The Final Trade (12 page)

18

Zoey watches the bleeding sunrise, not looking away even as the light grows painful.

She sits on a heating unit mounted to the roof of the main building, legs dangling over the side, shoulders slumped, fingers and toes numb from the cold. Her vision blurs from looking at the growing dawn but she refuses to blink. The red of the sun churns the longer she stares, swirling, burning brighter and brighter until she can’t stand it anymore and drops her gaze, squeezing her eyes shut.

In the darkness she sees the last few days play out in a half-remembered dream haze, all details softened, images muddied and broken. She watches Halie twitch and jerk on the bed, feels the life leave her body, sees the gun sights come even with Ken’s face.

Feels the gun’s recoil.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Then only the openness of the plains after sliding through a narrow gap in the installation’s fence, a crushing avalanche of darkness behind her. After that, nothing for a long time.

Ian found her huddled beneath an outcropping of rock behind a layer of dead sage. She had run over a mile from the facility with no memory of it. He had talked in a soft, soothing voice that gradually coaxed her out from the fugue she’d barricaded herself behind. After a time he’d guided her back to the installation, dirty, bloody, barely aware of her surroundings. She hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since; she’d met everyone’s attempts to talk to her with simple nods or shakes of her head. Chelsea had gotten her to shower and dress in fresh clothes, but after eating a meager amount of food she’d come to the roof, staying through the night into the morning embracing the biting cold.

And now the reality of what she’s done is as real and bright as the light in the east.

Killed them. Killed them all. Just like Lee had said in the dream.

Maybe that’s truly why he left. Perhaps he could see inside her, see what she was becoming even before she realized it herself. Saw her for what she is.

A murderer.

But each time remorse begins to invade her, break her will to hold herself together, the rage returns, almost as strong as the moment she opened the door to the prisoners’ room. It overshadows the guilt.

And the void grows.

Zoey swallows. Her throat is dry. She should’ve brought water up here. Then she could stay longer. Away from the others.

She glances around the facility grounds. All is serene in the gray dawn, morning shadows that will soon be eaten by the day, vague outlines on the soil. She shivers. The nights are getting colder. It won’t be long until the mountaintops are capped with snow and the days will be only brief interludes between darkness.

A sound draws her attention to the left as the roof’s access door opens and Tia appears. She is wearing her heavier coat and her typical direct demeanor is absent.

Tia looks at her before glancing away. “We’re going to bury Halie this morning. The others wanted you to know.”

“Thanks.”

“So you’ll be down?”

“Yes.”

Tia begins to turn but stops. “I know how it feels when you think no one understands what you’re going through. I know what it’s like to be truly alone. If you want to talk, I’m around.”

Zoey tries to respond but when the words won’t come she nods and Tia disappears down the stairway.

The wind picks up and swirls shrunken tornados across the plain and tugs at her hair. There is nothing left but to go forward. She can’t stay on the roof for the rest of her life, no matter how much she wants to.

She finds Chelsea, Merrill, Rita, and Sherell in the front entryway on the ground level. As she approaches Merrill stiffens though his eyes don’t leave hers and the same softness is still there. The door to the prisoners’ room is partially open. Someone has tried to clean it, though the wall is stained and the smell of blood is still a suggestion in the air. Chelsea spots her looking at it and shuts the door. A sense of claustrophobia grips her and it feels like the walls are closing in. Or maybe it’s simply being around more of the group again, wondering what they’re thinking, if they’re judging her.

Merrill nods before saying, “Okay. We put Halie in the back of the Suburban. The ground looks soft at the far north corner of the compound—”

“We’re not burying her inside the fence,” Zoey says.

“No,” Sherell says.

“I’m sorry. Of course not,” Merrill says. “I’ll drive everyone out and we’ll find a different place.”

“We’ll do it,” Rita says. “We knew her.”

Merrill frowns but finally holds out the keys, letting Zoey take them from him. “Be careful. If you’re not back before noon, we’ll come looking.”

The three of them file out of the front entrance and climb into the waiting vehicle. Halie’s body lies in the very back, wrapped tightly in a white sheet. Several shovels and a pickax rest on the second-to-last seat. Zoey starts the vehicle. Eli leans out from the guard tower and waves. Rita and Sherell wave back as she drives past and heads out the gate, which rumbles open with their approach.

They travel across the small bridge and wind down the dry dirt road toward the main highway, the facility fading in the rearview mirror until it is swallowed completely by a hill that they turn at and leave the drive.

Zoey follows an opening in the scrub and heads up a wide washout studded with boulders half buried like enormous bones from some forgotten race. None of them speak over the sound of the engine. The washout crests at the shoulder of the hill and she turns left out of instinct, the ground leveling before rising again to a plateau that looks out over the sprawling landscape below. She stops the Suburban and shuts the engine off.

“This is perfect,” Sherell says.

They climb out, bringing the tools with them to the edge of the natural lookout. Without saying anything else they begin to dig. Rita uses the pickax, wielding it with an ease that surprises Zoey even though she knows the other girl is strong. She and Sherell shovel the loose dirt free and soon the hole takes shape as the sun moves above them in the sky.

The work is mindless, repetitive, therapeutic. Zoey loses herself in it, imagines the hole is for the last several days and that she will leave them here when they go.

Finally the grave looks deep enough and they stand beside it for a moment before returning to the vehicle. Halie’s body looks much too small and it’s this more than anything that wrenches at Zoey’s insides.

