I take my hand off the gun and put it back on Bosco’s warm head.
“Thank you, Jack.” He lowers his hands and stares at me. And stares at me. And stares. There’s something in his eyes, something I know well. Hunger. I can take a hint. I dig in my coat pocket and pull out a small piece of flatbread, flicking little pieces of lint from it, and then hand it to him.
He seems startled by the offering, but takes it and puts it in his mouth, and while he’s chewing, he searches through his clothing and pulls out a thumb-size letter J made from wire, holding it up for me to see. It’s beautiful—the wire is bent and weaved so it looks like the J is made out of a silver vine.
“There’s a loop on top of it so you can put it on a necklace or keychain,” he says.
I take the J and step back into my yard. The vagabond takes one more long look at me. “Good-bye, Jack.”
“See ya,” I say, and watch him walk down the snowy street, until he turns a corner and is gone from view. Then I unzip the top pocket on my vest—the pocket where I keep my most treasured things, like the lip balm I just gave away—and tuck the J safely inside.
I pick up the wire word AB, which is woven to look like it is made from silver vines. Lifting Kevin’s sweatshirt halfway up my chest, I unzip the top pocket on my vest, take out the J I was given nine months ago, and hold it to the AB. It fits perfectly—the wires lining up so exactly that the three letters had to have been woven at the same time and then had the J snipped off later.
A shiver runs down my spine. JAB. Those are my initials— Jacqui Aislynn Bloom. I put all three letters into the top pocket of my vest and walk in a daze to the closet. I already know what is in there, and it makes perfect sense. But the perfect sense is too weird to wrap my brain around.
The bars on the right side of the closet are full of hanging clothes, filthy oversize clothes, covered with dirt and dried grass—clothes no one would want to wear, not to mention hang up in a closet. On a shelf above the clothes are wigs, scarves, hats, and beards—all caked with dried mud and twigs and grass. Kevin’s words echo in my head again. I’m glad you finally got to meet the real me. As opposed to the nasty, filthy, homeless version of him that I’ve sort of known for a year and a half. He is the vagabond. I shudder at the thought of kissing that homeless man. And then blush when I think of Kevin’s lips on mine.
I lean against the closet door frame as opposites battle inside me. Trust versus mistrust. Attraction versus repulsion. Truth versus lies.
But the biggest thought running through my head is: why in the world has Kevin, dressed as a filthy bum, been coming to my house for all these months? Because it obviously wasn’t for the minuscule tidbits of food I gave him.
“Oh no,” Fo mutters. I grab the door frame and hold my breath, waiting for bad news. “Jack! You need to see this!”
Chapter 25
Vince is still sitting on the bed, driving the applesauce container, like it is a truck, over the faded quilt. Framed by the window, Fo is standing beside the telescope and watching me, her eyes wide with fear.
“What happened to the guys?” I ask, as if I’ve known all along something bad would happen. As I walk to the window, images of all the different ways Kevin, Bowen, and Jonah might die assault me—I’ve seen enough death to imagine some pretty gruesome things.
Fo shakes her head. “They’re fine.” But the look on her face, like she’s in pain, belies her words. “At least for the moment.”
“Then what is it?” I don’t dare to look through the telescope. She doesn’t answer, just tucks her long bangs behind her ears and stares at me with her big brown eyes. And then she starts to hum something sinister, like my life now has its own personal theme music.
“What are you humming?” I snap.
“Sarabande.”
I stare at her.
“By Handel? Sorry. Morose, I know. I’ll be quiet.” She gestures to the telescope.
Bracing for something bad, I hold my breath and stare out the window. The morning sun has painted the world a hopeful shade of bright, but long shadows bleed out beneath everything. The distant interstate looks like a faded, tattered gray ribbon laid out in a long straight line over the brown landscape. Taking a deep breath, I put my eye against the telescope eyepiece. It’s still warm from Fo. The distant world zips into view, and as if on cue, Fo starts humming again.
