Adamek finishes signing the contract and slides it to her, the blood on his hand already coagulating. He pulls the chain over his head and tucks it under his jumpsuit.
Amnesty agreement sealed. Nazirah can leave and return to headquarters. But she cannot move from her seat, cannot stop staring at the bloody signatures. And even though she tries to stop them, her thoughts return to that night. Finding her parents dead on the floor. Screaming until she was hoarse. Rocking her lifeless mother in her arms.
He killed them in cold blood. Bargained for his freedom in warm blood. And Nazirah wants to spill his life’s blood.
She wants to spill every last sticky drop.
Adamek tenses. He must know exactly what she is thinking. Knows the visions that plague her thoughts every day and haunt her dreams every night. He caused them, after all.
Nazirah takes a deep breath, reaching for the contract so she can leave. When he speaks again, his words drip poison and purpose.
“You look like her.”
What the fuck did he just say?
Nazirah’s head snaps up. Blinded by rage, she lunges across the table, positive that Solomon is hopping off his chair and screaming like a banshee down the corridor. Adamek makes no move to stop her.
Nazirah’s fingers are barely an inch away from his throat before she pauses. She holds them there, outstretched. They itch to close to gap, are dying to make the spark fade from his eyes. But he said that deliberately to get a rise out of her. And she refuses to be a pawn in his twisted game.
Nazirah pulls her hand away, slamming the table with her fist, imagining it’s his face. She grabs the contract, shoves it into her pocket. She walks quickly towards the door then stops and turns around to face him. Adamek inclines his head, listening closely.
“Enjoy your freedom, Morgen,” she spits. “I hope you choke on it.”
#
“What a fucking piece of shit.”
Cato is livid. He is sitting at his desk, face red, fuming. The unfinished essay he was writing lies forgotten beside him. Cato cracks his knuckles menacingly, a habit that Nazirah hates. Nazirah lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling. She only returned to headquarters an hour ago. Her head pounds from stress and lack of sleep. Cato’s angry outbursts every couple of seconds aren’t helping matters.
Nazirah sighs in annoyance and exhaustion, looking out Cato’s window. His room is exactly like hers on the inside – but at least his view faces the grounds, not a brick wall. Nazirah went straight to Cato’s room after seeking out Nikolaus in his office. When Nazirah initially showed up at Cato’s door, he was irritated, since he thought she was ignoring him. But once she told him the full story, Cato became outraged. Nazirah is relieved that he isn’t upset with her anymore, but she would almost prefer him annoyed. She can’t deal with his ranting right now.
“We’ve established that my brother sucks,” Nazirah says, exasperated. “Can we move on?”
Unlike Nazirah, Cato took some of the comforts of home with him. Several pictures of his former life in Rafu are displayed throughout his room. Nazirah glances at a photo of Cato smiling with his two siblings, before picking another one up from his nightstand. It is one of Nazirah’s favorites, taken when she was fifteen. Cato, who came from a long line of fishermen, saved up his money that summer to buy an old canoe on the black market. He spent weeks rebuilding it, sanding it down and caulking it. Nazirah teased him about it for weeks, telling him it would never float. One day, without warning, he picked her up, dropped her into the canoe, and paddled out to sea.
They spent the rest of the day fishing. Or, really, Nazirah watched Cato fish. She alternated between lying in the sun and jumping off the boat to swim in the water. Cato entertained her all day, telling Nazirah unbelievable stories he learned in school. Hundreds of years ago, he said, everything around them had been landlocked. Then the polar icecaps melted, swallowing and shrinking the coastline of the Old Country.
Looking out at the sea that day, Nazirah couldn’t believe it was ever anything else than what it was now. It was a time in her life when she didn’t fully grasp the concept of change. A time in her life when she thought everything would always remain the same, constant and steady.
Now she isn’t so sure.
