Unforsaken

“Did you see where she was?” Kaz asked.

“Hotel room,” Rattler said. “Chicago. I could see the skyscrapers out of the window. Up on a high floor, got her locked up like a damn bird in a cage.”

His fury was even stronger than before. I thought I knew why: a hotel room with a view like that would be expensive-far more luxurious than anything he could provide for her.

The irony-that he wanted to imprison her just as Prentiss’s men had, that only the location was different- seemed to escape him.

“Do you know which hotel?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he muttered. “But I will.”

“What are you going to do if you find her?” Kaz demanded.

“Not if, boy-when,” Rattler snapped. “I’m gonna bring her here, where she’s meant to be. We’re going to be a family. Me, her… my daughter.”

He hooked a thumb at me, his words giving me a chill.

“Aw, don’t look at me that way, girl,” he added, noting my reaction. “Gonna have sisters before long. You’re gonna help raise ’em up, a whole mess a Healers. I’m gonna make things right around here, put things back the way they’re supposed to be. No more giving away our destiny, our bloodline.”

“How are you going to do that?” Kaz demanded. “Round up Banished women and lock them up here? You’re gonna run out of room pretty quick.”

The blow that sent Kaz crashing onto the floor came so fast that I didn’t even see it, but suddenly Rattler was standing over Kaz with a boot on his chest. “Don’t you sass me again, boy,” he spit, and I realized that even without the gun he held in his hand, he was more than a match for Kaz. There was something almost inhuman about his coiled energy, his sheer power. Kaz was strong, his body tuned and hardened by lacrosse, but he was not a fighter, and in a match with Rattler, he would lose.

“It ain’t your place to question me, boy,” Rattler continued in a voice that was eerily soft. “I run this house. I will lead the Banished. I know where the blood runs strongest, and I-”

“What about me?” Derek demanded in a whining voice. His skin was pale and clammy and there were purple bags under his eyes. “You promised me a woman, you promised-”

“Yeah, right,” Rattler said smoothly, his expression flattening out as he turned to Derek. I realized that Derek had to be really stupid not to know he was being lied to. To me, it was obvious… but then again, I was the man’s daughter. There was more to the blood than I wanted to acknowledge. Rattler would never be my dad, but in fathering me he had passed on more than pure Banished blood: I was able to read him, sense his moods. “You’ll have your pick, Derek. Any woman you want.”

“I better,” Derek mumbled, taking a drink of his water, some of it dribbling down his chin. “I just better.”

Rattler took his boot off Kaz and offered him a hand, which Kaz refused. As Kaz got to his feet, Rattler shrugged. “There may be a place for you, son, once you realize I’m your best shot here. Hailey stays with me. You work with me, maybe you can stay too.”

He turned away, so he didn’t see the look Kaz gave him. But I did, and Kaz’s silent fury mirrored my own feelings.

Rattler was strong, and he was smart. But we would find a way to be stronger and smarter.

20

AFTER RATTLER LEFT, his old truck spinning gravel as he peeled out onto the road, Derek got more and more agitated. I suspected that it was because he wasn’t drinking. As much as I knew he wanted to, he was too afraid of Rattler, who had made him promise to watch us around the clock and keep us out of trouble.

“Ought to just lock y’all up in them rooms upstairs,” Derek muttered several times.

The minutes ticked by. I had found a stack of old Time magazines in a drawer, and Kaz and I tried to read them while Derek played with the change from his pockets, pushing the coins into patterns on the table. I thought I’d go crazy from boredom, but I didn’t want to provoke Derek into following through with his threat. At least I had Kaz for company as long as he let us remain downstairs.

A little before noon, there was a knock at the front door.

“What was that?” Derek said, his hands shaking with nervous energy as he set his coffee cup down harder than necessary, bitter brew sloshing onto the table.

I could see the front door of the run-down house from the kitchen. Staring through the gloomy, dusty sitting room, I thought I could see it tremble on its hinges as the sound came again: a methodical, rhythmic pounding.

“We don’t got to answer that,” Derek said. He swallowed hard, pushing his chair back from the table and brushing at his lap. “We wait a bit, why, they’ll leave like as not, whoever that is.”

“Mr. Pollitt,” I said in a low voice, “if someone’s come all the way out here, odds are they aren’t going to give up just because we don’t answer the door. This house… your family’s home… it’s been, uh, empty for a while now and I’m guessing everyone knows it. Let’s say they saw us drive in, maybe they’re worried about a break-in or something, being a good neighbor and checking it out. If you don’t talk to them, they’re going to make some calls. Trust me on this, they’re not going to let it lie.”

No matter who was there-a neighbor, a traveling salesman, someone from the phone company-there was a chance it could turn into an opportunity for escape, as long as Derek didn’t panic and do something crazy. The farm road was thinly populated, and even a little extra traffic-Rattler’s and Derek’s driving back and forth to town as they stocked and outfitted the house-might easily have been noticed. I wondered how Rattler could have expected any different-people in Gypsum knew everything about each other-but then I realized that he just didn’t care. He meant to keep me and Prairie here under lock and key as long as necessary, but he was banking on it not taking all that long, on our staying willingly soon enough.

Despite everything-despite Prairie rejecting Rattler over and over when they were children, despite her leaving town with no intention of ever returning, despite his having brutalized her sister and fathered me, even despite my having tried to kill him-he had faith in his vision of us as a family. A family that would swell with more children and grow to include any Banished he deemed worthy-those whose blood was pure. The rest would be relegated to the grunt work, like Derek.

Rattler’s belief in his vision gave him power, and his power terrified me. We would need every advantage we could find to fight him.

“Hailey’s right,” Kaz told Derek. “Do you want me to get the door?”

“Stay there, boy,” he ordered Kaz. “I guess this is still my damn house, I’ll answer my own goddamn door.” With his hand on the knob, he turned and glared at us. “Y’all keep quiet. And ease on back where they cain’t see you.”

We complied, flattening ourselves against the kitchen wall, out of sight of the front door. Kaz stood close behind me, his warm breath on my neck. As soon as Derek turned his back, I peeked around the corner. I wondered if I should scream when Derek opened the door, yell that we were being held hostage, but Derek had his gun in his hand, and I didn’t doubt he’d use it-on the visitor, if not on us.

He opened the door and I could see a tall figure standing in the bright morning sun, but I couldn’t make out his features in the blinding light.

“Yeah?” Derek said. “I help you with somethin’?”

So it wasn’t someone he knew, a neighbor or someone from town. My dread grew as I wondered if Prentiss could have found us already, if even now a team was circling the house, covering all the escape routes.

But the visitor said nothing. He didn’t appear to have a weapon; his hands hung loose at his sides. After a moment he took a step, crossing the threshold and stopping inches from Derek.

“Hey, what the… Holy shit,” Derek yelped, and suddenly he stumbled backward, scrabbling to aim his gun at the intruder. “Don’t you come any closer!”

But the man took another step, out of the pool of sunlight and into the cool dimness of the house, and as my eyes adjusted, I saw that something was terribly wrong.