my heart when I had tethered it to another.
So my denial forced them to have the awkward conversation. They spelled it all out for me, and I picked up the hints then.
“You can come if you want,” translated to, “Go. Go. Go.”
Chapter Five
The world was soggy and droopy, but the rain had stopped somewhere during the waning day. Bits and pieces of blue dappled sky poked through the trees, and I knew it’d be beautiful for the rest of the day.
What wasn’t beautiful was my stomach as it twisted in hunger. At first, I waited to eat until after I deconstructed camp. Xavi warned, once, “A tent once lost, is gone forever, but you can always eat on the run.” The boy attempted to help but only managed to get in my way. His stomach growled loudly, and I clenched my jaw in guilty annoyance. When my pack was ready to go, I still didn’t eat, because after I mentally calculated the measly provisions I had left, I was reminded I didn’t have enough to share. It was still days upon days from the next Colony on foot if I couldn’t catch another train, and why should I go hungry for the boy who’d only caused me trouble? It’d be best to ditch him and then eat.
But he followed me still. He said nothing. He hinted at nothing. He asked nothing. He just followed. And as quiet as he was, all I could hear was his stomach.
I remembered the days I first learned what it meant to be truly hungry. In the Colonies, my family wasn’t rich by any means, but I never starved. In fact, I was pudgy back then. I had a tiny muffin top and my boobs bulged out the side of my bra when my weight fluctuated up more often than down. My buttocks always stretched the limits of my jeans, and I was at my heftiest when Xavi found me. My stomach never stopped growling while Xavi would go a day with only eating a handful of nuts. His skin would stretch against his ribs, and he still wouldn’t complain. But my stomach always clambered like a toddler banging on pots and pans in the kitchen. It took me a while to learn the art of staving off hunger. Xavi had to ween me off of the growl and taught me how to use t
he fumes as extra fuel to propel me on.
This boy? He was the same. The same as me in some ways. The same as Xavi in others. Like me, his stomach roared. Unlike me, who had complained beyond measure until Xavi gave me more than I deserved, the boy remained stoic.
I didn’t want to give in. I didn’t want to share. I walked into the meadow and to the tracks without stopping. I made it as visible as possible that I wanted him to go away, but he wasn’t picking up on the hints.
Finally, I stopped and pulled off my pack to find two granola bars. I didn’t need to look to know where they were. “Even when it’s empty, fill it with nothing else,” Xavi’d explained once. “There’s a place for everything and everything has its place in your pack. Food goes in the front pouch. Nothing else. Things in the pack should feel like habits, so that, even in the dark, you can find what you need.”
I thrusted one of the granola bars to the boy, but before I let go, I warned, “It’s all you’ll get today. I don’t have much. Spread it out. Nibble. Trick your brain into thinking you ate more by eating slowly.”
“Mind over matter?” He laughed.
“Something like that.” I put the pack back on and kept walking. I decided against running, since it’d be better to conserve energy. I had to trust that the Militia had looked for us in the wrong places, and I bit into the granola bar, chewing on it as slowly as I chewed on my thoughts.
As I heard him peel back the wrapper, I had regrets. I shouldn’t have shared. What was I thinking?
“Where are we going?” He asked.
“I’m going southwest.”
“Southwest?”
“Yes.”
His voice walked behind me at the same pace he did. “Oh. I thought the Rebels stayed up north.”
“I wouldn’t know. I follow the weather.” I picked up my pace. The questions bothered me. He blew up a train, and now he wanted to know about the Rebels. Did he think I was one?
“What’s your name?” The questions kept coming.
“None of your business.”
“You don’t need to be rude,” he huffed.
The anger flared, and I turned to yell at him. “RUDE? Rude? You blew up my ride and are causing me to have to foot it to the next Colony! And who knows what type of crap-shoot you created in terms of security once I get there? Rude? Rude would be me taking that granola bar back!”
He put up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to mess up your plans, but, in all fairness, you were the one hitching a free ride on Republic property!”
The hand went back before I could stop it. I didn’t have time to consider that he was just an idiot— that he didn’t know the things I did. I didn’t even care that I was once like him, and that Xavi had never once reacted how I did in that moment.
When my fist landed on his perfect little jaw, I knew it landed hard.
“Not like that! You’ll hurt your hand. You get more leverage if you make your fist the other way.” Xavi took my hand and shook it loose. “Palms down first, then ball it into a fist.” He wrapped his giant fingers around my small ones and bent them. “Now. Throw it.”
I did.
He laughed. “Okay. A little better. Now, if you connect, you want to hit with these.” He traced my index, middle, and ring finger’s knuckles. “They have the best support from your arm and do less damage to the wrist.” His fingers were soft and rough as they moved along my arm. The way his skin grazed mine made me aware of parts of my spine I never knew existed. “Now. Watch the stance.” He stood behind me and adjusted my hips. My face and my heart were on fire, and I could barely concentrate. “Use your body. Start from the ground and rotate your whole body, because the power comes from that. Especially for you, since you’re so short. The more energy the punch gets from the body, the more damage it’ll do. Now. Try again.”
