Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

Dinner had arrived when they got back. Malena was trying to coax her son to eat, holding a fork near his lips and murmuring as though he was a toddler. There had to be something really wrong with him, Cass decided, and she turned away from the unfortunates the way she-the way everyone- had learned to do. Tragedy wasn’t contagious, but the emotions that went along with it were, and if you wanted to be able to handle your own burden you had to resist picking up even a fraction of anyone else’s.

Places were laid for them at the dinette table along with Dor and Kaufman and Lester. Cass cut Ruthie’s kaysev curd into bite-size pieces and helped her spoon up her peas-canned, with a sprinkling of fresh mint that made Cass suspect the Rebuilders had an extensive greenhouse of their own-so that none would fall from her spoon and go to waste. She was about to start on her own dinner when a loud, piercing tone filled the large room.

Ruthie jammed her hands over her ears and her mouth wobbled, and Cass wrapped her in her arms. Thankfully, it was quickly over. A man’s voice came on: “Details two and five report to the Tapp Clinic. Repeat, all members of details two and five, please report.”

“SHIT,” LESTER EXCLAIMED, PUSHING AWAY THE dinner he’d barely touched. “Can’t believe we got another one. Seems like I was just up.”

“Somebody in five keeps drawing the short straw, I guess,” his partner replied.

“No, it’s not that. I’m just sorry to leave you with the rest of the shift.” He looked genuinely sorry, Cass thought. She wondered if the two men were close. “You know how they drag it out.”

“It’s okay, go. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, it’s just-” He inclined his head in the direction of Malena and Devin and frowned.

“Nothing’s going to happen in the next hour,” Kaufman said quietly. “Nothing I can’t handle. And you know if you don’t go-”

“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” Lester said, pushing back his chair. “Okay, okay, but I’ll get back as fast as I can. It’s probably just another ragbag.”

“Hate that. For your sake I hope it’s just one this time.”

“Yeah. Anyway, have fun. Ladies.” Lester bowed his lanky form deeply, waggling his thick eyebrows, which caused Ruthie to giggle silently. He made a less elaborate bow in Malena’s direction but received no response for his trouble other than a frosty glare. After he let himself out the building’s front door, Kaufman checked the lock before returning to the table.

“Sorry about that, folks.” He stared at his food, frowning.

Cass noticed that Dor had slid his dinner slightly closer to Kaufman’s, his long forearms resting casually on the sides of the tray, a posture that emphasized his size and bulk. He’d made quick work of the curd and vegetables and mopped up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread, a hard-crusted, dense slice that was the characteristic taupe color of kaysev flour and studded with unfamiliar grain. Not wheat. Millet, perhaps.

Cass wondered when she’d be able to see the Rebuilders’ gardens, to discover what they had cultivated here, if there were many plants she had not been able to grow in the Box herself. She’d had little luck with grains so far.

She was surprised by the intensity of her longing to see what else they had managed, to beg or steal cuttings and take them back to her own garden. To the soil she’d amended with compost cultivated in the narrow strip of land between apartment buildings across the street from the Box’s entrance. Smoke and some of his guys had installed chain-link at either end of the plot for safety, and she loved to let her mind wander while she worked, enjoying the sun on her neck, the good earthy smells of the black earth. Even the rotting, decomposing garbage and leftovers did not bother her; when she turned a shovelful of earth and came up with a wriggling clot of worms, she was filled with the kind of intense joy and pride she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Despite the pleasant memories of her garden and her determination to wait until morning to focus on their next steps, Cass had trouble getting through her meal. She was tired from the trip, worn-out from the adrenaline spikes and crashes. Numbed by terror and faintly nauseous from all the blood that had been shed in the past twenty-four hours. She tried to force herself not to think about the car-crash decoy and the bodies picked clean by the birds, the terrible things that had happened in the house, the Beaters in the road-but she couldn’t shake the aftereffects, the anxiety and fear. She helped Ruthie eat instead, and listened to the men’s small talk, and stole glances at the tired woman across the room, who was doing the same thing she was, trying to coax food into her sickly child. Each time Malena caught her eye, Cass looked quickly away; it was too hard to see the desperation on the woman’s face. Her eye sockets were sunken and purple, her hair lay in lank tangles, and her hands shook faintly. Cass could only imagine the prayers she had said for her son’s recovery. Evidently God had not yet come through, and it looked like Malena had stopped eating and sleeping.

Dor made idle conversation and Cass also watched Dor watching Kaufman. She thought she saw something-a flicker, a moment of change when his keen black eyes seemed to focus like the sights on a laser. Cass knew Dor was mapping this man out. She supposed he had a plan-if not yet, he would soon. She was certain Dor was drawing conclusions about Kaufman, about Lester and Malena and even the sick boy in the chair. It was what he did-he observed people so intensely that he picked up on many things they didn’t even know about themselves.

It was only one of many reasons she had avoided encounters with Dor, and he was not hard to avoid. But it would be a lie to pretend that she didn’t watch him. Yes. When he wasn’t looking, she watched him watching others, and it was like this, always. The laser focus. The absorbing of details. The filtering of distractions. The considering and calculating. And then-yes, just like now. The moment when Dor came to some conclusion, and his features relaxed and re-formed, chameleon-like, into a new public character he would play to achieve some unnamed end.

In the Box, these changes were subtle. Sometimes Cass convinced herself that Dor wasn’t even aware he was doing it. Often he retreated to his most frequent mask, the one she thought of as his default but not necessarily true self: friendly but aloof, terse but rarely angry. A myth. He was the benevolent but unattainable man behind the curtain, the merchant, the moneychanger, the keeper of scales and coin. The guarantor.

Now, however, he put on a different face, one Cass hadn’t seen before. She paused in surprise, a spoon lifted halfway to her lips, as Dor eased down in the chair, extended his legs under the table, and crossed his hands on his belly in an attitude of self-satisfaction.

“Man, I could sure use a frosty cold one right now,” he said. “Raiders game on TV, halftime with those girls? You know, those little black skirts? Sorry, hon,” he added automatically, shooting her an easy grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

Kaufman chuckled. “Don’t be saying that around here. I hear you, but in case you haven’t heard, this place is dry. No booze, no smoking, no fun.”

“No shit.” Dor looked crestfallen. “Damn. So I guess I won’t be getting my bottle of Jack back that I’ve been carrying around for emergencies.”

“No, I’d say that’s a negative. Though you can bet someone’s gonna be enjoying it on the sly tonight. There’s a little…creative warehousing going on, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I hear you. Like any military.”