Somewhere, from far beyond this yellowed, dead valley, I can smell gasoline.
It's faint, so faint I might be imagining it out of loneliness or boredom, but I don't care anymore. I'm so tired of not knowing, not being able to sleep, of dreaming when I'm awake that I'll take whatever I'm given. I don't see cars or a gas station, but there has to be a road somewhere in those stretching plains of dried grass. There has to be.
I'm allowed to be here. I'm in bounds, as long as I don't try to touch our fence, barbed wire curling like thorns above and below it. There's something rusted onto the barbs, a brown tarry substance. I'm sitting just behind it, taking deep inhales of the hot, dry air just to smell the gasoline. Something from outside, from before.
All of us and none of us remember our lives before The Ranch. We told each other once, in the beginning, where our homes were. When I'm out here, away from the dorm and the borrow pits, I recite them to myself to feel the words in my mouth. It's my version of the Lord's prayer-if I repeat it enough, it'll save me. Salem, Broken Bow, Red Lodge, Boston. Sometimes I'm certain I came from Boston, other times I know it's Red Lodge. The others can't remember either. Must've been years ago. Gabe and I talk about it all the time, but we do it here, where Liz and Al won't overhear.
Time stagnates here, dying a slow death under the desert sun. I remember coming here, but vaguely. Gabe swears that I was here before him and after Sam, but Liz says I was here after her. Liz and Gabe arrived at the same time-we assume, since they're twins and it would be strange to drop them off separately. Strange, but not impossible. Sam arrived after Axel, but we chalked that up to Sam being younger. Our logic is flawed, but the fragile tower of assumptions we've built for ourselves is all we've got.
Axel won't say how long he's been here. He's the oldest of us, the oldest one I can remember. He's been here long enough to see everyone go in and out. He has the most memories and the most scars from The Director, more than a few from protecting us. He hates talking about anything outside The Ranch. He only tells us about it when we get sick; when he does, he talks about the beach the most.
There are no beaches here. There's dust, gravel, patches of dead grass, and the yawning maw of a blue sky.
Axel tells us that it's the sedatives they gave us that keeps us from remembering. That they leaked into the rest of our brains and messed us up. Gabe doesn't believe it, but I just don't know what else it could be. Every time I try to think about it, the haze of exhaustion and despair overtakes me in waves, and my head begins to hurt. Memory is far away from me and now, all I have are sensations. The smell of gasoline.
I hear the bell tolling in the distance. I don't want to go, but I scramble to my feet in spite of myself, and begin moving sluggishly towards the dorm. My vision briefly goes dark, and dizziness nearly forces me to the ground again.
Gabriel called it The Ranch first, but I don't know why he thinks that. We move rocks back and forth, in and out of the same pits. We don't farm or raise livestock-we don't have anything the Director would need. Gabe told me once, just once, that he thinks it's us. All five of us.
I'd never seen Axel as mad as he was when I asked him if it was true. He told me and Gabe to never say it again, especially to Sam.
There didn't used to be just five of us. I don't remember a lot, but I remember that. There's ten beds in the dorms. Their faces are so blurry, their voices and features melting together. I have the odd memory here and there, sometimes when I'm seeing different faces than the ones in front of me-ones younger than Sam who I told stories to so they could sleep, ones as old as Axel covering me from the rare shower of rain. They were my brothers and sisters, I loved them, and I lost them without even knowing it. But I remember Beatrice the most.
I think it was her hair that made me remember her through all this time, all the exhaustion, because it was red. Everyone else's hair here is brown or black, but hers was so vivid. When she got here, her hair was cut short, maybe as a punishment. Liz was still the only girl when Beatrice came along, and she was so excited. She was scared, of course, we all are when we get here. She kept asking us where we were. Liz promised to keep her safe. They were so close they were almost one person, whispering late into the night and into the early morning. I think they made each other less afraid. Even on the nights we dug until our hands bled and our nails splintered, they made us less afraid too. I asked Liz once if she remembered her, and she just started to cry. I didn't know if that meant yes or no.
The last time I saw Beatrice, her hair was long and free, the red sunset on waving stalks of grass.
