I tried to hug her again, but she pushed me away.
“No. Just please tell me what we’re going to do now.”
I thought about it, then went and got the shopping list and pen out of the kitchen.
I got to go tell Owen about Willow and Dodge. Then back to the family business.
Harper read it. “You’re going after Kathan?”
I nodded.
“I am, too, I guess,” she said.
I shook my head, hard.
“It’s not like I can live happily ever after now. And if it helps somebody else never feel this…” She sighed. “There’s nothing else I can do. I either go fight or stay here and wish I was dead some more.”
That I could understand. Fight and die or live and cry.
“I’m going to go get dressed,” she said, heading for the stairs. “Get anything you want out of the house. We’re not coming back.”
There wasn’t anything left that I wanted, but I went upstairs and changed into a clean t-shirt with less blood and dirt and bullet holes. My jeans were just about shot, but they were the only pair I had.
Across the hall, I could hear Harper sobbing again. I pulled my hat back on, then looked around the room for something I couldn’t live without. Mom’s tattooed acoustic was in pieces on the front lawn, the agate pick with Tough written on it that Colt got me for my thirteenth birthday was lost somewhere out there, too. The only other thing I could think of was my beat-up MP3 player, but I couldn’t find it. The speaker dock was on its side on the floor, with the plug hanging halfway in and halfway out of the outlet.
Harper’s footsteps went down the hall. The top step creaked as she headed downstairs.
Fuck it. It wasn’t like I could even listen to music right now anyway. It would just sound like noise.
When I got down to the living room, I could hear something hissing air in the kitchen and Harper digging around in the drawers.
I grabbed the shopping list and pen off the coffee table and wrote a note to Owen.
Harper came out of the kitchen with a lighter and a Molotov cocktail made out of what was left of a bottle of tequila and a washrag. She went to the couch and bent down to kiss Scout on the cheek. Then she stood up and looked at me.
I could smell the gas now, coming from the stove. I wondered whether Harper had turned on all the burners or jerked the pipe out of the back of the connector, but I didn’t go look. I just ripped my note off the shopping list and nodded to let her know I was ready to go.
We headed out onto the front porch. The sky was still the color of dried blood, but since it was night, the darkness didn’t feel as weird.
Harper stopped on the steps, tipped the tequila upside down so it would soak the rag, then she lit it up and threw it through the broken screen door. We were about halfway down the block when we heard the boom.
*
The wind picked up as we walked, kicking up dust devils around us and tearing at my shirt. I pulled my hat down tighter just in case. Overhead, lightning crackled and disappeared. Every now and then the ground shook like the planet was trying to explode from the inside out.
By the time we got to the trailer court, the moon was shining down as bright and red as a new scab. Harper waited out in the street near one of the smaller potholes while I went up the metal steps to Owen and Clara’s little trailer and knocked.
At first I didn’t think anybody was going to answer, but then I heard movement inside. The door swung open.
As soon as Owen saw me, he hit me. He socked me with everything a guy pushing 230 could throw into a punch. It knocked me off the porch and into the dry grass next to his car. He came down the steps, grabbed me up by the last unripped shirt I owned and hit me again.
“What are we supposed to tell Bitsy?” Owen yelled. “When she starts hollering for mama tomorrow, what are we supposed to tell her? Huh? What? What do I tell her? What the fuck do you tell a little baby girl who wants her mama?”
Then he wrapped his big arms around my shoulders and let loose with some grade-A, certified, country-fried sobbing that shook us both. All I could do was let him get it out of his system. Honestly, I’d been hoping he would hit me some more, give me the ass-whupping I deserved.
When Owen got himself a little more under control, he stepped back and asked, “Dodge? He make it or—”
I shook my head.
He started crying again. “Dammit all.”
Tell me about it, I thought.
After a few more minutes, Owen pulled it together again. I handed him the note I’d made before Harper and I left the house.
Get out of town. Take Bitsy and get somewhere safe.
I didn’t actually know if there was any safe place left in the world, but anywhere had to be better than Halo.
Owen stared at the note for a while before nodding. “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this to her. How do we tell her why we’re leaving her mama behind? Will and Dodge both… Dammit. Did they… Was it bad?”
I pointed at the note.
He turned it over.
Will and Dodge died tonight. Dodge died trying to save me. Will died trying to warn everybody that
