Every Missing Piece

Chapter Twenty

Mercy doesn't talk to me again after the meeting. She tries, but when she finally walks out of the room with Nina at her side, I turn away. I don't want to hear her promises of how we can take down the Assembly and the Keeping, how just a little bit of waiting on my part will all be worth it when we live in a better Gotten. The only thing I want is to no longer be a prisoner, and she can't give me that, so it's a bitter relief when she continues to leave me alone.

I can feel the pity from the rest of the Desperates, mixed in with their distrust and their hesitance to spend too much time with me. Even though I don't belong with them, I think they regret that I don't really belong anywhere now, not that they'll do anything to change that. To them, I'm still the girl who can spoil everything by running back to the Assembly with all of their secrets, even though they also know that there's nothing waiting for me out there. Not that there's anything waiting for me in here either.

In the days that I've been here, I've started to thrust my company on the Desperates, unwelcome as it may be. There's nothing else for me to do, and even if I'm expected to sit in a corner and twiddle my thumbs until the rebellion finally succeeds, I just don't have it in me. Instead, I join the Desperates that aren't fit enough to fight or spy and help them sort the supplies.

The piles are heaped with a motley collection of items: food, medicine, weapons, and more, all carefully gathered but never enough for what we need. This is what happens when we rely on a network of Desperates spread throughout the city. They can take a little bit here and a little bit there to keep the Desperates' stores just above empty, but it seems like we're barely scraping by. If it wasn't for the large number of Desperates who didn't live at the camp but stayed undercover in their old lives, there wouldn't be enough supplies to go around. While I sort the bandages into different piles based on size, I dare to think that maybe, just maybe, if the Desperates see me doing this kind of work, eventually they'll also come to see me as one of their own.

They haven't, though. Not yet, at least.

It's there, sitting among other Desperates, where I feel a hand upon my shoulder. At first I think it's an accident, but even so, it's the first real human contact I've had in days. A second passes, and someone behind me says my name. When I turn around, Mason looks down on me.

It's silly, but for a moment I feel disappointed, like I had dared to hope that one of the Desperates had finally accepted me, only to find out that I was wrong. I shove the feeling deep down, hidden away with the rest of my useless thoughts and fruitless dreams. "Hi," I say.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asks. "I want to show you something."

I follow him away from the piles of supplies, out of the main room and into a back passageway where he finally stops. "There's something I have to tell you first," Mason says, "and I don't think you'll want to bother with listening to me afterwards, so I'm going to get it over with now because this is important."

I nod, not sure whether to be more curious about what he has to show me or what he has to tell me. I notice then that Mason is biting his lip and not quite looking me in the eyes, and if I had to guess, I'd say that he really, really doesn't want to tell me whatever he's about to say.

"So at the rate things are going, you won't be able to leave the Desperate camp until the Assembly is overthrown," he begins. "Looks like you're already starting to experience the implications of that."

And I would laugh there, at just how much of an underestimation of the truth that is, but Mason is still talking.

"The thing is," he continues, "if we look at how the Desperates are doing, we're never going to overthrow the Assembly. Not for a long time, anyway, and even longer while we have to deal with the Keeping."