Ashen Winter (31 page)

“You were—”

“The other two crashes, well, I was driving.”

She was momentarily speechless. “You are
not
allowed to drive on a learner’s permit without me or Dad in the car, Alex.”

I gave her my best what-the-hell look. Like anyone cared about driver’s licenses in the midst of all this chaos? “I think I lost my learner’s permit when our house burned, Mom.”

“Our house? Never mind, what’re those?” She pointed at the spots on my arm and belly where I’d been shot. It looked like they were healing okay—a bit puffy and red, but scabbed over nicely.

“Oh. That’s where I got shot.”

“Shot? You got—?”

“Look, Mom. A lot of stuff has happened since Darla and I set out to find you. Don’t stress about it. I’m okay. And I found you, thank God.”

“Who’s Darla?”

“My girlfriend.”

“Ah.” She nodded, accepting that bit of information way more easily than the three truck wrecks or the fact that I’d been shot. “Pleased to meet you.” She held her hand out to Alyssa.

Alyssa took her hand. “Pleased to meet you, too. But I’m not—”

Dad rounded the corner of a nearby tent at a run, Flash trailing behind him. “Alex, you’re—!” He crashed into me with a bear hug that forced tears from my eyes—both from my joy at seeing him and the pain of his embrace. Neither of us could speak.

“Doug,” Mom said, “he’s hurt.”

Dad pulled back and looked at me. “Jesus. You look like you lost a fight with a grizzly.”

“No, just a truck.” I pulled him back into a hug with one arm, and drew my mother against us with the other. I wanted to stay there, to squeeze them both until they’d soaked into me and could never leave again. Even the stale scent of their sweat smelled heavenly.

“This is Darla,” Mom said, “Alex’s girlfriend.” She freed one arm and gestured at Alyssa.

“My name’s Alyssa. And this is my brother, Ben.”

Mom looked at me. “But you said—”

“The Peckerwoods got Darla. Shot her.” Something caught in my throat, making my eyes water. “I’m going back for her as soon as we get out of here.”

“What?” Mom said. “You can’t go charging into the middle of a gang. That’s not safe.”

Before I could even start to protest, Dad said, “She might not be alive. There’re rumors all over camp about those gangs. Say they’re eating human flesh.”

I dropped my arms from behind their backs and leaned out of the embrace. “Yes, Dad. They are eating people. They deal in slaves, too. But Darla was alive three days ago. Alyssa saw her.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Mom protested. Okay, maybe I didn’t miss the
mothering
all that much.

“If the Peckerwoods had Mom, would you go after her?” I stared my father in the eye.

“I would.”

I nodded and tried to fold my arms. Just the attempt hurt my right, so I picked up my shirt instead and started trying to struggle into it.

“I’ve known your mother twenty-six years. I owe her a different kind of loyalty than you owe a girlfriend.”

I couldn’t get my right arm jammed through the shirt-sleeve. “Piece of junk!” I tossed it aside.

“It’s a hard world we live in now,” Dad said mildly.

“It is the same,” I said. “Exactly the same. If you knew what we’d been through, you’d understand.”

“Guess you’d better tell us,” Dad said.

“How’s Rebecca?” Mom asked.

“She’s okay. Darla and I left her at Uncle Paul’s place. That was, um, almost two weeks ago.”

Alyssa plucked my shirt out of the snow and helped me get dressed. Ben wanted to watch the guards, and Alyssa didn’t want Ben to be alone, so when she finished helping me, they left. Mom sent Flash with them, instructing him to return in time for dinner. The fact that she’d mentioned dinner was heartening. When Darla and I had been imprisoned in Camp Galena, we’d gotten only breakfast—and not much of that.

Mom, Dad, and I ducked into one of the tents out of the wind.

“My brother’s still making out okay?” Dad asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Doing great. We grow and trade kale—it’s worth a fortune. Get pork from Warren in return.”

“Why did you leave?” Mom asked.

“We found Dad’s shotgun. But I’d better start at the beginning.” I told them about the house fire in Cedar Falls that had started my trek over ten months ago. About my thirsty trek across northeastern Iowa. About skiing into Darla’s barn, and how we had come to depend on each other, to fight together for survival. About the times I’d saved her life. The times she’d saved mine. A year ago, death meant I’d have to get my armor repaired in
World of Warcraft
. Now it was an all-too-real shadow lurking behind the veneer of my daily life. I still wasn’t entirely sure how I’d survived. My parents didn’t interrupt much, but it still took hours to tell the whole story. I finished by telling them about Alyssa and explaining Ben’s autism, which they seemed to take in stride.

