Three (Article 5 #3)(28)

“He’s taller than I thought,” said Rebecca.

My attention snapped back into focus. “Who?”

She snorted. “Chase, of course.”

I nodded. He was tall. Taller than most men by several inches, with the exception of Jesse, though thinner than before. Now that I thought of it, I’d always seen him split everything evenly, even though he should have needed more.

“Sean told me how he came for you at the reformatory,” she said. “And how he turned himself in to the FBR to find you when you got caught.”

“Sean’s not so different,” I said.

“No,” she acknowledged. “He’s not.”

“How could you leave him?” I asked, suddenly angry. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. I saw you on that bridge. You knew he wouldn’t be able to follow you.”

I tried to turn away from her, but my legs were trapped between the table’s bars.

“I knew,” she said. “I knew after the first step he couldn’t follow.”

“Then why?” I demanded. “You could have been hurt!”

“I already am hurt.”

She leaned against me, head on my shoulder, and tentatively, I rested mine atop hers. Her hair was matted with sweat and smelled a little, but she was alive and I was grateful for that.

“You’re going to get better.”

“You sound so sure,” she said with a sad smile.

I opened my mouth to object, but she continued. “Do you know how hard it is to look at someone and know they blame themselves for what happened to you?”

She looked up then, meeting my eyes, and I did. I knew exactly, because it was my fault she was hurt, my fault she was out here. I turned my head and my gaze came to rest on Chase’s back, bowed down by the weight of the burdens he carried.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said.

She squeezed my arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

*

WE ate a meal like I’d never eaten before—not even when I was home, and my mother had a job before the War had started. A man named Panda with buzzed hair and a list of names tattooed on his forearms served us goat meat and sweet potatoes and leafy green kale and carrots. There were chunks of nutty, coarse bread we dipped in honey, and oranges from the orchard and as much fresh water as we could drink.

I ate myself sick; I wasted nothing. And when my plate was clean a lanky boy with skin so tan it was nearly the color of red clay asked me if I wanted more and I said yes because the memory of hunger was just as sharp as the real thing.

When I was able to lift my eyes off my plate I spotted Jesse across the table. He’d barely touched his food. The boy with the tan skin made his way toward him, and as I watched he tripped, then caught himself. He hadn’t spilled anything, but he turned around just the same and sped back to the kitchen, embarrassed.

I tracked him, wishing DeWitt would resurface from wherever he’d hidden. Now that I’d eaten, I wanted to know how he’d recognized Chase, and what he’d meant when he said we needed protection more than ever.

I rose when Chase appeared behind me.

“Sean’s convinced they’re poisoning us to use our bodies as hog’s feed,” he said. “But that didn’t stop him from licking his plate clean.” He rubbed a hand absently down his throat.

“I thought Three was supposed to be, I don’t know, scary,” I whispered. “They look like farmers, not fighters.”

“Who said we can’t be both?”

The voice behind me made me jump. Even Chase looked surprised; the noise from the kitchen had distracted him. Behind me, Dr. DeWitt smiled, his blue eyes bright with amusement.

“So you are Three,” Chase said.

A little girl that had joined us from Jesse’s group tugged on DeWitt’s tunic. One of the women who’d been tending to her stood back a few steps, and encouraged her to ask him a question.

“Can I go play?” she asked without looking up.

For a moment he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he squatted before her and brushed the hair from her face.

“I hear your name’s Justine, is that right?”

I took a good look at her now, brunette, with pretty round eyes. I realized I hadn’t taken the time to learn the children’s names. Or any of the survivors’ names, for that matter. Better not to get too close. But maybe here things could be different.

The girl nodded, wiping the crumbs off her dirty sweater.

“Pretty name,” said DeWitt. “I’ll tell you what. You’ve got ten minutes to have as much fun as you can. Then you have to wash up and go to bed.”

“But…”

“Nine minutes and fifty seconds,” he said. She pouted for another two seconds, then raced out the door, two other children on her heels.

“Will can show you to your sleeping quarters,” DeWitt told the group, motioning to the boy who’d tripped while serving dinner. “The council has decided a formal introduction to the camp can wait until tomorrow.”

The thought of being paraded around made me nervous. We didn’t even know how many people lived in Endurance.

“Did you talk to them about our people?” Chase asked. Across the table, Jesse flicked back his greasy hair.

“One step at a time,” said DeWitt.