Dissidence (18 page)

“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten,” Pet
er seethes, getting to his feet
and storming over prone bodies across the dorm.

“Don’t worry about him, Girlie. He’s just a . . .”

“Not now, Connor.” I may be annoyed with Peter, but I’m not ready to give Connor free license to bash him . . . yet.

“Okay. We should get some rest anyway.”

What a mess. Getting settled into the space beside Connor, I shut my eyes and will my brain to stop thinking long enough to get some sleep. It’s going to be another long day again tomorrow. That’s just about the only thing I am sure of anymore.

Chapter 16

As I work, I take inventory of what we’re facing. The guards patrolling the camp are armed only with whips. Enough to keep us in line, without much risk if a worker were to get hold of one. That can’t possibly be all there is. No way we’re that lucky. Closer inspection proves me right. Sometimes I get tired of being right all the time. The guards in the towers have some kind of large guns. We wouldn’t want this to be too easy or anything. Before I have a chance to think through the complications of this latest bit of information, a high pitched wail pierces the air.

“What the . . .”

“The storm siren.
Move,” Peter shouts, pulling me to my feet. It’s the first thing he’s said to me all day.

I watch dumbfounded as workers rush
off in different directions. Peter grabs my hand and pulls me along after a group ru
nning past the dorms. The siren wasn
’t lying, already the storm is picking up, and my hair whips in front of my face, so that I have to push it out of the way just to see where I am going.

“The storm cellar…” I hear Peter shouting, but the rest of his words are ripped away by the fierce wind.

About twenty yards ahead of us
,
doors are opening up out of th
e ground, and those we’
re following
are disappearing down into the darkness. We’re going into the ground?

A large piece of the metal roofing from a nearby building breaks off and sails
through the air directly toward us. I’
m so fascinated by the power of the wind that I can’t think for a moment. Luckily, Peter can. A hard shove from behind sends me to the ground face first, and then Peter’s on top of me. I gasp to replace the air that was knocked out of me by the jarring fall. As soon as I recover the use of my lungs, I push Peter off of me, and shout at him to, “Go!”

I’m full-
out sprinting for the storm cellar, with Peter right on my heels. Suddenly
,
going into
the ground sounds like a fantastic idea. We’re less than five yards away when I see them starting to close the
storm cellar
doors.
Not yet. Not yet!
The first door is already latched in place, and the second is swinging shut
, to form a flat seal with the surrounding landscape that even Mother Nature herself couldn’t penetrate,
when I lunge for it. A slicing pain cuts through my palm as I slip my hand into the small gap,
blocking
the door from shutting all the way. I yank upward as hard as I can, ignoring the fiery pain lancing up my arm. Peter catches up, and slips h
is hands under the door, as well. The old, rusted hinges groan in complaint as we
pry it back open.

Slipping past a rather irate guard, w
e descend the stairs into complete darkness. I’m cradling my injured hand, and I can already feel a wet sticky substance seeping between my fingers. That’s probably not good. At the bottom of the stairs, I come to a stop
,
afraid of tripping over someone in the dark, and Peter collides directly into me from behind.
Smooth
. I feel his fingers wrap around my arm and he tugs lightly. I follow his lead across the room by what I assume is his sense of touch, unless he has some super human vision I don’t know about. 

Behind th
e stairs, we find a vacant spot
and drop down to the floor with our backs pressed against the
cool stone
wall just as someone begins lighting lanterns throughout the space. Everyone looks terrified, huddled up
with one another, or
against
the
walls. Some are covering their ears to block out the intense howling sound of the wind coming through the cracks and crevices
of the door directly above us.
The room itself is
n’t that
big
,
and only about a hundred or so workers are inside. Connor isn’t one of them. I placate myself with the knowledge that there have to be other shelters throughout the camp. We were separated just after breakfast this morning, so he must have ended up in one of those.
I’ll find him after the storm passes and everything will be fine.

“Your hand,” Peter gasps, finally
noticing
the shredded, bloody mess that is my left palm.

Yup, definitely no super human vision on that one. I’d tell him not to worry about it, but he’s
Peter
,
and that would just be a waste of breath. He’s
already peeling off his outer shirt. I watch him tear off a couple strips from the bottom and then he takes my hand in his.

Wrapping the makeshift bandages carefully around the deep gash running the entire length of my palm, I hear him mumble something about bleeding to death. There’s my eternal optimist. He may have a point though, exaggerated as it is. Blood is already starting to come through the shirt even though he’s wrapped two separate swatches around the wound. He swears under his breath, grabbing my injur
ed hand by the wrist and pulls
it closer. The rest of his shirt is wadded up into a small ball, which he presses firmly into my palm. A sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth ends up coming out sounding like I’m hissing at him. 

“Stop moving,” he chides.

I’m about to point out that he’s the one who k
eeps fidgeting when something—large by the sound of it—
slams into the storm doors with a deafening clang,
and I jump a mile.  Peter’s arm slips around my back so quickly that I barely even notice it until he nudges me closer to him.

“It’s all right. We’re safe down here.” He may talk a good game, but I can feel all of the muscles in his arms tighten around me. He’s just as scared as I am.  

