E (22 page)

Jonas grabs a piece of rag from the table, bats my hands away, and
presses it against my mouth.  "What did you do this time?" 
He sounds annoyed.

I try to answer, but the rag is in the way.  He makes a
shushing noise, as if he didn't just ask me a question.  So we stand there
for a minute, not talking.

Finally, he says, "Are you OK?"

I nod as much as I can without displacing the rag.

His brow creases as he looks down at me, clearly pondering what
kind of mess I've made.  It sets me on edge, being scrutinized by him like
this.  I move my head away from the rag, hoping the bleeding has stopped.

Again, he bats my hand away as I try to explore what's happened to
my mouth.  "Let me see," he says, and dabs at me with the
rag.  Even though his touch is gentle, it stings.  He sets the cloth
aside and carefully pulls my lower lip down.  I wonder if I've put a tooth
through it, the way it feels.  Trying to be tough, I look up at him
expectantly, waiting for the verdict.  But he's not looking at me. 
He's just staring.  At my lip.

"Crap," I say, which comes out sounding nothing like the
actual word.  I jerk away from him, wincing from the sting.  I grab
up the rag from the table and stuff it to my mouth again, turning away.

"...What..." he says quietly, "...what was
that...?"

I glance halfway back-- not far enough to meet his eyes-- and
shake my head.  Nothing, I'm thinking.  Nothing.  But here, with
him, the letters tattooed inside my lip have a new sort of significance. 
Something nameless but heavy.  I have a label written on me.  I am
someone's property.  All this time I've been forgetting it, and here, Fate
chooses to reveal it.  To remind me.  I am not my own.  I am not
anyone.  New or old.  I feel empty inside, and cold.  Tired, and
lonely.

"So what happened?"  It's Miranda's voice as she
emerges from the bathroom, clothed, but hair dripping.

I start to frown, but the act is painful.  "Matt was
going to kill Coyote Dan," I say, my voice wavering with emotion, muffled
as it may be.

Miranda just looks at me.

Jonas snorts.  "And you stopped him."

I nod.  "At least--"

"Coyote Dan?" says Miranda, frowning and blinking.

I don't really feel like explaining the nickname I've given Dan in
my imagination, so I ignore her.

"Oh my god, Eden," Miranda protests.  "Matt's
going to kill you.  You have to stop."

I waver and nod, mostly to make her feel better.  It's a
little late now to be thinking about it.

She shakes her head and walks back behind the bathroom curtain.

Jonas perches on the bed.  He's humming again, his eyes fixed
on me.  The tune bothers me, but at first I don't know why-- just that I
want to scream at him to stop.  It fills my head, and I'm standing there,
staring at him, counting backward from a hundred.  Ninety-nine,
ninety-eight, ninety-seven.  I'm at eighty-two when I recognize the
tune.  The flower peddler song.  Roses and lilies, roses and
lilies.  It grows louder inside my head, chastising me, and Jonas keeps
staring at me as he hums, like he means to watch me break down, bit by bit.

"Flowers are for the dead," I say, nonchalantly, cutting
him off.  I give him a look.  "And I'll be dead soon. 
Right?"  I figure there's no better way to deflate his point than to
acknowledge it directly like I don't give a damn.

Jonas just laughs-- nothing more than the sound of air coming out
his nose.  There's no smile accompanying it.  Not even any movement
in his face.  He hops down off of the bed and walks past me toward the
door.  "Yep," is all he says as it clicks closed behind him.

There's not a lot of meat on rats.  Gaming has become
virtually non-existent.  Neveah's herbs bring in little income, because
people need food more than medicine.  Our predicament is clear. 
Starvation is imminent, unless we find some other means of providing for
ourselves.  There are few options left to us.  Maybe we're in one of
those places where you do something because you have to, to survive. 
Maybe.

