Monument 14: Savage Drift (Monument 14 Series) (18 page)

Astrid had crossed to him by now and was hugging him.

He sobbed into her neck.

I can handle this, I thought. She’s his friend. She’s comforting him.

Then he cupped her head, her beautiful blond hair, cropped short, and he kissed her.

“Down!” Rinée demanded. I let her slide out of my hands onto the ground, where she started dancing in the puddle again.

Astrid pushed Jake away, slowly and then harder. He stumbled back.

“Jake! What’s wrong with you?” she said.

But hadn’t she stayed a moment?

She’d let him kiss her.

I walked into the woods, my hands in fists.

“Dean?” Astrid called. “Dean!”

Screw her. Screw them both.

*   *   *

There wasn’t even a good tree to sit against and think. They were all weedy, with trash blown into the roots in places.

I stumbled into the woods until I couldn’t see any of my “friends,” or the parking lot.

I finally found a tree sufficiently thick to lean against.

I thought about Alex. I’d left my brother, who I loved dearly, so I could get Astrid to safety. I’d taken this risk—a huge risk—for what? What if she and Jake got back together? She had the right to do that, after all. We weren’t married.

I’d left my brother for nothing.

I cursed my stupidity long and loud.

*   *   *

Niko came and found me a while later. He had the gun Jake had taken off the trucker with him.

“Hey,” he said.

I nodded toward the gun. “Going hunting?”

“No … Look, I think I’m going to go ahead alone,” he told me. “I’m going inside to see if I can hitch a ride.”

“Okay,” I said.

“If I can’t hitch, maybe I’ll steal a car,” he said, talking more to himself than to me. “If it comes to it, I guess I could walk.”

“Well, maybe I should come with you,” I muttered.

Niko looked up at me, totally surprised. He brushed his long, straight brown hair out of his eyes.

“I mean, if Astrid wants to be with Jake then I should let them have each other. I’m just getting in the way. And you might need my help.”

“Dean,” Niko said. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say. Really.”

I heard distant squeals of laughter from Rinée. Jake was probably swinging her around now.

“You love Astrid, I know you do. Why would you leave her with Jake?”

“Because … because she loves me. Some. She loves me some. Not all the way, like I love her. And I know, she needs time and she’s been through so much, but maybe she’ll never love me like I love her!”

I brushed the back of my hand over my eyes.

“I’m pathetic. I left Alex because I thought I should protect her. But what if she doesn’t end up wanting to be with me? She never shows it. She doesn’t even act like she’s my girlfriend most of the time.”

“Dean, do you know what love is?” Niko asked me.

I looked up.

That was a jerky thing to ask. The kind of question that gets a guy punched, but I knew Niko. He could be awkward at times.

“Love isn’t how the person makes you feel or what they do for you. It’s how you feel about them,” he said. He stood there, all backlit with the dappled sunset.

I was kind of thunderstruck.

“Love is how you feel about the other person. Everything else is just details,” he said.

I let my head rest back against the scrawny tree trunk.

“So do you love her?”

I nodded.

“Then stop worrying about Jake and stop worrying about making her love you the same way and just do your job.”

“My job is to love her, you’re saying?”

“And keep her safe.”

“I’ve been acting like an idiot,” I said.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I got to my feet. Niko handed me the gun.

“You should have this. That O guy could still be around. You should have it to keep Astrid safe.”

“You don’t want it?”

He shook his head.

“I’m less of a threat if I’m not carrying a gun, I think,” he said.

His profile was facing me now and he was thinking of something.

Niko Mills. Here he was, saving my butt again.

“Good luck,” I told him, extending my hand.

“You, too,” he said. “I’ll see you on Red Hill Road, in New Holland, Pennsylvania.”

“Red Hill Road. New Holland, P-A.”

*   *   *

Niko and I walked back up to the car together.

Astrid was sorting through some of the things in the car. She had set out on the parking lot the fan, the box of dishes, the houseplant, and other stuff she obviously thought we didn’t need. Rinée was busy digging with a spoon in the dirt of the houseplant, slowly scooping it all out onto the asphalt and patting it with the back of the spoon.

