Dwindle

  ***

  The first time I saw Fisher again after Chess had kissed her was five days later. She approached only because Paige was also there, I thought, and she wordlessly handed each of us food before going to the back wall. She took a rock from the ground and made a mark there slowly before turning to sit with us.

  She ate in silence, and she never looked at me.

  “Can I ask you something?” Paige finally asked Fisher gently.

  Fisher’s mouth tightened again, but she nodded.

  “Who are the other Outsiders? You briefly mentioned them, but we’ve never met them.”

  And, for the first time in Fisher’s eyes, there was unabashed pain. A lot of it. My thoughts suddenly became dull, and there was only her pain and the tightness around her eyes and the waviness of her voice.

  “There were once two Cartographers,” she said. “Myself and another. I killed the second, my mentor, last week.”

  Paige and I stopped eating and glanced at each other nervously.

  “Why ever would you do that?” Paige asked.

  “She was suffering from Undeath, so I brought death to her.”

  Still, she could not look at us, and it broke my heart a little.

  “It was a gift on my part, not a transgression,” she clarified after a tense moment.

  “But I thought the Outsiders had the Taint,” Paige argued. “I thought they couldn’t contract Undeath.”

  Fisher nodded.

  “So they say,” she said, “but it has been for some time now that the Outsiders have observed a heightened sense of intelligence among the Undead. A keener awareness, a propensity to gather in groups, that sort of thing.”

  “You mean they’re evolving?” I asked, my fears spiking. “Is that even possible?”

  I turned to Paige and asked her,

  “Is that possible?”

  “I…” Paige’s face was pale. “I don’t know. But if it’s true…”

  “God help us all,” Fisher said, nodding.

  But there was still pain there.

  “You said others have seen this change too,” Paige said. “Who?”

  “The Watermaster…”

  The two words dissolved any misgivings I had towards her completely, crumbling sheepishly to the pits of my stomach in favor of making that pain go away. I didn’t understand why, but I felt actual sadness. I felt…pain. Her pain was my pain.

  Whatever the Watermaster was, it was someone who had hurt her greatly.

  “Who is the Watermaster?” Paige asked beside me.

  “He is my cousin, Skate.”

  It hurt me a little, deep within me. She said it so human. It hurt me to hear her hurting like she was.

  “He is my best friend, and I…”

  She paused a little, unable to speak. Fisher was close to tears, and her voice shook. I blinked hard. It couldn’t be the Fisher I knew, the brave, confident, mouthy young woman. The Fisher above weakness, above provocation. It was like she had decided to suddenly let us in and see her faults on this day. It was a glorious gift.

  “What’s wrong?” Paige asked, extending her hand to wrap around Fisher’s hands.

  “He went away a few weeks ago – with his mother.”

  The way she said it made me fill with pity, I realized, and I threw away the remnants of my reason. That I was making excuses for my feelings disgusted me. Fisher was a kid, Deviant or not. She was still just a kid. Admittedly, I was in a war at that age, assassinating Deviants like I’d always done it, like I’d been trained to. But that didn’t make me feel better.

  “Where can we find him?” I asked, nearly volunteering to help.

  I wanted to kick myself, but at the same time I was sheepishly eager.

  “I don’t know,” she said back.

  “Guess,” I ordered, but gently.

  “He would be at Peak, probably,” Fisher said, “but there is little help for him there. I predict that Gabby and Evergreen both went there was well. I do not know why they would converge at this place, but they did so in search of something there. Fools.”

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked.

  “Beyond anything you will ever have seen, I imagine…”

  Her eyes glazed over with obviously horrifying memories. Neither Paige nor I dared to speak.

  “I shudder to think what they faced there, or why they faced it at all. Other than searching for Skate and my aunt Gabby, they could have no reason to go to a place so volatile. It is a place where things go to…that’s where…they all go to…”

  She couldn’t say it out loud, but I knew what she was going to say. Peak was the place people went to die.

  “The Undead have many hives there. I believe that they all come from there initially. The place of their birth. And they return there to die. I don’t know why.”

  She stood up and pointed to the map on the back wall. It was so faded that I could hardly see it, but I understood now what she was doing marking it up. When I looked closer, I realized that the things I had simply taken to be dents and bruises on decaying walls as deliberate markings.

  “That’s Peak…” Fisher said, extending a finger.

  Paige stood and looked much closer at the map.

  “It’s…it’s the White House – look! Mr. Dark, look! It’s – this is the White House! Like in the pictures!”

