She looked at Li in triumph. You can’t make me let go.
In the second after it happened they were both silent, Matti still holding onto the rack and Li holding her other arm like a separate thing. Then Matti’s mouth opened and the sound that came out brought Faysal running from the shop, stopped people across the road. But all Li heard, and kept hearing, was the deep, private click as Matti’s shoulder came out of its socket.
Frank met them on their way out of the clinic. He was still wearing his knee pads and workboots. Matti turned her back on Li and showed him the sling. He lifted her carefully and carried her out to where Carl was waiting with the ute. That meant Angie knew what had happened too. Carl was polite with her, reserved. She wondered if he was counting the times Robbie had been alone in her care.
When Matti had cried herself to sleep at home, Frank said, What the fuck, Li? She tried to tell him but he stopped her. I don’t need to know what happened. I need to know why you dislocated our daughter’s shoulder.
She wouldn’t come.
He stared at her like he was trying to remember how he knew her. You’re not the child. You know that, don’t you?
She did know that, how it sounded. How it was, maybe. She was thick with guilt and grief. But she’s so goddamn stubborn.
Frank breathed out slowly, rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. She’s stubborn, yeah. You don’t recognise it?
Walking again, at dusk on the seventh day, she could feel the eastern drift of the highway in her body, how it pulled even closer to the fence. Fifty metres, thirty, nearer. An armoured four-wheel drive on the other side turned and accelerated bumpily across the No Go towards her. Too late to do anything except keep walking, look straight ahead. When the vehicle reached the fence, it slowed and kept pace with her. She waited for an order, an interrogation by megaphone. Her whole body was rigid with the effort of not looking. When she finally turned her head she saw two XB Force in blue body armour through the open passenger window. Their eyes were hidden behind reflective visors that had earpieces attached. They gave no instructions, made no demands, just watched her. She knew they carried precision rifles and batons, limb restraints and handcuffs. Studded gloves that they put on first.
She looked away and kept moving. What were they waiting for? Did they want her to show fear? Aggression? Something that might justify a response, justify these endless kays of wire and spikes and military hardware? And then she thought, No, they’re just bored. But, bored, they could still stop her, question her, detain her somewhere, come between her and Matti just to pass the time.
The vehicle swung away, back towards the foothills. She watched the headlights until she was sure they weren’t coming back.
When she was eight or nine Val had shown her how to tell the uniforms apart. Kahki was the old army, what he called real soldiers. XB Force was sky blue. The precincts’ own armed forces used to be grey or black but at some point one of the companies started supplying all the uniforms. Mostly, now, they all looked like XB Force.
Through the night, the blacktop started fading in and out of unsealed corrugation. She slept for a couple of hours in some bushes and then made herself keep moving, but slowly. She couldn’t keep walking so many hours, night after night. Her feet ached, her back ached. The pack weighed her down even though it weighed less. The sky lightened on the eighth day over flat, sandy country with fewer and fewer trees. Emu bush and buffel grass and prickly wattle. Stretches of salt flats. She picked samphire and tried to eat it raw but it made her too thirsty.
Up ahead in the scrub there was a circle of vehicles and caravans around a campfire. Rusted but not abandoned. Rich had said there was a waterhole somewhere around here. She approached slowly, but without trying to be quiet. A dog barked and figures moved out from behind the vehicles. Someone started bashing something, wood against metal, in a slow rhythm.
She called out, Is there water? I just want to refill.
The barking became frenzied and a rock thudded past her into the dirt. She turned back to the road.
Sometimes she had a sense of afterlife – that everyone but her had walked away from an unspeakable disaster. All they’d left was their rubbish. She pushed thoughts like that away. What was happening here was still playing out, slowly slowly like a car crash, and there was nowhere for anyone to go.
Before she slept a different memory came, and kept coming, until she stopped fighting it. Just lay there and listened to Matti calling for water, saw her face, flushed and turning in sleep. Flu had gone through makecamp like a truck. Headache, bone ache, sweats, then a fever. By the time Li understood what was happening and tried to quarantine Matti from the other kids, it was too late. For the first twenty-four hours she thrashed in her sleeping bag, panting and crying
