Parched (18 page)

“Hmm?”

“The painting.” I nod as it circles slowly past me. “Is that ‘your thing'?”

Hunter considers it with a frown. “I don't know,” he says thoughtfully. “That's an interesting question.”

“Same question you asked me.”

He props his chin up on his hand and watches it drift past, eyebrows furrowed in thought. “It seems . . . sad to me. Lonely.”

“Lonely?”

He nods. I wonder if he has many friends.

“It reminds me of Eden,” I say.

His eyes dart from the painting to me. “What do you mean?”

“Just the sun, being so bright. The white buildings.” I think aloud. “How what could be taken as an innocent street scene actually feels sort of creepy. Dangerous.”

“You think Eden is dangerous?” Hunter sounds amused.

I recall Ling's look of horror when she found out I broke Trust law on-cycle. My quickness of subject change rivals the speed of light. “So, lonely, huh? Post-ed not bursting with friendly types?” I flick a stray crumb at him with my fingernail. “Surprised you haven't found a nerd gang to run with there. I thought the South Hills had the best science courses in all of Eden.”

A peculiar expression climbs across his face. “Why would you assume,” he says slowly, “that I don't have any friends?”

I've hurt his feelings. But before I can stutter out an apology, he catches me off guard.

“Why didn't you eat that food?”

“What food?” I ask, feigning ignorance.

“The food last night. When I got here, you were . . . angry.” He pronounces the last word carefully.

The memory of that scene makes me blush. “I didn't want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I couldn't live with myself if I did.”

“Why not?”

“Why not, why not,”
I mimic him meanly. “You sound like a child.”

“I'm sorry,” he says immediately. “I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just curious.”

I scoff. “About my eating habits?”

“About you.” The eyes that could be gray or could be green meet mine in a way that feels very unprotected.

Oh no. Oh
no
. “Are you kidding me?” I exclaim, skidding my chair out from under me.

Hunter jumps, startled. “What's wrong?”

“So
that's
why this whole tutoring thing is going down?” I pace back and forth in front of the table. “Did you ask Abel? Huh? I bet you asked him.”

“I didn't ask him—”

“Look,
maybe
if I hadn't just spent a year out in the Badlands,
maybe
. But where I'm at right now . . .” Kudzu. Izzy. My mom, Aevum, Magnus. I shudder. “It's just not going to happen.”

“Tess, I'm really not following,” Hunter says apologetically.

My finger jabs in his direction. “You have a crush on me!”

“What?”

“You heard me! And I just can't, I cannot deal with that right now—”

“Tess!” Hunter's on his feet. “I do not have a crush on you!”

I'm stopped in my tracks. “Really?”

“Really,” he says emphatically. One hand is around his chin, rubbing it with alarmed concern. “I do not have a
crush
on you, Tess.” He makes it sound painfully juvenile.

“You, ah, you sort of seemed like the opposite might be true, but, um, you know what, now that we're talking about it, it does seem . . .”

“Completely insane?” he suggests.

Hunter is at post-ed. Hunter has impressive frontal lobe capacity. Hunter is borderline attractive, for a geek.

I have weirdo plaits. I have the body of a twelve-year-old boy. I pull knives on people.

Hunter. Does not have. A crush. On me.

My cheeks go from hot to feverish.

“Tess.”

Before I open my eyes, I can tell he's already cleared the room and is over in the hallway.

“Yes?” I ask meekly.

“I'm going to go. It's just—I'm going to go.”

“Okay.”

He turns, takes a step, then turns again. His hand is back on his chin, pawing at it frantically. “It's just—it's very important that we maintain a professional relationship. You're Professor Rockwood's
niece
.” He makes it sound so inappropriate, he may as well be naming me his sister.

“I get it. Bad move,” I say, cheeks flushing again. “Let's just forget about it, okay?”

He surprises me by laughing. A short, sour sound without any humor at all. “Right,” he says. “Forget.”

Hunter leaves me feeling so completely mortified that I'm almost angry. And I have to see him tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.

My head drops into my hands, and I let out a groan.