Cato reeled in a huge fish that day, almost thirty pounds. He let Nazirah hold it in the photo, pretend she was the one who caught it. The sea waves in the background, as the two of them smile widely for the camera. Nazirah’s long hair is braided and wet from the water. Her skin is glowing, bronzed from the summer sun. She struggles to grip the slippery, floundering fish with her thin arms. Cato is giving the camera a thumbs-up. He looks goofy, but that is exactly what makes Nazirah love the photo.
Despite his protests, Nazirah convinced Cato to release the fish back into the wild. She vividly remembers watching it swim away, breathing life back through its gills, regaining its speed. She felt like that fish, once. Like death was only a shadow of a whisper in her mind. Like there was nothing before her but life and the sea and endless freedom.
“I can’t believe Nikolaus would associate with that scum!” Cato continues ranting. Nazirah sets the photo back down with a sigh. Cato stares at her expectantly. He is not letting her off the hook as easily as he did the fish.
She yawns. “Why don’t you go ask him, then?”
“I don’t get you, Irri.” Cato walks over to the bed. “How are you not more upset about this? Don’t you want to know why Adamek Morgen suddenly gained a conscience and wants to help us, renouncing his entire race and family in the process? And why your brother embraced him with open arms? Doesn’t it all seem a little strange to you?”
“Of course it does, Cato!” Nazirah snaps, at her wit’s end. “You think I actually believe for a second that the purebred dirtbag has changed? I don’t! But like I told you already, I have no idea what he and Niko agreed upon. Niko wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t even tell me anything when I gave him the signed contract. I haven’t slept or eaten in over a day, I’ve been to the damned Red West and back, and I’m tired!”
Cato is quiet, finally. Nazirah can tell he feels bad about badgering her. She is too annoyed to care. He slowly lies beside her on the bed. They stare at the ceiling in silence, close, but not touching.
With his bright hazel eyes and medium build, Cato looks more like Nazirah than Nikolaus does. People often assume they are related, especially non-Eridians, much to Cato’s annoyance and Nazirah’s amusement. He is tanner than she, from a lifetime of working on boats. Cato’s Eridian fish tattoo, exactly like Riva’s, suits him perfectly. Nazirah remembers when he first got marked at the town hall, on his thirteenth birthday, how proud he was. But he wore long sleeves for weeks, even though it was a brutally hot summer, so Nazirah wouldn’t feel like she was missing out.
“So what was he like?” Cato looks at Nazirah. Her eyes remain fixated on the ceiling. It is the question of the hour, of the year, of the century. It is the question she can’t answer, doesn’t know how to answer.
“He was … quiet.”
“Quiet?” repeats Cato, intrigued.
“No,” she backtracks. “Not quiet.”
“So … loud?”
“No.”
“Talkative?”
“No!” she says. “Observant.”
There; that’s better. Adamek Morgen was definitely observant.
“Observant?”
“Yes, and weirdly passive.”
“Weirdly passive?” asks Cato, perplexed. “Are you sure you actually met Adamek Morgen?”
“The whole thing was just so strange,” Nazirah continues, talking more to herself than to Cato. “He didn’t say much, but I felt like everything he said was deliberate … like he was testing me.”
“Testing you?” asks Cato, eyes narrowing. “What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing important.”
She doesn’t know why she keeps the truth from Cato – that Adamek intentionally provoked her by mentioning Riva. Sh
e feels like a coward, ashamed for pulling her hand away. Cato knows her well enough to realize that she’s hiding something, but doesn’t press the issue.
“By the way,” he says, “I covered for you yesterday with the bear.”
“I know,” Nazirah says. “I ran into Ani and she told me.”
“If you’re going to keep missing classes,” Cato jokes, “you could warn me so I can come up with some better cover stories. The one yesterday was not good.”
“Was I sick?”
“No, but your goldfish was.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“You couldn’t think of anything better than that?”
“You know I don’t like being put on the spot!”
“Well,” Nazirah says, “luckily for you, Niko had a talk with me about that yesterday. You were right. I have to start going to class more, or else he is seriously going to maim me in my sleep.”
Cato whistles. “He was really scoring major points with you last night, wasn’t he?”
“You have no idea.”
