The Pure: Book Three of the Oz Chronicles (15 page)

“‘We need to talk about our next move,’
Lou said.

“‘You people have done this before,” I
said through a yawn. ‘I was counting on you to tell me what to do.’

“Ajax went through a series of signs.

“‘Ajax thinks we should head for the
high country. There’s a band of gorillas that can help us.’

“‘Gorillas?’ I said. ‘Like him?’

“Lou nodded and watched Ajax sign
something. She smiled. ‘He says there’s only one Ajax, but there’s a colony of
apes in the mountains of South Carolina, a place called Saluda. They may be
able to help us find your Keeper.’

“‘Any chance they’ve got a phone and we
can just call?’ I asked with a smile. They didn’t respond. ‘Not even a banana
phone, huh?’ Again no response. ‘Okay, Saluda, here we come.’

“Wes joined our group. ‘We’re going to
have to walk it. The VW has finally kicked the old bucket. For the best,
really. It was getting harder and harder to find a clear road to travel.’ He
looked over his shoulder at the little bus. ‘Still, she did her part. Gotta say
that for her.’ He choked back a tear.

“Lou caressed his arm. ‘It’s not going
to be the same without her.’

“I snickered louder than I intended. Lou
glared at me. ‘Sorry,’ I said.

“Wes returned the snicker. ‘I know it’s
stupid to get all choked up over a car, but it was the last thing we had that
was the way it used to be.’

“I looked at the fat little van and felt
like a heel for not seeing it before. I had no right to make fun of them. They
were saying goodbye to more than a car. They were saying goodbye to their old
lives.

“‘So,’ I said. ‘Just how far is this
Saluda place?’

“Wes sniffed and gave the question some
thought. ‘I’d say about 270 miles or so.’

“I looked at Ajax. ‘Don’t suppose you
got any gorilla friends any closer.’

“The ape shook his massive head and
hooted.

“‘Never hurts to ask,’ I said. ‘Without
a car, that’ll take some time.’

“‘If we can get in a good solid eight
hours of walking a day, it should take us nine days,’ Wes said. ‘But that ain’t
taking time for trouble into account. I’d say we should be there in two weeks,
three weeks maybe.’

“‘Three weeks?’ I groaned. ‘What kind of
trouble are you expecting?’

“‘It’d be easier to say what kind of
trouble I’m not expecting,’ he answered.

***

“The next morning we all gathered around
the green and yellow VW bus. Wes gave her a pat and thanked her for her
service. Valerie kissed her hood and Tyrone gently tapped the front
passenger-side tire with his foot. Lou gutted her of all the supplies. She
handed out weapons to everyone: crossbows, knives, fireworks. No guns. I had
learned myself that at best they only worked occasionally and at worst
something could go terribly wrong and blow your hand off. Wes took this as
another sign that the Délons were losing control. I hadn’t noticed until now
that Lou was without the sword she’d had when we first met.

“‘Lost it to those creeps back at the
community,’ she said when I asked her about it. ‘I’ll get it back. You can
count on it.’

“‘You think we’ll run into them again,’
I said hoping the answer would be yes.

“‘Please, I’ve seen jerks like Carl
before. He’s got too much ego to just let us slip away.’

“‘Good,’ I said.

“She grabbed my arm. ‘The best way to
screw this thing up is to let revenge get into the way of your job. Got it?’

“I nodded, but I didn’t mean it. She
knew it, too, but she let it go.

“‘April,’ she yelled.

“April looked shocked at hearing her
name called. She quickly walked over to us. ‘Yeah?’

“Lou handed her a crossbow and a quiver
of arrows. ‘You’re taking point with me. From now on, you’re going to have
on-the-job training.’

“‘Training for what?’ April asked.

“‘War,’ Lou responded nonchalantly.

“April handed the crossbow back to Lou.
‘No thanks. I’ll just be the designated cook or something.’

“Lou rammed the crossbow into April’s
chest. ‘We all cook. We all fight.’

“‘Ahhh, no,’ April said with her best
Southern drawl. ‘I don’t fight, okay. I’ll do the girl stuff.’ She dropped the
crossbow on the ground.

