I pull away and lean against the wall. “No. I don’t want to sit down. I don’t want to get the bed wet. It’s our only place to sleep and if I get it wet, we’ll just have to wait for it to dry, or sleep with a wet blanket and I just don’t need that kind of added irritation right now.”
Reed keeps starting to say something, then stopping himself. Finally he settles on, “What can I do? What do you want?”
“I want to be able to walk down a street without being attacked. That’s what I want!” I yank on the towel, drying my face, even though my tears keep falling. “I want to be free, Reed. Free. And I’m not! I’m not free anywhere. Not in the UDR with all its controls and surveillance, and not here, where there are no laws at all, just…just barely controlled anarchy. Controlled by those who have enough wealth to protect themselves while girls like Lexie, and girls like the ones on Seventeenth, and girls who get nabbed in dark alleys—they’re the ones who suffer. I want freedom, Reed! That’s what I want. So why can’t I have it? How come a boy like you can roam free, while girls have to…have to cower in the shadows, or lock themselves inside to stay safe?”
Reed sighs. Then he moves close and touches my face, wiping my tears away with his thumb. “Because you’re desirable.”
I lift my eyes to his and see that they are red and welling. He shrugs in sad defeat. “I’m sorry, Riley, but that’s the greatest enemy of freedom: desire. When someone wants something so badly, they throw out their decency to get it and take it from someone else. So we lock our doors, we secure our accounts, and we watch over our shoulders. And you…” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Someone like you more than someone like me, suffers.”
“It’s not fair.”
“Or right, or just. But we can’t change it. Not today, anyway. It’s the world we live in—the only one we have.”
“I can’t live it behind a locked door, Reed.” I wonder how he understands me, my voice is so thick with emotion. “What kind of life is that?”
“A temporary one,” he says. “Just until we leave this city. Leave with Lexie and…”
“And what? Where do we go, Reed? We haven’t even figured that out. Do we take Lexie back to the Resistance? To hide with other enemies of the State? Do we take her from one danger to another? Will she even agree to that? If we ever figure out a way to ask her?”
He shakes his head. “No. You’re right. We can’t take her back to the fighting. It’s been something I’ve been thinking about a lot. So we take her somewhere she can carve out some semblance of freedom.”
“Where is that?”
“Where did you feel most free, Riley?”
It comes to me right away. I raise my eyes and they lock with his.
“We take her to Claire?”
“We take her to Claire.”
The idea swells around us, filling the room like light on a miserable night. It must light my eyes too, because Reed smiles for the first time since rescuing me in the alley.
“So, just keep yourself safe until then, okay? Please? I know it’s hard. I know it’s not fair, but I can’t…I can’t rescue Lexie, only to lose her little sister in the process. Imagine how that would feel for her? Please. Or for me. Because I can’t—”
He swallows hard.
“You can’t what?” I finally ask.
“I can’t survive any of this if I lose you.”
Then he kisses me.
33
Oliver
I have a sunburn on my scalp. Here’s why.
UN Inspection day is coming, so Danny takes me to the bathroom, shaves my head (nicks my ear!), orders me to shave my face, hands me a bar of soap, pushes me in the shower, and stands there watching (gross!), then gives me a crisp new uniform and clean shoes.
“Don’t I feel special?”
Danny laughs. “You’re my favorite prisoner, Oliver. But don’t tell anyone I said so.”
He prods me out the bathroom door, but we don’t turn left toward my cell. We turn right instead, and he puts me in the courtyard.
“Half hour,” he says.
“Half hour? What? Did I win a lottery?”
He snickers then locks me in.
In or out? I still don’t know.
Either way, I’ve never been sent here longer than ten minutes at a time, hence the sunburn, because as luck would have it, it was midday and the sun shone straight down on me, relentlessly.
Is that a climate-change thing? It must be. But why was I given half an hour?
I figured it out within ten minutes when I saw Kino. Twice she strode by the window wall, crossing the inside corridor. She didn’t even glance my way the first time.
She knew I was watching her not watching me.
Fine, I thought. That’s fine.
Next time she stopped just inside the door, waiting for someone else to pass through. It was another prisoner. I know this because she was dressed like me, but with shackles on her ankles and wrists. Her head was tilted forward and a line of blood trickled from her ear. She was crying too, I think. Not big sloppy sobs, but the barest tremble of her shoulders, the shine of tears on her flushed cheeks when she glanced my way. Kino didn’t watch her, though. She watched me instead, with the barest trace of a smile on her lips.
What? I wanted to ask.
It was too late by then for me to examine the prisoner more closely, to see if she’s someone I was supposed to recognize. They were already gone, swallowed up by the prison that holds me too.
I stopped pacing and closed my eyes, trying to recall what I saw. Her head wasn’t shaved, but it had been not long ago. Today it covered her skull like carpet—blond carpet. Or maybe gray. Was she one of my teachers? An official at the intake facility in Chicago where I was handed over to the UDR?
I don’t think so, but the way Kino was smiling at me, you’d think she was my mother.
She definitely was not my mother.
