The Watch (The Red Series Book 1) (14 page)

 
“One,” said the
Voice.

“This is stupid,” Judd said loudly, indignantly. “Nobody
stole any boots.”

“Two.”

“We’re friends,” he said to the crowd, to all us voiceless,
useless people.

“Three.”

“They’re trying to make us enemies.” He wasn’t talking to us
anymore. He was talking to the universe, pleading for someone, anyone, to be
fair, to put this impossible situation right again.

 
“Four.”

Petey’s
lips
moved. “Shut up, Judd,” he said.

“Five.”

Petey
stepped forward. “It was me,” he said. “It was only me.”

Then the bullet hit him and he fell, the single shot all but
swallowing Judd’s
cry.

The spotlight went off. “Stay in your places,”
the Voice said.

Uneasily people shifted; we’d never been made to
stay before.

After several tense minutes the spotlight came
back on. Judd and
Petey
were gone. Instead Ronnie, a
cook who had been badly burned in a kitchen accident some years before, was
standing in front of a bucket of water. On one side of her lay a full crate of
candles. On her other side stood Opal, a laundress in her late fifties, a
gentle, quiet woman everybody loved.

“A double city meeting,” someone behind me
breathed, her throat sounding thick with dread.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the bucket of water.
This was the way Louie’s city meeting had started—the city meeting in
which
Petey’s
father, Stuart, had died.

Sure enough, the warden lit the crate of candles
and then touched his match to Opal’s shirt.

Ronnie didn’t hesitate. She threw the water over
the candles, and within seconds Laundress Opal was a mass of shrieking flames.
She dropped to the ground and rolled, trying to put out the fire, but it
wouldn’t go out. Around the circle people were crying out, pressing their hands
over their mouths in horror. In the front row a man stepped forward, tearing
off his shirt, and I knew he intended to smother the flames.

Before he could reach the writhing woman,
however, the warden raised his gun and shot her. He must have made that
decision on his own, to spare Opal the agony of burning to death, because after
he did it he looked around nervously as if expecting to be condemned himself.

“Congratulations, Warden Eli,” the Voice said.
“You have shown compassion. Cook Ronnie has not, though she herself has
suffered burns and knows how painful they can be.”

“No,” Ronnie said, backing away from the warden.
“No!”

“Candles are meant to burn,” the Voice said
smoothly. “People are not.”

And Cook Ronnie was shot.

When the dazed crowd
broke up, I found myself moving in the direction of the slaughterhouse, my body
shaking but my feet moving steadily and away from the flow of people. I wasn’t
going out into the wasteland, not after hearing that voice calling my name, but
I could hide in the slaughterhouse doorway beneath the broken camera and have
some privacy.

I couldn’t face going back to the dormitory just
then, back to a room full of frightened girls, and I still had plenty of time
before curfew. These days most of the girls were sound asleep by curfew, hiding
under the covers, escaping the only way we knew. Maybe I’d risk staying out
late and hope Wanda didn’t stay up to notice.

The cold sharp pellets of rain were still
falling, but I didn’t care. Why were they doubling up on executions? Poor
Opal—burning was a terrible way to die, the worst. And
Petey
was so young.

He hadn’t stolen any boots, of course he hadn’t.
Why would anyone steal something he couldn’t wear without getting caught? The
Watchers were lying, making excuses to do horrible things to us. But why? It
made no sense.

I stepped around the beginnings of a puddle,
still hearing the distant noise of the city meeting behind me.

Petey
had been so brave. Judd would be feeling terrible right now,
mourning his friend, wishing he’d stepped up and saved
Petey
.
He’d probably also be feeling glad to still be alive, and that would make him
feel even worse. Would he go straight back to his dorm? I supposed he would;
there was nowhere else for him to go. Surely someone there would take care of
him—Farrell Dean, if he’d turned up yet. Or maybe
Ezzie
.

The rain went from stinging to a downpour. By
the time I reached the slaughterhouse my clothes were drenched and my hair
streaming. It suited my mood, cold and grieving, helpless and alone.

And I thought I’d be alone, there at the
slaughterhouse. No one besides
Meritt
and me came
there this time of day, and I hadn’t seen him alone for what felt like forever.
But when I arrived
Meritt
was
there,
a lanky, immediately recognizable shadow leaning against the slaughterhouse
door.

