Rebel Nation (13 page)

—

There wasn't enough light left for them to see much
of the Compound when they walked back from the stables. They met plenty of people, though, including Xavier's foster family and Maggie's husband, Alex. The largest building was a low rectangle, large enough for several tables and a multitude of chairs. It reminded Clover of the cafeteria at her primary school.

Two girls and a boy about her age walked between the tables, setting out plates of steaming cobs of corn and little bowls of soft goat cheese. One girl put a loaf of bread on their table, and another handed each person a small red apple.

Clover sat at the end of one long side of the table with Mango at her feet. Sometimes she only really recognized her own discomfort by noticing how on the job her dog was. He was sitting up, alert, his body pressed against the side of her leg. She was as tense as a guitar string. Jude sat next to her with Maggie on his other side, talking to him about water.

“We have a well,” she said. “New Boulder was already pretty self-sufficient when we got here. Some survivalists had bought up the buildings and the businesses at the beginning of the Bad Times.”

“They bought the whole town?” Clover asked, leaning forward past Jude to see Maggie.

“I'm not sure you could have called it a town before, but yes.”

“What happened to them?”

Maggie spread cheese on her corn with slow, deliberate movements. “Most of those that stayed were dead by the time we got here. Janice is still with us, and Elena. Donald.”

“I'm sorry,” Clover said. She knew what had happened to them. The same thing that happened to her mother.

“We got lucky,” Maggie said, turning a smile toward Clover. “Very lucky.”

Virus scars deeper than West's were white valleys on Maggie's face. They stood out even more than West's did because her healthy skin was darker.

“I wish Leanne had come with us,” Clover said to Jude. “She would have loved this.”

Maggie inhaled, audibly, and Clover's already frazzled nerves went on high alert. What had she said wrong?

“Leanne?” Maggie said softly. “You can't mean Leanne Wood?”

Maggie saying Leanne's full name, the way her voice changed, increased the feeling that Clover already had of falling down Karen's rabbit hole. So much that she clutched at the table to keep herself grounded.

“You know Leanne?” Jude opened his hand on his thigh under the table and bumped the edge of it against Clover's leg until she put her left hand down and slid it into his.

Maggie was crying. Not tears-on-her-cheeks crying, but real crying. Like her heart was broken. She stood up, putting her torso at Clover's eye level, and for the first time she realized the woman was pregnant. “Alex!”

Her husband was sitting two tables over. He looked up, then stood and came to them. He gathered his wife against him and looked down at Jude. “What is it? What's wrong?”

“They know Leanne,” Maggie said. “They know her, Alex.”

Visible shock ran through Alex. His hands clenched, his face changed. “Leanne Wood?”

Clover nodded. “How do you know Leanne?”

“She was our friend,” Maggie said.

Alex sat Maggie down again, and when the woman on her other side stood up for him, he sat as well. He sort of collapsed into his chair, like his legs couldn't hold him steady anymore. “We were in a camp together, in Las Vegas before it was evacuated.”

Clover's ideas about Leanne shifted to make room for this new information. She knew, from her history classes, that Hispanic people were kept in internment camps during the Second Civil War. She didn't know that Leanne was one of them. She didn't even know that Leanne was Hispanic, although she believed it now that she thought about it.

“Leanne saved my life,” Maggie said. “My brother died. I was only ten. She was my family, then they brought us to Reno and put us in the hospital together.”

“That's when she lost her leg?” Jude asked.

Maggie started to cry again. Alex put his arm around her and said, “She wouldn't leave the city with us. She was afraid that she'd slow us down. She was supposed to come later. We waited for so long.”

“She sent a letter, through Frank, a year after we left.” Alex didn't look at them. His gaze was locked somewhere between them. “It basically just said that she had work to do in Reno, that she couldn't leave. I wrote back, but we never heard from her again, except sometimes some news came through Frank.”

He shook himself and kissed the top of Maggie's head. Clover squirmed, uncomfortable so close to their discomfort. She didn't know what to say or do, so she didn't say or do anything.

You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the only earthly object of my affection . . .

—JAMES BUCHANAN,
LETTER TO THE FATHER OF HIS EX-FIANCÉE AFTER HER DEATH, 1819

“Bridget Kingston.”

Langston Bennett stood over the girl. He'd seated her in a low chair so that she had to tip her head back to look up at him when he spoke her name.

“Yes, sir,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. She was scared. She had been scared of him since that day in August when he walked into her house thinking that he could nip the problem of her eavesdropping in the bud.

Her fear satisfied him.

The world had gone to hell that day. That wouldn't happen again today. Today Bridget Kingston was going to tell him what he wanted to know.

“Your father told me about the ranch. It's upsetting to me that you've known about this place for months and didn't share it with him earlier.”