I am looking at a neighborhood at the base of the foothills. A group of men is walking along the road. I start counting them, an almost unconscious reaction. But when you’re facing an enemy, the first thing you need to know is how many there are. As I count the last head, I have never been happier to be out of the city. Even my family would be hard-pressed to make a stand against fifteen big, stout, armed men.
“Looks like the raiders are out,” I say.
Fo stops humming and says, “Keep looking. Move the telescope west.”
I do what she says, and my blood runs cold and my ears start to ring. I back away from the telescope, clear to the other side of the room, until the wall collides with my back and I can’t go any farther. “No. Please, no.”
Fiona is staring at me. Vince is staring at me, as if finally, for the first time since he’s woken, he understands something is wrong. He reaches out and grasps Fo’s long fingers.
“They’re about to get caught, aren’t they,” Fo says. She’s not asking, just affirming what she already knows. She walks to my side. Vince, still holding her hand, trails a step behind. “Is getting caught part of the plan?”
“No. The plan is to sneak into raider headquarters and get the cure.” I unzip the top pocket on my vest and take out a folded square of paper. I hold it out to Fo.
“What is this?” She takes it from my trembling fingers.
“Plan Z, for if all else fails,” I whisper. I hug her and my gun grinds against my hip. “Take care of Vince.” In a daze, I turn and stride out of the room.
“Wait!” Fo comes after me. “Where are you going?”
I take a deep breath and fight the urge to vomit. “To warn them.”
“You can’t go out there! You’ll get caught or you’ll die!”
I wipe the tears from my eyes. “Then I’ll die trying, because I am sick of sitting around while everyone else fights!”
“Just hold on for one second. You have to do this right!” She pulls me back into the room, to the telescope, and puts her eye to it, slowly moving it back and forth. “Look.” She takes a step away and gestures to it. I look.
The guys have stopped running down the foothills. They’re in a copse of dead scrub, huddled together. Kevin is talking, occasionally pointing toward the city.
“Do you see that water tower?” Fo asks. Not far below the guys, just at the base of the foothills, sits a massive tan water tank.
“I see it.”
“That’s your landmark to help you find them.” She hugs me so hard I can’t breathe. And then she bursts into tears. “Run fast.”
“I will.”
Drenched with sweat, I approach the bottom of the foothills and don’t slow down, not even to remove Kevin’s red sweatshirt. There’s no time to waste on frivolous things like that. And I am doing what I do best. Only, for the first time ever, I am running toward danger, not away from it.
My gun is in my hand, catching sunlight. My muscles ache, my breath is ragged, and the metal letters in my top vest pocket clink together with every step I take. Fo’s hummed music, Sarabande, is playing and replaying in my brain—constant theme music that keeps beat with my pounding feet.
I get to the bottom of the foothills and jolt to a stop. I have reached my destination—the massive water tank, which looked tan from the telescope but up close is grainy with rust and dotted with patches of flaking paint. There is no sign of the guys.
I lean against the water tank and hug my arms over my chest. I am now in raider territory and have no idea what to do. Spread before me is a neighborhood of silent midsize houses that once had nicely landscaped yards.
Now, dead bushes and bleached weeds choke the rock-lined flower beds.
I step away from the water tank, roll my tense shoulders a couple of times, and creep into the backyard of the closest house. My shadow huddles beneath my feet. The sun heats my dark, damp hair like it is trying to sooth me with its warmth. It doesn’t work. I’m feeling less and less confident with every step I take.
I am walking between two houses when someone whispers my name. “Jacqui.”
My gun is up, my arm ready to absorb the impact of a shot, and I circle around, searching for the source of the voice.
Chapter 26
“Jack!” Kevin, eyes shadowed by his camo baseball cap, waves at me from the doorway of the house to my right.
Relief makes me want to melt—somehow, with the appearance of Kevin, I know everything is going to be okay. I put the gun away and sprint to the house, throwing myself at him and wrapping my arms around his neck. He stumbles backward through the doorway and pushes me arm’s length away. His eyes flash and his fingers dig into my shoulders. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here, Jack.”
