Amnesty agreement sealed. Nazirah can leave and return to headquarters. But she cannot move from her seat, cannot stop staring at the bloody signatures. And even though she tries to stop them, her thoughts return to that night. Finding her parents dead on the floor. Screaming until she was hoarse. Rocking her lifeless mother in her arms.
He killed them in cold blood. Bargained for his freedom in warm blood. And Nazirah wants to spill his life’s blood.
She wants to spill every last sticky drop.
Adamek tenses. He must know exactly what she is thinking. Knows the visions that plague her thoughts every day and haunt her dreams every night. He caused them, after all.
Nazirah takes a deep breath, reaching for the contract so she can leave. When he speaks again, his words drip poison and purpose.
“You look like her.”
What the fuck did he just say?
Nazirah’s head snaps up. Blinded by rage, she lunges across the table, positive that Solomon is hopping off his chair and screaming like a banshee down the corridor. Adamek makes no move to stop her.
Nazirah’s fingers are barely an inch away from his throat before she pauses. She holds them there, outstretched. They itch to close to gap, are dying to make the spark fade from his eyes. But he said that deliberately to get a rise out of her. And she refuses to be a pawn in his twisted game.
Nazirah pulls her hand away, slamming the table with her fist, imagining it’s his face. She grabs the contract, shoves it into her pocket. She walks quickly towards the door then stops and turns around to face him. Adamek inclines his head, listening closely.
“Enjoy your freedom, Morgen,” she spits. “I hope you choke on it.”
#
“What a fucking piece of shit.”
Cato is livid. He is sitting at his desk, face red, fuming. The unfinished essay he was writing lies forgotten beside him. Cato cracks his knuckles menacingly, a habit that Nazirah hates. Nazirah lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling. She only returned to headquarters an hour ago. Her head pounds from stress and lack of sleep. Cato’s angry outbursts every couple of seconds aren’t helping matters.
Nazirah sighs in annoyance and exhaustion, looking out Cato’s window. His room is exactly like hers on the inside – but at least his view faces the grounds, not a brick wall. Nazirah went straight to Cato’s room after seeking out Nikolaus in his office. When Nazirah initially showed up at Cato’s door, he was irritated, since he thought she was ignoring him. But once she told him the full story, Cato became outraged. Nazirah is relieved that he isn’t upset with her anymore, but she would almost prefer him annoyed. She can’t deal with his ranting right now.
“We’ve established that my brother sucks,” Nazirah says, exasperated. “Can we move on?”
Unlike Nazirah, Cato took some of the comforts of home with him. Several pictures of his former life in Rafu are displayed throughout his room. Nazirah glances at a photo of Cato smiling with his two siblings, before picking another one up from his nightstand. It is one of Nazirah’s favorites, taken when she was fifteen. Cato, who came from a long line of fishermen, saved up his money that summer to buy an old canoe on the black market. He spent weeks rebuilding it, sanding it down and caulking it. Nazirah teased him about it for weeks, telling him it would never float. One day, without warning, he picked her up, dropped her into the canoe, and paddled out to sea.
They spent the rest of the day fishing. Or, really, Nazirah watched Cato fish. She alternated between lying in the sun and jumping off the boat to swim in the water. Cato entertained her all day, telling Nazirah unbelievable stories he learned in school. Hundreds of years ago, he said, everything around them had been landlocked. Then the polar icecaps melted, swallowing and shrinking the coastline of the Old Country.
Looking out at the sea that day, Nazirah couldn’t believe it was ever anything else than what it was now. It was a time in her life when she didn’t fully grasp the concept of change. A time in her life when she thought everything would always remain the same, constant and steady.
Now she isn’t so sure.
Cato reeled in a huge fish that day, almost thirty pounds. He let Nazirah hold it in the photo, pretend she was the one who caught it. The sea waves in the background, as the two of them smile widely for the camera. Nazirah’s long hair is braided and wet from the water. Her skin is glowing, bronzed from the summer sun. She struggles to grip the slippery, floundering fish with her thin arms. Cato is giving the camera a thumbs-up. He looks goofy, but that is exactly what makes Nazirah love the photo.
Despite his protests, Nazirah convinced Cato to release the fish back into the wild. She vividly remembers watching it swim away, breathing life back through its gills, regaining its speed. She felt like that fish, once. Like death was only a shadow of a whisper in her mind. Like there was nothing before her but life and the sea and endless freedom.
“I can’t believe Nikolaus would associate with that scum!” Cato continues ranting. Nazirah sets the photo back down with a sigh. Cato stares at her expectantly. He is not letting her off the hook as easily as he did the fish.
She yawns. “Why don’t you go ask him, then?”
“I don’t get you, Irri.” Cato walks over to the bed. “How are you not more upset about this? Don’t you want to know why Adamek Morgen suddenly gained a conscience and wants to help us, renouncing his entire race and family in the process? And why your brother embraced him with open arms? Doesn’t it all seem a little strange to you?”
“Of course it does, Cato!” Nazirah snaps, at her wit’s end. “You think I actually believe for a second that the purebred dirtbag has changed? I don’t! But like I told you already, I have no idea what he and Niko agreed upon. Niko wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t even tell me anything when I gave him the signed contract. I haven’t slept or eaten in over a day, I’ve been to the damned Red West and back, and I’m tired!”
Cato is quiet, finally. Nazirah can tell he feels bad about badgering her. She is too annoyed to care. He slowly lies beside her on the bed. They stare at the ceiling in silence, close, but not touching.
With his bright hazel eyes and medium build, Cato looks more like Nazirah than Nikolaus does. People often assume they are related, especially non-Eridians, much to Cato’s annoyance and Nazirah’s amusement. He is tanner than she, from a lifetime of working on boats. Cato’s Eridian fish tattoo, exactly like Riva’s, suits him perfectly. Nazirah remembers when he first got marked at the town hall, on his thirteenth birthday, how proud he was. But he wore long sleeves for weeks, even though it was a brutally hot summer, so Nazirah wouldn’t feel like she was missing out.
“So what was he like?” Cato looks at Nazirah. Her eyes remain fixated on the ceiling. It is the question of the hour, of the year, of the century. It is the question she can’t answer, doesn’t know how to answer.
“He was … quiet.”
“Quiet?” repeats Cato, intrigued.
“No,” she backtracks. “Not quiet.”
“So … loud?”
“No.”
“Talkative?”
“No!” she says. “Observant.”
There; that’s better. Adamek Morgen was definitely observant.
“Observant?”
“Yes, and weirdly passive.”
“Weirdly passive?” asks Cato, perplexed. “Are you sure you actually met Adamek Morgen?”
“The whole thing was just so strange,” Nazirah continues, talking more to herself than to Cato. “He didn’t say much, but I felt like everything he said was deliberate … like he was testing me.”
“Testing you?” asks Cato, eyes narrowing. “What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing important.”
She doesn’t know why she keeps the truth from Cato – that Adamek intentionally provoked her by mentioning Riva. She feels like a coward, ashamed for pulling her hand away. Cato knows her well enough to realize that she’s hiding something, but doesn’t press the issue.
“By the way,” he says, “I covered for you yesterday with the bear.”