Authors: Sophie Littlefield
She didn’t tell him that she’d be gone by then.
She searched for Smoke up and down the rows. A few daytime drunks lay passed out here and there, but guards rousted those in the neat paths and shuffled them off to the area where Cass had found Gloria earlier. Cass figured that a cot there was part of the deal for the most hardcore drinkers, the ones who wouldn’t spend money on a tent when it could instead feed their addiction. Or—more likely—maybe even these mean accommodations came with a price, and those who couldn’t pay were tossed out at night. She averted her eyes from the bodies lying on the cots, limbs splayed over the edges, and wondered what kind of man Dor must be to send people back out to fend for themselves just because they couldn’t afford a cot.
She didn’t find Smoke near the front, where a handful of travelers were checking in with George, going through the ritual of laying out their possessions on the table. She searched the stalls, ignoring the vendors calling out offers of underwear, socks, sweaters, grooming products, packaged food. When she couldn’t find Smoke anywhere in the camp she steeled herself and ducked through a space in the rows to where a makeshift bar gathered a variety of people standing and sitting on plastic chairs. They nursed drinks from mugs and plastic cups and smoked down expertly rolled joints. In nooks created by blankets hung from poles, she saw people shooting up or huddled over pipes. But still no Smoke.
The sun had begun to descend in the sky, and Cass was starting to get nervous. Gloria had advised her to go before the evening meal, while the deacons responsible for reviewing candidates for the Order would still be assembled. Evenings were devoted to prayer and silence, as were mornings; conversation was allowed only between the morning and evening meals.
She considered asking around to see if anyone had seen Smoke; so many people seemed to know about what he’d done, how he’d fought the Rebuilders. But the mortification of having been caught the night before stopped her. There was no way to know who had heard them and who hadn’t.
Still, she had searched nearly everywhere…everywhere but the line of blue tents, and she stared at them for long moments, trying to decide. A few had their flaps tied back, flashes of a bare leg or braceleted wrists visible from the depths where women waited for customers, but most of the tents were closed, their occupants busy inside. Gloria was in one of them, Cass guessed, since she hadn’t spotted her anywhere else. The thought pained her, and she wished she’d had something more to give Gloria, but she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Cass was not in a position to judge, and never would be again.
She turned away. There was only one other place she hadn’t looked, a construction trailer mounted on blocks near the edge of the Box that backed up against the stadium. Its windows were shaded by miniblinds, and a guard sat in a chair out front. Cass had no doubt that this was where Dor kept his office. It was the only place left that she hadn’t looked. She deliberated for only a moment before heading for the trailer—she could deliver the message from Sammi and make one last effort to find Smoke and then be on her way.
Up close she could see that the area around the trailer was tended even more meticulously than the rest of the encampment. Gravel had been raked into neat beds around three sides and edged with brick. In a neat row down the middle grew a row of coreopsis, young plants with only a few orange buds among the dark green leaves.
Cass looked closer, amazed. She hadn’t seen coreopsis since the second strike, the one carried out on a rainy New Year’s day a few hours before the California dawn. The missiles had struck all across North America within moments of each other, and, remarkably, no reports of death had surfaced as the weapons struck deserts and plains and mountain gorges and broke apart, releasing their toxins. Some people said they smelled something bitter in the misty air of morning, but Cass didn’t believe it; the poisons went to work with the brilliant efficiency that it had taken the world’s scientists a decade to perfect, and by dusk of the first day of the new year, eighty percent of the plants that survived the first round of strikes began to wither and droop.
Coreopsis was a tough plant, weedy and fibrous, but that hadn’t helped. A week into January it lay dead on the ground along with everything else. Yet here it was, like the tiny redwood seedlings they’d seen along the road, come back to life.
Electric cords snaked through the flower bed to a generator that hummed off to the side. In a canvas chair out front sat a boy too young to know how to use the semiautomatic rifle he held loosely across his lap. He watched Cass expressionlessly as she approached.
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering if I could see Dor,” Cass said.
“Open hours at five o’clock.”
Cass didn’t point out the obvious, that she hadn’t seen any clocks or watches in the compound, other than the one the young guard wore strapped to his wrist.
