Sign Here(61)

She liked the newest recruits the most. The ones who sat through their first days of training in horror, as colorless as if it were their blood that splattered their hand-me-down combat boots. Earlier that week, Jonah had been one of those new recruits. But now he sat in the Seat of Honor, perched highest among them—higher, even, than the General himself—and drank sloppily, smugly, from a cup so full, it sloshed when he cheered.

The General stopped pacing and looked at his army, small and knotted in body but blazing hot in the eyes. He treated all of them the same, never picking favorites or mourning any with particular fervor. But Cal could tell from the way he looked at them that their pain, their death, was not at his whim or pleasure. He felt the loss of each one.

“So, let’s prepare ourselves for the fight that awaits us beyond this one, in the belly of Hell. Which is where you all will go—and must go—if not for your sins prior to your arrival here, then for the sins you will commit by the time you leave, to ensure your entry. What is the most important duty when you wake up on the other side?”

Her hand shot up, but her father called on Joseph.

“Don’t drink the water.”

When he found Joseph, the boy had been sucking men off for bus fare along Route 65, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the group home where he had grown up, having never been truly raised. He went to the barracks willingly, more or less, and he beamed the brightest when the General spoke of him as “chosen.”

“Why is that, Joseph?”

Cal threw her hand up again, even though she knew he wouldn’t pick her. He could at least know, seeing her from the corner of his eye, that she had the answer.

“The river—”

The General opened his mouth, but Joseph self-corrected. “Lethe,” he said, stumbling just to get the word out. “The water from the river Lethe makes everyone in Hell forget where they came from, who they are. Everything.”

“And one more time, men, together now: When you arrive on the battlefield below, what will you remember the most so you can remember the rest?” the General asked, booming.

Cal joined in with her full voice.

“Don’t drink the water!”

Jonah raised his cup, delighting in the right to slosh. The Seat of Honor and the full glasses that came with it always seemed to make her brothers only more wasteful, simply because they could be. But the next day, he would be one of them again.

Cal never sat in the Seat of Honor, never got a full cup, a break from the dehydration training. Not even when she won, which she did with more and more frequency. In the barracks, she was a pariah, denied all but a single privilege.

She was the only one the General wouldn’t allow to die.



When I’d finally put Cal’s file down, I went to the kitchen sink and turned both knobs all the way, until water spilled lazily from the faucet over my fingers. How many times in how many millennia had I put my lips to this very faucet, or the plastic mouth of a bottle, driven by heat or hangover or the ancient body memory of thirst? How much of myself, exactly, did I lose per sip?

On the Second Floor, the one kindness we ever showed the people on the belt was during break, the whistle blowing sporadically and infrequently and welcomed by all. It was then that we would hold the bases of their skulls in our palms—not just the bone but the whole thing, skin and hair and everything intact—and pour slowly into their mouths cold, clean water.

Our only relief was also our erasure. It was brilliant and cruel and completely on brand.

But with the way time moves here, or the lack thereof, maybe the General was wrong. Maybe it isn’t a trick, a method of war.

Maybe the water is Hell’s clumsy attempt at mercy.

But what then, if rejected? If a person on the belt refused water, what would our creative supervisors on the Third Floor come up with in retaliation? How would we twist their rebellion into our weapon, for as long as it took?

You know the answer as well as I do. As well as Cal and her blistered skin.

We would make them burn.





SILAS





SILAS HAD JUST DECIDED to give up his search when he heard his son’s voice.

“I don’t know what your deal is, but Mickey isn’t like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. I’m glad you guys are friends or whatever; it seems to make her happy. But she’s not a Barbie you can play with until you get bored.”

Sean pushed off the wall, freeing a gap through which Silas could see the shoulders of both of them outlined by blinding sun.

Ruth pulled herself upright.

“I can’t believe you think that.”

It was the quietest sentence Silas had heard her say all summer.

“Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole. You’re—you’re cool, you know? It’s just . . . she’s my little sister. And I don’t want her doing things because you said she should.”

Silas felt proud of his son. He had been acting like he didn’t care about any of them for so long, Silas had begun to believe he really didn’t.

“I can’t believe that’s who you think I am,” Ruth said. “I thought we were all getting along, you know? I thought I was connecting with you, teasing-like. But if you just think I’m some kind of bad-influence whore—”