City of Savages Read online

Nearly in tears, Mom leans on us as we guide her out of the Carlyle, across 76th Street and over Fifth Avenue. Soon enough, the cement and brick give way to a thicket of trees, and then the crowded expanse of the Great Lawn of Central Park.

  As we limp through the Great Lawn, tired fieldworkers eye us, nod their heads as we trudge around the cornstalks and cut through the small fields of potatoes and apple trees. Trevor, one of the young year-rounds, waves to us from the fields, his whole face breaking open like dawn when he spots us. He starts scrambling through the fieldworkers to greet us, but I shake my head and raise my exhausted hand to tell him, Later.

  We reach the gates of Belvedere Castle after the sky’s already been dusted with a rich blue powder. Per the rules, we shed our weapons and backpacks at the entrance, though of course, Phee keeps her new gun tucked and hidden in the folds of her sweats. As I drop my bag in the corner, my heart lurches—I can’t take Mom’s journal with me. What if one of Rolladin’s warlords finds it and decides to take it? But there’s so much else going on, there’s no time to think of a solution. Two of Rolladin’s lords are immediately beside us, ushering us into the belly of the castle.

  “Stupid move, Sarah,” one of the young, lithe lords whispers to my mother. The pair of lords grips our forearms and drags us all forward. “You know Rolladin doesn’t like winters to keep her waiting.”

  I can’t remember this young woman’s name—Cass or Kate or something?—but I know her face immediately from past winters at the Park. She must have been pledged to Rolladin and accepted as a year-round warlord, one of Rolladin’s “whorelords,” as Phee likes to call them.

  “Let me worry about that,” Mom answers her, biting back a wince.

  “Oh, I am,” the lesser lord purrs. “I’m just looking forward to seeing you and your two lemmings thrown out this winter. It doesn’t happen often.”

  My stomach drops as we continue down the hallway. Its walls are lined with small, contained firecups. The firelight dances merrily on the marble ceiling, a warm and festive chorus oblivious to our plight.

  “Stay here,” Cass/Kate tells us once we reach Rolladin’s waiting room. Then she leaves the way we came in.

  “Do you think she takes off that stupid squirrel shawl when she’s kissing Rolladin’s ass?” Phee whispers.

  “Hush. Don’t make things worse. Let me do the talking, all right?” Mom mutters. “I can’t believe this.”

  Mom starts running her fingers through her hair again. My own nerves are kicking into overdrive, and my teeth begin chattering even in the warmth of the firelit room. My sister’s wide eyes reflect back my fears.

  This might be it.

  This might be our last winter.

  “So, the prodigal Sarah and her lovely daughters have decided to join us once again.” Rolladin’s voice overpowers the room. She emerges out of a shadowed hallway, the one leading to her private chambers.

  She looks taller than last year as she saunters towards us, then bores her wide weathered eyes right into Mom’s. “Unfortunately, there’s no room at the inn this year for you. You missed the census deadline. You know the rules. Every year, the middle of October. Before sunset. No one gets food and shelter otherwise.”

  “There was an accident,” Mom says. “I busted my ankle—the girls had to carry me. We’ll be here, working all winter to make up for my mistake.”

  Rolladin bends down to inspect Mom’s foot. She hikes Mom’s pant leg up, then pulls her ankle under the firelight as Mom hisses. “Sprained,” Rolladin says. “Not broken.”

  Mom doesn’t say a word, but I can tell she wants to scream.

  “I don’t know why you still insist on dragging yourselves back and forth each season,” Rolladin mutters as she stands. “You should be in the Park year-round—enough with this winter business. This whole problem could’ve been avoided if you’d ever just look up to see the bigger picture.”

  “That’s my choice to make,” Mom says softly. She shifts her weight onto me to stand a little taller. “The Red Allies mandate check-in for winter, nothing else.”

  I can’t help but think that this isn’t the time to assert our part-time independence, but Mom’s upper lip stays stiff. She doesn’t flinch.