“I have a message from his daughter.”
The boy narrowed his eyes, and his grip on the gun was suddenly not as casual. “He doesn’t have a daughter.”
“I say he does. Look, I’ll wait out here while you ask him. I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. Her name is Sammi.”
The guard hesitated, glancing up the three metal steps to the trailer’s door. “Just a minute,” he finally said. “Stay right there.”
When he knocked sharply and entered the trailer, Cass exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It took only a moment before the door was flung open and the guard came back out, followed by a man who stepped out onto the small platform at the top of the stairs. Cass squinted into the setting sun and took an involuntary step back.
Dor MacFall was not what she expected. He was a few inches over six feet tall and broad through the chest, his arms tanned dark and bulging with muscle in his plain navy t-shirt. His near-black hair was cut in a military-style brush cut, and Cass wondered briefly if Vinson was the one who cut it. Or, for that matter, if Vinson had done any of the ink that snaked up this man’s arms. The design was clearly Aftertime, a twisted braid of kaysev leaves and stems done entirely in blue-black. Small silver hoops studded the cartilage of his ears, several on each side. He wore no other jewelry, no rings, not even a belt buckle—or, for that matter, a belt—in his canvas pants. His boots were well-worn leather, work boots suited for hard labor, and looking at him it was easy to believe he’d done more than his share.
Most alarming were his eyes. They would be called blue, Cass supposed, but the pigment was so pale that they looked almost like clouds. Unlike the Beaters, though, they were centered with large black irises. They were fringed by thick black lashes and would have been too pretty for a man if they weren’t so frighteningly intense.
The other thing that Cass noticed about Dor was how close his shave was. Shaving in Aftertime had become an inexact science; even disposable blades were used over and over, sharpened by hand, imperfectly. A lot of men had adopted a technique of holding the blade away from their faces so as not to cut themselves and invite infection, so they were never free of stubble. She herself, only the day before, had cut herself with the dubious razor included in the tub of supplies Smoke had rented for their use, but Dor stood before her, glowering, his wide, firm jaw perfectly smooth with only the faintest shadow of beard.
His forehead, however, was crossed with a scar that stood out against the smooth planes of the rest of his face. It started at the hairline and cut across one eyebrow, ending at the top of his right cheekbone. A relatively recent wound, a couple of months old at most, still angry and raised. Maybe he’d gotten it fighting the Rebuilders, but as Cass stared into his cold eyes it seemed far more likely that Dor was a man who only looked out for himself.
“What do you want?” he growled, his strange eyes flickering.
“I have a message from Sammi.”
“So I’m told. How do I know you’re not lying?”
Cass blinked. “Why would I lie?”
“I don’t know. Why would you? What are you selling?”
“I’m not selling anything.”
His laugh was abrupt and contained not a bit of mirth. “Don’t kid yourself. Everyone’s selling something. Some people are just more honest about it. But I’ll tell you what, you don’t look much like a Girl Scout to me, know what I’m saying?”
Cass felt her skin grow hot as Dor’s gaze traveled down her body; he didn’t bother to mask his admiration.
“Look, do you want to hear the message or not?”
“I really doubt that—”
“She said to tell you she hasn’t missed a night.”
The change that came over Dor was complete and instant. He froze, but not before his entire body seemed to release its coiled, hostile energy and his crazy eyes lost their hardness. After a moment he lifted a hand to the back of his neck and left it there, a gesture of defeat as much as uncertainty.
“I don’t know what that means,” Cass added. “She just said to tell you she never forgets, and that she won’t miss until she sees you again.”
Dor stared at her for an uncomfortably long time, but Cass kept her shoulders squared, her chin lifted and stared back. It was the least she could do for Sammi.
Finally Dor dropped the hand from his neck and opened the door to the trailer. Cass thought he was going to leave her standing outside alone, but at the last second he turned.
“I think you’d better come inside.”
IT TOOK A MOMENT FOR CASS’S EYES TO ADJUST
to the dim interior of the trailer. It was orderly and clean, but jammed with shelves, a desk, several office chairs, and an object that astonished Cass more than anything she’d seen yet: an enormous flat-panel monitor with an open spreadsheet.