They gather her gently and carry her between them to the grave, lowering the body into the earth. The sheet is very white against the dark clay and sand. Together they begin to fill in the hole and Zoey tries not to listen to the sound the dirt makes as it lands.

When it’s done they collect as many stones as they can find and cover the loose earth with them. Sherell finds a large, flat rock that takes all three of them to carry and they set it in the center of the grave, flecks of quartz catching the sun’s rays in its edges.

Zoey begins to say something. Something about Halie and how kind she always was to the younger women at the ARC. But the words are sharp edged and lodge in her throat. She feels the tears rise and recede, turning the quartz shine of the gravestone into a thousand diamond points.

“I never thanked you for getting us out,” Rita says. Zoey glances at the other woman, who is staring out across the valley. “Since that night I’ve been trying to find the right things to say but couldn’t ever come up with them. I was even going to put it down on paper, but I wasn’t ever very good at writing, you both know that. But seeing what happened to Halie put everything in a whole new perspective. And when they grabbed me . . .” She shudders and turns to Zoey, her face red, eyes shimmering. “That could be me in the ground, or Sherell. We were cruel to you and Meeka and Lily, and you didn’t have to come back for us, and you didn’t have to go into that room after me, but you did, and I don’t know how to ever thank you.”

Zoey shakes her head, completely speechless. Rita has treated her warmly ever since the escape, but never have they broached the topic of their relationship before that.

“Yeah, we were real bitches,” Sherell says, beginning to tear up too. “It was that place. What they did to us. What they were going to do to us. Everything. I’ve told you I was sorry before, but Rita’s right. What happened to Halie was worse than death. I would’ve slit my own throat before going through it.” Zoey can only nod and gaze down at the grave.

“And now you’ve given us what we never thought we’d have: our names, the names of our parents, knowing what little life we had before the ARC,” Rita says.

Sherell nods. “I used to lie awake at night imagining what it would be like to see my parents again after induction. How they would look, what I would say, how it would feel to hug them and have them hug me. But as I got older it started to fade and I made up stories about where I came from and the life we would’ve had if the Dearth had never happened. Now I have something real, something I can hold on to because of you.”

Rita smiles. “I did the same thing—imagined a past without the ARC and NOA. I think I knew deep down it was only my mother and me. I never remembered my father, so he must’ve . . .” She clears her throat. “I’m just sorry that you didn’t get the same.”

“It’s okay,” Zoey says, voice hoarse.

“It’s not fair.”

“The world isn’t built to be fair. I’ve learned that much already.”

“Look, no one blames you for what happened the other day.”

“There’s no one else to blame. I pulled the trigger.”

“And you saved me. I’d be dead or worse right now if it weren’t for you.”

She tries to say something but the warring emotions inside her null the words.

The silence is broken only by the gusting wind that carries specks of sand across the plateau and creaks the Suburban on its springs. After a beat she feels something brush her fingers and looks down to see Sherell’s hand holding her own. A moment later Rita grips her opposite hand so they stand in a half circle around the grave.

“Halie was beautiful and kind and she didn’t deserve to die so young,” Sherell says. “No one deserves to go through what she did. I don’t know what’s after this life, but I hope Halie is somewhere peaceful and free, and that she’s finally found her family after all.”

Zoey feels the void waver, flex as if it will break and everything inside her will come spilling out. But then Ken’s face appears in her mind and she knows if he were here right now, she would only do one thing differently.

She would kill him slower.

She squeezes her friends’ hands and finally releases them to keep the other women from feeling the tremor that runs through her.

“We should get back,” she says, walking toward the vehicle. They follow and after one last look at the resting place, she wheels them around and heads down the side of the embankment.

The ride back is quiet and uneventful. Sherell and Rita make light conversation and Zoey knows they’re trying to engage her, draw her out, return her to the group. But she is lost in her own thoughts, the words Sherell said over Halie’s grave repeating themselves in an endless echo.

No one deserves to go through what she did.

No one deserves to go through.

No one deserves.

No one.

No one.

No one else
.

The lunchroom is stuffy, the space narrower than before, or maybe it’s the others’ eyes on her that’s creating the feeling of being trapped. Seamus lies at her feet, nudging her leg from time to time with his nose, but she doesn’t reach down to pet him. She picks at the meal Eli made for everyone, eyes unfocused, not truly seeing anything until Merrill’s voice brings her back to the present.

“We need to talk about what’s next,” he says, looking at them individually, gaze lingering longest on Zoey. “First off we need to decide what to do with Lyle. He’s been compliant and helpful, and what he says makes sense about being held against his will. I’m sure he’d like to come with us when we leave, but we need to vote on it. All in favor of giving him the option, raise your hands.”

Every hand in the room goes up, Zoey lifting hers last. “Okay. That’s decided then. Secondly, Ian and I have gathered as many useful supplies as we can haul. There’s a large fuel depot at the rear of the property, enough gas to fill all our cans and then some. In about three weeks the passes we came through are going to be in pretty rough shape. In six they’ll be impassable if we get a decent amount of snow. We’ll make it no problem, but there’s always a chance of an early storm sliding in over the mountains so I think it’s a good—”

“I’m not going back,” Zoey says.

Merrill’s voice dies and every head turns toward her.

“What did you say?” Tia asks.

“I’m not going back.”

Merrill squints at her and leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “What are you talking about, Zoey?”

“The Fae Trade. I’m going after it.”

There’s a shocked silence that breaks as almost everyone starts talking to her at once. She glances at each of them, sees the looks in their eyes.

Pity, concern, confusion, love.