  I watch Rolladin consider this as she slowly walks by us, surveying each of us like meat. “Of course you’re right, Sarah,” Rolladin says. “Rules are rules. So we’re back to square one, unfortunately. Whoever misses the census deadline isn’t on the books. We only feed and house who’s accounted for.” She picks up a massive leather-bound volume as evidence. “The many laws given to us by the Red Allies. Unfortunately, you can’t pick and choose.”

  “Rolladin. There was an accident,” Mom answers. “We were late by a few minutes. It’ll never happen again.”

  Rolladin stands toe-to-toe with my mother, so close to us that I can see the deep wrinkles around her eyes, the skin beaten by the sun into burlap. She can’t be more than a few years older than Mom, but time hasn’t been as lenient towards her. “No one’s perfect, Sarah, I get that.” Rolladin smiles and begins stroking a lock of my mother’s hair, like she’s petting one of the Park’s horses. And God, do I want to slap her hand away, spit in her face, and tell her to stop touching my mother. But Mom’s voice echoes in my head again. Balance. Patience. Control.

  “But you’re putting me in a tough position,” Rolladin continues. “As Park warden, I can’t ignore the rules, despite a sprained ankle or a wrong turn or a failure in judgment. So as much as I hate the thought of it, I need to make an example of you three.”

  “The Red soldiers in the boroughs don’t even know what’s going on here anymore.” Despite Mom’s calm exterior, I hear desperation seep into her voice, and it kick-starts my panic again. “You can make an exception. They’ll never find out. It was five minutes, Rolladin—the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”

  “Does it ever?” Rolladin turns away. “The lords and other fieldworkers saw you three sauntering in, disrespecting me. I can’t just ignore this. But . . . I can make you a compromise.” Then she extends her arms out to us, like she’s actually offering something. “One of you will fight tonight.”

  “What? You mean on Sixty-Fifth Street?” Mom says. “But that’s ridiculous. Those matches are for fighters. For pledges and warlords—”

  “You get in the ring, take a few blows, survive a round to make sure the fight counts and isn’t ruled a no-contest,” Rolladin talks over her. “It might be . . . humbling, to say the least. But you’ll show the rest of the prisoners that you respect the way of the Park. Eye for an eye,” Rolladin says, “Nothing here is given, only earned.”

  “Rolladin, no. Think of something else,” Mom says, taking a step towards our warden. “I’m in no shape to fight, and there’s no way in hell I’m sending one of the girls into the Sixty-Fifth Street underpass—”

  Rolladin’s hand snaps across my mother’s face. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

  “Mom!”

  Phee springs forward in fight mode, but I catch her before she can get her hands on Rolladin. “I’ll do it, all right?” she says, hands flailing.

  “Phee, no,” I whisper.

  “Absolutely not, Phoenix,” Mom says.

  Phee starts, “Someone has to—”

  “NO. If you insist on this, Rolladin,” Mom says slowly, “then put me in your ridiculous matches.”

  “Mom, there’s no way you’re street-fighting. Look at you.” Phee eyes me for backup, but I’m speechless. Is Rolladin really doing this? Is it either my mother or my sister?

  A cloying, masochistic voice inside me whispers, Why isn’t it you?

  “Rolladin.” Phee breaks free of Mom and takes a step forward. “Put me down for the match.”

  “Reminds you of someone, doesn’t she?” Rolladin winks at my mother as she leans over her desk and studies some papers. “I’ll move
some things around, push the contest for the Council position to the first round . . . then Phee can spar against my newest lord, Cass, for Cass’s initiation fight.” Rolladin looks up and flashes us a fat, hyena grin. “Everything’s settled.”

  And now that she’s given her decree, there’s nothing left to say.

  Mom manages to stay silent, but I feel her trembling next to me. I pull her in close and pull Phee even closer, try to be their pillar of support. Support’s what I’m best at, after all. While my younger sister fights to save our places in the Park.

  This isn’t the way things should be. I know it—I hate it.

  “Put your things in the Carlyle,” Rolladin adds as she walks towards her chambers, back into the darkness from whence she came. “Your room’s still open on the third floor. And for God’s sake, Sarah. Make sure to use the washbasin. You three smell like shit.”

