“I didn’t know,” Joey whispered.
“Of course you didn’t know,” Jenny snapped. “I don’t let anybody know. I don’t want anybody to know. You look at me and all you see is a body. You don’t even know me, but all of a sudden you’re convinced you really like me, or maybe you’re even falling in love with me.” She let out a ragged breath. “But you don’t know me. You don’t even try to get to know me. You just like the way I look.”
Embarrassment burned Joey’s face.
“Guys come around and hit on me,” Jenny said. “They think that I need them. I don’t need them. I’m making it on my own. Maybe it’s not anybody’s dream world, but it’s what I’ve got to live with.”
Joey waited for a moment, wanting to make sure she was done. He knew he should just wait her out, wait until she went back into the house. Instead, he asked, “Why don’t you leave?”
“Leave my dad?”
“Yeah.”
“Because he’s my dad,” Jenny answered. “And because everyone else has left him. My mom. His parents and brothers and sister. His friends. Oh, he still has drinking buddies, but they only come around when he’s got money and he’s buying.” She paused. “Kind of the same way guys come around me because they like what they see and not because of who I am.”
“Nobody should have to live like that.” Joey thought he was being supportive, but judging from the look of reproach on Jenny’s face, she hadn’t taken it that way.
“Grow up, Joey,” she said. “It’s not a perfect world. Sometimes you just have to take what life hands you. If I left my dad, he would die or end up in jail. I hate living with him, but I don’t want that to happen.” A single tear tracked down her cheek. “He’s my father, Joey, and I’m not going to leave him. He’s been left by too many people.”
Joey shoved his hands into his pockets. His anger had wilted, but the pain inside him still resonated, stronger now because he could feel the pain inside Jenny.
“And you’re not the only one with a fake ID, Joey,” she said. “I’m not twenty-three. I’m nineteen. So if I can handle this, I know you can.” She nodded at the house. “I think your mom is a fantastic lady, but she has her hands full with those kids in there. She could use some help.” She looked at him expectantly.
Joey stared back at her. “You lied to me. You told me you were twenty-three.”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
“No, it isn’t. If you hadn’t lied to me, I would have never lied to you. And you don’t know everything there is about living here.”
“And what don’t I know?”
Joey thought about the feelings he’d been having for months, about how Chris had seemed to consume the attentions of his mom and Goose, about how he had been relegated to the role of baby-sitter. The way his mom took in the kids who showed up at his house was a perfect case in point.
And now Jenny was using her own problems to try to make his seem insignificant. That was wrong. He was entitled to his feelings, and there was no denying how things had been around his house. Everybody had an excuse for why things had been that way. But in the end, that’s all they were: excuses.
Disgusted, frustrated, and hurting, missing Chris, Joey turned away and threw an open hand back at her. “Forget about it, Jenny. It’s not worth talking about.” He walked away, heading toward the base, not knowing what he was going to do but knowing he couldn’t stay there with all the pain and strangers inside his house.
He felt her eyes on his back for a long time, but when he turned around a couple blocks away, she wasn’t there. He kept walking, feeling more lost and alone than he ever had.
31
United States 75th Rangers 3rd Battalion
Field Command Post
35 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 1542 Hours
The world hung suspended from a single strand as thin as a gossamer spider web above the gleaming jaws of death.
Cal Remington sat in his ready room in the command post and reflected on that thought. The prose was too purple to put in a field report, but the summation would stand out in a biography or an episode of The History Channel.
The Ranger captain had no doubt that history was being made and that he would probably figure large in that history. A third of the world’s population had disappeared with no apparent catalyst—except for a sudden border skirmish that had flared up in the Middle East. The Middle East had been a hotbed of terrorism and world threat for decades—centuries even. But the fighting had never been anything like this. Some weapon of unimaginable power had been unleashed, and Remington had been at ground zero.
Rosenzweig’s formula had changed the balance of power within the Middle East. If there was any finger-pointing later, Rosenzweig would surely bear the brunt of the blame. Perhaps the Israeli scientist had come up with the miracle growth serum, but someone else—surely the Russians or the Chinese—had come up with the weapon that had eradicated all the missing people.
But why give it to the Syrians to use?
That was the question.
Sitting behind the desk, Remington rested his elbows on the chair arms and rested his hands together, fingertip pressed to fingertip. He felt tired. He was coming up on almost forty-eight hours without sleep. But he’d never needed that much sleep, and he’d always been able to get from his body what he demanded of it. He wouldn’t accept any less now.
He scanned the notebook computer in front of him. The LCD screen filled the small lightless room with soft blue illumination that grayed out all the color of his BDUs and the blue steel of his Colt .45 lying in the modular holster
