The Benders (31 page)

Mister collapses, and anger builds inside me.
I
wanted to be the one to kill him. I whirl on Doc, my sword in my hands. “He was mine!”

Doc ignores my tantrum and pulls on my arm. “Come on, Riley,” he says, tugging me away from Mister’s body. “It’s time to fight. It’s Nada’s revolution. It’s what she’s always wanted!”

Benders are battling the guards, finally, but I can’t take joy in it. My eyes travel to the tiny lump on the other side of the pit. Nada’s shaved head is tilted away from me, but I want to see. I walk to her body on legs made of air.

“Riley, come on!” Doc says. When someone throws down a few of the coyote cages for him to scramble up on, he does, firing at guards as he climbs. I’m left alone in the pit. Alone with the dead. I focus on the curve of Nada’s head, on her boots, so big on her tiny feet that she had to stuff rags in the toes.

One of the coyotes circles close to her body, drawn by the smell of blood, and the anger rises up in me again. I scream and wave my arms and the coyote scampers away. When I look back, all the coyotes have clustered around Mister’s dead body. His body is being used to feed the life of another; it’s more than he deserves.

When I make it to Nada’s body, she’s hard to look at. I kneel beside her and force myself to look at her face. She looks like a child now, the anger and ferocity gone from her face. I take my sleeve and wipe blood from her cheeks until she’s mostly clean. Then I pick her up and carry her to the coyote cages. Someone helps me get her out of the pit. I lay her on the ground next to the pit’s edge and fold her hands peacefully on her stomach.

Out of the pit, I can’t believe my eyes. The benders have won and overtaken the guards. Benders with guns stalk around a group of guards sitting in a circle in the dirt. I don’t see Lord Merek or his entourage or Doc, for that matter, and assume he’s gone after them. There are many losses on both sides and more bodies for my shocked brain to process. Guards in pools of blood. Benders crying out as they bleed out into the dirt. I spot one of the wives, riddled with bullets and lying on her side. Her pink silk gown flutters lightly in the wind.

Then I remember Auntie. Is she okay? Panicked, I scan the crowd.

When I spot a long, gray braid, I run, pushing my way through the benders. I find her in a cluster of women, a screaming baby in her arms.

“Auntie!” I cry, grabbing her arms. “Are you okay?”

Her face seems to melt with relief when she sees me. “I couldn’t watch when it got so bloody.” Her wrinkled lips tremble. “Then the shooting started.” A tear runs down her cheek. “Oh, Riley,” she says, drawing me to her with one arm.

I fall into her embrace, careful not to squish the screaming baby. She runs a hand down my shaved head, shushing me or the babe, I don’t know, but either way it makes me feel a bit better.

“We’re alive,” she whispers in my ear. “We’re free.”

I nod, but somehow it doesn’t feel like enough. It’s all I’ve wanted since being captured, and now it’s a bitter reward.

I stand with Auntie, holding the baby for her as we watch the remaining benders force the guards to bury the dead. In the moonlit night, guards carry bodies to the graves the digger has made. I was right, they did use those giant mechanical diggers to bury the dead, but now there’s many more than I expected. Guards go in one trench, benders in the other. Segregated even in death. I watch as two guards haul Mister to the mass grave, but I look away as they get close. The coyotes made quick work of Mister and his body and face are gruesome. The coyotes are dead, too. No one wanted to risk trying to wrangle them into cages. They were pawns in this game, just like me.

In my arms, the baby whimpers, and I bounce and shush him like I’ve seen Auntie do. He’s tiny and soft, and I worry I’ll drop him, but Auntie’s arms need a rest and I needed something in mine. Otherwise, they’ll feel like killing something. Instead, I bounce this little bundle, warm and smelling of milk, and try to think of the good in the world. This baby might not grow up in a compound where slavery is the rule. That has to count for something.

Once the guards have moved all bodies but one into the graves, someone uses the digger to fill them in. People cluster around, murmur prayers and cry. I watch for a while, still rocking the baby and then Auntie and I walk over to the smallest grave. Doc raises a hand in greeting as we walk up. With the Jeeps’ headlights turned on to help us finish the burial, everything is either too bright or lost to shadow. I can’t tell what Doc is feeling as he kneels beside the hole and looks down at Nada’s body. I know I’m feeling empty, cracked open and hollowed out. She shouldn’t be dead. None of this should’ve happened. It’s hard not to feel angry at Doc for not acting sooner. He was the only one that could’ve lead the benders out of bondage. The fact that he did it at all is worthy of praise. Yet, it’s too bad so many had to die before he got up the courage. I don’t say this as I look into his tear-streaked face. He has his own shame to carry.