  3 PHEE

  It’s been nearly an hour since we left Rolladin’s castle and settled into our tiny Carlyle room, but I’m still all worked up. I’m on the bed, gripping my new gun, wishing that I too could spit bullets and roar through the city.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Mom says, as Sky comes back into our room with a washbasin and some walking sticks for Mom. “I can’t believe you’re actually doing this.”

  “We’ve been through this already,” I say. “There wasn’t a choice. If we miss the census deadline, we’re on the books as CCs.”

  “Rolladin shouldn’t be able to mark us as civilian casualties because we don’t get here on time,” Sky mutters as she helps Mom get adjusted to her new crutches. The long wooden sticks hit Mom right at her waist, fit almost perfectly, and she nods in thanks.

  “The census is supposed to be a prison count of who’s left, not a deadline,” Sky adds as she flops down on the bed next to me. “Rolladin just twists the rules to do whatever she wants. That’s not the way things should work.”

  “Who cares how things should work?” I say. “What matters is how they do. You know Rolladin. We don’t play by her rules, and she shuts us out for good.”

  “Maybe it’d be a blessing,” Sky answers. “The Park’s not the only way to survive the winter—think about the holdouts, Phee.”

  Seriously? I mean, I know Sky’s pissed, but that’s just crazy talk. “So . . . you’re cool donating your books as kindling to keep us warm on Wall Street.”

  Sky flinches.

  “And buddying up to tunnel feeders for food every once in a while, to beg for an arm or a leg—”

  “Phoenix,” Mom scolds. “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “Well then, we’ve got to do what Rolladin says,” I say. It’s not rocket science. Survival means the Park, and the Park means Rolladin’s rules. “One of us has to street-fight.”

  My mother leans her crutches against the bed and sits on my other side. She dips a cloth into the washbasin.

  “But that someone should have been me.” Mom wipes the dirt from my cheeks. I look into her eyes and see tears itching to fall. “My job is to protect you, not the other way around.”

  “Look at you. You can’t even walk.” I shake my head. “We’re not kids anymore, Mom.”

  But despite my argument, she pulls me in and cradles me like a baby. I can feel her whole body shaking as it holds mine.

  “Then it should have been me.” Sky gets up and starts unpacking her things in the corner. I pull away from Mom to look at her, but she keeps her eyes on her stuff. “I’m the oldest.”

  I’m surprised Sky still thinks this way. “But you’re the littlest.” Does she really think I’d expect her to protect me? Plus, the image of Sky sparring in 65th Street in her leather jacket and leggings is so crazy it’s laughable. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.” Sky pounds her hand on the wooden bureau, and I jump. My sister’s never really pissed off or out of control. But she doesn’t meet my eyes, just carefully places her things in the drawers. “None of this is okay.”

  I let Mom finish wiping down my face with washbasin water as she lectures me on street-fighting . . . throw a jab, maybe two, get through the first round. After that first bell rings, you let Cass hit you, then you FALL DOWN . . . then I carry the bucket into the bathroom to finish the rest of my body myself. Firelight spills out of a small cup lodged into a high corner of the room, and my shadow grows and dances as I bathe. The whole room’s warm, not just one corner, and it’s a nice change from our place near Wall Street.

  Sure, there’re a lot of things that sometimes bug me about the Park—the whorelords, the rules. The way the rules only seem to work against us, especially tonight. But there’re some awesome things too. Like, the Park keeps us fed, safe, and alive. And it gives us all a purpose—survival together through the winter, one crop at a time. At least until the war beyond the skyscrapers is over.

  I take a deep breath and pretend that’s what I’m fighting for—for my family and all the prisoners—not Rolladin and her fat book of Red Allies rules.

  But as I put my clothes back on after washing, my resolve kind of cracks and falls apart. And a fear about tonight starts to rumble in my belly. I think of the matches, how excited I was this morning to watch the whorelords kick the crap out of one another, and how now I’m part of the show.

