In the End (Starbounders) (7 page)

“So . . . was he innocent?”

She laughs. “Hell no. Even when I was his attorney, I knew he’d done it. I guess holding up a liquor store doesn’t automatically make you a bad person.”

I smile. “I guess not.”

I like how talkative Pam is being. I’m sure I can get a lot of information out of her if I just let her ramble on. She’s paused in her story. I see my opportunity to ask her what I really want to know.

“Do you ever do sewing for a man named Ken?”

“Ken Gibbons?” Pam asks. “Big Hispanic guy who goes by Yaya?”

“Um, no . . . this Ken is Asian.”

“There’s an Asian family who lives in the Yard. Actually, I don’t know if they’re a family. There are five guys who share a tent. . . . They’re all Filipino, and they have complicated foreign names, but one might use Ken for short.”

Ken isn’t Filipino, and I doubt he’d be living in a tent in the exercise yard.

“I have a picture.” I yank the sketch out, holding it up.

Pam looks for a moment, then shakes her head. “You sure he’s alive?”

“No,” I admit. “But if he is alive, I really need to find him.”

“I can keep my eye out. But people die here like that.” She snaps her fingers. “I came close last year. Mike saved me.” We walk up the stairs toward the third floor as Pam continues. “Doc was telling some BS story about how the women needed an extra shot, a vitamin shot or something. I told Mike that I’d seen enough people perjure themselves to tell when something was fishy. Mike stood up for me when I refused, made sure Doc didn’t give me a hard time. I’m one of the few women who made it through.”

“What do you mean? I thought the shot was an inoculation.”

She looks me over. “Now, you don’t look like the kind of girl who believes everything you’re told. Did you let Doc give you a shot?”

I shake my head and she nods in approval. “It will be hard to stay away from Doc, Jacks being who he is and all, but you should try. I don’t trust him.”

“You think Doc had something to do with the women dying?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Pam tells me, stopping on the stairs, “but there’s something off about him. Mike told me he makes the Scrappers give him almost all the drugs that they find. A lot of them have a second stash they keep hidden to bring in for the rest of us.”

“Um . . . he
is
a doctor,” I say. “Doesn’t he need those drugs?”

“Well . . .” She shuffles around, muttering. “I think he self-medicates.”

I nod. Everyone has to deal with the After in their own way.

“I see him sometimes,” Pam continues, “talking to himself like there’s someone else there.”

“I’ve heard him do that too,” I admit. “When I first got here, I heard him rattling off about who needed flu shots, like he was talking to someone. But a lot of people talk to themselves. He didn’t seem sinister to me, just a little strange.” Although he did give me the creeps when I first met him. I try to fight off my paranoia. Doc doesn’t have to be evil—he could just be incompetent.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he loses it one day.”

Pam pauses at the railing, looking down at the rows of cells. “There’s another thing,” she whispers. “My friend Anna, who used to live on the first floor, told me that after the birth of her child, he tried to convince her to leave Fort Black, go to some place up north. Some kind of colony.”

“What?” I grip the railing in surprise.
New Hope?

“Did she go?”

Pam shakes her head. “She didn’t get the chance. The next week Anna and her child were both dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“It’s okay,” Pam says, starting up the stairs again. “You learn to live with loss.” I pause before joining her, wondering.
What is going on here? Is Doc working with Dr. Reynolds?

I turn and quickly follow Pam through the door onto the third floor, where she stops at a darkened cell and softly calls in, “Sewing!”

Inside are two sets of bunk beds with barely room to walk between them. A figure rests in each bed. A young man in one of the bottom bunks sits up.

“Hey, Pam,” he calls, getting sleepily out of bed and shuffling to the door. Pam hands him a small, neatly folded pile of shirts. The young man takes them, staring at me. I wait, uncomfortably.

Finally Pam speaks up. “So we agreed on a can of corn and two cans of peas . . . ,” she gently reminds him.

“Right.” He goes to the foot of his bed and grabs a backpack. He puts the laundry inside and takes out the cans, returns to the doorway, and hands them to Pam, who puts them in her basket. “Who’s your friend?” he asks, staring intently at my face. His eyes flit to my arm, covered by my synth-suit.

“She belongs to Jacks.”