Farrell Dean was always nudging me, rumpling my hair,
throwing an arm around my shoulders, but
Meritt
hardly ever did more than touch my sleeve or tug at the end of my braid. That
night, though, he reached out without a word and pulled me to him. He was wet
from the rain but his body still felt warm, and I stood there, my face against
his chest, feeling his arms around me, feeling him breathe, and gradually I
stopped shaking.

Meritt
released me then, but he still didn’t move away. He kept one arm around my
shoulders and we huddled in the darkness in the doorway, sheltered from the
rain, our faces close together, and I didn’t say a word about
Petey
and Judd. Instead I told
Meritt
about going to
Rafe’s
house, about seeing the map and
remembering the words “lost child.”

“
Rafe
wanted us to see that map,”
I said at the end
. “That’s his message.”

Meritt’s
arm around my shoulders loosened. “You did good,” he said, and
his voice in the darkness sounded oddly relieved.

“What, you expected me to screw things up?”

“Of course not. I’m glad nothing happened to
you, that’s all. I don’t like you being out alone. It isn’t safe.”

I gave a short harsh laugh. “Nothing’s safe,” I
said, thinking of
Petey
falling, of Judd’s horrified
face.

“True. But some things are less safe than
others.”

Waving that off, I went back to my discovery.
“So what do you think those circles on the map are? One’s right outside the
wall, close to where w
e usually stand.”

“I don’t know.”
Meritt
removed his
arm from my shoulders. “Let’s go look. Show me where it is.”

But I hesitated, thinking about being out in the wasteland
in the dark, remembering the voice in the woods. “Do you think that’s safe?”

Meritt
looked down at me, and in the darkness I saw the flash of his crooked grin.
“Nothing’s safe,” he said, echoing my own words.

It would have been natural, then, to tell him about my
recent experience in the woods, about the voice that called my name, but
somehow it was too much on top of the horrors of the evening. I didn’t want to
talk about it. Especially because it edged too close to my dream that we could
run away together,
Meritt
and I. It meant we could
have no escape.

Meritt
was
watching me, or at least his face was turned toward me in the dark. “Is there
something you’re not telling me?” he said. “You’ve never been particularly
afraid of the wasteland before. And I’ll be with you, just like always.”

I half shrugged and looked away. “It’s just
 . . . what if someone’s out there? Watching us from the woods?
Meri
says something has been coming into the city lately,
killing chickens. Something that isn’t an animal.”

For a long moment
Meritt
was
silent. He turned his face toward the pouring rain and leaned one shoulder
against the door, tilting his body toward me.

“The woods are dangerous,” he said. “I’m not going to tell
you otherwise. You wouldn’t believe me if I did.” He pushed off the wall and
took hold of my shoulders, turning me so we stood face to face me. “But I can
promise you this: As long as you’re with me, you’re safe. Nobody’s going to
hurt you if you’re with me. I won’t let them.”

He meant well, and part of me felt comforted. Most of me,
though, was old enough to know he was making a promise he couldn’t possibly
keep. He just wanted to find one of those circles, and would tell me anything
to get me to show him the spot.

But it was true enough that we needed to find those circles,
if we were to ever understand
Rafe’s
dying message,
his plan. And even if
Meritt
couldn’t keep his word,
I couldn’t help but be a little touched by his uncharacteristically firm
reassurance. He wanted to protect me; he wouldn’t risk me needlessly. That, I
believed.

I shot a silent
I told
you so
Farrell Dean’s way.

“All right,” I said to
Meritt
.
“Let’s go.”

Slipping out of the slaughterhouse doorway into the cold
rain, we covered the short distance to the wall and the opening onto the
eastern wasteland in a few seconds.

Outside, the woods rose up, dark and deep. I kept one hand
on the wall’s rough surface as I walked a few paces south, trying to picture
Rafe’s
map in my mind, wondering whether he’d been precise
about distances.

“Somewhere right in here,” I said finally, uncertainly. “I
guess.”

But I hadn’t been able to tell, from
Rafe’s
map, how high up on the wall the circles were supposed to be. For a long moment
we stood side by side, gazing at the wall. It seemed like an impossible job, to
find something we’d never noticed before, and find it in the dark, in the rain.

Without a word,
Meritt
started at
the top of the wall. I started at the bottom, and we patted and stroked and
felt along the rough wet cinderblocks until our hands touched. Then we moved
over a couple of feet and did it all again. It was tedious work, and cold, with
the rain running in our eyes and down the backs of our collars, and every now
and then—despite
Meritt’s
promise—I
couldn’t resist glancing over my shoulder at the woods.

