I spin at footsteps behind me, and Micah and Carlos stop short like they’ve been caught in the act. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Making sure you get there,” Micah says.
I point to the sidewalk, only feet away, and then the glass doors six feet beyond. The bathroom is just inside, and Paul and Guillermo were in there earlier, so I know it’s empty. “I can cover the twelve feet alone, but thanks.”
I glare at them until they turn away, but when I leave the bathroom, they’re whispering in the lobby. Micah trains his eyes on the floor. “We had to go, so we waited for you.”
There’s something strange about them today, even if they are often oddly attentive, but I continue past without a word. I stop to pull the door open. Carlos steps on the back of my heel. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
They follow me to the truck and flank me again. “What’s with them?” I whisper to Indy. “Are they nervous or something?”
“No idea.”
After the food is loaded, Guillermo says to Micah and Carlos, “You’re taking the second truck back to the park with Lucky and Jayden. I want you there today.”
“Why can’t we come?” Micah asks.
“We need room in the SUV in case we have to leave our truck. Are you scared to take it back by yourselves?” They shake their heads. Guillermo crosses his arms. “So, what’s the problem?”
“We need to go with you,” Carlos says. He rubs nervously at his fledgling goatee but widens his stance.
Guillermo uncrosses one arm and holds out the keys. “No, you don’t.”
Micah takes them reluctantly, then says to Carlos, “Let’s just go.”
“We can’t. You heard what he said.”
“What who said?” Guillermo asks. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Micah chews his lip and glances at me sideways. “We promised Eric we’d keep Sylvie safe. He said he didn’t want to hear we didn’t do it when he got back.”
“We swore,” Carlos says.
Every set of eyes comes to rest on me, but I have absolutely no response to this news except to want to die, then punch Eric, and then be flattered he threatened their lives on my behalf. Grace covers her mouth, and Paul snorts.
“Sylvie will be fine,” Guillermo says with his big laugh.
Carlos shakes his head. “We swore.”
Guillermo turns to me for assistance, but this situation is unprecedented. I’d be less surprised if someone hired a hitman. I step forward, chisel in the air. “I hereby release you from your oaths of fealty. Sally forth and guard your manor.” They watch me blankly. “That means go home, I’m fine.”
They drag their feet until Grace pledges that she won’t let Eric kill them if I die. Micah insists on a goodbye hug, and then we drive toward Bay Ridge while they head home. The once well-kept brick houses have smashed windows, and garbage and bodies litter the streets. But, as Paul predicted, it’s a smooth ride along open streets.
I sit in the backseat of the SUV with Indy. Eli, our driver, studies a rotting stack of bodies on the road. “Someone moved these cars and those bodies.”
Grace watches from the passenger’s seat, gloved fingers curled around her knife. “Maybe whoever is helping the nuns?”
“Maybe,” Eli says. “You should have a gun.”
“I don’t like guns.”
“Sylvie’s wearing a gun.”
I am, and I’m not loving it. I know, given what we’re driving through, I should want to wear one, but while I appreciate the deadliness it affords, I’m still most afraid of it making me dead. Maybe it won’t spontaneously combust in my hand, but guns have such enormous power. It takes so little effort to pull a trigger and produces such a big result that I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with one.
“Okay, Dad,” she says, “I’ll wear one next time.”
Eli nods, right hand lightly resting on the wheel. He reaches into the inside pocket of his coat and tosses something over his shoulder into my lap. “Made this for you. Maybe now you’ll forgive me for the kidnapping.”
I examine the long, rounded pocket of leather with belt loop at the top. It resembles a skinny knife sheath, sewn with perfect stitches and tooled with an intricate pattern of swirls and leaves.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. “You really made this?”
“To fit your chisel. Did you notice the pattern?” he asks. I look closer. A few tiny skulls hide in the leaves, almost invisible until you look closely. “Reminded me of you.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“It is.”
