The Watch (The Red Series Book 1) (5 page)

Under any other
circumstances, I’d have thoroughly enjoyed that autumn day in the strawberry
fields. In the agricultural fields the cameras were mounted high on poles, and
had no microphones. That alone was always enough to make me glad I was an
outdoor worker. And that day, outdoors was beautiful. T
he
clouds had vanished and the sun, striking the wet dark furrows, raised up
dancing curtains of mist. The air, sweetened by the night’s rain, smelled fresh
and hopeful, and as the morning wore on the sky turned a brilliant blue, so
clear and cheerful I could almost believe winter would never come.

But despite the beautiful morning, I couldn’t stop worrying.
I found myself watching for the scarred warden’s
patrol car by mid-morning, and by the time the sun was almost overhead, I was a
nervous wreck.

If I were just spreading straw like the rest of
the field workers, being a wreck wouldn’t have interfered particularly with my
work. But the previous fall, after Mark lost his hand in a combine accident—he
didn’t let go of a corn stalk fast enough, and the roller that husks the corn
grabbed his glove and yanked his hand in—they put me in charge, which
meant I had the unenviable task of taking orders from my supervising farmer and
trying to make the field workers carry them out. It was impossible, which was
why I got stuck with it. Everyone older had some sort of pull with a warden or
two, I supposed.

So there I was, trying not to worry about
Rafe
or think about whatever lunch plans the scarred warden
had for me, while at the same time trying to get my field workers to do more
than lean on their rakes and whine. Felix and Billy kept bickering, Skye
coughed like she was trying to bring up a lung, and blustery red-faced Garry,
who didn’t want to be field supervisor himself but who also didn’t
want
to take orders from “some kid,” kept haranguing her about spreading germs until
she was in tears. Everyone else worked slowly until I turned my back, at which
point they stopped for a water break, or to tie a shoe, or to whisper among
themselves.

It was worse even than usual, and that was saying something.
Maybe they were worried about the mysterious impending city meeting; or maybe,
because I’d come so close to being late, they’d thought I wasn’t coming at all,
in which case they’d have napped on the straw bales until the farmer came by. I
didn’t really know what was wrong with them. But I did know that at this rate I
was going to get chewed out by my farmer—a man I actually liked, but
whose unyielding standards worried me, caught in the middle as I was.

Worse, we were never going to get the strawberries covered
before the first frost, which meant a poor crop next season. And nobody but me
seemed to care; nobody but me seemed to see the connection between working now,
and eating later. Even
Ezzie
was only poking
half-heartedly at the straw, singing softly to himself. He was another friend
of
Meritt’s
, so he usually took pity on me and helped
me get at least some of the work done.

As I watched he stopped raking altogether, rubbing his neck
and turning it this way and that.

“Pulled a muscle last night,” he said
conversationally. “Think I’d better take a little break.”

I waved a hand, as if granting permission he
hadn’t requested, and turned to Skye, who was still coughing. She always
coughed,
and the dust from the straw was making her worse.

“You’d better go to the infirmary,” I said.

Skye shook her head, too choked up to speak. Her eyes were
watering and red-rimmed.

 
“She can’t,”
Billy said, sounding smug. He didn’t like Skye. “She’s used up her quota for
the year.”

 
“Then go back to
the storage shed and oil down the tools,” I told her. “At least then you’ll be
out of this dust.”

Garry threw down his rake. “That’s not fair,” he said, his
red face turning redder. “The rest of us have to breathe it.”

“Hey,” Felix said. “What’s he doing here?”

We all turned to look, and my heart stuttered with dread.

A patrol car was coming towards us, creeping slowly down the
road like a predator stalking prey. Sunlight glinted off its shiny black metal.
The patrol car’s windows were tinted dark, but I knew who was inside.

My black cap was in my pocket but it wouldn’t do any good,
not now. He’d no doubt already seen me, and when he told me to get in the car,
I’d have to do it. I couldn’t run—there was no place to hide—and
even if I did, Garry or Felix would be happy to grab me and win a few goodwill
points with the warden.

The patrol car pulled up even with us and slowed to a stop.
Through the dark glass I felt eyes fixed on me, and my back grew prickly with
nervous sweat.

“Well, wonders never cease,”
Ezzie
said, in a tone of pleased surprise. “Lunch is early today.”

Sure enough, farther down the road a boxy white cafeteria
truck was trundling along. It stalled once, started up again, and finally
pulled to a stop behind the patrol car, keeping a respectful distance. After a
moment two workers got out and began opening the serving flap.

My team shifted, their indecision palpable; normally they’d
all be rushing to get in line first, before supplies ran out, but the lurking
menace of the patrol car kept them standing in place. The cafeteria truck’s
driver door opened and an older woman—Marta—got out. She turned to
look at the patrol car, probably wondering whether it was all right to serve
lunch.

And then the patrol car moved. It crawled forward a few
feet, paused, then continued on, rolling past me and my group of workers,
gathering speed as it left the fields and headed toward the denser city
streets.

Relief made me almost lightheaded.

“Thought they were coming for you, didn’t you?” Garry said,
eyeing me. “What’ve you done this time?”

He didn’t give me a chance to answer, even if I’d known what
to say. He was already hurrying forward, elbowing people out of the way so he
could be first in line.

Slowly, I followed, taking my usual place at the end, the
rush of relief already dissipating. I was being watched; and if the scarred
warden was determined to get hold of me, in time he would succeed.

* * * *

Farrell Dean showed up just as I collected my lunch. Without
speaking, he nodded toward the nearest tractor shed, and I headed over there,
knowing he’d get his lunch and happen to wander my way as soon as he could do
it casually.

