Vagabond (29 page)

“Doesn’t want to?”

“The Tracks are no place for love, puppet. Keep in mind, we all have our inner struggles. There are always forces pulling us away, changing the way we live our lives. For example, the sun. Every part of earth wants to be touched by the sun, but the world keeps spinning. Dark to light and light to dark. It never ends. When it’s gone, the memory of warmth lingers. It clings to us and reminds us that it’ll come back tomorrow, but it still doesn’t take the ache of absence away. There are just certain things set in motion that we can’t control… like orbit and gravity.”
 

I frowned. Randolf always spoke in analogies. He got lost in them, and sometimes, they lost me completely too.
 

“Look. Don’t take offense to Xavi. He’s fighting through whatever forces are tugging at him. Give him time. Remember, the sun always comes back.”
 

The burlap lifted, and the world readjusted. In the peripherals, I could see a shiny, black-uniformed soldier. He was faceless behind his mask, and Ono stood there in one big, messy ball of confusion.
 

I wanted to look anywhere but in font of me, but he leaned in and took up my entire vision. My eyes had no choice but to swallow him whole. Xavi gripped the burlap into a ball with his fist, and his face looked ferocious. I didn’t try to speak, but my eyes were screaming. They wanted to explode into waterfalls, but I held the tears back. I wished he’d yank that burlap sack back over my head so I could cry without him seeing.
 

The faceless soldier piped in. “You have more intel, I understand?”

Xavi— Tycho— stayed silent.
 

“Sir. Do you have intel?”

“Where did you come across this one?” Xavi asked.
 

Ono stepped up. He exchanged a look with Xavi that I couldn’t decipher. “I found her.”

Xavi grinned. “Good job. She’s a slippery one.”
 

Good job?
How could he say that? I wanted to slap that stupid expression off his face, because it wasn’t the same grin I was used to. This one was different. This one was cruel. I twisted and pulled with my wrists, but my hands stayed trapped in the zip-tie. I couldn’t claw at his cheeks and rip his face away.
 

Ono’s jaw tightened in protest. “She can give more. Just give me time.”
 

Xavi smiled. “Sorry, brother. Your cover is already blown with this one. Take her in. They can crank out intel from her in the labs better than you can out here. She had Celeste in her ear for a while. There’s things hidden in that brain of hers.”
   

“But—“ Ono tried.
 

“This is a big catch! Go celebrate.”

Ono knelt down next to Xavi. “You know Tycho?” he whispered.
 

But I didn’t answer.
 

I didn’t know that boy at all.
 

Chapter Nineteen
 

“Why don’t you join them?” Celeste asked. “I mean, no need to play coy. You look like you have a chip on your shoulder against the Republic. What is it they did to you—“

“How do you join?” Xavi asked.
 

“I don’t know. It’s a mystery, and I almost wonder if they exist at all. Want to hear my theory?” She winked at me. She wanted me to get something. She’d been doing that a lot lately, speaking to me in our own little riddles.
 

“Sure,” Xavi grumbled.
 

“They are everywhere. Listen to the stories of people doing heroic and ordinary things for the cause. Just by existing out here, you are part of the Revolution. Even if you can never officially claim a rank or plan an attack, you are a Rebel. Just by breathing, you take part in the whole. Think on this. Every time you hop a train, every time you help another Vagabond, every time you thwart a soldier or steal a granola bar, you are rebelling. You are part of the Revolution whether you like it or not.”
 

“That’s a load of cr—“

“Crap? Can you honestly say that? Can you really say that life out here is not one, big screw-you Republic? Does it matter if you officially join the cause when you are a part of it anyways?”
 

“I’m going with her,” Ono said.
 

“You can’t,” Xavi said. “I have some new intel, and you’re mission has been altered because of it. You need to go to the debriefing car.”

“But—“

I looked back and forth between the two, and hope slipped away completely. There was nothing Ono could do to save me without putting himself in danger, but he wasn’t going to abandon me so easily. I didn’t know how I felt about him, especially as he knelt down next to Xavi, but I did know I didn’t want him to die.
 

