The Exiled Goldwood Boy

Sirens are still blaring. I’m panicking.

What have I just done? Stolen medicine for a girl I don’t even know? And a Rebel girl at that! For the Founding Father’s sake Matthew, this is how you ended up in trouble in the first place!

Suddenly I catch a glimpse of a faded white Party symbol on a wrinkled jacket pressed up against the wall. There she is. Some of the panic in my veins disappears. I push through the crowd to the opposite side of the street and kneel behind a bench. Her eyes are closed. I reach for the zipper on my jacket. Immediately, her eyes fly open. She grabs my wrist.

“You’re clearly in pain,” I say.

“And you clearly just want a look,” she snaps.

“What?” I say. “No, that is not what this is about, seriously? Here.”

I break the seal on the pain paste and offer it to her. She looks shocked for a moment, but takes the tube and begins applying the cream to her chest. It’s the first time I’m getting a good look at her wounds. Even in the dim twilight, I can tell they’re deep. I try to hide my reaction.

“That bad, huh?” She empties the pain paste across her chest and arm, then thumps her head against the concrete wall. “Well, this is probably a less painful way to go compared to what the Party would do to me once you rat me out.”

“Who said I’m going to tell them?” I say. The girl looks at me, her hazel green eyes sparkling in the red siren lights.

“You could feed your family for a year off the reward you’d get from turning me in,” she says. “Why wouldn’t you?”

She’s right. Only, my father makes enough at the Reserve, so as a reward, we’d get a ‘bonus point’ with the Party. Maybe a fancy Party dinner or small ceremony. But neither of those will solve my problem. Father will still see me as a disappointment, an embarrassment to the family name. What I need is something so great- like the name of the notorious Rebel Cherry Blossom, the Republic terrorist’s deadliest leader- that the Party has to acknowledge our family’s loyalty.

Now that would be enough to make up for what I’ve done.

I unwrap the antibiotic gauze from my hands, gently pull my jacket off the girl’s shoulder and begin to wrap the ribbon over her chest.

She’s disguised as a plant worker, which means she must be connected with the Rebels. No Party girl would camouflage herself as a man and work in the electrical plant- a Party girl would wholeheartedly trust the Party’s rule that work is not a woman’s place. Which means, this girl is my ticket to clearing my family’s name.

I can’t let her die, no matter what the cost.

“I don’t think it’s right, that you and your family should be punished just because you’re working,” I whisper.

The girl laughs.

“Liar,” she says. “You’re a Party boy, what game are you playing?”

A bullet to my gut.

Too obvious a lie? Now what?

“Look, it won’t do me any good to turn you in, not with the trouble I’m in,” I say.

“And you’re just looking for an excuse to get into more?” the girl asks.

“I’m looking for an excuse to do the right thing for once in my life,” I say.

“Ah, so I’m a charity case,” the girl says. I tie the gauze under her arm and lean against the concrete wall beside her. The sirens stop, and the yellow lights of the plant blink back to life. They must have fixed the bleeding pipe and restored steam to the power turbines.

“My sister is a nurse in the Goldwood Ring,” I say. “If you pretend to be an injured civilian-”

“Goldwood Ring?” the girl echoes. “Wow, a rich Party boy, are you? How’d you end up in a dump like the Outer Ring?”

The Republic is divided into five concentric rings, starting with the inner-most Ring of the Founding Father and spiraling outward to the last Republic district - the Outer Ring. The Goldwood Ring is the third layer and the district my family was born into. Citizenship status decreases exponentially as you venture outward from the Founding Father’s ring, so it’s easy to see why the girl would be surprised an Outer Ring soldier’s sister would have access to a mid-ranking ring.

“It doesn’t matter- do you want to live or not?” I blurt out.

“I think I’d rather choose death over going with you,” she says, then tries to stand. I don’t catch her when she collapses.

“That pain paste is going to wear off in a few hours, and then you’ll really be in trouble,” I say.

“I’ll be in trouble if I go to the Goldwood district,” she says. “They scan everyone. How are you going to explain vermin like me weaseling in?”

“My sister should be home,” I say. “I can take you to our house-”

“Still have to get me past the scanners and into Goldwood, Party boy,” the girl says.

“-here in the Outer Ring.”

The girl laughs.

“Oh my Father, you’re the son of that high-ranking politician who got exiled to the Outer Ring, aren’t you?”

I can feel my cheeks beginning to blush.

“You have to tell me what your old man did to get exiled out here,” the girl says.

“Fine, I will,” I say. “But only when you’re better.”

The girl’s smirk disappears. She stares at the pain paste tube crushed in her palm.

