Casted

Chapter 10

I focused on helping out around camp the rest of the day, not giving myself time to think about anything- or anyone- else. I kept busy with little tasks: melting snow in our canteens, skinning the scrawny snow hare that Zion had caught in his snare, feeding the fire to keep us warm.

Every hour seemed to press in on us, like stretching a rubber band little by little, wondering when it would snap. The longer the time span between the last fear and now, the more we ticked with paranoia. By the time night started to fall, I was completely on edge.

I was sitting on the ground near the fire, tearing into a tough chunk of rabbit meat and watching the slits of hazy sunset as they cut through the trees and bounced of the snow. Zion took his usual place on the log, and Ben sat as far away on the opposite end as he could.

"When do you think it's coming?" I asked out loud. They both brought their eyes up from their food.

"The next fear?" Ben said.

I nodded.

No one knew the answer, so no one said anything. That was answer enough. A few moments passed.

"Back in Class 6," Zion muttered, almost to himself, "we would wait at the gate every year on Ration Day when the Stormers would bring in the big trucks and ration out clothes and food. My mother and I were always so anxious, worrying about if we'd get enough, or if we'd get jumped on the way home with all of our stuff, or if the Stormers would even show up at all that year." He shook his head. "But this is a whole new kind of waiting."

I nodded once. "And a whole new kind of anxious," I added. A thought tugged at the back of my mind, but I didn't want it to come across as snobbish. I voiced it as casually as I could. "Ration Day is twice a year in Class 5- once every six months."

I looked at Zion carefully. He stared back. There was no readable emotion that I could see through the falling shadows and firelight.

"Class 4's is once every four months," Ben put in.

My gaze shifted to him. He stared off into the forest.

"Do you think Class 3 even has Ration Days?" I asked. "They don't need it, do they? I hear they have jobs there. Real jobs, where they get paid with money and everything. And then they can go trade the money for food and clothes and blankets, and they don't live in houses with blown out windows and holey walls with animals living in them." I paused, poking at the coals of the fire with a stick. "That's what I hear anyway. I've never seen a place like that."

"Neither have I," Ben said.

"Maybe you should ask Zara," Zion put in, a snarky edge to his tone.

I pursed my lips. "What's her deal anyway?" I asked. "She's trying to get her family up to Class 1? I mean, isn't that a little selfish? The rest of us are fighting to survive in the lower classes, while in Class 3 they're probably running around in their big back yards in their bright white tennis shoes, and yet here she is taking the chance to move up even more."

"That shouldn't matter," Ben said, looking at me for the first time. "The point is no family should have to send their eldest child into this nightmare because there's no other way to get out. We should get to decide how we live, how our kids live. We should have to earn it, but not like this..." His voice trailed off for a moment. He looked like he might want to say more, but couldn't find the words, so he just repeated himself in a quiet voice. "Not like this."

I gazed into the blazing fire, unable to ignore the wretching of my heart for him. For both of them. For all of us. And suddenly I was saying exactly what I was thinking, without sending it through the filter first.