Текст книги "Sunset Rising"

Автор книги: S. McEachern

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“No,” Summer said resolutely.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Sunny, no.” Summer grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face her. “No!”

“I don’t think I have choice,” I said in a low voice, hoping that Bailey couldn’t hear me.

Summer stood up taller and squared her shoulders. “I’ll do it, too.”

“Summer, you don’t have to do this. If you’re fired, it’s okay. Your parents are still earning credits.”

“I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

Bailey cut in. “I don’t know why you’re arguing. Being asked to serve at a presidential party is a great honor. I’d do it myself if I was allowed.” She walked toward us and waved her scanner over our hands. “There. You’re both signed up. Be there or you’ll be punished.”

She started to walk away but stopped before she left the room. “This is the second time you’ve both shown up for work filthy. You’re really starting to make me look bad. No lunch today and you both lose half a day’s credit. Now get to work.”

Chapter Two

At the end of the day, I stripped off my kitchen uniform, taking great care not to tear or damage it because I would have to pay for any repairs. I placed it in the big hamper. The laundry staff would clean and fold it, and have it waiting for me in the morning.

I tried to ignore the cramps in my stomach, but they were terrible after a full day of work without food. I wished I had time to eat supper before the party, but Bailey told us we needed a bath more than food.

Summer moaned beside me. “I’m so hungry.”

“Me, too.”

“I heard that if you’re a good server, they give you a plateful of food.” Summer’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

My mouth watered at the mere mention of food. It had taken every bit of my will power not to eat the carrots I peeled at work. But if I had been caught eating even the peelings, I would have been beaten. Vegetable scraps were meant for the compost, which was far more important than a hungry urchin. In the Pit, our food was whatever was left over after the bourge and livestock had eaten their fill.

“Maybe they’ll even give us dessert,” I said. I had never had dessert, but I’d heard it was heavenly.

Summer licked her lips dreamily. “Mmmmm… I can only imagine how it will taste.” She sobered after a moment. “Come on. We better hurry up in case there’s a line at the bath. We don’t have a lot of time.”

I laughed at the thought of a line at the bath. No self-respecting urchin went to the communal baths unless ordered. Next to oxygen, water was the most important resource in the entire Dome, and, like the food, we only got the leftovers. The bulk of the water supply went to the bourge and the agricultural sector. The Pit received the least, and what we did get was rationed for both drinking and bathing. We wouldn’t waste it on bathing at all if the bourge hadn’t made weekly bathing mandatory in order to prevent disease.

The traffic on the stairs was always faster going down than climbing up, so Summer and I made good time getting back to the sixth level. We parted ways to go to our respective homes and collect our towels and soap. My father hadn’t moved much since I left him this morning, but, at my arrival, he turned over to look at me.

“How was work?” he asked, but his expression was vacant.

“Still there.” I sat on the side of his bed and placed my hand on his back. He felt frightfully thin. “I got a job tonight, too, so I won’t be home until later.”

“What kind of job?”

“Just some extra kitchen duties.” He didn’t need to know what I would be doing. I couldn’t bear the thought of adding to his pain.

“Probably to do with that wedding.”

“Probably. Since I have to get back upstairs, I can’t take you to get dinner tonight. You’ll have to go by yourself.”

“That’s okay, dear. I’m not hungry.” He rolled over, turning his back to me.

I sighed. “Dad, promise me you’ll get up and eat.”

“Okay, Sunny. I promise I will.”

I was almost certain he wasn’t going to get out of bed, but there was nothing I could do about it. If only Mom were here. I kissed his cheek and left him to get a bar of soap, a piece of coal, and the one towel assigned to me. I made my way to the bathroom and, as I suspected would be the case, there was no line. Summer was already waiting for me.

“I’ll wet my towel,” I said.

The trick to taking a bath in the Pit was never to set foot in the bathtub. The cold stone tub was fairly large and deep, so if the water was allowed to sit undisturbed, the dirt and sediment fell to the bottom. By bathing in pairs, we could soak one person’s towel to use as a washcloth and then dry off with the other. But a completely soaked towel down here in the Pit took forever to dry.

“No, let me,” Summer said. “It’s my fault we were late this morning. I got us into this mess.”

“You didn’t have to say yes to tonight, Summer. I wish you hadn’t.”

