Behind Our Walls (15 page)

"I get that there are risks," Sophie said. "But you know just as well as I do that there are still a lot of people lost out there. They're all alone and they need help. We were lucky enough to find this place, don't you think we owe it to those people?"

"And what if they're armed when they show up? You want to let them just run loose in here?"

"So we take away their weapons."

"Which would then make them useless in defending the place, which was one of your reasons for letting them in. I don't like this but the best way for us to stay alive is to assume that everyone is out to get us."

Sophie shook her head and smirked. "That's a pretty unhealthy way to live, Lot."

"Maybe. But you know what you have to be in order to have an unhealthy way of life? You have to be alive."

They stared each other down, neither willing to concede the point. Rowen and Meredith shifted around in their chairs while Daniel just stared at the floor as the silence awkwardly filled the room.

"Is this just a control thing?" Sophie asked. "Are you that incapable of handing over anything to people you don't know?"

"Why, is it easy for you?"

Sophie slammed her hand down on the desktop, causing the sand garden to jump up in the air and dump most of its contents. She shook her head and carefully swept as many of the grains back into the wooden box as she could. Times were gone when an item like this could be replaced with a simple trip to the mall.

The others waited patiently while she cleaned up her mess and she could feel her cheeks flushing as she wiped the desk clean. "Not everyone is broken," she said. "There are good people out there and they deserve a chance to survive, to be a part of something."

"We can't—"

"It's not that hard to tell the people apart, you know? How often have you seen a rover traveling alone? They always go around in packs. Pretty hard to mistake a father with his wife and kids. Do you really think we can't tell the difference?"

Lot shook his head. "I can't imagine a scenario in which I would be willing to take someone in and bet my life on it. I don't care how obvious you think it is, people can't be trusted."

"Does that include you? Or any of us? What makes us so much better?"

"There are plenty of spots out there for people to use. We found this place. It isn't like we live under some kind of obligation to put other people before our own safety."

"But we need to remember that we all came from the outside, same as everyone else."

Lot didn't answer and Sophie dropped her gaze back down to the garden, dragging the tiny rake around the sand in a vaguely circular pattern, listening to the silence hang in the room.

"This is a difficult issue," Rowen said. Sophie had assumed that he would be on her side but his tone immediately suggested otherwise. "It might be worth considering that most of the people living here might not be comfortable with bringing in strangers."

Sophie felt her cheeks flushing again. "I thought you—"

He put a hand up to stop her. "Hold on, I'm just pointing out that it's complicated. I'm all for helping people, but we need to be careful." Sophie started to protest again, and his hand came back up. "Just cool it, all right? We need to exercise a certain amount of discretion. The people here are looking to us to keep them safe and we need to take that seriously.

"What do you think, Meredith?" Sophie asked.

She shifted in her seat under Sophie's scrutiny, which was pretty much all the answer she needed. "Look, don't take my head off, but I agree with them. I don't like turning people away, and I think we should take in more, but only when we can. We can't just throw the doors open."

Sophie rubbed her temples and tried to breathe slowly, feeling a headache threatening. She wasn't sure why she was investing herself so much in this argument. It wasn't like she really disagreed that much with any of them. She understood the need for caution. But the problem was that the expectation would fall on her to break all of this to Fiona.

As the meeting ended, Sophie headed for the corridor and began to walk. As she thought things over, she walked up to the highest level of the stadium, staring at her feet as she went. There were only two ways she could deal with this. She could do nothing and go about her business until Fiona blew up at her and demanded an answer. Or, she could suck it up and talk to her like an adult. Either way, the confrontation seemed unavoidable. Fiona had zeroed in on Sophie as her personal conduit to the committee and there was no way to get around that expectation.

Sophie took in a breath, turned and began walking towards Fiona's suite.

-36-

Sophie knocked again, louder this time, and was on the verge of walking away when the door finally opened to reveal Fiona. She had actually started to hope that Fiona wasn't here, or simply wouldn't open the door, and that she could just wash her hands of the whole thing.

"What?" Fiona asked, leaning against the door frame, giving no signal to suggest that Sophie was welcome to come inside. Sophie looked from side to side, up and down the corridor and marveled at the fact that this was already playing out exactly as she expected.

"I just wanted to talk to you about what we went over in committee. About your request?" She thought that the inflection in her voice would maybe lead Fiona to invite her in, so that they could discuss it but still, no such invitation was offered. "So, we talked it over, and—"

"You don't have to waste your time," Fiona snapped at her, cutting her off. "I pretty much knew how things were going to come out. I just thought I'd go through the motions."

"Fiona, I wish you would try to be more patient. I think you'd be treated a lot differently if you just eased up a little."

"Would it make things easier for you?"

"I'm not talking about me. You just seem so wound up all the time. Everyone here is scared, you know? We're all just trying to get by and nobody has time to make you their personal enemy."

"Yeah, because all the people out there? The ones who weren't lucky enough to find the keys to this nice, big clubhouse? You think that they aren't scared?"

"I tried to convince them, and I agree with you to some degree. I just don't understand why you're unloading all of this on me."

"Well it's isn't like there's that many people left who'll talk to me for more than a minute at a time."

Sophie laughed at the comment. "So what, this is my reward? I try and reach out to you, I try and make your voice heard at the committee, I
try
to help you and all that happens is that you dump all of your personal shit on me? Because I'm the only one standing here?"

