E (23 page)

I've never seen Oscar so mad before.  He scrambles forward,
getting his feet under him, but doesn't stand.  He twists sideways to look
me in the eye.  "No," he cries.  "Nuh uh.  I'm
not.  I won't."

"Oscar," I say soothingly, reaching out to him.  He
shrugs away from me.  Letting my hand drop, I lean toward him. 
"It's the only way," I say.  "There's not enough
food.  I can't let you starve."

His small face, which was twisted in rage and pain, goes suddenly
calm.  He lifts his chin and says, "Oh.  So you're coming with
me, then."

I shake my head, mouth open but lacking an answer.

Then his face twists again, a flash of pain before a frown that pulls
his eyebrows down in the center, his mouth puckering. 
"No."  His voice is small, but vehement.  "If you
think for a second that I'm going to go live with Matt while you keep right on
starving, then--"

"Oscar."  I say it sternly this time, cutting him
off.  I can't go live with Matt, nor am I willing to explain to him
why.  But I need Oscar to do it.  As much as I don't want him to, I
need
him to.  So I tell him a lie.  Out of my love for him, I lie to him,
twisting the truth into something that will work.  "You don't
understand," I whisper.  "I need you to do this for us.  If
you go, you can listen in on what's happening.  Maybe help us figure out
some way to get through this.  Because, right now, as it stands, we don't
even know what's going on."

He stares at me as my words sink in.  Stares at me a long
time.  I begin to think he doesn't believe me, but then he looks down at
his hands, fiddling with his fingers.  His young face looks very
serious.  Finally, looking up at me, he says, "You really believe it
could help?"

I nod gravely, swallowing, because I can't quite manage to get the
lie out verbally.  I nod twice before I find my voice again. 
"Just..." I say, "...nothing risky.  You know.  Just
listen when you can is all.  No sneaking around or anything.  I
wouldn't put you in danger."  Already, I'm fighting down panic at the
thought.  What if he takes me too seriously?  What if Matt catches
him doing something he shouldn't?

Oscar flashes me a smile.  He's either sunshine or
rain.  You always know where you stand with him.  "I'll be a
spy."  His voice lingers deliciously on the last word.  He
reaches over and grabs my hand.  "We'll be spies together," he
amends.  "We should have a secret code word."

I close my eyes, then open them.  "Buckets," I
say.  We both start giggling.  And so, over the course of the next
hour, our secret spy protocol is born.  We laugh and laugh, while inside I
cry.  Every second I love him more, every second that rips itself out of
my hands and flies away too quickly, until, in a blink, we're standing at
Matt's door with my hand on Oscar's shoulder.  The girl with the burned
face steps aside to let him in, and he goes without a hug, with only one quick
glance back at me, because he doesn't know that this is parting.  In his
mind, we're still together.  It makes me cry harder as I walk the empty
streets toward a home that is no longer home.  I bat my tears wildly away,
trying to see.  But tears or not, right now I feel as though I will never
see again.

***

Jonas and Apollon are still gone when I arrive home, even though
Neveah's back from the market already.  First Apollon, then a while later
Jonas, returns, and Miranda passes out our meager rations.

Because it's already getting late, it doesn't take long before someone
asks the inevitable question:  Where is Oscar?

"Matt's," I say, as firmly as I can.  All eyes turn
on me.  Even Neveah's widen.  I avoid their gazes, choosing instead
to look at the single bite of stale bread that comprises my dinner.  The
sight of it reinforces my conviction.  I pick it up and hold it between
thumb and forefinger at eye level.  "I don't suppose you all think
it's better for him to live like
this
."  My voice is all acid,
thick with confrontation.  My friends stare at me, and I stare back. 
Apollon curses, gets up, and throws on his jacket.

I beat him to the door.

"Move, Eden."

"Where are you going?" I insist, pressing my back
against the door, tilting my chin up at him defiantly.

"Where do you think?"  He takes me by the shoulders
and moves me gently but firmly out of the way.  "I'm going to get
Oscar," he says as he deposits me to one side and reaches for the
doorknob.

I cling to his arm.  "You can't," I say. 
"Please.  Apollon.  Please."

He's cursing again as he tries unsuccessfully to claim his
arm.  He slides out of his jacket to escape me.  I prepare to bolt
after him out the door.

"For god sakes, Eden," Jonas says, across the room,
"let him go.  Did you really think we'd all be like, OK? 
Sure?  Give Oscar to Matthew?  No problem?"

