Vagabond

I settled my pack against my chest and nuzzled my nose into it. The loose strands had only gotten more unraveled since it came into my possession, and the frayed edges took on the wear and tear of travel under my chin. I hugged it to me tightly as the music of the train pulled on and over and up and down. I wondered if I’d ever see them again. I probably wouldn’t. At least I hoped I wouldn’t.

I tightened the drawstring to my hoodie, but the wind still tore at my hair. I’d layered on every piece of clothing I owned to combat the cold. It didn’t do much for the biting wind, and it made my pack feel small— small like me.

When we’d gotten close to the freight yard, I hopped on the first train that came. I ignored Xavi’s disapproving looks and obnoxious warnings, even though he was right. I wasn’t choosing wisely. I was choosing rashly, and he’d taught me better than that.

There wasn’t an open-top or boxcar on the transport to hitch onto, and my only option was on the side of the PR Car. They were thinner models to make room for narrow platforms with decorative, metal podiums on both sides. The design was meant to let Politicians, Scientists, and Celebrities make their pretty speeches and conduct speedy get-a-ways. Inside the car, I knew there
were costumes, makeup vanities, and media tools to prep the speaker for an audience. I nestled between the podium and the fencing in an attempt to cut down the wind and buckled myself in by wrapping my belt around my arm and the platform’s railing.

I knew it’d be safer to hang out near the rear of the car, rather than in the middle. But warm was warm, and safety was all relative anyways. All I wanted to do was get away. Nothing else besides that mattered much.

I waited for sleep to come, but I wasn’t kidding myself by trying. Sleep was the last thing on my mind right then. The tha-thump, tha-thump was slow and steady. Metal rummaged over steel and pushed the train forward… pushed me forward out of my own past that was racing mere seconds behind me.

If only she’d never come into our lives, but her infestation was so quick I never saw it coming. Five of them came out of the woods that evening. They heard our voices and decided to check us out, and, that night, safely in numbers, we braved a fire. Four of the five talked about revolution, drinking from bottles brown as mud, getting drunk on dreams just as filthy.

When Xavi’d accepted the bottle, shock fluttered through me. “Never accept alcohol from strangers. They’ll get you drunk and rob you blind,” he’d said before. But he swayed while I watched. He let go of my hand and stared across the fire at her, and I could do nothing to stop it. The girl wore loneliness like a neon sign, inviting him over with suggestion. She crossed her long Legs and smiled that smile— the smile that wrapped boys around her slithering teeth. She knew all the subtle arts to it. He’d always seen past it before, and, the entire time I’d known him, he never left my side.

The next morning, four of them left while the girl stayed behind. She ditched them like haphazard particles colliding and disembarking at random. She didn’t even flinch because she’d never been stuck to the others in the first place. She was gypsy in spirit, with long lashes hanging over green eyes. She didn’t need him, and that only made him want her more.

And now, he was ditching me— for her. For a nice pair of Legs.

“You can come with us, but you have to accept that things have changed,” Xavi said with his fingers laced into hers. They had matching dirty fingernails— matching dirty lies. Their eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep while mine were red-rimmed from crying. “Please. Come with us,” he repeated, but her algae-hued glare told me I couldn’t. Theft is a blatant thing. She was so different from all the others we’d come across, and she won before she even tried. The only thing left for her to do was rub my nose in it, but I refused to let her win completely. Despite my puffy, tell-tale eyes, I wouldn’t cry in front of her.

“I’ll pass, but thanks for your concern,” I growled.

“Niko, come on. You don’t need to be alone. It’s dangerous out here for a girl alone.” He acted like he cared, but I could tell he didn’t really. Not anymore at least. “I can’t have your death on my conscience.”

“But you can take on so much else there. This should be nothing.” I was proud of myself for the retort. Normally, I would find a way to agree with him. He was usually right, after all, but not about this. Part of me knew I was probably shooting myself in my own foot— that Legs wouldn’t last if I waited it out. We’d seen it a million times before, since girls on the Tracks rarely knew of loyalty.

