Astray (2 page)

If my recoiling from his touch bothers Cody, he doesn’t show it. Instead he picks up more hair and starts filling in my beard.

I don’t know if I should apologize or just ignore what’s just happened. After a moment of silence, I choose ignoring. “I need to see him. Make sure.” I don’t finish this sentence. I’ll just sound weird. After I shot him twice in the chest, almost exactly in the heart, I was sure he would
die, but he didn’t—even after lots of complications. I can’t seem to stop myself from wondering if maybe he really is what he says he is. How else could he have survived it all? If I can’t see Pioneer as just a man instead of some kind of messiah, I’ll never get rid of the part of me who still wants to believe in him.

Cody pats the last bit of beard hair in place. He steps back and studies my face. “Not bad.”

He spins me around in the stool by my shoulders and hands me a mirror. I don’t look like me at all. In a strange sort of way, I look like a younger version of my dad. I’ve never seen bits of him in my face before.

Dad
.

I wince at my reflection. I don’t miss my parents most of the time, because I try not to think about them. I need this time away to figure things out, but then something like this happens and I feel my chest hollow out, my stomach constrict. I turn away from the mirror. No more staring at myself this morning.

Cody starts tapping spirit gum onto his own jawline. He’s working faster. We gave ourselves two hours before we needed to leave, but we’re quickly running out of time. Pioneer’s transfer is scheduled for less than an hour from now. I watch as Cody presses a lighter set of hairs onto his chin. His beard is longer—wilder than the one he gave me. In a matter of ten more minutes, he’s done.

Cody walks over to his bed and pulls on a thick sweatshirt before he adjusts the Mel’s Trucking Company cap
on top of his head—the one that he picked up at the thrift store. He grabs two camouflage coats and we pull them on as we head out the side door that leads to the backyard.

Here we go
.

Cody leads me to his car, parked out on the curb by the mailbox. We slip inside, both of us cringing as the rusty driver’s-side door groans open loudly enough to startle some birds out of the trees beside the house. It feels like the houses, trees, even the birds are watching us, waiting to see if I’ll go through with this. I settle into the passenger seat before I can change my mind, and Cody pulls the car out of park, lets it roll down the tiny hill toward the end of the street before parking it again and starting it up.

It’s not quite six in the morning. The streets are mostly empty, making the town seem deserted. I’m shaking hard now, enough that it’s obvious to Cody. He keeps shifting his eyes from the road to me and back again. Every minute that passes, it gets harder and harder to fight the urge to ask Cody to turn the car around.

Finally, Cody slows and pulls the car onto the road that leads to the hospital. I can see the parking lot now and most of the hospital itself, looming large in front of us. Everywhere I look there are news vans and people. The sheriff’s plan to keep Pioneer’s transfer low-key has failed. It looks like a large chunk of the town is heading toward the wide stretch of sidewalk and lawn leading up to the hospital’s side entrance. The Community is still there. I can see Mr. Brown from where I sit.

“They won’t know it’s you. Lyla, it’s almost better that all these people are here.” Cody parks the car and gathers me into his arms.

I’m rigid. Frozen.

Cody’s mouth is beside my ear. “You don’t have to do this.”

I want him to stop saying that. I
do
have to do this. I pull myself out of his arms and open the car door. The wind whips inside and makes my eyes sting.

“C’mon,” I say. We get out of the car and walk toward the hospital. The crowd buzzes with chatter and excitement. I can feel the air humming with it.

In a few minutes most of these people will have their first glimpse of what they’re certain is a monster disguised as a man. They’re one hundred percent convinced of it.

Now I want to be too.

I am a miracle. I am the messiah. After seeing what I’ve survived, how could you possibly believe otherwise?

—Pioneer

My parents are here.

I try not to reel backward when I see them. For a split second I forget that I’m in disguise. I hug myself—a very un-guy-like pose. I’ve visited with them every week during our counseling sessions; seeing them today shouldn’t shock me. It’s just that the rest of the Community wasn’t around when we met, and so, stupidly, I’d been hoping that they were starting to rethink their involvement in it. I didn’t expect them to be on their knees too.