  I wished I could stand. Almost like she could read my thoughts, Fisher stood by me and offered her hand. I looked at it for a moment, then at her. She was being nonchalant about it. So I took it with my own hand, glad I had gloves so that I would not need to feel how soft her skin was. She was surprisingly strong – stronger than she looked. She hoisted me up, bringing my arm over her shoulders like a soldier might. She brought me flush to her body to walk over to the map.

  It felt so good to walk, but my legs felt clumsy next to her body. I suddenly wanted to feel her hands beyond my gloves, to see if she felt like a human.

  But when I saw the map, I pulled myself away from her and leaned on the wall in surprise.

  “Did you make all these marks?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You’re quite thorough,” Paige noted, voicing my thoughts. “This is amazing.”

  “Thank you,” she replied emotionlessly.

  “You must have worked years on this,” Paige continued, undeterred, but she sounded kind of sad.

  I felt that way too. Fisher had nothing else to do with her life but make shapes on a map.

  I found myself thinking that she deserved so much more.

  “See?” Paige said. “Look. That’s what it looked like.”

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” I said to Paige distantly.

  I was trying hard to distract myself from that strange welling in my chest at the thought of Fisher’s lonely existence, of her life, and, strangely, of the soft skin that was kept at bay by the layer of fabric that covered our hands.

  “It used to be the capitol, you know,” Paige said to Fisher.

  “Of the free world,” Fisher said, nodding.

  Paige flipped around.

  “How do you know that?”

  “My mom told me when I was little,” she said, showing me her control again. “It wasn’t as dangerous when I was young. There weren’t as many Undead as there are now. They changed much slower then, you know.”

  Paige was impressed. I wasn’t. I was suspicious. Anybody who knew too much about Necrosis wasn’t a good person to be around.

  Either that, or I just wanted an excuse to be a hypocrite.

  “They would go there and make a Hive, but they were dumb and stupid.” Fisher sounded pained as she said it. “And they were blind…nothing like now.” She leaned past me and pointed. “You wanted to know. I’m born there.”

  She pointed to a thinner ‘x’. It was in the top left hand corner, north of what she called Peak, and it was strikingly close to the wall she’d drawn, in great detail, all the way down the length of the wall in her home. A litt
le stick figured person stood and waved with a funny smile. I found myself trying to hide a smile back.

  “My mom drew that,” Fisher said, fingering the drawing thoughtfully.

  She was so close to me that I could hardly breathe. I smelled her hair. Surprisingly, it wasn’t unpleasant. Natural. Dirt and water and wind.

  “When I was little, she drew it,” Fisher said, smiling distantly. “I forgot it was there…”

  She moaned under her breath, and I wanted to distract her.

  “What’s this one mean?” I asked, pointing to a circle. “This circle thing?”

  “That’s a salvage camp,” Fisher said behind me.

  “Why does it have an ‘x’ through it?” I asked to the wall.

  “It means it’s expended,” she said simply.

  I saw that nearly all of the circles had x’s through them.

  “What does that mean?” Paige asked, pointing to the diamonds.

  “Those are checkpoints,” Fisher said. She moved past me a little and made a line with her fingers over the paper. “If you see how they move closer and closer to Hand – see? I made a path for myself from the east and south – I haven’t gotten north and west yet. They’re much worse up there. But if I am trapped in the night, I may rest and resupply there. Few here would miss me for it.”

  Paige stared deeply at a teardrop marker. There were easily more of them than any other marker combined. I pointed to those then and glanced at Fisher. She looked oddly distant.

  “Those are hives,” Fisher said quietly. “That’s where…they live.”

  Both Paige and I turned around and she frowned, looking beyond us both into an unseen horror. Paige reached out a hand, but Fisher jumped away from her touch. No one would touch her, if she had her way. Her face knew it when I did too, and it gave itself a reprimand of tired annoyance.

  “I apologize,” she said with a false, cheery bravado that made me feel sick with pain. “It is not often others touch me with…kindness. I hope you are not offended.”

  As she said it, the knowledge that others constantly abused her seemed to overwhelm her. She closed her eyes and then took a deep, deep breath. Then, Fisher picked up a piece of black rock from the ground and drew another two teardrops. They were dangerously close to Hand.

  I glanced at Fisher guiltily, but she turned away, hands shaking, knees buckling. I felt bad. I really did. A kid shouldn’t be treated the way she was, Deviant or not.

  Then, that distinction helped the conflict in me settle somewhat. She was a Deviant, yes, but she was still a kid, and that saved her. As soon as she wasn’t, I could kill her. I would feel good about killing her. But as a kid, she was to be treated like just that. And it made me feel sad for her.

