Strikers (20 page)

“Now it’s your turn, Karas,” he says, his voice so faint it’s more like a breath.

My turn? My turn for what? The look in his eyes, the confusing mixture of wanting and pity I see there, doesn’t help me discover that answer. For a moment, I think he means something far deeper than a hug.

I’ve heard many times that there are always babies born nine months after a death that brings a lot of grief. And the more grief that death causes, the more babies will be born. It’s said that nothing brings out the desire to be close to another person, as close as two people can get, like loss. Is this what’s happening here?

“Your face,” he clarifies. “You’re torn up pretty good.”

His fingers stop pushing back the strands of my hair and pause against the skin near my temple. I feel a sharp sting where he touches and wince. The thorns and branches of the night before must have left their marks on me. I pull back from him, embarrassed by my previous thoughts, but he merely smiles, unaware of how close I came to throwing myself at him in a way I would surely regret later.

He turns and jogs a few quick steps back toward the platform and lifts something down I missed seeing before. His smile is genuine and a little shy when he returns, like he feels awkward at being the one tending to another’s injuries. The lid of the medical kit is what he has. On it rests a small stack of the boiled cloth, its sun-bleached whiteness dulled from soaking in water, along with the little pot of ointment.

I sit right there on the warming pavement when he motions for me to. We’re very exposed out here, but the light is good and we have a clear view around us. There are birds singing a loud chorus in the trees that surround us and that they are still singing and chattering with each other is the best sign we could have that we remain undiscovered. Silence would ripple outward from the trail of any encroaching human.

Jovan’s fingers are gentle when he wipes at my face with the cloth. He shows it to me after he finishes my temple and I see the crust of dirt and blood that has transferred to it. It surprises me to see such a large amount of dark color there. I felt it while it was happening, but there was no time to think then, only to run.

He has his share of scratches, but they don’t look too bad, certainly nothing like what my face must look like given the condition of the rapidly darkening cloth. The blood that had dried is now re-liquifying on the wet cloth and transforming into a fresh-looking red.

Still, I’m not the only one with marks. A few on his neck look angry and painful. I pick up one of the other folded squares and dab at his scratches, trying to remove the coating of dirt around them as gently as I can. We go on like this, exchanging winces now and again, but not talking. It’s soothing to be touched like this. It’s caring but comes without expectation, a simple tending of the body by another. It makes me want to cry.

I’m finished with Jovan’s face long before he’s done with mine, and there’s not a single clean cloth left, or even a single square inch of cloth that remains clean. It’s a little disturbing to see and I wonder how badly my face is marked. That may seem silly, but I can’t help it.

The little pot of ointment sends out its peculiar scent again. The sting goes away like it never existed as he smooths it across the various scratches and gouges. I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable I was until the discomfort was gone. I dab a little on his most serious scratch and he murmurs in relief.

“What’s in this stuff?” I ask, sniffing at the ointment while I hold the pot for him. When I sniff it, it feels like my sinuses clear.

He shrugs, but answers. “Not sure of everything. I think there’s lard in it, maybe eucalyptus, but I know for sure it has some plant that’s actually poisonous.”

I jerk my head back and stop inhaling it. “Poisonous?”

“Yep,” he nods. “Supposedly, if you get the plant juice on you directly, it can numb you for days and if you eat it, it will make you stop breathing.” At the look on my face, he chuckles and says, “It comes from someplace far to the south. What they put in this stuff is processed somehow. It’s safe.”

I’m dubious and it shows on my face. My finger is still numb and now my face is mostly numb as well, so there’s no question it works.

Jovan leans close to me, so close I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes and the little scar on his lip that I once kissed when we were younger. He winks and says, “Just don’t eat it. Or lick at your lips too much.”

I stop rubbing my lips together right away. A little of the ointment he put near there has migrated to my lips and I was enjoying the numb sensation. He wipes my lips with his thumb and smears it on his pants. It’s innocent enough, but the flush that creeps up my neck is entirely beyond my control.