The last time I was with the Community and my parents at the same time was when we went back to Mandrodage Meadows, stood around the Silo, and watched the sun go down on what was supposed to be the last day. My family’s counselor, Mrs. Rosen, said I needed a break from them—that they needed a break from me—while we all made sense of what Pioneer did to us. That’s why I’m with Cody and his family. It’s temporary, but I’m thankful that they took me in at all. Mrs. Rosen was right—I needed to
get away from the Community. My head feels clearer in their absence. I only wish my parents had taken some time away too.

I stare at my mom. She’s kneeling just behind a line of deputies. Her face is turned toward the hospital doors, to where Pioneer will come out. Even if I weren’t in disguise, I doubt she’d see me. All of her attention is reserved for Pioneer.

Unbelievably.

Still.

Beside Mom, my dad looks a bit lost and confused. There’s something sure in my mom’s expression that’s lacking in his, but his eyes are trained on the doors too. Beyond them I can see my Intended, Will, and my old friends Brian, Heather, and Julie. Will’s eyes pass over me without stopping. I let out a breath for what feels like the first time since I saw everyone. If my best friend—the boy I was supposed to marry—doesn’t know it’s me, no one else will either. Brian glares in my direction and my heart squeezes a bit in my chest, but then I realize that he’s glaring at everyone, not me specifically. He’s lost the most out of all of us. His Intended, Marie, and his dad both died the day of the raid—Marie inside the Silo and his dad outside on the development wall defending it. Brian doesn’t blame Pioneer for their deaths. He blames me and the sheriff and every single Outsider that was at the raid.

Brian’s eyes settle on the people just in front of him now. I follow his gaze to a group of people standing there.
They’ve got their hands up around their mouths, barely disguising the smirks on their faces as they stare at Brian and the others. I watch as Brian gets off his knees and puffs out his chest. I move forward to get a better look. He says something and the deputy closest to where he is turns around, shakes his head at him. The smirkers start to laugh and I see another deputy move in to flank the group. Brian’s chin juts out and his eyes narrow even more. He’s always had a temper, but now it’s like he’s about to blow. What if he loses it and tries something? If the deputy has to subdue him, the rest of the Community will rush to Brian’s defense. This could get bad fast. I clear my throat and prepare to yell, but then I don’t know who to warn—the deputy, the smirkers, or Brian.

Before I can make a sound, a guy a little older than Brian steps up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Even though he isn’t from the Community, Brian doesn’t shrug him off. I study the man a little closer. He seems to know Brian and the others. None of them seem very concerned that he’s standing with them. I don’t understand it. They’ve shunned all of the Outsiders as much as possible, even the counselors. Who is he?

He’s dressed in camouflage pants and a thick black coat. His hair is close-cropped. Everything about him says military to me. Is he somehow with the deputies? But then I notice the way he’s looking at them, his body squared off like he’s expecting them to attack Brian too. He doesn’t like the deputies either.

Cody follows my gaze and stares at the guy next to Brian and the five or so other guys also dressed in camo who are now beside him. “Those Freedom Rangers are kind of an intense-looking bunch, aren’t they?”

I nod. They certainly look more hardcore than I thought they would.

The sheriff’s mentioned this militia group several times, and every time his face looked pinched like he swallowed something bitter. They call themselves a civil liberties group, but the sheriff said most of them are “nothing more than a bunch of cowboy wannabes,” big on guns and making their own rules. I’m not sure if he’s right. I also heard that when they showed up after the raid on our development made national headlines, they came armed with both laptops and guns. They spent the first few days setting up a web page and blog for the Community where they asked people to donate what they could to help get the group back on its feet. They managed to raise enough money in the first four weeks after the raid hit the papers to rent a large section of farmland on the outskirts of town, put a bunch of used mobile homes on it for everyone to live in, hire a lawyer to help get Brian, Julie, Will, and the others out of the foster homes that the state put them in, and raise some money for Pioneer’s defense.

