Page 68 of Blue Arrow Island
This is the kind of breakthrough that could have helped many hungry people, both before and after the virus. This hardy garden is a scientific marvel, but I can’t forget the others on thisisland who are starving while I’m surrounded by food all day, every day.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
My garden coworker, Ray, kneels beside me. I murmur a quick hello and don’t look at him. This isn’t the first time he’s left the work he’s supposed to be doing to come talk to me. He’s wiry and muscular, and he looks like he’s in his thirties, his short hair and beard both the shade of rust.
“You think this place is kinda bullshit?” he asks in a low tone.
“The island?” I scoff. “That’s one word for it.”
“No, this camp. Marcus calls all the shots. He’s just like fuckin’ Whitman.”
I bristle, worried someone will overhear this conversation and think I share his opinion. Whatever thoughts I have about Marcus, I’m not stupid enough to say them out loud. Especially not to someone I don’t even know.
“This camp’s a lot better than the one I was at before.” I use my T-shirt to mop sweat from the back of my neck. “They’re starving there and they work or train sixteen hours a day.”
Ray sighs deeply, considering. “So it’s like this place, then? One leader who makes the rules?”
“Two. And no, it’s not like this place. I didn’t feel safe at Rising Tide.”
He looks over both shoulders before continuing. “I want to get the fuck off this island. I have a wife back home. It doesn’t matter how nice this camp is, I’m not spending the rest of my life here.”
“I get that. I don’t want to either.”
His eyes light with hope. “Which camp do we have a better shot of getting out of here with? Does anyone at the other camp want to try?”
I shake my head, alarmed by his use of the wordwe. “I didn’t hear anyone talk about it. They train and work and that’s it.Rising Tide is not a pleasant place. They’re starving. And they fight each other to the death.”
“No shit?”
“Anyone can challenge anyone to a fight in a circle. One person lives, the other dies. No one is safe.”
“So someone could even challenge the leaders?”
I bark out a note of laughter. “Yeah, someone did while I was there. He’s dead.”
Felix is approaching, and even though I’m working and not doing anything wrong, I don’t want him to think I want Ray here.
“I have to work,” I say sharply. “You should do the same.”
“Pfft. I’ve fuckin’ had it with shoveling piles of cow shit. I’m finding a way out of here.”
He leaves. I hope he doesn’t come back. Even though I still want to get off this island, I plan to be smart about it. I’m okay biding my time. Whitman is building something here—a force of enhanced people—and whatever he plans to do with them, it’ll strengthen his hold on New America. I won’t stand by and let it happen, even if it takes time to make a feasible plan.
It takes me a couple of hours to harvest and clean more than one hundred sweet potatoes. Even though I’m wearing the wide-brimmed hat everyone who works in the garden wears, my face is flushed and my skin is warm when I walk to the covered shelter we use for water breaks.
My canteen here is about twice the size of the one I had at Rising Tide. The room I was assigned to is in the underground area. It’s slightly bigger than the one I shared with Rona, but this one has a foam mattress, a light fixture, and a shelf. I have nothing to put on the shelf, but sometimes I look at it and imagine what framed photos of my family would look like there, if they were alive today.
Dad would have even more gray in his hair. Mom would have more “silver streaks” because she refused to use the wordgrayfor her hair. Thinking of what Maven would look like hurts the most. Would she have a partner beside her in a photo? Someone who saw her and loved her the way she deserved? She never got a chance for that, like our parents did.
After my water break, I grab the handle of the steel wagon I loaded full of potatoes and pull it down the mulch-covered walkway toward the garden’s entrance.
I deliver produce to the kitchen every day, a job no one else in the garden wants to do. I don’t mind it at all.
As I walk, I pass people doing their jobs. A guy who barely looks eighteen years old carries two heavy pails, sweat dripping from his chin. Two women pass with a cart that looks like a wheelbarrow with a swinging lid, one of them nodding at me.
I’m almost to the kitchen when I spot Marcus and Nova. It’s too late to pretend I didn’t see them; my eyes went straight to Marcus’s. When the butterflies in my stomach wake up and flutter at the sight of him, I get a flare of annoyance.
After nearly a month here, the aromium should be completely out of my system. But I still feel a powerful pull toward Marcus every time I see him. It’s similar to the way aromium made me want Pax, but it’s also different. With Pax, there was a frenzied need to fuck him as quickly as possible. I felt like an alcoholic—if I could just get the fix my body wanted so badly, the madness would subside.
