Outcasts (6 page)

She thought of Omar and that day at the kissing trees when he’d —

The seal on the iron door that separated the bunker from the underground storm drains cranked open, echoing slightly in the concrete corridor. Shaylinn took a step back to stay in the shadows. She wasn’t expecting anyone for another hour.

Two men and a woman stepped through the door. One of the men had wide shoulders and was as tall as Jordan. The other was shorter. They were not from Glenrock. Shaylinn’s stomach turned, and she pressed against the wall, straining to get a good look at their faces.

She recognized the shorter man first. It was Rewl, who reminded
Shaylinn of a grown toddler … until he smiled. He’d gotten SimArt implants in his teeth, which gave them diagonal black pinstripes. So gross.

Next came Red, the woman who was always with Omar. Red hadn’t been the one to infect Omar, but Shaylinn hated her anyway, even if it was wrong to hate. Red looked like a skeleton wearing a flesh jumpsuit, but her chest was so large Shaylinn wondered how she could walk and not fall over. She had electric pink eyes and wispy, chin-length, maroon-colored hair that looked fake. That’s what she was: 100 percent fake.

Red stepped deep into the corridor, holding a fat bag. Rewl and the other man pulled the door closed until the clamp clicked into place, sealing off the bunker again, which would keep the water out if it rained. The men turned toward the entrance to the main room, and Shaylinn recognized the second man.

“Mr. Bender,” she said, relaxing and stepping into the light.

The leader of the Black Army reminded Shaylinn of Grandpa James. He had wrinkled skin and short gray hair. A strange scar over his left eye made him squint, like he was always thinking about winking but never made up his mind.

All three wore black gloves. Shaylinn had never seen a Black Army member without gloves.

“Miss Shaylinn,” Bender said, his voice low and kind. “Exactly the femme I’m looking for.”

Shaylinn squeezed the sponge. A trickle of water splashed on the floor, which made her step back and lighten her grip. “You want to talk to
me
?”

“Why don’t we go in and sit?” Bender said. “It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Okay.” Shaylinn dropped her sponge into the water and picked up the bucket. She went to open the door to the main room, but her hand slipped on the knob, still wet from the wash water.

Rewl darted forward. “Let me help, Miss Shaylinn.” He opened the door and held it there, baring his striped teeth in a smile.

Shaylinn walked past him and into the main room. It was warmer than the corridor. It had a one-wall kitchen on the front end, a TV and sofas on the other end, and three round tables in the middle. Shaylinn set her bucket in the kitchen sink and dried her hands on a towel, turning it slightly orange from the rusty water on her hands.

Bender made his way to the sofas and sat on the brown one, which was the one with the least holes. Red stayed with him, sitting beside him on the sofa. Rewl closed the front door and stood in front of it like he was guarding the place. Something about his posture made Shaylinn’s neck tickle. She decided then that she didn’t like Rewl either. She wondered if he were carrying a gun.

“Yesterday at the meeting, you volunteered to work in Chord’s position,” Bender said.

Shaylinn walked to the other end of the room and stood beside the Old TV set. “Omar is going to do it,” she said with a glance at Red. But Bender knew that already.

“I have a proposition for you, Miss Shaylinn,” Bender said. “I need to find out if Kendall Collin has the messages Chord was supposed to bring to me. You think you could find out?”

“Oh.” Why was he asking her? “I’d like to help, but it would be wrong to go behind Levi’s back. Or my brother’s.” Plus Jordan would yell and scream.

“I understand. And I admire your loyalty to your brother.” Bender sighed and stretched his arms up on the back of the sofa, one behind Red. “It’s a shame about Kendall, though. She seems like an honest femme.”

Red gasped and pressed her hand against her gigantic chest. “You’re not going to kill her, are you, Bender?”

“Not me,” Bender said. “I’ll have Rewl do it.”

“What?” Shaylinn couldn’t have heard that right. “Kill Kendall?”

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Bender said, “but without knowing for certain if she’s got those messages and what she’s going to do with them, I don’t have a choice.”

Of course he had a choice. No one was putting a gun in his hands.

“You can’t take the risk,” Red said, patting Bender’s knee. She looked at Shaylinn, and those pink eyes seemed electrified, like Red was a robot. “It puts the entire Black Army in jeopardy. And the outsider shells too.”

