After a night riddled with flashbacks and self-hatred, Dad comes into the tent the next morning holding a rolled-up piece of paper.
"Discharge papers," he says, smacking the edge of the bed with them. I unroll it and begin to read through my orders as he unhooks me from my IVs and monitors. He records my vitals one last time and then sits across from me on a wooden stool.
"Farrah doesn't want you to miss any more work." He watches me pick at the tape around my bandage. "He expects you to report to him as soon as possible. That won't be a problem, will it?"
I shake my head and kick my legs back and forth.
"Jay, if it's a problem, I'll get you a job reassignment."
What he means is if I'm going to keep causing problems. Except I didn't mean to the past two times. Sometimes, I just can't control myself. There isn't a single part of me that intends to do it again.
I look up at him and watch his shoulders heave up and down. A job reassignment wouldn't be that bad. For a moment, I imagine myself working indoors, pushing fabric through a machine in the sticky dark rooms of the factories. The very thought of it stifles me.
No, the best place for me is The Wall. At least up there I can see out. Freedom is present, even if unattainable.
"It won't be a problem, Dad," I finally mutter, looking down at my bruised hands in my lap.
"Good. Here's your new uniform shirt." He hands me a folded olive uniform shirt not unlike the one I'm wearing now.
"But why? Mine didn't get ruined. I can wash the dirt and stuff out."
"Did you not read your discharge papers thoroughly? Last page."
I pick back up my papers and flip to the last page. Nothing seems to be off about it.
"There's nothing...."
"Seriously?" Dad stands and leans over, pointing at the middle of the page. "Hartley is signing you off."
My breath leaves in one quick burst. I shake my head. This can't be happening. One label was bad enough, but two?
Five words stare up at me from my discharge papers.
Jaelyn Price: Wall Guard, MU
"Please, Dad. Don't do this to me."
"I didn't. You did. If you had just stayed put, he wouldn't have even considered labelling you as 'Mentally Unstable.'"
I groan and run a hand across my hair. It's slipped out of the braid in the night, leaving whisps to curl around my face. The small action smooths down little fly-aways, but even more twist in the circulating wind.
This means I can't be trusted to act like a part of normal society. Now, everyone is in charge of watching me and making sure I don't do anything dangerous. Normally, they save this title for individuals that commit serious crimes or have dangerous mental statuses.
"I couldn't talk him out of it," Dad says, breaking the tense silence. "I tried, but Hartley doesn't listen to me the way he used to."
I turn the shirt over in my lap and run my fingers over the embroidered letters. Whoever was tasked with doing this knows what happened, and gossip is probably spreading by the second.
"It's okay, Dad." I force a tiny smile onto my lips and look up at him. It's not his fault.
He puts a hand on my knee and returns my forced smile.
"I can't promise anything, but I'm sure it's going to work out. Everything will be fine."
It won't. Yet, I've handled this for four years now. It can't be worse.
Dad lets me go an hour later with a tight hug but not without checking if I'm okay a hundred more times. I can't seem to lie to him enough.
The walk to our house is excruciating. Between the shadows of tents, people huddle against the autumn chill. Fires burn from piles of trash and scraps of cloth. The people suffer from a boredom that aches in their bones, stemming from the lack of leisure activities to take up their tiny free time. So, they watch people walk to and from places, gossiping. Most of them are women, old or pregnant. They sew and knit while they whisper. Children aren't back yet from school; Men work longer shifts.
I have fantastic hearing, but it wouldn't take a hearing aid to listen in. They don't try to hide the fact that they're talking about me, about the scandalous walk of shame I'm doing. I clutch the new uniform shirt against my chest, wearing nothing but a tanktop and the clean pants Dad lent me. I haven't brushed my hair. One night stands are pretty common around the compound, so I look like just another promiscuous teenager.
So, I stare at my feet and kick at dandelions that grow between the broken slabs of sidewalk. Long dead, only the stalks remain. The brown, dried caps weigh them down. They make easy targets and serve as a distraction from the night ahead.
Eventually, I'll have to go back to work. Going back out onto The Wall is the last thing I want to do.
They'll give me a new partner and assign me to a new section. A thousand games of checkers will have to be lost. Maybe I'll get lucky and my new partner won't try to teach me Uno. Either way, though, my body will have to adjust to the monotonous routine with someone new.
The houses that Dad and I live in are about as far away from my post as possible. Very few of them remain in the compound. They're reserved for people of high status: doctors, scientists, and leaders. They sit around Center Hill, in what used to be a gated subdivision. Yet, the wall that separates the houses from tents and shambles isn't as high as The Wall around the Compound. It hasn't been repaired or upheld. Instead, the rocks and bricks are falling apart, littering the yards of residents.
This wall doesn't have guards. It doesn't even have a gate that works. The yellow toll bar holds itself upright. At night, it blinks bright yellow. Hartley keeps the power off during the day, though. I'm surprised no one has stolen or shattered the annoying yellow lights.
