Sophie Littlefield - Aftertime

“Yeah, but at what cost?” Smoke stared him down, hard. “I’ll be dead before I’ll be your errand boy-yours or anyone else’s. And next time you can be sure I won’t stand by and let you take what’s not yours.”

“Only you might just not have a choice. You’re here on our hospitality. You might want to remember that.”

Elaine looked up, clearly uncomfortable with the direction things were going. “Ease up, Calder. You’re not-”

“You’re a guest of the Rebuilders,” the man said, his face coloring. So he wasn’t in charge of the whole place-there was someone else he reported to. Cass tried unsuccessfully to catch Elaine’s eye. The man pointed at Smoke with his blade, already turning to leave the room. “Miles-check him. Elaine, you check the girl. Then put them in the guest rooms.”

“Put up your hands,” Miles said uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I don’t bear you no grudge, Smoke, but I’ll do what I have to.”

“I’ll go you one better,” Smoke said, and set his pack on the floor. Then he slid his shirt off and tossed it to Miles, who nearly dropped it. Smoke could have taken his gun-they all knew it. Instead, he turned the pockets of his pants inside out, setting his blade carefully on the floor, and turned slowly, arms in the air.

“There’s another blade in the pack. Provisions. That’s it.”

“Can’t take your word for it.”

Smoke shrugged and took a stance, legs shoulder-width apart, arms out. “Then do what you need to do, boy.”

“I’ll take her in the bathroom and check her there,” Elaine said. “She can leave her pack here.”

Nobody contradicted her. Miles approached Smoke cautiously and began to pat him down.

Elaine tilted her head toward a door still marked with the symbol of the women’s restroom. “Come on.”

Cass felt a sudden frantic reluctance to be separated from Smoke. Which was stupid, seeing as just days ago she’d been completely alone and preferred it that way.

Smoke seemed to read her thoughts. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you inside, once our friends figure out we’re no kind of threat.” He made it sound like a promise.

Cass swallowed down her panic. She nodded and followed Elaine, forcing herself not to look back.

Inside the bathroom, the only light came from Elaine’s lantern, so when she stopped abruptly Cass ran into her, stumbling. And then Elaine clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head, hard. Mouthed words: don’t say anything . Only when Cass nodded did Elaine let her go. “Sorry about this,” she said, her tone giving away only a trace of anxiety. “Things got a little tense in there, but it’s for everyone’s safety. Let’s just get the search over with and we can start over. Can you take off those clothes, please?”

When Cass started to answer, Elaine put a finger to her lips and pulled a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper from her pocket. She set the lantern down and smoothed the paper on the counter. Cass reluctantly started undressing while she watched Elaine write:

PLAY ALONG. THEY LISTEN.

Cass mouthed the word who, but Elaine only shook her head and stabbed her finger on the paper until Cass nodded again.

When she reached for the pencil, Elaine didn’t stop her. Cass wrote with a trembling hand, her fingers slick on the pencil.

RUTHIE??

Elaine looked at the paper, and then at Cass for a long moment-too long.

And Cass knew, even before Elaine shook her head.

Cass felt her knees start to go weak, her heart constricting with a sharp ache. A cry escaped her lips, a truncated sound of grief, and Elaine reached for her before she could fall. Cass didn’t resist, couldn’t resist, her vision fluttering, and when Elaine pressed her face close and whispered in her ear she almost didn’t hear.

“ She’s alive. Get your shit together or you won’t be able to help her. ”

Cass staggered back, adrenaline surging through her body. She clawed at her shorn hair, ground the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, took a breath. Where, she mouthed, but Elaine looked away.

“Your shirt, please. Turn out the pockets.”

Cass started unbuttoning the shirt, a dozen thoughts racing through her head. Ruthie alive-but not here. The library taken over by Rebuilders. People taking up arms, not against the Beaters, but against one another. Smoke, involved in things she didn’t understand.

She took off the shirt, turning out the pockets as Elaine had asked. There had to be a way to find out more. She handed over the shirt and reached for the pencil again, but Elaine stopped her.

“Come on,” she said briskly. “Quit wasting time. Get the rest of your clothes off.”

But she started to write again, and Cass stripped off her pants as she worked.

“Okay, socks, too, and hand me your shoes.”

Cass did as she was told, then hesitated. “Can I keep my…” She pointed at her underwear; she already felt almost unbearably exposed.

Elaine nodded. “Yes, but take your undershirt off. You can keep your bra on.”

So she was going to have to reveal herself, her wounds. Well, they wouldn’t be any surprise to Elaine: she had been there on the last day, she’d seen it all, even the part Cass couldn’t remember. Elaine and a woman named Barbara had been chatting inside the open door that day when Cass and Ruthie went down the path-only a little way down the path!-to enjoy the spring sunshine. Elaine and Barbara had screamed when the Beaters appeared out of nowhere…

Maybe Elaine could tell her what happened, after Cass’s memories went blank. Slowly, she lifted the shirt over her head. And then she turned, letting Elaine see.

She heard Elaine gasp, and then silence. After a moment she turned back around. Elaine stared at her with wide eyes, her face gone pale. She picked up the piece of paper and handed it over, then turned her attention to the rest of Cass’s clothes, busied herself going through them, searching the seams and pockets.

RUTHIE WAS SAVED BUT WE SENT HER TO THE CONVENT WHEN THE REBUILDERS CAME WITH THE REST OF THE GIRLS

I WILL TRY TO KEEP YOU SAFE BUT YOU HAVE TO TRUST ME

Cass read the words twice, a third time. Ruthie was saved. Ruthie was saved .

But there were more questions, so many more questions. She held out her hand for the pencil, but Elaine shook her head and handed her clothes back, taking the piece of paper from Cass.

“Okay, get dressed,” she said.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” Cass asked, as Elaine tore the paper in half, then in half again and again.

“Same as every other newcomer,” Elaine says. “You’ll be processed.”

In moments she had a pile of tiny shreds. She scooped them carefully into her hands, and dropped them into a toilet that was clogged with debris floating in murky water.

As Elaine led her from the bathroom, Cass remembered the sound of a toilet’s flush, a homely sound that she had heard a million times in her life, but would never hear again.

THEY LET THEM STAY, BUT ONLY AFTER THE tribunal.

Cass followed Elaine through empty halls past the conference room, and Cass glimpsed lists and maps and machine diagrams tacked on the walls where there had once been children’s drawings. She saw Smoke sitting at the large conference table next to a heavyset man in a camo-printed shirt; Elaine saw where Cass was looking and nodded briskly. “That’s Skiv,” she said. “He’ll make your case. He’ll advocate for you.”

Cass wanted to ask what the hell they needed an advocate for, and how a total stranger could possibly do the job, but she was caught off guard by the transformation of the conference room. When she lived here, they had pushed the table against a wall, moved the chairs to the edges, and used the center of the room as a play area for the children, a place where parents could relax and share child care. Now the windows had been partially covered, only the top third exposed to let light in the room, and the furniture had been centered in the room once again. One end of the table had been set up with pads of paper and pens and a coffee cup arranged with military precision. Smoke and the man named Skiv sat at the other end. Smoke’s hands were out of sight, under the table, and Cass wondered if they were bound.