Wilder Girls(17)

They’re all watching me, waiting for something, only I don’t know what. “Is it always like this?” Maybe this is the first time, maybe they’re as surprised as I am, but Welch nods calmly. “I don’t understand. Where does it all go? Why doesn’t it come back to the house?”

Welch steps toward me, her body between me and the food. Julia and Carson slot in alongside her, their faces solemn save the anxious frown blooming on Carson’s brow.

   “Listen to me very carefully,” Welch says. “I picked you for a reason. This job is about protecting those girls back at home. Even when it’s hard. Even when it doesn’t look the way you expect it to.”

I shake my head, take a step back. This isn’t right. I can’t make sense of it. “What are you talking about?”

“Some of the food is off,” Welch explains. “They send a lot, but maybe only half of it’s unspoiled. All sorts of bad things in there. Expired products. Pesticides.”

“Pesticides?” I say, incredulous, but Julia and Carson are nodding, grim expressions to match Welch’s. “We’re starving because of pesticides?”

“Your systems are so compromised already. I’m not sure you can afford to take risks with what you eat.”

“So instead, we eat barely anything at all?”

“Yes,” says Welch. Her voice even, her gaze considering and cool. “I told you, Hetty: I picked you because I thought you could handle it. Admittedly, sometimes I’m wrong about people. And if that’s the case, we can take care of that just fine.” She moves slightly, and I watch as her hand rests on the butt of her revolver where it’s tucked in the waistband of her jeans.

I can picture it. One shot right between my eyes, and Welch watching as my body collapses into the sea. Easy enough to explain a missing Boat Shift girl to everybody at school.

“But I hate to be wrong,” Welch goes on. “And I don’t think I am. I think you can handle this, Hetty. Am I right?”

   At first I can’t answer. We’ve all fought one another for the smallest scrap of food, and the whole time there was so much more. What makes Welch think she has a right to keep this from us?

But it’s my life on the line if I pick this fight. Welch will have no problem killing me. She won’t lose a second of sleep. After a year and a half of the Tox, we’ve all learned to do what we have to. And honestly, I can’t pretend it doesn’t mean something that they picked me. Me and not Reese.

“Well, Hetty?”

Whatever’s wrong here—and something is, I’m sure of that—it’s nothing I can fix right now. I stand up straighter, look Welch in the eye. I can’t lie like Byatt, but I can try. “Yeah,” I say, “you’re right.”

Welch clasps my shoulder, her smile wide and genuine. “I knew we made a good choice.”

“Well done,” Julia says, and Carson darts in to smack a chapped kiss on my cheek. I jerk back in surprise—Carson is freezing to the touch, her lips even colder than the air around us.

“Good to have you,” she says. Both of them with relief tingeing their smiles, as if they were prepared to go home without me.

And of course they were.

Welch slings her arm around me. “Obviously, we don’t tell the girls,” she says, ushering me toward the cartons, “but just so you know, we also try to keep this off Headmistress’s plate.”

   “Off her plate?” I can’t keep from sounding surprised. As strange as all this is, it’s stranger still that Welch and Headmistress could hide anything from each other.

“She’s got a lot going on. No need to bother her with specifics about food delivery.” Welch smiles. “Simpler just to handle it ourselves. You know how she likes to micromanage.”

“Sure,” I say. It seems like the right answer, and she’s made it perfectly clear what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep this secret.

“Great.” She lets go of me. “We’ll get started. It’s a lot to take in, so how about you just watch this time? You’ll pick it up as we go along.”

Carson starts passing the bags to Julia, who loosens the ties and lets the contents spill out onto the ground.

Vegetables, fruit, even a pack of bacon. Everything packed up like it’s straight from the grocery store. Except when I look closer, some boxes have been opened, some bags slit and resealed using tape stamped with the Camp Nash crest. A compass and a globe, and a banner with text too small to read.

My stomach growls as Welch picks up a bag of carrots and holds it up to her nose.

“No good,” she says, and throws it over the edge into the ocean. I have to stop myself from diving after it.

The bacon goes next, and then a bag of grapes, and then a bushel of bell peppers, until two bags are empty and the waves around the pier are full of food.

   “Here we go,” Welch says. She’s at the third bag now, and inside are cases of water, the labels on the bottles fresh and blazing with the same brand name as always. That’s all we drink now—the school used to run on well water, but after the Tox, the Navy told us to stop, said it might be contaminated.

Carson starts counting the cases of water. Next to her, Julia is sorting out the matches and the soap into piles. I can see the shampoo bottles peeking out of her bag, all pearly and pale and completely unnecessary.