“Dean,” Jake said, getting up to his feet. “I’m a jerk. I’m an a-hole. You have to forgive me.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can see how it happened. Let’s just forget it.”

I went over to Astrid.

“You’re okay? You sure?” Astrid asked me quietly. “I’m so mad at him.”

“You know what? I’ve been acting like a jealous idiot. I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m better now.”

Astrid looked relieved. Maybe even a little bit impressed.

I clapped my hands.

“Let’s get this baby back to her daddy.”

Rinée looked up and clapped her little hands, echoing me.

*   *   *

Astrid hugged Niko for a good, long time when we said good-bye.

Jake shook hands with him.

I swept him into a big hug.

We all promised we’d see each other soon. God, how I hoped that would be true.

*   *   *

Then I drove and Jake rode shotgun.

Astrid and the little girl slept together in the backseat, which was much more spacious now that Astrid had thrown everything out.

For dinner we had protein shakes.

There had been exactly $217 between all of us. We’d split it down the middle—half for Niko and half for us. It felt like Niko should get more, since we were taking the car, but he insisted on the split.

We wanted to make our $108 last as far as we could.

We had had to get gas at the station. That had been weird.

The attendant had to call into an 800 number. He made me give my social security number to a crabby lady, who then informed the attendant that my credits for the week had already been used.

The attendant looked at me like I was dirty.

Someone had hacked my account and had used all my credits and I got treated like scum.

Jake’s account, with his luck, was completely untouched.

The guy gave us the full measure of Jake’s available gas credits, which was about a half a tank.

That would get us back to Vinita and then some.

“Hey,” Jake said to me in the car. “Remember that time we got high? Back at the store?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That was pretty fun.”

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a couple of Obezine now, right?”

“I guess.”

“If we were settled. You know, safe,” Jake said.

“I know.”

I knew he was aching for another swig of that whisky bottle. Astrid had tucked it into the trunk. I’d seen her do it and I watched Jake see her do it, too.

But instead of thinking about what an addict he was, and getting myself all worked up, I just let Jake be Jake.

The sun went down and the road got dark.

After a while Jake fell asleep.

I’d driven for about an hour when I realized something.

I woke up Astrid.

“Guys, if we go back there now, we won’t know who’s there. We won’t be able to see. The O guy could still be out.”

“What do you want to do?” Astrid asked me.

“I think we should find somewhere to pull over and sleep in the car.”

“Okay,” she said, yawning.

*   *   *

I pulled off at the next exit and we were on a country highway. Fields of corn razed to a knee-high stubble on either side. The land was flat—really flat.

I wanted a sort of hidden place to put the car. Some tall windbreak trees surrounded a small farm up the road. But I didn’t want to go too close to someone’s house. They’d think we were up to something.

I wasn’t quite sure where to go.

Everyone in the car was asleep.

I just drove for a bit. Eventually I saw a farm and then, a little ways down from the farm, a dirt road that seemed to be some kind of access road. There were some trees there.

I turned down the road and parked the car on grass, between two pine trees.

Through this, no one woke up.

All three of them were exhausted—one from being drunk, one from being pregnant, one from being locked in a trunk for four hours. Thank God Astrid had heard the baby when she did.

I got out.

The air was completely still.

I took my suit and mask, just to be safe. I was pretty sure the warning whistle would give me enough time to gear up.

A hoot owl was calling and the scent of pine was really strong in the cool air.

Sometimes, for a moment, your senses could spin your brain a story. You could forget about the disasters and just smell the crisp country air for a moment.

I sat against one of the large trees.

A few minutes later, Astrid came to me.

“You think the air’s okay?” she asked me.

I held up my face mask. “Just to be safe.”

She got hers from the backseat and then came to sit next to me.

“Is Rinée all right—,” I asked and she stopped me talking with a kiss.

The moon was up and her hands were on my face, and she kissed me gently. An apology of a kiss.

I drank in the sight of her big eyes, her rose-colored lips, that hollow at the base of her throat.

