Page 26 of The Compound

On my way to find Ryan I stopped by the living room, where I knew Sam would be.

Even down the hallway I could hear the low pitch of his voice, the slight rumble of his laugh.

There was no mirror in the hallway, but I could picture how my hair moved across my shoulders, how my gold necklace glinted against my tan; I could feel the tips of my eyelashes brush against my eyebrows.

I wanted to see Sam. I wanted him to seeme.

He was talking to Becca. I paused in the doorway, trying to think of some excuse to enter the room.

I needn’t have bothered: they were thoroughly engaged in conversation, and didn’t glance my way when I stepped in.

They were sitting in the folding chairs, Becca shaking her head, more animated than I had ever seen her.

They seemed to be talking about politics.

Of course, we weren’t allowed to talk about our personal lives, and before we had come we had been told that it was better not to speak about life outside the compound; it would be too easy to let a personal detail slip, which would in turn lead to punishments.

They were speaking obliquely, however, skirting around mentioning anything too obvious, in the same way that Candice and I skirted around saying outright what it was we wanted to receive as a Personal Reward.

“I think if ordinary people stopped working together to make things easier for the people at the top, and started working together to effect change that would benefit them—you’re laughing at me,” she said.

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m really not. Only you remind me so much of myself when I was younger. I had ideas then, too.”

Becca looked at him sitting across from her, elbows resting on her knees.

I don’t think that there was any attraction there, but she looked at him with a sort of directness which nevertheless spoke of intimacy.

“I think you still have ideas now,” she said.

“Only you let other people do the talking.”

“I’ve never known anyone to willingly give up power. Things would have had to get very, very difficult.”

“You don’t think it would be worth it?”

“It’s not that. I guess I can’t think of a system to replace what we have. Pointing out that something is broken doesn’t count as a solution.”

“I’ll never understand why you let Tom and Andrew take charge,” she said scornfully.

I might as well have been invisible. It was incredible how quickly the value I had placed on my appearance evaporated.

I looked stupid standing there, dressed up with nowhere to go.

I tried to slip away, but Becca looked up and saw me.

Sam looked at me too, then, and looked quickly away.

I crossed my arms, my hands gripping my elbows.

“Hey, Lily,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Of what?”

“Systems of government.”

“What, like, here?”

“No,” she said slowly, staring at me like I was stupid. “In real life.”

Becca had never spoken to me in such a disparaging way.

I wondered if Becca’s lively conversation with Sam had made her feel that she was intellectually superior, in the same way that being dolled up by Candice had given me the strength to arrive in a room and expect to be admired.

Becca was the only one among us who wanted to think about the world on the outside.

I wondered why she was here if she couldn’t fully commit to life in the compound.

Sam was looking at me now, too. I kept my arms taut, resisting the urge to let them swing behind my back.

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it. ”

“You don’t think about the society we live in?”

“Becca,” Sam said.

“We’re not supposed to talk about the outside,” I said, my voice small. I wasn’t fooling them: they knew I had nothing to say. It was hard to remember how powerful I had felt only minutes ago, standing in front of the mirror. I had never felt more foolish.

There was a brief silence in which Sam took a sip from his beer. When he placed it down Becca reached for it, and Sam moved the bottle out of reach. You had to be at least eighteen to be on the show, but I don’t think anyone believed that she was really that old.

“You look beautiful,” Becca said to me. Her tone was conciliatory, as though by praising my looks my ignorance was canceled out.

“Thanks.” I touched the necklace at my throat, then let my hand drop. “I was just passing by. I’ll talk to you guys later.”

When I walked away, I heard Becca say something low, and Sam replied, “That’s not fair. You don’t know her.”

I wandered into the hallway, where Tom had resumed his usual sentry duty near the door. He turned and looked atme.

“You looking for Ryan?”

“Yeah. I guess he’s still outside.”

He stood to let me pass by, but I didn’t move.

I had been thinking about the fox invasion from the night before.

Everyone in the compound thought I was empty-headed, but I wasn’t entirely brainless.

I noticed things. There was something off about his story, but I knew that Tom wasn’t the kind of person who would like to be criticized or made to feel embarrassed, particularly by a girl.

“It’ll be a relief when we get the wood,” I said. “We can build a door, and you won’t have to stand guard anymore.”

He nodded. “I think everyone will feel better knowing we have some protection.”

“What color was the fox?” I asked.

“What?”

“From last night. What color was it?”

He looked at me evenly, in that blank way of his. “Red, of course.”

Even I—I who had nothing to contribute to the kind of intellectual conversations that Sam and Becca engaged in—knew that there were no red foxes in the desert.

I thought about the urine on the floor that Becca and I had cleaned that morning.

A good laugh, he would have had. The two of us, cleaning up his piss.

“It’s good that everyone’s back on track,” he said. “With the tasks. We’re working together again. We’re making progress.”

