away from him.
“I’m not going to run,” I practically spit, and slide out of the car on my own. I know I wouldn’t get more than three feet before they opened fire. I’ll have to watch carefully, and think, and look for an opportunity to escape. No way am I going to be within three blocks of this place when it blows.
Hana has preceded us up the porch steps. She waits, her back to me, until one of the guards steps forward and opens the door. I feel a rush of hatred for this brittle, spoiled girl, with her spotless white linens and her vast rooms.
Inside, it’s surprisingly dark, full of lots of polished, dark oak and leather. Most of the windows are half- obscured by elaborate drapery and velvet curtains. Hana starts to lead me into the living room, and then thinks better of it. She continues down the hall without bothering to switch on the light, turning back only once to look at me with an expression I can’t decipher, and finally leads me through two swinging doors and into the kitchen.
This room, in contrast with the rest of the house, is very bright. Large windows face out over an enormous backyard. The wood here is shaved pine or ash, soft and nearly white, and the counters are spotless white marble.
The guards follow us into the room. Hana turns to them.
“Leave us,” she says. Illuminated by the slanted sunlight, which makes it appear as if she is glowing slightly, she once again looks like an angel. I’m struck by her stillness, and by the quietness of the house, its cleanliness and beauty.
And somewhere in its underbelly, buried deep, a tumor is growing, ticking toward its eventual explosion.
The guard who was driving—the one who had me in a headlock earlier—makes noises of protest, but Hana silences him quickly.
“I said, leave us.” For a second, the old Hana resurges; I see the defiance in her eyes, the imperial tilt of her chin. “And close the doors behind you.”
The guards file out reluctantly. I can feel the weight of their stares, and I know that if Hana were not here, I would already be dead. But I refuse to feel grateful to her. I won’t.
When they are gone, Hana stares at me for a minute in silence. Her expression is unreadable. Finally she says, “You’re too skinny.”
I could almost laugh. “Yeah, well. The restaurants in the Wilds are mostly closed. They’re mostly bombed, actually.” I don’t bother keeping the edge out of my voice.
She doesn’t react. She just keeps watching me. Another beat of silence passes. Then she gestures to the table. “Sit down.”
“I’d rather stand, thanks.”
Hana frowns. “You can treat that as an order.”
I don’t really think that she’ll call the guards back if I refuse to sit, but there’s no point in risking it. I slide into a chair, glaring at her the whole time. But I can’t get comfortable. It has been twenty minutes at least since the foghorn blew. That means I have less than forty minutes to get out of here.
As soon as I sit, Hana whirls around and disappears into the back of the kitchen, where a dark gap beyond the refrigerator indicates a pantry. Before I can think of escape, she reemerges, carrying a loaf of bread wrapped in a tea towel. She stands at the counter and slices off thick hunks, slathering them in butter and piling them high onto a plate. Then she moves to the sink and wets the tea towel.
Watching her turn on the faucet, watching the steaming water that appears instantly, I am filled with envy. It has been forever since I’ve had a proper shower, or gotten to clean myself except in frigid rivers.
“Here.” She passes me the hot towel. “You’re a mess.”
“I didn’t have time to do my makeup,” I reply sarcastically. But I take the towel anyway, and touch it gingerly to my ear. I’ve stopped bleeding, at least, although the towel comes back flecked with dried blood. I keep my eyes on her as I wipe off my face and hands. I wonder what she is thinking.
She slides the plate of bread in front of me when I’ve finished with the towel, and fills a glass with water, along with real ice cubes, five of them rattling joyfully together.
“Eat,” she says. “Drink.”
“I’m not hungry,” I lie.
She rolls her eyes, and once again I see the old Hana float up into this new impostor. “Don’t be stupid. Of course you’re hungry. You’re starving. You’re probably dying of thirst, too.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask her.
Hana opens her mouth and then closes it again. “We were friends,” she says.
“Are we?” Hana looks startled, as though the idea has never occurred to her. Once again, I feel a flicker of unease, a squirming feeling of guilt. Something isn’t right. I force the feelings down.
“Of course,” I say.
Hana watches me for a second more. Then, abruptly, she gets up from the table and moves over to the windows. Once her back is to me, I quickly take a piece of bread and stuff it in my mouth, eating as quickly as I can without choking. I wash it down with a long slug of water, so cold it brings a blazing, delicious pain to my head.
For a long time, Hana doesn’t say anything. I eat another piece of bread. She can no doubt hear me chewing, but she doesn’t comment on it or turn around. She allows me to keep up the pretense that I am not eating, and I experience a brief burst of gratitude.
“I’m sorry about Alex,” she says at last, still without turning.
My stomach gives an uncomfortable twist. Too much; too quickly.
“He didn’t die.” My voice sounds overloud. I don’t know why I feel the urge to tell her. But I need her to know that her side, her people, didn’t win, at least not in this case. Even though of course, in some ways, they did.
She turns around. “What?”
“He didn’t die,” I repeat. “He was thrown into the Crypts.”
Hana flinches, as though I’ve reached out and slapped her. She sucks her lower lip into her mouth again and starts chewing. “I—” She stops herself, frowning a little.
“What?” I know that face; I recognize it. She knows something. “What is it?”
“Nothing, I . . .” She shakes her head, as though to dislodge an idea there. “I thought I saw him.”
My stomach surges into my throat. “Where?”
“Here.” She looks at me with another one of her inscrutable expressions. The new Hana is much harder to read than the old one. “Last night. But if he’s in the Crypts . . .”
“He’s not. He escaped.” Hana, the light, the kitchen—even the bomb ticking quietly underneath us, moving us slowly toward oblivion—suddenly seem far away. As soon as Hana suggests it, I see that it makes sense. Alex was all alone. He would have gone back to familiar territory.
Alex could be here—somewhere in Portland. Close. Maybe there’s hope after all.
If I can only get out of here.
“So?” I push up from the chair. “Are you going to call the regulators, or what?”
Even as I’m talking, I’m planning. I could probably take her down, if it comes to it, but the idea of attacking her makes me uneasy. And she’ll no doubt put up a fight. By the time I get the better of her, the guards will be on top of us.
But if I can get her out of the kitchen for even a few seconds—I’ll put the chair through the window, cut through the garden, try to lose the guards in the trees. The garden probably backs up onto another street; if not, I’ll have to loop around to Essex. It’s a long shot, but it’s a chance.
Hana watches me steadily. The clock above the stove seems to be moving at record speed, and I imagine the timer on the bomb ticking forward as well.
“I want to apologize to you,” she says calmly.
“Oh yeah? For what?” I don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for this. I push away thoughts of what will happen to Hana even if I manage to escape. She’ll be here, in the house . . .
My stomach is clenching and unclenching. I’m worried the bread will come straight back up. I have to stay focused. What happens to Hana isn’t my concern, and it isn’t my fault, either.
“For telling the regulators about 37 Brooks,” she says. “For telling them about you and Alex.”
Just like that, my brain powers down.
