Temper (3 page)

Davyd lifts the end of the hose and braces. A second later, water sprays over the fight. No gentle trickle. A hard stream, white and frothing, stings where it falls. Those beneath it shield their faces and scatter.

In less than a minute, the area is almost clear.

Almost.

One body remains. Face down. Unmoving.

Asher is there first, dropping to her knees in the mud. “Get a doctor,” she calls. But there’s no panic or anguish in her voice. She looks up at me then, eyes wide, and I know with a cold certainty that no doctor can help the girl in the mud.

“It’s Tesae,” Asher whispers. Her calloused fingers are gentle as she brushes a lock of hair from the girl’s face.

“Dead?” I ask, though I know the answer already.

“Clearly.” It’s Davyd who answers, typical contempt in his voice. His arm goes around Asher’s shoulders in a show of comfort as he smirks my way. My fists clench, despite her shrugging him off. Only Davyd would use a dead body to taunt me.

As if seeing a girl we grew up with dead isn’t enough to put the point scoring on hold.

I get it
, I want to scream,
you and Asher shared something in the rebellion.

It’s not as though I haven’t thought about how close they seem to be since I returned. She avoids the topic when I bring it up, and with Megs never far away, I can’t accuse anyone of anything. I know what it’s like to be torn … but why Davyd? He’s a lunatic, and the sooner everyone notices he’s deranged and untrustworthy, the better.

I’ll show them his true character. And then we’ll see if he can still smirk.

Charley, the green robe doctor who gave me back my memories, shoves me aside to get to the body. I watch the examination. I’m soaked through, and the scratches on my wrists are lined with fine drops of blood.

“You should clean up,” Keane says.

I glance around. He’s dispersed most of the crowd, but I can’t follow them back to the tents or the common room and pretend my childhood friend isn’t lying in the mud. It’s not as though we were close, but we danced at the end of year ball together and she didn’t complain when I trod on her toes.

“Not yet.”

He doesn’t argue, instead waits on Charley’s verdict.

A minute later, she tosses her long, dark hair over her shoulder and drags herself to her feet. “She’s passed. There’s nothing we can do.”

My breath escapes my lungs in a
whoosh
like her words are a punch to the chest. I knew she was dead, but Charley’s confirmation makes this real. Across the other side of the body Davyd rests his arm on Asher’s shoulders. This time she doesn’t push him away.

“What happens now?” I ask Charley.

She pushes a lock of curly hair from where it’s fallen in front of her eyes. “The basement is set up as a morgue, but didn’t think we’d need to use it so soon. I’ll need to run some tests before we can bury her. Somebody among us did this. If we want to avoid another riot, we’ll need all the answers medicine can provide.”

With Davyd’s help, I lift Tesae onto a makeshift stretcher, and we walk toward the hospital building, leaving Asher behind. Part of me registers the unnatural heaviness of the lifeless body, the cold of her skin, the odd angle of her neck. Sticky, dripping mud flows from her and over my hands, and I imagine it carries the stench of death already.

“Darling boy, you’re okay.” Mother’s voice makes the heads of the few people remaining turn in our direction. She barrels over the ground, worry etched onto her heavily made-up features. Ignoring Davyd, she latches onto my arm. “I heard there was an accident, and I was terrified I would lose my boy again.” She breaks off into dramatic sobs, one hand flung across her forehead.

“I’m fine, Mother.”

“Me too,” chirps Davyd from the other side of the stretcher.

She doesn’t seem to register him speaking. Was she always so cruel to him, or did thinking she lost me change her?

“I’m fine, Mother,” I repeat.

She straightens, her gaze fixed on the dying flames of the truck. “Why are you here if you weren’t involved? It’s dangerous, anything might have happened.”

“Someone needed to help.”

She finally glances at the stretcher and blanches. “Surely, this is a job for one of them.”

I’m not sure whether she’s talking about Lifers or green robes. I suspect she continues to believe both are beneath her. Even though she’s off the ship, her lifetime of privilege is hard to erase.

“I want to help,” I say eventually. She won’t understand my guilt over everything that’s happened. And it’s not a conversation I want to have with Davyd only a couple of feet away.

