Queen of Diamonds

One Hour After The Sorting

I'm still in shock. I'm hardly aware of anything around me, nothing that comes out of the Dealer's mouth makes any sense. He stands up, and gently grabs my arm, pulling me towards a door at the back. I don't know if I want to fight it or follow along, so I go limp, the card in my hands shaking. The Dealer hands me off to someone else, who leads me through a door and down a hall. Where am I going? What am I doing? Who am I? I can't look at the card in my hands. Everything that I stood for, that I believed in, it's all gone. I'm no one. I'm a mirror of the person I used to be, a mirage of perfection. If the Government has decided I'm a Spade, there's obviously something wrong with me. The person leading me stops, and I look up. We're face to face with a big, heavy metal door. I glance to my left, and for the first time process the person that the Dealer shoved me off too. It's the Spade Rep, tall, tan-skinned, and angry, glowering down at me through two black eyes. 
"I don't like this any more than you do, princess," he says, his hand tightening on my arm threateningly. "You're cute, but you're not gonna last a day in the Spade sector." I manage to find my voice.
"That's not fair," I try to say, but my voice comes out as a squeak. 
"Fair. God, what a concept. Now c'mon, you're the only new Spade today and we need to go. Normally when we come to this place we don't get any, or we at least get the ones who look like trouble. But you..." he trails off, looking me up and down, and I get the feeling those black eyes are weighing the makeup of my soul. "C'mon," he says again. 

The Spade boy leads me through the thick door into another room, and for a second I'm confused. It doesn't look anything like the rest of the rooms we've been in. The walls are slanted slightly, and there are chairs lining the walls, bolted into the floor like they're afraid fo theft. That's when I realize. We're not in a room at all. We're in a train. The boy throws my bag, which I didn't even know he had been carrying, over towards me, and pulls a heavy black backpack out from one of the seats and starts digging through it. He yanks a pair of black cargo pants, identical to his own, out of the bag. 
"Put these on over that dress," he says, and I can hear the disdain in his voice when he says that dress. 
"What, you don't have dresses in the Spade sector?" I bite back, and I'm trying to sound threatening, but it comes out like a scared little girl. 
"Not like that," he laughs, and turns away to keep looking through his bag while I hike the pants up over my legs, tucking my skirt inside and tying the strings at the front to keep the over-large waistband around my hips. I hate the way the rough fabric feels on my legs, but that's the least of my worries. Right as I'm starting to say something else, the train lurches and begins to roll along. The lack of windows are eerie, making it feel like the entire building is moving. 
"Sit down," the boy says, and, numb with shock, I oblige.

The boy turns away from me and starts digging through his bag, pulling things that look like weapons and other things I don't recognize out of my bag. He sets something hand-sized and wrapped in a black bandana in between his legs, and it makes a suspicious metal clanking sound. I don't want to think about what it is. Suddenly, he turns around, holding a double thick black sharpie and something I recognize: a corker for wine. He hands the curved metal to me and opens the sharpie with his teeth. 
"Gimmie your arm," the boy says through the cap, gesturing with his hands. I look at him suspiciously. 
"Why?" I ask. Even though it's just sharpie, I don't know what he's going to do to me and I don't trust him at all. 
"Just, c'mon," he sighs, exasperated. "You can't waltz in there unmarked. You already look enough like a greenie." Only about half of the words he said make sense, but I'm too shaky and scared to argue with anything right now, so I stick the arm without my Soul Mark out. He flips my hand over, so my palm is facing up, and rests my hand on his knee. I can't help but flinch at his touch. His skin is cold and icy, despite his tan appearance. His fingers run along my forearm gently, and I feel an involuntary shiver run through my body. I don't know if he feels it too, but he takes the uncapped sharpie and carefully draws a simple design, the strokes he makes with the marker more gentle than I would expect. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he pulls away, capping the marker. I glance at the symbol on my arm. It looks like a rat chasing its own tail. I stare up at him, but he's already turned away, unwilling or unable to explain. 

"Call me Smoke, at least until we get back to the Compound," he says. I nod silently. I don't want to tell him my name, but he doesn't ask. I don't know if that's because ehe doesn't care, or something far more sinister: he already knows. I clutch my bag to my chest, desperate for some lifeline to the world I once knew. It still doesn't feel real that I'm never going to see my family again. I'm never going to see Chris again. That thought runs through my body by a shudder, and I feel tears spring up in my eyes. The boy - Smoke - doesn't notice, going back to pawing through his backpack. He comes up with a black short sleeves button down shirt patchy with bleach stains, which he hands to me. 
"Put this on too," Smoke says, sweeping his things into his bag and shoving the zipper closed. Is this how people dress in the Spade sector? I push my arms through the sleeves, buttoning what few buttons there are left. I feel like a cross between an emo 12 year old and a plumber. I wish that I could arrive proudly wearing the clothes from my home. But something in Smoke's eyes, a mix of fear and anger, stops me from protesting. I press my bag into my chest and shut my eyes as the train flies down the rails to wherever I'm going.