“Then thank you. I love it.” I waste no time threading it onto my belt, then stick my chisel in and admire how badass it looks.
“I’d carry a gun if it was in a holster that pretty,” Grace says. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“Our grandad was a saddle maker. He taught me in the summers.”
“The lawyer is full of artistic tendencies,” I say. “Who knew? What other secrets lurk in your depths?”
Eli eyes me in the rearview mirror, lips curved enigmatically. Grace oohs and wiggles her fingers in the air. “I’m guessing he was good with the ladies.”
Indy has been absorbed in the view out the window, but now she arches an eyebrow. “Too good.”
“He left a string of broken hearts in his wake,” I say. “Not on purpose, though. He was always upfront about his inability to commit, but they thought they’d be the one to change him.”
Grace winks. “He was a straight shooter, if you catch my drift.”
Eli releases a pent-up laugh, shaking his head, and Indy follows suit with her whole-body laugh that makes you laugh, too. It fits her: vibrant, outgoing, and maybe a little wild underneath.
“So how’d we do?” Grace asks.
“They’ve got your number, little brother,” Indy says.
Eli slows the SUV. On the next corner, a pale brick two-story house is set back behind a grassy lawn and tall wrought iron fence. The rear of the house meets a twenty-foot high brick wall that crosses the grass to the sidewalk, where it becomes concrete and continues down the entire length of the block.
“Wow,” Grace says.
A sign on the grass reads: Annunciation Monastery and School. The other corner of the block is taken up by a giant church, also behind the lawn and fence. It’s made of the same pale brick, three stories tall, with a cross-topped bell tower making up the fourth story. The wall runs from the other side of the house, spans a paved parking area at the end of the gated driveway, then meets the buildings at the rear of the church to sequester the entire city block.
“This isn’t a church,” Eli says. “This is a fortress.”
Guillermo and Paul leave the box truck idling and walk to the driveway’s gate. There’s no sign anyone lives in the complex until a lone nun walks down the driveway. She wears a simple black sleeveless habit with a white blouse beneath. Far less austere than the old-school habit of my seventh-grade teacher, Sister Jean Marie, and more formal than the sturdy shoes and modest dress of other orders. This nun is in her sixties, with white hair that peeks out from her short veil. Eli rolls down Grace’s window, and we listen to indecipherable snatches of conversation before she opens the gate.
We come to a stop in the parking area, where the distant calls of children and a bouncing basketball echo over the top of the wall. The nun opens a side door of the church, and, after a conversation behind it, another nun exits and motions us out of the vehicles. She’s also older, her dark hair combed straight back under her veil. “Hello, I’m Sister Frances. Sister Mary Anne says you brought us something?”
Guillermo steps forward with a slight bow. “Yes, Sister. I’m Guillermo. We found a warehouse with chips and nuts and thought you could use some for the kids. We can bring more, but we wanted to make sure you were still here.”
Sister Frances’ smile transforms her face into a network of fine lines. “Thank you, from all of us.”
Guillermo is u
nusually quiet and still. Normally, he’s brimming with so much energy I’m inspired to take a nap. “No problem. Where should we unload?”
“We’ll have you bring it into the monastery. We’ll get the others to help.” With that, the two nuns spin and return inside.
I gawk at the barred windows of the church and thick, solid wall while we wait. This place is ridiculously fortified.
“Up in the bell tower,” Guillermo murmurs.
“Saw it,” Paul replies.
Eli nods. I pretend to scan the church and catch sight of a person in an arch of the four-sided tower above the church. I can’t tell if it’s a man or woman, but I can see the long, dark barrel of the weapon pointed directly at us.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” I say, and try to act nonchalant though my heart is thumping.
“They’re just covering themselves,” Guillermo says, “same as we do.”
Maybe I’m a little glad I have that purple gun, though I’ll probably shoot my face off if I have to use it.
