Dissidence (17 page)

“I came for you.
To rescue you.”

His face cycles through emotions so fast I don’t stand a chance of interpreting any of them before finally settling on one that’s unmistakable. I honestly don’t know wha
t I expected his reaction to be
—
calling me an idiot like everyone else seemed pretty high up
on the list of possibilities—
but I never really imagined burning, intense anger to be an option.

“Have you
lost
your damn mind?” he snaps suddenly, startling me. “What the hell were you thinking, Leigh?”

“Oh, I don’t know.
M
aybe that I couldn’t just leave you here to rot?
Don’t be too grateful or anything, I wouldn’t want you to embarrass me.”

“You think I should be
grateful
that you’re locked up in here instead of free? Well, I’m not.
I don’t want you here. I don’t want you anywhere
near
here
.”

“You seemed pretty happy about it a few minutes ago.”

“That was before I knew you had a better option . . . and threw it away. Unbelievable.”

“Yeah, you really are.”

Our grand reunion comes to an abrupt halt
–
before I have the chance to smack him
–
when a guard shouts, “Get back to work, or it’ll come out of your hides,” flicking the leather whip hanging from his belt.

Peter spins me around so my back is to the guard, and we both get busy fast. The guard lingers nearby as we plant row after row of seeds throughout the afternoon, leaving our ‘conversation’ at a stalemate for now. After a while, the heat and exhaustion from the work manages to leech away my irritation, and I’m left hot and too tired to think anymore, much less argue. My hair feels heavy and thick on my neck and back. I lift it to allow the breeze to cool my sweaty skin and realize my mistake about two second too late.

“Where’s your code?” The guard demands.

Peter inhales sharply beside me.

“I . . . I’m a transfer. I haven’t gotten one yet.” I answer
ed
too quickly. Why am I such a terrible liar?

“You should have gotten one when you arrived.”

I have no idea what to say to that, so I ju
st shrug and keep my mouth shut.
I’ve been getting better at that. The tension in Peter’s body shifts toward me. I can feel the guard’s eyes boring into my back. He must know I’m lying, but then, “Report to registration immediately.”

I breathe for the first time in about three minutes. Of course, then I remember what registration is
,
and my breath falters again. Peter is staring at me wide eyed like he wants to do something, but there’s nothing to be done. So, before he can do something stupid that we’ll both regret, I follow the guard toward registration.

It’s a small wooden shed in the front corner of the camp. There are only five other people inside when I arrive, two guards and three workers. One is standing in front of a table littered with papers, while a guard grills him with questions. I do
not
want questions. The other two are waiting for the second guard with the branding iron. One of them is a big guy, kind of like Connor, only with deeply tanned skin, and I wonder where he’s coming from. The other is a small framed girl who is approaching the guard as I slip into line with them. When he pulls her hair away
,
I can see that her neck is bare. This must be her first day in the camps. I almost feel bad for her . . . until she starts screaming, anyway. It pierces right through me, and I just want her to stop.

Between the sound and the scent of burning flesh, I don’t think I can do this. Last time I fought tooth and nail against this
,
and now I’m lining up for it. What’s happening to me? The urge to run is overwhelming, but that would only make things worse. Somehow, through sheer willpower
,
I manage to keep my feet firmly planted on the floor.

The big guy is up
,
and from the look of his neck
,
he’s been through this a few times already. Thankfully, he handles it silently, and then the guard motions me over. I want to be strong, show them they don’t scare me, but my traitorous legs
give
me
away
as I move shakily toward the post sticking out of the floor and kneel in front of it like the two before me. My nails dig into the wood as I wait for the iron to heat.

I swallow hard when a hand grabs my hair and presses my face into the top of the post which is covered with some kind of fabric. I refuse to scream. I won’t give them the satisfaction. I won’t scream, I won’t scream, I won’t scream, I . . . scream. Most of the sound is absorbed by
the fabric and muffled.

He releases my hair and order
s me back to work. I stumble a
way, half blinded by watery eyes that refuse to be wiped clear, back toward Peter. When I find him, I drop down beside him and start digging. He just watches me for a full minute. Then he glances around to be sure no one is paying us any attention before gently pushing my hair aside. I twist my head so he can see the back of my neck. There’s a muttered curse, and then a dull thud as his hand slides down my back and his fist collides with the ground.

“Get back to work, Peter. I’m fine.”

I can still hear him breathing hard as he shakes his head, and plunges his hand back into the dark soil. By the time the alarm rings, indicating it is ti
me to knock off for the day, I’
m thoroughly wiped out. I follow Peter
past a row of metal structures
to a line of tables set up beneath a tarp. The shade feels amazing on my already pinking skin. Bowls with small portions of something lumpy and gray in each are handed out, and I inhale mine in about ten seconds flat. Would it be too pathetic if I licked the bowl?

“When’s the last time you ate?” Peter’s watching me wide eyed with half of his meal still in front of him. Guess licking the bowl is out.

“Breakfast . . . yesterday.”

“Leigh,” he sighs, and scrapes his remaining food into my bowl.

