Shymers (9 page)

6 – Welcome to the Traverse Orphanage

The shuttle lurches to a stop. This time my hea
d
doe
s
slam into the seat ahead of us. The two girls to my right giggle. I moan, rubbing the top of my head where a dull ache spreads.

A tall and large, muscular boy sitting ahead of me leans over the seat, scowling. “What—?” He stops short when I tilt my head up to look at him. Maybe he knows I am new, or maybe he has heard I’m the girl from the Free Lands. Whatever the reason, he grumbles to himself and rises to follow the others to the doorway.

“Let me see,” Bree says, examining the top of my head. After a second she tugs on my elbow. “There’s no blood. I think you’re going to live.”

“I hope so,” I mutter.

Bree giggles. “Let’s go.”

Other than the violent stabbing pain to my head, my body is numb from Bree’s shocking disclosure. We only ever had one small, broken shard of mirror my mother found discarded in the forest. Because of this, I have never seen behind my own ears. I have never even seen the back of my head.

My parents and Taylor’s family were the only ones I have ever been close to. Why wouldn’t anyone have told me? Did Taylor know what it was? Since I have never seen the mark before, Taylor herself must have been a Future. Had her parents told her it would be considered rude to say anything to me?

Still, why would the soldiers have said that I wouldn’t be told of my DOD until I was eighteen? They would have known to look for such a mark. My hair had been down at the time. They simply took a scan of my eyes before releasing me to the orphanage.

My fragile brain is too confused to register anything as Bree leads me down the aisle. Colors and movements blend together, reminding me of the time Taylor had spun me around in a circle until I became dizzy and fell to the ground. When we step down into the street, I am met with the overwhelming heat mixed with a pungent odor that slams into me with the musty air. I reach up to cover my mouth, afraid I am going to vomit. Voices all around me whisper in hurried excitement.

“Is that the new girl?”

“What is wrong with her?”

“Olive?” Bree’s asks. Her voice is hollow and sounds as if it is coming to me from miles away. “Olive, can you hear me?”

A large hand slips under my elbow to pull me upright. The foul smell is suddenly replaced with something sharp and clean. I lean into the strong arms that hold me, taking more of it in. Although the scent is not exactly like that of my father’s, it is definitely masculine. My head pushes into a warm chest and my lungs fill with more of the wonderful, musky aroma. After a moment, I realize my face is buried into a stranger’s chest and lean away.

Harrison looks down on me.

His eyes reflect an unexpected kindness and even something resembling a glimmer of hope that all too quickly fades away. His eyebrows draw together and his hand falls from my elbow. “What is wrong with you?” he growls. The annoyance sounds artificial—forced.

“I’m…sorry,” I say. “I’m not feeling well.”

Bree stands at my side, her face etched with worry. “I was afraid you were going to pass out or something.”

Other Shymers stand in a small circle surrounding us, watching with wide eyes. Some only pass by, but still turn to stare.

Heat spreads through my face. I have caused a scene. “I’m fine,” I insist, looking beyond everyone to try to gather myself. “Is it far to the orphanage?”

The rainbow houses we saw in the shuttle have been replaced with dozens of dark, towering buildings made with brick and large solar panels. Now that I stand away from Harrison, his pleasant scent is replaced with the foul odor from earlier. It doesn’t take much imagination to know where the bad smell is coming from as everything here is dirty. Trash blows across the street. The buildings are old and dilapidated. To make it even worse, the worn canopies covering the streets make everything darker and more sinister in their massive shadows.

A group of soldiers with long guns strapped to their bodies stand down the road from us, taking our gathering in with interest. I shudder when I remember the similarly dressed soldiers bursting into our home and taking my mother away from me.

I lean back into Bree. “Are we allowed to just stand in the street like this?”

After glancing over her shoulder, she shakes her head. “You need to report to the orphanage. Harrison can help you find your way.”

Harrison’s eyes dart to mine. He looks quite dismayed by the idea. Bree must have lost her mind. He is obviously still annoyed at me for some unknown thing I have done to offend him. More than anything, I would expect him to avoid me right now. Still, the warm feeling from when we first met returns, along with a small pang of excitement. He must live at the same orphanage.

“Yeah, sure,” Harrison finally mumbles.

Bree’s face lights up. “Great! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her cheerful attitude has been an exception today. I suddenly love her for reaching out to me. I lean forward and embrace the girl who doesn’t have much longer to live, who doesn’t know a good time and who has never known love from anyone other than her family.

She remains stiff in my arms for a moment before bringing her arms around me and squeezing lightly. “I said I’d see you tomorrow!” She pulls away, laughing.

“I know. I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your kindness today when I really needed it. Thank you.”

She shifts her weight, uncomfortable with my words, and looks to Harrison for help that he won’t give. “Yeah, well, I guess part of knowing your DOD is that you know you’ll see me another day, right?”

“I have yet to find out my DOD,” I remind her with a small shake of my head. “Could be tomorrow, for all we know, right?” I force a laugh that catches in my throat.

“
I
wil
l
see you tomorrow,” she promises. “They wouldn’t have bothered to bring you to the orphanage if your time was that close.” She takes one final, almost pitying look at me before turning around to leave.

Guilt engulfs me when I watch her walk away. I should tell her the truth. I may have the Shymer mark, but somehow I have been registered by the government as a Future. Is it a mistake? Has my DOD changed, like Kai and Bree said it could sometimes do?

I am so wrapped up in my thoughts I almost jump out of my skin when a hand yanks at my arm. I whirl around to find Harrison. “This way,” he says, motioning to where the soldiers stand.

