“Thankfully for you, we’ve banned all death penalties from our traditions temporarily,” Shadus says lightly. My knees instantly feel weak. “We can’t be executing people when there are only a few of us left on the planet now, can we?”
“But there must be a punishment for her!” Someone calls. Taj glowers at them.
“Indeed,” Shadus agrees. “And I took responsibility for this human by bringing her here. What is a fitting punishment, Adjudicator?”
He looks to Taj, who narrows his eyes. Something unspoken passes between them.
“A great yali should be placed on your head.” Taj turns to the Gutter circle. “All in favor, raise your hand.”
Nearly everyone raises their hand. Taj nods.
“Therefore, Executioner Shadus now has great yali. Let it be known.”
“Let it be known,” The Gutters echo. I look to Shadus, expecting him to protest or snark or argue, but he just bows to the crowd, a grim frown on his face. The Gutter circle parts around him, every scornful eye on him as he leaves quietly through the trapdoor. Only when he’s gone do the Gutters burst into chatter, cheerfully leaving the basement with smiles on their faces as they enthusiastically discuss the fight, me, Shadus, and how to sneak back into their dorms. Soon, Taj and I are the only ones left in the basement. He sheds the patra robe, and I pivot to give him some privacy.
“I’m…shit. I’m really sorry,” I say.
“It isn’t me you should be giving your apologies to,” Taj says evenly. “Shadus just took on a massive amount of yali for you. The only thing worse than interrupting a patra is, well. Unwanted mating, and murder.”
I suck in a breath.
“But it’s not all bad,” Taj says. “This was a very keen move on Shadus’ part. We punished him as a race, together. The sense of belonging and morale will skyrocket when word gets out among the Gutters. It’ll give them hope – hope that our culture hasn’t completely vanished. Hope that we still honor our laws, not the humans’.”
“But he didn’t do anything! I did!”
“Then you have someone you need to be apologizing to, don’t you?”
I ball my fists and turn. But before I can leave, a gentle hand lands near my neck. Taj. He sweeps my sheet of hair to the side, and inhales. A jolt runs up my spine.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whirl around. “You’re being even creepier than Creeps!”
“I apologize. I haven’t smelled fear that strong and delicious in a long time. And when you and I fell together, I – being in such close proximity -”
Taj looks at the floor, something like shame darkening his features.
“It’s good to know I’m just food to you,” I snarl, and storm up the stairs. It’s not the nicest thing to say, but everything about tonight set me right on the edge, and Taj’s little neck-sniffing pushed me over it. The cool night air engulfs me, and I start mowing through the pine needles with anger fueling my legs. I’m mad at Taj, at Shadus for bringing me, at myself for fucking it all up.
“Why did you do it?”
Shadus’ voice. He steps out from behind a tree, still in the silver uniform and looking somber.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry –”
“I asked for an explanation, not an apology.”
I swallow hard, and muster what’s left of my bravery.
“My mom. I don’t know what happened, but I had a flashback, and Taj was my mom, and you were the crowd, and you were going to trample her, and I freaked, okay? I freaked. I freaked out and ruined everything. So go ahead and get mad at me.” He doesn’t. “C’mon. Let’s go. Time’s wasting.”
“I’m not going to get mad at you for having a flashback,” He says evenly.
“Why not?”
“Because I have them sometimes, too.”
His words splinter the cool night air like icicles, frozen lightning. The tightness in my chest, the shame, suddenly loosens. I’m not the only one. I’m not the only one, and I forgot that. Shadus touches a tree, looking up at its ancient branches.
“And, because I knew when I brought you here you’d do something wrong and get me yali.”
“Then why bring me? Aren’t you going to be shunned now? You’ll never get a good mate, or whatever, your family will –”
He smirks. “My family will nothing. My family will choose a mate for me as they always have for their offspring. I am Executioner sotho. Our shame never lasts long. People are very willing to forgive us. Besides, I’ve always been alone. Shunning me won’t make a trick of difference.”