  Fisher’s glare burned through this inner monologue.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she ordered. “I don’t need your pity.”

  I tried to speak normally, but I could only say,

  “I wasn’t trying to –”

  “I know what you were trying to do,” she said angrily. “Mess with me. Like always.”

  I felt guilt. I hadn’t seen in her in five days, and in the times before that, I’d been as rude as ever. I’d wanted to start differently again maybe, try a second time but better. It was a chance she gave me.

  But I had not expected there to be so much pain on her end.

  Paige glanced between us before leaving the room. I didn’t know why she left, but I saw she wanted us to be alone. For some reason, I felt glad for the privacy. Alone time with Fisher felt precious now.

  I tried to be reasonable with my young protector, thinking that was what normal people would have done.

  “Listen,” I began, “I was just trying to –”

  “You were deciding whether or not to feel bad for me or make fun of me!” she said loudly. “You think you’re very clever, but I have always been good at reading people.”

  I swallowed. I’d always been good at hiding behind my mask of tightly knit emotions. That she could see through it terrified me.

  “I know you don’t like us,” she said, “I know you don’t like me, but at least do it with some integrity, please, Mr. Dark. I don’t want you to pretend like you care when I see in your eyes that you do not, so stop it.”

  Her voice had a commanding ring that I found incredibly difficult to resist. But I gathered my shambling willpower and asked,

  “Who are you to give me orders?” I asked loudly.

  “Aw, not used to it, are you?” she asked mockingly.

  “No, I’m not!” I yelled honestly.

  “Don’t you yell at me, Mr. Dark!” she said, advancing on me with a finger.

  I felt something then, fear at that finger.

  “I am the person who’s fed you, housed you, kept you safe, saved your life, and harbored you when no others would. Maybe that’s my authority!”

  “To what end?” I shouted back. “You just saved me so you could use me later! That’s all your kind ever does!”

  It had been a slip, and I’d hoped that she’d miss it, but she hadn’t, of course.

  “My kind?” she shrieked back breathlessly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Outsiders!” I lied quickly, hoping she didn’t notice my split second of hesitation.

  “Are you really that petty?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “Don’t turn this back around on me! I didn’t ask to be here! Not around you! Not in this stupid village! I don’t want to be here!”

  These were confessions I’d been aching to unload for some time, and it felt good to release these things.

  “How can you have such a bad attitude? I wouldn’t normally play this card, but I saved your life!”

  “And a lot of good that’s done me!” I shouted back. “We came here to die and you ruined everything! Why don’t you get that? I don’t understand why any of this is happening!”

  I’d spoken so quickly that she didn’t understand, I saw it in her eyes, but I was glad she didn’t. That last question, that last statement, they were both probably reflections of my inner turmoil than anything she could have done.

  “Why do you care, anyway?” I spat after the enduring silence. “Why do you come in here and sit with me, really? Why? I didn’t ask for you to help me.”

  “Because you are my responsibility,” she said back, as if it was obvious.

  “I didn’t ask to be.”

  “But I made you mine when I saved you.”

  “I didn’t ask to be saved,” I said again.

  She bit back a scream before it came out in a sentence.

  “I wouldn’t have even taken them if it wasn’t for you!” she shouted.

  I was touched, but I was more determined not to let it show.

  “And maybe I shouldn’t have!” she continued. “The way you look at me is unacceptable, Mr. Dark, and the way you talk to me is awful! You’re alive because of Hand’s good grace, and you sit here acting like this is not a charity, almost like it inconveniences you! We have little already, little which you stretch even thinner! I have almost nothing, and I am not at liberty to ask for more. And yet you act as if I do this out of sarcasm, as if my altruism is an act of vicious greed for favors!”

  I didn’t know what to say, but she wasn’t finished.

  “This is not an act, Mr. Dark! There is no ploy! I will not ask for your recompense! You’re ungrateful for the service that I, yes, admittedly, forced on you, but I did not expect it to be so unwelcome!”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off.

  “I am frustrated and confused and hurt when you…talk to me like that.”

  Her face flushed, but she continued.

  “You know? Outlanders have been my…my biggest dream since I can remember, since my parents died, and you’ve just…taken everything I hoped for and crushed it because you’re sulking that I saved you.”

  I wanted to be satisfied. This is what I’d wanted. To hurt her. To push her
away.

  But I felt appalled. The result was sickening.