Gabe thinks she escaped. I don't.
I jog faster across the field, even as my legs nearly fall out from under me. When the fatigue burns away into a hysteric rush, I can imagine that instead of running towards the dorms, I'm running away, out into that desert. Away from The Ranch, the horrible hot and cold and tired and to where I never have to look at a borrow pit ever again.
Then what? You collapse and die of exhaustion in the desert. And one week later, someone else takes your spot.
That's not true. Someone would come along. There's a road. There has to be.
Something screams overhead and I skid to a stop, kicking up dust and rocks. A plane. They don't fly over often, but when they do, we stare at them like they're shooting stars. When we hear them in our beds at night, and we wait with bated breath-I don't know for what. Mostly, our skies are silent.
Once, I started waving my arms at one, trying to signal it. Liz had slapped my shoulder.
"Stop that before the Director sees. No one's coming."
It had hurt at the time-I must have been new-but everyone realizes it eventually. If your parents or friends or the police were going to find you, they would have already.
The planes at least disprove some of what the Director tells us. He lies to us for fun-at least, I hope he does. When he does visit, he'll tell us a different story each time about why we're here. They're gotten more elaborate and harder to believe as time goes on. He's told us that we're serving out our sentence for a crime, or that we chose to be here, or that we're sick and he's curing us, or that we're the last people on Earth. The last time, he told us he was the Devil. Gabe laughed at him when he said that.
Gabriel went missing that day. We didn't look for him-we don't look for anyone after the visits. We know where they are, and just hope that they come back to us alive. When the sun had set, Gabe did. He staggered into the open, dizzy and confused, and we ran to get him before he could fall into the pit. All things considered, he got off pretty easy. The stitches jammed through his mouth were easy to cut through with a can lid, and the mark on his forehead would scar over in time. Gabe sat on his bed, holding Liz's hand while we did, tears in his eyes. But he didn't lose fingers, or a foot, or his eyes. I can't say the same, at least for the first.
It's harder some days to accept it. But what's the alternative? Axel and Gabe don't get along for obvious reasons, because Gabe keeps talking about escaping. Axel hates it, especially when he tries to talk to Sam about it. I don't know if Axel's protective over Sam because he's the youngest, or because they're brothers, or both. I overheard him and Gabe arguing once after the rest of us had left the dorms.
"He's eleven, eleven, Gabe."
"So what? You want him to stay here?"
Axel dropped his voice. "Of course I don't. But I want him to be as safe as possible. He doesn't understand who the Director is, or why it's only going to get worse if we try to leave. You're going to get him maimed or killed trying, and I'm not burying another-"
"How long is he going to be here, then?" Gabe demanded. "What do you think is going to happen when you're gone?"
He didn't answer that.
No one knows what happens when you leave, if they actually let you. We all have our theories; they drop you off at another Ranch, or they drive you out to the middle of the desert and leave you there, or you become an Assistant. Everyone had an equal chance of being right or wrong. But everyone was sure that whenever you leave, they didn't let you go back home.
"The Ranch is your home," The Director had told us, at one of the visits. "I saved you. Never forget that."
Maybe that memory was just a nightmare. I want it to be.
I don't know how long I've been here, but I'm sure that I will spend the rest of my life within the boundaries of this fence. I don't know how Gabe still has the will to fight-or had. He's been more subdued lately. Quieter, not speaking in full sentences most of the time. When we meet in the fields, sometimes he just stares out into the desert, like he's trying to convince himself to run.
The Director and the Assistant are waiting for us now. I see them standing in the dust, the Director wearing his uniform and the Assistant leaning on his cane. A bitter, sour smell lingers around them, though I can never tell who it's coming from.
We did that to him. It feels like years ago-but it could've been months-when Axel and Liz managed to get him on the ground when he came alone. We thought we could hold him hostage and get the Director to negotiate for him. It didn't even do any good, in the end. Even after we had broken his leg, the Director didn't care. We could've killed him if we wanted. After a week, it became clear the Director wasn't coming back for him and had no problems letting us starve or waiting until we collapsed from pure exhaustion.
