Rag Dolls

The trees thinned, giving way to a clearing where the compound crouched low against the earth. It reminded me of back there. The poorer parts of back there, anyway. Cobbled together buildings stitched together from scavenged wood, rusted metal, and patched tarps, and the whole lot somehow hunched low to the ground, and scatttered haphapzardly at the same time. All faded and worn by whatever weather was thrown at it.

Smoke curled lazily from a chimney. The smell of it, and mud and ash, added to the feel of a ramshackle mini-city. I could have loathed it for that, but I was too relieved to finally be here. Is it so bad, to feel like I'm coming home?

My arm hurt almost as bad as my leg. Nadia was a slim-looking person, but she had a fierce grip, like iron, and she'd used that to hold me upright and haul me here, right after my leg had buckled and I'd fallen for the fourth or fifth time. Blood had started seeping through the bandage bound tight around my throbbing thigh. Nadia wrapped one arm round my waist, gripped my wrist, and marched me onward.

My steps had weakened, and my strength fizzled, along with Nadia's patience. By the time the Compound was in sight she was dragging me, my feet leaving twin furrows in the soil. There was more blood, the bandage soaked, dark red and sticky. No dam, anymore, for the rivulets making sluggish tracks down my thighs. I was light-headed and my breath was shallow and sharp.

Two figures stood at the edge of the compound, where a makeshift gate had been fashioned from chain-link and salvaged fencing. Neither looked surprised to see the arrivals.

"She’s back," said one, nodding toward Nadia.

"And she’s brought a new Pup," came a familiar voice from further back. Caro stepped forward, muscled and vibrant and grinning. Even with so little light, it was impossible to miss her. So tall, taller than some men, even. She fair towered over the girls on the gate. Her eyes lingered on the blood-soaked bandage, and that smile slipped.

"Doesn't look good," Caro said.

"No shit," Nadia said.

Caro turned to the guards. "Let them through. They're with me. This one needs to see Tess."

Caro pulled me out of Nadia's grip and guided me through the gate as if I weighed nothing at all. The compound unfolded around us, but I saw only snapshots of it in the poor light. Gardens tangled with herbs and vegetables, clothes lines strung between lean-tos, chickens pecking at the dirt. Glimpses of faces, tattered clothes, and somewhere, I could swear, the squall of a baby.

A baby! An actual baby! Out here? With no one to perform the surgery!

Tess' face swam into view above me, and it was carefully blank. Even in the state I was in, teetering on the edge of consciousness, I took that as a bad sign. She's worried. And she's hiding it, which means she's really worried.

The last thing I saw was Caro's face, that grin still nailed determinedly into place, as solid as the rest of her.

"You made it. Welcome to the wild, pup."

+

I drifted in and out of sleep. I'd never felt so heavy, so full of throbbing pain. The stuff Tess gave me to drink dulled the edges of it, but it still washed through me in waves.

The mattress was lumpy, the blanket scratchy, and the place had the feel, if not the smell, of a makeshift hospital or clinic.

This was barely a step up from the pallet on the ground.

"She needs more painkillers," Tess said, her voice low but urgent. "I had to settle for giving her willow bark tea. The wound’s deep, too, and she lost too much blood."

"So I'll go Shopping," Caro answered, and I heard the creak of her boots as she rested one foot over the other. "I've done it before." I heard the shrug in her voice.

The stress on the word Shopping made me think it wasn't shopping at all. Going for supplies, sure. Back into the city, certainly. Money changing hands? Wildly unlikely.

"It's not just that," Tess fretted, and I got the impression this didn't happen often, or at least, she didn't usually let it show. "If it gets infected..."

"You out of antibiotics as well?" Caro cut in. "Sounds like you need to write me a list."

There was a rattle and some scratching. I didn't open my eyes to peek. I didn't have the energy. In my head, I saw it play out: Tess rummaging for a pen or pencil (maybe even things like that were precious out here) and then writing things down.

"What's this?" Caro asked, "I can't read your writing."

"That's a painkiller, and that's a broad antibiotic. Oh, and I need gauze as well."

"No," Caro said, slow and soft. "This bit here."

Rustling.

"Names. The people you're to take with you."

I could hear Caro bristling from here, and I would have smiled, but the change in her tone, and Tess', made me keep my face slack and my breath shallow.

"I'll take who I always take," Caro insisted.

"No," Tess said, "Not this time. You’ll take who I tell you to."

"But..." Caro sounded bewildered. "I can't do it with a bunch of randoms. I need my team. People I know. People I trust. And who know me. And who know how to move fast, and fight if they have to."

"That's the... Listen, I don't want any fighting, OK? Just get in, get what we need, and get out. Don't make trouble for us all."

"Alright, I get your point, but you can't just chuck a bunch of people together and expect this to work. It'll be a disaster. We need to work well together."

"I see your point, but we can't have what happened last time, you have to-"

Caro interrupted and scoffed, apparently incredulous at the list in her hands. "Is that Maeve? And Anya? You're lumbering me with a bunch of Nervous Nellies here, Tess. You think it'll keep us out of bother, but what if bother catches us up anyways? These girls will freeze up when things go sideways."

"They won’t get themselves killed trying to prove something," Tess replied. "They're all cool-headed decision makers. Your problem is you think aggression is the same as courage."

"Could pass, in the right light," Caro muttered.

"I mean it," Tess said. "You talked me into giving you free rein last time and look what happened. You promised-"

"They were just angry, that's all, and they have every right to be."

"Of course they do, they have every right to feel however they feel. Nobody is disputing that, least of all me. That doesn't mean they can... Look, just mind the list. Please."

"It's not just the list, though, is it?" Caro sounded bitter. "You'll keep us all caged here on the fringes forever. Outcasts reduced to taking scraps. Always depending on them to be bigger and smarter so we can steal from what they've got. We're worth more than that. We're Jackals."

"Jackals are scavengers, Caro," Tess said, more gently now.

A long silence followed. The realisation descended on me that Caro had left. I didn't know when. So big, in personality as well as height, it should have been impossible for her to vanish like that.

My fingers curled around the edge of the blanket. The pain in my leg was sharper now, but my mind was clearer as well.

I'd been stupid to think it would be simpler out here. I knew there'd be problems and people would bicker, the way people do. If pressed, I'd have admitted that the outcasts couldn't manage without taking some of the things they needed. I should have realised that there'd be other complications, as well, deeper divisions and a complicated hierarchy.

People are people everywhere.

I wondered who Caro would take. Maybe, one day, she might take me.

+

Thank you for reading.

This has been a looonngg time coming.

This is part of a series. There are three other stories before this one:

1. Glass Dolls

2. Straw Dolls

3. Paper Dolls