“Right,” I said. I thought of Susie, out in the heat of the desert, without shade or company. My mind skittered away from the image of her out there alone, not wanting to think aboutit.

I walked past Tom, and as he stepped out of the way he said, “You look lovely, Lily.”

“Thanks,” I said. With effort, I kept myself from glancing behind me to see if he watched mego.

I found Ryan in the garden. He was still asleep, so I lay down beside him and glanced behind me. Tom was no longer at the entrance.

After a while, I was jolted out of my reverie by a hand on my thigh. “My God, you are stunning,” Ryan said.

“Really?” I said.

“Come here,” he said, and lifted me so that I lay on top of him. I melted into him, and some part of me felt reassured. He wanted me; yes, he wanted me. We kissed, and I gave in to it fully. His hands stroked me, but after a few minutes he groaned and pulled away.

“Let’s go inside,” I said.

He bit my earlobe. “I want to,” he said. “But we’re not going to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t want to. No, don’t say anything. I know you, Lily. I’ve shared a bed with you for weeks now. I know the thought of having sex in a room full of other people upsets you, and I get it. I won’t put you in that position.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a disappointment.”

He laughed. “You’re far from it. I want more than that from you. I want us to be together, now and when we’re out of here. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, though I hadn’t given any thought at all to life after the compound. “Yes, I think so.”

“I want to be your boyfriend, once we’re out of here.”

“Can’t you be my boyfriend now?” I said, teasingly, though I was serious. I was too stupid for Sam, and didn’t Ryan and I make sense? Weren’t we the kind of couple who always got together on the show?

“There’s no real point,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the same. This isn’t real, this compound life.” My face must have fallen, because he said, “How I feel for you is real, Lily. None of that is fake.”

“I know,” I said. “I feel the same.” He kissed me again, and then we both lay back in the grass, and the sky above us was a perfect, cloudless blue.

Across the way Evan was miserably drinking cocktail after cocktail, until he abruptly leaned forward and vomited a fluorescent concoction over the deck.

We watched him clean it up, blubbering all the while. No one moved to help.

—

We waited for Susie at the southern perimeter at sunset, but she didn’t appear. We began to feel uneasy. Evan was pacing, a bleak look on his face. Jacintha, too, was upset. “We shouldn’t have left her out there. It wasn’t worth it. Why did we agree to it?”

“We need the wood,” Tom said. “I know it was a difficult decision. But we’ll all be safer this way.”

“What if we’ve killed her? What if she died out there?” Jacintha asked, openly distressed. She looked around at each of us, and when she met my eye, I dropped my gaze to the ground. I didn’t know what to say.

Andrew put an arm around Jacintha’s shoulders. Attempting to console her, he said, “They don’t let anyone die here.” It was true, of course, but people got hurt all the time, every season.

When Susie finally made it back to us, it was dark, and the temperature had dropped.

She ducked under the barbed wire, and we stood close, but didn’t touch her.

“Are you all right?” Evan said. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” she said in a faded voice. “Well—yes, I think so.”

We backed away and looked at her in the dim light. She was burned all the way from her face to her feet, which were encased in strappy sandals; she had blisters and blood on her heels.

“What happened?” I said.

“Nothing, really. I walked for a long time before I found shelter. It was just a couple of trees, it wasn’t much at all.

But there was a…nest of snakes. One of them came up close and just looked at me for a long time.

I thought if I dropped the bag with the food and water, it would leave me alone.

It was stupid, really. I left the bag, but as soon as I turned around, it started to follow me.

I started running, and I thought, well, I guess I’m going to die.

But after a while it stopped chasing me.

I think it probably wanted me to get away from the nest or whatever.

I thought there must be another source of shade, but there wasn’t, and I just walked and walked, and I got lost, and I thought I wouldn’t make it back.

You can’t really tell from here, but the compound kind of blends in with the landscape, and I thought… well. Anyway, I’m back.”

I expected tears, or hysterics. But she looked at us dry-eyed, smiling a little.

“Oh, Susie,” Evan said, and his voice shook. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Susie.” He didn’t move to embrace her; none of us did. She looked strange. She didn’t look like herself.

“There was nothing out there, for miles and miles. I kept wondering how you boys found us, but you had each other, I suppose. I forgot—I’m so stupid—I forgot which way was east, and I just kept walking, and I thought that I would pass out.

It was so hot—you think it’s hot in the compound, but it’s not.

Out in the sand, with no shade and no water, the heat just overwhelms you, it’s all you can think about.

It was more horrible than I thought it could be. ”

“I’m sorry, Susie,” Evan said, and hiccupped.

“How could you do that to me?” Susie said to all of us. “Why would you do that?”

We brought Susie inside and put her to bed after some food and drink. We lathered her in aloe vera and checked on her regularly. She didn’t speak to us, but she called out in her sleep all through the night.

When we went out to look at the reward, there was enough wood to build a thousand doors: enough to build another house if we wanted.