“Tell your sister you watched someone dump a pot of boiling water on me,” she finally says. “Wouldn’t be the first time either.”

“Alright then,” I say. Carefully, I scoop her petite figure into my arms and carry her through the winding streets, navigating towards the southern side of the ring. When I reach my house, I scan my wrist at the gate and effortlessly carry the girl up the front stairs. I set her down on the front step and quietly open the front door.

“Hello?” I shout into the foyer. I hear someone in the kitchen.

“Rose, are you home?”

A servant girl steps out from the kitchen into the foyer.

“No, Young Master,” she says. “She got called into work.”

“I see,” I say. “Thank you, servant.”

I wait a minute for the servant girl to return to the kitchen, then scoop the plant worker into my arms and hurry down the hall to my room. I set her gently on my bed, then head to the kitchen where the servant girl is washing dishes. She watches in horror as I retrieve a hidden bottle of alcohol from a back cabinet. Back in my room, I close the door and set the vodka bottle on the nightstand, then open the curtain to the small window at the opposite end of the narrow room. Faint electric street lights fill the room with a faded light. Returning to the girl, I sit on the edge of the bed and pull back the thick fabric of my jacket from her wounds. In case I had any doubt that I miss-saw, this plant worker is most definitely a she. I try not to think about it as I rip off a strip of gauze and soak it with the alcohol, then gently wipe the oozing puss from her wounds. She winces in pain, but thankfully doesn’t cry out.

When the ooze from her wounds is wiped away, I begin smearing the concoction of oils and creams I stole from the clinic onto her skin, then hurry up the stairs to scavenge through Rose’s vanity for fresh gauze. As a nurse, my sister almost always has a spare stash of gauze, low-level pain paste, and needles on hand. Finding a wad of gauze in her makeup drawer, I return to my room and finish wrapping the girl’s wounds, then slip one of my old shirts over her head and help her lean back against my pillow.

“Why did you do it, steal the medications for me?” the girl asks.

“I already told you, I don’t think the Party’s rules are fair,” I say. The girl smiles.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she says.

“Then why did you come with me?” I ask.

“I guess I’m not ready to die,” the girl says. She tilts her head away from me, and a moment later, she’s out. I collapse to the floor and lean back against the edge of the bed. Thoughts race through my head.

What if she doesn’t know who the Rebel Cherry Blossom is?

What if she refuses to talk to me?

What if turning her over with the Cherry Blossom’s identity in hand still isn’t enough to make up for my mistake?

The girl’s eyes begin to flutter, then fly open. She hurries to sit, wincing at the pain.

“Please,” I whisper, putting a finger on her lips. She’s startled and scoots further into the wall.

“Try to be quiet,” I whisper. “No one knows you’re here.”

“Oh, is that so?”

I whip around at the familiar voice and find my sister standing in the doorway, dressed in scrubs covered in blood and I-don’t-want-to-know-what-other bodily fluids. Rose finishes stepping into my room and closes the door.

How did she sneak in so quietly? I didn’t even hear the front door squeak!

“You want to tell me why there’s an injured girl in your bed?” Rose says, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall.

“I can explain,” I say, looking from Rose to the girl, and back to Rose.

How do I explain?

“Surely you hear about the incident at the electrical plant…” I begin.

“Of course I did,” Rose snaps. “They called me in as an extra at that sludge-ridden Outer Ring clinic to handle the overflow of injured people from the panic that erupted when the electricity went out.”

“Exactly!” I say. “Well, she was one of the wounded-”

“And how exactly did she get third degree burns on her skin?” Rose questions.

How can she tell what the wounds are beneath the shirt!

Suddenly I remember what the girl told me in the street.

“Someone dumped a pot of boiling water on her during the commotion,” I say.

“So you brought her here instead of to the clinic?” Rose asks.

“You said it yourself, the clinic was overflowing,” I say. “She’d be dead by the time they got her through the queue.”

“And she’s going to die here unless someone steals more meds for her.” Rose nods to the medicine vials on the nightstand. “You know they have cameras.”

I… forgot about that little detail…

“She must mean a lot to you to risk your head like that.”

The injured girl’s eyes widen.

“It’s not like that!” I reflexively spat. “I was just trying to help and I thought you could-”

“What, steal more medicine for you?” Rose says. “Treat your little girlfriend under the radar and risk losing my license? Haven’t you already caused this family enough grief Matthew?”

Rose buries her face in her hands.

“When I tell Father…”

“What?” I shout. “No, please Rose-”

There’s a knocking at the front door.

“This is the military police. Open up.”

Rose glares at me.

“I’d like to see how you’re going to weasel your way out of this one,” she says.