The Lair (28 page)

Josie was squirming in the bag, making a confused, mewing sound that was almost crying.

Ely still hadn’t found the keys. He was cursing as he patted his pockets frantically. The Tick just stood there in front of them, a pained expression on his face, like he was trying to remember what this strange metal thing was. Or maybe like he couldn’t quite figure out how to break open the crunchy, outer shell of the car to get to the yummy goodness inside.

Either way, Lily wasn’t going to wait around for him to figure it out. She ignored Josie’s crying and carefully lowered the backpack to the floorboard between her feet. Then, she scrambled in the seat so she could reach around into the backseat of the Cayenne for her bow and arrow.

“What are you doing?” Ely demanded.

“I’m protecting us. Find the keys, damn it. Let’s just pray they weren’t in the backpack when you dumped it out on the floor.”

She blew out a puff of breath and thrust open the door.

She put only one foot out the door—her other foot was useless anyway. Agony seared through her left bicep as she extended the bow. Blood seeped through her shirt where she’d ripped through the stitches. But she pushed past the pain and tried to steady the bow as she notched an arrow and lined up the shot at the Tick. He was still ten, maybe fifteen feet away, but she saw the instant he drew in the scent of her blood. She had one chance to get him through the heart. One chance for the clean kill or she wouldn’t have time to notch another arrow. She waited until he roared right before he launched himself at her. She fired, but didn’t wait to see if she’d landed the kill shot. The Cayenne’s engine rumbled to life as she ducked back in the car. The momentum of the car lurching forward slammed her door closed. The Cayenne rammed right into the Tick and for one horrible moment, he clung to the hood of the car, the arrow piercing his chest, his face contorted into an expression of too-human horror. Then Ely cut the steering wheel hard to the right and the Tick flew off the hood before the Cayenne sped away into the night.

For a long moment, she just sat there, struggling to suck air into her lungs despite the pain wracking her body and the shock wracking her mind. Beside her, Ely was still cursing. His anger or maybe his fear made him mean. As for her, she had nothing left in her except the need to see Josie. To make sure the baby was okay.

Her hands shook as she reached down to the backpack. Josie was still crying, so Lily knew she was alive, but was she hurt? She couldn’t tell from the increasingly frantic cries.

She unzipped the backpack and spread it open. It was too dark to even see the baby, so she fumbled for the overhead light and flicked it on.

Lily slipped a hand beneath Josie’s head and slowly raised her up out of the bag. The sheet that they’d wrapped her in had unraveled, revealing her tiny, naked body. At some point, they would have to stop and get the diapers out of the back, but for now Lily just looked at her. She was tiny and fragile, her limbs wobbly; even her skin looked thin. Her crinkly red skin and scrunched-up face hardly looked human. Despite that, Lily felt an almost overwhelming need to protect her. To actually curl her own body over the baby’s and shelter her from everything.

Looking at Josie, Lily felt a strange sense of peace.

Strange because she should have been overwhelmed. She
was
overwhelmed. And afraid.

She had just lost McKenna. Her best friend had just died. A horrible and pointless death, which Lily would never be able to make peace with.

And to make things worse—she was wounded. The gunshot wound on her arm had broken open. And she was pretty sure she’d sprained her ankle when she landed from the roof. Worst of all, she was with a guy who thought anyone who wasn’t able-bodied was a liability.

Despite that, she felt a renewed sense of resolve.

Strangely, the ease with which Ely had handled McKenna’s death brought her comfort. Three shots across the forehead. There would be no coming back from that. He’d been freaked out, but he’d done it. That meant, if the time came, he would do the same for her. But it wouldn’t come to that. She would protect McKenna and Joe’s baby. No matter what.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Lily

“W
hat the hell are we going to do with this damn thing?”

She looked up at Ely. The dome light in the car was still on and she could clearly read his expression of pure disgust.

Lily just shrugged. She didn’t know what to do with Josie. She’d dug out one of the way-too-big diapers and sort of had it on her, but beyond that, Lily was lost. Josie’s tiny body looked so pale that it was nearly blue, even though the light had a decidedly yellow cast to it. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know anything about babies.”