Chapter 18
Inside, the monastery is light and airy, with white-painted arched hallways, wood floors, and a warren of rooms including the larger church and a smaller chapel. Sister Frances explains that this part of the building was reserved for the nuns once upon a time. They weren’t a silent order, though much of their lives was spent in quiet contemplation. It’s not quiet now with the sounds of running feet and kids calling and playing.
Students from the small school took refuge after Bornavirus, some with parents and some not, though most of the non-students are orphans. It’s a lot of little mouths to feed, including a newborn baby, and we unload box after box, storing chips and nuts in a room across from the kitchen and their full pantry.
“I love potato chips,” a brown-haired girl says. She stands in the hall, eyes huge and a doll clutched in her arms.
Grace kneels before her. “You do? Maybe they’ll let you have some, if you ask.”
“No, the rule is only one treat a day. Then we have to eat healthy things.”
“It’s better that way. Your body needs the healthy stuff so you can grow strong.”
I come to a stop behind Grace with a box in my arms. The girl’s eyes move to me, and I shake my head and make a face. She giggles. Grace spins to catch me, then turns back to the girl. “See her? That’s what happens when you don’t eat enough vegetables.”
Once the food has been put away, Sister Frances leads us through the rearmost building. The back door opens onto a long, covered porch. Down the steps is a swath of green grass that rises and falls in gentle, tree-dotted mounds until it reaches wall on every side. Kids play in the shady playground and basketball court.
To our right is a fenced-off garden, though it’s nowhere near as big as it could be, or should be. Toward the back of the expanse is what Sister Frances calls the lake. It’s more of a fountain, with a statue in the middle and a smooth stone border.
“That’s our drinking water,” Sister Frances says.
“It’s natural?” Paul asks. His eyes are as round as everyone else’s. It’s no wonder they have a sniper in the guard tower; this is Shangri-La in the middle of Brooklyn. If there’s anyone willing to kill a bunch of nuns and kids for the most zombie-proof compound in the city, they’d be here in a heartbeat.
“It was manmade a long time ago, though it’s spring-fed. This complex is over 150 years old.”
If Eric were here, he’d lecture them about gardening and long winters and such. I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d be right, so I ask, “Why don’t you have a bigger garden?”
“We don’t have the seeds.”
“We have some extra.” I wonder if I should’ve offered to give seeds away, but Paul and Grace nod. “We can bring them soon.”
“You’d be doing the Lord’s work.”
I keep my mouth shut. I’m not so sure the Lord would take me on as an employee, and while Brother David might be into witty banter regarding religion, I doubt Sister Frances is.
“I don’t know if you remember, but you fed my son a while back,” Paul says. “You said other people were bringing food. Are they still?”
“Oh, yes,” Sister Frances says with a warm smile. “They bring as much as they can spare. They need enough to live on, too. Joseph is here today, in fact. He always has a man in the tower. I’ll send someone to get him before you leave.”
We wait in the parking area. The wood door opens, and my lungs empty at the man who steps out. The gray hair and gray mustache are the same, but the police uniform has been switched for a button-down and jeans. Kearney.
Grace and I step closer to each other. Guillermo, Eli, and Indy straighten.
“Joe,” Paul mutters.
This is the Joe of Sacred Heart Church. If I’d known, I would’ve told them they were right not to trust him. Kearney’s mouth tightens at the sight of me and Grace, but he steps forward to shake the guys’ hands, on his best behavior. He wears a religious medal around his neck, imprinted with the image of one saint or another. Likely a prop for the nuns.
“This is Joseph Kearney,” Sister Frances says. “I’ll let you introduce yourselves.”
“We’ve met,” he says, voice as clipped and full of Brooklyn as it was in the hospital. He nods at Indy. “Good to see you again.”
“This is Sylvie and Grace,” Paul says.
Kearney’s lip tics. “We met at the hospital. Glad you’re doing well.”
My skin crawls at the mental image of his partner, Clark, being devoured by zombies outside the hospital. Of course Kearney is alive and doing well himself—that’s the way shit goes. I was speechless, but, at the thought of Clark’s pregnant wife, anger works its way to my mouth.