“Valerie and Tyrone started to giggle.
Wes propped his foot up on the bumper of the now defunct VW bus and smiled.
Even Ajax and Kimball looked on wide-eyed. They were all enjoying this. I felt
a need to intervene.

“‘Maybe she’s right,’ I said to Lou. ‘I
don’t think she’d be much help in a fight.’

“Lou looked at me crossly. ‘Did you not
hear me use the word training?’ She removed an arrow from the quiver around her
shoulder.

“‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ April
said. ‘I’m older than you. You can’t tell me what to do. I’m in college... or I
was.’

“‘Fine,’ Lou said loading the arrow into
the crossbow. ‘You want to do girl stuff?’ She pointed the crossbow at April.
‘Then you’ll do girl stuff.’

“‘Lou, what are you doing?’ I asked.

“April held her breath and raised up on
her toes. ‘Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.’

“‘Put the crossbow down, Lou,’ I said. I
stopped short of stepping between the razor sharp arrow and April. ‘Please.’
The others watched with the same amused expressions they had before. Only
Little Bobby seemed as concerned as April and me.

“Without saying another word, Lou pulled
the trigger. I watched with a morbid curiosity as the arrow headed straight for
April. She stood frozen in time. The arrow zoomed through her hair and struck
something in the woods directly behind her. I heard a pained squeal as a Dac
collapsed to the ground with the arrow sticking out of its throat.

“Lou tossed the crossbow to April.
‘Walking point. Killing Dacs and anything else that’s not human, that’s girl
stuff, clear?’

“April stood with her mouth open in an
‘O’ shape. She swallowed, hugged the crossbow she’d once rejected, and nodded.

“Tyrone jumped up in the air. ‘Nice
shot, Lou!’ He ran over to the fallen Dac. ‘Fox Dac,’ he said. He pulled a
notepad out of his pocket and wrote something down. ‘That makes three.’

“‘Four,’ Valerie shouted. ‘There was
that one in Winchester.’

“‘That was a cat Dac,’ he said.

“‘No it wasn’t,’ Valerie responded. She
joined Tyrone standing over the slain Dac. They continued their argument in
quieter tones.

“I felt obligated to say something
comforting to April and approached her with every intention of doing so, but
when I reached her all I could think to say was, ‘I guess girl stuff ain’t girl
stuff anymore.’

“‘She could have killed me,’ April
whispered.

“I watched Lou stuff some supplies into
a backpack. ‘Yeah, she could have.’ I walked away feeling stupid for ever
wanting to give her words of comfort.

***

“We covered a little more than
thirty-five miles that first day, and Wes was pleased because that put us ahead
of schedule. We had left the cover of the woods and traveled north on highway 174.
Cars and trucks of every make and model littered the cracked pavement. Even if
the VW bus had been running, it would have been impossible to drive on the
route we had decided to travel.

“I cooked that night, beans and some
canned meat. It tasted like it sounded, disgusting, but it was a warm meal.
None of us were complaining. Everyone scarfed down their food like they hadn’t
eaten in days.

“Lou tossed her tin plate aside and
leaned against an abandoned Toyota Corolla. She twirled her head around to
loosen the kinks in her neck. It was one of those rare moments she looked her
age. There was an innocence dancing from her eyes that I had never seen before.
She pulled the drawing of the cave out of her pocket and studied it. Suddenly
it dawned on me. She had hope. It had been hiding in her somewhere until now.
The scribbles of brown and black crayon on the wrinkled piece of paper brought
it out of her. I wondered who this Oz was. Really. I knew he was a warrior or
creyshaw, whatever you want to call it, but as far as I knew he wasn’t a
superhero. Why did she put so much faith in a guy she hadn’t seen in a year?

“I ate one last spoonful of beans and
set my plate on the hood of an Escalade. I picked a couple of pieces of black
licorice Twizzler twists out of my backpack. I had found the candy under the
seat of the VW bus. Wes begged me to take the treats off his hands. It seems he
couldn’t stand licorice. I gladly obliged him. It was one of my favorites.