“Obviously.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert? All those siblings and cousins. Isn’t that what you said?”

He scowled at her, then turned his attention to the road ahead and didn’t answer.

“Are you just full of crap or what? Do you know anything about how to take care of babies or not?”

Ely made a grumbling noise, almost like a growl. He glared at her. “Cover her up.”

“What?”

He gestured toward Josie. “Can’t you tell she’s cold? It’s friggin’ freezing in here for me and I wasn’t just born an hour ago.”

“Oh.” God, Lily felt like an idiot. She quickly wrapped the sheet around Josie like she was a burrito, but didn’t know what to do with the ends of the sheet, so she tucked them under and then brought them back around and tied them in a loose knot. “Better?” she asked.

He frowned, but nodded.

She thought back to when she and Mel were on the Farm and she hadn’t been sure if she could get them out. Back when she had sole responsibility for keeping herself and Mel alive. Back when things seemed really bad.

That was nothing compared to this.

Mel had known how to take care of herself. She’d had her own thoughts and ideas. Sometimes that made her a pain in the ass, but other times, her ideas were better than Lily’s.

But Josie? Josie was really, truly, one hundred percent dependent on her. For everything.

She didn’t know how long a baby could go without starving to death, but it couldn’t be very long. They needed to find food, and they needed to do it soon.

The sun would be up within the hour. The Ticks would nest down for the day. When that happened, they would have to start scouring stores and homes and anywhere else they could find food and supplies. Slowly, she noticed the sky lightening on Ely’s side of the car.

“We’re still heading south,” Lily said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have any idea where we even are?”

“I figure somewhere in the panhandle.”

She laughed then. “We’re in Texas?”

“Yeah. You got any better ideas?”

She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to ask him to turn the car around and take her back to Carter. But she couldn’t do that. Her reasons for staying away were the same as her reasons for leaving in the first place.

“No,” she said. “It’s just that I worked pretty damn hard to get out of Texas. But I can’t go back to Base Camp. Not after I lost McKenna.”

“You
lost
McKenna?” he asked. “Christ you’ve got some kind of martyr complex.”

She shot an annoyed look at him. “No, I don’t.”

“You do. It’s pathetic. You didn’t lose McKenna. She bled out. That happens, and you happened to be there. That doesn’t make it your fault.”

“I could have—”

“What? What could you have done? A doctor, in a hospital, with tons of support staff and maybe she could have made it.”

“But—”

“No. There’s no ‘but’ to that. You can’t save everyone. Get over it.”

She clamped her mouth closed and didn’t say anything else. She wasn’t going to argue with him. Ely liked to pick fights and she wasn’t in the mood. Maybe he was right. Maybe there was nothing she could have done anyway.

After a moment, he added in a gentler voice, “Look, I didn’t mean—” He jammed his hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t mourn her. And I’m sorry I made you leave. It was the right call. I did what I had to do.”

“She was my friend and she trusted me to keep her safe. Now she’s dead. That’s not something I’m going to just get over.”

He was silent for a minute and when he spoke again, his voice was softer than she’d ever heard it. “No. I don’t guess you will. Losing someone like that. You don’t get over that. Probably ever. But even though she was your friend, she didn’t expect you to take care of her. You didn’t let her down. This wasn’t your fault any more than it was hers or mine. Things just happen. Just don’t blame yourself, okay?”

She nodded, pretending to consider his words. He was probably even right. But the truth was that she was too damn tired to even think beyond her crushing grief. There would be plenty of time for her to wrestle with her guilt later.

Nestled in Lily’s lap, Josie’s eyes were drifting closed, and her own eyelids felt heavy. The steady rhythm of the wheels on the asphalt lulled her to drowsiness. She hadn’t intended to sleep. She’d planned on staying awake to help Ely look for somewhere they could stop to search for baby formula, but before she knew it, her eyes were closing. She would have to trust that Ely would wake her up when there was somewhere to look. Trust had never come easy for her, but sometimes, you just didn’t have much choice.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Carter

I should have known it wasn’t going to be easy. It’s never easy.

“Why should we trust you?”

