Secret Worlds (543 page)

“Sorry to hear that.” Nevada says in sympathy. “What brings you down our way? It’s not as if we have a superhighway to Skull’s Wrath. Must’ve taken you weeks to get here or … did you catch a ride? I hope you did!” Nevada giggles like a girl. She’s hard to get a grasp on. One moment she’s a sympathetic mom type, the next, she’s waifish, fashioned from mere air and dust.

“I got a ride, part way and then …” Armonk lowers his head and his black bangs fall over his eyes. “I’ve heard that Dr. Varik is headed here.” At this, Nevada draws a sharp breath. “I’ve heard he’s a doctor now, and wants to help people down around here.” Armonk lifts his head and stares at Nevada. “Have you heard any news?”

“I hear things here and there.” This answer seems cagey, and when I look at Thorn, he’s studying her the way he does when he’s trying to eke out a lie. “What do you need with Varik?” she asks Armonk. “Are you sick?”

Armonk taps on his fake leg. “This was amazing so many years ago when Dr. Varik sent it after his trip our way. He made it himself.” Armonk’s voice lowers. “But now, it’s battered, too small.”

Nevada lays a gentle hand on Armonk’s shoulder. “You must stay.”

“How soon did they say he’d be coming?” Armonk asks. “I heard he was building a facility. Has construction begun? I was going to wait just until I saw him and—”

“Nonsense, stay as long as you want. Study here.”

“Wait a minute!” Blane bursts out.

What about me? My brother? Nevada hasn’t even noticed us. Would I want to stay, if we even could? These boys frighten me, but something about Nevada is drawing me in. A school, a chance to learn! For Thorn too; maybe she could teach him how to really talk. I step up. “Do you think we can
all
stay? For a while?”

“Oh!” Nevada looks at me startled, as if she hasn’t ever seen me in the background all of this time with my brother. “Do you have family? Your brother is so young.”

“My brother’s eight,” I tell her. “He’s quite smart.” Behind me, I hear titters of barely suppressed laughter, but I don’t care. He’s surely smarter than all of them, if you count his inner sight.

“Eight.” She nods vaguely. “That would be third grade. I run a high school. Do you have family near here? Did you say?”

“Nowhere near here,” I lie.

“As for me,” Armonk says, “I’m not planning to stay. I need to get back. This is a school for, um, stranded kids and I have my mother back at home.” Is he rubbing in the fact that Blane, Radius and the others are all alone, or is he trying to be fair and acknowledge their more legitimate claim to the shelter of The Greening?

“Yeah, you already have a home,” pipes up the redheaded boy. “You must too, flyaway girl. Where’s yours? He stares at my frizzled, honey-hued hair with his steely blue eyes.

“Radius, I wasn’t discussing this with you,” Nevada warns.

I need to fight for this. We can’t exactly go back now, and on the way here we saw no other compounds. “I’m Ruby and this is Thorn,” I say as I fold my brother in close.

Unease shadows Nevada’s elfin face. “Well, Armonk, Ruby, Thorn, you’re—”

“Don’t bother applying. It’s a complicated process,” says the tall, nose-ringed guy as he lopes over. You have to be good at science, or something.” The heat of a new intense energy drips off him like oil as his eyes linger on my hair, and travel slowly down to my chest. I shudder. Does that mean favors like Stiles would have demanded back at home? Where are all the girls? Is this an all-boys school?

Nevada gives him a threatening look. “Jan, back off, that’s up to me—”

“What he’s saying is that you have to qualify,” Blane pipes up from where he stands. “You have to bring something to the equation.”

“What does he mean?” I ask Nevada.

Blane answers for her. “You have to take an academic test—test in. You also have to offer a payment. I had two fat stacks of old hundred dollar bills, from before the Border Wars,” he says proudly.

“And I had these clubs from a museum.” Jan thwacks one against his calloused palm.

“I had four cartons of dried food. I hauled that stuff hundreds of miles over frying sand dunes,” Radius brags.

I think about my Oblivion powder. It’s worth a lot. But I could never part with it. I need it too badly.

Armonk collects his bow and quiver. He dusts them off. “I’m an expert marksman. Not that I’m staying … just until Dr. Varik—”

“What’s there to hunt in the desert?” Jan sniggers. ‘There aren’t even any dried up lizards to eat.”