So we let him go. The Director did show up, just to wait at the gate when we gave up. He stood there in his warden suit and waited while the Assistant limped forward, his leg twisted and half-dragging behind him.
The Assistant stares at me when I approach, gripping his cane in one hand. I think he hates me. I wasn't the one who broke his leg, but I was the one who found the brick that they used. He doesn't have a gun, but he does have a cattle prod on his belt, while the Director has a baton and a hunting knife. I wonder if it's any use to the Assistant to have it, since he can be knocked off balance so easily.
His face is partially obscured by his hair, overgrown and blond. I can still see his good eye, though, shifting from me to Liz to Sam. Counting to make sure we're here, or maybe deciding which of us it's going to be today. Maybe he doesn't decide-maybe the Director does, and he just pretends to in order to make us nervous. Same reason for the sporadic visits, I guess-we never know if we're safe. Not for the first time, I wonder why he helps the Director do this to us. Does he get paid to do this? Is he stuck here like us? Axel was sure, once, that we'd be able to wear him down into feeling sympathy for us and helping us escape, but that was before we broke his leg. Before my hand, too.
We line up reluctantly, and I can see the Director's tower looming over the camp, just outside the gate. It used to be a water tower, but now it's his panopticon.
I don't know who it's going to be today. Sometimes, it's one of us for several visits, other times it seems to be purely random. I don't know what it's going to be either. The Director likes to watch us squirm, shift from one foot to another. Liz is next to me, clutching her hands into fists at her side. I know that she wants to rip the Director's face off. The last time she was alone with him was bad. The visits are always bad, but she never cried in front of us before that moment.
There's a post stuck in the ground in front of us, crawling with black ants-a gibbet, that's what it's called. I wonder what they'll do with it today. Sometimes they don't use it at all, like when they made Sam dig his own grave while the Director pointed a deer rifle at him. He looked so small in that pit, shaking from head to toe, covered in dirt. He dug from noon to sunset, sure the entire time that the Director would kill him. We were sure the Director would kill him. So sure that Axel ended up attacking him with one of the shovels, tearing the rifle out of the Director's hands. It was a horrible shock for him-for all of us-to find out that it wasn't even loaded. Axel still walks with a slight limp, all this time later.
They'll use the post today, the pit in my stomach is sure of it.
The Assistant and the Director are finished talking, though it all sounds like garbled nonsense, and he's moving a cinderblock towards the post, pushing it so it rests at the base. The Director is fiddling with a length of rope. He sees me watching and grins with all his white teeth, and I freeze. The smile is more like a grimace, and he twists the rope over and under and around his black-gloved hands. I allow ten seconds of looking at him, then I focus my eyes to the ground. I feel Gabe's look too, his pity for me, everyone's fear.
We're all scared of the Director. We all hate him, but right now every instinct is screaming at us to run. He's reduced us to nothing but cowering animals. His gaze rolls over us like the spinning of a cylinder in a game of Russian Roulette. All of us send up silent prayers for our safety, for whoever gets chosen to survive. I shut my eyes.
Leave Liz alone. Please. Anyone but her. I don't feel guilty about not bargaining for Gabe, because I know that's what she's doing. Praying that Gabe isn't picked, while he prays for her. I put in an extra chip for Liz, though, because I know what the Director will try to do to her. Gabe and her barely talk about what happened to them before, but we put the pieces together based on his reaction to that one visit. The Assistant ended up having to shock him twice to get him down. It was Gabe's turn that day.
Spare Liz. Pick me if you have to. I don't mean the last part as much as I meant the first. No matter how much I hate myself for it, I'm afraid. I open my eyes just enough once the fear becomes too great.
His hand shoots out, and for a moment I think he's reaching for Sam, and my heart jolts. Instead, his hand grips Axel by the shoulder, and shoves him toward the post.
Sam tries to grab his brother's arm, but Axel pulls away. "It's okay," he manages to say. He sounds more relieved than scared. The Assistant falters a bit, his knuckles white on his cattle prod. He still forces Axel to step onto the block after taking off his shirt, back facing us. I don't understand what he's doing until he ties Axel's arms above his head. The ropes are so tight they have to be cutting into his wrists. Then the Assistant steps down and then pulls the block away.
