Ruin

Ruin - By N.M. Martinez


One

They call it a waiting room. This isn't a waiting room. It's a holding cell.

I lay on my side curled up in a ball on the hard mattress. The stiff threads of the wool blanket scratch at my cheek. It's hard to say exactly how long I've been down here. There's no clock and no windows. Between breaths I can hear the bare bulb buzzing softly above my head. The bright light reflects off all the gray surfaces in the room and hurts my eyes. So I close them though I can still see the light dancing before me, burned into my sight.

There hasn't been any other sound in what's probably been hours. It feels like hours. Somewhere out there I can only imagine that my mother, the Neutral Territory politician, is talking to someone to clear this all up.

My eyes slip open. I rub at the blanket watching the fibers flatten against my fingertips as I listen for noises. There are none, surprisingly. I start to breathe again through my nose and my mouth. There are no scents here. The room is completely sterile with no hint that there was ever anyone else here before me. Not even a hospital is this clean.

In the corner of the room, the duffel bag they forced me to pack slouches against the wall like it's had a long day. Deep green like the blanket I lay on, I can't help but get the feeling that it is military issue. All it contains are my clothes. That's all I put inside it when they forced me to pack. I didn't know I'd need anything else.

I press my cold toes against the insides of my shoes and curl my limbs closer to my body. The blanket is so perfectly tucked in that it looks like a part of the mattress meant more for show than actual use. I doubt I'd be strong enough to actually pull it up, and I probably wouldn't want to lay under it either considering how uncomfortable it is to lay on top of.

Thoughts tumble around inside my head painfully as my stomach rumbles, twisting with hunger. I haven't been fed and they might never come back. Overhead, the light cuts away the shadows and makes it impossible for me to sleep.

And because I remember. In the middle of the night, I woke up, a sliver of moonlight falling in through my window as I lay comfortably in my bed, my mother asleep in the room next door. There wasn't a sound, but I could feel it like waking from a bad dream. My heart beat oddly in my chest, pumping enough blood to make my ears hot. As my hand went up to press my ear lobe against my skin, letting the warmth spread out, my door burst open.

Sitting in this gray room now, my hand automatically goes up to my earlobe the same as it did hours earlier. It's brought on by the memory, and when I realize it, I put my hand down on the blanket again and give it a rub letting it cut at my fingertips.

I remember screaming, I think. People dressed completely in black invaded my room like shadows. Their faces were covered and they wore dark shades over their eyes so that the only thing my eyes had to latch onto was their weapons. Large guns that weren't trained on me. They didn't have to be.

"Don't scream," the person in front said roughly. From the voice, I could tell it was a woman, but there was no comfort in that. She looked like the rest and held just as dangerous a weapon. She was the one to toss me the duffel bag. "Get your clothes. Let's go. Now."

All I could think about was Mom as I shoved the clothes into the bag. My eyes stung in fright as I shoved and kept trying to breathe. Mom hadn't said-- she couldn't have-- but I could remember her words from days ago. She said to me one morning over waffles she'd actually made herself, "Times are changing, Paula." There was something of a sad smile on her face. Maybe it was just a cautious smile. "We'll have to be prepared in case things change too much."

I only looked at her like she was crazy. "And live underground like Uncle Wiley?"

She shushed me. We weren't supposed to talk about Uncle Wiley. Still, she kept that smile plastered on her face. "And eat food out of cans. Don't forget that part."

Now, lying on this hard mattress, I crumple. My face presses into the blanket. No tears come, though I can feel them deep inside locked in my chest filling my lungs. It's a struggle for air. I don't know where Mom is. I don't even know where I am.

But I still remembered the glimpse I caught of her as they hauled us to different dark vans parked askew in front of our house. Her eyes were wide enough that I could see the white edging, the black irises like perfectly round holes. In that instant I drunk in the sight of her as if I knew I wouldn't see her again. Her short hair, dark against her light skin, was all over the place, hanging in her face wildly as she fought them. The top she wore clung tightly to her body and rode up as she struggled. But when she saw me, when her eyes went wide, she stopped. The group around her stopped too like she'd suddenly become too heavy to push on even though she's hardly over a hundred pounds all together.

And then she screamed my name. Surrounded by the noise suppressing darkness, her voice pierced through the enforced quiet. "Paula!" She began to fight again ferociously in a way I never believed I could see her fight, but it was useless. The darkness surrounded the both of us and pulled us in different directions. Before I even had a chance to call back I was in the van being pulled to the cold steel floor and held there as we set off.

My lashes have become heavily saturated with tears, and as I blink the wetness spreads to the smaller lashes under my eyes. It's hard to know what to do right now since I'm still unsure of what exactly happened. I don't know where Mom is or what these people are going to do to me.

There's a metal click at the door, then it swings open and I hop up into a sitting position on the bed. Another special enforcer dressed all in black stands there. By the harsh white light of the bare bulb, I can clearly see that this blob is in the form of a woman. She doesn't hold a gun, but I notice a holster at her waist.

"Come. Bring your clothes."