Wrong, I’m thinking. There must be Dragon Lizards here too, hiding in the sand caves. Maybe even one or two out in the elements, among the Fireseed, the Fireagar. I’m thinking that if Jan isn’t more careful with his caveman clubs, Armonk can hunt him and hang him up by his stupid nose-ring. My ruthless dreaming makes me grin. Thorn senses my amusement; he must because his own sudden grin is as glorious as a new moon.

“Shush! All of you. I run this place. I’ll make the final decision.” With that proclamation Nevada ushers us inside.

Blane, Jan and Radius shove their way past. Nevada might run this place, but she hasn’t taught her students any manners. If this is a school, I’m still not sure what kind. At least we’re inside, out of the heat.

Everyone scrambles out of masks and burn suits. I face away from the group and take mine off slowly, cautiously. I know what happens when people see my face, my body. I’m even slower taking off my cloak. As I do, my back crawls with the squirrely feeling of eyes on it. I’m wearing a long skirt and jersey top, old but in nice blue colors. Blue’s my favorite color, like the sea I dream of seeing someday. Finally I gather the nerve to turn around.

Blane openly stares, as does Jan. Blane mumbles something to Jan like “Holy Fire, that girl has curves.” Jan chuckles as he takes off his boots and throws them under a long bench. Radius, the redheaded boy takes a long, furtive look before shuffling off to sit. Armonk looks at me, and then away, in a distant, distracted manner that confuses me because I seem to have no effect on him.

Blane might be ugly inside, but outside he’s handsome—they all are, really. The guys at this school have that look of being well fed and well bred, like in that ancient college brochure from before the Border Wars my dad had. In one of those photos, a group of athletes were sweating and laughing, dressed in shorts and shirts that revealed firm arm and leg muscles. Imagine! If you showed that much skin now, you’d be crisped out in the desert. Under their burn suits these guys have on pants and shirts from that strange iguana skin, yet much more worn and faded than the fancy outerwear. Maybe this place isn’t so grand after all.

I catch myself staring back at Blane. His head and torso seem designed by a great sculptor who wanted to create that perfect threatening persona. His brow is hard, and his mouth is set in a permanent frown, but his hazel eyes are golden flecked and his cheeks have a light sprinkle of honey freckles. He catches me staring and there’s a momentary grin in his eyes before he spins around to talk to Radius. Radius is the shortest, but not by much. He’s slim, but solid, seemingly carved out of pink gypsum. What do these guys eat, Gila monsters? I doubt Nevada can keep her larders stocked with them around. In their fortunate youths, were they fed so generously that they ate enough to last a whole lifetime? This has me weirdly jealous, but I have more important things to dwell on.

I look away, and attend to my brother, in faded, patched pants. He’s gripping his toy dragon as if it’s the one solid thing in a desert of mirages. “Thorn, are you okay?” I whisper, not expecting him to answer, especially in front of these guys. He doesn’t. But he holds himself looser, as if he’s relieved to be inside, to have me pay some heed to him. I ruffle his hair.

Nevada raises her brows at me. “So, welcome, Ruby and Thorn. I’m Nevada Pilgrim, the owner and principal of The Greening.” She makes everyone introduce himself. So, this is it—no girls after all. Wistfully, I think of Freeblossom and Petal.

“Guys, I’d like you to go and warm up dinner,” says Nevada. “Jan, please set a table.”

“Can’t the girl do it?” he asks with a frown.

“No, she’s still a guest,” says Nevada firmly. Then, she smiles at me and at Thorn. “Vesper and Bea are upstairs, they should be down soon. In the meantime, have a seat in the parlor with your brother. I need a minute with Armonk.”

So, there
are
girls here! They might be quite an improvement from the reception we’ve received so far. She waves her hand toward the room in question and I choose a wide, saggy chair smelling of dust and dried shale. The room is lit with wall torches and an ancient hurricane lantern, and furnished with various cast-off chairs and side tables. I see one poster of a sparkling sea with a hovercraft zipping across its waves, and the word AXIOM COASTAL splashed across the bottom edge in bold red letters. What’s Axiom?

Nevada unlocks a door inside the parlor and ferries Armonk through it, closing it firmly behind her. Thorn weasels his way in beside me and rests his head on my shoulder. I sink into the chair, letting my muscles relax. It’s a slow process. They’ve been locked up so tightly. Being here, with Thorn and feeling safe at least for now, has me pleasantly groggy. A delicious unnamed scent wafts out from the kitchen. My stomach growls; I’m starving.

Thorn taps me on the hand. “Fireseed,” he whispers. My ears prick. He never speaks to others and rarely speaks to me, so this is momentous.

