The Letting (21 page)

“A psychopath,” I interject, finishing his sentence.

“Yes.” Gretchen nods along.

“What was your original plan?” I ask Phoenix.

“It seems so useless now, but…we were also going to rally the people of the city, but not in anger, in a peaceful demonstration. Together we would say, ‘no more.’ My contact would get Gunnar and me in, and Gunnar would stop Farnsworth in hand to hand combat—not to kill him, just detain him—while I reasoned with the masses. Back then, we didn’t even think about killing Farnsworth. But now, that’s changed,” he says, quietly, looking down. “Just like so many other things.” His eyes dart up at me for a moment.

“Anyway, the people of the city would be assembled in a peaceful, non-violent way, not allowing the men and women of the Inferno to escape until I had convinced them of what Farnsworth had done.” His words are running together, quickly. “I had heard about protests like this in an ancient history book I found buried deep in a cellar of an abandoned building when I lived in the city. Somehow, those leaders of long ago changed their worlds in completely non-violent ways by just having people band together for the greater good. Then, Gunnar and I would serve as interim Principal Leaders, with a kind of system of ‘checks and balances’ I heard existed so very long ago. It sounded like a good way to govern. While we served, the people from the city and the Inferno would elect their new Principal Leader together. Now I realize what a load of crap that whole plan was.”

“It wasn’t crap,” I say. “It was just idealistic. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah, except it doesn’t work.”

“Well, the first thing we have to do is get Gretchen to base. Can you help me with her?” Phoenix leans down, picks up Gretchen, and throws her over his shoulder. Even though Gretchen is tiny and frail, I am still amazed by his strength. “You can only walk us to where the gravel path morphs into base camp. Otherwise you’ll be spotted for sure.”

“Okay,” Phoenix agrees. We walk up the hill carefully, and in silence. Even though Gretchen is tiny, I can see the exertion in Phoenix. Once we make it to the top, he sets Gretchen down, carefully.

I turn to him. “I’ll take her from here. I’ll take care of her. You’d better get moving on your plan, because we’re officially out of time.”

He nods, solemnly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a mushroom patch. I run over to see if they’re my mushrooms. “These aren’t mine,” I mutter, disappointed. “I need to look for mine if we want to get this plan started.”

“There’s more over here.” Gretchen points to another patch. I eye her skeptically, grateful I am the one who knows what the mushrooms look like. For all I know, this is an elaborate ruse and Gretchen is here to kill me. But I figure I have cheated death so many times, what’s the sense of being afraid now. I look at the mushroom patch and surprisingly, she was right. These are my mushrooms. I bend down and pick four.

“Are you sure those are yours?” Phoenix asks.

“Very.” I dust the dirt off one. “See?” I turn the mushroom over. “This is how you tell.” I show him exactly what my mother showed me, how the large round, circular spores hang onto the bottom of the cap.

“You eat all four at once?” he asks.

“Un-uh.” I wipe the mushroom off the best I can. “Only one. Eating more than one at once…wouldn’t be good. The other three are for the next nights, in case I can’t break free of Farnsworth again.”

“Can I try one?” Phoenix asks, curious.

“No.” I pull them away from him. “If you’re not used to them, even one can make you black out for hours. I’ve built up a tolerance.” I chew and swallow the mushroom, quickly. “Okay,” I say to Phoenix, dropping the mushrooms to the ground. “Let me have your shirt.”

“What?” he asks. “Why do you want my shirt?”

“Because there is a very good chance someone, namely Farnsworth, would have noticed I was missing. I am putting the soaking wet shirt on Gretchen to make it look like she had been sleepwalking and she fell into the lake. I woke up, saw she was gone, and ran to the waterfront. Naturally, I jumped in after her.” I shrug and sigh. “It’s the best I’ve got.”

“It’s good,” Phoenix responds. He takes his gun off from around his neck and lays it on the ground by his foot. I keep a watchful eye to make sure Gretchen doesn’t go for the gun. Honestly, she looks too weak even to try. Then, forgetting the buttons, Phoenix yanks his shirt up over his head with one hand. He stands there, bare-chested in the moonlight, and I have to steady myself. He looks so incredibly strong, powerful and handsome…I can barely move. I feel my jaw go slack, but I can’t seem to close my mouth. Only now do I realize I’ve never before seen a boy without his shirt. But still, I know there’s no way they could all look like this. He is so perfectly chiseled I can see every muscle of his abdomen. My eyes wander up across his bare chest to his broad, toned shoulders. Then I watch the muscles in his biceps flex as he hands me the shirt.