I want to look away, but I don't. I can't. I'm gripping Sam by the arms, trying to hold him so he doesn't rush forward and do something stupid. Axel's chest is beginning to heave, panic breaking through his mind like a sledgehammer through glass. He's kicking his legs, unable to find purchase or relief as his own body begins pulling him down. He can't breathe properly like this. The Director takes the straightstick baton off his belt, and swings his first strike between his shoulder, landing with a sickening crack.
Axel's whole body jolts as he recoils from the pain, the wind completely knocked out of him. He doesn't have time to recover before the Director strikes him again. Axel takes three more hits before he starts to make any noise. Everyone tries to be strong when it's their turn, but it never lasts. He says something that might be please.
His arms are shaking, straining to hold him up, his entire body wrenching to take a single breath. He makes a noise between a choke and a gasp before the Director lands another blow to the back of his knees, causing them to jolt into the post. Blood begins to trickle down his back, the marks almost glowing red. The Director grows more frenzied with every hit, each landing harder than the last until Axel's back is nothing but a mass of red.
By the time the Director finally stops, Axel isn't flinching away or trying to move his legs anymore. He's hanging limply, clinging to consciousness by his fingernails. I'm glad I can't see his face, just the back of his head struggling to stay upright. The Director straightens, re-adjusts himself to look at his work. Axel makes a gurgling sound, attempting to cough something out of his lungs but not having enough air to. The Director turns to the rest of us now, his cloudy eyes wild with hatred.
"You are mine," he says, panting from exertion. "NOTHING LESS!" he shouts, and even the Assistant flinches. "-AND NOTHING MORE."
I hear Liz softly begin to cry. The sun is setting, throwing amber light over his deranged face in all its glory. I don't know if Sam has figured it out. It's hard to see how he hasn't.
Axel finally faints, his head thumping into the post. He hangs like dead weight, unmoving. The Director's face falters like a child who's been sent to his room. He turns to the Assistant, pushing his knife into his hands.
"Cut him down," he orders, his voice filled with contempt and frustration.
The Assistant obeys, as always, standing on the block and sawing through the ropes until Axel falls to the ground like a bloody ragdoll. A wave of relief washes over me when I notice his chest is moving weakly. The Director grabs Axel's head by a handful of his black hair. He slams it into the post, over and over until I hear something crack. The Director then drops him into a heap.
He seems calmer now, and he pats me on the shoulder, leaving faint red marks on my shirt. It takes all my strength to not flinch away.
There's almost a dreamlike look on his face, distant and calm. His eyes shine like a coyote's would in the dark. Right now, I can believe that he's the Devil. He's anything he wants to be right now.
"Take care of him, alright, John?"
I force myself to look in the direction of his face and nod. My name is Felix, but right now, it's John.
"Rest up. You got another day tomorrow." Then, still brandishing his baton, he and the Assistant walk into the night. We don't move until we hear the gate slam.
Axel is somewhere between awake and passed out. He looks so pale, almost dead, his eyes struggling to focus on us. There's so much blood on him. It's dripping from his nose down his face, into his mouth. He's lacerated in places, bruises the color of burst, overripe plums blooming over his entire back. Once we manage to sit him up, he starts taking big, gasping breaths until he chokes and begins coughing. His arms are shaking so much it takes him several tries to lift them.
We half-carry, half-lead him back to our dormitory. It used to be a barn, but whatever animals that were here were cleared out and the barn itself left to seethe in its own misery and rot. What remains is dilapidated and haunted. Many of the blankets have strange stains on them, the cloth worn down in places like someone's still sleeping there. We sit Axel down on his cot, and I reach beneath mine for the strips I've ripped off clothing that we couldn't wear or hand down anymore.
"The water's not running today," Liz mutters so I can hear. "We can't clean any of it."
I take a quick glance at Axel's back, and bile rises in my throat. It looks comparable to someone dragged behind a car. "I'll just cover up what I can, for now. The bruising makes it look worse than it is," I lie. Liz doesn't believe me, but she leaves it alone.