Enough of this. I get to my feet, grab the medical kit lid with its now nasty contents, and stride quickly back to the building and the others.

Maddix appears to be sound asleep. Connor lies next to him with a hand protectively on his chest so he’ll wake if Maddix stirs or just to reassure himself that his brother is still breathing. Cassi isn’t asleep as she should be. Instead, she’s peering out of the gap under the big bay door, her eyes keen on the woods beyond the pavement. Keeping watch.

Perhaps it’s because of what happened in general, or more likely the specific nature of the attack, but it has created something new in Cassi. Her eyes are moving unnaturally quickly, every movement outside catching her attention and receiving a brief but sharp evaluation. Her whole frame is tense, her shoulders taut, and there is a gun within reach of her hand. It’s even been laid on the floor with exacting precision so that it will take as little time as possible for her to palm it.

I’m pretty sure Cassi has no more idea how to fire it with accuracy than I do. She dry-fired just like I did, but neither of us has fired an actual round. This new Cassi concerns me even at first glance. No good can come from such over-vigilance, only exhaustion.

“Ready for some sleep?” I ask her as I approach with my dirty bandages and ointment-shiny face.

She acknowledges me only with another of those sharp glances, her eyes returning to the gap immediately. She frowns and says, “I’m not tired. They could be out there.”

I drop to my haunches next to her and bump her with my dirty tray. She makes a face at it, then glances again at my face. I can almost figure out the pattern of my wounds by the way her eyes trace their paths. She shakes her head and says, “You’re the one that needs rest. You were up in the tower all night. I slept like a baby down below.”

“Now I know that’s a lie. None of you are remotely like babies,” I say and grin, hoping for some sort of Cassi-like smile.

I’m apparently hoping in vain because her mouth is stretched in a line that doesn’t suit her face. Her freckles are like spots of pale copper against her skin, but what is normally pale is now white, strained and almost ill-looking. There are purplish-blue circles under her eyes and even her pursed lips are pale rather than their usual envy-inspiring pink. We’ve all been through a lot, but Cassi is perilously close to breaking. Men who wanted to capture her for what they no-doubt wanted may have been the last straw.

“Cassi, please. I slept in the tower and Jovan’s going to go to the stream to get water and wash these. I have to stay sitting up so this stuff will soak in anyway. You know me, as soon as I fall asleep I’ll be on my side and smearing it,” I say.

She sighs and finally looks away from the bay door. “Are you sure?” she asks.

“I am. And the sooner you get to sleep, the better off we’ll be. You’ll need to take watch later,” I say. I’d like to hug her the way Jovan hugged me. It did me so much good and acted like a calmative even as it revived me. But she seems so closed off.

When people are open to something, I can usually see it in them. I believe most people can. It’s how we naturally behave, I think. But there’s not even the remotest hint of invitation in her. She might as well be behind a wall. Before I can think more about it, I lay down my tray and lean in, wrapping one arm around her.

She stiffens at first, then sinks into my shoulder as her tears come. It seems terrible to think like this, but her tears, her simple sadness, are what she needs. As long as she can cry, she’s still her and nothing is so broken that it can’t be repaired.

We stay like that a while. Jovan comes in to grab the containers and the bandages I was supposed to bag up with anything else that needed washing, but he quietly holds up a hand to let me know he’s got it. Then he’s gone, shining with his own coating of ointment and his endless energy. He must have found a stream, which is good. We’ll need a lot of water for boiling to keep Maddix clean and cared for. And our need for freshly boiled bandages isn’t likely to decrease for the time being.

When her sobs subside, she sits back up and looks at me, her expression a bit sheepish but also more herself. The tender Cassi, the one who sees the good in the world and would like to see only that, the one who can find the smile inside me no matter how much anger and hurt I have stuffed down, is back.

“I’m so sorry about your Dad,” she says, her voice still shaky and rough from her tears. “I was glad to strike with you all and so happy to see you get to know him. I could tell how much he loved you just by how he always looked at you. This is just so unfair.”

