Intermix Nation (6 page)

At the center of the room is a wooden table
with two adjacent folding chairs … one of which is currently
occupied. The sitting man has his back turned to her. He is wearing
a traditional black prison jumpsuit and his hands are resting on
the table. Nazirah can see from the door that he is handcuffed at
the wrists. His posture is straight, but restrained. He must have
heard her come in. Yet he remains still, staring straight
ahead.

Nazirah doesn’t know what she has been
expecting. Maybe for him to be dirty, covered in his own filth,
bloody, chained to a wall, or sobbing in a corner. Certainly not
this calm and collected person before her. Her heart races as she
walks around the table. Palms sweating, Nazirah takes her seat,
finally facing him.

Remember to breathe.

Nazirah cannot look him in
the eyes. Her attention focuses immediately on his hands, as she
wrings her own in her lap. His are large and calloused, with
bruised knuckles. Small black scratch marks cover the backs of
them. Nazirah knows from the newspapers that these tattoos tally
his number of kills
. He wears them like
badges of honor
, she thinks, revolted. She
feels sick, reminded that two of those miniature lines are Riva and
Kasimir.

Nazirah forces her gaze upwards to his arms,
which for the most part are covered by the jumpsuit. The silence is
deafening as Nazirah’s eyes skirt over the muscles outlining his
upper torso, honed from years of killing and torturing. She focuses
on the pulse in his neck, the pulse that beats life into him.
Nazirah wishes she could wrap her hands around his throat until she
feels that pulse slow, and then stop completely. Wishes it so badly
that she has to sit on her hands, afraid she might attack him and
ruin everything.

Her gaze travels further up. Past the neck,
past the slight stubble that shadows a defined jaw, past the split
lip – which Nazirah notes with satisfaction; it seems Adamek Morgen
has not had the most pleasant stay in prison – past the purple
bruise on his cheek which mars otherwise smooth, ivory skin. Medi
skin. And still further up, past the aristocratic nose, the dark
arched eyebrows and black hair.

Finally, finally, she looks him in the
eyes.

They are blindingly green.

If he is surprised to see her, he doesn’t
show it. He stares at her expressionlessly. Nazirah realizes in
embarrassment that he has probably been watching her all along,
waiting for her to finish assessing him. Waiting for her to be
ready.

She is startled by how young he looks.
Shouldn’t murderers be gruesome and scarred and … older? She
searches for the guilt and torment that should have aged his face.
She finds none of it. All she sees is a boy her age, maybe a few
years older.

Not just any boy.

Every emotion flickers across Nazirah’s
face. Fear, embarrassment, hate, guilt, loathing … she feels it all
and it all shows. But Adamek’s face is a mask, undecipherable,
impenetrable. She has never seen someone so controlled in her life.
Nazirah, who has never been particularly good at hiding
particularly anything, feels completely uncomfortable. She breaks
eye contact with him, breathing through her nose. She needs to get
out of here, fast. All of her feelings are rapidly being overtaken
by one consuming emotion … rage.

What is Niko talking about? This is not the
face of a reformed man! This is a monster, who obviously feels no
remorse at all. And she hopes he sees it written all over her face.
Adamek may fool Nikolaus, but he is not fooling her.

Nazirah pulls the amnesty pendant and a
folded piece of paper, stamped with the rebellion’s wax seal, from
her pocket. She admired the pendant on the train ride to Rubiyat.
It is simple, just a gold ring on a chain, with Nikolaus and
Adamek’s names inscribed into it. Nazirah knows Adamek will have to
wear it for the rest of his life. It saddens her that something so
beautiful will forever be a part of someone so ugly.

Nazirah feels his stare, but she will not
look up again. She is not sure she can handle it, and feels ashamed
that her one chance to confront him is slipping through her
trembling fingers. Right now, all she wants to do is leave. She
wants to run – like usual, Nazirah is letting everyone she loves
down. She hates him for it, but she hates herself more.

Nazirah sets the chain down on the table,
within Adamek’s reach. Give him the chain, read the short contract,
get him to sign on the line. Niko had made her repeat the steps
several times over before the train left the station in Krush.
Nazirah recites the short list in her head, finding that the set
directions calm her nerves. She deftly breaks the seal, opens the
contract, and begins to speak.