“Oh,” he says, his face falling. Then a scared look comes over his face. “I—I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. I won’t tell him.” Without another glance in my direction, he heads back to his bed and flops down.

When we’ve moved on, I ask, “Is he that scared of Jacks?”

“Yes and no. He’s more scared of Jacks’s connections.” I’m starting to wonder if people will think I belong to Jacks, or to the Warden. “Poor kid,” Pam is saying. “There aren’t enough women to go around, and he’s one of the nice guys. He and his roommates are the ones who remove garbage from Fort Black and dump it outside.”

“So there are four people living in that one room?” A cell seems hardly big enough for one person, much less four.

She shakes her head. “Not four, twelve. They sleep in eight-hour shifts.”

“And Jacks has his room all to himself, all the time?” I hadn’t realized how well off Jacks was due to his relation to the Warden.

“Like I said, he’s a catch.” Pam winks at me.

Our footsteps rattle on the iron-grid walkway. Our next stop is a cell down the hall, a man with two older boys. One sits in the corner, playing with a deck of cards. The other lies in bed, a wet washcloth across his eyes. I stay in the doorway while Pam steps inside.

“Do you know what it is?” Pam asks the man.

The man shakes his head sadly. “Doc said it could be some new form of pink eye. He might not be able to see again.”

Pam hands him a bundle of clothes. “On the house,” Pam tells him.

The man steps over to her and hugs her. “Thanks, Pammy.”

“They’ve had some hard times,” Pam tells me when we resume walking down the hall. “He was a prison pencil pusher. That man managed to leave Fort Black, get his boys, and make it back without a scratch on either of them. . . . His wife wasn’t so lucky.”

We next stop at a cell with a red curtain covering the bars, blocking our view of inside. A handbell is attached to the door with a wire, and Pam rings it. A woman appears, sweeping the curtain aside dramatically. She wears a pink bathrobe and way too much eye shadow.

“How’s business?” Pam asks her with a smile.

“Slow.” The woman yawns. “It’ll pick up after first shift.”

Pam hands her a bundle. On top is a lacy black bra. She takes her clothes and gives Pam a small package. “There’s Vicodin there, for your man’s back. I asked the Scrappers specifically to look out for more and make sure Doc doesn’t snatch it all up.”

“Thanks.” Pam puts the medication in her basket. As we walk away, Pam tells me, “She’s always bringing me ripped clothes.”

“So she’s a . . .”

“Yep. She practices the oldest profession.”

I shake my head at how Pam just tosses this off. “How can you be so comfortable here? It’s remarkable. You seem to be thriving, not stuck pining for your life as an attorney Before. Doesn’t it bother you to throw aside all your training and experience?”

She shrugs. “I used to be a lawyer and now I mend clothing for a prostitute. I know it sounds so weird. And I have lost a lot that I’m sad about. But here, well, at least I’m alive,” she tells me with a smile. “My grandma taught me to sew and I always thought it was so pointless, since I could just buy anything new I needed. Now there isn’t a day that goes by I’m not grateful she took the time to teach—” She stops dead in her tracks, her face full of fear. “Let’s go,” she tells me, wheeling around and heading back the way we came.

“Why?” I have to trot to keep up with her. “What’s wrong?”

She motions back to a black sheet hanging on the door of a cell. “Black Pox. That’s a new infection. We don’t want to get too close.”

“Could we catch it from out here?”

“Probably not, but I don’t want to take any chances.” We’re most of the way back down the hall. “There are people who already have had the Pox who deal with the infected. Someone will come later and remove them to the back wall.”

“What about until then?” I ask. “Are they getting food and water?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells me. “They’ll get better or they won’t. We can’t do anything.”

We walk back to Jacks’s cell in silence. I wonder how Pam can be so kind to that man with the sick son and so cold to someone else, alone and dying. But by now, I know the answer: People do what they have to in order to survive.

Before we say good-bye, Pam leans in and whispers, “Maybe don’t mention to Jacks what I told you about Doc. It’s a touchy subject for him.”

“Sure. But why?” I ask, uncertain. Is he so attached to his boss?

“You know”—she widens her eyes—“because Doc is Jacks’s father and all. Jacks is really sensitive about Doc’s addiction.”

