Right As Rain
By Laura Schiller
Based on: The Matched Trilogy
Copyright: Ally Condie
Prompt 4: Water Bottles
"Damn it," she mutters through clenched teeth as the airship bumps and shudders toward the ground. Long moments after it stops, her hands continue shaking, her black Rising uniform soaked with perspiration. She laughs wildly as she scrambles to her feet and out the door.
She does not know how long she can keep going. Her quivering legs and the burning sores on her back are screaming at her to stop; her mouth feels drier than the papery wasp nest she guarded for so long; she can barely see the lush, green, utterly foreign landscape around her. But she has to keep moving, she must – because even though she knows that damned virus will defeat her in the end, she has no intention of making it easy. That's just not the way she is.
The tall, strong, black-haired boy who appears from behind a clump of bushes, lowers his gun, and stares at her with astonished blue-gray-green eyes, looks like the perfect hallucination. She grins, happy to see him of all people during her last hours.
"Hello there," she croaks. "Took you long enough."
He laughs at her attitude (which she finds vaguely confusing; Ky never laughed in situations like these), then shakes his head in disbelief.
"Was that your airship?" he asks, gesturing behind them.
"Yeah," She snorts. "Not one of my best landings. But hey – any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, right?"
As soon as the words are out, she falls to her knees, prompting the stranger to lift her to her feet and put an arm around her shoulders.
"C'mon," he tells her gently, leading her along the path she seems to have stumbled on. "You're not well. I've seen this before. Here, take some water. You need to stay hydrated."
He hands her a water bottle, a shiny plastic relic of the Society which looks utterly out of place among his homespun clothes and leather pouch. She tosses back the water with thirsty abandon. Nothing has ever felt so good as that fresh, cold sweetness on her tongue.
"Take it easy," the boy cautions. "Save some for later, okay? We don't have that much to go around. Lot of refugees coming from the north lately, lots of them sick. Nothing to worry about, though. A nice sego lily salad and they're right as rain again, you'll see."
His voice is deep, musical, powerful just like Ky's, but she doesn't remember Ky being so talkative. Little by little, it dawns on her that this benign phantom might be something else entirely. She does not know whether to be pleased or displeased.
"My name's Matthew by the way, Matthew Markham. And you are?"
"Indie," she whispers, breathless from holding back laughter. "Indie Holt."