Book 2 – Shift 8 – Raven
Raven wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and looked at the community garden she had started with the Spear Bitches, smiling. The backdrop was a ruined home, but seeing so many people harvesting and helping plant fresh food and flowers made her heart sing. She used to hate gardening and things that required patience, but after finding Sara, she preferred things that took their time.
She looked down at the cockcumbers she was planting and felt a sense of pride that these, along with the fauxmatos, airrots, bonions, and boocchini she’d planted, would fill the bellies of Etokuso’s children and help fuel the wonderful, chaotic town the Shafted were already in full swing rebuilding.
“I’m all done with the forkhids and mansies!” One of the Spear Bitches approached. “Do you need help finishing up here?”
“Sure, Lita.” Raven smiled and gestured to the small bag of remaining seeds. “Did Paige get the dahlia seeds in?”
“She said it will be tomorrow,” Lita responded as she got down in the dirt and started planting. “I know you really want them for Sara, but the delivery driver got held up in Fort Perineum.”
Raven kept working but stewed on that for a while. Ever since she found out Sara loved dahlias, she’d been trying to acquire them. The problem was that dahlias were ultra-rare in Tawagoto, and every time they tried to get some, problems arose. She was starting to think she needed to go all the way to Nutbutter Basin herself to get some. She looked up at the flood of sunshine shining down through the sunroof and found herself enjoying the slight tingle it gave her skin.
“There we go!” Lita pushed the dirt over the final seed and stood. “Me and Chyna are going to the Hole for drinks! You wanna come?”
For a moment, Raven considered going to the temporary watering hole that had been built in a literal hole. “I think I’m gonna pass this time,” she said with a smile. “I’ve been a little bit tired. I think I need to sleep more.”
Lita put a hand on her hip. “Girl, you’ve been sleeping so much. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Raven smiled, but just as it had been for a while, nothing was behind it. “I’m fine. Besides, Chyna’s had her eye on you.”
“Well, yeah.” She responded with a sad smile. “We’ve been together for a week now, remember? We just talked about it earlier.”
Raven shook her head and put a hand to it. “Duh. Yeah. Sorry. I’ve just…”
Lita took a long look at her and reached down to grab her wrist. “Come on! You need a break!”
Raven let herself be pulled and got to her feet. “Okay, okay. But let me go and change first.”
Lita’s mood changed in an instant. She nodded her head behind Raven. “We’ll take a rain check.”
Raven turned to see Thiccolus driving a wagon over the hill, with Cody beside him on the buckboard and the rest of the Wangs crew accounted for. Her heart skipped a beat, and her stomach lurched.
Where was Sara?
She dropped her gardening implements and started dashing to meet them as they came into the parking lot.
“Where’s Sara?” The panic in her voice was palpable.
Cody jerked a thumb toward the back of the wagon. “We need a medic!”
Everything stopped. Sara’s unmoving body lay in the back of the wagon. Raven reached into the still-moving wagon and scooped her out. She turned and headed back into the wreckage of town, looking down at Sara and fighting tears. “C’mon, baby! Don’t go…”
Tears ran down her cheeks. She fought back the overwhelming urge to break down as she headed for the makeshift clinic set up near the garden. She pushed her way inside and took Sara to an empty cot as the medics swarmed.
“What’s wrong with her?” one of the medics, a dwarf, asked.
“She had a mental break.” Cody huffed from the doorway. “Raven. We need to talk. Now.”
Raven clenched her jaw and stood firm. “I’m not leaving her side!”
Cody paused a beat, looked at Sara, then back to Raven, and shrugged. “We met them. Sara met…Alenikka.”
Raven’s eyes went wide. “What? How? You mean her character?”
“Yeah.” Cody nodded. “The one she wrote her way out of trauma with.”
“But how?” Raven looked at both of them. “How did you get away?”
“They let us go.” Cody looked ill. “They weren’t concerned about us. At all.”
Raven considered the implications. She turned to the medic. “What do you think?”
“She’s alive and stable,” the dwarf said. “But we have no idea yet. We need to run tests.”
“What do you mean they weren’t concerned?” She turned back to Cody, still refusing to leave Sara’s side.
“Exactly that.” Cody shrugged. “Not a fucking shred of care. Told her she can go play her games now.”
“Sara!” Mark burst through the clinic door with Simone in tow. “What the fuck?”
As Cody filled them in, Raven watched the medics complete their first pass.
“She’s…she’s sleeping.”
Silence fell over the room. Raven looked at the Earthers, then at Sara, then back to the medic. “She’s just sleeping?”
“Aye.” The dwarf nodded. “It’s not magical. It’s exhaustion.”
“Then let’s wake her!” Raven started toward her but was met with a firm hand.
“No,” the medic responded. “She needs to rest. However long her body needs.”
“Then let me take her to her bed,” Raven tried.
The medic kept a firm hand on her arm. “She’s safe here, Raven.”
Raven spun toward the group. “You said they stayed on the island?”
“Yeah.” Cody nodded. “We’re working on—”
Raven walked past him without a word, storming from the tent with purpose. She stalked down the alley to the makeshift bunkhouse that replaced the Kid Cutters barracks. She threw off her gardening apron and stripped out of her gardening clothes down to her panties. The door swung open as she began pulling on her tactical pants.
“Where are you going?” Mark kept his gaze averted as she dressed.
She pulled on her sleeveless tactical Pizza Hut vest. “To talk to some people about an island.”
“We can’t beat them, Raven.” Mark shrugged. “We can’t even beat King Dong yet.”
“I didn’t say I was going to see them first.” She pulled on her fingerless ass-beating gloves and stuffed her pack.
“Then who are you going to see first?” Mark wondered.
“My mom.”