Stung (3 page)

“No. I need water now.”

The child sighs and mutters under its breath. The sound of water swishes, and my dry throat clamps tight with desire. A narrow container is pushed against my hands. I grab it, open the lid, and chug it down, but before my thirst is slaked the water is gone, leaving sand in my teeth and the taste of copper on my tongue.

The empty bottle is yanked from my hand. “I just saved your life twice now, idiot. You owe me double.” Fingers find my elbow and, clutching it a little too hard, guide me forward again.

My feet squelch against the floor, and my mouth is deliciously damp. I sigh, content. “I’ll repay you double,” I say, willing to do anything for more water. Not a smart thing to do when you haven’t been told the price.

When we finally stop walking, fatigue drags at my body. A
scritch
disturbs the silence, and a match sparks to life. I squint against the tiny flame and look around. I stand at the end of a tunnel surrounded on three sides by concrete. Above, pipes slowly drip water into waiting, dented pots. And above them, darkness.

The child lights a candle and grabs my right hand, big, hungry eyes examining the back of it. “So much for paying me back double,” it grumbles, shoving my hand away.

The child, slight and bony, wears baggy clothes a grimy shade of gray, the same color as its sickly skin. Its dark hair is short everywhere but in the front, where long greasy bangs cover most of its face, except for a pointy nose sticking out. I lean toward the child, trying to peer beneath the thick hank of hair. It sounds
like a girl, is small like a girl, but there’s something masculine in the way she—he?—stands.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” I ask.

The child whips the bangs out of its face and grins at me with stained teeth. “Does it matter?”

I stare at the child’s dark, shifty eyes. “I guess not.”

The child gnaws on its thumbnail and studies me for a moment, eyes calculating. “I’m a girl. But when things get ugly, looking like a boy is more protection than a hidden knife.” The way she says it, she sounds way more grown-up than she looks. “Rest. You’ll need it. You’re paying me back tomorrow. Double.”

A pile of blankets are heaped in a corner where the cement walls meet. I walk toward them, but the girl steps in front of me and puts her hand against my shoulder. “Sorry, Flower. That’s where
I
sleep.”

“My name’s not Flower. It’s … Fo.”

“Arrin. Nice to meet you.” Arrin takes a blanket from the pile and chucks it at my feet. “And just so you know, Fo, if you try and ditch me while I sleep, the others will kiiiiiill you,” she says.

I peer over my shoulder, toward the dark tunnel. “Others?”

“Yeah. The
others
. You know, the people who’ve banded together and hide down here in order to survive. They kill wanderers before they ask questions. So don’t wander off if you ever want to see the sun again.” Arrin collapses onto the pile of blankets and blows out the candle. My eyes open wide and I swing my hand in front of them. I see nothing.

Reaching down, I spread the blanket on the cement floor
and ease onto it. And gag. The blanket smells like vomit, moldy cheese, and urine. My stomach turns, and I scramble to my feet. Wadding up the blanket, I toss it away. Cold, hard cement over the smell of that? Any day.

I lie on my side with my arm under my head, but I don’t sleep. Not yet. Not with my body screaming for the water dripping into a pot not three feet away. When Arrin’s breathing grows deep and methodical, I roll onto my hands and knees and stick my face into the pan. Water drips onto the back of my head as I drink, but that doesn’t slow me down. I drink until my belly wants to pop. And then, finally satisfied, I lie on my back.

Arrin mumbles in her sleep, something about bacon, her voice a deep grumble. I try to block her out by focusing on the rhythm of dripping water—a liquid metronome. My fingers move to the beat, tapping out the notes to the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh against my thigh, and as I play the silent music, I cry myself to sleep.

“First thing we have to do is cut your hair.”

I still hear the rhythm of water dripping onto water. Beethoven’s Seventh still haunts my groggy brain, keeping time with the dripping.

“And then we’ll make you dirty. Really
filthy
. You stand out, and not in a good way. Sad fact about cleanliness—it makes you a minority if you’re on the wrong side of the wall. Who are you, anyway?”