“Ron?” He holds the shirt out to me. “Ronnie?”

“Oh. Thanks,” I mumble, shaking my head from embarrassment. I know he saw me staring at him. I look over at Gretchen who is grinning through her pain. He slings the gun back across his bare chest as I slip his shirt over Gretchen’s head and help her to her feet. His shirt hangs down to her knees and, standing there, she looks no bigger than my three sleeping girls. I smile at her, wondering if I can ever forgive her for setting me up to take the fall for our entire corrupt government.

“Come on.” I bend down to scoop up my mushrooms, wrap my arm around her shoulder, and she wraps hers around my hips. Slowly, we make our way up the few remaining steps of the path toward camp.

No sooner do we hit the grass, I see a flashlight being waved just yards ahead of me. “Damn,” I say. “It’s Farnsworth. He’s incredibly needy. Do you remember our story?”

“Yes,” she whispers, barely able to speak.

“Veronica!” It’s Farnsworth, all right. His voice is stern, but relieved. “I have been looking everywhere for you.” I hide the mushrooms in my palm and tuck my hand carefully under Gretchen’s arm.

“Why?” I can tell that is not the response he expected.

“Why?” he asks, gathering his thoughts. “Because you’re supposed to be in bed and you’re not.”

“How did you know?” I ask, standing my ground. There is something about being on my own turf that makes me very bold. Maybe too bold.

“Because I knocked on your door, and you didn’t answer.” His eyes are steady on mine.

“At this hour? What if I had been asleep? Would you have barged into my private quarters?”

“Well,” he takes a step closer. “Technically, it is my camp. So technically, I do own everything in it. Including the cabins—”

“Maybe you do own everything in it,” I say. “But you don’t own every
one
in it. That includes me. Your personal donor. But now that I know how you feel… I’ll be just fine sleeping outside of camp, so I can have my privacy and not crowd any of your possessions.” The lack of sleep and my fight with Phoenix is making me too brazen.

“That won’t be necessary,” Farnsworth declares, eyeing me coolly. “So tell me, Veronica, who is your friend?”

“Gretchen, sir. She is a fellow Leader. Surely you know of her.”

“Gretchen, Gretchen…” He repeats the name over and over. I’m certain his mind is reeling with thoughts. Does he know her? And what were we doing?

“Well, maybe it will spark your memory, sir, when I tell you Gretchen is in poor health. She is also prone to sleepwalking. When I woke tonight, and I realized she was gone, I knew exactly where to look. Thank goodness I arrived in time.”

“Yes,” Farnsworth agrees. “Thank goodness. But tell me, Gretchen, why do you think you go to the waterfront when you sleepwalk?”

“She doesn’t know where—”

“That’s okay, Veronica.” Farnsworth holds up his hand to silence me. “Let her speak.”

“She’s very weak, sir.”

“I have time.” He looks at Gretchen. I see her tremble.

“I think I go to the waterfront because…well, because I can’t swim.” Gretchen looks directly at Farnsworth, and he raises his eyebrows, intrigued. I see she has sparked his interest.

“So you’re trying to do away with yourself?”

“No, sir,” she mutters, her eyes staring at the ground. “I think my subconscious wants me to be stronger. It pushes me to do those things I am most afraid of so I can grow healthier and more resilient.”

“I understand,” he murmurs, and I know he actually does understand. Probably better than I ever could.

“Maybe I should park myself at the waterfront round the clock, just to keep an eye on you.” While he speaks to Gretchen, he eyes me.

I don’t flinch. Then I think, maybe I’m too still, so I allow myself a small smile. “That would certainly help with our training, sir.”

“Yes, wouldn’t it?” He smiles along with me, as if he knows so much more.

“Luckily,” Gretchen says, trying to rescue me, “Veronica is always there to save me.”

“Yes,” he agrees, his eyes darting to mine. “Luckily Veronica is there to be our savior.” For a moment, I almost feel bad for him. Then I remember my girls, asleep, after having nearly been bled to death.

“Well, I’m not going to be able to do anything for anyone if we don’t get some sleep,” I announce. My arm is still under Gretchen’s shoulders, keeping her upright, and I feel the mushrooms growing sweaty in my grasp.

“Just one more thing,” Farnsworth asks. “Why are you wearing a man’s camouflage jacket?” Gretchen tries to remain cool but her eyes dart up to me. Farnsworth may very well think Gretchen had gone to the waterfront to meet her boyfriend, and I am covering for her. If that were true, we could both be convicted for breaking the law, but she would be punished much more severely than me. I could just let her take the blame and walk away virtually unscathed…but no.