I jabbed at the air.
“Better. Again.”
“Ow. What? Ow!” The boy held his jaw and curled over and in on himself. I knew the face was a stupid target, but it felt wrong to punch a hungry idiot in the stomach, and he didn’t deserve an attack on the groin. I knew that was only for special circumstances.
I turned and walked away from the boy’s commentary. I was done being nice. I gave him a granola bar. I gave him some water. I kept him from getting caught. I kept him dry. I was done helping him.
But even my right hook didn’t deter him. He kept following.
“If you’re looking for the Rebels,” I tried. “And you think they’re north, I can point you in the northern direction.” I pointed to the left. “You can keep walking that way, and you’re bound to meet one.”
“You’re not a Rebel?”
“Do I look like one?”
“Yes.”
“Um. No.” I glanced back and witnessed him rubbing his jaw. I didn’t feel vindictive when I smiled. I’d never had to punch someone before, and I felt powerful to know I could do some damage if I had to.
“What’s southwest?” He asked.
“The connection that goes west.”
“And what’s west?”
“Beaches. Warm weather.” I sighed. The beaches. I’d always wanted to see them ever since I heard about them, but Xavi had never wanted to go.
The boy laughed. “You follow the weather?”
“Someone made honors at Institute.”
He grew quiet at that, like he finally realized he was giving himself away. If only he’d known he’d told me he was from the Colonies with everything he did. There was too much to know about being a Vagabond in order for him to blend in, and he stood out like a zebra amongst donkeys. At least the awareness shut him up. The hours passed in silence, and the quiet felt nice. It was the type of quiet that only the middle of a forest affords, and the wildlife around us spoke in languages I could never understand.
The boy was flea-like, and I couldn’t shake him no matter how much I clawed or scratched at him. I was still thinking on how to get rid of him when the rumble at my feet came. I stopped and laid my hand on the rail, and from the vibrations, I had reason to hope it’d be a freight slow enough to hop on. Freights had to travel so much slower than the other transports since they had heavier, longer loads in comparison to Military, Politician, Scientific, or Celebrity trains. This made them easier to hop onto and off of at the most random of places.
I moved into the cover of the trees and the flea followed. The dot in the distance took on the adequate shape of a train, and I felt a new hope. The boy probably didn’t know how to hop onto a moving train, and I may lose him soon enough. The engine grew large as it drew closer. I wondered how it got past the debris of the other train that had been blown up in the night, but, then again, the Republic worked fast when it came to clearing the Tracks. After all, the Tracks supported the entire infrastructure of the Colonies. The graffiti speckled boxes zipped past. It was still going faster than I liked, but I knew I’d be able to catch one since the cars stretched for miles. I stepped out of the trees and took my time to judge the momentum. As I examined the train, the boy did the same. He studied me as much as he studied the freight, and it unnerved me. He had eyes that took in everything.
And then, I saw it. The moment of truth. I began to run parallel to the metallic handle on an open door. I swung my hands out, made contact, and propelled and lifted my feet before the train yanked my upper-body off. I counterbalanced the weight of my pack with a little extra exertion and swung myself into the car. Before my eyes could adjust to the lighting, the flea followed suit. “How’d you know—?” Shock turned into annoyance because he still found a way to follow me.
I looked back into the shadows and willed my eyes to adjust to the car. There was plenty of light to see by. However, light has a way of being too bright outside in comparison to light confined to a specific space inside. It’s like looking directly into the sun then trying to read black words on a bright, white page. Every time I hop into an open boxcar, I never know what I’ll see until my eyes adjust.
“Well, I’ll be!” he said.
I swore under my breath as my eyes fully adjusted.
Roderigo.
“Don’t be an ass about it,” Xavi warned.
Roderigo glared at us. His tiny eyes became tinier still. “That’s Randolf’s pack. See that patch? I sewed it for him. He always had the clumsiest damn fingers.”
“Yes. We’ve covered that,” Xavi sighed. “And, if we hadn’t collected, it’d be lost in the wilderness somewhere. We took it under the Bond.”
Silence wrapped around the man’s brown wrinkles, and when his mouth moved, the wrinkles moved too. He spit from the side of his mouth, and brown glop flew and resonated with stench. “He’s dead, then? I don’t believe it.”
“Look, I know he was your friend. We can give you his tent for that, but she needs the pack. We aren’t going to give you all of it, and, I only offer the tent to be kind. By the Bond, we don’t have to give you—“
“By the Bond? Ha. So. If I come back and murder you in your sleep, by the Bond—“
“It wasn’t murder. We even left clothes on him and didn’t take his boots—“
“‘Cause they didn’t fit,” Roderigo spit again, and it landed on the tip of Xavi’s clownishly large feet.
Vagabond Page 5