I open my tear-crusted eyes, and the music in my head jolts to a stop. A glowing candle flashes against Arrin’s close face. She sits cross-legged beside my head, holding a rusty dagger in one hand, tugging my hair out of the neck of my shirt with the other. I push against the cement floor and sit. “What are you doing?” I croak, staring at the knife.

“Waking you up, idiot. The early bird always gets the worm. And I have a mighty big worm that needs getting.”

“What time is it?” I wonder aloud, looking at my empty left wrist. I always wear a watch. Correction—
wore
.

“There is no time down here,” Arrin says, rubbing a strand of my hair between her thumb and finger. “So, what are you doing on the wrong side of the wall?”

I think about the meaning behind her words. At least I try to. But I don’t know what she’s talking about. “You mean, what was I doing out in the street? Last night?”

“Duh.” She rolls her eyes.

My brother’s face wavers in my mind. A younger face, smiling, gentle. Not how he was yesterday—if that was yesterday. But there’s no way I’m going to tell Arrin that I was running from my own brother. “I was running from … something.”

“Yeah, I got that. You caught the attention of the raiders. What’d you do to make them come after you?”

“Them?” I think of the shadows running down the street toward me just after sunset and shrug. “Nothing.”

“Whatever. I totally saved your butt. They
never
let anyone get away, especially girls. And now you’ve got to repay me.
Double
. As soon as possible, because I can’t have you depending on me for anything. Including water.” She glares at the pot I drank from the night before. “And if you want to succeed in that payment, you gotta look like a boy, and you gotta be dirty.” She lifts the dagger, and candlelight flickers against the rusty blade. I lean away and press a hand to my neck.

“I’m not going to kill you, idiot. You’re worth too much alive. The knife’s for your hair,” she says.

I grab my hair and wind it around my hand. It hangs down to my hips—longer than I remember it ever being in my life. And thicker.

Arrin rolls her eyes. “Yeah. So it’s glossy and smooth and the color of wheat. You’d be in a shampoo commercial if we still had television. Thing is, no one but the lice can appreciate it down here. Just hold still.” She holds the knife toward me, and I flinch. “Look, Fo. You’ll be thanking me for getting rid of it. Trust me.”

I hug my knees to my chest. The knife saws against my hair, tearing it from my scalp more than cutting it. But then I feel a release, and my sheared hair falls around my shoes in a shiny, honey-gold pile. Arrin takes a chunk of the hair still attached to my scalp and hacks it even shorter, until she’s moved around the entire back of my head. Until I imagine I look just like her—short, uneven hair on the back and sides of my head, chin-length hair in front that covers most of my face. Totally ugly. My mother would be mortified. The thought makes my heart ache. Where
is
my mother?

Arrin grins, a flash of teeth as dingy as her skin. “Perfect,” she says, eyeing my hair. Her breath smells like the tunnels. “Are you rested? Because the sun is going to set in a couple of hours. And that’s when you are going to pay me back.
Double
.”

“Right.” My stomach growls, and I remember the half-eaten pack of crackers from Jacqui. I take them from my pocket and slide one into my hand. It is a peanut-butter-filled sandwich cracker dusted with little grains of salt. My mouth waters.

A black weight hits my chest, and I fly backward. The candle wavers and goes out just as my head crunches against cement. Heavy darkness sits atop me, pinning my arms to the ground, clawing the crackers from my hand.

“
Air did oo get dese?
” Arrin asks, mouth full. She swallows noisily. “I haven’t tasted peanut butter in two
years
.” She climbs off me. I hear the crackers crunching in her teeth. “These crackers, they can help pay off your debt to me.”

Hunger stabs my hollow stomach. “Not if I die of starvation first. I need food,” I retort, climbing to my knees and rubbing the goose egg on the back of my head.

She laughs, and I can smell peanut butter on her rancid breath. A match scrapes and a flame flickers. She relights the candle, and shadows dance against her greedy, chewing face.