“I dug the hole myself,” he says, nodding toward the shovel, tip down in the earth. He holds up a bloody palm. “Damn ground is hard.”

I say nothing. The baby whimpers softly. Auntie holds out her hands, and I give her my warm bundle. I wrap empty arms around myself.

“You don’t have to say it,” Doc says, still kneeling at the edge of the grave.

“Say what?” I croak out. My throat seems too tight for talking.

“That this is my fault,” he says. “That I should’ve listened to her long ago.”

“You didn’t know this would happen.”

Doc sniffs, swiping at his face. “Yes, I did. She told me it would happen.” He turns and looks at me, the light from the Jeep showing all of his face now. It’s streaked with tears, puffy and red. It’s the face of sorrow, of loss beyond meaning.

I walk over and kneel beside him. The ground is already losing the heat of the day. “She’s at peace,” I say, looking down on her. In the dark, she’s just a shape, an outline of the person I knew. “They can’t hurt her anymore.”

Doc sniffs, nodding. “I’ll hurt now for the both of us.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. It’s trembling. “You aren’t alone,” I say, feeling my own tears again. I thought they’d been cried out, but apparently a fresh supply has been brewing and they spill down my cheeks. Doc puts his arms around me and I do the same and we hold each other at the edge of Nada’s grave as the night blurs with stars. I wish she could see. Maybe she can.

“What happened to Merek?” I ask, finally releasing him.

He glances back toward the compound. “They have him under guard. He’s been shot in the shoulder. Dareen and a few of the benders’ leaders are trying to figure out what to do with him. And how to move on from this mess.”

“Will they kill him?”

“Maybe,” Doc says. “Maybe we should.” He sighs. “What do you think?”

I shrug. “Is he still the only one who knows how to make the gunpowder?”

Doc nods.

“Then he’s needed, but he doesn’t need to be free. Ever.” There’s that cold bitter piece inside me, the part of me that broke off and shriveled when Nada died. I don’t like it, but it’s there just the same. Maybe I’ll never be the same. I stare out at the stars and miss my mama.

A Jeep pulls up with one of the benders inside. He nods a greeting to Doc and me.

“What is it?” Doc asks.

“Lord Merek. He’s asking you,” he points Doc.

Doc stands.

The driver nods at me. “He says he wants the girl with the Breeder’s mark, too.”

My hand goes to my branded wrist as Auntie comes over. Her wrinkled face is twisted in worry. “What does that dirty hair pie want with you, Riley?”

“I don’t know”—I say—“but it can wait.” I walk over and grab the shovel and fill it with a load of dirt. “First, we bury Nada.”

We find Merek, bloodied and broken, locked in one of Doc’s exam rooms. The bender guard lets us in, tips his head and points to his gun as he shuts the door behind us, his silent message to let us know he’s got our back. But, as I look Merek over, I realize there’s no need for an armed guard. Merek looks about as likely to escape as a half-chewed lizard. My eyes trail down his body, marking bruises and cuts until I lose count. His face is raked with red claw marks and his glasses are missing. His regal outfit is torn and blood-splattered. Now that he’s without his gloves, I stare at his mangled hand and the missing fingers.

At the sight of us, he sits up straighter on the exam table, wincing at some hurt this inflames.

“You,” he says, raising a trembling finger. “You’re a Breeders girl. I didn’t put it together before, but with the mark…” He nods toward my wrist.

I nod slowly. He can’t hurt me anymore. “Why’d you want to see us?”

“I have some information about the Breeders,” he says, his voice syrupy, like that of a sniveling underling. How quickly things change.

“What information?” I ask. My heart’s pounding, but I keep my face a wall of stone.

“First you have to tell them not to kill me. You have to make sure they’ll let me live.” His blood-shot eyes flick between me and Doc. “Doc, tell them I’m useful.”

When I meet Doc’s eyes, he nods. I take a step toward Merek and his look turns fearful. I savor it. “Useful or not, you deserve to die,” I say. “You’re a vile little man who enjoys watching defenseless people suffer.”

I step close enough to peer into his beady little eyes. My breath comes in rapid puffs and my hands are fisted. He flinches away as if I’ll strike. All at once the rage drains out of me. Hurting him now won’t bring Nada back, and it won’t give me any satisfaction.