“Ten months.” Dad had clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “It seems like a miracle that you survived all that.”

“I wouldn’t have without Darla. I’m going to find her. Even if I get killed trying.” I held his eye, making an effort not to blink.

Dad stared steadily back at me. His eyes were hollow, dark and gaunt, as if the father I’d known had been replaced by a shadowed replica chiseled from the same stone. “It’s going to be hard just to get out of here. We’ve been here, what, four-and-a-half months?”

“Almost five,” Mom said.

“Why haven’t you left? Rebecca and I didn’t know if you were even still alive.” I ground my teeth—at Black Lake, at the volcano, at my parents. They clearly weren’t getting enough to eat. Mostly I was angry at myself—why hadn’t I come sooner?

“You didn’t notice the fence? And guys with guns?” Mom said.

“We did try,” Dad said. “Twice. Right after we got here. We got caught. Thrown into a punishment hut. I thought they’d let us starve to death in there, but Lester bugged the guards so much that they almost threw him into a hut of his own.”

“Lester got us released,” Mom said. “He’s very persistent—and a little crazy.”

“I noticed,” I said.

“Four days without food and water when you’re already weak is no picnic,” Dad said. “I wasn’t sure we’d survive much longer. So we didn’t try again.”

“We can’t leave now,” Mom said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“The girls need us. People started disappearing a few months ago. Not long after I organized the school. Mostly young girls. Every three or four days, we’d get up in the morning and discover more people missing. Whole families sometimes. Sometimes just the girls. I had to do something.”

“Your mother created a camp organization, civil defense, I guess. They call her The Principal. Talked me into helping.”

“People are still disappearing,” Mom said. “But not as many as before. And we keep the girls safe.”

“And the guards tolerate it? Your civil defense organization, I mean?”

“We’re not sure why. Maybe there’re two factions of guards. One taking girls, and one supposedly in charge. We keep a low profile, but they have to know what’s going on.”

It all fit. Alyssa being kept as a slave. Darla kept alive, instead of being flensed. The girls disappearing from the camp. I balled my left hand into a fist and punched the floor of the tent, getting nothing but bruised knuckles for the effort. I wanted to punch flesh, feel bones crack under my hands—preferably the bones of whoever was responsible for this whole cursed-to-ash situation. “I’ve got to go after Darla.”

“I can’t leave,” Mom said. “These girls are depending on me.”

“We patrol at night and guard the cleared zone around the girls’ tents,” Dad said. “But we can’t watch the whole camp.”

“Who’s we?” I asked.

“The prefects,” Dad said. “That was your Mom’s idea.”

“And I convinced him to be Head Boy,” Mom said.

Dad sighed heavily. “You’re the only one who calls me that, Janice.”

“You’ll always be my head boy,” Mom said with a coquettish smile.

Dad leaned over and smooched her.

“Um, gross. I’m thrilled to see you and all, but I do
not
want to watch you make out,” I said. “Who’s taking the girls?”

Dad broke their kiss. “We don’t know.”

“It’s got to be the guards,” Mom said.

“Probably. It’s time for dinner, I think.” Dad pushed himself up into a crouch and shuffled toward the tent flap. Mom got five worn Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons from a stack in the corner of the tent.

“They feed you much?” I followed them out.

“Just enough food to keep us alive, not enough to give us the energy to fight.” Dad kicked a clump of snow.

“They’ve passed out vitamin pills three times since we’ve been here,” Mom said.

I shrugged.

We walked across the camp, rehashing the stories of our individual journeys as we went. A row of field kitchens was set up outside one of the fences. Black Lake mercenaries wearing winter camo were filling bowls and passing them through hatches in the fence in front of each kitchen. Unlike Camp Galena, the refugees here were organized in neat lines. Flash waved at us from one of the other lines, and Mom beckoned him to us.

Alyssa and Ben came over with Flash. Mom gave each of us bowls and spoons. “Be careful with these,” she said. “It’s hard to get more. I’ve got to go be The Principal.” She walked off to talk to people in the other lines.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” I muttered.

“Why?” Alyssa asked. “Flash said it’s not too bad. They get enough to eat, sort of. Everyone has a tent—even if some of them suck.”

“Are you crazy? Not too bad?”

“Anything’s better than being chained to a bed in the Anamosa prison.” She glared at me, and I had to look away.