“Flea,” I whispered. I said it softly so that it held every memory I had of him in those four little letters. I said it as tenderly as our first kiss, so he’d know I didn’t blame him. He was trying, but he needed to stop. “It’s okay.”

As I spoke a flash of frustration ran across Xavi’s face, and I stared at him defiantly, trying to make my anger bigger than the both of us. Xavi? This was a different betrayal to stomach.
 
After everything he taught me or said about being a Vagabond, he was a Republic spy? He played a roll and played it well. He didn’t love me, and to top it off, he was sending me off to the worst death imaginable.

“Gentleman,” Xavi growled at Ono and the soldier. “I have something classified I need to discuss with the prisoner. Do you mind giving us a moment? Then you can take her to the barracks-car.” He shot Ono a look to shut him up.

“But—“ Ono protested.

 
“Paramonos, go. That’s an order.” An order. Of course. Xavi was two years older than Ono. It made sense that he’d have a higher ranking and could order his friend around.
 

“Liar,” I whispered. “Go to hell. I have nothing to say to you.”
 

“Niko. You don’t understand.”

“I understand plenty.”
 

Ono’s eyes widened. “How do you know each other?”
 

“Your favorite place to go in the summer?” I asked.
 

“Track secret.” Celeste grinned. “If I told you, you’d tell him.”
 
She nodded at Xavi who’d fallen asleep, curled up in a ball at the bottom of an open-topped car. Celeste and I sat on the lip of the car, hooking our feet on the bars that crisscrossed the edges so we wouldn’t fall. There was a sensation of wind pushing at us, and it contradicted how our feet anchored us down. One wrong move, and we could fall between the wheels, but the way the wind whipped at our faces was freedom in and of itself.
 

“Nope. Promise. Bond of the Vagabond.”
 

She laughed at the Track-ism I’d picked up on on. The phrases etched into my new accent, and it was getting harder and harder to tell I was a Colony-kid.
 

“Seriously. I want to see it all.” And it was the truth. There was so much world I hadn’t seen yet, and living in the Colonies I didn’t even realize I was missing out on all the places worth seeing. The travel— the wanderlust— grew into my marrow and became the thing that kept me going. I wanted to see and taste and learn it all.

“Well. If it’s a Bond, then,” Celeste said and raised her eyebrows. “The 10
^th
.”
 

“Huh?”

“I’m originally from the 10
^th
.”
 

“You gave that up pretty easily.”
 

“There’s this old lake south of it. It’s so small that no one really thinks to visit it. It used to be the beginning of an entire river, but the river part no longer exists. Old buildings are all around it, and they make great hiding places. The only problem is, it’s hot. Hotter than most Vagabonds can handle in the summer, which also means the Militia doesn’t inspect it often. But I can handle it. I like a little sizzle to my steak, if you know what I mean.”
 

I laughed. “I’m not sure I ever know what you mean?” I looked up at the stars. They were mustard-seeds trapped against a dark bowl, and I wanted to pluck them up and swallow them by the handfuls.
 

“You know more than you think.”

“Do you really believe all that stuff about being a Rebel just by being out here?”
 

“What do you think, cutie pie?”
 

The answer, when it came, surprised even me. “It makes sense when you reason that way. I mean, if I wasn’t rebelling, I’d have turned myself in that night and let them kill me. It’s a law I’m okay with breaking, because living is better than being dead. I guess, if I could die tomorrow, I may as well live hard now.”
 

“You can come with me, you know.”
 

I nodded. “I know.”
 

“But you won’t.”
 

“No. I won’t.” I looked down at Xavi. His chest rose and fell, and the heart that was beating somewhere under all the muscles and clothing chained me to where ever he was going.
 

“Ono. Leave.” Xavi ignored the other boy’s question.
 

“No.”
 

Xavi’s eyes widened at that. “What’s going on?”

“Flea. Don’t—“ I pleaded.

“This is my partner,” Ono whispered. “My father accused her of treason and murdered her parents because he was upset at the pairing, but she’s not a Terrorist. It’s a bunk charge.”

