Curio (22 page)

It was then he noticed the hollows in Marina's cheeks. Under her baggy coat, her frame was tiny. A glance over at Niko revealed bony wrists protruding from the sleeves of his shirt. Whit felt the difference in his own physique. He
knew now. How had he ever missed the truth? The years his mother had poured most of her own ration into his bottle showed in his height and the thickness of his limbs. As he followed Marina out of the room, shame threatened to swallow him. He couldn't meet Niko's eyes and averted his gaze from the miserable form in the bed.

The nausea rose again, but Whit stuffed it down. He had no room to complain.

Marina led him down a hallway with the same musty carpet he'd glimpsed below. A few open doors revealed old beds and still bodies. When they got to the staircase, his guide stopped.

“Sorry I shot you, Ration Boy. It was only supposed to be a warning.”

An arrow remained lodged in the wall at the bottom of the staircase. His coat lay on the step where he'd passed out. He studied the girl at his side. “You were guarding them, weren't you? That's why you ran upstairs and not out the back.”

She nodded, her wavy hair bouncing, and started down the stairs.

What if he'd been a deputy? Marina would be on her way to one of their facilities now. His mouth hardened into a line as he watched her small figure sprint down the stairs. An image of a deputy dragging Marina off burst over him. He'd attack the potion head, tear his mask off, and beat his face in.

“You coming?” Marina motioned to him from the bottom step.

Whit thumped down and Marina led him back around the desk in the foyer and through the door he'd spotted earlier. A short hallway opened into a large kitchen with a cook stove and a center table. A smaller table in the corner showed signs of a recent meal.

The door clattered and Whit froze, his gaze flying to Marina. She popped over to hold the door open as a gray-haired woman stepped through carrying a wide, metal bucket packed with pinkish snow and—were those chunks of raw meat? Whit took a steadying breath.

Marina jerked her chin to the woman. “This is Betty. She's cooking tonight. Betty, this is Whit. He knows—knew—Steinar.”

Betty's eyes whipped to Whit's face. “What happened?”

“He was arrested.”

She accepted the news without question, but her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She turned away and moved to one of the large basins against the wall.

Marina waved a hand at the wooden table on the other side of the kitchen. “Go sit. I'll find you something to eat.”

Whit obeyed and watched her shrug out of her coat. He was right. She had a small build, but it curved in just the right places. She hopped up on a chair and stood, stretching to reach something in a tall cabinet. Whit admired the view until Betty gave a forced cough.

When Marina arranged the food she'd gathered in front of him, his face heated. He couldn't refuse her offer, his stomach was cramping so hard he had to bite his tongue to keep from moaning. But the oat cake and dried meat should go to one of the refugees, not to him.

He raised an eyebrow at Marina as she slid into a seat across the table from him. “Will you share my meal?”

She grinned, and he found he couldn't look away from that wide mouth. It softened the sharp points in her face. He was still looking at her lips when she answered.

“I've already had mine. But you're gonna be hurtin' if you don't get something down. Go slow, okay?”

Whit broke a piece off the stale oat cake, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed. He wanted to gulp it whole despite its resemblance to a rock, but how would his stomach react to the food with only watered-down potion to process it?

Marina folded her chapped hands on the tabletop. “So what's your story? Why are you up here?”

A hunk of the cake lodged in his throat. Whit swallowed and lowered his gaze. “I owe a debt to Steinar.”

“He helped you out too?”

“Something like that.”

She seemed to sense his discomfort. Silence, broken only by Betty's preparations, filled the kitchen. Whit looked up to find Marina's tea-colored eyes on him. Next to the light brown of her irises, her lashes looked like soot. Questions tumbled out before he could stop them.

“So what's
your
story? How did you come to live here?”