I want to argue, tell him to keep his damn food, but hunger wins out
,
and I devour it instead. When I’m done, Peter takes m
y bowl and deposits it
on one of the tables just as the guards start ushering us towards the dormitories. They’re long, narrow buildings constructed with tin walls and roofs.

“Wait, I need to find Connor.”

“Who’s Connor?”

“I told you. He’s the friend I escaped with.”

“Y
ou brought him
here
with you?
Jeez, Leigh.”

“I didn’t have much say in the matter,” I tell him dismissively
as I continue to scan the crowd. It’
s not like Connor’s a small guy,
how can he be so hard to find? When I finally spot him, he’s standing near one of the buildings actively searching faces. “There.”

Peter follows me as I push my way over to him. As soon as he notices me coming, he smiles and his entire body seems to relax. He really was worried. How much trouble could I ge
t myself into in one day
?

“Come on.” He easily pushes his way through the dense crowd, and Peter and I follow in his wake until we find an unoccupied corner of the room with enough floor space to accommodate all three of us. I slide down the wall and stretch out, determined to hold onto as much leg
room as possible. The guys drop down beside me, one on either side. This isn’t awkward at all.

“
I’m guessing you must be Peter then?” Connor asks, leaning forward to see past me.

“That’s right. And
you’re Connor?”

Connor nods, and settles back against the wall again. Now that the introductions have been made, no one really seems to have much to say.

“W
hat happened, Peter, after I left?”

Peter rests his head against the wall and stares up at the roof. “I waited for your letter. I waited for over a week and nothing. I knew something was wrong. I just kept thinking that you were in trouble
,
and there was nothing I could do about it.” He mutters that last bit quietly, but he still can’t hide the emotion in his voice, and it startles me. “I started asking around, and when no one would answer me, I started snooping in the archives. I found some file
s that didn’t make
much sense.
S
tuff about resource production and workforce numbers . . . and
Permatech
.”

“You found files on
Permatech
? What is it?”

“I don’t know. The files weren’t really
about
Permatech
,
they just
referenced
it. I have no idea what it is. Anyway, not long after my unauthorized prying, I received my mate file. It said she was disabled and wouldn’t be
able to make the move, so I’
d have to go to her.”

“That must have been suspicious. You
had to
have known something was up, you’re not
that
thick.”

“I did. I mean, I guess I did.”

“Then why did you go?”

“Like you said when I told you not to, what other choice did I really have? They weren’t just going to forget about me . . . and I guess . . . part of me hoped maybe they’d take me to wherever you were . . . so I could make sure you were all right. I hated not knowing, Leigh. It was killing me.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh really?
Stupider than breaking
into
a work camp?”
Annnd
, we’re back to that again. Okay, so it wasn’t my brightest move.

“Touché.”

“What about you? Where have you been?”

“In another camp.
A mine.”

“You
mined
?” The disbelief evident in his voice is bordering on insulting.

“If you can call it that,” Connor scoffs. Great
,
now I’m getting it from both sides. When did
I
become the third wheel here?

“Connor helped,” I admit.

“But you got out?”

“Yeah, this other friend of ours, Lori . . .” I swallow hard just thinking about her, “
she
distracted the guards so we could get away. Then we hiked back to D.”

“Still can’t believe that worked,” Connor remarks.

“I’m just that good,” I snipe.

Connors shoulders bounce in silent laughter, but he keeps quiet while I finish our story.

“Anyway, when we found out where you were, I had to get here. Sal helped us sneak onto a supply train headed down this way, and here we are.”

“Remind me to thank Sal,” Peter grumbles. He really is still mad about this. The guy can hold a grudge, I’ll give him that. “However you two managed to get in here, you need
to turn around and get back out.
”

“It’
s a little easier getting in tha
n out,” Connor clarifies.

“Do you think if we could do that we would all still be sitting here? Does it look like we’re on vacation here, Peter?” I’m really starting to get irritated by his bipolar attitudes. It’s like one second he’s glad to have me here
,
and then the next he remembers to be bitter about it.

A long, frustrated silence stretches between us before Peter speaks again. “What was it like?”

“What?”

“The mine.”

“It was cold
and dark. They dragged us into the mines before dawn, and we didn’t get back out again until after sundown. I didn’t see the sun for weeks. That kind of sucked . . . but I did get ripped.” I flex my puny biceps, and Connor snorts, but Peter isn’t laughing. “Look, Peter, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry, okay? I should have listened to you in the first
place and never gotten on that train. Do I really need to say it again?”

“You’re not the one who should be apologizing, Girlie.
You
came back for
him
.”

“And
you helped her do that?” Peter barks. Here we go.

“As much as I could.”

“Then you’re as dumb as her. You should never have let her come here. You should have dragged her away kicking and screaming if you had to.”

Did I leave the room
?
Because I didn’t notice that.

“I don’t know how well you know her, but no one
let
s
this girlie do anything.”

All right, I’ve heard enough. “He’s right, and in case either of you is wondering
,
I’m still here.”