Did it? But Shaylinn couldn’t allow them to kill Kendall. “I guess I can try to find out if she has them, but you’re wrong to mistrust her. She hates the Safe Lands government. They took her baby.”

“You get burned enough, femme, you don’t trust anyone anymore,” Bender said.

“And why would she care about them taking the kid?” Red said. “It’s what they do. He’s not
her
baby.”

Shaylinn folded her arms. “Of course he’s her b — Wait, aren’t you a rebel? Don’t you think the Safe Lands is wrong to take babies?”

Red snorted and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t like the government telling me what to do. But babies aren’t my interest.”

Shaylinn pursed her lips. “Men are your interest, right?”

“That’s right.” Red giggled, low and secretive as if she knew something Shaylinn didn’t. “You’d better not hurt Omar,” Shaylinn said.

This comment seemed to make Red’s pink eyes even more electric as she glared at Shaylinn. “Omar knows what he wants. And he wants me.”

A rush of anger welled up in Shaylinn. “No, he doesn’t. He’s sad and confused because of everything that’s happened. And you’re taking advantage of him.”

Red cackled like an evil witch in an Old movie. “Omar can wipe his own nose, femme. He doesn’t need you sticking your — ”

“Focus,” Bender said. “Kendall Collin?”

Shaylinn scowled at Red once more before giving Bender her full attention. “Can you bring her here?”

“Nooo. She can’t know about this place,” Bender said. “You’re going to be a spy, Miss Shaylinn. Spend time with her. Get her to tell you about the messages without mentioning me
or
the Black Army.”

“But how can I go outside when I’m supposed to be hiding?” Shaylinn asked.

“I’ve got a couple ideas,” Bender said. “I can get you hired at the messenger office as a janitor during Kendall’s shifts. Or Rewl can drive you around, follow Kendall, and you can bump into her when she goes to the G.I.N. or wherever. Or we can get you moved into the apartment beside hers.”

The idea of having her own place thrilled her. “I’d like the apartment, please. But … Jordan. When he finds me gone, he’ll come and get me and lock me up.” And yell and scream. But if he didn’t know about the apartment, she could always sneak out again.

“Then you’d better act fast, femme,” Red said.

Shaylinn didn’t like the way Red looked at her and bossed her, so she kept her side of the conversation between her and Bender. “My picture is on the ColorCast all the time. And Jordan said he saw it on the train too. What if someone recognizes me?”

“Red is going to give you a little makeover,” Bender said. “No one will recognize you when she’s done.”

As a last-ditch effort to get them to leave her alone, she said, “But I’m pregnant!”

“You’re not even showing yet,” Bender said. “You’ll be fine.”

Shaylinn looked back at Red then, and met those electric-pink eyes. “As long as she doesn’t make me look like her.”

Red smiled, and it was an ugly, fake smile. “Why would I do that? One of me is all the Safe Lands can handle.”

Shaylinn hummed as if considering her comment. “It’s all I can handle too.”

A few hours later, Shaylinn was standing alone in her new apartment that was located next door to Kendall’s in the Belleview Building. The kitchen, sofa, and bed filled one small room. And then there was a tiny bathroom. The whole place was decorated pink and green and reminded Shaylinn of the polka dot chair in Tyra Grant’s office.

Thoughts of the harem’s beauty care specialist sent Shaylinn
walking toward the mirror for the fifth time since Bender, Red, and Rewl had dropped her off downstairs. She’d been worried that being underground with no access to InstaWraps and SkinnySticks would have made her get fat again, but it hadn’t. Silver was still the hot trend, set by Finley Gray and Luella Flynn, the hosts of the Safe Lands ColorCast. Shaylinn had refused to allow Red to cut her hair, so the woman had straightened it and given her a tinsel weave, which mixed in strands of metallic silver hair with her natural brown hue. Shaylinn’s hair now reached her elbows in a flat, shaggy mop. Red had also given Shaylinn a pair of contact lenses that made her eyes look a natural green, and black lace gloves with no fingers that held a SimTag so she could enter buildings and pay for taxis or whatever she might need.

That had been more than enough to transform Shaylinn into a completely different person from the picture of the frightened girl that had been plastered all over the Safe Lands. Red had also given her several sets of clothes, enough to last the week. They were sexy clothes that clung to Shaylinn’s body and showed off her growing chest.

She hadn’t needed breast implants after all. The pregnancy had taken care of that.