“The raiders. They’re in this neighborhood. Lots of them,” I explain, knowing that as soon as he hears why I’m here, he’ll agree I’ve done the right thing. “I came to warn you guys.”
Kevin stares at me for a long moment, eyes burning with fury, and then he sighs and sags, as if he’s been completely deflated. His hands drop from my shoulders, and he presses his fingers to his temples. “This isn’t what we planned. You shouldn’t have come!”
“We didn’t plan for you to get caught by raiders either!” I say. His brow furrows, and he strides over to an east-facing window, peering out of it.
We’re in a dining room that has no table and no chairs—just a dusty copper chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room and a china cabinet against one wall. The dishes inside are untouched, their gold trim gleaming.
“Where’s the note I gave you?” Kevin asks.
“I gave it to Fo. In case she needs a plan Z.”
“So, you read it.” He turns from the window and looks at me, disappointed.
I shake my head. “No. I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.”
“Then how do you know there are raiders in this neighborhood?” His gaze moves slowly over me, searching every inch of my body, as if it will give him the answers to his questions.
“The day you locked me in the shelter so you could meet my friends at the lake, I found the tunnel and followed it to your house. Fo and I were watching you through the telescope.” I unzip the top pocket of my vest and take out the wire initials, placing them in my palm and holding them out for him to see. “Why did you dress up as a vagabond and come to my house?”
Kevin stands perfectly still and stares at the letters. Then his eyes locked on mine. “Jacqui Bloom,” he whispers. He steps away from the window, strides up to me, and puts his hands on my shoulders. “I went to your house to see you.” He speaks fast, so fast I almost can’t understand him.
“Me?”
He nods. “Every time you gave me food, I could see how big of a sacrifice it was for you to part with it. It made me want to know more about you. The day you gave me applesauce, and then started crying because you didn’t want to give it away? That’s the moment I started to fall in love with you. Every time I saw you after that, I fell in love with you more, until it felt like I was living for the days when I got to see you, and the rest of my life was just spent waiting for those days.” His words are still rushed, so rushed I wonder if I’ve heard him right. I don’t have time to ponder what he said because he blurts, “And now, I need to kiss you one last time.”
He takes off his hat and leans toward me until our foreheads are touching, staring into my eyes like he’s seeing all the way to my soul, and I can’t stand it. I grab his face in my hands and kiss him. He tastes like salt, and all I can think is how glad I am that the raiders didn’t catch him, how glad I am that he is right here with me, safe. How glad I am that I made it down the mountain in time to warn him.
His hand moves to the back of my neck and squeezes, hurting my scabbed bullet wound. I pull away from him. For a moment, he studies my face, but then his eyes focus on a point above my head, and he takes a deep breath of air that fills his lungs until the buttons on his shirt start to strain.
I turn and look behind me, trying to see what he’s staring at, but there’s nothing. “Kevin?” He won’t look at me. My skin starts to crawl. “What’s wrong?” I whisper.
He puts his hands on my shoulders and gently turns me around so that my back is to him, and then he pulls his hat onto my head, tugging the bill low over my eyes. His hands trail across my shoulders and down my arms. I close my eyes and try to shake the feeling of wrongness growing in me. When he gets to my wrists, his hands stop. He tugs my arms behind my back.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his lips against my ear, and then something rough and scratchy circles my wrists, cinching them together so tightly my skin chafes. I jerk away but he’s holding me tight. He takes the gun from my belt, and then my knife, and just like that, I am disarmed and restrained.
Chapter 27
I whirl around to face him. “Why in the world are you tying me up?”
He tucks my gun into the waistband of his pants and slips my knife into his pocket. Taking my shoulders, he turns my back to him again and grips my arms. “I’m a raider, Jack.”
His words jolt me. “But you don’t have any raider markings.”