Davyd tugs at his side of the stretcher, forcing me to keep moving or drop the body.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I promise Mother.

Her nose crinkles. “Yes, do come for tea tomorrow and bring darling Asher. Make sure you shower first.”

Tea? Does she realize I’m carrying a dead person?

She hurries away before I can respond. Which is probably a good thing because telling her what I’d like her to do with her tea party is probably something I’d regret. It’s hard to be cross with her when she’s so happy I’m alive.

Tesae’s body grows heavier with every step. Twice I fear the makeshift stretcher will slip from my fingers. The thought of her suffering that last indignity keeps my numb hands on the wooden poles.

She’s dead. At the hands of someone in camp.

Again, I see the mass of bodies in my head. It was too dark and too muddy to determine who was in there. She could have been dead at the bottom of the scrum for minutes, and the killer might have fled before we arrived.

Everyone’s already on edge. Though, if we don’t find a culprit, this won’t be the last fight.

We follow Charley’s instructions through the waiting room and the clinic. All the while I try to pretend I wasn’t here a few days ago. Finally, we carry the stretcher down some stairs behind an unmarked door. The temperature seems to fall with every step, and Charley must notice the way I pull my elbows into my sides for warmth.

“We need it refrigerated to prevent decay,” she explains.

I suppress a shudder. The air’s clean and fresh down here and smells faintly of disinfectant but again my mind conjures the stench of rotting flesh. Davyd seems unaffected. Probably because he has no feelings.

We place Tesae on a metal bench and, under Charley’s order, disinfect our hands at the nearby sink. Davyd flicks me with the water, but I ignore him.

Keane is waiting for us at the top of the steps. His gaze swings from Davyd to me. “Tomorrow afternoon the council will meet. Make sure anyone who needs to be there is informed.” He settles on me. “The Lifers will need to be represented.”

“I’ll tell Asher,” Davyd volunteers.

I was about to say the same thing. Something they both knew, but I’m not going to have a tantrum over him being a messenger. I shrug.

Keane turns to walk away.

“Why the afternoon?” I ask. “Surely this is urgent.”

Keane’s sigh is heavy. “In the morning, we bury our dead. A simple memorial, I think, given the different traditions of those in camp. Her parents or a friend might like to say a few words.”

Her parents? I hadn’t thought of them. She was a spoiled only child, and they’ll be devastated. I know how much my disappearance hurt Mother.

I can’t help their daughter, but there is one thing I can do for them. I roll my shoulders, already aching from the night’s events and inject a challenge into my voice, turning to my bother. “Those muscles of yours might look pretty, but can they heft a shovel?”

“Better than you Little Boy Lost.”

“The name’s Samuai.”

“You have so many, it’s hard to remember. Okay Samuai, let’s dig ourselves a hole.”

***

Two hours later I head back toward the medical clinic, looking for Charley.

The scratches I received dragging Mother’s friend from the fight are deeper than I thought. I don’t mind the pain, but the gaping flesh near my elbow keeps catching. I know it won’t take long to heal if I can get a few stitches.

I avoid the nurse treating others injured in the night’s events and look for Charley. She’ll understand why I don’t want any kind of painkiller. She knows my feelings on anything that might affect my mind.

Inside the building, away from the clinic, there’s no one around.

I peer through the frosted doors of the operating theater. There’s no movement, only the immobile shapes of machines and a single vacant bed. It’s empty, I’m certain of it, yet Charley must be here somewhere.

In my head, I’m back in the control room of the spaceship the night I followed Maston and decided to leave. That night I discovered Earth on the other side of the door and nearly lost myself.

This time, I’m wary. I don’t call Charley’s name, telling myself I don’t want to disturb her. I push open the door. I’ve never been in here before, and my gaze is drawn to a door across the room. Shelving stands out from the wall as though recently moved. Was it previously concealed?

I’m across the room before I can think better of it. Wanting to know what’s on the other side of a closed door has always been my problem.

