Outcasts (28 page)

“No, it’s okay.” It was good, really. Very good that she’d stopped
him. Pairing up was an addiction for him — as strong as his craving for his PV. And Kendall was an outsider. How could he have treated her so poorly? He needed … something. Help, maybe.

“And what about Shaylinn?” Kendall asked. “She told me she loves you.”

“She did?” His voice had squeaked the words, and his chest felt like it might explode. Why would any girl love him? Shay especially? He was a mess. And he’d hurt her. He’d been angry and said mean things even when she said she hadn’t told Jemma that he was the Owl.

Something occurred to him then. Kendall had been there that night too. “Kendall, do you ever talk to Jemma?”

“On the Wyndo,” Kendall said. “We talked about you, actually. She was asking about that girl, Red.”

Was
that
why Jemma had attacked him in regards to Red? Kendall must have told her what Red said at the train station. His eyes narrowed. “Did you tell her I was the Owl?”

The way Kendall’s eyes shifted to the floor was answer enough. “I’m sorry. I know you told Shaylinn not to say anything, but … It just sort of came out. Are you mad?”

At himself. So disgusted with himself. He’d yelled at Shaylinn, accused her of lying. Insulted her letter writing, the one thing that made her feel good. And then he’d made out with Kendall as if Shay didn’t even exist. How could he have forgotten that Kendall had been there when Shay had guessed his secret identity?

God
,
I’m sorry. Again!

Shaylinn of Zachary wasn’t manipulative like other girls. She was different. He never should have doubted her. So, what was he going to do about her? She deserved better than him. He leaned back against the couch and sank into the cushions.

“I really like you, Omar,” Kendall said. “I just need to move slow.”

“Slow is good.” But he was ashamed. He didn’t dislike Kendall, but he didn’t know anything about her. Getting into a relationship with her would be no different than what he’d had with Red. It would be physical; nothing more. He should never have let Belbeline talk him
into doing the things they had. If he’d been stronger, he might never have given in. Then he wouldn’t have the thin plague now. And he wouldn’t be a depraved animal when women were around.

He smiled at Kendall, tried to make it look sincere. But his hands shook, and he got up in search of his PV. He needed a fix of something, and it wasn’t going to be physical.

When Kendall left, Omar went out to fill his PV and to shop for Shay. It was an effort to do penance, he knew, but he couldn’t help the way he felt. His credits were blood credits anyway. They may as well be used for someone good. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to buy her forgiveness, though. Shay was tough, and she wasn’t stupid.

When he went to the nest that night he found a pile of messages from Shay that Jordan had brought to Zane. Shay wasn’t giving up on her plans, and she was too stubborn to let a bully like Omar stop her. He rummaged through the messages, his stomach twisted in anticipation, hoping. Sure enough, he found one addressed to Omar of Elias in Shay’s loopy handwriting. He opened it.

It was like she could read his mind. How did she know the very words that would so affect him? He’d have to ask next time he saw her. If he could muster the guts to face her after what he’d done.

T
uesday morning, Mason went to the boarding school, hoping to get a reply from Penelope about the escape plans for Saturday, but the class never came out. What did that mean? He’d gotten there in plenty of time, so he couldn’t have missed them. Had a teacher found the note Mason had given her last week? Or was it merely a coincidence?

He walked back to his apartment and text-tapped Levi on his new off-grid Wyndo.

Levi text-tapped back:
What are we supposed to do now?

Mason replied:
Don’t know. I’ll get back to you.

This afternoon Ciddah would take Mason to meet her donors. Perhaps she would help him now. Her confession had broken down a wall between them, but he still wasn’t sure how much to tell her. Without Penelope, though, he’d need Ciddah’s help to get into the boarding school. He just didn’t know how to broach the topic.

“Next stop, Lake Joie Drive, Midlands Central.” The train driver’s voice came muted and soft over the speakers in the ceiling as the train started to slow.

Mason sat on the train beside Ciddah, who’d taken the window seat. The train looked to be about half full. They were going to meet her donors, to prove to Mason that love and commitment did exist in this place. But Mason had come up with dozens more questions since their dinner the other night, and he hadn’t stopped asking them since he’d met Ciddah at her apartment.

