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Nats nods solemnly in agreement.
“That seems extreme.” I tell him. “Can’t you tell him she doesn’t want to come back?”
“No. She belongs to the gang. Time, effort and resources have gone into her.”
“What? Like food and water? She owes her life for that?”
“Food, water, shelter, soap, clothing and medicine. The women in the stables are the healthiest people in The Hive and these days that doesn’t come cheap.”
“If you’re so high ranking how are you okay with losing her?”
“Because I’m the one who would have to deal with her if we took her back. It’s fine for the King to want to keep all of his women at any cost, but the reality falls on me. I’d have to work with a woman who’s been to the other side and loved it. Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be to get her working again after she’s lived like this?”
I look at Nats. “But you’re okay with it? You’ll go back?”
She grins. “I don’t like cages any more than you do. But Brea
“But aren’t you owned by The Hive? Isn’t that a cage?”
“Nats has paid her debts in full and she keeps it that way.” Vin tells me. “She can walk at any time. She’s free.”
“And you choose to stay?”
“Where else would I go?” she asks softly, yawning. “Alright, kids, I’m going to work. Find a way to get us out of here, would you?”
“You got it, Nats.”
“Later.” I call, watching her walk away.
“You’re already healthy.” Vin says, watching me with a sly smile. “You’d be out of debt and free in no time.”
I groan. “Give it a rest. What are we go
“You need to keep sewing or join the laundry crew.” he says, turning serious. “We need more clothes than they’ll ever give us at one time. It doesn’t have to be sweaters and jackets, but we need layers at least.”
I glance at the balled up material of my almost child’s shirt and shake my head. “I think I’d better switch to laundry.”
“I think you should stay where you are.”
“Why?”
“Because of the girl.”
“I don’t know what her deal is, though. I seem to know more than she does and that’s assuming she’s not a spy. What if she’s working for Caroline and her crew? What if everything she says and does is a test?”
“Then you better not fail.”
I glower at him. “That’s not helpful at all. What does that even mean?”
“Look, you’re smart, Kitten.” he says, scratching his head lazily. “You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.”
“Alright, fine, I’ll make friends with her.”
“Good. You need to start playing in all their reindeer games or you’re going to end up an outcast. That looks more suspicious than anything.”
I scowl at him. “Are you quoting Christmas songs at me?”
“It’s that time of year.” he says with a smile.
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
He chuckles. “Not a fan of Christmas?”
“No. I hate it.”
“What if I promise to get you something pretty this year? Something shiny? Will that get you in the holiday spirit?”
“Just don’t get me a Cabbage Patch doll and we’re all good.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Fourteen
The next day I take one for the team; I tell Melissa I’ve found my calling in the sewing room. She’s genuinely excited, smiling at me like I just told her I found Jesus when what I’ve actually committed to is learning to make socks. Have you ever made a sock? From scratch? Don’t, it sucks. But it guarantees me time with my future best friend, Lexy, so I do it.
“You have to pull the thread through tightly but not so tightly that it snaps or bunches the material.” Lexy drones.
“We think a Pod was overrun with Risen because the population exploded over night.” I tell her quietly, touching the sock as though I’m examining it. As though I give a crap about it. “One day there was barely a zombie in sight, the next it was like the old days. A fallen Pod is the only thing that makes sense.”
I listen to the sound of her breathing evenly but I watch as her hands stumble with her work. “It could have been one of your gangs.”
“Not possible. There’s only one gang in the area big enough and it’s still intact. Also, there were children.”
“You don’t have children on the outside?”
“Some of the gangs do, the ones who keep women, but not this many. Why aren’t there children here?”
“This Pod was abandoned for a while. We just reclaimed it. They selected groups of us from other Pods to come and build this new one up again. It was a lot of hard work with long hours and tough labor. And there are so many Risen here. It’s too dangerous for children.”
“Why was it abandoned?”
“They said there was a plumbing problem.”
I stare at her in amazement. “A plumbing problem.”
“Yeah.”
“And you believed that?”
Lexy looks at me, her face offended. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s dumb. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Thanks a lot.” she grumbles, playing with her sock.
“Look, just think about that. They cleared out this entire place over a plumbing issue? Who even has plumbing to have an issue with anymore? It’s ridiculous.”
“If this entire place was flooding with sewage, you would stay?” she asks sharply. “With children and everything. You would tell everyone to stick it out?”
“Not the children, no, but someone would have stayed with the animals and the farming and greenhouse. All of that is way too precious to bail on over a little bit of shit.”
“I don’t think it was just a little bit.”
“Whatever, it’s too much to lose.” I insist. “The whole place couldn’t have been abandoned over that.”
“Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe some people stuck around to keep it functioning while it was cleaned up. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Can we make this sock now?”
I look at the directions and shake my head. “You probably can, but I can’t. Wait, so if you’re all from different Pods how do you not know how many there are? Can’t you get together and say ‘Hi, my name is Lexy and I’ve been held prisoner in Safeco.’ Then somebody else does the same and eventually you find out how many there are. Easy.”
She looks up at me, her eyes a
“Some of us have talked.” she whispers. “We’ve tried to get an idea of how many there are but it’s tough. They name the Pods with numbers and letters, nothing sequential.”
“What’s this one?”
“Pod A-63. I came from Pod C-92 which is the football stadium, some others are from G-11, Safeco, and G-35 is farther south on the eastern shore. So far we’ve counted groups from 4 different Pods but the names are all over the place. They can’t be sequential because even if each letter stopped at 100 Pods, that would mean there are at least 700 of them out there each with over 200 people inside almost every one.”
I frown. “There aren’t 200 people here.”
“186.” Lexy says without hesitation. “I’ve counted. Think of the rotations. We’re never all in the same place at the same time so of course it doesn’t feel like that many.”
“If there were that many Pods with 200 people each, you’d be looking at a population of 140,000 people in this area. That’s impossible.”
She shakes her head firmly. “I don’t think there are that many. I think they label them like that to throw us off. If they called them Pods 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then we’d all know how many there were or at least have an idea. This way, we have no clue. Maybe there are only 4. Maybe there are 15. We can’t know.”
“Shady. But what does any of this have to do with me? You wanted information from the outside world but what exactly are you looking for?”
Her eyes dart around the room and I imagine she’s taking in every face before speaking. She’s quick, I’ll give her that. It keeps me wondering if I should even be talking to her.