Intermix Nation (8 page)

Cato’s eyes pop open. Their combat class
has, up until this point, basically consisted of studying battle
techniques from strategy textbooks. Nazirah wonders if Adamek’s
alliance with the rebellion has sped up the impending war. The
thought of having to fight sooner does not cheer her up in the
least.

“Fun,” she grumbles.

Silence becomes the fifth member of their
circle. Even though they’re all recruits, it’s easy to forget,
sometimes, what they’re really here for. Why they’re constantly
going to classes, learning, and training. But at certain moments,
like now, they’re given a harsh reminder. They’re preparing to
become soldiers, tools, warm insurgent bodies. They’re preparing to
fight a battle against the government, Medis, and Median allies.
Many of them will die.

Nazirah looks at the children jumping rope
and swinging nearby. She looks at her friends, at Cato, and she
wonders.

Wonders who will be standing at the end of
all this.

They stay like that, watching the late
afternoon light dim, preoccupied by their own personal demons.
Nazirah sees Cato stiffen. He is looking behind Nazirah, towards
the picnic tables, surviving relics of a time long ago. She notices
Lumi staring as well. Nazirah turns her head and sees Adamek
sitting alone. The tables around him are empty, which Nazirah
guesses is more by design than chance. He is deeply engrossed in
reading something, not paying any attention to them. People shoot
him nasty looks, mothers hold children tightly to their bosoms, but
he takes no notice. Or pretends not to.

Nazirah faces the circle again, to find her
three friends avoiding her. Everyone at headquarters has heard
about Nazirah’s outburst in Nikolaus’s office, although no one, not
even Cato, has asked her about it.

“You don’t have to tread so cautiously,” she
says. “I’m not going to break or anything.”

Does saying it out loud make it true?

“No one would begrudge you if you did,” Taj
says quietly. Nazirah looks at him, but doesn’t respond.

“It’s just so weird that he’s here,” Lumi
jumps in eagerly. “I mean … not weird that he’s here outside …
weird that he’s here in general.”

“Oh, because I wasn’t sure what you meant
there for a moment,” Nazirah says. Cato shoots her a look and
Nazirah shuts her mouth.

“He’s just … hurt so many people here,” Lumi
continues. “I don’t understand how someone can suddenly change the
beliefs they’ve been raised on.”

Nazirah looks again at Adamek, still
absorbed in his book. “It’s simple,” she says. “They don’t.”

#

Half an hour later, Lumi and Taj leave to
grab dinner. Nazirah and Cato linger behind. The sun is fading,
covering them in a cool orange glow. The grounds are almost
entirely deserted, as most of the rebels and children have
meandered inside. Glancing casually at the picnic tables, Nazirah
sees that they are unoccupied and covered in dark shadows.

Nazirah basks in the last rays of light,
resting her head beside Cato and closing her eyes. The sound of
Cato breathing puts her mind at ease. She doesn’t know how she
could have done any of this without him. Her stomach turns at the
thought of his family, whom he left on bad terms to come here. Cato
never talks about them. Or maybe she just never asks.

Nazirah gets a sudden stroke of brilliance.
She sits up, a quirk of a smile on her face. “What?” Cato asks, all
too familiar with that look.

Nazirah doesn’t answer him. She hops up,
brushing the dirt off her shorts. The wind has picked up, and her
loose top blows everywhere. She smiles down at him, offering her
hand. He warily grabs hold of it, standing. “Come on,” she teases.
“I have an idea.”

“Which is?”

“Trust me?”

She is grinning widely now. Cato slowly
nods, a smile of remembrance appearing on his face. Nazirah
playfully grabs his hands. She begins walking backwards, pulling
him forward with every step. Then she stops.

“We’re here!”

“Really, Irri?”

Cato watches in increasing recognition as
Nazirah walks through the small gate in front of them. This is the
only area of the grounds still bathed in an orange glow. The
abandoned swing set that Nazirah has led them to shines like a
beacon.

“Don’t be such a baby!” Nazirah laughs,
walking over to the closest wooden swing. “We haven’t done this in
years!”

When Nazirah and Cato were younger, they
always used to ride their bicycles on the rundown boardwalk in
Rafu. They would peddle hard, racing to the swings at the end of
the beach. Nazirah always won, much to Cato’s chagrin. On the sand
dunes, they would swing for hours, daring each other to go higher
and higher, until someone eventually either chickened out or
accidentally launched off. Nazirah can’t recall why they stopped
doing that.