She tossed her dark head. “My ancestors traded with the Apache and Comanche before the
diablos verdes
came to this land. When the green ones bought the land from Spain, my people were told not to deal with them, but we kept up our trade with the tribes. In fact, mi familia traveled from Sante Fe de Nuevo México as far as Pueblo for generations, but Papá decided to settle here. Everything was fine until Mamá became pregnant with my brother Tonio, and the influenza came. A man came to town selling cures, but he wasn't one of the green devils our traditions warned of. Papá believed his lies. We all survived but”—she gestured to her thin frame—“like this, you know? Papá got caught buying more potion a few months after. My brother Maverick and I were four and Tonio was a baby.”

She fell quiet, and Whit studied the contrast of her black hair against her creamy brown skin. When she met his gaze, he returned his attention to his lunch.

“And what of your mother?” he asked after a mouthful of dried meat.

“She died last winter. Infection.”

Whit's stomach soured. He forced the meat down his throat but couldn't go on with the meal.

Marina's chair scraped away from the table. “I got rounds to make, and I gotta get Burge's pack back by the time he comes down off the mountain. You coming?”

Whit nodded and got to his feet, gesturing toward his unfinished meal. “I'm obliged for the food.”

She stood nearer than Grey ever had, her face angled up to his and her hands on those curvy little hips. “You earned it, Ration Boy. We take care of our own up here.”

Despite the ache in his gut and the weight lodged near his heart, a smile spread on Whit's face. He winced as the sliced skin on his cheek pulled, but he didn't mind the pain. He followed Marina back to the lobby, where they snagged his coat, and she hoisted the bag of supplies Burge had smuggled. She promptly set it down again and rubbed her pointy chin as she regarded Whit.

“You look too City.” She dashed into the room with the double doors and returned, arms loaded.

Standing in front of him once again, she mashed a hat with earflaps down on his head then went up on tiptoe to loop a knitted scarf around his neck. The edge of one tooth pressed into her lower lip as she wound the scarf around him. Whit couldn't look away from that little indentation. The more he looked, the warmer he got. He hooked a finger in the heavy yarn and tugged it away from his throat.

“You gotta let me breathe, woman,” he muttered before Marina sank back on her heels.

She looked him up and down. “That's better. You won't draw notice.”

After checking the street for deputies, Whit and Marina slipped out of the inn door. She hurried uphill toward the curve in the road, darting from shadow to shadow like a fox. He jogged behind, avoiding ice in the shade and slush puddles where the midday sun had melted the snow.

As they neared the bend, Marina pointed to a tall wooden structure built into the side of the mountain. Peeling paint over the door labeled the building the Rio de Sangre Mill. “This is where we dilute any potion we can get. I already sent over the bottles Burge brought. Now I gotta pick up my stock and make deliveries.”

Whit checked behind them as Marina dashed toward the dilapidated mill. The Chemists had to be aware something was going on up here. If the refugees didn't find some access to potion, they'd all be dead within days. But the knot of deputies back at the train hadn't looked too interested in patrolling. Maybe a few miserable outcasts and their suppliers weren't worth the Council's time.

He ducked into the building, blinking in the dimmed light.

A hand came out of nowhere and clamped his shoulder. Whit stifled a cry as fingers squeezed his damaged skin. The owner's voice barked behind Whit.

“What are you bringing the city boy here for, Marina?”

“Let him go, Mav. He's a ration runner, not a dealer.”

All movement stopped in the room as Whit turned to face a boy who matched him in height but not in breadth. Eyes a shade darker than Marina's sharpened on him. “How do you know he's trustworthy?”

“Same way I know you're not a potion head, Maverick. I just know.” Marina stood at Whit's side, glaring at the other boy.

“It could be a trap. Wouldn't be the first time Chemists lured refugees with rations.”

Marina crossed her arms in her oversized coat. “Steinar sent him.”

The brown-eyed boy, Marina's twin brother, stepped closer. The cords of his neck stood out, tension vibrating from his body like a plucked string. “Is that true? Steinar sent you?”

Whit reached up to unwind his scarf. “More or less. I owe him.”

“Maverick, you're wasting time.” Marina jerked her head in Whit's direction. “He's gotta get back to the train, and I got my deliveries to make.”

Her brother slouched off and positioned himself near a window, watching the quiet street.

Marina tugged on Whit's sleeve. “Come on. I'll introduce you.”

