Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

“Cass picked the blueleaf? Is that what you’re saying?” A horrible thrill of understanding made Sammi go cold. “But nobody ate it, did they? That couldn’t have made Phillip sick-”

“He isn’t sick,” Sage wailed, crumpled against the house as though she was trying to embrace it.

But Sammi was remembering all the times they’d hung out on North Island, the long lazy afternoons when, if they got hungry, they just ate handfuls of kaysev. They were careful…mostly.

Valerie held up her hands, palms out, as though defending against Sammi’s anger, against Sage’s anguish. Sammi noticed that she had on a blouse with a scalloped collar, like something a nun would wear, something that should have been thrown out twenty years ago. How did she do it, how did Valerie keep finding things to make her look so virginal, so pure, long after everyone else had resigned themselves to dregs and spoils, the Aftertime battle fatigues? She’d smoothed her shiny hair under yet another headband, this one covered with plaid fabric, and somehow that made Sammi all the angrier.

“Why do you always defend her?”

“Who?”

“Cass. Why do you defend Cass? She’s not your friend.”

“Of course she’s my friend,” Valerie said, but the line appeared between her eyebrows again, and Sammi knew that Valerie suspected, deep down, maybe buried so far that she didn’t even know that she knew something was wrong. “I think the world of Cass, she’s overcome so much, and she’s such a great mother to Ruthie and-”

“She’s not your friend. She fucks my dad! ”

Sammi hadn’t meant to yell, but the words rang out sharp and clear on the chilly morning. Sammi watched the puff of her breath on the frosty air; it dissipated and was replaced by another and another. Breathe in, breathe out. Everyone kept breathing, kept living, and what was the point? Everyone betrayed everyone else-was that the cost of survival?

Something interesting was happening to Valerie’s face-it was crumpling in on itself, like a pretty tissue-paper flower splashed with water, wilting and fading before her eyes.

“Sammi…”

“She is. They’ve probably been doing it ever since they got here. Hell, probably before that. I saw them. Down on the dock, they were like-like-he had his hands inside her clothes, Valerie. I don’t know how he can even look you in the face every day, but that’s my dad.”

Valerie had a hand to her throat, her narrow fingers twitching against her perfect pale skin, like she was going to faint or something.

And still Sammi couldn’t shut up.

“He left my mom, did you know that? Even before everything got fucked up. He went off to find himself or whatever and just showed up when he felt like it. I hardly ever saw him-” the lie rolled easily from her lips, to Sammi’s surprise; lying shouldn’t be so easy “-and he never even tried to find us after. He had his business, I’m sure he told you about it, right, and that’s all he cared about.”

“No,” Valerie said in a choked voice. “He loves you. He always did. He told me he sent people to check on you, your safety meant everything to him-”

“You know what he sold in the Box, right?” Sammi felt the thrill of forbidden knowledge; she only knew this because she’d heard it from Colton, who overheard it from a couple of the raiders who used to go up to the Box for medicine trades. They’d stay there for a few days and party, and then return to the shelter they were in before coming to New Eden. “Drugs. Booze. Sex. Like, as in prostitutes?”

She spat out the last word, making it as ugly as she could, curling her lips around the syllables-and still there was a little thrill to the revelation. She realized that until now she had been trying not to believe it, trying to explain it away. She’d told Colton to shut the fuck up, that her dad traded food and medicine, that he protected people, helped the ones who needed it. But of course that was a lie. Just another one of her father’s lies.

“Kind of funny,” she said, making her voice as bored as she could. “My dad’s a pimp, and Cass, well, since she’ll fuck anyone, I guess that makes her his whore.”

Valerie’s arm shot out so fast that Sammi didn’t have time to duck. The slap was more shocking than painful, hard and stinging and making her head whip around. She bit her lip, and tears stung her eyes. She put her fingertips to her mouth and touched blood.

“Oh my God, Sammi,” Valerie said, horrified. “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean, oh, please-”

But what Sammi felt was victory, a mean and hungry victory, and she bared her teeth in a snarling grin. The hot, stinging impression on her cheek where she’d been struck meant that she had won. “No worries. I’d be pissed too. I mean, you’ve been so nice to my dad. Look at you, in your little skirts and all, and with your sewing, you probably thought you could make a home for you guys, with curtains in the window and a hope chest or whatever, right?”

Valerie made a horrified sound in her throat, a convulsion of shock and grief. Sammi knew she was hurting her, but she’d been hurt so many times and it wasn’t like anyone was very concerned about that, was it? Valerie-with her mended dresses and inspirational quotes and wind chimes-was just pathetic. Sammi was doing her a favor. She’d either deal with this or not; she’d get over her dad or she’d sink like a stone, and then she’d be the one who wasn’t careful when she ate her salad, or who went on the mainland without a weapon, or who walked into the water until it filled her lungs. Whatever. It wasn’t Sammi’s fault.

“I mean, I guess you could still do that,” she muttered. “Get dad to build you a little picket fence. You’ll just have to move Cass in with you, so you guys can share him.”

Valerie had been backing away from her, little stumbling steps, her sneakers too white, as though she’d found bleach and soaked them. But now she turned and ran, weaving and unsteady, heading for the path that led to her place, the sound of her wailing eerie and heartbroken.

“Sammi,” Sage cried. Sammi had almost forgotten she was there, on her knees in the dirt, up against the house. “Sammi, look.”

Jammed through the slot in the side of the house were fingers, the nails torn and bloody, deep gouges in the skin.

Phillip’s fingers.

CASS WOKE FEELING like teeth were working her head from the inside. Her eyes were gritty and her mouth tasted like the fetid rot in the bottom of a trash can. She staggered out of the bed after checking on Ruthie-a trembling hand pressed to her cheek, feeling the warmth and her daughter’s steady pulse, calmed by the sight of her hair tangled and cascading over the pillow-and down the stairs, skipping the third one from the top, the one that squeaked. It was already getting late, the sun rising in the sky, and people would be up in the house. Cass heard voices from the kitchen and slipped out the back way, the damp cold hitting her like a washcloth dipped in ice water.

She went down to the shore and did her morning routine there. She brushed her teeth twice with the kaysev stub, spitting over and over again into the river. This time, she checked the other shore first, and there were a few of them there already, though they looked sleepy, too, bumping and stumbling into each other as they got as close to the water as they could. They kept up a steady stream of muttering, but it wasn’t the desperate hungry keening that signaled a hunt. Cass tested the air with a damp finger-sure enough, she was downwind. And sheltered by the overhanging willow that was coming back into leaf, they couldn’t see her.