“The better to catch unsuspecting prey.” His hands tighten on my biceps. “I’m the ‘wolf’ that Flint warned you about.”
Survival mode kicks in. I ram my head backward and feel a crunch on the back of my skull. Next, I stomp on Kevin’s foot. When I try to run, he digs his fingers into my skin until I yelp.
“For future reference,” he says, “don’t try to headbutt someone who is eight inches taller than you.”
I twist in his arms and lunge, head bowed, ramming him in the stomach. He loses his footing and falls backward. His head crashes into the copper chandelier, and then somehow he grabs me and I am the one falling. My head crunches against the hardwood floor and my vision blurs.
He’s straddling me with my bound arms pinned over my head. I can hardly lift his weight to breathe, so I lie there, stunned, staring at the swinging chandelier. The throb of a deep voice floats into the house through a broken window and my heart soars with hope. “Bowen? Jonah?” I yell.
Kevin shakes his head. “It’s the raiders. Pretend you don’t know me.” He grips my upper arm and climbs to his feet, pulling me up with him. And then his entire face changes. The muscles under his skin seem to harden and turn to cement, and the corners of his mouth turn down.
The front door opens. “Yo, Kev,” someone calls.
“Over here.” Kevin’s hand tightens on my arm.
Three men and a dog file into the dining room, crowding it.
“So, did Lil’ Red Riding Hood get caught by the big bad wolf?” one of the men asks. He’s the youngest of the group, probably a few years older than me, with a shaved head and a black goatee that’s braided halfway down his chest.
“Yep.” Kevin’s hand tightens on my arm to the point of painful, and I can’t help but think about the food in his shelter. What was it Bowen said? The raiders pay several years’ worth of food for a female like me? I wonder how many women Kevin has sold in exchange for his enormous food supply. I want to barf. I ate some of that food.
The dog, a German shepherd, starts barking and lunges at me, snapping its chain taut before it gets close enough to sink its teeth into my flesh. The man holding the dog’s chain pulls it until the dog is restrained at his side.
“That was fast,” the goateed man says, holding his raider-marked hand out to Kevin for a high five. “How’d you catch him? We thought you might need backup.”
Kevin slaps the guy’s hand. “Stupid boy walked right up to me.”
Goatee
Man looks me over and sneers. “We thought he might be tough like those other two.”
Those other two? He’s turned Jonah and Bowen over to the raiders. Hot, violent anger scalds my insides. I thrash against Kevin’s hold on my arm, kicking him in the shins, trying to knee him in the crotch. He grimaces and holds me at arm’s length but doesn’t loosen his hold.
Goatee Man laughs. “He looks kind of on the scrawny side. And young. Do you think it’s worth it for us to take him to headquarters? I’ll put him in the crosshairs right now and save us the trouble.” The raider lifts a rifle that’s strapped to his back and points it at me. I stop thrashing and stare down the barrel.
“He’s tougher than he looks,” Kevin says. “But you’re right. He is young. Maybe we should let him go. Unless he wants to join us?” Kevin shakes my arm. “You want to join us, kid, and be a raider?”
I spit on Kevin for an answer, though like in all things currently happening in my life, my spit falls way short of what I intended. It hits the edge of his sleeve.
Kevin frowns at my spit. “He doesn’t want to join. Just let him go and save ourselves some trouble.”
Goatee Man grins. “Let him go? Let him go? Let’s set him loose in the foothills and use him for target practice!”
I whimper. The dog growls, its lips curling up to expose yellow teeth. Goatee Man’s eyes light up, and he rubs his hands together. “Better yet, let’s bring him to the compound and use him for throat-tearing practice.”
“Oh, man, Striker, now you’re thinking,” the raider holding the dog says. The third raider, a grizzly man with a long gray beard, glares at me and leaves the house.
“What’s throat-tearing practice?” Kevin asks.
“That’s right. You haven’t been around the compound for a while,” Goatee Man—Striker—says. “Have you met that new guy, Soneschen?”
I clench my teeth. That is a name I will never forget.