“Um. Lick? It’s a ‘lick’ of difference.”
He looks confused. “But you can’t lick difference. It’s intangible. That makes no sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense is why you’re so damn cavalier about this yali!”
“I wanted this yali.”
“So your people would feel united for punishing you, right?”
His smirk falters, and his eyes grow dark, and just by his expression I know I’m right.
“That’s sick. That’s masochistic –”
“It’s what sotho must do. We must lead. We must give examples. We must know when to sacrifice, and what is a proper sacrifice. My yali is worth a few weeks of cheerfulness in this restrictive place, don’t you think?”
I’m quiet. I don’t know what to say. But thankfully, I don’t have to say anything at all.
“Come on.” Shadus motions for me to follow. “Let’s get you back to your room.”
The guards are just as clockwork as when we came out. Shadus’ keen senses and reflexes get us back to my room in record time. At my door, I look at Shadus.
“How were the cameras taken care of?” I ask. “I mean, I know you guys can climb walls or whatever –”
“We don’t ‘climb walls’, we use the sum attractive force between epidermal molecules to -”
I give him the ‘don’t test me after a long night’ look.
“We climb walls,” He says quickly.
“And that’s how you guys took them offline?”
He shakes his head in a ‘no’.
“Okay, you’re smart, but these are like, the best cameras in the world. There’s no way you hacked them.”
“We didn’t hack them.”
“Then how?”
Shadus’ face grows dark, but there’s the barest hint of a smirk there before he turns and leaves.
“I said it once, and I’ll say it again. You know nothing about us, human. And you never will. But you’re welcome to keep trying.”
5. The Wheel of Fortune
You can’t see the rumor about Shadus’ yali spread, because the Gutters are very careful about making sure no adult finds out. They have to be, otherwise their secret fighting club would get nixed. So you don’t hear it spread, you see it. The Gutters start ignoring Shadus. Teachers ask them to pass papers to him, and they drop the paper instead, or never pass it to him at all, forcing him to get up to get one. Taj doesn’t look at Shadus anymore. He looks through him, like he’s glass, a ghost, something clear and not really there. The Gutters who kept coming up to Shadus’ table at lunch have abandoned that endeavor completely. Shadus looks almost smug about it, until he downs a vial in one gulp, and slowly turns white. He races from the cafeteria, and the Gutters watch him go with satisfied expressions.
“Why’d you run out of the cafeteria like that?” I ask Shadus the next day in the library. Shadus leafs through a book calmly.
“They switched my food with a vial of water.”
When I give him a blank look, he sighs and turns a page.
“Dihydrogen monoxide causes severe diarrhea for Gutters.”
I muffle the yelp of laughter that threatens to escape. And then the confusion comes.
“But – but you’re in human bodies. Water’s great for us!”
“Our internal organ structures are entirely Gutter. We merely reconfigured our skeletal systems and musculature to fit within your skins. Thankfully, oxygen fuels o
ur aerobic respiration as well. It would’ve been much more difficult to adapt to the bodies if we couldn’t process Earth’s air.”
There’s a long stretch of quiet.
“So you pooped a lot yesterday,” I say finally.
He groans. “For years.”
“You still think it’s worth taking on the yali?”
He motions to a group of distant Gutters, who are laughing and pointing at something in a book. They don’t look lost. They don’t look nervous. Their posture is loose, at ease for once.
“You tell me.”
***
When Raine comes back from the shoot, she’s different. She’s happier. But something about her happiness feels wrong, forced. Her smiles are too brittle to be real. She bounces from clique to clique, throwing compliments and casual conversation with the ferocity of a polite yet ravenous tiger. She barely stops to bother me anymore. She’s absent in the cafeteria at mealtimes. The only time I see her is before bed, and she always comes in right before curfew, kicks off her heels, and falls asleep instantly. She throws herself into clubs and activities. She’s head of the cheerleader squad, and then suddenly she has the starring role in the drama club’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and then she somehow finds time to be the treasurer of student council. Her duties keep her flitting from place to place on campus like a hummingbird on crack.
