Lexicon

she had made him into.
    “Forget all of this,” she told him. “Get away from here, forget me, forget you ever lived in Broken Hill. Become someone else.
Kikkhf fkattkx hfkixu zttkcu
, forget me.”
    She stumbled away from the gurney. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Neiland was standing there like a statue, which surprised her. The buzz-cut soldier was on the floor, not moving.
    “Neiland,” Emily said. “Thank you.”
    Neiland waited.
    “Take him away,” she said. “Keep him safe.”
    • • •
    Once Neiland had put Harry into a Jeep and Emily had watched it speed away into the dust, she returned to the classroom in which she’d awoken and searched around for a marker. Classrooms always had markers. She found a drawer full of colorful ones and took a fistful and went looking for a bathroom. There were many people running around and shouting, but they were mostly outside, drawn by Neiland’s departure. She did not see Plath and was concerned about that, because the worst thing that could happen right now was Plath finding her.
    She found a girls’ restroom with a long counter and low sinks, for children. She gripped a blue marker in her fist, like a toddler, and began to scrawl on the mirror. The first word was
vartix
. This had left her slack-jawed in her dormitory room once, but she had been a good student and done her exercises and was not seventeen anymore, so she managed to get through it, pausing between letters to blink at the ceiling and clear her mind. She completed
vartix
and kept her eyes averted from it while she wrote the second word, and the third, and fourth, and then she had to gag into the sink for a while. But she had done it. She picked up the marker again, and, keeping her head down, added: DIE.
    She closed her eyes. She took two steps backward. She breathed. It would only work if she lowered her defenses.
I am cared for
, she told herself.
I am safe.
She felt her muscles loosen. She swallowed.
Open your eyes. Open your eyes.
She began to do it and squeezed them shut again.
Do it
, she said.
Do it, you bitch—you know if they find you they’ll make you tell them about Harry! Do it! You deserve it!
Then she began to cry.
    She groped toward the counter and found the marker. She kept her eyes away from the command words and located DIE and added a D. Before that, she wrote HARRY. Before she could change her mind, she walked away and then she looked back.
    • • •
    She was sitting on tiles. Bathroom tiles. Her mind felt bruised. She had the feeling that someone had just compromised her.
    Menindee. Of course. Harry had brought her here. He had dragged her out of Broken Hill and saved her life. But then—
    “Oh, no,” she said. Harry had died. They hadn’t been able to save him. She had seen him die on the gurney. A wail burst out of her and she forced it down because Plath was out there. The whole organization was probably looking for her. She closed her fist around her grief and made it anger. There would be time for grief later. The point here was that Harry had wanted her to live. She had to survive. She would flee, and hide, and live, because she was good at that. Then she would find a way to return to Yeats and make her vengeance terrible.
    But first. She got to her feet and tried to think how the hell she was going to get out of here.

MEMO
    8th Combat Service Support Battalion
    Royal Australian Army Medical Corps
    SEC: UNCLASSIFIED
    ENGAGEMENT: BROKEN HILL, NEW SOUTH WALES
    DEPLOYMENT + 28 HRS
    Confirming as per request AWOL status of Medic First Class NEILAND, JENNIFER C. Last signed on station E04, Menindee, NSW (-32.400105, 142.411669) at 0600 13/3, no sign off, no contact for 12 hrs ongoing.
    Hesitant to put this one in the system as Neiland has been a model soldier with no prior signs of dissent dissatisfaction etc. Does not appear among any of the dead and wounded but frankly feeling that is more likely than abandoned post.
    Given current state of ops around Broken Hill in general and station E04 in particular recommend delaying action until we have a clearer situation report. Still highly disrupted here with orders to hold back all personnel from Broken Hill, reports of mass casualties inside town, possible toxicity, confused comm chain due to apparent complete loss of first-entry squads etc.
    Appreciate concern for process but recommend stalling until improved sit rep.
    WARRANT OFFICER CLASS ONE F. J. BARNES
    8 CSSB, RAAMC

[IV]

    I cannot live with You—
    It