“Partner?” Xavi’s eyes narrowed, and anger, or something like it, flared through them.
 

“Ono. Let it go,” I warned. He was digging himself into a hole. Xavi could turn him in for treason just for that small confession.
 

My voice made Xavi’s eyes return to mine. “Niko. We don’t have time for this.”

“Time?” I wanted to laugh. When did I ever have time for anything?

 
Xavi ignored the confused look on my face. “I’m so, so sorry. I was trying to keep you out of it all.” He said it as if it was an explanation— as if those sentences would finally allow everything to make sense.
 

“Sorry? All you have to say is
sorry
?”
 

The expression on his face kept shifting in and out of hard and soft. It held every gradation of texture, and I saw traces of the old Xavi— the one I knew so well. “Do you trust him?” He asked nodding towards Ono. There was a bigger question hidden in there. Was it okay to speak in front of him?
 

“More than I trust you. How could you, Xavi?”

Ono’s face blanched and became a messy mass of confused understanding. “Xavi?”
 

“Chancellor Petrakis?” Mama laughed. “Of course he’d get another term.”
 

“I voted for him.” Daddy swirled the nib of whiskey in his glass.
 

“Of course. Like you’d vote for that other moron. She’d never even been a Celebrity, and she’s too radical.”
 

Daddy laughed. “Don’t tell me you believe that rumor! There’s proof. She was a Celebrity. Eight children. Eight. But Petrakis was clever about it. Rode the rumor straight to the polls until it was all over. But rumor or not, Petrakis has what it takes.”
 

I hated politics. I hated that one day, I’d have to vote or participate in it. Science fascinated me so much more than the squabbling and arguing side of the Republic. Scientific facts could only be undermined by discovery and solid proof while political facts could easily be undone by rumors.
 

Mama rolled her eyes. “You mean, he’s the G.E.G.’s lap dog?”

“No. But Tantalos is too liberal. She claims that the G.E.G. has already succeeded. That we need to restructure how we do things.”

“Like Petrakis is any better? Sterilization? Really? Enforced rather than voluntary? That’s just stupid. But to restructure slowly, that’s smart. Slowly, so we don’t bottleneck,” Mama growled. “I only voted for him because he was the lesser of two evils.”
 

“Politicians talking like they understand the Science of things. It’s just plain ridiculous. What we need is members of the G.E.G. in office.” Daddy swallowed the whiskey and left to put the glass in the kitchen sink.
 

Xavi told me to be patient— that he’d get me out, but I had to follow the soldier to the barracks without a fuss. He promised he, or Ono, would find a way to help me.
 

I didn’t believe it.

But I didn’t exactly have a choice, seeing as I was tied up.
 

The soldier marched me through the chaos, and we walked along the clusters of bodies piled along the tracks. I saw one dressed in uniform-black, but all the others wore torn fabrics of all colors. There must have been over twenty people in the piles, but I didn’t recognize any of the bodies. That is, I didn’t recognize any of them until the moment I did.
 

His red hair was a neon beacon, and his dark face wore a slack-jawed mouth. Red… Gilbert. My eyes darted across all the other faces. Polo couldn’t be there. There was no way I could have seen him the night before only to lose him today. But I didn’t see Polo or Moon-teeth or Grizzle. What if Polo was under one of the bodies in the pile? I wanted to claw through them and make sure, but the soldier pushed me forward.
 

Red. His laughter from last night was still fresh on my ears. It wasn’t right. All those deaths? No one in that pile deserved what had come to them.
 

And Xavi had called the intel in— caused all of it. The soldier even called him the “man of the hour.” How was I supposed to trust him?

The soldier shoved me into a cage in the boxcar. The bars were made of shiny, bright metal, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand up in the squat box. The soldier didn’t speak to me or the other bagged face that was already shackled up in it. At least he hadn’t re-bagged my head. He cut the zip-tie from my wrists before he shackled me by my hands and feet to the bars. The sound of metal sliding on metal felt too permanent, like I’d never be able to get away.