She didn’t respond as she retrieved a glass and filled it with water. Her eyes flitted over me before focusing on Gage. She wasn’t overly fond of any of us, but there was no doubt I was the one she cared for the least.
“Make sure you take your brother’s diapers with you,” she told Gage.
Like we ever forget.I held back the words. I was a guest within these walls, an interloper, and there were more than a few times when I’d been kicked out on the street. I’d spent those times with Lisa’s parents, but after a week or two, I was asked back as Gage would refuse to cook for her or do anything around the house. Unlike me, he didn’t care if she ate or not. Possible starvation, and the fact she didn’t like taking care of her children, had always allowed me back into the house.
I couldn’t risk being thrown out again. She may be a small, frail woman with stooped shoulders and bones that stuck out, but she could cause a lot of damage to my brothers without me here to take the brunt of her vile words.
Over the years, my hair had been pulled, and I’d been slapped in the face more times than I could count. I’d been beaten so badly I couldn’t sit for a week, and once kicked in the stomach, but her main weapon was her mouth, and she wielded it like a pro. I had more practice at fending her off than my brothers did and I tried to keep them from the worst of her degradation.
“We won’t forget the diapers,” Gage promised.
She opened the cooler and snickered at the fish inside. “Striper again.”
“I’ll grill them,” Gage said, his eyes flickering to me as he tried to placate her antagonism toward me. “Something different tonight.”
My mother’s eyes landed briefly on me. Her upper lip curled as she looked me up and down. Turning his head away, Bailey rested his cheek against mine. “You’re such a waste,” she sneered. “Evil. The spawn of Satan.”
I’d heard it before; I was sure I’d hear it many more times before I was able to break free of this woman. Something I hoped to be able to do one day, but though she despised me, she was my mother, and I couldn’t abandon her here to die, even if I could somehow walk out the door with Gage and Bailey. She may not love them, but she would fight me for them and possibly have me thrown in jail if I tried to take them. While my brothers were here, so was I.
“Garbage, just like your father,” she spat.
I kept my mouth closed while she shuffled back out the door. My shoulders sagged and I inhaled an unsteady breath. I hated that she still rattled me, that I hadn’t better hardened myself against her. Maybe one day.
“I’ll gather Bailey’s clothes after I take a shower,” I said to Gage.
His troubled eyes met mine before he gave a brief bow of his head. I handed him Bailey and slipped from the room.
CHAPTER 4
River
The center of town was abuzz with the excitement of the day. There was little for anyone to be excited about these days, but the yearly Volunteer Day was one of those things. Mingling with the people of the town were some of the soldiers who guarded the bridge and helped to maintain order in the town. The police force had been absorbed into the Guard branch of the military that some people joined when they were eighteen. Most of those who joined the Guard remained in their towns and with their families, unlike the volunteers.
I spotted Asante amid the bustling crowd. He stood with a group of Guards who watched the crowd with blank expressions. Asante had grown up in a house down the road from us and had enlisted six years ago, the day he’d turned eighteen. He’d done his grueling, three-month training at the nearby military base that had been reopened after the war. Many who enlisted didn’t get through the training, but he had flown through it with flying colors and returned to living in the neighborhood when it was over.
Making my way through the crowd, I stopped before him.
“Santa,” Bailey, unable to pronounce Asante’s name, greeted.
Asante smiled down at him, his sable brown eyes twinkling with amusement. Beads of sweat dotted the top of his freshly shaven head as the sun played over his mocha-colored skin. Bailey stuck his hand in his mouth and grinned back at him.
“Hey, B,” Asante greeted Bailey. “River, how you been?”
“Same stuff, different day,” I told him. “You know how it goes.”
“I do. How many volunteers do you think we’ll have today?”
I frowned as I pondered his question. Normally, ten to thirty kids volunteered every year, but lately there had been more growing suspicions and horror stories about what resided on the other side of the wall. The rumors had cropped up once every few years since the war had ended, and when they did, the number of volunteers decreased.
It didn’t matter. I already had a pretty good idea of how many there would be. “Eight, what do you think?” I asked.
“I’m going with eleven.”
“You’re more optimistic than me.”
He turned his attention away from me as the large, covered truck rumbled by us. All around us, people stopped to stare at the camouflage-colored military vehicle. It was a clear sign the soldiers from the wall had arrived. Every year, on May fifteenth, the government sent back some of the soldiers who guarded the wall to every town on the Cape.
This day was the only time we saw vehicles as big as the ones that came to collect the volunteers. The Guards had some vehicles to transport them back and forth to their assignments, but they were mostly pickup trucks, some vans, and cars. For the rest of us, gas had become so sparse and regulated that feet and bicycles were the main mode of transportation.