Shaylinn had always wanted to be beautiful, but she wasn’t certain she liked what Red had done. She looked like someone from
C Factor.
And even though Red had promised this new look would help her blend in with the other Safe Lands women, Shaylinn was sure it would only call attention to herself.

A bell chimed. Rewl had rigged up the bell to signal whenever Kendall’s apartment door opened. Shaylinn ran over to the peephole on the wall and looked in.

Kendall was home. She walked to the kitchen table and set her messenger bag on one of the chairs and a box of chicken from Leghorns on the table.

Shaylinn drew back. Bender wanted her to wait until she and Kendall bumped into each other on the stairs or outside. To create a coincidental meeting. But Shaylinn had no intention of doing things
Bender’s way. The moment Jordan realized she was gone, he would come looking. If Shaylinn was going to help Kendall, she needed to do it now.

She left her apartment and knocked on Kendall’s front door. She heard footsteps, then saw movement in the peephole. The door opened, the chain keeping it from going farther than a few inches.

“Yes?” Kendall said.

“Hi, Kendall.” Shaylinn leaned close and whispered, “It’s Shaylinn. From the harem.”

Kendall’s eyes narrowed and studied Shaylinn from head to toe. The door pushed closed, the chain rattled, and the door opened again. “Come in.”

Shaylinn slipped inside, awkward in the high-heeled shoes Red had given her. The smell of fried chicken made her stomach flutter.
Oh no.

Kendall closed the door behind her and came to stand by the kitchen table, arms folded. “You escaped the harem. I’ve seen your picture on the ColorCast. What do you want?”

Shaylinn pressed up against the front door and fought to hold back the sickness, but the smell of the chicken … She looked around the apartment and spotted the bathroom door in the same place it was located in her new apartment. She ran for it. “Need to use your bathroom.”

Shaylinn fell to her knees at the toilet and wanted to cry. She had no control over how smells affected her anymore. How was she supposed to keep from throwing up all the time? When she finished, she washed her hands and rinsed out her mouth, then tottered back into Kendall’s kitchen/living room/bedroom.

“I put the chicken in the oven and opened the windows,” Kendall said. “My morning sickness only ever came in the mornings. But they say if you get it really bad, it means you’re having a girl.”

“Maybe,” Shaylinn said, tickled at the idea of a daughter to take care of.

“What about Jemma and Mia and the others?” Kendall asked.

“We got out in time. I’m the only one who was made pregnant.”

“And Naomi?”

“She’s safe too. And she’s huge! That baby is coming any day, Jemma says. What about you? Have you seen your baby?”

“Once.” Kendall’s jaw hardened. “They don’t allow that, really, but Lawten had promised I’d be able to hold Elyot whenever I wanted. But after the first time I went to the nursery, they wouldn’t let me back in.” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. She blinked rapidly. “So, who glossed you up? You look like a dancer.”

“You’re a shell!” a strange voice said. “Tch tch tch.”

Shaylinn jumped and looked toward the window where a rounded cage sat on a narrow table. Something moved inside the cage, flying from corner to corner. A little bird. It was yellow and blue with black-and-white wings. “What’s that?”

Kendall waved her hand as if the topic bored her. “Oh, that’s my bird, Basil.”

“He talks?”

“Give me a kiss,” the bird said in a dull, almost electronic voice. “What time is it?”

“I’m sorry, but … why are you here, Shaylinn?”

“I have something important to tell you, but I need you to let me finish before you interrupt me or get angry. Do you promise to listen until I’m done?”

“Okay.”

Shaylinn took a deep breath. “Well, since we escaped the harem — ”

“Budgie. Basil’s a budgie. Tch tch tch. Give us a kiss.”

Shaylinn grinned at the bird.

“Just a minute.” Kendall walked to the cage and pulled a drape over it. “Good night, Basil.”

“Good night, Basil. Tch tch tch.”

“Will he go to sleep?” Shaylinn asked.

“Yeah. He’s funny that way. You were saying?”

“Right. Um, the Black Army has been hiding my people. Levi befriended their leader, Bender. Well, Bender is their new leader now that Lonn has been liberated.”

“Go on.”

Shaylinn hoped she was explaining things correctly. “Bender thinks you have messages Chord Prezden was meant to deliver. He said if he couldn’t figure out whether or not you were trustworthy, he was going to have you killed. So I volunteered to spy on you so I could warn you.”