Behind the tractor shed wasn’t perfect. Someone could come
around the corner at any moment and sit down with us, and in the distance I
could see the farm workers for Area B harvesting butternut squash and pumpkins,
gradually working my direction. But it was more inconspicuous than sitting on
the edge of the straw trailer or trying to position ourselves between the
clumps
of folks scattered
here and there in
the field. It would also make it a little harder for the scarred warden to spot
me, if he came back.

Farrell Dean came around the corner carrying his tray. He
sat down in the thin line of shade behind the tractor shed, leaning against the
rusted corrugated metal, and reached up to take my tray and set it down for me.
I held my sandwich and stood a little away from him, in the sun. I didn’t want
to leave the warm sunshine, not with the gray days almost upon us.

“
Meritt
wasn’t back by curfew,”
Farrell Dean said without preface, opening his sandwich and examining the small
piece of meat inside. “So when the dorm father came in to do a bed check, Cline
and I jumped him. Thought maybe we could confuse him
enough that he wouldn’t notice
Meritt
was missing.”

It wasn’t like they’d jumped an old man.
The dorm father
in E-1 was barely older than boys
under him, was easy-going by nature, and had the tricky job of corralling the
same boys he’d played with in school.

Farrell Dean looked up at me and smiled. “When the father
started hollering Joe hollered back at him, and then someone jumped Joe and
someone else jumped the father and we had a free-for-all going in a matter of
seconds. Cline got his nose busted—it’s swollen up like an eggplant, and
about the same color—and
Ezzie
got caught in a
headlock that just about decapitated him, and then some of us rushed the door
and the father slammed his own hand in the door trying to keep us inside. Broke
two fingers.”

Farrell Dean looked a little too cheery as he described his
perspective on the night’s events. I kicked at him, half meaning it, and he
caught my ankle and nearly brought me down on top of him.

“
Meritt
had made it back to the
courtyard by then,” he went on, as if I hadn’t almost crushed his lunch. “So he
waded in with the rest of the guys and started swinging. Just in time, too,
because that’s when the wardens got there. They separated everybody and marched
us all back inside, and the father randomly stuck some of us in isolation.
He never realized
Meritt
had been
gone.”

I slid down onto the hard-packed dirt beside him, set my
tray on my lap and, after a moment’s reflection, scooted until we were shoulder
to shoulder as a gesture of solidarity. I wasn’t the only one who’d kept
Meritt
out of prison the night before.

We ate a few bites in silence, and then I spoke. “
Meritt
and I went down through the south quarter last
night. We were supposed to meet Instructor
Rafe
at
the southwest gap.”

Beside me Farrell Dean stiffened. “Supposed to?”

I told him what had happened, what I’d seen, but I stopped
before my arrest, and I also left out the part where the female warden kissed
Meritt
—Farrell Dean would think the same thing I did,
and then I’d have to argue against it, and it wasn’t an image I wanted to hash
over with him or anyone else.

When I finished, Farrell Dean shook his head. “Not good,” he
said. “
Meritt
—” He stopped.

“What?”

Farrell Dean was already thinking about something else. He
scanned my face, no doubt noticing the dark circles under my eyes.

“After you saw
Rafe
get arrested,
did you go straight home?”
 

Leave it to him—he’d phrased the question in a way
that gave me no way out, unless I told a bare-faced lie.

“More or less,” I said.

“Tell me more about the
less
part.”

So I did, more or less. I left out the part about not being
in the birth records—Farrell Dean was nice to me and I didn’t want to
give him any reason to ponder my freakiness. I also left out the scarred
warden’s threat or offer or whatever it was.

Farrell Dean listened to everything without asking any
questions, and then turned away to set his tray on the ground. When he turned
back around, his jaw was set.

“
Meritt’s
going to be furious with
you,” he said. “I’m furious with you. I’m furious with
Meritt
,
come to that. You shouldn’t have been out there at all, much less turning
yourself in to protect him.”

I managed a shrug and took a bite of coleslaw.

“No, listen to me, Red.” Farrell Dean took my chin in his
hand and turned my face toward him. His fingers were warm but his eyes were
cold and utterly serious. He’d never looked at me like that before. “This is
not a game.” His voice was hard.

I jerked my chin away. “I know it’s not. I’m the one who saw
Rafe
get taken, remember? I’m the one who got
arrested.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t know everything.” He turned away from
me and grabbed his sandwich. “
Meritt
treats you like
a pet, takes you along for company or whatever, but he doesn’t tell you
everything. He’s going to get you killed, fooling around like that.”

I rolled my eyes, but his words stung.
“How do you know what
Meritt
does or
doesn’t tell me?” I said.

He shrugged and stabbed at his coleslaw with his fork.

I was getting angry now, too angry to sit still.
Like a pet
? I slammed my tray on the
ground and got to my feet.

“Exactly what deep dark secrets does
Meritt
tell you and not me?” I asked, making sure he heard the sarcasm in my voice.

“I don’t care about
Meritt’s
secrets,” Farrell Dean said evenly. “Except when they’re endangering somebody
else.”

I stared at him a moment. “You’re bluffing,” I said. “You
don’t know anything I don’t know.”

Farrell Dean shrugged again and took a bite of sandwich.

I gave his boot a little kick. He ignored me, so I kicked
him again, a little harder, this time on his leg. “Tell me.” I’d lost a bit of
self-assurance, and he could probably tell.

Farrell Dean chewed deliberately, swallowed. “I don’t know
anything you need to know,” he said, and then took another bite.