herself.
“Help him, Mama,” Ruthie whispered a second time, and Cass felt rent in two. How to protect her now from the most basic ugly truth of the world? How did she tell her daughter that they could not save everyone? That they had to let some people die, Aftertime, because there just wasn’t enough to go around? Not enough resources, enough time, enough energy-enough of anything?
“Oh, sugar,” she heard herself say, and she held Ruthie close, rocking her against her body. “Sugar.”
She could not make this impossible promise. She’d just make everything worse. She couldn’t help Devin, and soon he would die, and she would be in the position of having to tell Ruthie that she hadn’t been able to help him after all. Ruthie would know that Cass had lied. Cracks would form in Ruthie’s trust. And trust was the only gift Cass had to give Ruthie besides her love. Didn’t her daughter deserve to know there was one person on the earth who she could always count on? Even Devin had that-as unstable as Malena was, upbraiding Kaufman and Lester and even Pace, screaming about her son-she had never flagged in her dedication to him.
Cass had made one other promise, in a moment of weakness. Several months ago, when she’d first awoken after the Beater attack, she’d met a girl in the library that had been her shelter. Sammi-Dor’s daughter. Sammi was lively and brave, and when she asked Cass for a promise, she could not say no. Sammi had asked Cass to find her father. And Cass, tired and lonely and unmoored, had said yes. It had simply been easier than saying no.
Cass never believed it would happen-but it had. The odds of finding one man in what was left of the little mountain towns dotting the Sierras…well, the odds were small. And yet she had ended up in the Box, with Dor, and she’d passed on Sammi’s message of love and hope and longing for the father she never forgot.
Cass knew better than to ever imagine that she was blessed, that there was a lucky star over her or a divine shepherd looking out for her. Her own father was little more than a distant memory, a hazy dream that she’d relegated to the other memories of childhood, in a far corner of her mind. And yet, the thing she had promised had come to pass-she had found Dor. If it had happened once, wasn’t it possible that it could happen again?
But try as she might, Cass could not embrace faith, not this time.
“It will be all right,” she said to Malena, who’d sunk back into the chair. Cass chose her half-truths with care. “But we can’t do anything now. I’m sure they’ll let you see him soon-right?”
“Uh…yeah, soon,” Kaufman said, hedging. “I mean, maybe not today, what with the…procedure and all. But tomorrow. For sure tomorrow.”
“I have to wait here until tomorrow?” Malena wailed. “I don’t get to see him?”
Pace picked up a sheet of paper. It was printed with a grid, handwritten words lined up in the squares. “Actually we got your work assignments. Devin…well, given his special status and all, they’re going to do a special determination.”
“What’s that? What the hell is a determination?”
“All it means is special circumstances.” Kaufman looked increasingly uncomfortable. “Look, I’m sure he’ll get some sort of desk job. Or something.”
“Yes, I can’t make any promises but they’re looking for a few people in the records department,” Pace said, but he wouldn’t meet Malena’s eyes and Cass figured he was lying. “And you’re not going to be too far off. You’re in the receiving depot. Trust me, that’s a good assignment. You should be happy.”
“Shit, I started in demolition,” Kaufman said. “Breathed mortar for two weeks. I would have loved to get receiving.”
“What about me?” Cass asked. “And David?”
“You’re an outlier,” Lester said, with a trace of envy that he didn’t bother to mask. “That’s way different.”
“I’ll have an assignment for you soon, but it’s only temporary,” Pace said crisply, giving Lester a disapproving glance. “For one thing, you’ll be spending a lot of time in research. As for David, he’ll be considered for an assignment from the regular population pool. That may change when you move to permanent outlier quarters. But no moves will be feasible until spring, at the earliest. There’s a great deal to do. Now, let’s get everyone moving. There’s a new group that should be here any minute.”
As he and Kaufman talked in low voices about how best to move Malena, Lester touched Cass’s arm, his expression wistful.
“Those outlier quarters? When they get them done, it’ll be the closest thing anyone’s going to come to Before ever again.”
25
DOR WAS WAITING WHEN LESTER ESCORTED CASS and Ruthie to their room in the temporary quarters reserved for those waiting on their permanent assignments, a nearly empty floor of an unremarkable brick dormitory. The door of their room was propped open and he was sitting on the edge of one of two narrow beds, his jaw set in a hard line. He jumped to his feet and stood glowering, large hands hanging at his sides.
“Where have you been?”
“What are you doing here?” Cass couldn’t help staring at his crotch, which looked like it had the last time she’d seen him-if he’d had a vasectomy, he’d also had a remarkable recovery. He was wearing the same jeans he had on yesterday and a shirt she didn’t recognize. He’d shaved, but it wasn’t the precise, close shave he preferred, and she supposed no one had returned his pack to him yet. Dor’s one indulgence was his razor, which he paid the Box barber to sharpen twice a week. Entrepreneurs themselves, raiding parties often brought shaving cream or new straight blades to barter with Dor.
“I’ve already been snipped,” he growled, “like I told you all before. We could have saved a little time if you’d listened to me.” He directed this at Lester, who shrugged and turned to go, hand on the door frame.
“Just following orders. Besides, it’s not like you had to go through hell to prove it. See you around.”
His steps echoed down the hall. They were on the second floor of a boxy brick dorm. It was eerily quiet; Cass supposed most people were working at whatever jobs they’d been assigned.
“How did you prove it?” Cass kept her voice casual, unwilling to let out any of her emotions, especially not the embarrassment and shame that came to the surface the minute she saw him.
Dor shrugged. “Jacked off into a Dixie cup. With a copy of Penthouse from 2012. You’d think they’d be able to find a few copies from last year, given all the raiding they do.”
Cass felt her blush deepen, but she was determined to keep things light between them. “Who was on the cover?”
“I didn’t notice. I just looked at her tits.”
“Ha.” Cass didn’t believe him. Something in her wanted to think he probably didn’t look at anything at all, that he closed his eyes, that his mind was somewhere far away and unknowable to anyone but him.
And if she imagined for a fraction of a second that it was
But Dor couldn’t get away. Dor was stuck with her. Well, they were both adults-they would just have to find a way to deal with it.
“How did they know…you know?” Cass asked, aiming for nonchalance. “I mean, are you really, um…”
“Shooting blanks? Yeah, I had a vasectomy after Sammi. I think they just put some on a slide and check it out under the microscope. Hell, you could probably do it with one of those cheap scopes they use in middle school. The little fuckers are swimming around in there or they aren’t, you know?”
Cass wrinkled her nose. “Um.”
“Look, Cass, long as we’re on the subject…” His brief attempt at levity, rare enough for Dor on the best of days, was clearly over. He turned away from her, made a show of lining up the items on one of the two student desks-a pen, a pad of paper, a plastic cup-in perfect symmetry. “Just in case you’re wondering, I have no issues.” He cleared his throat. “Health issues.”
For a moment Cass didn’t understand-and then she did. There had been a recent outbreak of crabs in the Box;
