Gael tentatively reaches toward him, lays a hand on his shoulder. The boy knows Gael is afraid of his teeth and for a moment he feels the urge, but it’s not really hunger. He is beyond the control of that simple brute. When he feels the urge now, it’s just a rattling of his cage. A frenzied effort to bend the bars.
“We’re going to look after you,” Gael says, giving the boy’s shoulder a squeeze, and he and Gebre share a meaningful look. A decision. “Whatever’s happened to you, we’re going to help you heal it. Okay?”
The boy grits his teeth to stop the clicking that he can tell makes Gael nervous. He sees a moonlit balcony and a dusty airport and an old house on fire, all of it shrinking into the darkness through the rear window of a Geo coupe.
“Don’t worry, Rover,” Gebre says, trying even harder to infuse his voice with hope. “You’re going to love New York.”
I
“IT’S A MIXED POPULATION BRANCH so it’s normal for civilians to be here, but we have to assume they’re still broadcasting our capture code, so people are going to recognize us if we give them a chance. I’ll keep us out of traffic but if we do run into anyone, keep your mouths shut, heads down, no eye contact. Think of every time you’ve ever failed someone and let the shame make you invisible.”
I’m not listening. I don’t need these tips. No one avoids human interaction better than I do. No one has more shame to hide behind. As Pittsburgh’s skyline rises in front of us, Abram drones on about the resistance leaders we’re looking for, the secret conference rooms where they meet, but only a thin outer layer of me is hearing him. I am finding it hard to be here, in the present, with all its explosions and car chases and covert operations. We are trying to overthrow a despotic regime and save America, but all I can think about is the five people walking next to me, their localized conflicts, their tiny joys and pains.
Nora’s eyes are faraway, traveling inner spaces I know little about. M walks beside her with an equally distant look, perhaps continuing to excavate his apparently harmless past. The pistol looks heavy in Julie’s hand. The barrel keeps drifting away from Abram as if embarrassed, and Julie reluctantly drags it back.
“Nora,” I say under my breath, and she jolts like a sleepwalker waking up.
“Wha—sorry, what?” she mumbles. Her eyes dart to absorb her surroundings.
“Can I ask you . . . a personal question?”
“Uh . . . sure?”
“What would you do?” I keep my voice low, audible only to her and M. “If you found your mother.”
Her face clouds and she doesn’t respond.
“Would you do this?” I gesture toward Julie.
“Like I told Marcus,” she says, “I don’t have parents. I grew out of the ground.”
“Stop that,” M grunts at her.
She gives him a look that’s uncertain but primed for outrage. “Excuse me?”
“Stop bullshitting.” He somehow infuses this with tenderness. “You’re stronger than that.”
Nora blinks at him a few times, her eyes widened with undecided emotion.
“You told me how they left you,” I remind her. “That night at the bar?”
She turns her trapped-animal gaze on me.
“You’ve lost everything Julie has. So . . . would you do this?”
She seems to break down a barrier within herself, the outer layer of a many-walled city. “It’s different,” she says, exhaling the debris in a small sigh. “Julie loved her parents. They were good people who got crushed by circumstances. Mine . . .”
Her face trembles as if with effort, like she’s climbing over something in her head.
“Mine left”—another spasm—“me.” Another deep breath. “They left me. To die. And they were assholes from the beginning. So what is it you’re asking? If I found my parents alive, would I hijack a plane and fly across the world to save them?” She lets out a dark chuckle that sounds more like a snarl. “Fuck no. I’d have a hard time not killing them myself.”
I notice M moving his hand toward Nora’s shoulder, then reconsidering, retreating.
“But I’m a coldhearted bitch,” she continues with forced flippancy. “I’m all up in Buddha’s ass with that non-attachment shit. Love nothing, mourn nothing, you know? Jules is different.” She watches Julie walk, just a few inches taller than her prisoner’s daughter. “She’s been through hell and she’s got iron skin, but under that? She’s all gooey pink.” She smiles fondly as Julie lets the gun sag to her side, barely even trying anymore. “And I love that about her. Sometimes I even envy it. It takes crazy courage to let yourself feel that much. But yeah . . .” She sighs. “Sometimes it’s a problem.”
“You’re not that different,” M says very quietly.
“What was that?” Nora says, cocking her head like she didn’t hear, but the spike in her tone reveals otherwise.
“You’re not as cold . . . as you think.”
“Well that’s an interesting theory, but you don’t really know anything about me do you?”
M doesn’t reply, but he holds his gaze.