I don’t mind the sudden solitude. Not at all. It doesn’t bug me that she isn’t here to sit at my table during meals or anything. It doesn’t bug me that she doesn’t talk to me anymore. She’s a Gutter. I’m a human. Whatever we have can’t go beyond wary acquaintance.
It’s better this way.
I didn’t like her, anyway.
That’s what I tell myself for three days. Dakota keeps me company, the both of us pretty much outcasts. We go to the library and read together or play games on our phones, or we go out on the lawn when it’s sunny. We talk about nothing. And everything. College, family, dreams. She’s from Georgia, but I always tease her that she’s from North Dakota. She wants to go to Alaska and research wolves. Her mother’s addicted to oxycodone. Her father divorced her when Dakota was ten. Her stutter’s been with her ever since. She’s been teased relentlessly all her life for it. Hearing about her past makes me remember other people have it shittier than I do.
It’s nice to spend time with a human, with someone who knows what a hot pocket is and the anguish of getting something less than an A+ on a test.
And then, on the fourth day, when Dakota has a make up test to do at lunch, I go back to the dorm to take a nap. When I walk in, Raine is at the mirror over her desk, applying make-up over the brightest, darkest bruise I’ve ever seen.
It’s above her cheek, just below her eye. The bloodstreaked purple color turns to green on the edges, and swallows nearly half her delicate, fox-like face. Her blue eyes widen, and she slaps her hand on her cheek and smiles.
“Vic, you – crap, I mean – Victoria. What are you doing here so early?”
“Where did you get that from?”
“Get what?” She laughs, breathlessly. “I’m just touching up my makeup for drama rehearsal –”
“Don’t lie to me,” I snap. “I saw it. Who gave you that?”
“I tripped,” She says smoothly. “There’s so much stuff lying around the stage, you wouldn’t believe it –”
“So you tripped and landed right on your cheek, and only on your cheek? I find that a little hard to believe.”
“It happens all the time to other people.”
“Yeah, but you aren’t ‘other people’. You’re a Gutter. I’ve seen you guys in action. You don’t trip.”
Raine’s blue eyes darken to steel. “Ah yes. You’ve seen a lot of us, haven’t you? The patra. My informants told me all about that.”
“Informants?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” She smiles wider. “I meant ‘friends’. That’s what I call them out loud.”
“But in your head, it’s ‘informants’.”
“Yes. Shallow of me, isn’t it? Using false friendships for information. But that’s how the Illuminator sotho have always conducted themselves. Information first. Everything else in life second. That’s what father taught me.”
“Is he the one who gave you that bruise?”
Raine’s eyes grow instantly cold and then she lightens them, forces them to grow warm again to appear normal. She trills a little laugh.
“Of course not. My father is miles away on the reservation!”
She lifts her hand and quickly begins applying foundation to cover it. She doesn’t wince outwardly, but I can see her shoulders tremble every time she presses on the bruised flesh. I’ve seen Alisa do the same thing in the hospital. She’s used to pain. She wears it well, and that tells me all I need to know – this isn’t the first time it’s happened. And it’s not the last. In an obvious attempt to get me to stop asking questions about it, she sighs prettily.
“Did you know sotho are forbidden to engage in patra with other sotho?”
“Oh yeah? Then why did Shadus and Taj –”
“The only time it is permitted,” She smiles at me with all her teeth. “Is when two sotho seek the same mate.”
My stomach sinks faster than the Titanic. Shadus’ words that night to Taj echo in my head. ‘She’s not Raine. You’re confusing all of them’.
“But – But that’s impossible. Y-You –”
“Shadus’ father and my own have arranged our mating since we were hatchlings, though it’s not set in stone. Taj’s mother, of course, wants him to mate me, not Shadus. Taj’s brothers and Shadus’ cousins have declared patra many times to fight over sotho females. But Taj and Shadus? Never. Never once have they held a patra over me.”
“S-So? So what? That doesn’t mean shit,” My voice cracks.