Nazirah hops up onto one swing, standing on
the flat wooden board. It creaks slightly and Nazirah gently tests
the rusty metal chains, making sure they will hold her weight. She
starts swinging, feeling light, suddenly in a great mood for no
good reason at all.

“And I’m the baby?” Cato asks dryly.

Her laughter rings out like a dozen tinkling
bells, completely infectious. Without another moment’s hesitation,
Cato stands on the swing to her left, beaming. They swing for a few
minutes, not competitively like they used to as children, but just
enjoying each other’s company. Nazirah’s hair whips everywhere,
wild copper highlights ablaze in the setting sun. “Would be nice to
have an ocean to look at right now, instead of just concrete,” she
says, breathless. Cato doesn’t respond. Nazirah looks at him
questioningly. He is staring past her right shoulder, visibly
upset. He isn’t laughing anymore. “What’s wrong?”

Nazirah turns her head and she has her
answer.

Adamek stands not ten feet away, leaning
lazily against the chain-link fence. His book is closed. The fading
sunlight highlights his cheekbones and glitters in his emerald
eyes, making him look not entirely human. He clearly moved from the
picnic tables awhile back in order to catch the last rays of
reading light, and has been watching them the entire time. Watching
her the entire time.

Nazirah is shocked that she didn’t notice
him, when he has been so close. And she is angry, because he has
seen her vulnerable. Quick as a flash, Cato is off the swing and
standing menacingly in front of Adamek. Cato is a head shorter, but
he is fearless, hands balled into fists. Adamek’s stance is
passive, his entire body relaxed. He watches Nazirah clumsily get
down and stumble over to them.

“Look at me, you sick fuck!” Cato
shouts.

Adamek does, eyes narrowing dangerously.
Cato is too close to him. Nazirah has known Cato her entire life
and is well acquainted with his hot temper. Nazirah looks around
for help, but no one else is outside anymore. “Cato, stop!” she
cries.

“Stay the fuck away from her!”

Adamek’s raises an eyebrow. “Or what?” he
asks. “What are you going to do about it?”

Cato grabs the front of Adamek’s shirt, but
Adamek doesn’t flinch. “Just because you have amnesty doesn’t mean
I won’t beat the shit out of you!”

“Cato!” Nazirah grabs his arm. Her voice
triggers something. Cato slowly releases Adamek’s shirt and steps
away. Nazirah looks between Cato, who is panting heavily and
flushed red, and Adamek, who has not moved a muscle.

In Niko’s office she called him a
murderer.

He told her not to forget it.

And Nazirah gets it now, really gets it.

It’s terrifying.

“Watch your back, Morgen,” Cato threatens,
cracking his knuckles.

Nazirah reaches for his hand. Cato looks at
her then, looks at their joint hands. Nazirah can see his anger
diminishing, if only slightly. She takes the opportunity and pulls
him away, dragging him towards the main building. Halfway there,
Cato strides ahead of her, slamming angrily through the doors.
Nazirah follows him inside, taking one final look back at Adamek.
He’s still in the same position against the fence, has not moved at
all. But it’s his expression that completely unsettles Nazirah.
Adamek stares almost longingly at the swings, still swaying back
and forth in the breeze.

Nazirah doesn’t dwell on that as she walks
through the door. Moving quickly, she catches up to Cato by the
mess hall entrance. He waits for her there, arms crossed.

“What was that?” she asks.

“What was that?” Cato snaps. “You’re
kidding.”

“No, I’m not kidding!” Nazirah says hotly.
“You completely provoked him! He was just standing there!”

Cato looks at her in disbelief. “Are you
seriously that naïve?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry. But he wasn’t just standing
there, Irri. He was watching you … only you. Just steer clear of
him, okay? I feel like he’s singling you out.”

Nazirah hates the way he babies her, speaks
in delicacies, keeps her from the whole truth. “It’s not like we
exactly hang.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Fine,” she says, hoping to drop the
subject. She tries to reassure him with, “Don’t worry about me,
Cato. I can handle myself.”

Cato sighs as they walk through the mess
hall doors. Nazirah knows he isn’t convinced. She doesn’t blame
him.