The train stopped fully, the doors slid open, and Mason watched as passengers exited the train and new ones stepped on. “Why don’t you use a vaporizer?”

“I don’t like PVs.” Ciddah was practically whispering, her eyes darting from passenger to passenger as if they all might be enforcers in disguise. “There’s too big a temptation to supplement your meds, so I take my doses in pill form.”

Mason wished Omar would try that approach. “Do you have a medic who gives you a prescription?”

“I used to. But that was before I found out there are stimulants in the ACT treatment.”

Stimulants in medication? “What kind? How did you find out?”

The train doors slid shut, and the train rolled forward again. “I overheard something when I testified before the Safe Lands Guild. But I haven’t been able to figure out what it meant. Lawten won’t give me access to the medical files in the History Center. But since I started compounding my own meds, I’ve been healthier, though I did experience some withdrawal symptoms. That confirmed that there had been something unnecessary in my meds. So I wanted to make clean meds for Droe and Losira too. I hoped it would help them get stronger after whatever it was Lawten had slipped them. I wanted to compound them myself, but I needed supplies from the pharmacy.”

“And you would have had to file a request with Mr. Brock for those.”

“Next stop, Verapon Street, Midlands West.” The train slowed, softly jerking Mason and Ciddah back in their seats.

“Exactly.” She winced, her nose wrinkling. “He would have known if I’d been asking for more than my own personal share. And a lower-level medic is only permitted to compound her own meds, not anyone else’s.”

The train stopped fully, and passengers came and went. Mason could imagine Mr. Brock’s steadfast adherence to pharmacy protocol. “He would have denied your request.”

Ciddah’s gaze followed a young woman who slipped through the doors at the last second, barely getting inside before they closed. “Not only that, he would have reported me. He’s required by law to report anything out of the ordinary.”

Which was why she’d framed Mason. The train pulled forward again. “What does ACT stand for?”

“Antiretroviral Combination Treatment. But there’s no reason it should contain stimulants.”

Mason agreed, but for the sake of argument … “Perhaps researchers discovered a need. According to Old medical textbooks, physicians used natural plant drugs like coca and cannabis for thousands of years.”

“There are safer ways to achieve the same results.”

It did seem careless to risk addicting an entire population. “How many doses do people take each day? Of their meds?”

“It varies per patient. There are different stages of the virus, different strains. And meds are prescribed based on diagnosis and age, gender, resistance, and possible side-effects.”

“If the meds are not a cure, what good are they?”

“When taken correctly, ACT meds suppress the virus, keep it from mutating, and keep its levels in the blood low enough that they don’t cause illness. Basically, they buy us time. But not if they contain stimulants.”

Because stimulants weakened the immune system, just as Mason had declared to Ciddah in regard to pregnant women. But she’d
already known. She knew so much more than he did about the thin plague. He’d been foolish to think he could discover a cure. He barely understood the virus. The fact that it mutated … He felt so inadequate. It was impossible to think he could do anything to help Omar and Mia. He’d been arrogant to even consider such a possibility.

The driver’s voice interrupted his morose thoughts. “Next stop, Washington Gulch and Meridian Road, Midlands West.”

“This is it,” Ciddah said, taking Mason’s hand and nudging his side. “Come on.”

She led him off the train and out onto the street. The trains in the Safe Lands ran above ground on platforms, and Ciddah and Mason had to walk under the track to cross the street. The train rumbled away overhead.

A bustling shopping area filled the corner of Washington Gulch and Meridian. In the dozens of stores surrounding the intersection, Mason recognized only a G.I.N., a Lift, and a Cinnamonster ice cream shop. But as they walked up Meridian Road, the traffic and people thinned out until everything seemed still. The street was now lined with tiny houses on both sides. They were so odd looking, narrow and squashed together, painted colors like bright orange, magenta, or blue-and-green pinstripes. He saw only one lawn of natural green grass, though it had a bright metal sculpture in the middle of the yard that spun in the wind. One house slowly changed colors, morphing from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple and back to red.

“Can people use SimArt technology on their houses?” Mason asked.