I don't know if it's Apollon's leaving, or Jonas' turning against
me, or if it's something I've been holding in all along, but I explode. 
"Are
you
going to feed him then?" I shriek at him. 
Apollon's very empty plate is on the table beside me.  I fling it across
the room.  "Because he's starving!" I scream. 
"Starving!  And none of us can help him!"

It's Miranda, then, that has her arms around me as I find myself
sinking into a crouch on the floor, curling into a ball.  My face and hair
are already wet with tears.  "He's so skinny," I sob against
her.  "Like he's going to break.  He's so skinny."  I
can't stop crying.  Miranda's arms tighten around me, and that small act
of understanding wrenches all the pain upward where it spills out in waves of
sobs.  I no longer have the will to fight it.

Behind us, the door closes.  I curl up tighter against
Miranda, whimpering at the thought of Apollon going after Oscar.  At the
thought of failing him, after everything.  But a hand that is too large to
be Miranda's brushes briefly over my hair, and footsteps lead across the room
followed by the sound of a large body easing down onto the couch.  Apollon
hasn't gone, after all.  No one speaks.  There's just me and my half-squashed
sobs, trailing off until, sometime later, I'm asleep on our floor with my head
in Miranda's lap.

We're walking along in bright sunshine.  It's cold, but it's
perfect-- the kind of morning where quiet morphs into reverence and a simple
stroll can leave you feeling like you've never seen the world before. 
Oscar carefully tears his muffin in half, catching the escaping crumbs in his
cupped palm, and hands the largest half to me.  I don't dare refuse.

I hold it to my nose and smell.  It's still warm, pouring
moist, sweet steam around my face.  I bite into it.  The sugary cake
melts around my tongue, and in-between is pockets of berry goo, warmer than the
rest.    It's absolute heaven.  But I look down at Oscar,
and he's grinning with purplish berry juice around his mouth, and I forget
everything but him.

"Let's find some place quiet to sit," he says, his smile
stretching.  "I have
buckets
of stuff to tell you."

We laugh our way toward a crossroad where the connecting street is
quieter.  My piece of muffin disappears in a gulp before we get very far,
but Oscar's still working on his when we turn the corner and almost trip on a
little girl who's huddled in a pile on the curb, hugging her arms around her
legs.  She's filthy and tattered, like a doll thrown on a trash
heap.  I step around her to walk on, but Oscar stops.  He presses the
rest of his muffin into her little hands.  She stares up at him, blinking
like she's not sure he's real.  He just smiles, straightens, and skips
around her to catch up with me.

I smile down at him, feeling thankful for everything.  In a
battle of Oscar versus Matt, I'll place my bets on my little friend any
day.  I've been worried about Matt's influence, but this is Oscar. 
How could anyone change him?

We walk along until we're alone, then sit in the sunshine. 
"So... it's not so bad, then?" I say, still wanting the reassurance.

"Nah," Oscar says, shrugging.  "Alayna feeds
me every five seconds.  She's really nice.  So's Jess.  I don't
really see Matthew that much."

I'm glad to hear that.  Glad that Matt has seen fit not to
drag Oscar around with him, to have him there while he's doing business, which
is generally not Oscar-appropriate.  I put my arm around Oscar and
squeeze, ignoring the ache in my ribs, leaning sideways into him.  A smell
like honey, or flowers, or both combined clings to him.

"Don't worry," he says, turning to look up at me. 
"I'm going to hang out with Matt more.  I'm working up to it. 
He doesn't like me much."

I make myself laugh.  "How is that possible?" I
say, which earns me a small smile.  "And no, don't hang out with him
more.  Just whatever you hear when he's around is fine."

He fixes me with a thoughtful look, considering.  I don't
like it.  I can see the wheels turning.

"Why do you smell like perfume?" I ask, changing the
subject.  "Do I want to know?"

Oscar laughs and looks away.  "It's Leeta," he
says.  "She's always hugging me."  His cheeks have gone
pink, now.  I've embarrassed him. 

I want to drop it, but I have to ask.  "Is that... the
uh... redhead?"

He shakes his head and says, matter-of-factly, "No, that's
Kloe.  She hugs me sometimes, too.  But she's not as nice. 
Leeta's the blonde."  He raises his sleeve to his nose and sniffs
it.  "It smells kinda good."

I'm not sure what to say to that, so I stay quiet.

After a while, Oscar says, "So, Matt's lost a lot of
people.  There have been all these little fights, and he keeps
losing.  I guess we didn't notice because it's all been outside the
wall."