Fiona only shrugged. Sophie shook her head and tried to peek past Fiona to see if Nairi was around, someone who could maybe step up as a potential ally. Fiona put an arm out to further obscure her view, and continued staring her down. It probably wouldn't have made any difference. As much as Nairi had been supportive and enthusiastic about everything, she tended to turn into the tiniest little shadow around Fiona's imposing presence.

"Can you just tell me what you want?" Sophie asked. "Because as much as I try to satisfy you, I always seem to fall short. Is there anything that would make you happy?"

Fiona stared back at her, sneering the whole time. "Happy about what?"

"I just don't get what's keeping you here. If we're all making you so miserable, why don't you just leave?"

Fiona opened her mouth and shut it again, showing a rare moment of doubt before speaking. "I didn't say that I don't want to be here. I just think we've turned this place into a giant country club or something. And the only reason why I got to be here is because I happened to be with the group when we found it. If I were to just come up to the front door today, I'd never get in and I think that's bullshit."

"I think you're overreacting."

"Well, good on you for thinking that."

"Look." Sophie clenched her fists and tried to get her anger back under control. "They aren't wrong about needing to be careful. If we're going to make it in here, we need to start changing our assumptions about people. You might not care about anyone else in here, but—"

She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth and the sudden glisten in Fiona's eyes made her feel even worse as she stammered, trying to recover from the damage she had just done.

"What do you expect, Fiona? You've never shown any interest in anyone else here."

"So I get into some arguments and all of a sudden I'm just the self-centered bitch who only cares about herself?"

Sophie closed her mouth, wanting to retort, but another part of her knew it was exactly what she had meant. She hated the thought, but that didn't change the fact that she really did feel that way.

"It's not like we're sealed in here until the end of time," Sophie said. "They will let more people in, it just isn't going to be an open door policy. We'll have to take it in on a case-by-case basis."

"And who gets to decide?"

"What? Who gets in?"

"Yes. Who gets to pass down the great, holy proclamation from up on high? My money's on Lot. Rowen might be the one to tell everyone, but we all know he's just Lot's puppet. They can lead our souls into the promised land."

"You are so God dammed dramatic. I don't think it's that unreasonable that—"

"Hey, maybe we can scrounge up some shepherds robes and a staff, so he can be just like Jesus for us."

"You need to stop."

"No, really, I think it's great that we have such righteous people around to light the way for us."

Sophie felt the thrumming in her head, her breath catching in her chest, every instinct to ball up a fist and manually remove that cocky smirk off of her face. "Fiona, if you feel so strongly about all of this, then why don't you get more involved? All you do is sit on the sidelines, sniping at everyone."

"It's not my job to help anyone."

"Not your job." Sophie shook her head and crossed her arms. "Not your job. Guess what, it wasn't my job to watch my mother murdered right in front of me. It wasn't my
job
to have my father and my sister's fiancé killed, and almost have my relationship with her ruined. You think you're the only one here who's been put out? It isn't like this is a holiday for the rest of us."

"So what's your point?" Fiona glanced back over her shoulder, either to look for someone else in the room or to suggest that her precious time was being wasted. Sophie reached out and jabbed a finger into her shoulder and she turned back, gaping at Sophie as if no one had ever committed such an offense before.

"You know, you like to play the part of the damaged loner, but I'm willing to bet that the only reason why you've stayed here for so long is because of Nairi. You stay here because you feel loyal to her. What's so special about her, that she rates so much higher in your universe than the rest of us?"

Fiona glared at her so intensely that this time, she expected a blow to come, but when the answer was spoken, it was through clenched teeth. "Whatever has happened between me and Nairi is none of your fucking business. You think you've had it bad? We haven't been on some kind of Midwest walking tour either. We've been there for each other, and I have no intention of leaving her behind in a place like this. People here are just begging to be taken advantage of, and I won't let that happen to us."

Sophie nodded, feeling like they were actually getting somewhere. "I get it. I understand, all right? It was the same for me with my father and sister. I knew that they weren't going to look out for themselves. I could have walked off and left them behind, but they would have ended up dead for sure. Someone had to take care of them, and I didn't see anyone else around to step up. You take care of your family."

Sophie stared her down until Fiona finally broke eye contact and looked away.

"I see a lot of myself in you," she said and Fiona snorted with derisive laughter. "I see all of that passion and loyalty inside of you, even if most people here don't. I just wish you would take the time and effort to direct that passion towards something healthier. There are so many other ways that you can—"

"Would you knock it off with the fucking sales pitch?" Fiona snapped. "I am so fed up with the whole cult of personality you have going on here. You act like this place is so sacred and special, but you don't seem to get that you're just putting off the inevitable. Don't treat me like I'm a terrible person, just because I don't want to have everyone over for tea and biscuits."

Sophie turned away from Fiona and started walking off but before she got too far, she turned back. "You know that I'm the only person here who has been sticking up for you, right? If it wasn't for me, you probably would have been kicked out on your ass by now."

"And your point is?"

"I just hope that someday you realize how much I've been trying to help you, even though you've been pretty much shitting on me the entire time."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"

She looked into Fiona's eyes, for that dormant humanity that she knew had to be there, as if this all was just one long act she had been putting on. She looked, but all she could see was the anger. Anger at Sophie, at Rowen and Lot, at the committee, angry with God. And the irony was that Sophie wasn't completely unsympathetic.