I wrap up as much as I can, but in some places it's hard to tell where the blood stops and the bruise begins. His breath hitches a few times when I accidentally brush one of the many cuts on his back. It must feel like hell. At a point, he tries to take the cloth from me, but he can't keep his arms up for long enough, so he gives up and tries to hold still.
He can't keep doing this. I'm sure he knows it. It's just going to get worse. Gabe was right, he's not going to be around forever. If the Director drags him out one day-or if the next visit, he's not lucky-Sam's alone. He has us, sure, but we aren't his brother.
Axel's skin is turning gray, getting colder and colder. It's better than a fever, but maybe this is just the beginning of the end. We've done so much to survive out here, in this place, but infection could take any of us in a moment. Every time someone beats it and survives, they're left a little weaker.
"Three," he croaks out.
"What?"
"Three years. She died after one."
I crouch to look in his eyes, unfocused and half shut. "Who?"
"Sarah. She drank the water. They all did. It was-it was too much. Issac tried to save her."
My blood went cold. "What's in the water, Axel?"
"He took my place. I took his."
I try not to shake him. "Axel," I repeat, forcing my voice to be quieter. "What's in the water?"
"It tastes sweet. Coppery." His head droops to his shoulder, and his voice becomes a mumble. "We didn't drink it at first."
I realize I'm the only thing keeping him upright, and I let him drop to his cot. He doesn't acknowledge me other than to close his eyes.
The exhaustion in my bones turns to anger, frustration. I don't know who I'm angry at-right now it doesn't matter. I feel my hands tremble, my nails scrape my scalp as I grab at my head. I slump down onto the floor, and the dull roar of my thoughts crescendos to a howl of whispers, a cacophony of indistinct conversations pushing into reality.
My head tilts to look out the window, streaks of light raining down like a shower of stars.
~~~
When the next siren jerks me from the comforting fog of sleep, I realize someone is sitting next to me.
Sam's small frame is crouched next to his brother's cot. He gets nightmares a lot, but doesn't wake anyone up anymore. We all barely get enough sleep as it is, so he just sits next to us and waits until he gets tired again. He doesn't seem to understand the idea that someone may be unsettled to wake up to a figure with overgrown black hair and shiny animal eyes staring at you.
Sam is cradling a dark shape in his hands, trying to angle his body to hide it from me. It pokes its head out-a rat. He looks at me pleadingly.
"I'm sorry. I know we aren't supposed to, but..." he trails off. He holds it a little closer, and it nestles into the worn fabric of his shirt. "I'm sorry," he repeats, quieter. "I'll put her outside."
He cracks open the barn door and gently shoos the rat away, it scurrying off into the grass. He returns just as quickly to his brother's side, noticeably more guilty. Axel doesn't want any of us touching the rats. Rabies or any other animal-borne disease is a death sentence out here. I wonder how many people he had to watch die foaming at the mouth and puking their guts out before he learned that.
Sam shifts in place, wrapping his arms around himself. He's uncomfortable around us, at least when we're awake. I think he senses we don't know what to think of him. He's a two-headed lamb. We're caught between showing him sympathy and flinching away at the sight of him. I want to treat him kindly, but I have no idea how to help him. Liz tries to just leave him alone, not get attached and hope he survives. Gabe can't even look at him sometimes.
It's not his fault.
"I hate him," Sam says after a moment of silence. The venom comes pouring out of him. "The Director and the Assistant. We should've beaten him to death when we got him. We could've at least hurt the Director a little."
There's a look of fury on his face that's almost comical on an eleven-year old. It would be, if it wasn't familiar. Axel can't protect him from it forever. We don't have mirrors here, so he might not know that as he gets older, he looks more like his brother. Like their father. Black hair and sharp eyes, their unhinged anger. I see the need for revenge burn in his eyes sometimes, and I understand why Axel doesn't want to encourage it.
I reach out to pat his shoulder, but he shrinks away. He scrubs at his eyes.