I nod because I don’t want to start crying too. I have a feeling that if I let it start again, it might never stop and right now, I need to be strong. They need to understand that I don’t blame anyone here for what happened and that I can go on.

And I know why Cassi was glad to strike with us. I don’t want her to doubt her decision now that it’s too late for her to change her mind. Her inability to read or do math properly has cut off all but the most menial labor when it comes time for her to get a job. Except that Cassi has something very few have and that’s her almost unbearable beauty.

I’ve never seen anyone like her and neither have most others if the reaction she inspires is any indication. And the moment she turned sixteen and it became legal for recruiters to contact her, she’s been under a near constant barrage of offers from the owners of Pleasure Houses all over north Texas. Some have even come from much further south. One claimed to be from Houston.

Her offers grew from standard to outrageous as she turned each down. As it stands now, she could make more than I’d make in a lifetime in a single year. And lately the offers have gone right into territory unheard of before, such as the right to turn down any customer, no matter who they might be, if she finds them disagreeable.

But Cassi isn’t just a pretty girl with freckles from the roots of her red-gold hair to the tips of her toes. She is more than a doll-like face with eyes that seem almost too large for it. She’s a gentle soul. And though her parents have tried to respect her decision to turn down various recruiters, they have grown more insistent that she at least consider the offers. The change that her taking any offer could make for her family is more than they can afford to ignore. It’s not that it’s a bad profession, but Cassi isn’t the right kind of girl to want to do that. Neither am I.

Yes, I know she is very glad to be a Striker now that the deed is done and I understand why. I don’t want her to regret that decision for even a moment. I soothe her as best I can until I can finally talk her into resting.

She’s asleep by the time Jovan gets back with the two water carriers, both full and sloshing with clear water. I had feared the water might be brownish like what comes from the canal, but it is as perfect as the guy carrying it.

I stoke the fire a little and put up the little tripod we use to hold the pot. The first pot fills both canteens and provides Jovan with a long, warm drink. I hate the idea of using the same pot for sanitizing the blood-stained, but relatively clean, bandages. It feels wrong.

Jovan sees me hesitate, dangling my handful of bandages above the merrily boiling pot, and he plucks them from my fingers. They drop into the pot and he laughs at the look of distaste on my face.

“It will be fine. We’ll finish with the bandages, dump it, boil more water and let that get anything out. Then it’s good. Trust me. You don’t even want to know what all we do with the same pot out in the field,” he says. Another rueful laugh and a shake of his head let me know I probably really don’t want to know.

The morning turns into afternoon and the air smells of a coming rain. For people like us, rain is a welcome thing whenever it comes and I’m anxious for it to arrive. When it finally does, Jovan and I run outside with our pot and try to catch some of it. In less than a minute, the pot lays abandoned and we head to opposite sides of the building to strip down and wash off in the downpour. The ointment has long since soaked in, doing its work but leaving my face feeling as dirty as the rest of me.

It comes down in sheets, heavy and cold, but it feels delightful to me. At first the water runs off of my body in brown dribbles, but the drops are so sharp and hard that they scour me clean. I let my ponytail out and try to wash my hair, but it’s going to need more than just water to get truly clean. Still, just having the dust and a little of the sweaty grease out is delightful.

Once I start shivering in earnest, I put on my soaked clothes and make a dash for the bay doors around the corner. Jovan is watching for me and we grin at each other as we build up the fire and shiver next to it until our cold, wet clothes become warm, wet ones. We probably shouldn’t be having fun with all that’s going on, but in truth, I feel remarkably refreshed by it. It doesn’t change anything about our circumstances or what we’ve lost, but it let me be free of them for a few precious minutes.

Connor wakes at all the activity and immediately checks on Maddix. He, in his turn, stirs at all the movement and groans. He’s been breathing through his mouth, but when he asks what’s going on, he tries to suck in air through his nose. The sound almost makes me want to put my hands over my ears. It’s an impossible combination of wheeze, whistle and popping that sounds incredibly painful.