The two women had been ordinary. A mother, an aunt, but they had stood up to the Rebuilders and for that they had been executed, their bodies draped in a heap in the center of the school, left to burn and burn and burn.
Cass doubted the story Jimbo told, that Smoke had continued shooting a downed man, but thinking about the fire, she realized that perhaps she would have done the same if she had been there.
She found the torn place in the shirt, slipped a finger through the hole and searched for the wound in Smoke’s shoulder. His skin was impossibly hot; infection must have set in. There. It was a jagged hole, but not too large.
Why couldn’t it be Smoke who had her immunity? Cass supposed that if she was the one shot, her body would immediately start healing. It happened with cuts, even deep ones. There would be no infection, and the severed nerves and vessels would eventually knit back together. But not Smoke. He was nothing special at all. He had never been a soldier, never worn a uniform, had only learned to sharpshoot, to run with a heavy pack and scale obstacles and make strategy on the fly when he started working for Dor.
Had Dor taught him brutality, too? She’d seen Smoke, on the mornings she followed him, her jacket’s hood pulled up all the way for warmth. She’d watched him practice the chopping fist motions that Joe taught him for hand-to-hand fighting; watched him run up and down the steps of an apartment building until he was drenched in sweat, his calves trembling and his lungs fighting for air. Smoke had worked so hard to make himself dangerous. Was it all for this? All so that he could fight against an enemy so powerful that it barely flinched before replacing its fallen?
Would Smoke’s actions mean anything at all? Death was cheap; the world would not miss a few more men in the prime of their lives.
“When did he get here?” Cass asked.
“Two nights ago,” Jimbo said. “The recruiting party spent the night up at Emerson Gap, they were heading up to Silverton. There’s a group up at the old MegaBass Pro Shops, that big one they built back in like ’14 or ’15, something like that…bought a wakeboard there once.” He spat off into the darkness, spittle falling on Cass’s exposed neck. “Don’t know how this asshole knew to look for them there, but he was waiting. He was up in a tree the whole time, waited until they made camp and rushed them after dark.”
Was that why Dor let him go so easy? Why he tried to put Cass’s fears to rest? Was it because he really believed Smoke had a chance? Or because he didn’t want her running after him? Cass’s anger at Dor grew; it was one man against at least four. The element of surprise was good, that was true; without it, Smoke would not have been able to take out even the two he did. But how could Dor have expected him to win? All the target practice in the world, all the jogging and weights couldn’t prepare him for his first actual battle, and he’d gone in alone.
“Why?” she whispered, lowering herself as gently as she could against Smoke’s body. He had slipped back into unconsciousness, and she felt only his weak heartbeat in response. Why had he thought he could do this? But she already knew the answer-he’d never intended to live; he only meant to take out as many of them as he could before he died.
Would he be satisfied now to know that he’d killed two? It didn’t seem like much of a trade for one’s own life.
She forced herself to stand, letting her hand linger on Smoke’s unhurt shoulder for a moment. She faced Jimbo and hugged herself in the cold.
“I need you to make him live,” she said quietly. “Medicine, antibiotics, whatever you have. I’ll do anything for you. Anything.”
Ralston sputtered a protest, something about the next hour, and she placed a hand on his arm to quiet him. “I remember our bargain,” she said steadily, before turning her focus back to Jimbo. He was watching her carefully, his wiry gray eyebrows knit together.
“I’m an outlier,” she said, waiting to make sure he understood. “I’ll have certain privileges. Freedoms. I’ll be able to come and go…to come to you. As long as you keep him alive, you can have…”
She shrugged off her coat, letting it hang at her elbows, and for the second time that night she strained against the thin fabric of the nightgown, hoping the light from his small flashlight would illuminate the shape of her breasts, of her taut stomach, her hips. She cupped one breast, lifting it for his appraisal. “You can have anything you want,” she finished, and then she couldn’t help looking to reassure herself that Smoke was still unconscious, because even though she could give herself away, could give away every last cell of her body, every wracked corner of her soul, he could never know. This would be her gift to him: he would never know that his life was what she bought with her trade.
“You’d like that,” Ralston said, and for one confusing moment Cass mistook his tone for jealousy, for anger that she was so quick to offer what she’d just given him, down on her knees on the cold ground, but when he seized her wrist and twisted it so that she had to bend double, Cass realized that she had made two important misjudgments:
First, she’d forgotten that-just like in the Box-the most important positions were given to those who’d done the security jobs Before: the cops and Marines and highway patrol, the prison guards and gangbangers. The hard men.
And second, that even a man who thrusts against you with the strangled cry of an adolescent, who shudders as he spills his seed inside you, unmindful of his momentary vulnerability, his shaft already going soft between your teeth, will forget all that when he believes he’s been wronged.
“You can see your murderer boyfriend all you want in detention-if he lives that long,” Ralston spat.
“I never stood against the Rebuilders,” Cass protested, but already they were leading her down the hall, forcing her to go too quickly, so that she stumbled and nearly fell, her arms yanked cruelly as they pulled her along, and when they passed the staircase and continued into a little room, a closet where brooms and supplies were stored, Cass knew with horrifying certainty that they meant to deliver her their version of justice-and that she’d brought it on herself.
But she’d done worse. And she’d no doubt do worse again.
30
DOR RUBBED THE METAL BOX, RUNNING HIS thumb over the smooth silvery surface, before slipping it back in his pocket. He sat on the edge of the bed Cass had left. Ruthie, sensing his closeness in her sleep, had rolled closer to him and hooked her small hand over his leg.
Ruthie was an odd child in some ways, cautious and easily spooked, but at times Dor caught glimpses of the mischievous spirit hidden within her. Subdued, maybe, but not quashed. At times it seemed that even Cass could not detect the sly little grin that flashed across Ruthie’s pretty features when she had played some tiny trick for her own amusement, some clever gesture just because she could. A mother, tasked with protecting her child from birth, exhausted from the dangers and heartaches, could easily miss such moments.
Not long ago, Dor had come across Ruthie in the Box with Feo, playing a game they’d invented that involved Feo standing on a gentle berm where Cass had planted pine seedlings. The boy stood patiently, whistling. The object of the game seemed to be for him to pretend he was all alone and for Ruthie to try to sneak up on him. There was something desperately sweet about the boy-tough and disrespectful to most adults, his face generally wary and mistrustful-whistling with his hands in his pockets until Ruthie, over and over, came charging at him from behind the little trees, slamming her little body into him, and every time he acted as though she had taken him completely by surprise and fell to the ground. They rolled together, Feo yelling in pretend terror, Ruthie shaking with her soundless laughter, until she disentangled herself and went running off to hide again.
Dor figured Ruthie would be fine. After all, he’d been through fourteen years with Sammi; fourteen years of heart-stopping terrors and humbling corrections, the usual drill for a first-time parent. He’d overprotected, sure, but at least he’d been wise enough to let Sammi go when she needed to test herself. That was something Jessica had not been able to do. Jessica smothered-she was a great mother, at times, but now Dor could only pray that some of