“I guess it would be,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you in such a hurry to get away from me, anyway?”

I didn’t reply.

“Darla,” she said, scowling.

“Yeah. I’m going to escape. I just don’t know how yet.”

“I can plan an escape,” Ben said. “The guard pattern is suboptimal.”

“You can?” I asked. “How?”

“I have several ideas. I need to observe the guard patterns for at least a week to confirm their effectiveness.”

“A week? I’m leaving tonight.”

“You just got to us!” Dad said.

I didn’t reply. He was right. But finding my parents hadn’t fixed anything. It only made Darla’s absence even more painful.

“If you attempt to leave without adequate preparation,” Ben said, “you will likely be caught or killed, and your mission will fail.”

He had a point. Getting myself killed wouldn’t help Darla. But I couldn’t sit around, either. Couldn’t wait while she was . . . while the Peckerwoods—I didn’t even want to think about what might be happening to Darla. Why they were keeping her alive. “I can’t wait a week. She’s in danger.”

“Maybe I could devise a preliminary operational plan with two days’ observation. More time would be necessary to confirm and optimize it. How many people would be escaping?”

“Shh,” I said. We were approaching the front of the line, where a bored Black Lake guard slopped wheat gruel into my bowl. They didn’t mark my hand. “How do they keep track of who’s gotten food?” I asked Dad.

“They don’t. We do,” Dad said as we walked away, eating our gruel. “That’s part of what your mom is off doing. They cook the same amount every meal. If someone takes seconds, someone else goes without.”

“How many people must I plan for?” Ben asked me again.

“I don’t think Mom and Dad want to leave,” I said.

“No,” Dad said, “not until I know the people we’ve promised to protect are safe.”

I’d helped strangers on the road, helped Uncle Paul and Aunt Caroline on their farm, and saved Alyssa and Ben. But now, when I needed help, everyone except Ben seemed to be allied against me. I wanted to punch something in frustration but knew it wouldn’t do any good. Instead I said as flatly as I could manage, “I’m leaving. Darla needs me.”

“Absolutely not,” Dad said. “We just found each other. We’re not splitting up now.”

“Just a second,” I said, glaring at my father. “I found you, not vice versa. And I owe Darla. My life, if it comes to that.”

“If we could put a stop to the disappearances, be sure the people we promised to protect are safe, we could all try to break out together. But you’re too young to—”

“I’m not some kid.”

“Wait, what’s this about people you promised to protect?” Alyssa asked.

Dad explained the girls’ disappearances to Alyssa. He seemed relieved to change the subject.

“You need to catch whoever is kidnapping girls?” Ben asked.

Dad nodded.

“The goal of an additional operation is to catch the unknown people kidnapping girls?” Ben said.

“Yes,” Alyssa said.

“That is an easy tactical problem,” Ben said. “Prepare an ambush. Use whatever the unknown persons want as a lure. Would the Sister Unit suffice as a lure?”

“No!” Alyssa said. “No way. Forget it. I’m no one’s bait. Not anymore.”

Chapter 62

By that night, we’d worn down Alyssa’s resistance. She wandered up and down a deserted corridor between two rows of tents. I listened carefully and caught fleeting glimpses of her through a peephole I’d cut in the back of one of the tents. Alyssa had dressed in the brightest clothing we could find. Dingy, cream-colored pants and a flaming-orange jacket.

She was a dim candle wrapped in oppressive darkness. Or maybe the night just seemed oppressive because I was so thoroughly trapped: first by the camp and second by Mom and Dad. They wouldn’t leave without protecting the girls, and they forbade me from leaving without them. I didn’t think they could stop me, but I wanted them to come, too. After all, Darla and I had returned to Iowa to find them. And I suspected I’d need all the help I could get to free her.

Ben was still out observing the guards, preparing an escape plan. If we could figure out who was kidnapping girls and put a stop to it, maybe we could all try to leave together. Dad even assigned two prefects to keep Ben out of trouble.

Dad and four other prefects were hidden in tents near me. I expected the prefects to be men, but most of them were women. They called Dad The Dean, which seemed weird, but I guessed it was better than Head Boy. Dad had offered me a knife—really a crude shank, made with a sharpened scrap of metal, but I’d turned him down. There weren’t enough knives to go around, and I figured I’d rely on my hands and feet. I knew a bit about knife defense, but I’d never been trained to fight with a knife—that wasn’t something we did at my dojang. My right arm was still sore, but I’d been stretching it—I would be able to use it if I had to.