friends what happened. Tell them we’ll do the same to anyone who tries to steal from us.”
“Go on,” he said, motioning toward the bamboo forest. “Before I change my mind.”
I ran, my face wet with tears and sticky with dried blood, leaves whipping my face, until I tripped on a fallen tree and tumbled to the ground.
One day I was going to go there and kill every single one of them. But what did it matter? Ange was dead. I would never wake up beside her again.
I crawled to my feet and walked on. “She was shot,” I said aloud, sniffing, wiping my runny nose. I winced as my hand touched my face. “Ange was shot. They shot her. She died right away.” That’s what I would tell the others. That’s how I wanted to remember it, if I could convince myself. I didn’t want to remember the truth; I wanted it gone, stripped from my mind.
Cortez was on the porch. He leapt up as soon as he saw my face. “What happened? Where’s Ange?”
“Ange is dead,” I said.
Cortez covered his face and sobbed.
“What happened?” It was Jean Paul, standing in the doorway. “What happened?” I only shook my head.
The screen door squealed and Colin appeared. “Oh, jeez,” he said. He raced out, grabbed me by the elbow to help me inside.
“Ange is dead,” I said. Colin froze, his expression melting from concern to despair.
“What happened?” Jean Paul repeated.
I told the story as it had happened, except I told them that they shot Ange in the clearing.
Cortez disappeared upstairs, reappeared a moment later armed to the hilt—gun, knives. No Eskrima sticks. “Where is this farm?” he asked me.
“No,” Sophia said, grasping Cortez’s arm. “Let it go. They’re all armed. We don’t need anyone else dying today.”
“She’s right,” Colin said. “We need you here, we can’t afford to lose you.” Colin glanced at me. I didn’t care. I wanted to be unconscious.
Cortez stuck the gun into his belt. “They murdered Ange, and we’re just going to walk away?”
“Yes!” Sophia said. “We just walk away. Killing them isn’t going to bring her back.”
Cortez turned and stormed out. As the screen door slammed, I was already on the stairs, weaving like a drunk, heading to my bed.
Chapter 9
GUNSLINGER
The faded purple neon sign by the road read “Paradise Motel,” and “No Vacancy.” There was an empty pool in front, between the highway and the parking lot, surrounded by a cyclone fence choked with kudzu. The roofs on the last four units had collapsed, but the others looked to be in decent shape—a few even had glass in the windows. An ice machine was tucked between two support poles, a toppled and partially crushed snack machine next to it.
“I hope they have plenty of ice,” Colin said, “I could use a cold one.” Baby Joel, his head lolling, was asleep in the makeshift carrier on Colin’s back.
“It feels strange not having the bamboo around. I feel exposed,” Sophia said, hugging her elbows. The bamboo had tapered off just past Midville, though we knew it was just a patch—an area the scientists and eco- terrorists hadn’t bothered to target. The bamboo would make it here eventually.
“We got dibs on this one,” Colin called, peering into a room with his hand on the door knob. “There’s even a mattress, sort of.”
I opened the door to the next room down.
A woman was standing inside, a machete raised over her head. I cried out in surprise.
“I don’t have any food,” she said. “I don’t have anything of value. Just leave me alone.”
She was wearing a big floppy hat over wild, tangled auburn hair, Khaki shorts, and a white button-down sweater like my grandma used to wear. Still, she had a machete.
I raised my hands. “Okay. No problem.”
As my heart slowed I noticed that the woman was so scared the machete was shaking. She had a pretty bad cut on her shin—it was straight and fairly deep, like a slashing knife wound.
“We’re just looking for a place to—”
Behind her, the bedside table was adorned with knickknacks. A postcard of hula dancers caught my eye. The caption read
A tingle washed over me—an honest to god tingle. I studied the woman carefully.
“Phoebe?”
Her look of surprise was priceless. She looked at me carefully; her eyes grew wide.
“Jasper, right?” She lowered the machete.
The rest of the tribe had rushed over when I cried out, and were crowded around the doorway and the big glassless window. I introduced everyone. Of course she’d already met Colin, Jeannie, and Cortez, but that was briefly, eight years ago.
She hadn’t changed much. She still had pretty green eyes and (despite the grime) refined, aristocratic features—high cheekbones, a perfectly shaped nose, a long, elegant neck. She could have been a young Harvard lit professor who specialized in Milton. She had nice legs—lean, shapely runner’s legs. Greyhound legs.
“That’s a pretty bad cut,” Colin said.
“I did it while hacking through the bamboo.” She looked chagrined. “I’m actually not as spastic as that suggests.”
“I’m sure the other ten thousand hacks were works of art. We all know what it’s like to swing that thing for hours.” We didn’t actually use a machete—we’d decided early on it was too energy-inefficient—but it seemed like the right thing to say. I took another look at the leg. “I hate to say this, but I think it needs to be stitched.”
Phoebe went a little white. “Really?”
“Definitely,” Cortez said. “It’s not going to heal right like that. Stuff will get in it. It’ll get infected.” He clapped my shoulder. “Colin and me will boil some water to clean the cut. I’ve got a needle and thread you can use to close it up.”
“Me?” I protested.
Cortez nodded. “You’ve performed major surgery. Compared to that, this will be a piece of cake.”
Phoebe looked confused. “You performed surgery?”
“I removed someone’s appendix once,” I said, feeling a blush of pride, but trying not to let it show.
I told Phoebe the story while the water boiled, then I cleaned out the cut with a bath towel. Colin had found a hundred of them in a linen closet in the manager’s office.
I picked up the needle, which Jeannie had dipped in the boiling water, thread and all. I may have done it once before, but I hadn’t enjoyed it, and I was still horrified at the idea of sewing up somebody’s skin. Someone had to do it, though. “I’m guessing this is going to hurt.”
Phoebe just nodded.
I poked the needle through clean, white skin. Phoebe hissed and squeezed her eyes shut. I had to resist the urge to close my eyes as well. I ran the needle under the skin on the other side of the gash, brought the needle out through the skin and pulled the thread through.
The rest of the tribe left to give Phoebe some privacy. I got her talking to take her mind off what I was doing. It got a little easier after the first stitch.
Phoebe had been living for the past couple of years in a little co-op carved out in Twin City, but had a falling out with her boyfriend and left. These details were conveyed in small pieces, punctuated with winces and a few tears. I filled her in on the low points of my life, then cast about for distractions.
“What are all those things on the night stand?” I asked. Beside the postcard, there were photos, little stuffed animals, figurines, a book, all carefully arranged.