This is the dark track my thoughts have taken as I huddle between
rain barrels around back.  It's too cold to be out here, and it's getting
colder every day.  Soon, I won't have this place to escape to, but escape
is not what drives me here, now.  I sit here because I know that Oscar
will soon join me.

His footsteps make me feel warmer inside.  He sits down
without speaking.

I rub my arms and smile at him.

He smiles back.

Already I feel the loss of this moment, like it's drifting away
from me on Time's wings.  I sense the future, how far away this moment
will be, how I'll look back and feel it as something distant and
ethereal.  All of life's moments are like that-- snapshots filed away in a
box.  If we're lucky enough to grow old, we can look back at them, but
we'll never be
in
them again.  Never live them.  We're only
ever out of the picture, looking back.  Struggling to recall the
details.  The moments we are in, like this one, blow out of our hands as
quick as leaves caught by the wind.

Oscar's smile fades.  I'm fascinated by the death of it--
another small step in the soundless migration of our lives, toward the
inevitable.   "What's wrong, Eden?" he asks, the corners of
his mouth turning into the vaguest hint of a pout.

I shake my head and rekindle my smile for him.  "Just
stuff," I say.  "It doesn't matter.  Just... you
know.  Stuff."

He nods like he does know, though I'm sure he hasn't guessed the
half of it.  He places his hand over mine.  "Don't worry,"
he says.  "We'll figure it out.  We always figure it out."

I wonder if his mother used to tell him that, when they were
starving on the streets.  Or is this his own optimism, grown from youth
and inexperience?  In that way, maybe I should be optimistic, too. 
My experience is less than his, at least the part I can remember.

"Yeah," I say, because I'm not willing to destroy it,
wherever it comes from.  And we will figure it out.  For Oscar, at
least, I
am
figuring it out.  Reconciling myself to it.  A
lash of wind whips around us, and it's cold, making me want to pull him to me
and hug him, hold onto him.  Instead, I pull my legs in closer and rub my
arms again.  "It was kinda scary on the road," I say. 
"I'm not sure I would have wanted to keep going."

He looks at me sideways, his smile stretching into a grin. 
"Yeah," he says.  "But it was fun, too."

We laugh together, as children do.  When I'm with him, I feel
so much younger.  I feel like I'm not a hundred years old.

***

Apollon and I part ways in front of the Rustler, but I don't go
in.  The half-illuminated afternoon air is cold, and Sarah's body, which
is turning more skeletal with passing time, is still dangling from the pole on
the corner.  It makes me think of Coyote Dan.  I haven't seen him,
but Oscar says he's still alive, and I believe him.  While I wonder what's
become of him, my mind wanders through a myriad of other disturbing thoughts,
rather than settle on just one.

I sit on the raised curb and pull my arms around myself, watching
two beggars shuffle down the street.  Robed in rags, I can't really see
either of them, but one is shorter, frailer, most likely a child.  I think
of Oscar, of how when I hug him now, all his angles are sharper,
pointier.  How I can feel his spine under my arm, sticking out of his back
like he's a ridged dinosaur.  This makes me laugh.  He'd like that
image.  A dinosaur.  But it's not funny.  Our bodies are slowly
wasting, and nothing in the Outpost has seemed to change, except that I've
heard no more whispers of contention.  Between Sarah and whatever Matt did
to Coyote Dan, people are more afraid of Matthew than of starving.  At
least for now. 

Not me.  Not when it comes to Oscar, anyway.  I'm not
exactly sure how the course of starvation runs, but I think now is the point
when it starts to become too real.  My own hunger pains, I can
ignore.  The feeling of weakness in my wobbly legs.  The way my
stomach seems full of bile, like my body wants to digest itself.  The
dizziness and tiredness.  But hugging that bony little creature. 
No.  It can't go any further.  It simply can't.