"Yeah?"

"We're always outnumbered, I guess.  Matt kept sending
bigger groups to go fight for the food transports whenever they were scheduled,
but then, every time Grey would have a group like twice as big waiting for
them.  Like he knew what was coming.  So now Matt has a lot less
people, and he's thinking maybe it's just a bad idea to go out there at
all."

I frown.  "But... if he doesn't go out there... then
he's just giving up.  How are we going to get any food?"

Oscar shakes his head.  "He thinks Grey wants to take
over the Outpost.  Like you know.  Storm the castle and all
that.  So Matt wants to just focus on keeping the Outpost right now. 
He's starting to reinforce the walls.  Adding weapons and stuff."

"To the walls?"

"Yeah."

I blink at Oscar, feeling queasy.  "So..." I
finally say, returning to my previous thought, "what about food?"

Again, Oscar shakes his head.  "I'm not sure.  It
sounds like he's thinking about how to make the food we have here work. 
Without bringing anything in."

"Impossible."  I say it before I even
consider.  The Outpost is sparse.  There's little in the way of
animals-- maybe a handful in Matt's private pens.  There's nowhere to grow
anything.  It's all busted concrete and hard-packed earth.  And even
if there was a place for crops, winter is swiftly approaching.  Everything
is dying.  We're all dying.

Oscar purses his lips.  "You don't think we could do
it?" he finally asks in a quiet voice.

I shake my head.  "No.  Not feed this many
people.  There would have to be a lot less before we could sustain
ourselves."  I say it absently, without thinking, and then, the chill
creeps slowly from the pit of my stomach into my neck.  I wrap my arms
around myself, trying to ward off the shiver.  Is this Matt's plan? 
To hold out against Grey, let our population dwindle, and eventually be able to
feed the handful of survivors?  Or something worse?  More
immediate?  I shouldn't have even allowed myself the last thought.  I
want to throw up.  But I swallow hard and hold on to the contents of my
stomach.  I take a few deep breaths, then ask, "You learned all this
from hanging around and listening?"

He shrugs.  "Leeta told me some of it."

I nod, thinking about it quietly.  Of course.  Leeta's
around Matt a lot.  She probably knows a ton about what's really going
on.  She might even know what Matt's planning long-term.  Oscar could
ask her.  No.  No.  If I want to know, I'll find out myself.

"So, what do we do?" asks Oscar, studying my face.

I shake my head.  "Nothing," I say.  "Just
stay out of it, OK?"

He frowns.

I frown back.  "Seriously," I say.  "Just
lay low.  Don't blow your cover."

His frown moves sideways as he squints at me.  Then,
suddenly, he shrugs, grins, and hops up.  "Let's go see Neveah."

He's already ten paces down the block by the time I climb to my
feet.

***

"Where've you been?"  I ask from the shadows, where
I'm leaning against the inside of the junk wall in front of our shack. 
Evening and night are colliding quickly around me, the dim light waning into a
half-grey mist.  White stars scatter the gunmetal sky, twins with the
first snowflakes of the year, drifting slowly, gliding into a dappled vortex
around the self-contained world of the Outpost.  The air channels the
smell of snow and fire, fresh and smoky and sweet all at once.  I am
strangely not cold.

Jonas stops one step past the opening and squints to see me. 
He turns and walks toward me.  "You missed me?" he says. 
His words are a swirl of warm vapor near his mouth.  As he draws closer, I
can see he's smiling-- one of those smiles that's half cockiness, half
amusement.  He stops one step away from me with his hands in the pockets
of his hoodie. 

I open my mouth to reply that I did not, but I know what his next
question will be.  Why am I waiting for him?  I fast forward,
skipping over them both, and looking away from him say, "It's so stuffy
inside."  I normally sit out back when I want to get away, a fact I
hope he'll miss.

The smile tugs at the corners of his mouth before falling away entirely. 
He looks at the snow flakes, taking their time to meander toward the
ground.  They're large and fragile, almost fluttering as they make their
slow descent.  I watch his green eyes track one, sweeping calmly across
and down, and then zigzagging back as a breeze swirls against the wall. 
When that flake touches down, he looks up and tracks another one.  The
angles of his cheekbones, his jaw, his straight nose are all perfect, like
smooth, carved stone, the strong profile offset by the delicate curve of his
eyelids, his long, dark lashes.  His eyes move suddenly back toward me,
and I'm staring at him.  It's too late to look away.