I lift my weighted lids halfway, look over at him. “What about Fireseed?”

“Weak.”

“Fireseed is weak?” He nods.

Worry cramps my empty stomach, which emits another low growl. “What’s wrong with the Fireseed? Tell me, Thorn!”

His brown eyes are guarded. He rests his head back on my shoulder, and links his soft arm around mine.

“Thorn? Please, please tell me?” I press him once more, but he’s done talking.

I should hold him right in front of me, shake him gently and force him to speak. Knowing Thorn, he may not speak another word for weeks. But exhaustion overcomes worry and my eyes close again.

I startle awake to the sound of a girl’s shrill voice. “Dinner,” is all she says.

Sitting upright, two girls stare down at me. One is tall with ebony skin and wide-set green eyes. She looks about my age and has a perfectly proportioned face. Her combination of green eyes and dark skin is shocking and beautiful. But she’s not smiling, not even close.

The other one looks younger—by about two years. She has blond hair like Nevada but thicker and lustrous, and her slim figure is curvy in all the right places, as if she’s a perfect china doll. She’s not looking too friendly either.

“Hey,” says the blond girl. “Get up.”

“It’s rude to be late for dinner,” the other one adds.

I scramble to my feet and follow them into a dining area off the parlor.

Armonk is already in there, and there’s an empty chair next to him, so I take it. At least he doesn’t look at me like he wants to burn me with a torch. What’s wrong with these people?

Blane serves some steaming round vegetable with crinkly skin that I’ve never seen before, and the slinky, surly Jan comes around the table, doling out a slice of beetle loaf to each plate. I’m familiar with beetle loaf, which I like. And I’m so famished I’ll even try that bulbous thing next to it.

Nevada, sitting at the head of the table passes around a beaker of water. I pour myself some and practically inhale it, but I don’t dare pour more. She asks if I’ve met Bea and Vesper.

“Not exactly.”

Nevada sighs and makes them tell me which one is which. The tall darkly tanned one is Vesper. The shorter blond girl is Bea. They glower at me disapprovingly.

Kids back at home would never get away with rudeness. Up until eighteen years old the elders would flog them for that behavior. I don’t understand, is there not enough food to go around or what? I recall Blane saying that we had to pay, and test in. Is all of this hostility because we’re getting a free pass?

Everyone digs into the food. The crusty oblong thing turns out to be quite tasty. It’s soft and white inside and it sticks to my ribs in a way the beetle loaf doesn’t. My stomach’s so empty I worry it’ll never be full.

After a time of gulping down food, Nevada pipes up. “Bea and Vesper, I want you to all welcome your new classmates, Armonk and Ruby. And Thorn is going to live here too.”

“They’re staying here for good?” Bea exclaims.

“No,” Armonk says, “I’m only here until Varik—”

“Shush, I won’t hear of it. You need a good education,” Nevada insists.

“They need to test in and pay up,” says Blane. “Did they pay up?”

“That’s my business,” Nevada remarks.

Armonk is stony. I don’t blame him; his face is swelled from being bashed in, and the bloody evidence is hardening in uneven splotches on his suit.

“I can cook,” I offer. “I’m good with, um, mixing things.”

Bea is studying me. “Where are you from?” she asks in a voice as cool as midnight stone. I didn’t answer Nevada before but maybe I should answer Bea, because at least it’s a civil question.

“Over in Chihuahua,” I say.

Blane points to my arms. “So, that’s what those flower brands are!” Now that my cloak is off, there’s no hiding the line of flower brands that we girls get every year, starting at the wrist and growing up our shoulders like living vines.

Jan says, “I hear that at the full moon, they dance around a bunch of torches and rape their girls.”

My face flames up. I’m not sure what a rape is but it sounds terrible. Is that what Stiles was going to do to me?

“Enough rumors!” says Nevada. “Yes, they are staying and yes, you will welcome them, and yes, they have paid up in one way or another.”

Everyone is silenced. Though Nevada seems not that much older than the guys, and definitely not as robust, I suppose she’s got some psychological power over them. It’s her place. Her authority may hold for now, but for how much longer? In Thorn’s fearful expression and in the tightening knot in my gut, I sense this is not the end of our grilling by the others, not by a long shot.

I’m installed in Bea’s room on a cot. Just like at the compound at home, the girls all share a bathroom. Bea’s room is on the left wing of the second floor, with a heat-sealed window overlooking part of the Fireseed crop, or rather the tarp.