I stripped and let her clean my back. The water was freezing, and I shivered.

“And you didn’t have to wait for me this morning. Best friends do things for each other.”

I snorted. Going with me tonight went well beyond friendship. “You know what you signed up for, right?”

“I know,” she snapped.

Her anger took me aback but made me realize that she was feeling every bit as apprehensive about tonight as I was.

“I know,” she said again, a little more calmly. “But we don’t have to make it all about that. I mean, it’s just sex, right? How bad can it be? We’ve never seen inside the main part of the Dome, and they might share the food. I hope they share the food!” She handed me the soaked towel so I could sponge the rest of my body clean.

Summer could always see the silver lining in every situation, a talent I wished I could learn. But I couldn’t even squelch the anxiety that was growing inside me. I had never had sex. I always thought my first time would be with Reyes after we were married, although I hadn’t spent much time thinking about it. Now I was terrified.

I finished bathing and handed her the wet towel. Picking up the dry one, I wrapped it around me. I used my piece of coal to touch up my hair. “One of the things I love most about you is that you can take a bad situation and see the good in it.” I took the wet towel out of her hand and started washing her back. “But I worry that your love of life is going to get you into trouble.”

“Which brings us back to our conversation this morning. Reyes.”

“No it doesn’t!” Although her back was to me, I drew my brows together and made a face. “I’m not sure how that brings us back to Reyes, but for the record, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why? I need to understand why you keep putting him off.”

“My dad is useless on his own, and I miss my mother horribly.” Tears stung my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. Crying was such a weak thing to do. “Things are changing so fast, and I don’t want them to. I need to be me for a little longer. You know, before I become Reyes’s wife. Before I become someone’s mother.”

I wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders. When my tears began to spill, there was no way I could stop them. I handed her the towel and busied myself getting dressed. Summer wrapped the towel around her and turned to look at me. Her expression was sad.

“You should never have postponed your marriage in the first place. I really think your mom wanted you out on your own before she went.”

I was pretty sure my mom wanted me married off before she left too, but how could I abandon my own father? Maybe he hadn’t been the best dad in the Pit, but he was my dad.

Summer put her hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it away. I regretted that immediately. She was my best friend. We met on the very first day of school and had been inseparable ever since. No matter what happened in my life, she was my support.

“I don’t mean to upset you, but you need to accept that things will never be the same again,” she said. “Reyes loves you, and that’s the greatest gift any of us can ever hope to get.”

I wanted to tell her that she was right as usual, but I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat. I nodded. I was a fool to keep Reyes waiting and yet powerless to leave my father.

Suddenly Reyes yelled my name from the other side of the locked bathroom door. By the sound of his voice, he knew I was being sent upstairs. I quickly dried my eyes.

Summer dressed hurriedly. “Meet me by the stairs, and don’t be late.” She picked up our towels and opened the door to leave.

Reyes bolted through the door and almost threw Summer out of his way to get to me. “Is it true?!”

“Is what true?” I hoped to downplay the importance of my serving that night. I could see by the wild look in his eyes that he was ready to explode.

“Are you serving at that bachelor party tonight?” He grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal.” I couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

“You can’t. You have to back out.”

Now I did look him in the eyes. “We both know I can’t do that.” I would be beaten, quite possibly to death, if I didn’t report to work for such an important event.

“How did this happen? How did you get picked?”

“We were late, Reyes. Bailey was going to fire me if I didn’t agree. Dad has already lost his job. I can’t lose mine too.”

“You should have let her fire you and come to me. We could have gotten married and been assigned our own apartment. You know that!” He was losing his composure. I had never seen him this upset before.

“Reyes, I can’t just leave him,” I said softly. I laid my head against his chest.

He shifted his arms to encircle my waist and pulled me tightly against him. “Sunset. Do you know why your mother named you that?”

“Because of the color of my hair.”

“Did you ever wonder how she knew what a sunset looked like?” he asked as he pulled away from me and tilted my chin up to look at him. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but your mother was sent upstairs when she was young, too. If the stories are true, she was requested for dinner parties a lot.”

The empathy I’d had for Reyes suddenly turned to anger. I pushed against him, trying to break out of the circle of his arms. “Who told you these lies?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No, you shouldn’t have! Why do you always have to find some way to hurt me when you’re mad?” I pounded my fist on his chest. Finally, he released me. “I can’t be late,” I said with disdain and headed toward the door.