My steps are hurried in an effort to keep up with Harrison’s long strides. As we near the soldiers, my heart thrums in my chest. What if something unusual shows up on my registration and they say something? I wouldn’t want Bree to find out from Harrison that I had lied to her.

Following Harrison’s lead, I stand before the two soldiers. The shorter one produces the same scanning device as before to check each of our eyes before giving a quick nod of his head, excusing us. I close my eyes momentarily, relieved.

Harrison clasps his fingers around my arm, leading me off in yet another direction. We follow a narrow path behind one of the tall buildings. The space is tight and crowded, forcing me to walk closer to Harrison than I intend. This side of Society is deserted, and the path formidable, like there is something lurking in it, waiting for us.

“We have fifteen minutes from when the shuttle arrives to when we have to report to the orphanage,” Harrison says. He won’t look at me. “It isn’t good to hang around.”

“How long have you been in the orphanage?” I ask.

“Two years,” he answers, still holding my arm. My skin feels like it will ignite into flames where his fingers rest against it.

“I’m sorry about your family.” Almost immediately after the words cross my lips, I wish I could take them back. I bite down on my lip, waiting for his reaction.

He glares down on me with dark eyes. “Why would you be sorry? What di
d
yo
u
have to do with it?”

I stop walking, breaking his hold on my arm. Now I know that saying something so personal was a terrible idea. I feel like I’ll never understand what I can and can’t say in this new world. “I…I didn’t mean…” I stammer.

I only wanted to let him know how terrible I feel for him. Why should it make him angry? As much as he seems to hate me, I am still drawn to him. Earlier in the day I thought I had seen the same interest reflected in his eyes, but maybe I was wrong. His eyes refuse to soften as they burn into me. I remind myself that living your whole life knowing your family will die on the same day had probably been like a horrible nightmare that didn’t end until that day finally came.
 

Then again, what if he isn’t upset with me? What if he’
s
jealou
s
that I don’t yet know my DOD an
d
jealou
s
of the life I once lived in the Free Lands with my parents?

“You don’t know anything about me,” he says coldly. “You don’t want to, either. My DOD is coming soon, so I’m not worth getting to know.”

I nearly cry out. His statement is ridiculous. “You’r
e
wron
g
!” I snap, trying to narrow my eyes in the same furious way as his. “I actually think yo
u
ar
e
worth getting to know. You, Bree—even Kai with her cigarettes and sour attitude. I don’t care if you’re a Shymer or a Future. None of that makes any sense to me anyway! If you still have any amount of time left on this earth, then you should be able do the things you’ve always wanted to do in life and see the places you’ve always wanted to visit. Nothing should hold you back from being happy during the time you have left!”

He steps forward with such a dark look that I shrink away. “Look around you! Things may have been happy and wonderful where you came from, but here we don’t have the opportunity to do the things we want. We are only here a short time, and no one cares what happens to us. I’m not going to do any of the things on my playlist, mostly because I never bothered t
o
mak
e
one. I don’
t
car
e
what else is out there. I don’
t
car
e
about the things I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Whatever it is you’re trying to do by pretending to be my friend, you can just stop!”

When he is done yelling, I am trembling. “I’m not pretending,” I whisper.

His face turns stoic and his tense posture sags. He realizes how much he has upset me. As I’m quickly learning, however, compassion is not a common feeling that is freely indulged in the Shymer world, and just like that, he turns on his heels to walk away.

I follow him from a distance into the large, stone building. Harrison mutters something about having to check in before he sulks off, leaving me all alone.

The orphanage feels even more depressing in the afternoon when everyone is just returning from school. The front room is so stuffy that my shirt clings to my chest. A few metal fans hang crookedly from the high, peaked ceiling and spin at a speed too low to do much of anything. A sharp, bitter smell assaults my nose, making me think of stale urine. The stone walls have crumbled, leaving chunks carved out in places. From everything I have learned today, I guess a place where Shymers live is not considered a priority and not worth fixing up.

A cluster of young children somewhere between the age of five and ten shove their way past, their gazes questioning when I excuse myself from their path. Like all of the other Shymers I have met, their expressions remain flat and their clothing is drab. One of the little girls with dark brown hair wears a braid in back like Taylor always wore. I catch the glowing mark behind her ear where Bree’s had been. I bring my hand to my left ear, then my right, realizing I don’t even know which side mine is on. I can’t believe I lived all these years without knowing I had a mark of death tattooed somewhere on my body.

A woman sitting behind a tall, stone counter chuckles. “You must be new here. You look lost.”

I turn to her and nod, crossing the final distance between us. She is short with broad shoulders an almost perfectly round head that resembles a child’s ball. The sides of her mouth push out in a neutral recognition rather than a smile. She is dressed like my instructors in a crisp shirt and long skirt in a floral pattern. Her hair, too short and too curly to be styled in any way, merely surrounds her head in a little cloud of ringlets.

“I was brought here late last night,” I say.

Her emerald green eyes grow wide. “Oh! You’re that girl—“

“From the Free Lands,” I cut in. “Yes, that’s me.”

Her mouth morphs into something else—pity maybe. “Since they brought you in so late I’m guessing you didn’t get a proper tour of the building.”

I look off to where the group of children disappeared down the hallway. “No. They didn’t tell me anything either. Will I ever—“

“Just one moment,” the woman says, putting her hand to her ear and looking away. “Yes, she’s just arrived…I will do that.”

It takes a moment before I realize she is speaking to someone through her communicator. Having someone interrupt you at any moment has got to be irritating. I don’t understand why the government would make everyone get such a thing. When the conversation is through, the woman gives me a smile that is too large for her face and reveals too many of her yellowing teeth.