Naturals (8 page)

Chapter 10

“I’m starting to think we smell or something,” I said dryly, throwing a glance to the group of teenagers huddled together as tightly as possible at the three tables to our right—sitting smashed against one other to avoid having to sit with us. Henry and I had our own personal table at every meal. Despite our having been there for days, we were still outcasts.

I wondered if we always would be.

Henry shrugged. “No worse than them.”

I twisted in my chair, stretching my body as much as I could. I was smarting and aching something fierce; I wasn’t sure if it was from the journey or from work, but I didn’t feel strong. The others, despite the thinness of their bodies and circles under their eyes, looked durable, like they could survive anything.

Unlike Henry, I had to admit it bothered me the way they still ignored us. Maybe I didn’t plaster on a smile and run up and introduce myself to each and every person, but I hadn’t done anything to deserve being shunned, either. I wasn’t rude. I didn’t ignore them. I
had
done these things to the people who loved me back in my old life, but not here. I pushed my meager plate of potatoes and some sort of dark meat away from me and crossed my arms.

Henry sighed. “Stop worrying about it. Who cares?”

I stared at them. They laughed and touched another so carelessly—the determination I saw etched all over their faces in the fields disappeared like a jacket discarded and forgotten the minute it turned warm. Every joke they made, I wanted to know the punch line. Every laugh that filled the hall sounded like some song I wasn’t allowed to join in on.

“You’re letting them get the better of you,” Henry commented, pointing his fork in my direction. “You’re letting them win. I don’t know why you care.”

“Why do I care? I care because this isn’t how it was supposed to be. I mean, what was the point?”

“The point of what?” he asked.

“Leaving. Why leave one life where people get to decide the way I live to go to another? Just because I wasn’t born and bred in some backwoods commune doesn’t mean I deserve to be put into some little cage where they all get to point and laugh at me like I’m some sort of freak!”

Henry put his fork down and reached his hand across the table. “Last time I checked, you weren’t alone.”

I gave his hand a quick squeeze before pulling mine back and nodding in agreement. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t understand. I wanted things to be different here.”

“Well, maybe they can be. What don’t you like? Your job?”

“No. It’s not bad,” I admitted, pulling my plate toward me. And it wasn’t. Lockwood had started to grow on me despite the constant feeling that he was poking fun at me. It wasn’t like I had any sort of romantic feelings toward him, but I did enjoy his company. In fact, it was nice to finally understand how a boy and girl could be just friends. And unlike the others, his jokes always seemed good-natured. Earlier in the day, I’d successfully milked my first cow. Lockwood was thrilled, jumping up and down and high fiving me until my hand hurt.

“Do you like your job?” I asked, realizing that most of the little time we shared together was spent reading and not discussing our time apart.

“Cleaning up horse stalls every day isn’t so bad. Have to admit I’m pretty sore at the end of the day. Wish I was a bit stronger, but I’ll get there,” he replied.

I nodded, pushing my food around my plate with my fork. Time. I didn’t have time. As soon as I worked out whom I could trust, I was going back for Louisa.

Henry reached over and stole a bite of my mystery meat. “So if you like your job, what don’t you like?”

“I hate feeling so dirty.” I’m not sure why, but I blushed as I admitted it to Henry. I didn’t want him to think I was shallow, but appearance had been of the utmost importance at Templeton. Crisp. Clean. Refined. Orderly. Controlled. I never thought I would miss it. Yet every morning when I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, my face streaked with dirt, my hair matted and tangled, and my clothes stained with sweat, I felt it: longing. I was already tired of the countless spiders I saw scurry across our floor at night, worried they would crawl on my body as I slept. I’d lost count of the numerous bug bites that covered my arms and legs from working so close to the animals. My skin had begun to burn and peel from so many hours in the direct sun.

And I wanted to tell Henry it was more than just feeling dirty. I missed the simplicity of my life before. But then I had to remind myself that it wasn’t really a life at all.

“You get a bath soon,” said Henry.

I smiled. “Well, aren’t you Mr. Positive?”

“I guess. Maybe this isn’t the life I’ve always dreamed of, but it’s better than what we had before. I like working outside, and it’s nice not to have to worry that at any moment some chosen one’s gonna come in announcing a deportation or wrangling. The people here don’t like us. So what? Last time I checked, most people didn’t like us back home, either.”

“We didn’t make it easy for them to like us back at the compound. We were sullen little brats,” I admitted. “We were scared and hurt, but we don’t have to be those people here. We can have friends. We don’t have to be afraid of feeling.”

“Didn’t you just say they were born in a backwoods—”

“I said I was working on changing. I’m not there yet,” I admitted.

Henry set his fork down and looked up at me, forcing me to meet his eyes. “I don’t think we need them. I get to be friends with you here. I missed that. I don’t need anything else.”

Before, his words would have terrified me, but now I saw the truth in them. Maybe our friendship wasn’t perfect, and maybe there were still things we were hiding from one another, but I
had
missed him. I took a deep breath. “I missed it, too. We can’t let them drive us apart again. Not anyone. I need you.”

The silence that fell between us unnerved me. Perhaps I had said too much. Neither one of us could ever be described as earnest, but I’d learned life was too short not to say the things you meant. And I meant every last word.

“We won’t, Tess. Never again.”

“You two look so serious,” spoke a voice from behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see Lockwood. Without waiting for an invitation, he set down his tray of food and pulled out the seat next to me.

“You sure you’re at the right table, man? Don’t want your friends thinking you lost your way,” said Henry, nodding toward the many admirers who were now looking our way.