Wilson and Trinia stood shoulder to shoulder glaring at me with equal expressions of animosity, but it was Trinia who had spoken.

I had sent Zeke out to find Trinia and Wilson the night before, but he hadn’t found them until the next morning. Thankfully, I’d at least gotten my whole crew in before dusk. That was the only thing that had gone right. Unfortunately, by the time Zeke actually found Trinia and Wilson around noon the next day, he brought them to the Dean’s office, where I’d set up command. So to them, it looked as though I was nothing but some random Collab who had taken over in the Dean’s absence. Despite Pit Bull’s claims that I had the reputation of a superhero, they were clearly suspicious.

“You don’t have to trust me,” I told them. Except, they did have to trust me; this plan of mine wouldn’t work if they didn’t. “You’re not idiots. You must have noticed things are going to hell here.”

Wilson and Trinia exchanged a look. They obviously knew each other well enough that they were able to have a whole mini-conversation with their eyes.

“Look, I’m not a Collab. I came here to help. Here’s the situation as I know it: your Dean has pulled out. You’ve got a Farm here of roughly a thousand Greens and around twenty-five Collabs holding it together. As far as I know, there’s a plan in place to bring the fences down and let the Ticks have you, because the powers that be think it’ll make the Ticks easier to kill. Either you believe me or not. Either you let us help you or not. Your choice.”

They still looked unconvinced. I wasn’t even sure I blamed them.

But, frankly, I didn’t have time for this.

I marched over to the door and stuck my head out. “Hey, Zeke.”

Zeke looked up then hopped to his feet. “Yeah?”

“You said there was another guy. Joe. Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find him. I want to—”

“Preacher Joe is—” Trinia started to say, but then she broke off when I whirled around toward her.

“Preacher Joe?”

“Yeah. That’s what we call him. He’s . . .” She wrinkled her nose, not in distaste, but more in confusion. “He’s started up a church, I guess. People meet in one of the lecture halls and listen to him.”

“What does he preach about?”

“Hope,” Wilson said simply.

Could Preacher Joe be the Joe I’d known? When I’d met him at Lily’s Farm, Joe had been known as Stoner Joe. He’d set up a shop of sorts where people came in and traded for things they wanted or needed. Joe had been an easygoing guy who was hard not to like, but he’d also been fiercely devoted to McKenna and their baby. He’d been a good guy. He’d also been one of the few people I’d met since the Before who still held out hope that there might be a God somewhere who gave a damn about humanity.

Had Stoner Joe turned into Preacher Joe? Stranger things had happened.

If this Preacher Joe was the guy I’d known, then I sure as hell needed him here to convince these people I wasn’t here to butcher them.

“Find Preacher Joe,” I ordered Zeke. “Get him in here.”

“You can’t just arrest people!” Trinia launched herself toward me, but Wilson grabbed her and held her back. “People won’t stand for you arresting Preacher Joe! We’ll rebel! You can’t—”

I’d had enough, so I grabbed her by the arms. Wilson instantly bristled, but I didn’t do more than hold on to her to get her attention.

“Listen to me! I get it. You feel completely overwhelmed with the responsibility of taking care of all these Greens. That’s what Zeke said about you, that you take care of all the young kids. All of them. Was he right?”

Trinia’s eyes filled with tears. She was still looking at me with undisguised hatred, but with fear, too. Not for herself even, but for all those kids she’d put herself in charge of. Slowly she nodded.

“So you’re taking care of all the kids who are thirteen to . . . what? . . . fifteen or so? That’s about one-third of the Farm. You’ve appointed yourself the savior of over three hundred kids.”

She swallowed, but nodded again.

Yeah, I knew her type. That’s the kind of thing Lily would do. When bad shit like this happened in the world, you had to find some reason to go on. Some reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other. For Lily, it had been Mel. For Trinia, it was those kids. And unless I was mistaken, for Wilson, it was Trinia.

“You feel like if you make the wrong choice, it’s not just you who pays, it’s all of them. And it terrifies you.”

She dropped her gaze and averted her face. I let go of her arms and stepped away. She immediately went to Wilson, and he just held her.