World After

42

“WHAT’S WRONG with you? Are you broken?”

“No. I just can’t walk like other people.” She puts her arm out and drags herself forward a few more inches.

“That means you’re broken.”

She stops on the hard floor, propped on her elbows. “It means I move in a different way.”

“Yeah, like crawling on the floor like a worm. Show me, Little Worm. Entertain me. Crawl over here and I’ll let you have some of my water.”

I want to punch my fist through the TV screen at him.

Where were you when she needed you?

My little sister looks at the water and takes a dry gulp.

“I can see you want it. The thirst is probably cracking your throat right now.” His own voice sounds dry and cracked. “Soon, you’ll get a headache and start feeling dizzy. Later, your tongue will swell and every instinct you have will be whispering at you to bite it so you can drink your own blood. Ever been thirsty enough to want to kill a man for his cup of water? No? You’ll know that feeling soon.”

He touches the bloody bandage as if wanting to share the pain. “Come over here, Little Worm. Show me how the broken and abandoned ‘walk’ in a different way, and I’ll give you something to drink.”

“I’m not abandoned.”

Beliel scoffs. “Name one person who didn’t abandon you.”

She looks at him with her wide eyes and pixie face. “My sister.”

“Really? Then where is she?”

“On her way here. She’ll come and get me.”

“That’s not what she said.”

“You talked to her?” The hope in her face breaks my heart.

“Sure, I talked to her. Who do you think gave you to me?”

I clench my fist so hard my knuckles feel ready to split.

“You lie.”

“It’s the truth. She said she feels bad about it, but she can’t handle the responsibility of taking care of you any more.”

“You’re lying.” Her voice wavers. “She didn’t say that.”

“She’s exhausted. So tired of waking up every morning, knowing she has to find food for you, carry you, wash you, do everything for you. She tried, but you’re such a burden.”

All the strength drains out of me and I have to stagger back and lean on the wall to stay up.

“They’re all like that.” Beliel’s voice is not unfriendly. “In the end, they always abandon us. No matter how much we love them or how much we do for them. We’re never good enough. We’re the rejects, you and I. The abandoned.”

“You’re a liar.” Her face crumples and her words blur. She hiccups as she cries, lying there on the stone floor, utterly helpless. Her tone almost begs for this monster to comfort her.

My chest feels like there’s a heavy weight on it, and I have trouble breathing.

“You’ll see. Nothing will ever be given to us freely the way it is for other people. Not love, not respect, not even friendship. The only way we’ll get any of that is to put them all in their rightful place beneath us. The last thing we can afford is to be helpless and weak. You have to be strong and beat them into submission. And if they beg and behave, then maybe we’ll let them be our lap dogs. That’s the closest outsiders like us will ever come to feeling wanted.”

It’s bad enough that he’s crushing the fragile hopes of an innocent seven-year-old. But what kills me is that we proved him right. The image of her tied and yanked like a wild animal will be burned forever into my memory.

“Would you like some water?” Beliel’s voice is neutral. Not nice but not overly cruel either.

My sister gulps and tastes her parched lips with her tongue. Desperately thirsty even though she’s crying.

“Crawl over to me, Little Worm, and I’ll give you some.”

She lies still on the floor with her upper body resting on her forearms. She looks at him with distrust. I absolutely dread her falling for his game, and yet there’s a part of me that wants her to go to him because she needs to drink.

Paige slowly puts her arm out and drags herself laboriously. Once, twice, until she gets a slow rhythm crawling across the room. Her dead and dried-up legs drag behind her.

Beliel claps in a slow beat. “Bravo, Little Worm. Bravo. Such a miniature likeness of your kind. You monkeys are so cleverly desperate to do whatever it takes to survive. Compared to your people and the things some of them will do, I’m practically a nice guy.”

Paige reaches the table that holds the plate of sandwiches and glass of water. She crawls up the metal chair that sits beside it.

“I didn’t say you could have that,” Beliel growls. “I told you to come to me, not to the table.” He starts to lean forward in anger but eases back in pain with his hand on his bleeding stomach, letting out a deep breath.

She reaches out to the glass, looking at the water with obvious longing and thirst.

“Of course, you’re just like the rest.” His lips sneer. “There isn’t a creature alive who looks out for anyone but himself. Even a little worm like you. So you learned a lesson from your sister, did you? The only thing that matters in the end is your own survival. It’s what humans and cockroaches are best at.”

Paige looks at the water. Then at Beliel. A battle is raging inside her, and I know her well enough to know what she’s debating.

“Don’t do it,” I whisper. “Take care of yourself first.” Just for once.

Without taking a sip, she holds out the glass of water to Beliel where he can reach it.

I groan in despair. I want to snatch it away and make her drink.

“My sister is coming for me.” Her voice breaks, like she’s not sure. Her face scrunches as she fights the tears.

He stares at the water.

He stares at her.

“Aren’t you thirsty, Little Worm? Why not drink it yourself?” Suspicion fills his voice.

She sniffles. “You need it more.” She’s being stubborn. Clinging on to who she is even under these circumstances.

“Don’t you know you’ll die if you don’t get some water?”

She holds it out steadily.

He reaches out his arm without moving his body and takes it. He sniffs it as if suspicious that it might not be just water.

He takes a sip.

Then a gulp.

Then he downs two-thirds of it.

He pauses for a breath. He glares at Paige as if she insulted him. “What are you looking at?”

She just blinks at him.

Beliel puts the glass to his mouth, but this time he takes just a sip. He glances at Paige as if considering giving the rest to her.

Then he drains it in one big gulp.

“That’s what happens when you’re nice. You might as well learn that lesson early. Nice may have worked for you in the past but no more. That strategy only works when you’re wanted. But now, you’re no different from me. Ugly. Rejected. Unloved. I understand.”

I cannot wait to kill him.

He hands her the glass. She takes it, desperate. She tips it over in her mouth.

One small drop drips into her mouth.