CHAPTER EIGHT
“Are you okay?”
Nya’s voice carried from across the room.
I blinked away the last remnants of the dream world. The room came into focus. The cracked walls, the carpet stiff with layers of residue. Nya was pulling a shirt over her head. Through the glassless window behind her, I could see that the sun was rising, casting the small bedroom in a dim glow.
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, even though I didn’t know what exactly I was apologizing for. I didn’t remember sitting up. I didn’t remember opening my eyes. But here I was. And if I had screamed or even called out at the end of my nightmare…how humiliating.
Nya gave me a smile that had an undercurrent of sympathy to it. But didn’t put me out of my misery by telling me what she had witnessed.
Well, at least I wasn’t waking in a full panic this time. Small victories.
I stood and began making the bed. The mattress was thin and sat directly on the floor, and the blankets reeked of mildew. But it was somewhere to sleep, and Nya had insisted on letting me have the mattress to myself.
I had tried to tell her that wasn’t necessary, especially as I noticed most everyone else who lived in the house shared beds. Including Nya’s roommate and bedmate, Wren, who Nya explained had gone to sleep in another room while I was visiting, to allow me some privacy.
But Nya was adamant, and I had gotten the feeling it had less to do with ensuring my comfort, and more to do with the fact that she didn’t know me well enough to trust me fully. When she had settled into her sleeping bag across the room, I had caught her slipping a knife under her pillow.
Once the bed looked as presentable as I could make it, I dug in my bag and pulled out my outfit for the day, a forest green V-neck and jean shorts.
“I know you brought a few changes of clothes with you,” Nya said as she loaded a few things into her backpack. Although she was trying to be discreet, I noticed yet again that one of those things was the knife. “But did you bring a bathing suit?”
“A bathing suit?”
She was wearing her usual look—a tank top and shorts—but I noticed then that orange strings rose from the top of her shirt to tie around her neck, and another set of orange ties poked out of her waistband.
She paused with a towel in hand. “You didn’t bring one?”
“I don’t own one. Besides, I’m not going to be in the water with you all. Right?”
Nya’s dark brows raised in surprise. “No, but you may decide to take a dip at some point. Better safe than sorry. Especially since walking around in wet clothes will give you wicked chafing. But anyway, is that normal for someone from Cyllene? Is there seriously something that all of us out here own that you all don’t? ”
I shrugged. “Most of us don’t really have a use for one.
We may have access to more luxuries than you all do out here, but maintaining a swimming pool isn’t one of them.
I’m pretty sure the last person who managed to fill up one of the old concrete pools in the suburbs, without anything to properly clean or sanitize it, got really sick.
And then the ocean’s right over the wall, but we’re not allowed to go outside the city under any circumstances. ”
The irony of my that last part wasn’t lost on me.
“Wow,” Nya drawled. She went to the closet—a space with missing doors, exposed drywall on the sides, and a back “wall” that was nothing more than a tarp—and began sifting through the clothes that hung there.
Meanwhile, in the crumbling hole that was once the doorway to the bedroom appeared a petite redhead with long lashes and a dusting of freckles across her cheeks.
“Oh, perfect!” she exclaimed in a voice that was like tinkling bells. “While you’re over there, can you pass me my apron?”
“Sure thing,” Nya tossed the words over her shoulder, right before she tossed a gray apron.
The woman caught it and pulled it over her head, smoothing the strands of her short hair in the process.
I gave her a small smile. “You must be Wren.”
“That’s me,” she giggled. “And you’re Maila. I hope you slept okay last night.”
“I did. I’m sorry, I feel like I kicked you out of your own room.”
“Oh, it was no problem at all!” Wren clasped her hands and leaned closer, her eyes wide with reassurance. She lowered her voice to a mock whisper. “Besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?”
A trademark world-weary sigh sounded from the closet.
Wren giggled again and turned on her heel. “I’ve got breakfast to prep. See you two later.”
As she pranced away, Nya turned around with a violet bikini top and bottoms in hand. “I know I’m taller than you are,” she mused, examining her selection. “But you’re curvier than I am, so hopefully it will all even out.” She lobbed the bathing suit onto the bed next to me.
