“Ecuador?” He hesitated. “Why am I going to Ecuador?”
Nita sighed. “Because we can’t call INHUP here. Peru isn’t a member country, so INHUP has no power. I don’t know how the police here would react to your situation—or if my mother would just barge into the station to get you back. So. I’m putting you on a bus to Ecuador. If you can get there, INHUP will take you in and put you in the Unnatural Protection Program.”
“Oh.” He paused. “Where are we now?”
“Lima.”
“Ah.” He gave her a half-confused smile. “I thought we were still somewhere in Argentina. I mean, I remember the plane, I think, but the drugs made everything so hazy I wasn’t sure it was real.”
Nita spared him a glance, then turned her eyes forward and kept walking. “No. My mother only operates out of countries that aren’t signed into INHUP these days. She collects from everywhere, but her base of operations is almost always in a non-INHUP member country.”
“I suppose that’s probably true for most of the black market.”
“Depends. We operate through the internet, but there are actual physical markets where they sell unnatural parts. They’re usually on borders, so people can enter the country, buy their illegal goods, use them, and then slip back.”
Nita had been to one of the American markets when she was a child, but she didn’t remember much about it except that her mother had held her hand the whole time and refused to let Nita go anywhere alone, including the bathroom. Sure, there might have been interesting things for sale there, but it didn’t seem worth it. From what she’d heard, they made her mother’s behavior sound saintly.
They came to the bus station. There were several double-decker buses preparing to leave, and a crowd of bored and tired-looking people milling in front of them. Most long-haul trips from Lima left at night so people could sleep half the time. It was a long ride to Ecuador.
Nita went into the bus station and picked up the ticket she’d ordered online an hour earlier, then came back out and handed it to Fabricio. His chains clinked as he took it. Nita frowned, took off her sweater and used it to cover his hands and hide the chains.
“This is your ticket. And here’s some money.” She gave him some Peruvian soles and some US dollars.
Fabricio stood there, shaking in the cool night air. There was still dried blood caked all over his face.
Nita sighed. “You can’t ride the bus like that. We need to wash some of this blood off.”
They went into the surprisingly clean bus terminal bathroom. Nita washed his face. He cried a bit when she approached where his ear had been, and she decided to leave it be. Sure, there was still dried blood, but his hair covered most of the wound. INHUP would have doctors look at it in eighteen hours or so. Nita didn’t want to tear the scab and make it bleed again before he got on the bus. She didn’t have any gauze or anything. And there was no time to get some, because the bus was already boarding.
They walked back out, and Nita nearly smacked her head. “You need to call INHUP before you reach the border. I don’t have a passport for you. I booked your ticket to Piura, which is just south of the border, but the bus goes all the way to Quito. Just stay on. If you call INHUP in advance, they should wait for you at the border.”
“How do I call?” His hands chinked as he moved. “I have no phone.”
Nita hesitated. She only had her personal phone. The bus was boarding; there was no time. He was going to miss it. She looked down at her phone and bit her lip. On the front was a sticker, mostly rubbed off, of a human heart. Ventricles and capillaries colored blue and red, colors faded so they all seemed faint and monotone, a testament to how many years she’d had the small piece of technology.
It was just a phone, and he needed it more than she did.
She sighed, then she handed her phone to Fabricio. “Here.”
“Thanks.” He swallowed. “Five-five-two, right?”
“Yeah.” INHUP numbers weren’t like 911, changing between countries. They were standard worldwide. “You’re going to miss the bus.”
Fabricio gave her a strange look. “You’re not coming?”
Nita blinked, surprised. “No. Of course not.”
“You’re not . . . going back there?”
Nita hesitated. The truth was, she didn’t have any other option. For one thing, the bus ticket and few dollars she’d given to Fabricio had cleaned her out. All her pathetic college savings gone. Not that she’d ever had much to begin with.
Even if she’d had the money, she wouldn’t go to INHUP with Fabricio.
Her parents always said you couldn’t trust INHUP; they were as corrupt as any other police force. Her mother even claimed that an INHUP agent gave her tips on where to find unnaturals who were in hiding in the Unnatural Protection Program. Nita wasn’t sure if it was true, but she had no doubt that INHUP couldn’t protect her from her mother. Nita had too much valuable knowledge, the kind of things that could convict her parents in an instant, for her mother to ever let her escape.
Nita knew her mother loved her. But she also knew her mother would kill her without a second thought if Nita became a serious threat.
“Nita.”
“Yes, Fabricio?”
“Won’t she . . .” He paused, shoulders hunched forward and eyes lowering in fear. “Won’t she be mad?”
“Probably.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
Nita bit her lip, then nodded. “Of course. But it’ll be fine.”
He didn’t look like he believed her.
“She’s my mom. She can’t stay mad forever.”
The look in his eyes was pure pity. “I’m so sorry.”
Nita bristled. She felt like he was insulting her. “For what?”
“You.” Shaking his head, he turned and began walking toward the bus. Halfway down the street he paused, turned back, and whispered, “Thank you.”
Nita didn’t reply. She just started back home to await the fallout.
Seven
NITA HAD NEVER thought of herself as particularly brave. There was never really anything to be brave about. She’d never seen the sense in doing something you were afraid of. Your brain was smart—it wouldn’t send you fear signals without good cause.
So, although Nita was ready to cry from terror before she even saw her mother, she still felt a little shred of pride. She’d done something, something bad, because it was good. She felt like someone had given her a particularly difficult test and she’d passed. She’d done what a good person, a moral person, would have done. There weren’t many times she could say that.
She hoped Fabricio got to INHUP before her mother caught up with him.
A strange realization hit her. Fabricio was the first person she’d had a real conversation with besides her parents in almost a decade. Of course, she’d ordered pizzas, and she’d asked for change at the grocery store. But not had a real conversation.
When Nita first started going to school, she’d talked like any normal five-year-old would. But one day, she’d said something—Nita didn’t remember what, exactly—that had made the teacher speak to her parents.