“Them? They’ll get over it. Besides, they’re not all bad. Just ignorant. If you grew up in this community, you’d probably act the same way,” Lockwood replied, taking a seat.

“Doubtful,” I mumbled.

“Us, act like of bunch of inbreds who don’t even know what the word
decency
means? I don’t think so,” Henry sneered.

“Inbreds? Wow, sounds like a pretty
decent
way to judge a group of people you don’t know,” said Lockwood.

“I don’t need to know them. It was pretty clear from day one what sort of people we would be dealing with,” Henry countered.

“Henry, please,” I said.

He took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry. They just make me so angry sometimes. I don’t want—”

I could fill in where his words trailed off. I knew there was a part of Henry that didn’t want to be this man, the man who only saw the world for everything that was wrong in it. It wasn’t long ago that I was the same way, but then I met James, and my whole world changed. I discovered what it was to be happy.

I wondered if Henry had ever felt that way at all.

Lockwood raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? All right. Fine. I want you to imagine growing up in a place like this. There were some winters where we didn’t have enough. Not enough wood to keep us warm at night, no medicine to fight the most common illnesses, or even enough food to fill out bellies. There isn’t a boy or girl over there who hasn’t lost someone to one of those winters. They watched their family members slowly waste away, knowing there was nothing they could do about it. In fact, they were probably so desperate for food that part of them wished their loved ones would just die already so they wouldn’t take any more of the food the rest of us who still had a fighting chance needed.”

I gulped, finding it hard to look at any of them.

“You dread the winter,” he continued. “You fear it. Will it claim your little sister? Your father? You? You spend your whole life growing up with this fear. And then here comes these two kids from the lands held by the council—lands where no one has to work or worry about food. And these two people look at you with disdain. We can see it in the way you cringe when your eyes take in our homes. All we see are two spoiled—”

“Right,” Henry said, cutting him off. “’Cause we’ve had it easy. Do you even know what our lives were like before the compounds? People were strapping bombs onto their damn children rather than watching them starve. We were struggling, too.” For someone who had claimed he didn’t care what these people thought of him, he sure had become defensive all of a sudden.

“
Before
you went into the compounds,” Lockwood challenged. “That’s what you don’t get. You all
chose
to go there, to let the council control you. That’s one thing the people here will never be able to understand. Our grandparents
ran
after the bombs fell. This is the only life we’ve ever known—we’ve been raised on the idea of freedom and never letting anyone take it from us. No matter what it costs to preserve it. You all let it slip away because they offered you beds and food. We’d rather die then give it up for even a second.”

“We didn’t choose it. Our parents did. We were children!” Henry yelled, his face turning red. The others in the dining hall had fallen silent.

“Maybe you didn’t, but it was the life you were brought up in. You’ve been under the council’s thumb so long, we wonder if you even
can
think for yourself. We all know why you escaped,” he said, turning his attention on me. “We can’t help but wonder if, had you been like all the other girls, you would have stayed?”

“Of course we wouldn’t have,” Henry retorted.

I peeked at the people in the dining hall. All eyes were on us. As I scanned the crowd, something inside of me dropped. There was a woman staring directly at me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she looked like someone I knew. The wheat-blond hair. Louisa. She looked like an older version of my sister. No. That wasn’t it.

My mother. She looked like my mother.

My chest tightened.

I needed sleep. I was losing it.

“Is that what you think, then?” I asked indignantly, forcing my attention back to the arguing boys. “Then how come you’re sitting with us now?”

“Because maybe I think it’s better to know as much as I can about the things I fear most in the world than to live in ignorance under their power. Or maybe because you have spunk, and that’s a respectable quality out here. Or, damn, maybe I’m just plain curious. Just because I understand where they’re coming from doesn’t mean I have to act like them. But for better or worse, they’re my people. You’re asking for a bit of understanding from them, but maybe you need to give a little to get a little.”

I turned to look at the people whom Lockwood had so passionately defended. There was no trace of understanding to be found in their eyes. Instead, I saw something else—a toughness brought on by a life of hardships. Lockwood was right. I knew nothing of their life, and they knew nothing of mine. If they had given me something in that moment, even if just one of them had given me an ounce of hope that they could try and see past where I’d come from, I would have stayed quiet. I would have let it go.

Instead, I hastily stood up and turned so I was facing them directly. “You don’t know a damn thing about our lives. You think we gave up? That we had it easy? When I was a kid, I watched as men I had been told were created to protect me, to save me, came and beat my father. Destroyed him. They took him from me, and I never saw him again. My mother killed herself because she couldn’t stand living one more day in this world you believe we
chose
. You think I don’t know what it’s like to lose a sibling?”

I stopped and looked back toward the woman who resembled my mother, but she was gone.

My voice choked. I swallowed down the emotion, unwilling to let them see me cry. “I watched my sister die. Slowly. I was forced to bury body after body. I had to leave the only family I had because the chosen ones were going to kill me. They were going to end my life simply because I was born different. So don’t pretend you’re the only ones who have had it hard.”

Lockwood opened his mouth to talk, but I cut him off. “You’re so damn curious, Lockwood, so shut up and let me finish. What happened to me is nothing compared to what they did to Henry. Henry’s family wanted that freedom you people are so damn insistent is a belief that only you can own. He and his family tried to run. The council had the chosen ones go after them, trap them in the woods. They made him watch as they attacked and murdered his sisters and mother. Then they made him go back to the compound. And when he got older, when he tried to fight for his freedom, they arrested his girlfriend and made the whole damn compound watch as they cut off her head.”