“Wait!” Reyes stepped in front of me to block my exit. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out to take me back into his arms. I pulled away from him for a moment but relented even though I was still angry. I didn’t want to face what was waiting for me upstairs knowing we were in a fight. It would be better to put things right between us before I went.

“If anything happens…” He paused, a grimace of pain crossing his features. “I want to protect you. I’ll always be here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”

I understood what he was trying to say. Regardless of how the bourge used me tonight, he still wanted to marry me. Requests for young girls to entertain the bourge weren’t unusual in the Pit, but marriage prospects were frequently poor for those girls who went.

He studied me for a moment, and I smiled, hoping to convince him that everything would be okay. I brushed a dark curl away from his brow, and he pulled me toward him roughly. He lowered his head to mine and captured my lips with his own. His arms wrapped tighter around me. I had never felt this kind of desperation in his kiss before. Slowly, he pulled away from me and cupped my face in his hands.

“You can’t be late,” he said sadly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I spoke it like a promise.

I couldn’t stand to see the pain in his eyes, and my own tears threatened again. I left him and caught up with Summer by the stairs.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I didn’t respond. I needed a moment to compose myself.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This really is all my fault for making us late this morning.”

“We have to stop blaming ourselves, Summer. We didn’t ask to be playthings for the bourge. It was forced on us. We had no choice.”

“Don’t talk like that, they’ll hear you,” she whispered. We all knew the stone walls had ears, and my ranting was only going to get us into more trouble.

My limbs felt like dead weights as I made my way up the stairs. I shouldn’t complain about the climb. The people who lived the furthest down the Pit had a two-mile climb up. Then there were the miners who had to descend three miles down into the mine every day and then back up again. One mile wasn’t much, but I hadn’t eaten all day, and it felt like a lot.

Finally, we reached the main level and stepped into the lobby. Usually we would make a right turn toward the kitchen to go to work, but tonight we walked straight to the reception area in front of the big steel doors that led inside the Dome. My mother took this same walk when she was Culled. I tried not to think about how she must have felt, but it was impossible not to. I was petrified to go through those doors myself.

But before we could pass through those imposing doors, we had to get through reception. There were a lot of guards, most of them wearing the white uniform of the Pit and some the khaki uniform of the Dome. While the guards in the Pit stood out in white, the bourge preferred their guards to look less conspicuous. We called them Domers.

“Scan in,” a guard dressed in white directed me as we approached reception.

I turned the back of my hand above the scanner, and it beeped. Summer had been sent to a different scanner, and I waited for her.

“Move on,” the guard instructed me. I started to tell that him I was waiting for Summer, but he cut me off. “Move on.”

Since I had no choice, I joined the queue and walked through one of the large steel doors. Of the two doors, only one had been opened, so we had to file through in pairs. No one was really talking, and I kept to myself as well. I was unprepared for the sight of the Dome when I passed through those doors, and I gasped.

“Let me guess. It’s your first time here,” the girl beside me said. She looked younger than me.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well if they really like you, you’ll get to see it all the time.”

“You’ve been here before.”

“Too many times,” she said glumly. “But I guess it’s not so bad. The food is good. If he decides to share it.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say to her. Suddenly I had the urge to turn and run.

Summer came to stand beside me. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Another newbie,” the girl said with feigned surprise and walked away.

“What’s her problem?” Summer asked.

I thought about telling her but decided it was best if I didn’t. “Nothing. Just promise me that you won’t be your usual happy self tonight. Try not to smile too much. Okay?” I didn’t want anyone upstairs to really like Summer, but she was so pretty that I didn’t know how she would avoid it.

“I promise. I’ll be miserable.”

As we stood waiting with the others, we took in all the colors of the Dome. It was almost impossible to believe that this beauty existed right above our dark world of rock, concrete, and steel. All the walls were smooth and painted in shades of yellow. Colorful framed pictures hung on the walls, so much richer in detail than the charcoal sketches and carvings we made in the Pit. Even the floor came alive with richly patterned rugs resting under overstuffed sofas and chairs.

“Line up!” a matronly looking woman shouted.