I open it into a long hallway. So many rooms here. I hadn’t really thought about it, but with an image of the building from the outside fixed in my brain, the space here makes sense. The first room I come to is dark. It takes a moment, but my eyes adjust thanks to the faint light creeping through tiny, high windows. Shelves line every wall, and each is packed to bursting with files. Paper. Impossible to hack, but it would have taken an organized effort to get it here without anyone seeing. Maybe it’s a remnant of the building’s last owners.

But my gut doesn’t believe it. There’s no dust, no decay, no musty scent of the past.

My hand is on a file when I hear something. I freeze. Voices. I’m not alone down here.

I slip back out into the hallway. I should flee, and intend to, but then I recognize the low tones. Keane. And he’s talking to Charley.

What began as an innocent search for Charley has become something more sinister. I shouldn’t be here, but I can’t walk away now. My heart is thumping, and I will it to be quiet. I approach the closed door with a fear that they’ll hear me and I’ll be discovered.

So close, his voice comes through loud and clear. Seems he forgot to take into account how those of us from the ship have enhanced hearing as well fast healing and Q protection.

“We don’t have much time. Did you secure the entrance?”

“I’m not sure,” replies Charley.

“Not sure isn’t good enough. You’re the only doctor here. Someone might come looking for you.”

“I’m sorry.” There are tears in her voice.

“Tell them it was the truck,” he says, gentle but firm. “Blame the force of the explosion for the girl’s death.”

There’s a long pause. “Medically I can already rule that out. Cause of death was most likely a blow from a fist or a knee to the back of her head.”

A blow … Someone in that brawling mass of bodies killed Tesae. Nausea battles to erupt, but I swallow it back. There’s a killer amongst us, and Keane’s advocating letting them get away with it. My hands against the wall are fists, and I have to force myself not to race in there and confront them.

“The explosion.” Keane’s voice allows no argument. “We can’t afford a witch hunt in the camp.”

“What we can’t afford is to ally ourselves with these people. They’re out of control. Next time it might be one of us.”

“We’ll make sure there is no next time.”

“It’s too great a risk.”

I push on the wall, feel it give beneath my fist. A trickle of plaster falls to the ground. Secret rooms, secret agendas. Only days ago I went to Charley for help. No wonder she’s evasive when I question her about the tests they performed on me when they unlocked my memories.

Keane exhales. “I don’t like it either, but they’re our only hope against the Company.”

Betrayal tastes acid on my tongue. I trusted these people. More than that, I brought everyone I’ve ever known here because I believed in them and their vision. Like I believed Maston. How many times can I make the same mistakes without learning?

“I’ll do the tests anyway,” says Charley. “I need to know.”

Me too. I need to know, and I will find out everything they have hidden in these rooms.

I stumble back, turn and run to the door.

There’s a scrape of footsteps behind me but I’m already through the operating room and back outside. I’ll get stitches in the morning. It will give me a chance to check how closely they monitor the secret parts of the building.

And somehow, I will uncover the truth.

[Asher]

I’m not sad that she’s dead.

Not happy either, but all I can see in my head is the way Tesae’s nose turned up every time I entered a room. My ears ring with the distaste in her voice the few time she was forced to speak to me, and my cheeks sting with heat from her reminding me of my Lifer status as recently as yesterday morning when she refused to help clear the breakfast table because the task was beneath her. She never forgave me for the piece of broken plate through her thigh needed to stop her when she came at me drug-crazed during the rebellion.

I overheard someone say her mother had to be sedated overnight, and all I could think was that the woman was taking the easy way out. Where were the medicos with syringes of oblivion when my brother died? Or when the Company officers tore my mother limb from limb?

Standing at the back of the crowd, with the other Lifers, I watch as the body is lowered into the grave Samuai and Davyd dug last night. I almost offered to help them but figured the dead girl would hate the indignity of me touching her last resting place.

Shoulder to shoulder, we Lifers stand in silent respect, but know she would not have done the same for us.

Patches of blue break through the cloud in the sky, and a cool breeze pushes the smell of the burnt truck away from the camp. It is as though the rain has washed the world clean, but I can’t help looking at every face I pass and wondering if they killed the girl we’re here to mourn.