She shifted in her seat. He was making her uncomfortable, even though he was careful to keep his tone soft and confidential. “I—I know. I should have said something. I was scared. I didn't—”

He cut her off with a hand smoothing over her honey-blond hair, his fingertips following the line of her skull and catching on the suppressant port implanted at its base. Her voice devolved into a squeak that faded when his hand moved to her cheek. He thought he could feel her heart, beating rabbit fast, against his fingers near her ear.

“Bridget, it's time for you to do the right thing now. I know that West Donovan is still alive, so you aren't hurting him.” She jumped under his hand and then froze, and he knew. Finally he knew. West Donovan was still alive. “Where is he, Bridget?”

He'd given away too much. He felt it immediately. She tilted her head back to look up at him, emboldened when she shouldn't have been. She had thought that the boy was already in custody.

“I don't know,” she said. “
If
he's still alive, I have no idea where he'd be. I showed my father the only place I know of.”

He tightened his fist around a handful of her hair. It felt slippery and very clean in his palm when he tugged, pulling her head back farther. He brought the back of his other hand, hard, across her cheekbone. She let loose a screech.

“You will tell me what I need to know, Miss Kingston.”

Maybe he'd overplayed again. He wasn't used to second-guessing himself, and his doubts left him unbalanced. Bridget Kingston's eyes were wide and terrified. It would have been easier if she'd kept her hope that cooperation and a forthcoming attitude would get her out of this room. He saw that hope leave her eyes, replaced with a determination to keep her secrets.

—

West spent the drive back to Virginia City, warmer
now and finally drying with the van's heater blasting on him, thinking about how he would explain why he'd gone missing to Christopher and Phire.

They'd think he'd been caught. Or maybe that he went with Clover and Jude. Either way, they must believe that he'd abandoned them. Christopher would stay cool, but Phire had to be spitting mad right about now.

When he finally pulled the van into the Fourth Ward School's parking lot, he was exhausted. As he got out, Emmy came running, long orange hair flying behind her, and threw herself into his arms. He barely got them up fast enough to catch her.

“You're not dead,” she whispered into his neck. He patted her back as Isaiah watched.

“I'm not dead.” He disentangled himself from her, crouching until her feet were on the ground again. “You should be asleep.”

“No one's asleep. He's not dead!” she yelled over her shoulder at a group of three or four of the other younger kids. One of them ran up the wide stairs, through the big door. And all of a sudden, the sound of a giant bell flooded the air.

West felt the loud
bing-bong
deep in his chest.

“What in the hell?” Isaiah asked.

“I don't—” West started to say, but stopped when all of a sudden he did know. Kids came up the street, flashlights bouncing in the dark. Some of them carried boxes or bags. Two were pulling a red wagon filled with a box overflowing with apples. The school bell called them.

“West?” Christopher came up a steep hill behind the school with what looked like a miner's light around his forehead. He dropped a bedsheet that was wrapped around something bulky and heavy and ran the rest of the way. “Jesus, West.”

“What are you guys doing?”

Christopher turned his head, and his light, toward Isaiah, then back to West. “No one could sleep. We figured, might as well start getting things together.”

Unexpected emotion caught in West's throat, keeping anything articulate stuck behind it.

“What in the hell happened to you?” Phire came out of the school, charging down the steps, shouting. When he was with them he at least dropped the volume of his voice. “And who in the hell is he?”

“This is Isaiah,” West said. “Isaiah Finch.”

“Isaiah Finch. Bridget's Isaiah?” Phire asked.

They all flinched. Even Isaiah.

“Isaiah the guard,” Christopher amended, standing up taller. Marta hadn't come yet. Maybe she was farther away. “What is he doing here?”

“I'm here to help,” Isaiah said, then held his hands up when both Christopher and Phire glared at him. “I am here to help.”

“Help who?” Phire asked.

Christopher's attention was caught somewhere else. West looked over his shoulder and saw Marta coming toward him, carrying what looked like a homemade torch. Her face brightened in the firelight when she saw West. She'd only started smiling again in the last couple of weeks. She and Christopher had bonded, like epoxy, held together by their shared grief after the death of Marta's twin sister.

Bennett had killed Geena. West reminded himself of that every day. Bennett had killed Geena, and he had killed Ned Waverly. He was dangerous. They were never playing games here.

“He shouldn't be here,” Christopher said to West.

“He helped me get out of the city.”

That seemed to give Christopher and Phire the same off-balance feeling that West had just recovered from. Marta arrived just in time to hear Phire ask, “What were you doing in the city?”

“You were in the city?” she asked. Christopher opened an arm and she walked into it. He pulled her away from Isaiah, as much as he could without sending her away. She looked up at Isaiah but kept talking to West. “Were you arrested? What's going on?”

“I wasn't arrested,” he said. “Leanne was. I went—I thought my dad could help her.”

They all stood in a tight circle in the parking lot while West, still damp and cold, spoke as quickly as he could, about his last twelve hours. The Foster City kids, whom he still didn't know, milled around but stayed outside their sphere.

Marta looked a little faint. “What if you were caught? What about Clover? What about us? We need you here.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“What about Clover?” Christopher repeated Marta's question.