Summer and I took our place in line, but this time I clasped Summer’s hand firmly in mine so we wouldn’t get separated again.

“Is that a real plant?” she whispered.

I looked in the direction she was staring and saw a large green thing sitting in some kind of pot.

“I think it is!” I could hear the excitement in my own voice. I’d never seen a live plant before, just fruits and vegetables in the kitchen.

“There will be no talking!” the woman said, glaring at Summer and me. We quickly fell silent. “I’m your supervisor for the evening. Do everything I say, go everywhere I tell you, and we’ll get along just fine. Follow me.”

She led us across the big reception room to another set of doors that were much smaller than the main doors behind us. We filed through in a single line and walked down a short narrow hall that ended in another doorway. The doors were made of frosted glass and “Gym” was written across them. The room was smaller than the last one and full of weird equipment.

“For all you newbies, this is the gym. It’s where people come to stay in good physical condition,” our supervisor said.

Summer gave me a questioning look, but I didn’t know how they used the equipment to stay in good physical condition either. We continued through another set of doors, and the air was suddenly very humid. We stepped inside, and I saw the biggest pool of water I had ever seen in my life.

“Wow!” Summer exclaimed, a little too loudly. “What is it?”

“Who said that?” our supervisor demanded.

Everyone pointed at Summer.

She gave Summer a look of disgust. “It’s a swimming pool, you dumb girl. Although I shouldn’t be surprised that an urchin wouldn’t know that. Unfortunately, it’s the only area large enough to bathe all of you. We can’t have you serving at a presidential dinner as filthy as you are. But, not to worry, when you’re done, the pool will be drained and fresh water added.”

I thought of our own dirty stone tubs in the Pit and wondered where they found enough water to fill such an enormous pool. I looked over at Summer to see if she was just as shocked as I was, but she had her hand in the air trying to get the supervisor’s attention. I made a grab for her arm to pull it down, but it was too late.

“Yes?” our supervisor asked in an exasperated voice.

“We had a bath before we came,” Summer said, proudly pointing at the two of us. I wanted to hide my face in my hands.

“Really.” She looked us up and down, not convinced. “If you don’t get into that pool yourself, I’ll assign someone to strip you and scrub that dirt off your filthy body. Am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Summer said quickly.

I didn’t want to strip in front of the other girls and the supervisor. My mother taught me to bind my breasts with tightly tied fabric, and I wore baggy clothes to hide them. She never wanted me chosen for this kind of work, and, as much as she loved the color of my hair, she was the one who taught me to use the coal to cover it up.

I stripped reluctantly, ignoring the glances from the other girls, and eased myself into the pool. I was relieved that the water was chest high and my ponytail only grazed the surface—the bath shouldn’t disturb the coal in my hair. I relaxed a bit and enjoyed the warmth of the water. I wondered how this enormous pool stayed so warm.

Our supervisor gave us a bar of soap and a nailbrush to pass around and then shampoo. My heart sank. I wasn’t afraid of anyone seeing my true hair color, but it would draw attention to me, and, tonight of all nights, I wanted to blend in. Figuring the guard’s threat about getting someone to scrub me if I didn’t scrub myself applied to hair as well, I decided it was best just to get on with it. I pulled the elastic out of my ponytail and slipped it around my wrist. I wet my hair and began to work in the shampoo.

“Sunny,” Summer whispered. “The suds are black. The coal is washing out.”

Black suds were dripping into the pool, darkening the water all around me. I pulled a few strands of my long hair down in front of my face and studied the bright red shining through the suds. Then I realized that most of the girls were staring at me. Our supervisor tutted. My face burned, and I sank down under the water to rinse the shampoo out of my hair. As I resurfaced, we were ordered out of the pool.

We were each given a crisp white uniform to put on, and I sighed. How could we keep these clean while serving food? What if someone bumped us, or spilled something on us? Would we be getting any extra credits for tonight’s work so we could cover the cost of the uniforms if we had to? I was already strapped for credits since I was docked half a day today.

“Well, my, my,” the supervisor said, stopping to look me up and down. I didn’t like her expression. She took a lock of my hair between her fingers and thumb and rubbed it, almost as if she were testing to see if the color would come away. She smiled. “You are going to be very popular.”

I wondered what she meant by that then realized I probably didn’t want to know.