“I’m not surprised you’re doing well,” I say, then wish I hadn’t. I don’t want to start a war, and that gun is still in the bell tower.
“I thought you didn’t know them,” Paul says. He’s edged in front of us, arms tensed at his sides. “We asked you when we came by.”
“Didn’t remember their names,” Kearney says, then asks us, “Did you go with Maria?”
I nod reluctantly, an icy prickle traveling up my back. Maria told everyone in the hospital bathroom the address of our brownstone. He might remember it. If he’d forgotten by now, Grace and I are sure to have jogged his memory.
Sister Frances clasps Kearney’s hands. “Joseph is our angel. We’ve asked him to move into the house, but he doesn’t want to take from us.” She motions at me. “This young lady said they’re going to bring us plant seeds very soon.”
Kearney’s smile is stiff. I never noticed his eyes are blue, though they’re almost gray, and flat. “That’s nice of you. We couldn’t find any.” He turns to Guillermo. “We still have an agreement?”
“As long as you keep up your end.”
Kearney nods. Sister Frances has no idea her angel is a murderer. We say goodbye, and I wait for Kearney to leave so I can warn Sister Frances, but he stays by her side until we drive away.
Chapter 19
I sit on the parlor floor couch and stare into the dark outside the lantern’s circle. The purple gun is on the coffee table, which is both too close and not close enough. Intellectually, I knew there are people out there who kill others and wouldn’t think twice about killing me, but I didn’t expect to actually know one of those people. We’ve discussed it from every angle and it makes sense that if Kearney were going to come here, he would’ve already. Unless Grace and I have reminded him of our existence. And, on that note, purple gun is my buddy. Or more of an acquaintance.
I startle as Bird jumps into my lap, then smooth down his spiky fur. “I’d put a bell on you if it wouldn’t make you a zombie tidbit. And you should really consider using a brush.”
Bird kneads and purrs while I rub beneath his chin. Last night, he burrowed under the covers and snuggled in my arms like a real-life teddy bear, and I think I was more thrilled by this turn of events than was warranted.
He sinks flat, one white paw outstretched, languidly blinking his kittenish dark eyes, and I’m overtaken by a ridiculously maternal rush of emotion. It’s official—I’m becoming a crazy cat lady.
“What’s funny?” Paul’s voice emanates from the hall, making both me and Bird jump to our feet.
Paul enters the living room dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, his normally pushed-back hair hanging in his face. I sit down with my hand to my chest. “Could you not be so quiet?”
Bird returns to my lap and begins to knead again. There’s a cat law that if he’s disturbed, he must start the sitting process from the beginning. Paul plops in an overstuffed chair. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake Leo. He wakes at everything now.”
Leo’s been having nightmares; I hear the half-asleep wails from upstairs while on watch. He was almost too well-adjusted for having seen his mother become a zombie, and now little chinks are showing in his armor.
“You should have him talk to Grace,” I say. “She’s good at that stuff.”
“Yeah, all right. I’ll ask her tomorrow.”
We sit in silence. Paul and I get along these days, although I’m not sure how to converse with him when we’re not making fun of either each other or someone else.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks.
I study his face. He looks serious, so I say, “Maybe?”
He chuckles. “All right. Forget it.”
Now I want to know, although not wanting to answer a personal question wins out over curiosity. “Can’t sleep?”
“Nah. Leo keeps kicking me and whimpering.” Paul’s shoulders slump before he uncurls and rearranges his features into a frown. “I was thinking about Kearney. If he’s such a bastard, why does he take care of nuns and all those kids?”
Kearney did help get the dialysis machine at the hospital, but he also treated everyone with contempt, killed his partner, and undoubtedly killed Dawn, who worked in the cafeteria. “Maybe he likes kids? Until they grow up and become adults. I have no idea what goes on in his tiny brain, but I don’t trust him.”