She’d be gone when the breeze got under her skin. “You can’t trust Vagabond hearts. They are already so broken that they think nothing of breaking yours,” he had explained once. I wondered who was the first to break his heart— where he’d gained that knowledge the first time around.

But as much as I knew these things, I knew I couldn’t watch. I knew I owed it to myself not to go through that.

Tears were treason. I told myself not to cry, and I didn’t in front of him— in front of her. But on the train, I tortured myself.

I remembered ice as a kid before ice was synthesized. I remembered the way it made water condensate in the heat. Drinking was like racing time— like racing nature as the ice melted and the water equalized and lukewarm-ed. But these tears began hot then froze against the wind, crusting my cheeks in salt.

I tried to focus on anything but the tears: the numbness of my toes despite the wool of my socks, the way the trees blurred into nothing but darkness, and the way the train’s wheels rambled over metal. But all of these tangible things couldn’t make what was going on in my heart feel real.

Parting ways is sometimes a little too simple, but, even still, the simplest of things can be the most painful.

He knew so much more than I did about life out here, and he taught me the Ways of the Tracks until it became my own heartbeat. He showed me how to gage the speed, the lighting, the timing, until I knew I could do it alone but just didn’t want to.

As the train approached, he warned me. “Niko, it’s red!”

Red meant a Military

Transport.

But red was all I could see anyways. Why did it matter?

I paced myself for the takeoff, and I made the jump as the moon rose over the trees.

“Niko! No!”

“Let her go,” Legs demanded.

I shut out his reply. I vowed not to pay attention to whatever guilt he was pretending to have, because done was done, and somethings you couldn’t take back. I chose my train, and he’d be on a different one soon enough.

South.

To the Rebels.

Hypocrite.

My first summer as a Vagabond, we stayed in mountains that only knew of green. The weather was warm, but he taught me how to build a fire and how to live on nothing but everything. I asked him then why he never joined before. He waved his hands over the cliff we stood on and said, “It’s not our fight. If you want to join the Rebels, you only give up one freedom for another. It’s not your responsibility to die for a freedom you already have. Republic? Revolution? Both causes have their chains.”

But despite the speech he gave every time, he was following Legs to join.

The past has a way of living within the present, and I was so lost in thoughts of Xavi that I almost didn’t register the door on the side of the car begin to open. It was the same metallic as the rest of the car, and, I knew in the sun it would bounce off silver and cleanliness and thoughts of sterilization. But at night, it only bounced off danger.

My fingers clutched at the belt and unlatched the hold it had on me. Xavi’d made me practice this over and over again, because speed prevented capture. I leaned against the platform’s railing before the door completely opened. The harsh metal of the chest-high fencing bit into my back as the figure emerged, and I trusted the flimsy metal with my weight as I quickly inched towards the back of the car.

I knew better than to post up at the podium. It was directly in front of the door and left me right in the open. I cursed my stupidity. I should have taken the colder but easier escape and stayed in the back. Better yet, I never should have gotten on the Military Transport in the first place.

I watched the ground beyond me, and it blurred at a speed of too fast. Small lights lit up the tracks under the cars. They were standard to make surprise inspections easy. The glow they emitted laughed at me as I contemplated jumping, and they played soft tricks on my eyes. They were small pieces of racing moonlight. They were small pieces of mocking death.

I couldn’t jump.

I took a deep breath. I had to choose between a broken arm (or worse) and getting caught.

As the figure stepped out, it slammed the door and rushed to the railing. Its chest rose and fell, rose and fell, too frantic for it to simply be a curious patrol. My eyes were more adjusted to the dark than its, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for me to be seen. The shape took on the light of the moon, and I registered that it was masculine. He soaked in the muted and dark colors around him, and I knew I was out of time. He saw me.

“What the— who—“ His questions mixed with the wind and only brought to my attention that the wind was changing velocity. The train was slowing.

Slowing? Something was wrong.

I reached out instinctively for Xavi, but he was not here. My fingers just gripped cold railings like they were his hand instead.

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