Kill Switch: Chapter 24
Spies
The village swarms around the bonfire, a band playing atop a makeshift stage, and meanwhile, The Withouters are dancing in circles, the women wearing flowered tiaras, the men naked from the waist up, sweat glistening on their chests and arms. Smoke catches in my throat, and I cough. There’s some serious BO in the air. The entire village could use a strong helping of Savvy Perfume.
I spot Yide and X standing on the outskirts of the bonfire, dressed in robes, both of their arms crossed. I walk toward them. Yide taps X on the arm. He turns his head. I can see from the angle of his gaze that he is not particularly happy with me.
“Yo, simul, where the hell you been?”
“I was with Elijah,” I say. “It’s good to see you too.”
X scratches his neck. “Yo, Vonn, you got any pharmas on you?”
“Nah,” I say. “It’s been, like, a couple days without a dose. It’s hella gnarly. I asked Elijah…”
But before I can finish, X is all, like, “yo, Vonn, we gotta get our hands on some pharms. You know what I mean? I’m, like, dying over here.”
I glance at Yide, who looks away. She’s probably still mad at me. I wonder what her and X have been up to. All this talk about pharms is putting me on edge. The beating loud music, which doesn’t even sound like real music, is getting on my nerves.
“Let’s go somewhere we can actually talk,” I say.
“But what about Claudette?” X asks. “You think she has pharmas?”
“No,” I say. “I already asked. They don’t have pharmas in The Without.”
“Why the hell not?” X’s voice is so shrill that a few dancers stop mid-dervish to look at him.
I grab him by the arm. “Let’s go back to my tent,” I say, jerking X’s arm. Then I look back at Yide. “You wanna come?”
Yide shrugs, looks away. “Sure.”
We walk through camp.
Children are running around, barefoot, playing games without controllers. Their laughter does something to my chest.
After sticking my head into a few empty tents that definitely aren’t mine, I’m finally able to find the one I woke up in. X paces around. Yide wanders over to my cot. She picks up the tea mug from earlier, lifts it to her nose, and then puts it down.
“The smell around here,” X says. “Awful. And there’s this elf who’s been following us around. They don’t trust us. They’re spying on us.”
“What do you mean?” I look from X to Yide. “Spying?”
“X is right,” Yide says. “There’s this little man. We keep seeing him around. It’s like he’s been tasked with keeping an eye on us.”
“Yeah,” X says, getting all excited, “but the problem is, he’s so damn small. So damn skinny. Hell, this whole village. Skinny as rails. Even the guys. It’s like they don’t stack roids. I don’t get it.”
Yide runs a hand through her hair, and I remember what Claudette had said about her saving my life, the way she hoisted me on her shoulders and pushed me through the opening.
“Thanks,” I say.
Her beautiful brown eyes flicker toward me. “For what?”
“For saving my life. On the ladder.” I shrug. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. You’re right, I need to take more responsibility. I saw some things today that made me realize that I’ve been too passive. Too accepting. But I want to change. I want to do better.”
Yide’s brown eyes soften. “You mean it?”
“Yes,” I say. “One hundo.”
She smiles, her eyes moistening. “I’m sorry, too. I should haven’t been so critical. I’m just as responsible as you for getting us in this mess.” She places a hand on my robe. “We good?”
“Yes,” I say, “we good.” And I feel about a million pounds lighter. I stare into Yide’s eyes, lost, in a good way.
Bang.
I turn. X is crouched in front of the wood stove. He slaps the side of the thing.
“Piece of shit!” he yells. “Nothing works around here! And it’s fucking freezing!”
I walk over, crouch down. “I saw Claudette do this earlier. I think you have to open this thingy.” But I can’t figure it out.
Yide walks over and turns a lever, and the door opens. The three of us stare into the darkness of the stove.
“Here,” I say. I pick up a piece of wood that’s sitting by the stove and toss it inside. “This is what Claudette did earlier.” I pick up the black rod and start poking the wood. Then I shut the door. “That should do it.”
“You sure?” X asks.
“That’s what Claudette did earlier,” I say. “She put the wood in, poked it with the rod, and then it got warmer.”
“How long does it take?” Yide asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, circling the stove. My eyes follow the path of the black pipe to the top of the tent, where it dissipates into this metal circle thingy. “I’m not an expert or anything.”
“Clearly,” X says. He kicks the side of the stove.
“Hey,” I say. “Don’t do that. You might break it.”
“Who gives a shit? This whole place deserves to be broken. It’s everything they said it was. Like, the seventh level of inefficiency.” X swings around. “How are you two doing so much better than me?” He shoots shade at Yide. “What are you hiding from me? Where the hell are your pharmas?” He grabs me by the collar and tries to lift me off the ground, which obviously he can’t do, not only because he’s never shown the slightest interest in simul gyms, but because I’m two hundred pounds of pure muscle, which is a lot of muscle to lift off the ground with two bare hands.
I grab his wrists. “Nobody is hiding anything from you, X.”
He pushes me down to the ground, and then he’s on top of me, pounding away with his bare fists, and I’m rolling and rolling, trying to get out from under him, and Yide is above us, screaming, and I slam into the wood stove, and I roll over a piece of wood, the edge of which cuts into my skin, and meanwhile, X keeps pounding and pounding, landing some pretty good hits, one of which catches my lip. I plow into him, wedging his body between my arms and a wooden beam. The tent shakes. Voices shout outside. Yide is yelling.
X frees himself from the wedge, topples over me, and I hit the ground, and then X jumps on me, his legs straddling my hips, and then he stops, his gaze locked on something in the distance.
“The elf,” he mutters.
Which is right when Yide whacks X in the face with a log, sending him twirling to the ground, all weightless and slack, like a derrick toppling to the ground, caught in the curl of a strong wind.
I turn and catch a glimpse of a pointy ear and a single eye peeking inside the tent.