“
Meritt
,” I said after awhile.
“Have you seen Farrell Dean today?”

Above me he paused, then started moving again. “No,” he said
cautiously.

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Maybe because last time I saw Farrell Dean, he threw a
punch at me.”

It was my turn to pause. “Why’d he do that?”

Meritt
nudged me with his knee. “Because I’m reckless and selfish and take stupid
risks, and one day I’ll get you in trouble and then I’ll regret it but it’ll be
too late, et cetera, et cetera. Same thing he’s always saying. He just
punctuated it with a punch this time.”

I didn’t know what to say. They shouldn’t be fighting each
other, not with
Rafe
gone, not when they were working
together against the Watchers. I didn’t want to be the cause of trouble, but
then the problem wasn’t me, was it? It was Farrell Dean.

“It’s no big deal,”
Meritt
said,
sounding cheerful. “Farrell Dean’s feeling tense and he needed to take it out
on somebody. Now me—when I need to hit somebody, I go for Harding, or
maybe even Cline. That’s like bringing a building down on top of you. You don’t
worry about anything but survival after that.”

“So you haven’t seen him at all today.”

 
He turned away
from the wall. “No,” he said. “What’s up?”

“He said he needed to talk to me—” I didn’t want to
mention that he wanted to talk about
Meritt
, and I
sure didn’t want to mention that he’d almost gotten crossways with a warden on
my account—“but then he never came to the field.”

Meritt
lost
interest. “Don’t start worrying yet,” he said, turning back to his search.
“Things come up, especially for him—he’s a good mechanic, and some people
kick up a fuss if they get sent someone else.”

We kept searching. The rain stopped, and that was good, but
somehow without the rain I felt colder. I was shivering hard, trying to stop my
teeth from chattering, when
Meritt
gave a quiet
exclamation.

“What?” I said. “Did you find it?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what it is. It’s smooth. I think
it’s a metal panel. It’s small—just a square inch or so.”

I stood beside him as he poked and prodded. Whatever it was,
it was quite high on the wall, well beyond my reach.

“It opened,” he said. “The panel slid back.” He tapped
gently. “Underneath it feels like glass.” Keeping his hand on the mysterious
thing, he turned toward me.

“Red,” he said softly. “It’s a camera lens.”

I stared at him. Had someone been watching us groping around
tonight? But no—the cover had been closed.

Meritt
pulled a small screwdriver out of his pants pocket and turned back toward the
wall.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, alarmed.

“Taking it out,” he said. “It’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s not wired to anything.” He pried the camera out and
pushed the cover back over the gap.

 
Holding it up,
he turned it this way and that. “It’s no use,” he said. “Too dark.” Carefully
he tucked it in his shirt pocket and returned the screwdriver to its place,
then turned to me. In the darkness I could just make out his grin.

“Let’s go see
Rafe’s
map,” he
said.

“Now?”

“No time like the present.”

* * *
*

The streets were eerily silent. We saw no headlights, nor
any indication that wardens were patrolling.

“Why should they bother?”
Meritt
said when I mentioned the unusual stillness. “They think we’re all cowering in
our beds.”

I shook out of my head the night’s gruesome city
meetings—
Petey
falling, blood pooling around
his head, Judd’s roar of anguish and anger, the laundress going up in shrieking
flames—and focused on the present moment.

“This might not be safe,” I said in a whisper as
Meritt
reached for the door to
Rafe’s
house. “
Rafe
thought someone was watching him in
here. Do you know anything about that?”

Meritt
stared at me, his face blank in the blue streetlights. His hair was still wet,
plastered to his head, and it made the bones of his face stand out starkly. It
gave him that unfamiliar look again, beautiful but strange, and for a moment I
stared at him as blankly as he was staring at me.

“Cameras in the adult houses,” I said, reminding myself as
much as him. “Wardens and Watchers?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, pushing open the door. “No
cameras in the adult houses. I’m sure of it.”

I’d left the candle and a couple of matches under
Rafe’s
bed. Now I lit the candle and pointed
Meritt
to the map on the wall.

“I remember this,” he said, going to stand in front of it.
“But as a kid I didn’t realize how detailed it was. Everything’s exactly
proportional. It must have taken him forever.”

Carefully
Meritt
lifted the map
down from the wall and over to the table. As he went to lay it flat, something
pattered out, landed with tiny plinks on the floor.