“I told you,” I tease Gretchen, good-naturedly.

“You did,” she banters back, obviously unsure of where I’m going with this. I speak to Farnsworth.

“I have told her, I don’t know how many times, the camouflage jackets belong to boys. But we don’t get a lot of choices of clothing here, and she is always hiding herself in those oversized jackets.”

“I’m always cold,” she explains, visibly shaking.

“That’s true,” I add. “We really don’t have much need for proper fashions here.”

Farnsworth nods, and he may even believe us. Thankfully our conversation is interrupted by the sounds of Farnsworth’s entourage arriving. He looks sadly in the direction of the trucks that have just pulled up.

“Well, I guess the party’s over,” he whispers. He looks profoundly depressed. His nurse is one of the first people out of the truck. He sighs.

“Well, since this is for you, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take Gretchen back to bed, and I’m going to get some sleep too. We have a busy day ahead.”

“Fine, fine, of course.” Farnsworth dismisses us, but I feel him watching us as I walk past. “Veronica.” He speaks just as we’ve taken a few steps toward the cabins. “I’ll have some proper clothes sent to you and the girls, so why don’t you leave that horrible shirt outside your cabin tomorrow and I’ll have it disposed of for you.” My blood runs cold. He knows something. I turn slowly, suddenly wishing I could eat all four of my mushrooms at once.

“That’s very kind of you, sir.” Despite the sweat pooling on my lower back, I remain calm, my eyes locked on his. “But we have very little use here for dresses of this type.” I motion to the gown I’m wearing.

“Well I would have thought that dress works just fine, since you were either sleeping in it, or it was the thing you threw on to run to the waterfront.”

Damn, I forgot to justify my wardrobe.

“I fell asleep in it, sir. And we don’t mind keeping the boyish clothes. What we could use, if you would care to be so generous, is better food.” Both Farnsworth and Gretchen look at me like I’ve gone insane. No one ever speaks to Farnsworth like that.

“Really?” he asks. “The cuisine’s not to your liking?”

“No sir, it’s not.” My voice is level and even. “You know we live on protein bars and powdered milk.”

“And what would you like, Veronica?”

“Fresh milk, for the girls. And solid food.”

“And what do I get in return?” He sounds snakelike.

“Stronger, healthier girls with stronger, healthier blood.”

“Ah ha!” he exclaims. “Well, I’m sure something can be done.”

“Thank you, sir. And I’ll be sure to leave the offensive shirt outside our door to be disposed of.”

“Very good, Veronica.” We walk past him and into our cabin as voices and shouts are heard from the trucks belonging to Farnsworth’s entourage.

****

I drop Gretchen onto her bed and collapse on the floor next to her. “What were you thinking?” she asks.

“I don’t know. The truth is I just don’t care anymore. Over the past week I’ve found out I’m a monster, my mother is probably dead, my best friend’s betrayed me, and the boy that I like has turned out to be someone I don’t know at all. The only thing I’m living for is to save those little girls.”

“I thought Gunnar and I would be together forever,” Gretchen confesses quietly. She flips onto her side and snuggles against her pillow. “Like in those secret stories people used to tell about the Old World and how people fell in love and had babies, and nothing had to do with arrangements or blood types.”

“So what happened?”

“He only used me to get to you. Then when he realized you were being protected by Phoenix, he threw me away.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. She nods.

“I’m sorry, too.” She looks at me, her large eyes soft and sincere. “Here.” She slips out of Phoenix’s now dried shirt. “He’d want you to wear it, not me.”

“I can’t,” I whisper, fighting back tears. “I can’t do anything with him. He isn’t who I thought he was.”

“No?” Gretchen asks. “Well, you weren’t who he thought you were either.” Before I can even process her words, she has fallen asleep.

Chapter Seventeen

I wake up on the floor of my cabin with Phoenix’s shirt wrapped around me. “Phoenix?” I whisper, but then I realize I’m alone. It’s only the scent, lingering in the air from his shirt, that makes me think he’s here. I bury my nose deeply into the warm camouflage pattern and breathe him in. Just the scent of him sends a thrill through my body and brings a smile to my face. Then my smile turns to tears when I realize Phoenix and I could never and will never happen. When I finish crying, I wipe away my tears and pull myself together. How did anyone ever survive a relationship that wasn’t prearranged? How impossible it is to do anything when you are led by nothing but emotions. I throw Phoenix’s shirt outside the cabin and strip out of my dinner dress. I change into my black swimsuit, black shorts, and tank top. I tug on my boots and pull my hair back into a ponytail. I catch my reflection in the glass. I look…determined. I am ready.