“But do they get macaroni and cheese? What childhood is complete without it?”
“I mean it, Ray.”
There would be no arguing with that tone. “Duly noted,” he replied. “I’ve told you all about me. The warehouse, my life before and after. You haven’t told me much about you.”
“Are you familiar with the term OPSEC?”
“Of course. Operational security. I worked for the government, remember? So you’re saying if you told me about your life, you’d have to kill me?”
“I won’t tell you much about our village. Yet. You’ll be seeing parts of it soon anyway.”
“So tell me about before. Did you always live there? No offense, but you sound...”
“Not like an Appalachian hillbilly?” she finished.
“Yes.”
“I started out here, but the day after I graduated from high school, I left for Knoxville. Leaving the holler was...frowned upon, but I’d won a full academic scholarship to the University of Tennessee.”
“You were a rebel. Nice. What was your degree?”
“Political science. I minored in economics.”
“So you planned to go into politics?”
“Yes, ultimately. I’d been involved in local elections for years after college, much of it volunteer stuff. Then I got a job at Mayor Haslam’s office back in 2008. When Haslam got himself elected governor, I was on a fast track to be selected as his top advisor. I was getting ready to move to Nashville when the pandemic started hitting the news.”
“Bill Haslam. A Republican, right?”
“Yes, but party affiliation never mattered to me.”
“What did?”
Without hesitation, she replied, “Power.”
“I see.”
She laughed again. “I realize that sounds bad. Maybe control would have been a better word choice.”
Ray decided to change the subject. “How terrible was it in Knoxville during the end?”
“Horrible for a lot of people. I always had a feeling we wouldn’t catch the sickness, though. Can’t explain why. And I had a plan because I’d seen the writing on the wall earlier than most. I knew I’d be leaving and taking my children home to the holler. A remote, rural location was the smart choice to ride out the chaos. Once I realized it was going to be much worse than what the officials in DC were telling us, I made a list, rented a U-Haul, loaded it up, and left town. Not before polite society began to collapse, though.”
“I can confirm that what was coming out of DC was willfully inaccurate. You and the children must have been in danger, I imagine. What about their father?” He couldn’t help himself.
“I have no idea what happened to him. He was not part of our lives, and my kids never knew him.”
He could tell by the tone in her voice that the subject of paternity was now closed. Shifting again, he said, “I’m curious about what was on your list. Emergency preparedness was what I did for a living, you know.”
“Sorry. OPSEC.”
He smiled, tripped over a vine, and fell flat on his face.
He waited for laughter that didn’t materialize. His hand no longer held onto her sleeve, but he managed to stand up. “Where’d you go?”
No response came from Serena Jo, but he heard movement.
He ripped the scarf from his eyes.
Two women stood facing each other across those yards. Both pointed rifles at each other. Serena Jo wore a grim expression. Lizzy smirked. A picture flashed through his mind: a graceful snowy swan facing a clever ebony-hued raven. The imagery was both a bizarre and unwelcome distraction at the moment.
“I’m a better shot,” Serena Jo said, her tone matter-of-fact.
“You can’t know that. Your knowledge of any marksmanship ends with you. Besides, if you kill me, you’re killing your little girl. Yes, I know she’s yours. I’ve been watching your village. She’ll die of dehydration and hunger long before you can find her.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“No you won’t.” Lizzy’s grin unfurled.
Ray covered the two steps between himself and Serena Jo faster than he would have thought possible.
“You’ll have to go through me, Lizzy,” he said. “Something tells me you don’t want me dead. Not yet.”
“I don’t need to be rescued,” Serena Jo hissed from behind.
“You should probably listen less to your inner voice, Ray. Your instincts are dreadful.” Lizzy giggled. Then a section of her upper sleeve exploded. The sharp report of a rifle followed.
Ray blinked in confusion. Serena Jo hadn’t fired. Then his brain caught up to events. By the time that happened, Lizzy had disappeared and Otis jogged past.
“Don’t kill her, Otis!” Serena Jo yelled to his back.
Without breaking stride, Otis nodded.
“Damn it,” Serena Jo said once he’d entered the tree line.
“He winged her,” Ray said.
“I’m not sure he hit anything but fabric. She’s skinny. You said she was slender, but she looked emaciated. I guess Fergus was right.”
“Are we going after her?”
Serena Jo shook her head. “Otis is the best. Better than me. If he can’t track her, she can’t be tracked. I need to get back to my boy.” There was urgency in her voice now. She sounded close to panic.
“We can make better time if I don’t have to wear the scarf.”
“Let’s go,” she replied, and took off at a run.
Chapter 19
Fergus
“So apparently a bear does not defecate in the woods,” Willadean said as Fergus struggled with the scalpel.
“Sometimes your precociousness is annoying,” he replied, concentrating on the handcuffs behind his back.
“I wish I could say that was the first time someone told me that.”
Fergus laugh-grunted. “If a certain person had located the handcuff key instead of a razor-sharp scalpel, we’d be out of here by now.”
“I’m just a kid. You should be doing the heavy lifting.”
She had a point. He’d managed to get himself out
