Aftertime

myself or you by accident, let’s put it that way.”

Cass thought about what the stranger had told her, that Smoke had killed three men. Tried to imagine him staring down the barrel. Pulling the trigger. Found that it wasn’t that much of a stretch. There was something about him, some dormant powerful fury, that she could sense lurking under the surface. To her surprise, it didn’t frighten her. It almost seemed…familiar, a bitter mix of regret and deadly determination.

Cass herself could handle a gun. She had learned to shoot her dad’s.22 on a series of clear, cold January mornings when she was ten. She’d shot magazine pages nailed to trees, her father clapping her on the back and laughing whenever she hit one.

“I don’t suppose you have another, do you?”

“Sorry,” Smoke said. “But would you rather be the one to carry it?”

Cass raised her eyebrows, surprised that he was willing to put his safety in her hands. “Um, no, that’s okay.”

“Okay, well.” Smoke faltered. “Anyway, I’m hoping we won’t need it. We’re only going about three-quarters of a mile.”

“To another shelter?”

“No. Look, Cass, the resistance has gotten pretty organized. They’ve got resources hidden all over the place up here. And they must be pretty keen on getting us out, because they’re giving us a motorcycle.”

“What?”

“I know, I know, I’ll believe it when we see it, but Herkim-the guy who came for you-he told me where to find it and says it’s gassed up and ready.”

“And all we have to do is get there before the Beaters get us. In daylight, in the middle of town.”

Smoke touched his hand to the small of her back. “It’s sunset,” he said gently. “That’s not nearly as bad.”

If it was a lie, it was a lie told to protect her. Cass thought about what the stranger had told her in the cell: Smoke wouldn’t leave without you. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as they hurried along the alley, dodging clumps of garbage and the desiccated remains of cats and rodents flattened by fleeing traffic and left to rot.

Why did he care about her?

Why would he risk his own safety to protect her?

They turned left, toward a water tower in the distance that rose up in the sky over a residential neighborhood. “We’re headed for a house near the edge of town. The bike’s in a shed in the back. I’ve got an address.”

“And you know how to get there?”

“I memorized it. This way a quarter mile, right on Jackson, left on Tendrick Springs. Number 249. White house, green shutters.”

“Wow,” Cass said. “I don’t think I could remember my own birthday with everything…you know. Just, everything.”

They moved in silence. Cass stayed close to Smoke, bumping against him from time to time. She wasn’t used to looking to anyone else for reassurance. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but she also wasn’t about to question it, not now.

“When is it?” Smoke asked as they turned onto Jackson Road.

“When is what?”

“Your birthday.”

Cass didn’t say anything for a moment. It was January first; she had been the first baby born in Contra Costa County that year. But she hadn’t celebrated her birthday in years. Her mother always sent a card, signed-in her mother’s hand- “Mim and Byrn.” No “love,” nothing but their names.

She’d spent more than a few of her birthdays hung over. Or drunk by noon.

On her best days she told herself she would start celebrating again when she got Ruthie back. She would make a cake. They would wear hats made from sheets of newspaper.

“Is it a big secret or something?” Smoke asked. “Come on, why won’t you tell me?”

“January.”

“January what?”

“Does it really matter? I mean, do you think people are still going to be keeping track by then? Tell you what, if-if we’re still alive I’ll tell you the date then.”

What she meant was, if they were still together…not together together, because it was crazy to imagine such a thing, to give their brief acquaintance significance that it didn’t have; but if after Cass got Ruthie they ended up sheltering in the same place. Something like that.

“Deal,” Smoke said and slipped his hand around Cass’s and squeezed, letting go before she could react.

And the last of her mistrust of him slipped away.

Smoke had proved himself over and over. He’d believed in her innocence when she arrived at the school with her blade pressed to a child’s neck. He’d come with her, voluntarily, to the library. Now, his best course was to run in a different direction, to go where the Rebuilders wouldn’t pursue him, but he’d come with her anyway.

And there was the other night. In the cool, clean sheets at Lyle’s place. In the breeze that reminded her of Before.

But that didn’t count. That couldn’t count, and Cass pushed it from her mind, pushed the memory hard into a small corner where it would be protected and preserved. Still, that left last night when he’d faced down the Rebuilders without hesitation, and today when he’d waited for her to join him at the back door.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“For what?”

“For coming with me. For being here.”

Smoke shrugged. “I can’t go back to the school now-I don’t want to lead the Rebuilders there. No matter where I go, they’ll come after me, but if they think I’m with you, at least they’ll leave the school alone.”

Cass thought she understood. The people at the school had been strangers not long ago. But now, Aftertime, they were all he had.

“I hope they’re fine,” she said softly, thinking of Sammi and her mother, of the women at the bath trough, of the children playing with the plastic animals. Of Nora, with her intense dark eyes and choppy haircut.

Wondered if Smoke was thinking about her. Missing her. Wishing he could be with her.

She almost asked him, but then she didn’t. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. “So what do you know about the Convent?” she asked instead.

“I’d heard rumors about it, but Herkim filled me in,” Smoke said. “They started the Convent a few months ago. All women, no men allowed. Set it up in Foothill Stadium, of all places. Home of the Miners-you ever been there?”

Cass had. With her father, in fact, when she was eight years old. It was a ridiculously balmy Tuesday in May, when it seemed like it would never rain again, and every day would bring some new and splendid surprise, because her daddy was home from touring with his band and he wasn’t working at the construction sites like he usually did, and he wrote a note saying she was sick and she didn’t have to go to school. They didn’t tell her mother, who had gone off to work as usual, because it was sort of a surprise. And her daddy bought her a souvenir pennant and a second bag of peanuts just because she asked and the next week he was gone and she never saw him again.

“No.” Cass mumbled the lie. “Don’t think I have.”

“Well, it’s not the worst place in the world for a bunch of bat-shit crazy women to hole up, I guess. They’ve sealed off the entrances, got some system for figuring out who they let in and out, not that they’re coming out much, that’s for sure.”

“And they have Ruthie there?”

“That’s just what someone said. You got to be careful here, Cass. You can’t go believing everything you hear. Everyone who talks to you, you got to wonder what angle they’re working, what you could provide them with that they can’t get some other way.”

“But it was Elaine who said it. We were friends.”

“Okay,” Smoke said. “Sorry. I’m just trying-”

Something clattered behind them, metal on pavement, and Cass whirled around. Smoke turned, too, his hand tight around hers.