The sound of metal footsteps echoes across the broken
pavement.  I freeze-- don't even breathe-- as a Sentry walks by, trailing
blue-tinged heat waves.  If I make myself still, make myself smaller,
maybe I can be part of the landscape.  I have the feeling it will turn and
look at me-- that whatever else it's doing, it's always tracking me. 
Like, if it looks close enough, it will see through me.  I'm suddenly
nauseous, trying to hold back the vomit by repeatedly swallowing the saliva
that wells into my mouth.  Maybe it's hunger, but my head feels emptied of
blood, and then too full.  I hear my heart pounding in my ears, like
someone is crashing two metal lids together with my head caught in
between.  I go dizzy, and then my face feels hot, my cheeks heavy.  I
swallow again.  And again.  The image of the white tower rises up in
my mind, as if I'm seeing it in broad daylight.  As if I'm not sitting on
the curb in the Outpost, but walking my dream.  The weight of the image
presses down on me, threatening to crush me.  I struggle to my feet,
needing to run.  To go find it, no matter what else I might leave behind.

"Leaving because of
it
or
me
?" 
Matthew's voice breaks me out of my trance.  I blink.  The metal
monster moves on down the street to take up its position at the
intersection.  Matt is walking toward me, with his redheaded slave
attached to his arm.  The bracelet she wears-- the one that bears his
mark-- is etched silver, a delicate thing that's more adornment than
brand.  Up close, she's even prettier, striking with red curls, eyes more
blue than any sky I've ever seen, and skin like freshly poured cream.  Her
features are exquisite, as if her bloodline is full of fairies-- creatures too
perfect for this world.  Matt dismisses her with a shrug, and she slips
inside the Rustler wordlessly.  I watch her go, the silver bracelet
dangling on her pale arm. 

It makes me think, for some reason, of the tattoo on my lip. 
What if, somewhere, tens or hundreds of other slaves are walking around with
the same brand?

Matt's waiting patiently for me to answer.  I glance from the
Sentry to him.  "It," I say quietly.  I have to turn and
look at his face to avoid another flush of eeriness that threatens to overwhelm
me when I see the machine.

He glances toward the Sentry, then walks to my side, as if my
answer satisfies him.  "You stupid girl," he says, but the words
have no sting.  He sits down on the curb next to me, so I sit with
him.  "I had to do it, you know," he says, his voice
quiet.  "You should have known better than to put yourself between
us."

I just look out into the street and nod.  He's right.  I
should have known better.  I'm lucky Colton didn't stab me for planting
myself in front of Coyote Dan, and really, if I think about it, the only reason
he didn't is because Matt clocked me first.  But Coyote Dan is alive,
which, maybe he wouldn't have been if I hadn't stepped in.  Then, maybe
Matt wasn't going to kill him anyway.  I look sideways at him, wondering.

He glances at me, then watches some people pass by in the
street.  It's my turn to talk, I suppose, but I don't really know what to
say.  I know what I
want
to say, but I can't just blurt it
out.  I have to work up to it.  I lick my lips, then I say, "So
how's the whole
thing
going?  You know.  The food thing."

His jaw tightens for an instant.  "Surely there are more
interesting things we could talk about."

My laugh is small and bitter.  It's hard to be interested in
anything when you're hungry.  Weariness pushes me forward, and suddenly I
don't care about working up to things.  I blurt it out.  "You
said you'd look after Oscar," I say, and I look at him pointedly.

His eyes flash wider, then narrow.  He starts to shake his
head, rocks forward like he's about to get up. 

I set my hand on his forearm, stopping him.  "You
said," I insist softly.

Matt's eyes are still narrowed on me, but there's a subtle, slow
settling of his face and body.  He hardly moves, but I can see him
relax.  Then a smile, also slow, creeps onto his face.  "I'll
look after you, too," he says, eyes half-closed like he's basking in the
sun.

I withdraw my hand and look back into the street.  There's no
one walking by right now, so I'm just staring into space.  I consider my
words before I say them.  Choosing the wrong ones could be
disastrous.  I speak them softly, and carefully.  "I don't like
the idea of
anyone
looking after me.  That's something I need to do
for myself."

