I turned away. “Revolting,” I murmured.
“This doesn’t look appetizing to you? You can have the dehydrated peas then.” He tossed me another pouch. I ate the dried pebbles in silence, but he continued staring at me. “So you and Arden . . .” He tilted his head to the side. “. . . friends? Or not so much?”
I popped another pea into my mouth and kept it there, waiting for it to soften. I could remember the exact moment I’d decided Arden was so unlike me that we could never be friends. We were running races in the yard. It was our sixth year at School and Pip had gotten her period that morning. She’d been insecure about wearing the pads that Dr. Hertz had given her, but Ruby and I had convinced her to come run, even if she didn’t want to. As she stood near the lake, waiting for her turn, Arden yanked down her shorts.
Before that moment, I had given Arden so many chances. After she fought with Maxine in the bathroom, splitting her lip, I’d sworn it was an accident. I’d defended her to the other girls when she snapped at Teacher Florence, telling her that she wasn’t her mother—that she already had one, alive, outside the walls, and she didn’t need another. I’d even snuck her berries in the solitary room. But what she did to Pip was too much. I bet you’re real proud of yourself, I’d yelled, as Pip took off toward the dormitories, eyes swollen and pink. For one second of your life someone was more pathetic than you. After that I’d made it clear to everyone how little I thought of her, how pitiful she’d always seemed to me. Soon no one spoke to Arden at all, really. Not even to hear stories of her mansion, or the parents who worked in the City.
I swallowed, the tasteless food finally soft enough to go down. “No . . . I wouldn’t say we’re friends.”
Caleb sat against the back of the pilot’s seat, scratching the back of his head. “So that’s why she swam off, then. She doesn’t give a—”
“No,” I snapped. “Arden only cares about herself. She’s always been that way.”
Caleb stared at me for a moment, surprised. Then he set the empty cans back into the box. He poked his head out of the shattered window and looked around. “Well, we should stay here for the night. It might rain some more, and the troops won’t be back in the area until it clears anyway. Maybe Arden will turn up tomorrow.”
“She won’t,” I mumbled under my breath. I could hardly make Arden stay with me before. Now that she knew I had a target on my back, she was probably sprinting through the woods, desperate to put as much space between us as possible.
We pulled the thin silver blankets from the box and eased into opposite corners of the damp cockpit. “It’ll only be a few hours till we set out again,” Caleb added. “Don’t be scared.”
“I’m not,” I assured him.
The lantern dimmed, then finally went out.
“Good,” he said. But as he fell asleep, I thought again of the City of Sand and the man who waited for me there. The King had always been a comforting presence to us, a symbol of strength and protection. But his portrait at School felt menacing now, with his slack cheeks and the beady eyes that seemed always to follow me. Why had he chosen me, more than thirty years his junior, to breed? Why me, out of all the girls at School? The Teachers had spoken of him being the exception—the only man who could be trusted. It was yet another lie.
I knew the King would keep coming for me. I knew he wouldn’t stop. Not after the stories I’d been told about his unyielding commitment to The New America. Headmistress Burns had clasped her hands over her heart as she spoke of the way he’d saved people from uncertainty after the plague. He said we had no time for debate, that we must move relentlessly forward, without stopping. One chance, Headmistress had repeated, her eyes blurred by patriotic tears. We only have one chance to rebuild.