When I emerge from the house into Milkwood's bright backyard, the first person I see is Naz. She regards me suspiciously from her position in front of the weapons shed, turning to spit when I catch her eye.

“Oh-kay,” I mutter.

Ling catches it, flicking her gaze to the short, shaved one. “Don't worry about her,” she says, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “She takes a while to warm up, but once she trusts you, she'd die for you.”

Yeah, right. If she doesn't kill me first
.

Surprisingly, I'm looking forward to the obstacle course. There's something glorious about sprinting through the woods, heart racing, legs pumping, breath rasping. It makes me feel like I am completely inhabiting my own body. On my last attempt before we break for lunch, I'm down to seven minutes and forty-five seconds. Lana and Benji are thrilled. I can't help thinking it's still double the time Lana got on her very first attempt.

Lunch is roasted root vegetables—carrots, parsnips, potatoes—served with a spicy beetroot relish. As we eat, Kudzu and I try to outdo each other with horror stories—the time they spent the night hiding in apple trees in the Farms while clueless Guiders stomped around below, trying to find who'd been stealing boxes of apples, or the week I lived on a single can of beans.

I've barely finished eating when Gem and Kissy alight around me. They're in the midst of creating the Kudzu stream that'll be released after we destroy Aevum, and they have a million questions for me about artilects and life in the Badlands. I answer them as best I can, barely finishing one answer before they demand the next. Their enthusiasm is sweet and infectious. There's something incredible about knowing my words will be used to make a stream that could expose thousands of Edenites to such strange and awful truths.

When I've satisfied their curiosity, I relax on the back steps and surreptitiously watch Naz tinker with Big Bad. She catches me looking with an immediate scowl.

“No one touches the razers unless I say so,” she warns.

I nod—as if I was going to mess around with any of her swag. “Not really my weapon of choice anyway.”

“Oh yeah?” She sniffs sarcastically. “And what would that be?”

I pluck Mack from the backpack at my feet, then twirl him fast through my fingers to catch the hilt neatly in my palm.

“Nice!” Lana and Benji call from the hammock.

I raise my eyebrows at Naz.

She folds her arms across her chest. “How's your aim?”

“Not bad.”

She nods at the dartboard. “Go on, then.”

Aware that everyone in the backyard has their eyes on us, I take aim. With a hard flick of my arm, my hunting knife flies fast through the air . . . right past the dartboard and into the vegetable garden.

“Missed!” But Naz's smug smile disappears as her eyes find where Mack has actually landed. Clean through the throat of a rabbit in the strawberry patch. Easy as a prairie chicken.

“Whoa!” The entire background breaks into applause. “Nice shot!” calls Bo.

But all I get out of Naz is an unimpressed grunt.

“Seriously?” I mutter to myself.
I just bull's-eyed a rabbit
, fuega—
give me something!

“How'd you learn to throw like that?” Lana asks.

“When I was in the Badlands, we'd kill desert rats that way,” I say. “Prairie chickens too, if you don't mind heights.”

“How high?” Lana asks, eyes wide.

I shrug, trying not to sound boastful. “Sometimes twenty feet.”

“Wow,” Lana says.

“Impressive,” Benji adds.

I smile, pride blooming inside me. “What about you guys—how high have you gone?”

Lana waves the question away. “It doesn't matter—“

“You ever hear about the ladder?” Naz cuts her off.

I glance over at her. “The ladder?”

Naz nods. “Someone painted a ladder on the inside of the city walls, and the word—”

“
Welcome
,” I finish. I had heard about that, years ago. I stare at Benji and Lana. “That was you guys?”

They both blush modestly. “We had harnesses,” Lana says, sounding almost apologetic. “We weren't freehand.”

I turn to stare in disbelief at the white city walls that tower over us, a couple miles north. They seem to take up half the sky. “That's got to be over three hundred feet.”

“Easily,” says Naz.

I wish I could take back my boast about climbing up twenty feet. My cheeks prickle with heat. “That's really amazing,” I tell Benji and Lana. “Really cool.”

Lana gives me a sympathetic smile, which I know is supposed to make me feel better, but just makes me feel more embarrassed. I retreat inside.

