Outpost (4 page)

An odd sound escaped his friend—a combination of a snort and a chortle—like he’d said something both wicked and hilarious. Their cheeks went pink too. I guess I was supposed to be shocked by the allegation. I stared at them until they started to shift on the balls of their feet.

“Why do you keep running around the school?” the small one demanded. “Are you simple?”

“She thinks something’s chasing her.”

I was tired of this, weary of ignorant brats judging me like I was the strange one. These two deserved a lesson in manners, but if I taught it to them, I’d be the one in trouble. Somehow I curbed my temper as someone came up behind me.

“That’s enough,” Fade said softly.

You won’t speak to me, but you’ll rescue me.

It made me angrier that his presence could drive them away whereas I had to prove myself with my fists. Again. I’d been sent to Momma Oaks twice for fighting with the admonition if I did it again, I’d be whipped. Yet I never bothered any of these brats. They were the ones who wouldn’t leave me alone … but try telling that to Mrs. James. She’d made up her mind that I was an instigator.

“Thanks.” I brushed past Fade, unable to look at his face without a wave of unwelcome confusion and yearning.

Before he could reply, if he meant to, Mrs. James came out to chivy us inside. Fortunately, the school year was almost over. I had no doubt the teacher would use that time to torment me in ways that would make Silk proud. It didn’t matter. I knew my own worth. A Huntress didn’t rely on a bunch of brats for her sense of self, but on that last day, as class let out, I ran my fingers over the scars beneath my sleeves, reassuring myself I hadn’t dreamed it. Salvation had saved me, but its protection came with restrictions. Its rules didn’t permit me to be myself. Yet I’d been part of a community that needed me once. Maybe I would be again.

Someday. Somehow.

Confidences

After school, I checked in with Momma Oaks, who was cooking when I arrived. The kitchen had lots of gleaming wood, pretty curtains with touches of lace, hooks that held her spoons and pots, and cupboards full of food. There was also a table with a couple of chairs, where she and I sat to talk about my day. At first I found that odd, but she was determined to be a good foster mother. Since I’d never had a mother at all, I didn’t know what to do with her attention. I suspected the truth would make her unhappy—that brats of all ages messed with me and that I hated school—so I always said:

“It was fine.”

“Just ‘fine’?” she repeated.

I had no idea what she expected from me. Did she truly want me to complain? That would earn me a slap down below. This felt like a test I kept failing, so I tried, “Mrs. James gets on me a lot.”

“Are you cutting up in class?”

What does that mean?

“I just don’t always pay attention, especially during history.”

Her brow creased. “It must seem boring after your adventures in Gotham.”

I nodded, addressing the bread and cheese she’d set out for me. Eating several times a day was my favorite thing about Salvation. I had breakfast, lunch, a snack, and then supper as well, and not just a few strings of meat or a mushroom cap, either. No wonder everyone looked so fit; it was a land of unimaginable plenty, and at mealtimes, I minded the rules much less.

“Well, not everyone’s meant to be a scholar,” she went on.

“Were you?” I asked.

Her answer surprised me. “I left at sixteen and married Edmund. I’m an excellent needlewoman and a fair cook, but I was never much for books.”

“Me either,” I muttered, pushing away from the worktable. “Do you mind if I visit Tegan?”

She smiled, apparently pleased that I wasn’t going to sit and stare with a surly face at a pile of mending. “Of course not, Deuce. Be back by supper, mind.”

At first, she’d questioned calling me Deuce, because it was nothing she’d heard for a girl before, but when I showed her the bloodstained card and explained its meaning, she stopped hinting I should pick something else. I toyed with the fragile card in my skirt pocket, a relic of the enclave and the naming ceremony where I got my scars.

“I will. Thank you.”

I went out the door at a run, heading for the doctor’s office. Tegan was in the surgery cleaning instruments when I arrived; she smiled but didn’t stop her work. Without speaking, I commenced washing up beside her. It wasn’t hard, but cleanliness was important, particularly in her foster father’s work. Once we finished, she turned to me.

“What brings you here?”