I stand up quickly and grab my duffel bag. She doesn't wait for me. Before I've even lifted my bag, she's out the door and I race after her. The woman is tall, her strides long, and I have to struggle to keep up as I drag my now heavy feet down various gray hallways. They all look exactly the same to me which only adds to my unease. In each hall, I try to count the numbers of heavy metal doors we pass, aware that they may hold others, maybe even my mom.

The last turn takes us to a different kind of door. This one is a heavy wooden door. We step through into a smaller room where the walls are covered in a deep red fabric from the ceiling to the floor. They drape over the wall like curtains and I almost reach out just to feel it, surprised at the richness of the soft looking fabric.

"Don't touch that," says the guard as she reaches a hand out to grab me and pull me even closer to her side. I bump into her, surprised at how solid her body is.

We step through another door and end up in a Judgment room. I freeze just as we step through, and she stops with her hands behind her back as if waiting to be called. Right away I notice the small group standing in front of the judge's place. They speak in mostly in quiet voices though some of their words snap in anger.

Everything in the room is bigger than it looks on TV. The statues in the corner of the room reach to the ceiling which is just a tiny bit higher than the ceiling of the halls we walked through. Over each door there is a large and ornate covering made of wood supported by large columns of marble. The room is filled with heavy wooden benches, each perfectly polished so that they shine warmly though they don't look very inviting for actual sitting.

In front of us is the large bench for the judge. It's at least seven feet in the air. Four men stand in front of it talking, the oldest looking one standing nearly as tall as the judge's seat. I stare at him, watching the way he glares at the smaller man in front of him, waving his large hands with the sleeves rolled up and exposing his massive forearms. His hair hangs sloppily in a face etched with lines from a hard lived life. He clutches his hands as if he means to attack, but the smaller man facing him has a black suited special ops person with him who stands behind him holding a gun like the ones that had invaded my room in the night. And then I notice the others around the room. All dressed the same and holding their guns pointing towards the ceiling though I can see their hands on the triggers ready to aim quickly.

What is going on? I bite my lip and hold my duffel tightly, terrified suddenly of becoming a target. Then I hear the smaller man in front clearing his throat and I'm pushed from behind by the large-bodied woman and nearly trip over my feet.

The older man looks to me, his angry brows rising slightly at the sight of me. Behind him stands a younger man who I hadn't had a chance to really look over. His cool gray eyes are already on me and probably have been on me for a while.

From behind, my shirt is grabbed, twisted into a ball in her hands and shoved forward towards the strange men standing there. Neither of them moves towards me. I stumble but manage to stop myself and stare at the pair of them.

"I'm sure you must recognize her." The man's voice oozes from over my shoulder. "A gift from us to you. A memento to remember your spy."

The older man's eyes narrow as he looks at me, unfamiliarity clear on his face. "No, I don't."

I glance from him to the man behind him. His face seems to harden, his brows coming down again while the man behind him maintains his cool gaze. I turn a bit to look over my shoulder. The smaller man looks up at the larger man in front of me with a small, cruel smile.

"The DNA is a match for you. I don't know how Cheryl hid her from us for so long, but it will be added to her list of crimes against the state."

It takes effort to swallow as I hear his words but don't fully understand them. Crimes against the state? My mother? But she's a politician. She's done nothing but work for the state. And a DNA match with this man? What does that even mean? But I can't even ask. My mouth is stuck together.

"Take her with you. And just remember it's only a matter of time before we find the rest of them."

I hold my mouth closed, a headache starting just over my brows that blurs my vision. Both of the men look at me, but it's the face of the older one I search. The one behind him shows nothing. It's in the face of the older one I can see something. The way his mouth pulls down and his brows press together making a crease between them.

I turn towards the smaller man one last time and catch his eye. His gaze shifts from a small smile to a dark glare directed at me. "Go," he says in a low even tone directed right at me. "You're banished."

My knuckles strain as I grip the duffel bag hard, frozen in place by his cruel eyes but scared to turn back to the two men they want to take me away from here. There's only one place we can be going if I'm banished and these men are taking me away-- The Wildlands.

The woman in black steps forward with her hand on her holster. I can't see her eyes, but it's enough of a movement. I take a step back and feel a large warm hand on my arm that tugs me softly, yet still a bit roughly, making me turn. Our eyes don't meet. I can't look up at either of them again now that I know what they are.

We walk out together with a small crowd of the special ops following us to the fence that leads to the buffer zone. None of us say a word, though I do catch a glimpse of the older man's mouth, set hard in a line of disapproval. The younger man glances around as if he were taking in details about black suits around us. When I almost catch his eye again, I look ahead quickly.

The fence goes high up into the air. At the top are strands of barbed wire. Two guards stand at the entrance dressed in regular military uniforms. They watch us come up cautiously, each holding a large gun. On the other side of the fence, the ground is covered in brown plants and wild bushes. The grass is waist high for me except for a worn path which we follow with the guards next to us.

I walk between the two men while trying not to accidentally brush against them with my hand. The walk is uncomfortably quiet. No one says a word. I keep trying to glance up, but catching sight of either the gray eyes of the younger guy or the forearms of the older guy makes me nervous. My body is completely on autopilot, my brain blank, as I take steps further and further away from home and from my mother.