A puff of air is the extent of Matthew's answering laugh. 
Next to me, he's also gazing into the empty street.  Silence stretches
over us for a few moments, sinking in so deeply that, when he does speak, it
feels unexpected.  "We're not so different, you know," he says,
his voice thoughtful and quiet.  "You think we are.  That you're
so much better than me.  That I do things you would never do.  But
you don't know that.  You could have been exactly like me.  Maybe you
still are."  Not subtly, he glances at the mark on my forehead. 
Before I can stop myself, my hand flies to it, my fingers brushing over the
letter inked into my skin.  I grab a handful of hair and rake it down over
my forehead, look away.  But all I can think is, what if he's right?

I try to breathe.  Try not to consider his prompt.  But
my head swirls with questions that make my body suddenly restless.  I want
to know who I am, what I'm about.  But I will never know these
things.  I'm not meant to know.  And still, the yearning has come
again.  Matt has directed me toward it.  This is the real cruelty of
his words.

"Oscar," I say.  The word is clipped.  I
barely manage to get it out.  I cannot hide this anger.  I can only
hold it back from an explosion.

For a moment, I think, he's considering whether he'll allow me to
be angry.  I feel cold and small inside.  Powerless.  But he
sighs, and it passes.  He looks annoyed as he climbs to his feet. 
Nothing more.  "Just remember this was your idea," he
says.  "You asked me for this."  He turns and walks into
the Rustler. 

I close my eyes and let out my breath.  His words ring with
the hint of a threat.  Not one that Matt is fabricating and throwing at
me, but one that's inherent to the situation.  He's merely pointing it
out.  In trusting Matt to take care of Oscar physically, I'm giving Oscar
over to his influence.  Sending that which is innocent and precious into
the den of a wolf.  And those who are raised by wolves become
wolves.  I can only hope that this will be temporary.  That
eventually, there will be another option.  But right now, there's
not.  And if I'm really honest about it, none of us might make it that
far, anyway.  Survival has come down to the moment.  In this moment,
this is all I can do.  Like it or not.  Consequences or not. 
Frightening as hell or not.  For now, Oscar has to be Matt's.  This
is the way he survives.

***

I find Oscar in one of the alleys where we frequently hunt
rats.  He's hunkered down, slingshot in hand, waiting for his prey to
emerge into the open.  He glances my way when my shadow blocks out the
light, but doesn't move or make a noise.  It's because he's hungry, I
realize.  He's been sitting here for who knows how long, waiting on a
measly rodent that may never show up.  Well, those days are over.  I
step into the alley and walk toward him.

The way his mouth turns down at the corners, I know he's
disappointed with my impatience.  But he stands up and turns toward me,
and pulls a smile out of somewhere. 

"I need to talk to you," I say.  My voice comes out
strangled, my throat constricted by guilt and grief.  My head hurts. 
My stomach hurts.  How can I possibly do this?

Oscar loses his smile immediately.  His brown eyes scan my
face for answers.  "Is..." he whispers, then licks his
lips.  "Did someone... get hurt, again?"

I shake my head right away and smile to reassure him, but I can
feel my mouth stretch out in a straight line across my face, refusing to turn
upward.  I tousle his hair.  "Everyone's OK," I say
calmly.  "It's... It's just... you're not going to like this."

He turns his head and eyes me cautiously from the side. 
Before he can start asking questions, I take him by the arm and lead him to a
place where we can sit against the wall.  We slide down with our backs
against cold, crumbling brick, and, for a while, we're both silent.

It takes some time to make myself form the words.  Oscar
studies me nervously.  I want to get to the point-- to just tell him and
spare him the suspense, but the words get stuck somewhere between my brain and
mouth, and won't seem to come out.  I say them over and over in my head
before I'm finally able to produce them verbally.  Then, they come out
weakly, as though they're not deserving of air, and volume, and
vibration.  "I want you to stay with Matt for a while.  He says
he'll look after you."