She isn’t convinced either.

Chapter
Six

Nazirah falls to the floor hard, air crushed
from her lungs. She cannot breathe, cannot move. Someone hovers
over her threateningly. Her arms are scratched and bruised. Blood
drips into her right eye from a cut above her eyebrow, blurring her
vision. One side of her face swells. From the corner of her
unaffected eye, Nazirah sees Cato move to help her. Lumi puts a
firm hand to his chest, stopping him. Grimacing in pain, face
strained, Nazirah slowly rises to her feet.

Combat training.

It started two weeks ago and has been
torture ever since. On the first day, a rainy Monday afternoon, the
recruits shuffled lethargically into the old gymnasium with their
fighting instructor, Grum. Grum is an exceptionally cranky,
middle-aged intermix. He takes every chance he possibly can to beat
his students down, both physically and emotionally. Not much is
known about him except that he was a rum-runner in his adolescence.
Caught by Medi soldiers, he was brutally maimed for it. They left
him alive, horribly scarred, as a warning to other bootleggers. His
scars mar an already vile face, most notably with a thick keloid
that runs from lip to eyebrow.

When Grum told the class they were to start
learning actual fighting techniques, the recruits didn’t take him
seriously. They laughed and joked and practiced mock karate moves
on one another. Nazirah got into plenty of fights in Rafu, but
always with bullies who tried to mess with her. She never started
fights, and the thought of battling her fellow recruits was
disturbing. Nazirah hoped they would practice on dummies, like when
they learned to throw knives or shoot guns – or maybe just watch
Grum perform a move and follow his directions.

But that was not the case.

Grum made them form a semicircle, selected
two recruits at random, and forced them to battle each other. Only
when they both were bruised, bloody, and crying had Grum said it
was enough. If the recruits viewed rebel training through
rose-colored glasses before, well, the glasses are definitely off
now. They are being groomed to win. And in order to win, they have
to fight and kill.

For the last two weeks, Nazirah has been
losing touch with reality.

Nazirah slowly faces her opponent, an Oseni
named Anzares. Nazirah has never spoken to her before today, but
she knows from watching Anzares fight in class that she is
vicious.

Anzares doesn’t give Nazirah even a moment
to prepare. She kicks her full in the stomach, sending her
sprawling onto the floor again.

“Enough of this!”

Cato yells at Grum from somewhere to
Nazirah’s left. Cato has defended Nazirah each time she has to
fight, but Grum never lets her off that easily. Nazirah holds her
hands over her stomach protectively, the blood rushing to her ears.
Anzares stands over her, looking up at Grum, seeking his approval
to end the fight. But Grum shakes his head.

“Either she learns to fight now,” Grum says
to the class, pounding his clipboard, “or she dies on the
battlefield. The same goes for each and every one of you! Is that
what you want?”

It’s certainly not what Anzares wants.

Anzares kicks Nazirah hard in the leg with
renewed intensity. “Bitch, get up!”

Many of the recruits feel Nazirah receives
special treatment because her brother is a Commander. They are
practically begging Grum to pair them up with her. Nazirah rises to
her feet once more, standing passively in front of Anzares, waiting
for the next attack. It won’t be long now. Won’t be long until
Nazirah gets what she’s been waiting for.

It’s been like this for two weeks.

On the first day, even though Nazirah had
fought plenty in the past, she froze up. She was unable to move,
unable to strike out at her opponent. It was like when she met
Adamek at the prison. She wanted to kill him so badly, but pulled
away at the last moment.

Is she a coward? Had it started then?

Nazirah thinks it probably started four
months before that, on the night she found her parents and
everything changed. She changed; she isn’t that same carefree girl
she was. She feels sick at the thought of hurting another person,
feels unbearable guilt at the sight of another’s blood. She doesn’t
even see her opponents before her anymore, but rather the haunting
faces of Riva and Kasimir. She sees their hollow, accusing eyes
asking Nazirah the same question she has asked herself for
months.

Why didn’t you save us?

It overwhelms her. So she stands there,
reveling in her guilt and shame, and feels salvation in the
punches. She embraces the pain that comes with the blows and
beatings, and the blissful relief that follows. Because this is
what she deserves. This is what, if just for a moment, makes her
feel something besides guilt … besides nothing at all.