Fire Country

My stomach is roiling, full of acid and fear.

Luger calls another name, one of the shilty girls. She somehow manages to stand in her skin-tight dress. She pouts her lips at the men, drawing smiles from more’n a few of them. Where’s she get that kinda nerve? I wish she’d give me a bit of it.

“Marrick!” Luger shouts. More cheers. A happy, smiling guy stands. His lucky night. The shilt hikes her already short dress up even more so she can strut her way over to him. They walk away holding hands and just ’fore they slink behind the cover of the village, I see her grab his backside. Classy.

Things speed up after the first few as Luger and everyone else involved get into a rhythm. Grunt gets a pretty doe-eyed girl who looks like she might throw up. I watch Veeva’s expression, which darkens, as if she may go on a murderous rampage. Things are ’bout to get even more interesting in their already interesting tenthold.

I look ’round. The blanket’s already half empty. I’ll be Called any second.

Another girl. Another guy. Another happy, baby-making couple.

Luger pauses, looks right at me, eyes narrowed. Smiles. “Siena!” he shouts with greater fervor’n for any of the previous girls.

I shiver when an unexpectedly cold wind gusts through my dress. I feel a raindrop on my face. Then another. Rain or shine, the Call must go on. After sitting cross-legged for so long, my legs are cramped up and I struggle to pull them out from under me. When I do, they’re all tingly. In fact, my whole body’s tingly, almost like I’m not in it anymore and I’m watching everything unfold from outside of myself. If only it was that easy. If I could separate myself from my body, let it do what it hasta do without me really being there, perhaps I could get through this.

“Siena!” Luger cries again, drawing a laugh from the crowd. I’m taking longer’n the other girls to stand.

I push to my feet, feeling wobbly and like I might faint, my head hot, my palms sweaty, my body cold and shivery. The rain is misting down now, coating my skin with a thin layer of moisture. My dress is quickly becoming saturated, clinging to me like the tight dresses the shilts are wearing. I wait, feeling eyes burning my skin from every direction. But one direction is the hottest and I turn that way. My father’s eyes are looking right through me, wide and dark and ready. Ready for his daughter to be taken away by a strange man. Not his problem anymore. The best day of his life. ’Sides when I lost Circ, the worst day of mine.

The whole village waits for the name.

“Bart,” Luger shouts.

I clench my eyes shut, as tight as my fists at my side.

No, no, no!

I’m dreaming, ain’t I?—this ain’t happening. I’m back in Call Class, daydreaming, and at any moment a question from Teacher’ll snap me out of it. Or, no, I got it, I’m at my Call, but I’m daydreaming there. My name hasn’t been called, not yet, but I’m dreaming up the craziest, worst-possible Calls I could possibly get, freaking myself out.

I open my eyes, blink, watch huge, muscled Bart stand, his scarred and gnarled face curled into the most vicious grin I’ve ever laid eyes on. Shirtless, he’s huge, easily three of me. The memory of him in his cage in Confinement shudders through my mind:

“Please, nice Greynote, sir, can I share a cage with her?” He licks his lips.

I look away and we keep going. Luger doesn’t say a word.

Behind us, Bart hollers, “Just as well. I’d probably crush her under me anyway.” He laughs, a gritty, throaty sound that reminds me of the growl of the Killers that got me here in the first place.

My body starts shaking. I clench my miniscule muscles, try to stop it, but I’ve lost control. I hear laughter from some of the girls behind me. Crush her…

Just a dream.

Bart!

Just a dream.

The rain on my face, so wet and soft and real. No dream. This is real. All of it. This is my new life.

I realize Bart’s walking to where we’re meant to meet and I’m still standing there, glued to the blanket. Wind lashing my face. Rain drenching me from head to toe. Considering my options.

Run? How can I run when an entire village is watching me? How far’ll I get? Five feet? Ten? No chance. I can go with Bart, try to fight him off in his tent, knee him where the sun goddess’s eye don’t shine, make a break for it. The chances of that working: near zero. I’m a piece of kindling and he’s an entire tree. And fighting’ll just make things worse, make him more likely to hurt me.

It’s the last thing I want to do, but I’m out of options. I gotta go with him, lay with him, bide my time until I can get away.

I’m still shaking, but I manage to put one foot in front of t’other, start toward him, my eyes on the muddying ground. His hand comes into view, extended, waiting expectantly. “Come, my prize,” he growls. I take his hand and he yanks me forward, almost pulling my shoulder out of its socket. But I don’t cry out—don’t want to give him the satisfaction—just grit my teeth.

When we enter the tent sector, he slides his hand up to my arm, squeezes hard, like my father likes to do. It hurts like scorch but I stay silent. He stops, looms over me, leans his face close, so close I can smell the rancid stench of whatever he ate for di

I say nothing.

The back of his hand flashes so quickly I don’t have any hope of protecting myself. It lashes the side of my wet cheek with a stinging pain that reminds me of being caught in the sandstorm. Realization comes with more impact’n if the sun crashed into the moon: he’ll hurt me no matter what I do. Might even kill me without even trying to. He’s three times my size and I manage to break my own bones without much help, just by tripping. Not only is this the worst day of my life, it might also be my last.

The wind goes silent, as if even it ca

I decide quickly. I’m seared if I’ll let it happen. Burn him. Burn the Greynotes. Burn the Call. I’ll go down fighting; for Circ, for my sister, for Lara, wherever she is, for my mother, for myself. Scrawny? Not anymore.

Today I die Strong.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bart’s tent’s a mess. Empty fire juice skins lay discarded on the floor. The bitter odor of stale fireweed covers everything like a permanent haze. Durty clothes are strewn ’bout in a way that’d make my mother cringe.

I nearly jump out of my skin when I sense movement to the right. Someone else is here.

Goola. His other Call, a shilty girl who he’s always parading ’round like a trophy. When he’s not in Confinement, that is. She slinks over.

“Ooh, what have you brought home, Bartie? A new play toy?”

Bart shoves me toward the bed and I stumble on the debris under my feet. I barely manage to keep my balance. “Not tonight, Goo,” he says. “Tonight is my time. Get out.”

Goola struts over to him, unloosing the top of her dress as she walks. Just ’fore she reaches him it falls away, dropping to her feet like a fallen cloud. She’s got nothing on underneath.

I gawk at her as she stands there naked, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Whereas I’m all skin and bones, she’s full figured with magnificent hips and breasts so full they’d make even Veeva jealous. She puts a hand to Bart’s cheek, strokes it, rises up on her tiptoes, kisses him full on the lips, twisting and turning her head wildly. I see flashes of her pink tongue as she rolls it along his lips, slides it into his mouth. I might just get lucky. If Bartie and his trophy Call, Goola, get all tangled up, I might just be able to sneak out of here. I take a step toward the door, my eyes never leaving the lip-locked pair.