“You were really great with her today,” Astrid said to me.

“You feeling okay?” I asked. “Any cramps?”

She shook her head.

“I’m a little tired, is all.”

She leaned against me and we looked up at the nighttime sky.

“Remember when you said ‘it’s a real baby,’ when we were looking at the ultrasound?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I feel like that all the time. I can’t believe I have a real baby growing inside me. Under my skin! A little human being! And it’s going to come out and I’ll be a real mother. It’s surreal.”

“You’re gonna be a great mom,” I said, sounding like a cliché.

“Pah, who knows!” She laughed. “But you’re going to be a great dad.”

I closed my eyes.

She thought of us as a family. She did.

I needed to let it sink in, so I’d remember it the next time Jake drove me berserk.

“Got any more names in mind?”

Astrid wouldn’t let me or Jake or anyone know about the names she was picking out for the baby.

“Ferdinand, if it’s a boy,” she said, straight faced. “Or maybe Algernon.”

“That’s nice. Call him Algae for short.”

We laughed together, under a canopy of pine branches and above them, the stars.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

JOSIE

DAY 33

I try to get the little kids to go to the skinny mother’s room but they refuse.

“We can fight,” Freddy tells me, bouncing on his toes. “We’re O, like you.”

“You’re not O like me,” I say. “I hope you’ll never be O like me.”

“Well, you’re one of us and we protect our own,” he insists. “We stick together.”

“Yeah, I guess we do,” I tell him. I ruffle his hair.

We start piling furniture against the door.

First we put the big single bed against the door. It is made of wood and heavier than the bunk beds, which are just metal.

Then we pile the bureaus on it.

Like all the doubles, we have two bureaus. Identical, made of particleboard with birch veneer. Both basically empty—none of us even have a change of clothes.

There is one old pair of men’s shoes rattling around in the bottom drawer of one of them. Mario is saving them to barter in case things got bad, food-wise.

There are also a dozen sugar packets in there, and a salt shaker he had lifted from Plaza 900 our first day there. Those could be used for barter, too.

I sit down on a free edge of the bed. My weight can add to our pathetic blockade.

We know it is nine o’clock when we hear the bell over the PA and the lights go out.

Lori tries to herd the other kids into the other room and get them into the bunk bed.

“Come on, you guys,” she scolds. “What would Mario tell you to do? He’d tell you to go to sleep and you know it.”

“But I’m not tired!” Heather protests.

“It’s just stupid to think we’re going to sleep!” Freddy insists.

Lori tries to put a hand on his shoulder and he dodges her grasp.

“You guys need to go to bed,” I say, trying to help Lori.

“I’m staying up to fight!” Freddy says.

“Me, too,” says Aidan. “I owe you, after how I got you in trouble with Venger.”

“You don’t owe me,” I say. “Venger was out to get me from the start. He was just waiting for me to slip up.”

“Well, I’m not going to sleep and that’s final!” he shouts.

“Yeah! We’re not going to sleep! No way.”

“Fine,” Lori says. “You want to stay up, STAY UP! See if I care.”

She goes and stands by the window, looking out into the fluorescent-tinted nighttime sky of our containment camp.

I scratch my head.

“Have you guys ever heard of Mrs. Wooly?” I ask them.

Aidan looks at me askance, like I am trying to trick him.

“Who’s Mrs. Wooly?”

“That’s a dumb name,” Freddy says, still bouncing on his toes.

“I tell you what,” I say. “You guys get into bed—”

A chorus of nos and no ways!

“You guys get into bed and I’ll tell you.”

Three sets of crossed arms and defiant expressions.

“Look, it’s not like you’re going to sleep through the fight!” I tell them. “If the Union Men come, we’re all going to know it. But it’s cold in here. Look at Heather, she’s shaking.”

And she is.

Winter is drawing near and the temperatures are really dropping when the sun sets. I make up my mind to try to trade those men’s shoes for some more blankets, if we make it through the night.

Many people have taken to wearing their blankets shawl-style during the day. The boys have resisted this so far, but their pride about it will probably fall as the temperatures do.