I paced the courtyard for another fifteen minutes before a guard came to get me—not Danny, this time—instead a super tall dude who was strangely impervious to my charm. The rest of the afternoon, I paced my cell, expecting Kino to show up.
No Kino. Just this sunburn.
Now it’s nighttime and I keep touching my scalp and wincing. You would think after being beaten and otherwise tortured so often I’ve lost count, a sunburn wouldn’t even register, but it does. Maybe because there’s nothing else to do?
Yeah, and now I’m imagining being tortured while having a sunburn, which is a kind of torture in and of itself.
Meanwhile, Jonah is humming next door. He hasn’t been talkative for the last few days, so I leave him alone as long as I can. Finally the sunburn, the incessant humming, and the memory of the woman get the best of me. I drop to my stomach and press my face against the vent.
“Jonah? Can we talk?”
34
Reed
Riley is finally drifting off. I sit on the floor by the bed, holding her hand and watching her chest rise and fall while my heart thuds inside mine. A terrifying refrain repeats in my head:
I could have lost her. I could have lost her. I could have lost her.
I wipe my hands over my eyes, wondering if I’ll ever sleep. Like, ever again.
I still feel the sting of asphalt against my palms and knees and I ache everywhere, but my head hurts most, which makes no sense except that it keeps replaying the entire attack like an internal GIF.
In my memory it all happened in seconds, from the moment I saw Riley in the distance to when she grabbed my hand and we ran from the alley, safe, but still so freaked out, I swear my heart hasn’t stopped pounding since. But it all comes back to me in slow motion too, like how I raised my hand to wave at her right when that thug grabbed her and disappeared down the alley. Riley says she didn’t slow him down at all by struggling, but I think she must have. I took off running, all while knowing I was no match for him in terms of size, strength or experience. Everything that happened next could have gone wrong. So wrong.
>
If I hadn’t been outside, watching for her to come home.
If I had been looking the other way.
If he had picked a different alley.
If that building wasn’t unlocked.
If he had gotten her to the transport faster.
If there was no fire escape.
If they had been too far from it for me to jump on them.
These are the “ifs” that plague me tonight, and as I replay everything in my head, it’s easy to imagine a whole different set of “ifs” that would have meant I was too late, too slow, or too weak to save her.
God was watching out for her. I can almost hear Xoey say it. I blink back tears, wondering if it’s true.
I could have lost her.
I eventually fall asleep, waking up when morning light filters through our dirty window. Riley is still sleeping, so I extract my hand from hers and push myself off the floor while trying to rub a crick out of my neck. I spend the next hour quietly going over our drawing of The Rose, adding details that I intended to talk to Riley about last night.
But there’s something else I didn’t have a chance to tell her. I finally managed to give the cat pin to Lexie.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity ever since Riley bought it, but there just hasn’t been one. I’m still supposed to completely avoid escorts. I know enough to take Mr. Longino seriously. I’ve been there long enough that the bouncers don’t watch me like they once did, but I still follow the rules, meaning even if I see Lexie in the salon, I can’t take any overt steps to make sure our paths cross.
And they haven’t.
My chance finally came late last night when I was bussing one of the private booths on the left side of the stage. Xoey would probably call it providence, because while I was still clearing plates, Lexie stuck her head in the booth.
“I left my scarf in there,” she said.
I stepped back and gave her plenty of space to look, but while she had her back to me, I pulled the cat pin out of my pocket and set it on the edge of the table.
“Is that yours too?” I asked quietly.
Lexie turned around and focused on the pin. For a second, her expression was so neutral, I thought Riley must have gotten it wrong. Then she grabbed it, quickly cupping it in her palm while scanning the salon with her eyes.
“Where did you get that?” she whispered.
“It must be yours,” I insisted. Then I lowered my voice and spoke the words Riley had chosen with care. “From one wild cat to another, Lexie.”
Her eyes widened, then she turned away and hurried toward the exit, her scarf trailing behind her in one hand, the cat pin hidden in the other.
When Riley wakes up an hour later, I tell her the whole story, hoping it will wipe the haunted look off her face, or at least give her something to focus on besides what happened in the alley last night. I don’t know if it works. Riley listens quietly, asks a few questions, then lies back down.
“I think I’ll sleep some more.”
She is still sleeping when I leave for work.
I wrestle with all of it this afternoon while riding the bus to The Rose, only pausing when we stop at the UDR gate and wait to be scanned.
I am Clyde Ferdinand, I think. I am Clyde Ferdinand.
It’s a stupid mantra. The scanners can’t read my mind, only my chip data, but I swear it helps me get through it every time.
Once I get to the kitchen, I clock in and grab my apron. The salon opens in half an hour and my first job every afternoon is draping table clothes over the tables, then setting them with votive candles, silverware, and little menus that highlight the evening’s specials.
Mr. Longino is in a foul mood tonight and screaming at everyone who passes within earshot of him. Seth takes a minute to tell me it’s because he fought with Mr. Bell about a jurisdiction issue. I nod and get back to work, paying extra attention to the way I set each table. The last thing I need is for their argument to somehow land on me. Not when things are finally on track with Lexie.