A hasty breath burns down my throat to my lungs. I suck on my lower lip, squeezing it tightly between my teeth. It's like when you lose someone and your brain refuses to accept it, but you know it's real. This isn't a dream; it's actually happening. But I can't help feeling like someone will say, "Just kidding," at the end of this walk and let me go back. I'm not a part of this. I don't even know these men.

There's a second gate, a larger wider one that is sterner than the simple wire one we first walked through. This one is supported by cinder blocks and tall towers where more uniforms stand with thin rifles. It's when I see the second fence that I worry I'm going to be sick. Automatically, my hand jumps to my mouth and it presses my lips against my teeth like I can stop that feeling.

On the other side of the fence lays The Wildlands. My first glimpse is sparse green hills that go off into the distance. There's a small road before us, and on that road there's an old car with rust strains all over its basic white paint.

"Go. Don't come back," the guard in the lead says. I can almost hear her smile.

My feet freeze. I'm stuck in my place watching the two men walk carefully over to the car with their eyes on the tower. The guard behind me gives me a shove towards them.

"You too."

The older man stops and looks back at us as the younger man walks around to the other side of the car. First he glares at the guard behind me, then his eyes fall on me. "C'mon," he says with that same expression he's worn since the judgment room.

I don't move. My body won't listen, every muscle is frozen. Behind me is my home, the last I'll ever see of it, and in front of me is the one place I never thought I'd go.

The younger man is already on the far side of the car when he pauses to take in the scene and then scowls. My body, still frozen, flinches when he starts towards me, but the only thing I can do is squeeze my eyes shut until he's on me. He wraps one hand around my upper arm, the other one ripping the duffel from my hands, and pulls me to the car,

I want to pull away. I don't want his hands on me. But he holds me securely, in a way that would be difficult to break. Fighting him would only annoy him more.

He tosses my bag into the back seat, then pushes me towards the car. I throw my hands up to stop my body from hitting the side, and then I hop in, scooting across the back seat before he grabs me to try his toss again.

I grab my duffel bag and hold onto it tightly.

The younger man doesn't look abashed under the glare of the older one. He only shrugs, then walks around the car to have a seat in front of me. The older man gets in, and starts the car without a word. As the car rolls down the broken road and into the Wildlands, my heart beats so hard in my chest that I can feel it hitting against the fabric of the duffel. My eyes sting, but I wipe them on the rough material, hoping that no one is looking at me and seeing my weakness and my fear.

The younger man's voice cuts through the awkward quiet in the car sharply. "Well that went all to hell." He scoots back in his seat and stretches so that the back of the chair bends towards me. "What're we going to do with her? A Neutral girl has no place in the Wildlands."

The older man gives a sigh. He rubs at his face with one hand as the other sticks to the steering wheel to guide us safely past the large holes in the pavement.

The younger one gives a sigh of his own, slightly harsher. Under his breath, I think he says, "I'd know what to do with her."

My duffel sits on my lap, thankfully obscuring my view of the younger one directly in front of me. The glare from the older one that I catch from the corner of my eye is enough to make my stomach curl into a ball that painfully pulls at whatever is connecting it to my heart and the rest of my body.

The older one doesn't say anything. His look is meant to be more than enough of a warning, and, for a moment, it almost seems as if it will work. The younger one is quiet, looking out the window. Then he adds, "You always were a little bit soft."

My hands against the fabric of the bag become sweaty, and it's an effort to hold them together. I sit up a little bit more, drawing my knees closer to my seat. The older man seems to completely ignore the dig at him and a thinly veiled threat to me like it was nothing.

"They knew we were coming." The older man carries on with the conversation, his voice deep in the small space of the car.

The younger one rests his arm on the open window. I can see it around my duffel bag. There is a side mirror that reflects back to me his eyes squinting as he looks off into the distance.

"They got to someone," he says. "Or they had someone planted."

Air flows back to me from his open window, shoving my hair around. I'm thankful for the fresh air. It dries my eyes and gives me something else to focus on other than their voices quietly conspiring. Out the window I can see nothing but hills in the distance. From everything I learned about The Wildlands in school, this isn't what I had expected.

A tingle along the nape of my neck draws my attention back to the car. Things are quiet again, but in the side mirror there are a pair of clear gray eyes watching me that don't turn away when I notice them. He looks slightly annoyed, brows drawn and eyes hardened as if he's expecting that this won't go well.

"So are you going to tell us your name?" He says without turning back.

"Paula." It's been hours since I last spoke. My throat is dry, and so the word comes out as little more than a constricted croak.

"What?" He says, this time turning towards the open window so that his ear faces me.

"Paula."

"Ah." He turns to the other man and repeats it to him for me in a quiet voice. They don't say anything after that though. They don't even offer me their names in trade, and I find I can't ask them.

Gray Eyes looks at me again in the side mirror. When I catch his eyes, he says, "You might as well sleep. We've got a while before we get there."

I don't really think I can, but I nod and lay my head on the bag as best I can and close my eyes so I at least look like I'm trying. But it doesn't take long before my eyes open again of their own accord. I don't even realize it at first. I just sit there watching the hills in the distance as we drive, the three of us quiet in the car.