She pulled him to face the mill that processed potion instead of ore.

Against one wall a set of stamp mills stood idle, their cams and axles rusted. Activity focused around a giant cauldron big enough for a person to climb in. A man stirred the contents of the vat and a woman used a funnel to fill bottles with the mixture. A wooden contraption made up of troughs, pulleys, and conveyor belts took up the center of the room, around which a handful of raggedly dressed exiles moved, switching out bottles and containers and packing the full ones into crates, boxes, and bags.

A fire burned in a makeshift pit at the end of the room, the only source of heat with the stamp mill's boilers out of operation. The back door swung open and a skinny boy trekked in, carrying a bucket of snow. He dumped it into a pot hanging over the fire. Clods of snow fell from his gloved hands and sizzled as they met the flames.

“Everybody, this is Whit. He's replacing Steinar.”

The boy near the fire looked up at the sound of Marina's voice. He had her mouth and chin and her hollow cheeks. He tossed her a wave before heading back outside.

“That's my brother Tonio. He helps in here and makes deliveries too.”

Marina set the bag Burge left in the alley on the warped wooden surface of a table and pulled items out—soap, canned food, articles of clothing, and a faintly glowing typewriter sleeve like some of the deputies wore. Whit moved to peer over her shoulder, but she slid the gadget behind one of the loaded crates. A woman came over and stuffed a couple wrapped packages into the bag then began sorting the supplies. She didn't retrieve the hidden device.

With the newly loaded bag over her shoulder and a carton of bottles packed in dirty cloth in her arms, Marina led the way back to the door. Maverick remained at his post, scowling at Whit as they walked by.

Outside, long shadows crept over the street. Whit stiffened. “What time is it?”

Marina eyed the sun as it dipped toward the mountains looming over the outpost. “I'd say near three thirty. You'd better get back to the train.” She tossed a smile over her shoulder at him. “Or are you staying up here tonight?”

A rush of heat slid beneath Whit's skin, but he shook his head no. “If I don't get the fishing equipment I rented back to the station today, it'll be on my record.”

“No potion for your family tomorrow. How many?”

Whit monitored the progress of his boots through the snow, but his mother's skeletal face rose up. “Only mother and me now.”

“Better get ya back to her then.”

Her words could've sounded condescending. After all, she was an orphan. But he detected only sympathy in her
comment. They trudged toward the alley where Whit had spotted Marina earlier.

“I can carry the ration if you want, or take the bag.”

Marina glanced around then relinquished the crate of potion bottles. “Thanks. I'll keep a lookout. You can hand it back after I hide Burge's bag.”

“Couldn't I just give it to him? I met him on the train.”

She shook her head. “Best not to draw eyes. Burge is . . . too loud. That man is loco. He's gonna get caught one of these days, and then we're done in. He's our best supplier.”

Marina stopped at the end of the alley and signaled for Whit to flatten himself against the side of the building. “You never know when the deputies might be taking a little walk away from the station. I think they mostly take this post to shirk patrol, but all it takes is one potion-packed nut job to land us all in Chemist spit.”

Despite the cold mountain air, sweat broke out on Whit's palms and forehead as he imagined a juiced-up deputy with extra potion running through his veins lurking at the other side of the alley.

Marina peeked around the corner then pressed her back against the brick wall, rolling her head to face him. “I'm gonna run in, drop the pack, and run out. Then we'll watch, and if all's clear, you can go. Just walk right by the bag as if you don't see it. You got it?”

She held his gaze for a moment, her small face framed by the black waves of her hair. Then she vanished before he could say, “Don't go. It's too risky.”

He set the crate of rations down and scooted to take her place at the mouth of the alley. She dashed to the other end, dropped the bag in the shadow of one of the buildings, and ran back. Whit caught her when she reached him and pulled her back around the corner. In the moment he stood with
his back against the wall and Marina tucked into his chest, a swirl of images raced through his brain. Carrying Grey. Her panicked face so close to his. The floating chug boat. The facility. His stripes. Marina's face when he'd opened his eyes. Marina's lips.