A wooden playground had nearly collapsed in the yard. Vines wound around the swing’s rusted chain, yanking it toward the earth. Maneuvering under the broken slide, I approached a half-open window and peered inside. The living room was small, with only a rotted couch and a few cracked photographs hanging on the wall. A hooded figure crouched over a fire, cooking.
The smoke billowed up to the ceiling and spread outward, teasing my nostrils with the promise of a meat dinner. The figure picked at a leg of rabbit, feverishly biting at the bone. My mouth filled with spit just imagining how delicious it would taste.
I had seen a Stray before, grazing past the wall, in the section visible from the library’s corner window. Strays were not part of gangs, not part of the King’s regime, but outsiders who lived in the wild. We had been told Strays were dangerous, but this one had the slight build of a woman, which eased my fear.
“Hello there!” I called through the window. “I need help. Please!”
The figure sprung up from the floor and backed against the wall, holding the knife aloft.
“Show yourself!” Her hood was so large it shielded her face, but her dainty lips, greasy from the meat, were visible in the firelight.
“All right, please,” I said, raising my hands in front of me. I pushed at the window and the rusty hinges broke off, nearly sending it crashing into the room. I pulled myself inside, keeping my hands where she could see them. “I’ve run out of food.”
She kept her knife outstretched in my direction. She had on dark green fatigues like the ones the government workers wore and her black hooded shirt was much too big. I couldn’t see her eyes.
Then, as I lowered my hands to my sides I saw the opened knapsack with the School uniform inside. The crest of The New America shone red and blue. I stepped back, slowly taking in her black combat boots, her tall frame, the beauty mark above her lip. “Arden?”
She pulled back her hood. Her short black hair was caked with dirt and her pale skin was sunburned, the ridge of her nose peeling in places.
I threw my arms around her, clinging tight as though she were the only thing keeping me from falling off the earth. I breathed in, not minding that we both smelled of sweat-soaked clothes.
Arden was here. Alive. With me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, pushing me off. “How did you get here?” Her face seized in anger and I remembered, suddenly, that she hated me.
I sat down on the floor of the room, stunned. “I escaped. You were right—I saw them, too. The girls? In that cement room?” Arden paced in front of the fire, her knife clutched in her hand. “I followed the sign that said eighty . . .” I trailed off, realizing she must’ve done the same.
“Califia can’t be more than a week away, we’ll find the red bridge soon—”
Arden tapped the flat end of the knife against her leg as she paced. “You can’t stay with me. I can’t let you, I’m sorry but you’ll just have to—”
“No.” I thought only of the giant rats that scurried over my legs at night, my poor attempt at hunting rabbits. “You can’t, Arden. You wouldn’t throw me out.”
Arden dragged the knife along the brick fireplace and it made a scraping sound that stiffened my spine. “This is not a game, Eve. This is not some little vacation you’re taking from school.” She pointed out the window. “There are men and dogs and all sorts of wild animals out there, and they all want to kill us. You’re not going to be able to keep up. I—I can’t risk it. We’d be better on our own.”
I sat on my shaking hands, my palms digging into the moldy carpet, sobered by Arden’s cruelty. Even if I had found a second year in the jungle and her leg was broken in half I wouldn’t have left her there—I couldn’t have. It was a death sentence.
“I know it’s not a game. That’s why we should stick together.” I needed Arden, but I couldn’t quite reason why she needed me. I searched my mind anyway, trying to appeal to that cold, Darwinian part of her. “I can help you.”
Arden sank onto the old couch, its cushion broken in places by twisted, rusty springs. “And how is that?” She pulled a dead beetle from the tangled ends of her hair and flicked it into the fire. It let out a loud pop.
“I’m smart. I can help with maps and compasses. And it’ll help to have an extra person, to serve as lookout.”
Arden let out all the air in her lungs. “There are no maps and compasses, Eve. And you’re book smart,” she corrected, holding up her finger. “That doesn’t mean anything here. Can you fish? Can you hunt? Would you kill someone if it was me against them?”
I swallowed hard, knowing the answer: no. Of course not. I’d never even killed a slug. I’d told Teacher about the girls who salted them just to watch them squirm. But I wanted to prove to Arden that every one of those years I’d spent in the library and she’d been playing horseshoes on the lawn had been worthwhile. “Headmistress gave me the Medal of Achievement. . . .”