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“This is going to hurt,” he warned. “Find something to bite on.” He cleaned out the wounds, using alcohol liberally. He was going by rote, following the procedures we’d learned in our field-medic classes. For myself, I was gripping two legs of an overturned chair and biting as hard as I could on a retriever’s toy duck.
When he was done, I threw up into a portable compost pail, fixing its lid on tightly. I felt wrung out and exhausted and wished my arm would just fall off so I could leave it behind.
Tim was busily opening ancient camping food packets. “We’re going to stay here the rest of the night,” he said. “But we have to go first thing in the morning.”
Or else went unsaid.
86
BECCA
I WAS A SOLDIER. AN assassin, even—call me what you will. I was one of the best that Strepp ever trained. I could kill people silently with whatever I had at hand. Now I was getting a list of my duties as a housemaid at President Unser’s house. And the head housekeeper, Mrs. Argyle, made Strepp look like a pansy-ass amateur.
Some of the house rules: speak only when spoken to. The President was called sir, Mrs. President was called ma’am, young master Kirt was called Master Kirt, and young mistress Mia was called Miss Mia. Never say “yes,” only “yes, sir,” “yes, ma’am,” “yes, Master Kirt,” etc. When a member of the household passed by, you stopped what you were doing and cast your eyes down.
No curtsy? I almost said snidely, then remembered Blondie McMystery Man and the two years it’d taken them to place us in the employment agency where Mrs. Argyle got new recruits. I clenched my teeth and said nothing. I wondered how Nate was faring in the kitchen. The fact that he was no doubt elbow-deep in suds cheered me up a little.
I was shown to my quarters—a tiny room in the attic, but it had a small window—and then was given a quick tour of the house, which was mind-blowing. The riches, the beautiful everything, the things I had no idea existed. I was shocked and awed and then filled with rage again at the gross, gross injustice. I wished Blondie had given me a bomb so I could blow this place sky-high right now.
Unfortunately I had gone through a metal detector at the door—every door on the first floor had them, as did every balcony door upstairs. Not only that, but I’d been thoroughly patted down by her. Finally, the uniform Blondie had given me had been taken away and replaced. So if it had had a tracking or listening device sewn into the hem, it was gone now. Burned in the incinerator.
“Rebecca, your job is to attend to Miss Mia,” she said, and I almost choked.
I held up two fingers. “One, everyone calls me Becca,” I said. “Two, I don’t have, uh, much experience with attending… young ladies. Maybe I could just dust instead?”
Her look would have burned holes in a lesser maid. She held up two fingers. “Number one, here you will be called Rebecca. Two, here are the directions to Miss Mia’s room. Don’t get lost.”
Yes, I needed written directions to Mia’s room because the place was so effing big that I could be lost for days before anyone found me. I’d planned to do recon on the way, but soon noticed I was never alone. There was always some other servant within sight, dusting, mopping, arranging flowers, straightening pictures. No wonder the house was so hospital-clean already. Or was this on purpose? So they weren’t only keeping an eye on the new staff, but on each other?
As I passed a girl close to my age, I stopped. “Hey,” I said, and the girl actually startled, like a deer, then gave a quick look around.
Her responding “Hey,” was almost soundless. She stood frozen, the soft paintbrush she was using to dust an ornate picture frame dangling from one hand.
“I’m Becca,” I said. “One of the mistress’s attendants. I’m from Cell B-97-4275. How about you? Where are you from?”
The girl frowned slightly and cocked her head to one side. I resolved to
use that expression later ’cause it looked awesome.
“I’m… Nell.”
“What cell are you from?” I was taking a risk, lingering like this. Nell would get in trouble, too. But I had to start somewhere, and time was a luxury I didn’t have.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s a cell?”
87
EVENTUALLY I FOUND MISS MIA’S room and knocked on the heavy wooden door. What’s a cell? There’s someone in the United who doesn’t know what a cell is? How?
No one answered my knock, so I knocked louder. Finally I just opened the door, thinking I could tidy or straighten or whatever I remembered seeing Cassie do back at home. For a moment I stood in the doorway as my eyes tried to comprehend what I was seeing. This girl’s bedroom was as big as the entire first floor of my parents’ house. Pale pink curtains framed giant windows. The white bed was enormous, with four posts and a curved top. Thick, pale-green carpet made my first tentative steps feel like I was walking on a sheep. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen, and my throat closed in a weird, overwhelmed reaction. A person could be happy in a room like this. Anyone could.
“What do you want?” It was a girl’s voice, full of snide rudeness. Back at school, anyone who talked to me like that usually ended up crying.
Despite my sniper-vision training, it took me several seconds to locate Miss Mia. She was sitting on an overstuffed sofa in an alcove that had its own round window. She was around my age, I guessed, or a bit younger. She was holding a fiddle and bow.
“Well? What do you want?” She looked at me as if I still smelled like farmyard.
“I’m your new maid,” I said bluntly. “My name is Becca.” Well, it’s not like I went to maid school. I went to soldier school.
