INTERMIX NATION
By M.P. Attardo
Intermix Nation
Mary Attardo
Copyright © 2013 by Mary Attardo
Smashwords Edition
http://maryattardo.blogspot.com/
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
For my mother,
my rock, my Riva.
Chapter One
Nazirah Nation is dead.
She stretches her mind, reaching for her earliest memories and coming up empty. She remembers playing on the sandy coast near her home in southern Eridies, the whitewashed stone of her family’s cottage a comforting constant on the horizon. She spent hours by the sea, a child of the sun. She roamed the sand, collecting starfish and seashells that her mother fanatically glued onto picture frames and proudly displayed throughout their small home. Mason jars filled with smooth black pebbles lined their fireplace mantle, coffee table, and bookshelves.
Outside, the water lapped at Nazirah’s feet. She laughed and built sandcastles that kissed the sky. Lying on the dunes with Cato, she swore that time could stop like this, and she would feel complete.
It was a simple childhood, full of the naïve optimism of youth. It was impoverished. But it was happy.
There was no hate there.
Nazirah remembers her thirteenth birthday particularly fondly. Riva made her favorite cake, vanilla with key lime filling, as a treat. Kasimir, fresh from an inspired trip to the black market, brought Nazirah home a bicycle. They could not afford such luxuries, Nazirah knew, but her parents said it was a special occasion.
Nazirah remembers her joy the first time she saw the bicycle, rusty and bent. She remembers Niko’s envious and sullen glares over dinner, and how proud her father looked after fixing it. All summer long, Nazirah rode the dirt paths around her home, chasing stray dogs, accumulating bruises and scratches, racing the sunset. Afterwards, she would walk sheepishly through the front door, gangly legs trekking dirt. Her mother would gently scold her, hand covering a smile.
There was no hate there, either.
Even in the bad times …
(when Niko tripped her and Nazirah broke her arm and wore a cast for an entire summer … when her father got so sick he couldn’t work and their food stores ran dangerously low … when her parents told her she wasn’t pulling her weight, wasn’t living up to her potential … when she was teased mercilessly in school, called intermix, and ran home in tears for months)
… even then, Nazirah did not understand hate.
That changed four months ago.
Nazirah came home late to a dark house. She and Cato had been hanging out with some neighborhood friends, sneaking swigs of homebrewed tequilux on the rundown boardwalk.
She remembers the crooked smile on her face. She fumbled for her keys, dropping them and silently cursing. She tiptoed through the front door, a low laugh slowly dying on her lips. The scents of jasmine and verbena from the front garden were quickly replaced by the smell of something else. Something foreign and nauseating.
Something wrong.
Buzz fading, eyes adjusting to the low light, Nazirah squinted into the darkness.
She only vaguely remembers collapsing to her knees. Only vaguely remembers her strangled cry. Only vaguely remembers the acidic taste of vomit in her throat.
Nazirah tries to recall her parents, once so full of life and light. But now, everything is muted. Now, everything is numb. Now, when she tries to recall their faces, all she can think of is this … this moment of pure hatred.
Their bodies: awkwardly positioned on the living room floor, bent at unnatural angles, so close they might have been embracing. Their hollow eyes: open but unseeing.
Wet tears still clung to two sets of frozen eyelashes.
And the blood. There was so much blood … splattered on the walls, on the furniture, spilling from matching chest wounds.
Her parents had once been so full of life and light.
Now, they would never laugh again.
#
“If looks could kill, Nazi Nation.” Cato slides into the empty seat on the bench. He playfully nudges her shoulder, setting down his overflowing tray with a thud.
Nazirah stabs a shriveled carrot with her fork, startled out of her lunchtime reverie. Not a reverie: a twenty-four hour nightmare, repeating over and over in her mind for months, with no end in sight, would be more apropos. Nazirah shifts her body away from Cato, turning only to glare before resuming the massacre of her plate.
She knows that Cato Caal, her supposed best friend, is only joking. But she really hates that nickname. She was teased mercilessly with it at school. In addition to her intermix status, which already made her a pariah, her parents’ political leanings worsened matters. But though they had been vocal about intermix rights, they were hardly Nazis.
At least, Nazirah doesn’t think so. She can’t exactly walk up to a Nazi and ask. Nazis have been extinct for centuries, bygone legends from the Old Country – North America.
Her thoughts turn to her parents once more and a fresh pang of grief surfaces.
It is mid-August, four months since she found her parents murdered. Four months since she became a homeless orphan. Four months since her world so spectacularly collapsed around her.
“Hey, Irri, you okay?” asks Cato, gently touching her arm. “I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying. I was just trying to get a laugh out of you.” The concern on his face is clear.
Nazirah shakes her head a little, trying to vanquish the ghosts.
Everyone said it wasn’t safe for her to stay, that it was too risky, that she was tempting fate. So she reluctantly agreed to abandon her childhood home, leave all of her memories to rot, and come live at the rebel compound.
Not that she was eager to stay home anyway.
Nazirah pauses, collecting herself. She looks up at Cato, amber eyes a bit too bright, fake smile in place.
Cato. Her best friend, who, against all her protests that she secretly hoped he wouldn’t listen to (and he hadn’t) had left behind his comfortable life in Eridies and come with her. He had no reason to leave. His family was still alive and, as a pure Eridian, he wasn’t in danger. But he was kind and foolish, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.