With a shrug, I answered, “I just wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“How you’re doing.” I might’ve put that more tactfully, but I felt responsible for her, since I’d rescued her and dragged her out of the ruins. I’d also put a weapon in her hand and she had been injured—almost died—because I hadn’t taken the time to train her properly. Swinging a club didn’t make her a Huntress.

“So you’re checking on me.” Her eyes crinkled in amusement. “That’s sweet.”

“Are the Tuttles looking out for you?”

“They’re great,” she said. “Helping Doc, I feel important, like I’m doing something that matters.”

“You are.” That wasn’t even a question in my mind.

“Rest easy. We found a good place. I’ll always be grateful to you for getting me away from the Wolves and out of the ruins.”

One thing I’d always wondered but there was never a chance to ask, so I said, “Tegan, did the Wolves mistreat all their females?”

It was possible, of course, that they had been stupid and savage and that they didn’t realize harming the mother could damage unborn offspring. Just because my people understood something, it didn’t mean the gangs knew it as well.

Her breath caught; and her face dimmed with remembered pain. “The girls who were born into the Wolves didn’t question their roles. They didn’t try to run. So they weren’t punished.”

I nodded. “It wouldn’t occur to a female Breeder in the enclave to protest her situation, either.”

“They haunt me,” she said softly. “The two cubs I lost. I was only thinking about getting away so I could protect my little one like my mom did me. But instead, they beat me until—” Her voice broke and she curled her hands into fists. “I know why they did it—to break me so I wouldn’t fight them anymore.”

“They shouldn’t have hurt you,” I told her. “There were ways to hold you that wouldn’t harm the unborn brats.”

Tegan swiped away a tear. “So your people wouldn’t have beaten me for trying to escape?”

She wanted reassurance that I came from better folk than Stalker. When I first met her, I’d thought that the enclave would punish anyone who treated a girl that way. But that was reflex, wanting to think the best of them. With the benefit of time and distance, I realized something; safety only applied to those who were born among us and who followed the rules blindly. Just witness how they treated Fade and a Builder named Banner. At first, I’d envied her apparent closeness with Fade, but then the elders killed the girl over her quiet discontent with their leadership; they made an example of her and framed it as a suicide.

Terrible things happened down below too.

So I couldn’t lie to her. “If we found a female in the tunnels who was good only for breeding … if she fought that role, the Hunters would’ve cut her throat and left her for the Freaks. The enclave wouldn’t have wasted resources training her. So, no, we wouldn’t have beaten you, Tegan.
My
people would’ve killed you.”

Her breath caught. “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t end up down below.”

“It is, actually.” Because it was unlikely she’d have survived the tunnels long enough to run into one of our patrols. It still amazed me that Fade had done so.

I could see her struggling with the revelation, hands clenched on the edge of the counter where we’d stacked the doctor’s clean implements. “But … you’re not like the rest of the Hunters, then. You protected me.”

“That was after I left the enclave.”

“So you’re saying you’d have killed me.
You
, Deuce.” Tegan met my gaze, her brown eyes begging for a denial.

I was about to destroy all her illusions. “If Silk ordered me to. I’d have felt bad about it, but I would have obeyed. Back then, I thought they knew more than me. Until a certain point, you know only what you’re taught.”

With a pained wrench, I remembered the blind brat who had come from Nassau begging for help. Fade and I carried him back with us to College, but once the elders heard his message, they had no further use for him. I hadn’t wielded the blade that slit his throat, but I gave the boy to the Hunter who did. His death could be attributed to my silence—and so I couldn’t let her idealize me. Though I’d learned better since I came Topside, it didn’t mean I was a good person or instinctively kind. In fact, I had spent years battling the idea that I was too soft to make it as a Huntress. In many cases, I saw compassion as weakness.

“Is that why you like Stalker?” Her expression twisted as though the words left a sour taste in her mouth.

I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “I understand him. We share common goals.”

“He’s like you,” she said then.

“More than you are,” I admitted. “Stalker and I came up with other ideas of right and wrong, different from what I see in Salvation. And, yes, the enclave did a lot of things that I’d fix if I could. At the time, I didn’t know any better … but I’m teachable. I think Stalker is too.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m not in a hurry to befriend him,” she muttered.