“Yes,” Ciddah said. “It’s very expensive, though.”

The trill of a motor overhead pulled Mason’s gaze to the sky. Another plane headed north to Wyoming, perhaps?

Droe and Losira lived at 423 West Meridian Road in a bright pink box that looked like a giant BabyKakes carton turned on its end. Their lawn was neon-green faux grass with puffs of little plastic flowers in a half dozen shades of pink.

Ciddah rang the bell, which sounded a medley on the other side of the pink walls. Pink. Mason couldn’t stop staring at the intense color.

A slender woman opened the door. She was pale and had thin brown hair and violet, electric eyes — definitely contacts. She squealed, as if she knew the very best secret in the entire world. “Hay-o, hay-o, my pearly girl. Come in, come in!” She squealed again and pulled Ciddah inside, giving her a quick kiss on each cheek.

Besides her paleness and a few flaky patches of skin, she did not appear to be ill. Those violet-colored eyes focused on Mason, and she squealed a third time. “Look at you!” She pressed her hand over her heart. “Well, just look at you. What a raven fellow you are. Ohh!” She took both Mason’s hands in hers and squeezed, as if they were two little girls about to spin. “Ohh, my. Just precious. Precious! Come in, dear boy.” She pulled him inside and kissed both his cheeks as well. “Such a dear boy.”

“How are you, Losira?” Ciddah asked.

“Ohh, I’m fine, fine,” she said, possibly incapable of not repeating herself. “Well, you took the train? Was it nice?”

When Losira spoke, she hummed the last word of every sentence.
Train
had been pronounced
traaaiiinnnn?
with the lilt of the question at the end. Then
“Was it niiiiiccce?”

Mason realized his mouth was gaping and he closed it. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Ohh!” She pursed her lips, eyes sparkling as if she were holding back a teasing rebuke. “Ma’am. Ohh-kay,” she said to Ciddah. “He must think I’m an Ancient.”

“I’m sorry.” Mason had forgotten the form of address
ma’am
was offensive here.

Losira grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Ohh, I’m just teasing you. Well, I
am
old. Three more years, and I’ll be liberated. We might as well be honest about that, right?” She grinned like it was all very exciting.

The woman was bewildering, but Mason couldn’t help but like her.

“Ohh-kay, come in and see Droe. He’s been talking about you both all day.”

“What’s he been saying?” Ciddah asked.

“He is delighted to meet the outsider medic and ask him what he knows about teeth.”

“Teeth?” Mason asked.

“Droe permatasks as a dentist,” Losira said.

“Please explain permatask,” Mason said, unfamiliar with the term.

“It’s when you have enough training to remain in one field,” Ciddah said. “Sometimes it costs the Safe Lands more to train someone else than to keep you in the task, so you get to stay. I permatask as a medic. They could always move me, but no matter where, I’d still task as a medic.”

“Do you know much about teeth?” Losira asked.

“I know a little,” Mason said, though he doubted it would interest someone tasked as a dentist.

“Ohh, Droe will be so excited. So excited.” She rubbed her hands together as if the anticipation was too much to contain.

Droe and Losira’s house was tiny and spotless and thankfully not pink inside, but shades of beige and black. Pictures on the walls flashed pictures of Losira and a man in different locations throughout the Safe Lands. They did look happy. They’d entered into a narrow kitchen, and Losira led them past a staircase to a sitting room in the back.

A man stood up from a wingback chair. While he was tall and big boned, his muscles had atrophied to the point where his flaking skin sagged in places. He had a square face and thick black hair and a mustache. No — the mustache was SimArt. Odd. “This the medic?” His voice was hoarse, and he coughed — a barking cough, deep and phlegmy. It sounded like he had a respiratory infection.

“Droe” — which sounded like
Drohhhhh
— “This. Is Mason. Ohh, isn’t he raven? So raven.” Losira all but pinched his cheeks in her introduction. She didn’t seem to be afflicted with the same illness Droe had. She walked over to her husband and stood beside him, beaming at Mason.

“I don’t know much about what’s raven these days,” Droe rasped,
and the skin under his chin jiggled when he spoke. “What do you know about teeth, young man?”