“Where did you get this?” I asked. Then, “Where do you get clothes in general, I mean?”
“Well, first off—bathing suits aren’t exactly high on the list of priorities for anyone.
Obviously. So they’re easy to find.” She tied her braids back into her usual thick ponytail.
“As far as other clothes go, we get them the same way you do in Cyllene. Whenever you all are running low on clothes or other supplies, you either strike a deal with another city, or you send your Enforcers out on a supply run. Basically, you take what you need from somewhere else. That’s what we do, too.
Except for the striking deals with other cities part.
I only know of a few that even exist anymore, and it would take days or maybe even weeks of travel to get there. ”
My knowledge about other surviving cities was limited, too. But I knew enough to know she was correct on the lengthy travel.
“And if we encounter another group like ours, which is rare, it usually doesn’t end well. We’re all just trying to survive out here, and no one’s going to let some Stranger”—here she smirked at her own joke—“take clothes or food that they could be bringing home to their own children.”
I let her words sink in. Then, beginning to undress, I asked, “How do you know so much about Cyllene?”
She pursed her full lips. “Because by default, anyone who finds out the truth of how Cyllene operates gets exiled. Some of us have been out here all our lives—like me, Kieran, Cecil, Rubi, and Xiomara—but we also take people in when Cyllene tosses them out and leaves them to die.”
There was a lot to unpack in what she said. But a thought struck me. “By chance, is there someone here who was exiled recently? Like within the last week?”
Nya nodded. “You’re talking about George. You’ll see him at breakfast.”
I suddenly couldn’t wait to get to breakfast. I finished tying the bikini, then looked down at myself, twisting from side to side.
I frowned. “It doesn’t fit.”
Nya glanced up from where she was rolling up her sleeping bag and immediately burst into laughter.
“Oh, it fits!” she said after a moment, wiping her eyes. “Please, I have just one request. Actually, make that two. If you decide to strip down to your bikini, make sure Kieran is nearby. And make sure I’m there, too. So I can see his face.”
I could feel my own face getting hot. There was no situation I could imagine where it would be appropriate for a Cyllene citizen to traipse around in something this provocative, just a few scraps of fabric away from being stark naked.
I almost took the suit off and insisted I wasn’t wearing it.
Almost.
We ate breakfast around the bonfire, which I learned was the central meeting spot for the camp.
I hadn’t been able to see the night before, but arranged in rings around the bonfire were chairs of all kinds, obtained during supply runs.
Nya sat in a wooden chair that looked like it had once belonged to a dining room set.
I sat in a blue and white beach chair, complete with an attached cup holder for my water bottle.
There were several other groups scattered around the fire, but many still slept.
Around and beyond the cul-de-sac, the dilapidated houses of Ersa Estates stood out in sharp relief against the lightening sky.
I couldn’t recall ever sitting around a fire like this before, although I was familiar with the Pre-Awakening concept.
Fire always posed a risk, and I considered myself lucky just to be allowed to use candles in my room.
Now, basking in the warmth of the bonfire, I decided that the earthy, musky scent of burning brush might be my new favorite smell.
Breakfast consisted of eggs, fresh from the chicken coop that was maintained by the occupants of a house down the road, and jerky. I didn’t ask what kind of animal—or other creature—the meat had come from. My gut told me it was best that I didn’t know.
As we ate, Nya answered some of the questions I had about the Strangers’ day-to-day life.
I learned that not everyone in the camp gathered for meals and socialization.
Some people preferred to keep themselves.
So much so that rather than choose a house in the three main streets that made up the Ersa Estates camp, some people chose to live alone on unoccupied streets and only joined the rest of the group on important occasions.
I also learned that when someone in the camp experienced hardship of any kind—illness, the loss of a family member, a curse from a magical creature, and so on—everyone else in the camp was expected to band together and help them in every way possible.
The expectation made me think of Brielle and her joy in comforting the people she cared about with food.
Nya pontificated with her fork, a piece of egg speared on the end. She was explaining how the barbed wire fence around the camp was constructed, and how the Strangers hoped to be able to ward it one day, much like the walls of Cyllene.