I’m surprised that Pioneer and the others would let Outsiders support them. We were always taught to avoid Outsiders at all costs. Now my friends and family are standing shoulder to shoulder with some.

“Wonder how comfortable your, um, group is with having them camp out with them on the same land … since they’re Outsiders and all.” Cody keeps studying them, his eyes squinting against the sunrise. It’s funny how closely his thoughts echo mine.

Cody’s never once used the word “cult” to describe the Community, even though every other Outsider I’ve met has. I’ve never told him that I don’t like the term, that just saying it makes me feel like my throat is closing up, but somehow he must sense it. Whenever I notice him being careful with his words, it makes me want to kiss him. He doesn’t manage it all the time—like earlier when he called Julie an idiot, but he tries and that’s enough. I lean into him, then remember my manly disguise and smile at him instead, but I’m not sure he can see it through my beard.

I go back to studying the Rangers. I’ll get to see them up close this week when I go visit my parents. Mrs. Rosen scheduled our next session in their new “home” to see if I can start to feel comfortable there. Her goal is to have me begin living with my parents again before next summer. Will and all the other kids from the Community were given back to their parents right after the Rangers hired that lawyer and the foster-care people determined that the only immediate threat to them was Pioneer. I’m the only one who didn’t want to go back. I still don’t.

I shift from one foot to the other. Cody glances at his watch. “They’re running late. Probably because of the crowd,” he says. I blow on my frozen fingers and nod.

In the space between the Community and where Cody and I are standing is a crowd of news people. So far most of them have been wandering around, talking on phones and sipping at Styrofoam cups full of coffee, but all at once they start rushing around. The cameramen hoist cameras over their shoulders.

The deputies in front of them put their hands up. “Stay behind the barricades!” they shout almost in unison.

From behind the reporters there’s a short burst of sirens as an ambulance pulls up to the sidewalk. Pioneer will have to go right by the press and us to get to it. I’ll be almost close enough to reach out and touch him if I want to. My heart starts beating a little faster and I clench my teeth to keep them from chattering. He’ll be brought out any minute now.

Across from us my friends and family stand in unison and burst into a chant, the one we said just before every meal and meeting in Mandrodage Meadows.

Their faces are upturned toward the hospital doors and I realize mine is too. My lips are mouthing the words
with them. Cody gapes at me. I joined in without even knowing I was doing it. I dip my chin and glance around to make sure that no one else saw me, but all eyes are on the Community. Several people shake their heads, give the Community lots of space like maybe if they touch them they’ll catch whatever it is that they have and start chanting too; others start to laugh. From somewhere close by I hear two women talking.

“They’re certifiably insane. Didn’t I tell you? And we’re supposed to allow our kids to be exposed to that?” She makes a disgusted sound. “They won’t get within five feet of our boys if I can help it.”

I turn around to see who’s talking. It’s a woman in a brown quilted coat with a white knit scarf wound tightly around her neck. Her face is red from cold, anger, lack of air, or all three. The woman with her is nodding absently, her eyes still glued to the Community. She looks scared to death.

I grimace. All of the kids from the Community—me included—are set to begin Outsider school tomorrow. Culver Creek High. I’d been wondering why no one tried to make us go earlier. Now I guess I know. The Outsiders don’t like us either.
Interesting
.

As soon as the Community members say the last line, they start the chant over again. The news crews train their cameras on them, and several reporters start talking into their microphones in hushed tones I can’t quite make out. By the time the chant gets repeated for a third time, the
air feels charged in the same way it does before a wicked thunderstorm.

The hospital doors open and Cody’s dad, Sheriff Crowley, appears, surrounded by five deputies. They linger in the doorway a minute eyeing the crowd. Finally two of the deputies trot up to join the ones holding the news people and everyone else at bay. The crowd presses into them. The Freedom Rangers start shouting.

“
No raid without cause!
”