“She and Jude went with Frank.”

“You let her go?” Phire had spent most of his life taking care of Emmy. He was a brother, like West was, who had too much responsibility. He was the only one who fully understood the fear that West felt just talking about Clover being gone.

“She's safer the farther from Bennett that she can get. Jude will look out for her.”

“Yeah? And whose going to look out for Jude?” Phire asked.

“Clover will.” West wasn't sure who he was trying to convince. He looked at Isaiah, who had kept his mouth closed since the others showed up, then back to Christopher. “What's going on here? Why is everyone scattered all over the place?”

“I told you, we're searching the houses,” Christopher said. “Looking for supplies, weapons—”

“Weapons?” West ran a hand through his hair. He'd done that so often in the past day, a day that never seemed to end, that his scalp hurt. It suddenly hit him how tired he was. And that he and Isaiah both needed to get inside and warm soon. “You have these little kids going into houses, in the dark, with bodies?”

“Bones. We haven't found anything gross,” Phire said. His cheeks reddened when he heard himself. “I mean, anything any more gross than bones.”

“We have to find out what we have, West,” Marta said. “The really little kids are in the schoolhouse.”

“Are you finding anything?” West asked.

“A few hunting rifles. A couple of houses had Mormon rations,” Christopher said. “Those are going to come in handy. Some seeds in those, too.”

Mormon rations—he meant food storage. Mormons stocked up for a year of Bad Times. It didn't do the families who were only bones now any good, but Christopher was right. The food storage was meant to be kept for a long time. Maybe sixteen years, and if any of the seed was viable, that would be a massive advantage.

“How many rifles?” Isaiah asked.

The others went quiet and turned like one head toward him.

“Look, at least I have training,” he said. “I'm here to help. I gave up my whole life to come here and help.”

Phire opened his mouth to say something, but Christopher stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Four. We've found four and maybe a dozen boxes of ammunition.”

“We'll be able to hunt,” Marta said. “We're going to be okay.”

“You need to think about defense,” Isaiah said. “All the food in the world isn't going to help you if Langston Bennett finds you here. Won't help you any more than it helped the poor Mormon's who bought it.”

West inhaled, hearing Isaiah give voice to his thoughts. Suddenly, he couldn't even remember what it felt like not to be cold. “Let's get inside and warm up.”

—

“He's not going to find us,” Phire said. They'd moved
inside, into one of the classrooms on the third floor of the big schoolhouse. Rows of old-fashioned desks were bolted to the floor, and they sat in a rough circle on top of them. Christopher had figured out how to work the old stove and they were burning wood pellets they'd found in a storage room.

“We can't know that.” West wanted to believe his own sure words. When was the last time he felt really safe? He was going to need sleep soon. He was running on pure adrenaline. “We don't know what Leanne will tell him.”

“Do you think she'll give us up?” Marta asked.

“No. Not if she can help it.” Bennett could get Leanne to talk. West was sure of that. If he thought that Leanne knew where they were, he could get her to talk. “My dad is going to get her out.”

“Really? Because your dad's so reliable?” Phire was angry. He bounced his fists off the desktop he sat on. “What are we supposed to do now? Leave again? Where are we going to go?”

“We could leave,” West said. Phire closed his mouth. He expected West to argue. To convince him that they would be safe here.

“And then what?” Marta asked, quietly. “How many times we going to run?”

She'd had to leave Geena behind, buried in the fake cemetery at the ranch. West was pretty sure she was upset at the idea of moving even farther away.

“We don't have water here,” West pointed out. “That's going to be a problem soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

“We found a pump,” Christopher said. “In one of the bars. Set up like a museum piece, and the water doesn't taste great, but it works.”

Something unclenched in West's chest. He hadn't realized that he was so worried about water until then. Hunger and exhaustion flooded in to fill the space left by that retreating problem. “We don't have to decide tonight.”

“This morning,” Phire said.

West looked toward a window. It was still dark, but Phire was right. “This morning.”

“Virginia City is defensible,” Isaiah said. He was met, again, with a wall of silent stares, but he pushed on. “There's one road, right? Just one leading through town. We can defend that.”

“With four hunting rifles? Against the Company. I don't think so,” Phire said. “We're a bunch of kids, yeah? We should run.”

“Run where?” West asked honestly. He literally had no idea. “Virginia City has been left alone because it's hard to get to. No one looted it. I mean—no one even bothered to bury the bodies. We're going to have to make a stand sometime, stay somewhere.”

“Why didn't we do that at the ranch, then?” Marta asked.

West looked at Isaiah. He felt like he'd never seen his best friend before. Nothing felt safe anymore, and he was having a hard time believing that anything ever would again. “Isaiah's right. Virginia City is defensible. At the very least, we can't leave until Clover and Jude come back.”

He held his breath, waiting for someone to bring up that Clover and Jude might not ever come back. No one did, and he let it go.