  And then, even though I try so hard not to, I think of the brawls from winters past. Young pledges knocking each other around to within an inch of death, all for the sake of joining Rolladin’s ranks. Junior whorelords pulling each other apart to impress our warden. Then I think of the bruises and fat lips of the losers, and the ones who can’t walk all winter.

  What if Cass slashes up my face or something?

  What if I break an arm? Or a leg?

  What if I die?

  I shake my head like I can physically shake off the fear. I just have to get through one full round in order to avoid a call of no-contest. Then get to the second round, take a blow, and stay down.

  I exhale like I can breathe out all the worry. Take one minute, one step, at a time.

  * * *

  When I come out of the bathroom, Mom’s gone to get some cloth to make handgrips for her crutches, and my sister’s hunched in the corner of the room under another firecup. First time we stop today, and she’s already lost in a book. I’m relieved to see it, though. I want the distraction more than I care to admit.

  “Haven’t you read that, like, twenty times already?” I say, pointing to her beat-up copy of Charlotte’s Web. I’ve never understood reading a book twice. Or once, if I’m honest.

  “I’m just trying to keep my mind busy,” Sky says, without lifting her eyes. The hollow way she says it pinches me with something I can’t explain. Sometimes I swear Sky likes her book characters more than me.

  “Well, then go be productive and wipe yourself down already, dirty bird.” I flop next to her, rip the book from her hands, push to get her real attention.

  “Stop, it’s fragile!” she cries.

  “Lunatic. It’s a book.”

  But she scoops up the hardback like I’ve crushed Charlotte underneath it or something.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to snap, okay?” Sky’s face goes through a wardrobe change, and now she’s wearing only sympathy. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now.”

  But I don’t want pity. I want to do something with all this fear and aggression I’ve got bubbling up inside me. “You’re being totally psycho.” I lean in and rip the book away from her again, just ’cause I know she doesn’t want me to have it.

  “Phoenix—”

  And when I get the old hardback into my hands, I finally figure out why she’s making a big deal over it.

  It’s not Charlotte’s Web.

  I flip through the pages, front to back to front again. I’ve never seen so much handwriting in one place, not since Mom forced u
s to learn as kids, anyway. Never more than a scribble from Mom that she’s gone to hunt near our Wall Street apartment, or that she’s up in the roof garden. Come to think of it, the writing reminds me of Mom’s, loopy and tight at the same time.

  As if reading my mind, Sky whispers, “It’s a book by Mom.”

  “What do you mean, ‘by Mom’? Like she wrote it? When?”

  I flip to the front page, expecting some sort of cover page like all of Sky’s other novels, but instead it just confirms what Sky’s said—Property of Sarah Walker Miller.

  Sky shushes me and looks back towards the door. “When I was a baby. Before you were born.”

  Her lip starts quivering, and I have to hold back an eye roll ’cause I think she’s going to cry. But instead she says, “I took it from Mom’s old apartment. She doesn’t know. This is just our thing, okay? I don’t think she’d want us to have it. It was hidden away in that safe.”

  Sky’s waiting for some sort of reaction, I know, but I can’t speak. I’m shocked. Stealing from Mom isn’t something I ever thought Sky would do, was even capable of, really.

  She gives up waiting for an answer, takes the book back from my outstretched hands, and flips a couple of pages.

  “It’s from before the war.” She drops her whisper to a hum. “Look.”

  January 4—Every year it’s the same. I swear that I’ll finally give the stories that circle around in my mind a page on which to land. But now, with Sky’s diapers and feedings and nonexistent naps, my dream feels even more indulgent. Ridiculous, even: Sarah Miller’s trying to be a writer!

  More of a burden on my family than anything else.

  So many thoughts and questions fly through my head. I can’t sort them out, and the messiness brings on a rush of feelings. If Mom’s book was locked in that safe, it was obviously never meant to see the light of day. Should we really know what’s in it?

  I want Sky to understand this, that I feel weird and unsettled by what she’s shown me. But as usual, I can’t find the right words, and Sky’s waiting for me to say something.