When I duck under the bar, no one notices. No one waves at me like toll booth operators used to in the movies. No one says, 'Good morning, Jay!' That's a good thing, though, because it's not a good morning at all.
At home, I change into my new uniform shirt and brush through the dirt in my hair to braid it again. It needs to be washed, but it will have to wait until they turn the power back on. Tying my shoes with pain shooting up my arm proves to be a challenge, too. By the time I've pulled both my boots on and tied them, I don't have the energy left to button up my shirt. I sit on the bed, panting.
In an effort to pass the time, I play Solitaire on my bed with a deck of yellowing cards. They're nearly impossible to shuffle, and they stick together when you deal them out. A stretched out hair tie holds them together. The box fell apart a long time ago. On the back of the cards, a skinny kid rides the strangest bicycle I've ever seen.
Dad's offered to buy me new ones a thousand times, since I genuinely enjoy card games. Weird, isn't it? Hating board games, but loving cards. Yet, as I run my fingers over the little air-finish pockets on the cards, I'm reminded of a person long-lost.
There's a lot of things that remind me of her.
The cards, ones we used to use when we played blackjack and rummy. The pink hairbrush with a cracked handle that she used to yank through my messy curls. The copy of Romeo and Juliet that Dad keeps in the middle of the kitchen table. Holding hands when we say grace. Blowing smoke like dragons on cold days.
When the phone rings downstairs, I'm glad to escape the spiral of memories.
"Hello?" I expect to hear Dad's voice on the other end, seeing as he's the only one that ever calls, but I'm let down. Hard.
"'Eyyy, Muney." I grind my teeth. "It's Captain Farrah. Come down to the South transfer post. I'll meet you on the way."
"Why?"
"You'll find out. Now hop to it."
He hangs up the receiver on the other end with a loud clang, the sound still ringing in my ear. Fantastic. There goes my afternoon off.
On the way to meet Farrah, I resort to kicking dandelions again. The sun has perched itself high overhead, pelting down with unforgiving rays. Looking down allows me to protect my face from the sun.
"Yo, Muney!"
I glance up from the dandelion I was about to demolish to see Farrah. Sweat beads across his black skin.
"I'm really liking your new title." He pokes where 'MU' is stitched onto my shirt. Then, he turns and walks away, taking massive steps and swinging his arms like he's a kid at an amusement park. "After the little stunt you pulled, you've been reassigned. You're going to be working day shift now on the South Gate. I told Hartley you didn't need a gun for day shift, 'cause, you know, there's no Infected to worry about during the day. And guess what?"
I breathe a long stream of air out of my nose.
"What, Captain?"
"Hartley took your gun away!" He says it with such glee that he nearly trips himself. I want to smile myself. I'm glad they took the rifle. I couldn't use it anyway.
"I'm going to walk you over, just to make sure you don't get lost," he continues, smiling over his shoulder at me. "I wouldn't be a good captain if I let an MU wander around all on their own, now would I?"
Dread sinks in my stomach like an anchor. Now, he has one more thing to pester me with. I can't even argue with him, or I'll lose my assignment.
As we walk towards the South Gate, I roll the sleeves up on my uniform. One thing I can't stand is the smothering feeling that long sleeves give me. They protected me from the bitter night wind, but even then, claustrophobia crept in. Still, rolling the sleeve up around one sore arm requires intense concentration, even more not to trip on trash littering the pathways.
We reach the South Gate, which is open, and Farrah cups his hands around his mouth.
"Yo, Isaac! I brought you your new partner."
The outline I see on the top of the wall leans leisurely against the railing with his feet propped on what looks like a five-gallon bucket. In his hand sits a notebook or book of some sort, and his long hair blows in the midday breeze. When he hears Farrah shouting, he sits up and turns around to face the two of us.
Unlike Howard, he's young, probably only a few years older than me. I can tell because his face doesn't show every ounce of unhappiness that this place brings. As he smirks down at the two of us, a bit of hope left in him flashes.
The man dons a black beard, thin but not so much so that it's a waste of time, and has his long hair pulled back into a curly bun. Strands of it escape on the wind and frame his face. Tattoos line his arms; colorful pictures of landscapes, animals, and words appear.
"About time," he yells back down, tossing the ladder over the side. The muscles in his arms tense as he climbs down. He even jumps down with ease. So, there's strength in him. Another attribute he doesn't share with Howard.
When Isaac turns around, he smiles at both of us with all of his teeth.
"Isaac, this is Jaelyn." Farrah crosses his arms, all business now that there's someone else around. He puffs his chest out and positions his feet slightly apart. Typical alpha gorilla move. "Jaelyn, this is Isaac, your new partner."
I give the front of Isaac a once over, eyes falling on the peeling black letters of his uniform.
Isaac Montez: Wall Guard, MU