“Oh!” I nod, stunned. Suddenly it all clicks into place. Jacks isn’t just connected through his uncle, the Warden, but through Doc as well. That must be why he’s Doc’s assistant, even though he has no medical background.

“It’s not exactly common knowledge,” Pam continues. “I think Jacks wants to keep it hush-hush . . . but, you know, I hear things. It’s not like these bars are exactly soundproof. Jacks used to talk to his sister about it . . . about forgiving Doc for whatever wrong he had done to them way back when.”

“You knew Jacks’s sister? What was she like?”

Pam’s face falls. “She was a sweet girl. Too good for this place. Me, I can adapt. I learned to lose my educated facade.” Her voice becomes louder, more coarse. “And act like I ain’t never lernt nuthin’ from no books.” She smiles, slipping back into her normal voice. “But that girl was never going to make it here. Jacks did what he could, and of course she had the Warden and Doc looking out for her, but you can’t expect to make someone like that happy in a cage.”

She looks me up and down. “I don’t think you’ll be happy in a cage either. . . . But you won’t let it come to that, will you? You won’t lock yourself up in that cell and refuse to face the world. No, I think you’ll do just fine here. Let Jacks take care of you, and make sure to take care of yourself.”

“I will,” I tell her, unlocking the bike lock and stepping inside. “Bye.”

I pace the room, opening and closing my fists with impatience. I need to talk to Jacks. Why wouldn’t he just tell me that Doc is his father? Unless Doc really is working for Dr. Reynolds and Jacks is in on it too, charged with keeping an eye on me. I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t force the dark thoughts from my mind.

How much can I really trust Jacks? Here I am, stuck in a horrible place with no end in sight. Another day is almost gone, and I’m no closer to getting back to Baby. I gaze out over the exercise yard, the mess of crude shelters littered across the muddy concrete. People mill in and out of the shacks, trading for food, fighting, and surviving.

This is their home—probably the only one they’ll ever know now. But where is mine? I thought I’d found one in New Hope with my mother, but instead I almost ended up dead. The fact is, I have no home. Not until I can get Baby and take her to a safe place . . . wherever that may be.

“Hey, you.” A voice cuts through the cell.

I turn to find the man I saw lingering earlier, the one covered in dirt who brushed past me and Pam on the walkway.

“What do you want?” I ask, my heart racing, glad for the bars that separate us.

“I heard you asking Pam about Ken.” He leans in, his grimy face pushing through the bars. “I can take you to him.”

I take a step back before I remember there’s a locked door between him and me. I try to make my voice sound strong. “Why should I trust you?”

“Jacks sent me. He said you was to come right away or Ken would be gone.”

I try not to let my desperation decide for me. What if he is lying? Why wouldn’t Jacks come himself? I look at the man again. He’s small and thin. I could easily take him in a fight. I take a deep breath. I can’t let my fear get in the way of finding Ken.

“Back up,” I tell the man. He steps away from the bars and I unlock the bike lock. As I pull open the bars, he rushes forward. But I am ready for something like this.

I step aside and trip him. He falls forward into the room but gets to his feet surprisingly fast. He turns and lunges at me, leading with his shoulder, trying to take me out with brute strength. I move out of his way, but in the small room, space is tight. I hit the bunk bed at full force, my hip crashing into the hard metal frame. The man pulls me to the floor, yanking at my synth-suit, leaving my arms free. I grab one of my knives and hold it up to his throat.

His hands go still. “I didn’t mean nuthin’ by it.” He grins at me, as though he hadn’t just attacked me. I push up on the knife, forcing him to lean back, then scramble out from under him. He tries to flee, but I grab his filthy hair and once again hold the knife to his neck.

“Some people was saying that you really ain’t Jacks’s. That you was looking for a man. That you was fair game.”

I push the knife into his skin, and a small trickle of blood runs down his grubby neck to stain his collar. “You tell people that it doesn’t matter if I belong to Jacks. I don’t need him or the Warden to protect me. I can take care of myself.”

I kick him out the cell door into the walkway. He scurries to his feet and down the hall. I take a deep, shaky breath and sheathe my knife. I turn and sit on the bottom bunk, resting my head in my hands. It was a long shot, but I’d hoped the man was telling the truth and could take me to Ken. I let out a sharp bark of a laugh at my foolishness and rub my face. I stay like this for a good long while, until I hear a voice at the door.