Neither of us say anything.  We just stand in the snow and
gaze at each other.  The world is quiet, and distant, and soft.  What
at first is uncomfortable eases quickly into a hushed, ethereal moment. 
If God is real, he has cupped his hands around us, shielding us away from the
rest of the universe.  We are two figures in a snow globe, with all the
light and sparkle and magic held tightly within.  There is nothing else
outside our dome.

A sudden tension forms in Jonas' shoulders.  He pulls them
forward, such a small movement I barely perceive it.  His brow furrows in
the same infinitesimal way.  I think he's going to say something, but he
doesn't.  My heart beats once, twice, sounding in my ears, moving the rush
of blood through my body.  Still he says nothing.  I feel the slowing
of every second, and I'm suddenly trying to catch my breath.  I wait, and
wait, and wait.

When I think he will never speak, his hand reaches out quickly and
catches mine.  "It's freezing," he says.  "Let's get
inside before we catch cold."  He turns and pulls me along toward the
door, and I go with him, even though I want to stay.  

He drops my hand to open the door and walks inside before
me.  I follow, the hot air hitting my face, pressing against my
skin.  The confines of our shack make me miss the airy cold
immediately.  I pull off my jacket and sit on the end of the bed.  Jonas
takes a seat on the couch next to Neveah.  Our friends are all quiet, into
their own things.  Neveah has a tray on her lap, and is separating seeds
from chafe.  Miranda, at the table, appears to be crushing open seed
pods.  Apollon is bent over a book.

"What are you reading?" I ask, because I don't like the
silence. 

Apollon glances up, flashes me a quick smile, and lifts his book
so I can see the cover.  "Shakespeare," he says.  The cover
reads,
The Tempest
. 

"Is that more poetry?" I ask.

"Not exactly."

He goes back to reading and I swing my feet.  Neveah and
Miranda are still sifting through seeds.  Jonas is watching as Neveah's
hands work away, sorting patiently. 

I'm not feeling so patient.  "Matt's not putting his
people out there anymore," I say.  "He's reinforcing the
wall."

They all look at me.

"He wants to try to figure out the food thing with whatever
we have here.  Inside the Outpost."  Maybe this is why I was
waiting for Jonas-- because I wanted to talk to him about this.  Now, the
only way to do it is to talk to all of them.  That's OK, though. 
They all need to know.  Still, I find myself looking at Jonas to gauge his
reaction.

He stares at me quietly, and, as usual, I can't decide what he's
thinking.  I lift my eyebrows at him, and still, he just stares.

Miranda squirms in her seat.  "But that's--" she
sputters.  She shakes her head firmly.  "No.  There's not
enough.  It won't work.  I mean, that's... it's crazy."

I look from her to Jonas, who is still just staring at me. 
It's making me uneasy.  I glance at Neveah, and Apollon.  Neveah is
gazing thoughtfully, distantly, at her seeds.  I don't think she's seeing
them.  Apollon avoids my gaze and looks at Jonas.  But Jonas does not
look at him.

"Isn't it?" I say pointedly, in answer to Miranda's
statement. 

The muscles in Jonas' jaw tighten.  He shakes his head. 
"Where did you hear this, Eden?"

"Oscar," I say.  "He's been
listening..."  A brief surge of guilt washes over me for putting him
up to it.  "It's true.  We need to figure out what we're going
to do."

Now Jonas and Apollon make eye contact, and there's something in
it that catches my attention.  Jonas' face is still unreadable.  I
squint at Apollon, trying to put my finger on it.  He swallows, and looks
down, scans the cover of the book that is now closed in his lap. 

My eyes flick back to Jonas.  "We really need to do
something," I say again, and note that he does not look at me now. 

He looks at the floor, and says, very quietly, "There's
nothing to be done right now.  We just need to continue as we are-- try to
hang on."

Apollon purses his lips and nods.

"Seriously," says Miranda.  She's frowning. 
"Just hang in there?"

Apollon jumps in before Jonas can answer.  He sounds very
reasonable.  Very calm.  "We're better off putting our energy
into trying to survive than getting involved in all this other stuff. 
There's nothing we could do about it anyway."

Part of it rings true.  Makes sense.  What could we
possibly do to change things?  Miranda nods slowly, coming around to
Apollon's way of thinking, even though she doesn't like it.  For a second,
I think maybe he's right.  Maybe this is the only logical way to see
it.  Then, Apollon glances at Jonas.  A quick glance.  That's
all.  It's enough.