“If you’re planning on showing up to class more,” Cato says, “you should know that we have a Territory History paper due Monday morning. History and culture of Zima … ten pages.”
Of course they do.
“Great,” she groans. “You know, I never thought we would get homework during recruit training. I get the combat class, but essays, really? It’s like we’re still in school.”
Nazirah gives Cato a crooked smile. He hesitates for a moment and then gently strokes her hair. Nazirah tenses, but lets him do it. Before this whole mess happened, they had slowly been growing closer. Growing into something that was almost, but not quite, more than friends.
Nazirah has never been especially interested in especially anyone. She knows Cato has feelings for her, but he is like her brother – closer than her brother. And, after her parents died, Nazirah has no desire to be with anyone at all. She has iced her heart, made it numb to the world and everyone in it, so that nothing could damage her again. If things were different, then maybe they could have been something. But the way she is now, Nazirah knows she would only wind up hurting Cato. It is yet another reason why she hates Adamek Morgen. Yet another thing he has stolen from her.
“I should probably go work on it, then,” she says.
Cato pulls his hand away, watching as Nazirah sits up, plants her feet on the floor, and rises from the bed. “Irri,” Cato begins, but Nazirah doesn’t want to hear what he has to say. She is being selfish, she knows, but she can’t handle anything else today.
“Thanks for the tip about the bear.” She lightly kisses his cheek. It’s not what he wants, but it’s what she can give.
“Sure,” Cato says. “Don’t be stranger.” He flashes Nazirah a smile so bright and warm it makes her frozen heart melt for him … just a little.
Chapter Five
Monday morning dawns too quickly, leaving Nazirah sleepy and restless. After exiting Cato’s room Saturday night, she passed out on her bed for the next sixteen hours, waking up midafternoon Sunday. She spent the rest of the day, and half the night, in the library at headquarters working on that damn history essay. It isn’t her best work by far, but it’s done and semilegible – and took her mind off Adamek Morgen.
Nazirah groggily checks the time and realizes she has slept through most of breakfast. If she doesn’t hurry up, she will be late for class. She drags her tired body out of bed, showers, and brushes her teeth. She dresses in a pair of black jeans and a shirt she finds in a pile on her bedroom floor, only slightly wrinkled.
So much for getting a fresh start.
Still half asleep, she towel dries her hair. Grabbing her bag, she stuffs her essay in.
Nazirah rushes downstairs to the mess hall, trying to score some breakfast in the five minutes before class. Frustrated as she is with Nikolaus, Nazirah did promise to try. And she always keeps her promises.
As she enters the mess hall, a group of rebels spot her and begin whispering amongst themselves. Nazirah chuckles as she walks over to the fruit basket, thinking they must really not be used to seeing her in the morning. Nazirah picks up a mealy looking apple, inspecting it for a moment before realizing that the room has become eerily quiet. Completely silent, in fact.
Apple in hand, Nazirah turns around, looking at the tables suspiciously. No one is meeting her eye and no one is speaking. All around, people clear their throats and cough awkwardly.
What is going on? Could the rebels know where she went this weekend? Did Nikolaus make some sort of grand announcement while she was in the library yesterday? Nazirah bites thoughtfully into her apple, readjusting the strap on her bag as she exits the room.
At first, Nazirah thinks she’s just being neurotic. But as she walks to class, she quickly notices people stopping their conversations to stare at her. She’s seriously unnerved now, as a nagging suspicion worms its way out from the back of her mind.
Throwing her half-eaten breakfast into the nearest waste bin, Nazirah storms to the end of the corridor. She quickly changes her destination, turning right instead of left into Bairs’s classroom. She walks faster, weaving through the crowd. The halls become less packed, but the stares increase. And the whispers follow her every panicked footstep.
“Do you think she knows?”
“Poor girl. She’s already been through so much.”
“Serves her right, coming here without an ounce of appreciation.”
Nazirah tunes them out. She barges into Niko’s office, slamming the door shut behind her. Nikolaus is there as usual, with an unusual silver briefcase lying on his desk. The office is otherwise empty, save for one other person. Nikolaus jumps at the sound, startled, but the other man doesn’t move an inch. He is free of handcuffs this time.