"The Director doesn't care about him, Sam," I tell him. "He proved it that day. We couldn't have hurt him in any way that mattered."
Dejected, he fiddles with the hem of his shirt. He then looks at me. "Did the Director take the Assistant's face off?"
I shrug, though I know the answer's probably yes. "Maybe."
The Assistant usually hides his face from us behind his hair, but he can't always. When we knocked him onto the ground, I saw it. One of his eyes slashed shut, deep warped scars tearing through his lips and up his cheek. Whatever was done to his face, it was done to his voice, too. We were so busy trying to make him talk it never occurred to us that he couldn't. All we ever heard out of him was a strangled scream, like an animal with a trap around its throat. We can still hear that scream at night, coming from the tower. Sometimes the coyotes call back.
It's better to not think about what's being done to him.
Sam hugs his knees to his chest, and we watch Axel breathe for a minute. He's somewhere where nothing can hurt him, at least not physically. He didn't wake up with the siren-that might be a bad sign.
"I don't want him to keep getting hurt for me," he whispers. "I'm strong enough now. He can stop."
I don't say anything to that. Axel would give every drop of blood in his body before letting Sam be the target of the Director again. I think that might be the point, to have them willing to do anything to keep the other safe. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel lonelier for it.
"Felix?"
"Yeah?"
"We're going to get out of here, right? Eventually?"
This is Gabe's fault for filling his head with all those fantasies, all that hope to be ground up and used against him. He looks at me with his big trusting eyes and I can't bring myself to crush him.
I close my eyes, leaning back against the wall. "We will. Of course we will."
~~~
When I leave the barn, Liz is beating a jackrabbit carcass with one of our shovels. She brings the blade down, over and over in furious arcs, somehow each time with more force.
I don't want to interrupt, so I stand there in a daze, wondering if this is real. I feel untethered from my body, like I'm still dreaming. Liz hears me anyway and whirls around, bloody shovel raised above her head. Her eyes are wet, reddened and she's splattered with viscera, her dark brown curls sticking up with sweat.
"Are you okay?" I blurt out before I realize what a goddamn stupid question that is.
She wipes her face and doesn't respond. Her hands are bloody and scratched, one of them gripping the shovel tight enough to give her splinters. The jackrabbit is almost hacked in half, the guts not speckled all over Liz spilling out of the body like coils of rope.
"It got stuck in the wire," she offers, a little lamely, noticing the look on my face. "It got through, but it was hurting. I thought I could..." she trails off. We both know what she did.
I hold my hand out and she surrenders the shovel. I drive it into the pale, sandy ground until there's a hole about a foot deep between us. It's a bit difficult to do with three fingers on the left hand, but I've pretty much gotten used to it. I think about how lucky it is that the two most useless fingers I had were the ones cut off, then mentally kick myself. I'd still rather have them than not.
I use the shovel to scrape the remains in, then cover it before either of us look at it for too long. Liz doesn't say a word throughout the entire process, both of us giving our own silent eulogy. Please let this thing get into whatever version of heaven it can. Please forgive Liz and let someone find us.
She buries her face in her hands, and I want to reach out to comfort her, but I don't. The barbed wire she's very deliberately wrapped around herself tells me exactly how she feels about being touched. She fashioned a double-sided cilice with her bleeding hands by pulling the wire off the fence, and hasn't taken it off since it was finished. If it hurts her or pierces through her clothes, she doesn't complain. I doubt she'd take it off even if it did hurt-after all, it's worked so far.
"I'm here if you need me, alright?" I say instead.
I don't blame her when she heads back into the barn, and I leave the shovel on the grave. Gabe's waiting for me in the field, anyway.
I remember exactly why I lost them. I had snapped, abandoned the digging and climbed the fence one day. I was ready to leave it behind, prepared to drag myself through the desert if I had to. The Assistant had chased me, caught up to me only when I had reached the top. He shocked me until I fell, barbed wire tearing through my hands.
My middle and little finger are gone from my left hand. The shears the Director used were dull and uneven, so one of the stumps is a bit higher than the others. He would've taken my thumb too if I hadn't told him I wouldn't be able to dig without it. It's hard to pick things up or to keep a hold on them when I do-but I can hold them.