“I joined Lou by the Corolla and offered
her the extra Twizzler. She took it with a smile and tore off a chunk of the
candy with her teeth.

“I pointed at the drawing with my
licorice twist. ‘You really think we can find the cave based on that drawing?’

“She chewed her candy. ‘I wouldn’t still
have it if I thought it was useless. Besides Tarek thinks we can use it,
otherwise he wouldn’t have given it to me.’

“I stuck my Twizzler in my mouth and
sucked on it. The licorice taste was almost spiritual. I bit off a chunk. ‘Oz
means a lot to you, doesn’t he?’

“‘He means a lot to all of us. He’s
the...’

“‘The key. I know. I’ve heard, but
that’s not what I’m talking about. He means more than that to you.’

“She blushed slightly. ‘What do you
mean?’

“‘Look,’ I said. ‘It’s all right, okay.
I understand how you feel.’

“‘Feel about what?’ she asked.

“‘Oz. You love him,’ I said.

“She howled with laugher. ‘Love him. Are
you kidding me?’

“‘You don’t have to be embarrassed.’

“‘Oz Griffin is a turd. I do not love
him. I’m not old enough to love somebody, and if I was, it wouldn’t be him, I
can tell you that. He’s a big jerk.’ She was getting angrier by the minute.

“‘All right, all right, you don’t love
him. I’m sorry.’

“‘Why would you say something like
that?’ she asked.

“‘Clearly, I wasn’t thinking straight.
My bad.’

“‘We need him. He can end all this.’ She
stood and threw what was remaining of her Twizzler to the ground. ‘Love,
please. The first thing I’m going to do when we find him is give him a big fat
lip for leaving us like that, all this time. Not a word. Making us worry half
to death. I wouldn’t ever love somebody who’s that big of a horse’s ass.’ She
stomped off muttering to herself.

“Valerie popped up from the other side
of the Corolla with a big smile on her face. ‘She is so in love with him.’

“‘Obviously,’ I said.

“I heard a gravelly grunt as Ajax raced
past the Corolla. Kimball was on his heels. I stood to see what interested them
so much. Dusk was making its way through the purple sky. I watched as Ajax and
Kimball bolted down the road toward the violet horizon.

“A single Silencer approached.

“Wes unwittingly startled me as he stood
just to my right and said, ‘Rogue.’

“‘What?’ I asked.

“‘Only one Silencer travels alone and
that’s Canter. We got us a freelancer.’

“‘And that’s bad?’

“‘That’s bad.’ He turned to Valerie.
‘Lil’ bit, you and Tyrone load up. Crossbows. Take positions on both sides of
the road.’

“Valerie ran to get Tyrone.

“‘What do we do?’ I asked.

“‘We try to talk our way out of
trouble.’

“We started walking toward the Silencer.
‘If that doesn’t work?’

“‘If that don’t work, we kiss our
alliance with Canter goodbye and kill the freak,’ Wes said.

“‘Nobody’s killing anyone,’ Lou said
walking past us. ‘We need Canter. Let me handle this.’ She trotted toward the
Silencer. Ajax and Kimball had already stopped the Destroyer from getting any
closer.

“‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘If this
guy’s a freelancer, why would Canter care if we took it out?’

“‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘You don’t get
it. We’re on the bottom of the food chain. In Canter’s mind, one Silencer’s
life is worth a million human lives. Don’t matter if the Silencer is rogue or
not. Canter will help us in a fight or feed us information to defeat the
Délons, but we kill a Silencer and he’ll bring all hell down on us.’

“Lou held her arms out to show the
Silencer she didn’t have any weapons. The beast towered over here. She grabbed
Kimball by the scruff of the neck, pushed him back, and then quietly begged
Ajax to behave with a few signs. I couldn’t hear the Silencer’s part of the
conversation. It swayed and bopped its upside-down head. Lou put her hands up
and urged the monster to stay put. She ran back to us.

“‘He just wants to pass,’ Lou said.

“‘What’s he doing out here by himself?’
Wes asked.

“‘He says he’s a messenger for Canter.
He’s carrying a message to a colony of Silencers a couple of days walk from
here.’