“Adamek Morgen,” she reads, “son of Gabirel
and Victoria Morgen, you have entered into a binding amnesty
agreement on this day, at your own behest, willingly and
honorably.” Nazirah resists the urge to snort. Sarcasm is
unfortunately not on Niko’s checklist. “The terms of this contract
have been previously negotiated and agreed upon and I, Nikolaus
Nation, son of” – Nazirah’s voice cracks – “Kasimir and Riva Martel
Nation, pledge to you that I will honor our conditions from this
day, until my last day, should you agree. In trust, let there be
truth.”

Nazirah finishes reading the short
paragraph, which is followed by the date and Nikolaus’s signature
in red ink. There is a blank line under Nikolaus’s name, indicating
where Adamek should sign. Nazirah sets the contract down on the
table, realizing that she doesn’t have a pen for him to use.
Flustered, she searches her pockets. She feels his eyes trained on
her the whole time, almost amused. Nazirah is about to go ask Olag
to bring her one from the control room when Adamek speaks for the
first time, halting her thoughts in their tracks.

“That’s not how this works.”

Nazirah looks at him in surprise and
confusion. His tone is clipped, but there is something else there
as well. Curiosity. And as Adamek stares at her, Nazirah comes to
the unnerving realization that he is curious about her. Like she is
some puzzle he can’t quite solve. Nazirah watches as Adamek grabs
the chain and finds the small point in the ring that Nazirah had
thought was only for design.

Without hesitating, he stabs himself in the
back of the hand with it. Nazirah’s jaw drops open and she doesn’t
even try to hide her shock. Adamek dips the point into the blood
that is now flowing from his small wound. With some difficulty,
because he is still handcuffed, he writes his name on the contract.
Nikolaus had not signed in red ink after all.

Nazirah thinks she might
pass out. Niko should have warned her that this was going to
happen! He should have prepared her!
Just
get him to sign his name
, he said.
That’s it,
he said.
Nazirah is going to give Niko a well-deserved kick in the groin the
next time she sees him.

Adamek finishes signing the contract and
slides it to her, the blood on his hand already coagulating. He
pulls the chain over his head and tucks it under his jumpsuit.

Amnesty agreement sealed. Nazirah can leave
and return to headquarters. But she cannot move from her seat,
cannot stop staring at the bloody signatures. And even though she
tries to stop them, her thoughts return to that night. Finding her
parents dead on the floor. Screaming until she was hoarse. Rocking
her lifeless mother in her arms.

He killed them in cold blood. Bargained for
his freedom in warm blood. And Nazirah wants to spill his life’s
blood.

She wants to spill every last sticky
drop.

Adamek tenses. He must know exactly what she
is thinking. Knows the visions that plague her thoughts every day
and haunt her dreams every night. He caused them, after all.

Nazirah takes a deep breath, reaching for
the contract so she can leave. When he speaks again, his words drip
poison and purpose.

“You look like her.”

What the fuck did he just say?

Nazirah’s head snaps up. Blinded by rage,
she lunges across the table, positive that Solomon is hopping off
his chair and screaming like a banshee down the corridor. Adamek
makes no move to stop her.

Nazirah’s fingers are barely an inch away
from his throat before she pauses. She holds them there,
outstretched. They itch to close to gap, are dying to make the
spark fade from his eyes. But he said that deliberately to get a
rise out of her. And she refuses to be a pawn in his twisted
game.

Nazirah pulls her hand away, slamming the
table with her fist, imagining it’s his face. She grabs the
contract, shoves it into her pocket. She walks quickly towards the
door then stops and turns around to face him. Adamek inclines his
head, listening closely.

“Enjoy your freedom, Morgen,” she spits. “I
hope you choke on it.”

#

“What a fucking piece of shit.”

Cato is livid. He is sitting at his desk,
face red, fuming. The unfinished essay he was writing lies
forgotten beside him. Cato cracks his knuckles menacingly, a habit
that Nazirah hates. Nazirah lies on his bed, staring at the
ceiling. She only returned to headquarters an hour ago. Her head
pounds from stress and lack of sleep. Cato’s angry outbursts every
couple of seconds aren’t helping matters.