“Here. Gnaw on this.” She tosses something at me. Relieved at the thought of eating, I snatch it out of the air and frown. A leather belt, half eaten and covered with teeth marks, dangles from my hand. I toss it back and stare at her like she’s crazy. Arrin lets the belt fall to the ground and shrugs. “Suit yourself. But there ain’t nothing else to eat down here.” She looks at the last cracker, golden and clean in her discolored hand, then breaks off a tiny piece, barely a morsel. She holds it out to me. “Here.” She says it like she’s just sacrificed something priceless. I guess a crumb
is
priceless to someone who is starving—someone like me. I take it and swallow without chewing. My stomach growls for more.

Arrin holds the last cracker with the tips of her fingers and nibbles toward its center, like a mouse, beady eyes focused on
me as if she’s afraid I might fight her for it. I stare and she glares, but I don’t take my eyes from her. It isn’t the cracker that holds my attention. Something darkens the back of her right hand. An oval with three lines drawn through it like insect legs—two on the left, one on the right. I glance at my own hand. The edge of my mark is showing through the makeup and dirt. My palms turn icy-damp, and I wipe them on my shirt.

“I need some privacy,” I blurt, touching the tube of makeup in my pocket.

“Pee over there.” She nods toward the darkness, and I wander out of the ring of candlelight. “But, Fo. The others. Don’t go far.”

I stumble through the darkness and come to the end of the cement. My feet sink into goo and squelch with each step. When I am sure Arrin cannot see me, I slip the makeup from my pocket and dab it on the back of my hand, smoothing it over the tattoo. Over the ten-legged spider. When I’m done I squat and relieve myself, and as I am retying the drawstring waist on my knee-length shorts, a squelch echoes behind me, followed by a gasped curse.

I flip around and face the black tunnel. Someone could be standing six inches from me, engulfed in darkness, and I wouldn’t be able to see him.

I turn to the flickering candle and hurry toward it, easing my feet onto the slick floor with each step, trying not to squelch. And then I am on cement, inside the glow of candlelight. Arrin lounges on her nest of nasty blankets, hands behind her head, staring at the pipes on the ceiling.

“Arrin,” I whisper.

She looks at me with heavy eyes. “Those crackers,” she says with a sigh. She grins and licks her teeth.

“I think someone is in the tunnel,” I whisper, glancing over my shoulder.

Her eyes snap wide, and she springs to her feet, dagger in hand.

“We know you’re there. I’ll kill you if I see you,” Arrin snarls, her words ringing with violent truth. She slices the air for impact, and I take a step away from her. There is no reply. Crouching beside the candle, she blows it out. We plunge into darkness so thick I can hardly breathe it into my lungs.

“Why did you blow out the candle?” I ask.

“So they can’t see us. If they can’t see us, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to kill us.”

I gasp.

“Stop breathing so loud,” Arrin whispers. “They won’t need the light to kill you if you keep making noise like that. And I’m
not
going to save you again.”

I open my mouth and take slow, silent breaths, straining to hear the warning sound of approach.

A long time passes—my legs begin to itch from standing still for so long. I sink down to the ground and sit on the grimy cement. Icy hands are on me, touching my face, wiping my arms. I pull away and whimper, expecting a knife in the back.

“Hold still, idiot,” Arrin breathes. I force myself to freeze beneath her hands. She keeps touching me, wiping grit onto every inch of my exposed skin. When no skin is left untouched, she whispers, “Take off your clothes.”

“What?”

“Hurry up! Just take them off. We need to trade.” Fabric rustles. A warm mass is dropped into my lap. Her clothes.

I pull my shirt over my head, and after taking the concealer out of the pocket, slip off my shorts, holding them in what I assume is her direction. She snatches them away.

“But first,” she whispers, “you need to wrap this around your … you know whats.” She drops something else in my lap, a long, thin strap of fabric.

“Wrap this around my what?” I ask, baffled.

“How dense are you? Do I seriously have to spell it out?” When I don’t answer, she blurts, “Around your
knockers
, Fo. No one’s going to believe you’re a boy if they get a look at those. Even if they are small. Sheesh.” She mutters under her breath as I struggle to bind my breasts, tying the fabric into a knot below my left armpit.