Page 40 of The Compound

“Can’t you be my boyfriend now?” I said, teasingly, though I was serious. I was too stupid for Sam, and didn’t Ryan and I make sense? Weren’t we the kind of couple who always got together on the show?

“There’s no real point,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the same. This isn’t real, this compound life.” My face must have fallen, because he said, “How I feel for you is real, Lily. None of that is fake.”

“I know,” I said. “I feel the same.” He kissed me again, and then we both lay back in the grass, and the sky above us was a perfect, cloudless blue. Across the way Evan was miserably drinking cocktail after cocktail, until he abruptly leaned forward and vomited a fluorescent concoction over the deck. We watched him clean it up, blubbering all the while. No one moved to help.

—

We waited forSusie at the southern perimeter at sunset, but she didn’t appear. We began to feel uneasy. Evan was pacing, a bleak look on his face. Jacintha, too, was upset. “We shouldn’t have left her out there. It wasn’t worth it. Why did we agree to it?”

“We need the wood,” Tom said. “I know it was a difficult decision. But we’ll all be safer this way.”

“What if we’ve killed her? What if she died out there?” Jacintha asked, openly distressed. She looked around at each of us, and when she met my eye, I dropped my gaze to the ground. I didn’t know what to say.

Andrew put an arm around Jacintha’s shoulders. Attempting toconsole her, he said, “They don’t let anyone die here.” It was true, of course, but people got hurt all the time, every season.

When Susie finally made it back to us, it was dark, and the temperature had dropped.

She ducked under the barbed wire, and we stood close, but didn’t touch her.

“Are you all right?” Evan said. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” she said in a faded voice. “Well—yes, I think so.”

We backed away and looked at her in the dim light. She was burned all the way from her face to her feet, which were encased in strappy sandals; she had blisters and blood on her heels.

“What happened?” I said.

“Nothing, really. I walked for a long time before I found shelter. It was just a couple of trees, it wasn’t much at all. But there was a…nest of snakes. One of them came up close and just looked at me for a long time. I thought if I dropped the bag with the food and water, it would leave me alone. It was stupid, really. I left the bag, but as soon as I turned around, it started to follow me. I started running, and I thought, well, I guess I’m going to die. But after a while it stopped chasing me. I think it probably wanted me to get away from the nest or whatever. I thought there must be another source of shade, but there wasn’t, and I just walked and walked, and I got lost, and I thought I wouldn’t make it back. You can’t really tell from here, but the compound kind of blends in with the landscape, and I thought…well. Anyway, I’m back.”

I expected tears, or hysterics. But she looked at us dry-eyed, smiling a little.

“Oh, Susie,” Evan said, and his voice shook. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Susie.” He didn’t move to embrace her; none of us did. She looked strange. She didn’t look like herself.

“There was nothing out there, for miles and miles. I kept wondering how you boys found us, but you had each other, I suppose. I forgot—I’m so stupid—I forgot which way was east, and I just kept walking, and I thought that I would pass out. It was so hot—you think it’s hot in the compound, but it’s not. Out in the sand, with no shade and no water, theheat just overwhelms you, it’s all you can think about. It was more horrible than I thought it could be.”

“I’m sorry, Susie,” Evan said, and hiccupped.

“How could you do that to me?” Susie said to all of us. “Why would you do that?”

We brought Susie inside and put her to bed after some food and drink. We lathered her in aloe vera and checked on her regularly. She didn’t speak to us, but she called out in her sleep all through the night.

When we went out to look at the reward, there was enough wood to build a thousand doors: enough to build another house if we wanted.

Part

II

Eight

We knew that Susie wouldbe next to be banished. She had not been the same since her time in the desert: she’d become withdrawn, and buzzed like a bluebottle around the house, refusing to go outside except for Communal Tasks. We waited for the next banishment, watching on as she grew increasingly agitated, jumping at loud noises and frequently lying curled up on the ground, as she had been when we first found her by the pool. We tried, for a while, to help her, and for a while she let us. She had me do her makeup, while Candice styled her hair. As more time passed, though, she made it clear to us that she wanted to be left alone and became almost violent if approached. She put on an outfit entirely gifted from a popular fast-fashion brand and wore it every day, until her clothes began to smell and were stained and rumpled beyond recognition.

Don’t worry,we said to each other with a look.She won’t be here long.

Perhaps a week after she had been in the desert, the big screen offered an ornamental vase in exchange for a banishment. We didn’t even vote: we just found Susie and escorted her to the perimeter. She seemed to know what was happening before we reached her, and ran around the house, hiding in different places and sobbing loudly. Evan eventually coaxed her out, but she became the only resident who had to be removed by force.

Evan and Ryan led her gently to the perimeter, but the closer she got to the boundary the more upset she became, thrashing and crying out.

Evan stopped her. He was nearly as upset as she was. “You don’t want to stay, do you, Susie? You haven’t been happy here for this past while.”

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