Nazirah sighs in annoyance and exhaustion,
looking out Cato’s window. His room is exactly like hers on the
inside – but at least his view faces the grounds, not a brick wall.
Nazirah went straight to Cato’s room after seeking out Nikolaus in
his office. When Nazirah initially showed up at Cato’s door, he was
irritated, since he thought she was ignoring him. But once she told
him the full story, Cato became outraged. Nazirah is relieved that
he isn’t upset with her anymore, but she would almost prefer him
annoyed. She can’t deal with his ranting right now.

“We’ve established that my brother sucks,”
Nazirah says, exasperated. “Can we move on?”

Unlike Nazirah, Cato took some of the
comforts of home with him. Several pictures of his former life in
Rafu are displayed throughout his room. Nazirah glances at a photo
of Cato smiling with his two siblings, before picking another one
up from his nightstand. It is one of Nazirah’s favorites, taken
when she was fifteen. Cato, who came from a long line of fishermen,
saved up his money that summer to buy an old canoe on the black
market. He spent weeks rebuilding it, sanding it down and caulking
it. Nazirah teased him about it for weeks, telling him it would
never float. One day, without warning, he picked her up, dropped
her into the canoe, and paddled out to sea.

They spent the rest of the day fishing. Or,
really, Nazirah watched Cato fish. She alternated between lying in
the sun and jumping off the boat to swim in the water. Cato
entertained her all day, telling Nazirah unbelievable stories he
learned in school. Hundreds of years ago, he said, everything
around them had been landlocked. Then the polar icecaps melted,
swallowing and shrinking the coastline of the Old Country.

Looking out at the sea that day, Nazirah
couldn’t believe it was ever anything else than what it was now. It
was a time in her life when she didn’t fully grasp the concept of
change. A time in her life when she thought everything would always
remain the same, constant and steady.

Now she isn’t so sure.

Cato reeled in a huge fish that day, almost
thirty pounds. He let Nazirah hold it in the photo, pretend she was
the one who caught it. The sea waves in the background, as the two
of them smile widely for the camera. Nazirah’s long hair is braided
and wet from the water. Her skin is glowing, bronzed from the
summer sun. She struggles to grip the slippery, floundering fish
with her thin arms. Cato is giving the camera a thumbs-up. He looks
goofy, but that is exactly what makes Nazirah love the photo.

Despite his protests, Nazirah convinced Cato
to release the fish back into the wild. She vividly remembers
watching it swim away, breathing life back through its gills,
regaining its speed. She felt like that fish, once. Like death was
only a shadow of a whisper in her mind. Like there was nothing
before her but life and the sea and endless freedom.

“I can’t believe Nikolaus would associate
with that scum!” Cato continues ranting. Nazirah sets the photo
back down with a sigh. Cato stares at her expectantly. He is not
letting her off the hook as easily as he did the fish.

She yawns. “Why don’t you go ask him,
then?”

“I don’t get you, Irri.” Cato walks over to
the bed. “How are you not more upset about this? Don’t you want to
know why Adamek Morgen suddenly gained a conscience and wants to
help us, renouncing his entire race and family in the process? And
why your brother embraced him with open arms? Doesn’t it all seem a
little strange to you?”

“Of course it does, Cato!” Nazirah snaps, at
her wit’s end. “You think I actually believe for a second that the
purebred dirtbag has changed? I don’t! But like I told you already,
I have no idea what he and Niko agreed upon. Niko wouldn’t tell me.
He wouldn’t even tell me anything when I gave him the signed
contract. I haven’t slept or eaten in over a day, I’ve been to the
damned Red West and back, and I’m tired!”

Cato is quiet, finally. Nazirah can tell he
feels bad about badgering her. She is too annoyed to care. He
slowly lies beside her on the bed. They stare at the ceiling in
silence, close, but not touching.

With his bright hazel eyes and medium build,
Cato looks more like Nazirah than Nikolaus does. People often
assume they are related, especially non-Eridians, much to Cato’s
annoyance and Nazirah’s amusement. He is tanner than she, from a
lifetime of working on boats. Cato’s Eridian fish tattoo, exactly
like Riva’s, suits him perfectly. Nazirah remembers when he first
got marked at the town hall, on his thirteenth birthday, how proud
he was. But he wore long sleeves for weeks, even though it was a
brutally hot summer, so Nazirah wouldn’t feel like she was missing
out.