“Nazirah, what are you doing here?”
Nikolaus looks borderline ashamed. Adamek, clean-shaven and cocky, watches silently, giving her the same curious look as in the prison. The purple bruises on his face have faded slightly and his split lip is almost healed.
“What am I doing here?” Nazirah yells furiously, storming up to Niko. “What am I doing here? Well, let’s see.” She laughs bitterly. “I’m here right now, stuck in this scummy compound that I hate, because both of my parents were slaughtered like pigs, in my own home. And you, my ever-protective big brother, told me that I couldn’t stay there, that it wasn’t safe for me there. So that’s what I’m doing here. And I’m here, in your office, to tell you that you’ve lost your fucking mind! What am I doing here? What is he doing here?” Nazirah stabs her finger at Adamek, standing a foot from its accusing tip.
“Nazirah,” Nikolaus says sternly, anger flushing his tired face, “I don’t have time for this right now. I told you already, this is part of our agreement. It’s easier if he stays here.”
“He’s staying here?” she screeches, beside herself.
Nikolaus never told her this was part of the deal! Nazirah assumed that Adamek would buy a private island and hide away until the war was over and he could safely return to Mediah. She can’t be around him for more than a few seconds without wanting to throw up, and now they have to live under the same roof?
Nikolaus looks between her and Adamek cautiously, clearly worried that one of them, maybe both, will snap. “Do not question me,” he says. “I am your brother, and I am your Commander. I am sick of your selfishness.” He walks past her to the door, holding it open and scowling at the nosy rebels listening outside.
But Nazirah isn’t done yet. “How could you let him stay here?” she hisses, glaring at Adamek. She is addressing him now, spitting slander. “This disgusting, racist snake who is contaminating me with his presence?” Her eyes blaze. “This … murderer!”
Adamek stares hard at Nazirah before sharing a brief look with Niko. Adamek nods, walking towards the open door. He stops in front of Nazirah, who is suddenly aware of how tall he is. She hadn’t noticed in the prison because he was sitting the ent
ire time, but he is only a few inches shorter than Nikolaus. Nazirah refuses to feel small and weak next to him, and holds her head high. Adamek bends down. He whispers something in Nazirah’s ear and then straightens and strolls out of the room.
Nikolaus waits by the door, not really paying attention. Nazirah distantly hears him tell her that they will finish discussing this later, that he needs to get back to work, that she needs to go to class. But Nazirah is not concentrating on him. She is concentrating on what Adamek has just whispered, his words repeating over and over in her mind.
“And don’t you forget it.”
As if she could.
#
“What a day.”
Nazirah drops her heavy bag on the dead, withered grass next to Cato. It is Thursday, four days since she made her penitent return to classes, and she already feels overwhelmed with work. Her teachers weren’t understanding or lenient, hadn’t eased her back into things. They piled makeup assignments and extra credit essays on her with a smile, especially Bairs. Nazirah doesn’t want to do the assignments. She thinks that showing up is more than sufficient. But Riva encouraged education, and Nazirah doesn’t want to disappoint her any more than she already has.
“Rough day of class?”
Nazirah shoots Cato an annoyed look, sitting on the grass beside Lumi and Taj. They are lounging in a circle, on the grounds behind the main building, watching some younger rebel children play tag. It has been a beautiful day and the grounds are full of people relaxing before dinner.
“I got my paper on Zima back,” Nazirah tells them, stretching out her legs. “The bear was not pleased. ‘You should take your work in this class more seriously, Nazirah,’” Nazirah says, in a poor Bairs imitation. “‘Territory History is an essential foundation of our rebellion. It’s how the races learn about one another, how we realize we are all similar and connected.’” Nazirah scoffs, because the last thing she needs is yet another lecture.
“That witch,” says Lumi, her voice suddenly full of derision. Nazirah is surprised to find she and Lumi agree on something. “Can you believe she took points off my essay? How would she know anything about Zima? She’s a southerner!”