  “We may do things differently here than where you are from, Mr. Dark, but I can assure you that if I went to wherever you lived, I would never act the way you do.”

  I felt guilt. Her argument was sound. I should have been nicer. I wished I knew how to be.

  “You need to treat us with a little more respect, Ollie, because if you don’t, you may get more punishment than even you can handle.”

  The influx of emotions was new, and, as with all things I did not understand, it made me angry.

  “What am I doing wrong?” I asked aggressively.

  It was the confusion that made me that way, and she only became more flustered. Her anger was dwindling now, replaced with that awful insecurity I hated so much. I wished I wasn’t angry, that I could be patient, but it came out that way, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  “You have this superiority complex that I find repulsive, Mr. Dark,” she snapped, “especially when you speak nothing of your own land. That you lie only proves you are not to be trusted.”

  For some reason, I wasn’t offended. It was true. She could not trust me. But I almost wished she could.

  Finally, I tried,

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t pretend to be!” she shouted. “Do you wonder why I have avoided you? You speak of me as if I am not here using words that I do not understand, and yet I know you know something!”

  “I don’t know anything!” I cried innocently, but she wasn’t fooled.

  “You know of my mark, which I have kept hidden for all my life. You know about the White House. You know about the Wall, the Mists, about too many things you should not.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You speak as if you are from a superior world, and that kills me inside!”

  The sentence escaped as a sob, and I felt like vomiting, so intense were the chills that came from it.

  “Why are you crying?” I asked, but my voice sounded just as harsh.

  I wanted to know how to be gentle and sensitive for the first time in my life and felt awful that I didn’t know how.

  “My parents died to bring me to your world, and I’ve failed them!” she said, hiding her face from me.

  She turned away.

  “We fled, and I ran back like a coward because I was afraid of the new world. Of being important and special. And that made their deaths nothing, but I was so afraid that there was nothing, that I would die alone and lost and frightened. But I was wrong!”

  I didn’t dare speak again. Every tone that came from my mouth failed to reflect the emotions I felt.

  “And I…” She wiped her face. “You speak like it’s something you miss, and that means that it is something that I have missed. I have failed them, my parents. I have failed them, and they would be ashamed of me because of my cowardice.”

  I felt like my stomach was being squeezed as she turned back to me, eyes welling with tears.

  “Have I failed them?”

  She paused, waiting, crying.

  “Tell me!” she shouted.

  I found a new pity. There was something better. I wanted to explain.

  “But just listen –” I began, but she would have none of it.

  “Don’t lie!” she shouted.

  I backed further into the wall. I had never been yelled at. Her anger was refreshing, in a way. I liked it. I knew I wasn’t supposed to. But I did. It made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do when I was uncomfortable. So I did what I always did when that happened. I lied.

  “I didn’t lie to you!”

  “No, you just didn’t tell me. Which is a lie in false clothing.”

  I was angry with her, but it was dull, numb anger. Fisher was right in many ways – most ways. She was justified to yell at me. I felt evil in a way I never had before for making a Deviant cry. It was strange, but it was also agonizing. She knew only a fraction of how terrible I was. I shuddered to think what it might be if she knew my real history.

  “I’m sorry,” I said numbly.

  And this time I meant it.

  “Yeah, me too,” she said, but she looked in my eyes.

  Something in her eyes dulled, like the anger I’d felt had dulled, and she let out a deep breath.

  “You’re a jerk, you know that?” she asked me.

  I smiled reluctantly, an actual smile.

  “Women have been known to tell me that once or twice,” I said, and if I didn’t know any better, it sounded like I was flirting with her.

  “But none of them are like you,” I amended.

  I felt my breath catch when she said,

  “I’m sure you say that to all the girls.”

  “Only the ones that get under my skin.”

  “And I’m sure there are so many that I’d just appear as a number on a list somewhere,” she said sourly, and the magic was gone.

  I swallowed. Had I done the wrong thing? Said the wrong thing? I was shocked with not only myself but her reaction. And then my reaction to her reaction.

  Did she think I was someone who used and disrespected women? What proof did she have of that?

  How about every single time you’ve ever talked to her?

  Fisher just scowled.

  “I’m going to sleep,” she said with finality.

  She turned her back on me and made her way to the front of the room, but this made me angry.

  “At least you get to walk around! I’m stuck in here all the time! Can you imagine how that feels?”

  “Poor baby,” she called over her shoulder.

  “You little –”

  “Like it’s my fault you were too weak to defend your own ass!”

  And with that, she left the room, leaving me feeling awfully defeated.