Instead of arguing for a change
,
though, I decid
e to let his words comfor
t me. Some of the workers—
most
,
actually—
are shutting their eyes, taking any chance they can for a few extra minutes of rest. Maybe I should do the same. I lean
into
Peter
,
and try to ignore the myriad of sounds coming from above us, none of which are comforting. 

All in all, the storm lasts less than half an
hour, and I get zero rest. In fact, the way my nerves a
re frayed the entire time, I’m coming out of it more exhausted than going in, and in more pain. My hand is a chorus of stinging, burning throbs. When they finally reopen the storm doors
and begin herding us all back out of the cellar, I take the wadded up shirt from Peter and continue pressing it into my palm myself. Outside, Peter pulls me over to where a guard is watching the workers unload.

“She’s hurt. She needs to see a doctor.” I try to shake him off, but Peter refuses to relinquish his grasp of my arm.

“What she needs is to get back to work.” I can hear the warning in the guard’s words, but Peter seems impervious to it.

“She can’t work with that hand, it could get infected.”

“If she can’t work, then I guess she’s of no further use to us.” The guard reaches for his leather whip, which I notice is crusted with black flecks. When was the last time he used that thing? Not long ago from the look of it.

“I’m fine,” I insist, pulling Peter away with me.

“That’s what I thought.” The guard’s deep voice snarls at our backs.

Once we’re far enough away that I’m sure we won’t be overheard, I round on Peter. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

“No, I think you’re doing a good enough job of that on your own.”

His mood swings are giving me some serious whiplash.

***

“What happened to your hand, Girlie
?” Connor cringes as he grabs
hold of my wrist, studying the filthy, bloody
‘
bandages
’
plastered to my palm. The remainder of the day was spent cleaning up after the storm, and I am beyond relieved to be back in the dorms.

“I’m fine.”

“Hardly,” snorts Peter
as he pulls me to
the bathroom off the side of the dormitory. 

I watch people come and go, in and out of the stalls, as Peter fills a sink with water before plunging my bandaged hand into it. It feels like a thousand shards of glass stabbing my entire hand, and I yelp like a kicked puppy. 

Peter recoils at my pathetic noise. “Sorry, we don’t have hot water here, but we need to get those bandages off, so we can get a better look at that cut.”

“You don’t have to take care of me, Peter.”

“Somebody does
,
because you sure as hell don’t.” He returns his attention to my hand with a frustrated
shake of his head. “Leigh, you—
”

“Please
,
no more lectures, Peter. I’m too tired. I know you’re mad at me for coming here
,
and everyone thinks I’m nuts
,
and ma
ybe I am, but I just can’t—
”

“Can you just shut up and listen for a minute? I’m trying to say thank you. If we hadn’t gotten into that shelter
,
then who knows what would have happened. I just . . .” he sighs. “I don’t want to be your damsel in distress, Leigh.
I
was trying to save
you
, but instead
,
all I managed to do was get myself tossed
in here. And
now you’re here when you could have been free, and that’s on
me
. Instead of fixing things, I only made them worse.” He studiously avoids my eyes as he
unwraps
the sodden bandage, and carefully washes away the dirt and dried blood.

“No, Peter, that’s not true.
You’re
only here because of
me
, because of my big mou
th. None of this is your fault. I
t’s mine.”

He opens his mouth intending to argue, but thankfully he’s interrupted. We could go around and around all day on the blame train and never get anywhere.

“That doesn’t look so bad.” Connor’s holding a freshly shredded shirt.
“Thought you may need these.”

There’s a decent sized gash running across the middle of my palm from thumb to pinky finger, and it looks pretty deep, but at least the bleeding is under control. Most of it has scabbed over
,
and it’s only bleeding small amounts from a couple of spots.

“Much better,” Peter agrees.
Couldn’t have gotten much
worse
th
an ‘bleeding to death
’
.

They both sound convincingly relieved, but I don’t miss the look that passes between them. They’re worried about infection, but neither of them wants to say it . . . so I will.

“Yeah, as long as it doesn’t get infected, I’m golden.”

Connor smirks. I think he appreciates my frankness. Peter only groans sligh
tly. A
fter my hand is rewrapped—
which became a collaborative effort where Peter and Connor debated everything from wound care to bandaging techn
iq
ues, and I was largely ignored—
we find a spot to settle in. Tonight, Peter stays with us, and as annoying as the two of them are together, it makes me feel better knowing they’re both here. I wish they could just get along. They’re more alike than either
of them cares to admit.
Boys.
W
hy are all of my friends boys? They are so infuriatingly illogical.
 

***

For the second day in a row, Connor is separated from us just after breakfast and sent to work in a different section of the camp. I
forgot to ask him what they have
them doing over there, but based on the size of the people chosen to
do the
work, I’d guess it involves some serious physical labor.
Evidently,
there are some drawbacks to being that large.

I spend most of the day trying to plant seeds with one hand, Peter picking up my slack as we go. Now, why does this seem familiar? They really should have just locked me up somewhere because I am a complete waste of space as a worker.