I paid two fingers for a second where I was above everything, where even while my hands bled and I was so dizzy I could barely think, all I could see was the wide blue sky and the desert in front of me. As much as I hate to admit it, Gabe's right about it. I would do it again.
But I know the Director isn't going to take fingers next time. The punishments have been and will keep getting worse. Just the thought of returning to that room with its strobing lights and dull blades fills me with such a heavy dread that I almost vomit.
Sometimes his logic seems more like that of a child, stomping on his little tin soldiers when something doesn't go his way. I hope, for Sam and Axel's sake, that it isn't hereditary. Maybe it's just the water.
Shadows flash in and out of the corners of my vision, and I rub my eyes until I see spots. He's waiting for me, watching the desert beyond the fence.
Gabe turns his head when he hears me stumble towards him. The wind brushes his hair away, curly and dark, the same as his sister. I can see the scar on his forehead, a ugly, jagged triangle with a cross under it, clumsily carved with a hunting knife.
I collapse more than sit, my vision briefly darkening around the edges. I manage to stay seated upright, somehow.
"Do you see them?" He points up. "The moons."
I only see one in the sky above the Ranch. He watches me, studying my face.
"It's not real," I confirm.
Gabe scoffs, like it was obvious, but I see him relax somewhat. "'Course it's not." He scratches his arms, his skin reddening with how forcefully his nails press into it. "Fucking ants."
There aren't any ants on him either, but I'd rather not correct him. Gabe thinks he's the most lucid out of all of us. He's wrong, but he tries.
"Did we ever have an Issac here?" I wonder aloud.
Gabe gives me a look. "No, why?"
"Something Axel said. He could've been seeing things."
His face falls when I mention Axel. "Did he say anything else?"
"Uh, he mentioned a Sarah and that Issac tried to save her." The memory is hard to get hold of, slipping away like sand through my fingers. "He said something about the water tasting weird."
"So there's something in the water?"
"I don't know, maybe."
He gets up and starts pacing. "We didn't have a Sarah either."
I shrug. "Maybe he was remembering a girlfriend or something."
Gabe shakes his head. "No, he was talking about the Ranch. People in it."
"You just said-"
"I know, and they weren't our group. I would've remembered them if they were. There were two groups, and Axel has been here longest. So he was in the first one and just didn't tell us."
He's jumping from thought to thought, and I try not to feel like I'm scrambling to keep up. "Why not? How did he survive that long?"
Gabe shakes his head. "I think he was an Assistant."
My stomach turns. "What? Jesus, Gabe, no. He wouldn't."
"Think about it. His dad runs this place, whatever it is. Axel never said he was a prisoner, he just said he was here for a long time. He doesn't like us talking about what we remember because it makes him afraid that we'll remember him." He's speaking too fast to have just thought of this right now. I wonder how long he's suspected it.
"So the Director rewarded him by throwing him in here with us? How does that work?"
"Axel doesn't want us to talk about what it'd take to leave. Maybe they're still working together."
"He just got beat within an inch of his life!"
Gabe waves me off, ignoring the obvious disbelief and anger in my voice. "Fine, then maybe they used to. Axel got disowned, the Director has a new Assistant now. Some of it lines up."
I want to throw something at him. I know it's the lack of sleep making me overreact like this, but it's hard to keep calm. Axel has provoked the Director into hitting him so he wouldn't notice us. He sat up with me and gave me water when I became delirious from a fever, even as I begged for him to just let me die. He's done things that even he won't repeat during that horrible month the Director disappeared in order to keep everyone alive. This is betrayal, accusing him of everything he protected us against.
Gabe has noticed my irritation and he sighs, staring off into the horizon. We fall silent for a minute, listening to the wind and feeling the chill set in across the desert. He sits down next to me.
"Don't go crazy over this, Felix," he says. "We need to be the sane ones."
I nod absently, still stewing in all the sickness I feel at the idea.
"Do you want to know what I think?"