“It means something very interesting is brewing, Victoria,” Raine smiles crookedly. “Shototh be praised. This place was getting so boring.”
***
I finally get why the Gutters freaked out about the patra that night. But now that I get it, I just wanna dig a hole in the ground and die. But then I stop myself – why am I ashamed? Why am I embarrassed at all? These are Gutters we’re talking about. They’ve got weird traditions and even weirder logic. Taj and Shadus would never fight over a creepy, depressing, mean bag of bones like me. There’s probably another reason, or tradition, or rule. Something. Anything.
The Halloween fair tries to make us forget about the angry protestors. The security is as tight as ever, but we’re allowed to roam around the lawn in costumes and bob for apples and drink cider at the booths the faculty’s set up. It’s like they’re trying their best to ease the tension from the inside and the outside, but candy corn and fake blood packets only go so far. Students are laughing though, and the Gutters look equal parts excited and bewildered at all the strange, giant carved gourds and witch hats.
The corridors flood with humans wearing costumes and face paint. Even Mr. Weylan’s taken the time to put on Frankenstein make-up. People laugh and call to one another. Mr. Targe, dressed like a football player, yells at students for running in the halls. Candy apples wave in sticky hands, candy corn necklaces rattling and goblin masks hiding the truth behind plastic. Orange glitter coats the floor like the insides of a gutted pumpkin. The janitor and the groundskeepers pile wood into a stone-rimmed pit for the bonfire. The sky slowly deepens from chilly ice-blue to a sable navy dusk.
Mr. Targe lights the bonfire’s tinder. The flames feast eagerly, cracking logs with red-hot tongues. The bonfire gives off heat I feel even from my place on the hill. The teachers and EVEs stand close to the fire, talking. The Gutters seem unsure of what to do, hanging back at the edges as though giant fires aren’t their thing. Shadus stands close to the bonfire, the frigid October wind mussing his hair around.
He doesn’t see me walk up. I clear my throat.
“Ya’an nhilir sid’hamorovan. Kuna ele’an mej.”
Shadus turns. He t
akes me in for a second, as if not really believing I just said that.
“My face is a what?”
“Did I say it wrong?” I start eagerly. “Because I swear I had that last particle down pat like, two hours ago.”
“You said my face was the butt of a horse, and that smiling would improve it.”
“Oh, I did say it right then.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“I got Ms. Gianca to teach it to me.”
He raises a brow.
“With…some adjustments on my part,” I add. His grimace blossoms into a wane smile. But it’s still a smile. There’s a pause.
“You were right,” I say. “We probably shouldn’t be friends. That’d be dangerous. But, I mean. We can be not-friends.”
“Not-friends?” He looks up. I struggle for words.
“Like, acquaintances. You know, talking partners. People who converse with each other sometimes. I mean, I like talking. Not in general. But. Uh. With you, it’s interesting. And I learn stuff. And contrary to what Taj says, you aren’t completely humorless. Just mostly.”
I hear Shadus snort, and under my bangs I glance his way. Our eyes meet, and I instantly look away.
“Friends are impossible for me, Victoria. It never works out. They think they want to be my friend, but then they see the real me. The ‘humorless’ me. The boring me. The nasty, cruel, terrifying me. And they leave, because it’s not worth sticking around. So. I’ll mostly ignore you. You mostly ignore me. It’ll be easier that way. It always is.”
The tone of his voice scoops my insides out and leaves the void to burn. He sounds like Alisa does on her worst days, despondent and hopeless. But I’m an expert at cheering people up – hell, I pretty much perfected it during the nights beside Alisa’s hospital bed, during the nights Dad drank alone at the kitchen table at two in the morning. I take a huge breath.
“What if I don’t want it to be easy?”
He knits his eyebrows. I shrug.
“I’m not the best at people stuff. I don’t have a lot of friends now, but I used to. In elementary school. Before –” Before Mom died. “I mean, I can help you with the friend-basics at least. Show you how it works, see if we can’t get you a buddy or two.”