“You won’t be killed. At least not right away,” Doc say dryly. “Give her your information.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Merek asks.

Doc takes an angry step forward, a fist raised, and Merek cowers. “Okay. Okay. That woman, Vandewater, who works for the Breeders, she’s at Kirtland Air Force Base doing human experiments. But, she’s got her hands full right now. The Free Colonies attacked them. They’ve had heavy casualties.”

Several words ring in my head as I try to process what he’s just said. Nessa’s doing human experiments? The Free Colonies are real? They’re attacking Nessa? Is Clay there? Ethan? But the heaviest words circle my brain again and again—heavy casualties.

I whirl toward Doc and grab his arm. “Where’s Kirtland?”

He wrinkles his brow, thinking. “East? Maybe a hundred and sixty miles.”

I place a hand to my forehead, feeling faint. All this time there’s only been a hundred and sixty miles apart. If I know Nessa, she’ll want Clay as close to her as possible and hopefully Ethan, too. She might be using him to keep Clay in line.

Doc seems to sense my anxious excitement. “We can get you a Jeep. Fuel is going to be hard to come by, but we’ll give you all we have.”

“Good,” I say. All of a sudden I’m free and have a target to shoot for—my family. I look at Doc, this broken person. Somehow I know that even though Nada is gone, he’ll be all right. Not fine, not good, but okay, taking care of the benders as best he can. It’s what he’s done. It’s what he’ll always do.

“What do you want to do?” he asks me.

I turn toward the door. “Go get my family. Tonight.”

When the three of us climb over the tank and out into the desert, the moon is full to burstin’ in the sky. Ethan limps beside me, a sprained ankle from his tumble off the tank. Nessa fared far worse. The image of her, folded onto herself at the base of the tank with a giant, bloody hole in her shirt, waits for me when I close my eyes. So, instead, I look the road. Apparently there’s a girl out there named Riley who loves me and I love her.
Riley.
The name is a song, one that sings around my head until my body hums with it.

I look at the pair I’m charged with protectin’. Betsy, with her wig cockeyed, mutters as she walks. But when I meet her eyes, she smiles. A real smile, too. I can tell she’s happy about leavin’ camp. She hasn’t stopped singin’ the words, “Ding, dong the witch is dead,” since I killed Nessa. Ethan, on my left, is a trooper and limps along, not askin’ anyone to carry him. I expect I will in a little while and not mind it, either. I don’t remember exactly, but I know me and him got a deep past and a wide future.

When I look off in the distance, things get a little less cheery. The two-lane highway is long and pitted. The gun in my hand has two rounds left. We got no food, no water, and no vehicle. All we know is we gotta get the hell outta Dodge. And I’m the man who’s supposed to lead us out.

Some memories seem to be creepin’ back, but not the ones I’d expect. As my boots crunch on broken pavement a memory of a man—my pa—swims up from the depths. It’s an image of him on a wooden swing, telling me a story.
Moses was the baby the Egyptian queen found in the bulrushes and adopted for her own
, he’d said, the swing creakin’
. He lived pampered as a prized pig ’til he found out his real family was the very folk enslaved by the people who reared him. The people he thought he loved.
I remember lyin’ back on the swing and lookin’ up into the apple tree to think on that story, feelin’ awful for Moses. Sometimes the tribe you think you belong to is the very one hurtin’ those you love. Sometimes blood is thicker’n water, until it ain’t.

Sometimes the people you love are those who find you in the wilderness and lead you home.

I take Ethan’s hand. Soon I’ll hoist him into my arms and carry him as far as my legs will allow.

“Pierce the skin with the needle here and sew,” Nessa rasps, pointing to the wound on her chest, a six-inch hole only a finger’s length below her heart and one knuckle above her liver.

The young medic with trembling hands looks between his needle and the wild-haired woman on the operating table. “Ma’am, I’m not really sure—”

“Give it to me!” she wheezes, holding out a bloodstained hand.

The medic responds, looking relieved to be rid of the needle and thread. His eyes flick to the door, but he doesn’t dare move.

Nessa leans over and looks at the hole in her chest. The bullet exited cleanly, collapsing a lung, but it missed all the other vital organs. Luckily, a patrol vehicle found her right after she was shot and managed to get her back to the medic station within minutes. They’d stopped the blood loss and even managed a transfusion, but their skills with stitches were piss-poor at best. She’d ripped them out and demanded new ones and someone who could sew straight. They’d sent her this trembling idiot. What a disgrace.