In all honesty, I don't. I'm exhausted, angry, covered in blood and dust. So bone-achingly tired that my muscles scream, my heart beating faster than I can even comprehend. I feel worse than usual, whether from anything but our conversation, I can't tell. I want to be numb again. I don't want another revelation.
He doesn't wait for an answer, anyway. "It's pairs." Gabe draws two lines in the dust. "They take you both here. Me and Liz. Axel and Sam. Issac and Sarah. Siblings." His voice shakes, though with fear or anger, I can't tell. "The Director said if I didn't stop, he'd hurt her. That's his plan. He uses both of us as leverage for the other."
"Five pairs? Gabe, that's a lot of people. Someone would..." I trail off. Lots-probably hundreds-of kids run away every year. Is it that far fetched that just ten would run into the wrong man?
Maybe they wouldn't even have to encounter the Director himself.
It's harder to lead lambs to killing floors because of how skittish they are. If one hesitates, they hold the rest back, and they won't be moved. Because of this, some stockyards will train a goat to lead sheep up the ramps. Despite the stench of death and blood, the lambs will follow a goat if it leads without fear. The goat has walked that route before, and it knows that it will not be hurt. The goat is given nicotine when it successfully leads the lambs to slaughter, then heads down the ramp to lead the next herd. A goat is spared as long as it sacrifices the sheep.
Was it the Assistant who lured us for the second group? It seems more likely than the Director himself. The Assistant would've had to hide his face, but he's around Axel's age. Old enough to be trusted, young enough to be or have been one of us. Did he lead us to shelter, promise to keep us safe, then shepherd us into the Director's arms?
Gabe's theory has a flaw, though.
I shake my head, wishing the doubts I'm having would go away. "Gabe, I'm not-I don't have siblings. There's no leverage for me. I'm an only child."
He pauses to delay the moment of impact, though we're both vaguely aware it's coming. "I don't think you are."
I look away from his pitying stare, and I swear I can see twin moons rising in the sky.
~~~
That night I stumble back into the barn, covered in dirt, voice hoarse and out of my body completely. This must be what it's like to lose your mind, I think vaguely.
I examine each of the empty cots, their strange stains and worn blankets. Which belonged to my brother or sister? Did they die in this bed? Somehow, there's a larger void in my chest. God, we grew up together. We lived our lives at each others' sides-and now, I can't even remember.
The Director has taken something from me of such a massive magnitude I can't even begin to process it. My past, my future, it's all gone. The numbness doesn't come, and instead I'm met with fresh, violent rush of despair so strong that my head begins to pulse with agony.
I have to sit down. I don't want to grieve. Not here, not now, not ever. If I start, I will never stop, and whatever was sacrificed for me to stay alive will be for nothing. Some things you don't get over. My brain is on fire, my eyes about to boil out of my skull. I bury my face in my hands. What happened to them? Did they suffer? Die protecting me? I feel guilt wash over me as I close my eyes, as it's all I can do to keep from crying.
I'm dazed, my mind jumbled with noises and sights that aren't there. I'm not in control of anything. I have no idea who's lying to me, who's wrong about what. Part of me says that I've always been here, that I've just blocked it out.
I don't care, I think. I just want to stay alive. I just want to stay alive. I'm nauseous, sick at the notion of Axel lying to us, or helping the Director, or dying. Part of me, a primal, paranoid part of me, is terrified that the Director may know, that he'll look at me and decide that there isn't use for me anymore. I know I've had it the least terrible of anyone here, but that just makes me more afraid of when the other shoe is going to drop. I don't want to live the rest of my life here, but there isn't another option. I curl in on myself and pray.
Please, God. I'm not asking you to send a flood, or a rain of fire, or a plague. I'm just asking you to send one of the thousands of planes, cars, or people that will notice us and tell someone what's going on.
When I open my eyes, I half-expect a ghost sitting on the foot of my cot. But there's nothing but the dark and cold, the soft stir of someone turning in their sleep.
I want to be haunted. I want there to be proof whoever I lost existed, proof that we aren't lost to this desert. And there is, I guess, but you have to dig to look for it.
Axel knows what lies in the dirt behind the barn, and we do too.
He just won't say how many.