I keep busy all night, moving around the customers like a bussing ninja. I only stumble when I let my thoughts return to Riley. I locked the door, I remind myself. And there’s no way she’ll want to go outside tonight, right?
The Thorns are playing a new set list, including songs I only heard down in the Hidden Library when Adam and Xoey were experimenting with forbidden music. I wonder where Gabriel learned it, and how many other things forbidden in the Sand are available in the RZ. The crowd seems to like it too. The salon continues to fill up with soldiers, and the background noise reaches a level I’ve never heard. Seth stops me near the kitchen door.
“Mr. Longino is having the bouncers turn people away at the door!” He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen it this busy.”
I dump my tub of dishes and grab a stack of clean tablecloths. “Wonder why.”
“I heard a new infantry division reports to base command in the morning, but I’ve never known of one this big before. Makes me think they’re ramping up for something.”
My heart stills. For the first time since Riley’s attack, I think about our friends at Fort Liberty joining the Resistance fighters. Adam can handle himself, but Sam? The thought of him in battle scares me to death. Surely General Kelly wouldn’t let him go. But if he didn’t, why haven’t we heard from Sam since?
“Another big battle?” I ask. “Any idea where?”
Seth shrugs. “How would I know?”
I nod and head back into the salon. I spot Lexie right away, heading toward the same corner table where I first saw her. Sure enough, Captain Ogas has returned. She’s already leaning over him, smiling like he’s the only man in the room.
I look away and focus on my job.
The fight starts behind me a few minutes later, igniting so quickly that by the time I turn around it is a full-on brawl. A few soldiers have already started throwing furniture to the side, making room for their melee. Others are too busy throwing fists and elbows. When one catches them off guard, they go smashing into whatever is in their path, knocking over tables and tripping on chairs. Escorts are screaming and running toward the dormitories and the bouncers are moving in, but slowly. Why are they being so cautious?
That’s when I notice Ogas and the other officers on the perimeter of the fight, watching but not intervening. They’re letting the fight happen, I realize. I just don’t know why.
Then I do.
Well, at least I figure out part of it. Some of the soldiers have familiar green patches on their sleeves. Others have blue service caps stuffed in their back pockets that I’ve never noticed before, making me think these are the new infantry soldiers. Without exception, soldiers wearing green patches are fighting soldier with blue caps.
“Enough!” someone roars. The effect is immediate. Captain Ogas, who has a green patch on his sleeve, walks briskly through the skirmish, pulling men apart and barking orders to subordinate officers. Within a minute, everyone is standing at attention.
“General Northcote does not condone this kind of theatrics in his men, no matter the reason. No MATTER THE CAUSE! Unity is imperative to our calling, men. Unity and obedience. You obey me, or you obey Captain Sunders.” He nods toward another captain, who stands to one side with a blue cap in his hands. “We obey General Northcote and the general obeys President Amaron.”
I am surprised to hear murmurs of discontent at the mention of the president’s name. Captain Sunders looks sharply over his ranks, a decidedly uncomfortable expression coloring his face. When I look back to Captain Ogas, his eyes are shining.
“Be loyal, gentlemen. Loyal to each other, loyal to your leaders. Look to our direction and do not waiver from the commitment you have made to honor our benevolent state. Now, back to the barracks, all of you. DISMISSED!”
Within minutes, the entire salon is cleared out. Captain Ogas is the last to leave. I would swear he whistles as he walks past me, pushes open the door, and steps out into the night.
35<
br />
Xoey
Triple Threat Recording Studio is my favorite place in the Sand. Whether I’m in the live room surrounded by musicians, sitting at the control panel listening to playbacks, or singing in an iso room, I am myself here. I am free to be me.
Almost.
Today, I have brought my stepsisters to the studio with me, which tempers my joy. The girls do not bother me so much as they remind me of my father, who will be visiting the studio next week since Jada agreed to record the father-daughter duet he’s been pushing.
“Can he even sing?” she asked.
“I am not sure,” I admitted. “He never sang when I was little.”
Jada shrugged. “Oh well. You have perfect pitch, which is unusual. If we’re lucky, your talent for music is hereditary.”
“And if not?”
“Then we’ll Auto-Tune him. That’s not unusual at all.”
Part of me wishes he was here today so we could get it over with. But Middlebrooks organized this recording session first, and we always stick to her schedule. Especially when she coordinated it so carefully with Trinidad Ray’s people.
“Are you sure she’s coming?” Electra asks.
“That’s what Middlebrooks said.”
Electra turns to Nox. “Would you please stop it?” She puts her hand on the control room chair Nox has been spinning in for the past five minutes.
“I’m not hurting anything.”
“But you’re getting on my nerves,” Electra says. “And I’m already nervous. Besides, Mom said to stay out of Xoey’s way.”
“But she’s not recording yet,” Nox says.
I thought arriving at the studio early would give Electra and Nox time to settle down, but now I am regretting it. “Maybe you’d like to visit the live room while we wait,” I suggest. “Have either of you ever played a piano?”
Electra rolls her eyes. “We’ve been in the Sand, you’ve been in the Dirt. What do you think?”
There’s the Electra I’ve come to know and love.
Weeping Justice Page 25