“I don’t expect you to. You two have history … bad history. He reminds you of the worst time in your life.”

“So do you,” she said softly.

Oh.
That hurt, more because it was an unexpected blow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Is that why—”

“It’s easier to be around the other girls. They didn’t see me at my weakest. They don’t know everything that’s happened to me, and I’d like to keep it that way. I hope you won’t tell them either.”

“Of course I won’t. And I won’t visit again, if it bothers you.” I kept my face still and calm, my Huntress expression, and it didn’t reveal any of my pain.

In Salvation, it seemed like I had nobody but Stalker and Longshot. Fade didn’t talk to me unless I needed saving. The brats at school thought I was crazy and they treated me accordingly … and now this from Tegan.
At least you’re safe,
I thought.
At least you have enough to eat.

“I need some time. I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I just—”

“Want to settle in?” I suggested, not showing how I felt. “Make new friends?”

She nodded, visibly relieved. “I’m glad you understand.”

“I do. I’ll be going, then.” And I wouldn’t come back until she came looking for me. Not out of injured pride, either. A true friend would rank Tegan’s welfare above her own loneliness.

She didn’t stop me from leaving. Outside the Tuttle place, the weather had turned as the sun fell toward the horizon. Light streaked the sky in colors whose names I’d only recently learned. Today it glowed gold and orange with slivers of pink, like a speckled autumn apple. As we’d traveled, we had found a few growing wild, a bit withered, but still edible. A cool wind blew over me, lifting tendrils of my hair from the braids. It would be suppertime soon, and I hadn’t started my schoolwork for the next day.

I ran through town, ignoring the whispers. A few women pointed at how I lifted my skirts. “Does that girl ever walk like a normal person? I can’t imagine what they were thinking when they took her in.”

I ignored them as I always did, though it hurt, each word like a stone hurled at my back. When I opened the front door, Momma Oaks murmured about me catching cold. Then she asked me to lay the table, and I did so without complaint. I found it fascinating how many different tools people used to eat a meal Topside. Food was scarce enough down below that we raked it off our plates as fast as we got it, and nobody carried extra weight, as people sometimes did in Salvation. That seemed marvelous, that people could pack on enough flesh to withstand a hard winter.

Edmund joined us and Momma Oaks took my hand, as she did each night. “Creator, bless and keep us. Guide us to live according to your laws and to appreciate your blessings.”

The first time she did that, I wondered aloud who she was talking to, and she explained that she was addressing a being who lived up in the sky and watched over us. Though I didn’t like to insult her, I thought her god had done a terrible job keeping his people safe. Given the current state of the world, it seemed far more likely the Freaks were his favored creatures.

My foster mother served us all. As I ate, I made polite conversation over roast meat, fresh bread, and vegetables. “How come your son never comes to see you?”

Edmund and Momma Oaks froze. Their expressions said my idea of courteous didn’t match theirs. Pain flashed across her features, echoed in a spark in her eyes, and then she dropped her gaze to her plate, apparently unable to respond.

But I didn’t understand why it was wrong for me to be curious. I’d been living in their home for over a month; it seemed unkind that he hadn’t come to check on his sire and dam. For all he knew, I was a dangerous maniac who might murder them in their sleep.

Then Edmund cleared his throat. “Rex has his own affairs to tend. He’s busy.”

“Oh.” That sounded like an excuse. It was more likely they’d argued, but as I wasn’t part of the family, I didn’t push for the truth.

Silence reigned for a while. I had made them sad without meaning to, and so I feared asking another painful question. Eventually, once I cleared my plate, there was a sweet, which tasted as good as the canned cherries Fade had shared with me in the ruins. The dessert jolted my memory.

“What is it?”

“Taste it.” Fade dipped his finger into the tin and offered it to me.

I couldn’t resist, though I knew better than to let him feed me like a brat. Sweetness exploded on my tongue, contrasting with the warmth of his skin. Shocked and pleased, I pulled back and dipped two of my fingers into the tin in a little scoop. This time I caught more than the sauce. A round little red thing sat in the curve of my fingertips. I ate it without hesitation, two, three more scoops until I was sure I had red all around my mouth, and I didn’t care. He watched me with amusement.