I wouldn’t have thought it possible but my feelings for her deepened in that moment. The way she loved her friend Clara so fiercely and the fact that she took it that hard when she died, made me love her so much.
I took a step back from the conversation and watched, unable to contribute anything useful as Desh explained who Clara was and what we knew of Palma. The Spider filled in some of the blanks, but he also said the gate was new.
“You ok, friend?” Elise asked, her eyes sincere, her hands hovering over my shoulder but not touching me.
I swiped the air like I could clear the vision like smoke. “Bad memories.” And good memories and everything I’ve lost rolled into one.
“Things have changed a lot since the retrieval mission,” Matt said. It became apparent our intel was pretty outdated after only twelve months.
The Spider from Palma smiled wide. “I didn’t know it would change this much. But I’m happy to see it!”
We listened. We voted. We decided it changed nothing. We would do the same as we had done in the other towns.
That night.
JOSEPH
The clouds moved in. Thin ones that weren’t about rain. They just kept the small amount of warmth from the day in.
The atmosphere at the camp was more relaxed than normal. Maybe we were getting used to it or maybe it was because we had more hope with this particular mission. Either way, we sat on rocks or in the dirt, surrounded by brittle trees with dresses of thorny bushes, making our plans. Some of the men pulled out their precious flasks and offered them around as we jumped from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. There could be no fire tonight as we were so close to the compound. Small battery lanterns or torches sat by people’s feet.
Gus flashed a warning stare in our direction as the flask flew around. “Take it easy, men. We still have a mission to complete.”
Olga stood up, flask in hand, and pushed it at Gus’s face. “Just one drink, Gus. It won’t kill you.”
She was braver than I was, but then, that wasn’t hard. We held our breaths. No one talked to Gus like that. He stared up at the patch of sky above us, the branches encroaching on the view, and swore. Snatching the flask from her chubby hand, he gazed into the opening. He sniffed it once, and his face relaxed. Raising the flask, he said, “moy syn,” and took a large swig. I watched him roll it around in his mouth and swallow it like it was a spoonful of honey. Man, he was a tough guy.
I leaned towards Matt and asked, “What does moy syn mean?”
Matt glanced down and I noticed he was flexing his injured hand, testing his fingers. They seemed sluggish.
“It means my son, Joe,” Matt whispered sadly.
“Oh.”
When the flask came to me, my head was already dark with memories: Cal’s crazed eyes when I’d burst into his hospital room, ready to tear him apart, a fan of perfect, dark-brown hair, blood. But I also thought of Gus. Most of the time, I forgot he was a father too, that he had lost both his children. He was just Gus, strong, gruff, and unemotional. I didn’t pause for long before I placed the flask to my lips and drank. The harsh liquid burned down my throat like charcoal-flavored acid. I coughed and spluttered while the older members of the group laughed at me.
I wiped my mouth and let myself smile, my eyes stinging with tears from the burning fluid. The alcohol pooled in my stomach and created an unfamiliar, warm sensation. The darkness got darker, shrouding my memories in a wavy fog and putting me in the present. I liked the feeling.
I passed it to Matt, and he declined. “Not a path I can go down again,” he muttered, still staring at his hand. I shrugged and took another small sip. It didn’t taste as bad the second time. Elise watched me from across the circle of Survivors and Spiders, curiously, with a small smile playing on her lips.
Matt stood. “Now as you know, poor Ansel was supposed to be the accompanying Survivor for the Palma mission.” Everyone bowed their heads. It seemed so long, though it was only weeks ago that Ansel was killed by those brutal men on our journey to the Superiors’ compound. Matt cleared his throat. “I would volunteer but… my hand…”
I jumped up, the sudden movement causing me to sway a little. I forced my body to straighten, to look confident, competent.
“I’ll go.” I was desperate to keep that distraction going, focus on the action outside of my brain, not the destruction going on inside.
“But you’re wounded, Joe,” Desh said, shaking his head as he hugged his body against the cold. That’s never going to change, I thought.
I made eye contact with Gus. “I’m fine, I feel perfectly fine,” I told them and myself. Moving closer to Gus, I talked in a hushed, pleading tone directly to him. “Please, let me do something.”
He groaned, and then his head fell into a begrudging nod. “All right, boy,” he conceded.
I clenched my fist and pumped it at my side. This would be a good thing for me. I blinked up at the stars, peeking out between branches that looked like spidery veins tangling across the air. A door was opening, but I had to close one first.
The Palma Spider stood and held out his hand. “My name’s Nafari,” he said, his strong handshake out of proportion to his small size. He looked up at me with almost black eyes like buttons and grinned. “My friends call me Naf.”
I shook his hand and returned his smile. “Ok Naf, where do we start?”
He threw his head back and laughed, his voice was deep and roaring, like an engine.
“I said my friends call me Naf.” He poked my chest with his brown, scarred finger, which hurt. “We are not friends… yet.”
I shrugged and forced a smile, which gradually became less fake as I stared into his strong, rebellious face. “By the end of this mission, I’ll be calling you Naf.”
He slapped his leg. “Oh, I hope so!”
“So Nafari,” I said, annunciating every syllable carefully, “where on the wall do you think we should place the bomb and the video?”
His eyes were as round as the moon, but more intense, brighter. “We are not going to place the bomb on the outside. We are going to stroll right in and we’re going to blow the gates open from the inside.” He swung his elbows dramatically and raised his legs up high, doing his strolling impression while he laughed.
My face froze in disbelief, which made him laugh harder.
“Don’t worry. Trust me,” he said through giant, white teeth. One tooth was missing, a black square punched through his mouth. He grabbed the flask and licked his lips before drinking. “This is going to be fun!” he garbled with a mouthful of alcohol.
The others didn’t argue. We had let the Spiders run each mission. They were the experts on their own towns after all.
The videodisc seemed heavy in my pack. Even though it only weighed about two hundred grams, its importance and my responsibility dragged me down until I felt like my feet were making deeper impressions with every step. Now that the alcohol had worn off, I felt less brave and more nervous. Nafari slapped my back, his springy steps making me even more tense, and began to push me through the gap in the blackberries.
“Let’s go, big man!” He laughed as he threw me a colored shirt to pull over my camouflage one.
Pelo and Desh waved me good luck as I turned around one last time. Matt and Gus had already told me to be careful a dozen times and were now packing.
We were swallowed in thorns and rustling leaves.
“Now, you remember what we practiced?” he whispered as we moved through the briar.
I nodded my head more times than necessary. “Yes.”
We burst through the other side and made our way to the dirt road that led right up to the gates. Our feet un-quiet, strolling casually or, in my case, trying to look casual and looking more stiff and edgy.