I find Henny in the kitchen, up to her elbows in soapy water. “I have a present for you,” I say, holding up the rabbit by its hind legs. “Hope you like dead things.”

Her eyes bug in surprise. “Fresh meat!” she exclaims, wiping her hands on her apron. “Nice work, m'lady. Usually takes a new kid a lot longer to trap something.”

“Not trap. Knife,” I say, miming throwing one.

“Quite impressive, aren't you?” Henny says, examining the rabbit. “I always like to see new recruits with a bit of spunk—” But she doesn't finish. Suddenly the rabbit is on the floor, and the cook's hand is on her lower back. She winces in pain.

“Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, chicken,” she wheezes. “Just need to sit down for a minute.”

I guide her to a wooden chair and she sinks into it heavily, grimacing.

“Should I get someone?”

“No,” she says. “I'm not sick. Just a sore back. Not uncommon when you're . . .”

Henny's ample size isn't just from extra servings of root vegetables. “Pregnant,” I finish softly.

“Yes.” She opens her eyes and looks right at me. “And it's my third.”

A horrible chill cuts through me. “Your third?” I repeat dumbly. “As in, your third child?”

She nods, shifting in her chair. I'm not an expert on the female form in this condition, but she must be at least five months pregnant.

“Can you get me a glass of water?” she asks.

I all but leap toward the sink, eager to have something to do.

Henny accepts the water gratefully, and finishes it in one long swallow. I pull another chair up to sit next to her, at a loss for what to say. I know you usually congratulate pregnant women, but considering the circumstances, that doesn't exactly feel appropriate.

“Why . . . ,” I begin awkwardly. “I mean, what happened . . .”

“My first two children died,” she says, forming the words with careful precision. “As well as my partner.”

“I'm so sorry,” I whisper. “That's awful.”

“Yes,” she says softly. “It was awful. Buzzcar crash. Fern was four, and Brandon was six and a half.” She wipes her nose with her apron, her eyes red and misty. “Losing your children is like losing your limbs. The pain—it never goes away.”

I swallow. “I know what you mean,” I say, my voice hoarse. “My mother.”

Henny reaches for my hand and folds her fingers into mine. “You know, then,” she says, meeting my gaze intensely. She sits up in her chair a little, her hand on her belly. “The strange thing is, I always agreed with the population control. Two kids per couple, that seemed about right. But now . . .” She sighs and wipes her eyes. “I didn't know I was pregnant until I felt it kick. By then, it was too late to think about . . . doing right by the law.” Then, with renewed passion, “I need to be a mom, Tess. I have to be. The Trust won't kill this baby, I won't let them.”

“Kill?” I shake my head, taken aback. “They won't kill it, Henny. You could give it up for adoption.”

Henny leans toward me. “There were nine hundred and eighty seven babies given up for adoption last year,” she says. “Do you know how many people applied for them? Five hundred and eleven partnered, and three hundred and four independent.”

I do the math in my head. “What happened to the other babies?” I ask.

Henny shakes her head. My stomach drops. I had no idea the population control was taken that far. A wave of nausea billows inside me. “Is that why you're here?” I ask.

She nods. “Don't get me wrong, I agree with the missions the kids run, but I'm here to have my baby. Kudzu—they'll protect me.”

“Of course they will,” I say, before correcting myself. “Of course
we
will.”

“I know, chicken.”

“And it's safe?” I say. “Having it here, I mean. No Longevity Hub, no doctors?”

“It's a lot safer here,” she says somberly, “than out there.”

This
time when I get back to Abel's, I'm less whirlwind and more cautious breeze. I have no idea how Hunter is going to handle what happened between us yesterday. Somehow
lightheartedly
seems foolishly optimistic. I catch myself all but tiptoeing down the hallway and have to make myself walk normally.

Of course, he's already here because, of course, I am twenty minutes late. The sight of him knots my stomach. Tonight he's sitting on the other side of the dining room table, putting a good few feet of table between us. The chair I sat in is even drawn out a few inches in invitation, as if to say, “Sit here. No closer.”