She hadn’t seen a computer in use since the Siege.
And there was Smoke, sitting in a straight-back chair across from the desk, long legs splayed out in front of him, arms folded across his chest. His eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise, a slow smile warming his face.
“You know each other?” Dor said, not so much sitting as crashing into his desk chair.
“This is the woman I’m traveling with, the one I told you about.”
“Then we’ve got a problem,” Dor said. “One of you isn’t telling the truth.”
“Nice hair,” Smoke remarked, ignoring him.
Cass felt herself blush as she sat in the remaining chair, her knees brushing against Smoke’s, and even that small contact rocked her in the hollow depths where sensation and desire twined together.
How was it possible that she could feel this way, as she prepared for her trip into the Convent, as she faced yet another round of unknown dangers? How could there be room for anything in her mind besides Ruthie, who was her waking thought and her evening prayer? And yet her body longed to touch Smoke again, and to touch him completely. She imagined sliding down onto the floor, onto her knees; she wanted to bury her face against his hard-muscled stomach, wanted him to run his hands over her shorn hair, to trace the outlines of her ears, to slip his fingers into her mouth. And then she wanted him to pull her up onto his lap, and she wanted to kiss him hard. The one taboo she could never break, she could never risk it, never take the chance that the disease lived in her saliva, that it waited and burned within her, longing for a host—none of that mattered as she thought about what it would be like. She wanted to taste his lips and tease them open with her tongue and she wanted him to meet her kiss with his own, demanding, unyielding, his hands in her hair, pressing her to him as he—
“We have a problem here,” Dor repeated.
“Why would you say that?” Smoke said, though his gaze remained on Cass.
“You told me you came from Sacramento.” Dor addressed Smoke, and while his tone was calm, there was a threat below the surface. Cass noticed that his scar looked even worse in the glow from the monitor. “She says she’s talked to my daughter. My daughter’s in Silva.”
Smoke shrugged. “So what? You’re an entrepreneur. In these times, I’m sure that comes with risks. You have to…hedge your bets, right? So I said Sacramento…it’s a small detail, unimportant to any business we might do. Where I come from doesn’t matter. As you said yourself, anything I have to sell will be checked and authenticated before goods change hands.”
Smoke had lied, then. Why? The answer came to her as he touched the small of her back, leaving his hand there, weighty and warm. A comforting touch.
He was protecting his own. The people of the school, they were his people. He’d said it himself: they were all he had. And while they had been strangers to him not long ago, if it made sense to defend anything at all Aftertime, he would defend them.
“Let’s just say it goes to character.” Dor focused his unwavering gaze on Cass. “Tell me what you know about Sammi. All of it.”
So she did, leaving out the details of her own arrival at the school. She told him that Sammi and her mother were healthy and had plenty to eat, that the school was well-guarded and stocked. She described the courtyard with its communal meals, the kids in the sunny room where Sammi and her friends led games and activities. She told him how Sammi had asked her to pass along her message, but didn’t add that she recognized the hunger in Sammi’s eyes for an absent father, the hurt and confusion. These things she kept to herself, because she knew how fiercely she guarded her own pain—and she would not betray Sammi that way.
Especially because Dor did not react while she talked. He listened dispassionately, jaw set, strange eyes heavy-lidded and inscrutable. When she was done, he nodded, once, and turned his attention to the keyboard in front of him. He tapped at a couple of keys.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Well, what are you going to do?” Cass asked.
“Do?”
“About Sammi.”
“You said she’s doing well—as well as can be expected, under the circumstances, anyway.”
“Yes, but she wants to see you,” Cass said.
“What good would that do? The best way I can help her is by staying away.”
“That’s not—”
“Listen,” Dor snapped. “Pardon my bluntness, but you don’t know one fucking thing about what’s best for her. If I go to Silva now, I leave this place unattended. My people are good—the best I can find—and they are well trained. But they need a leader. Now, Aftertime, more than ever. There’s too much at stake, between the Rebuilders and the thieves and the damn zombies. There are people waiting and watching for a weakness and if you don’t think they’ll move in faster than you can turn around then you’re deluding yourself. Not that I blame you. Denial’s the best thing a lot of people have now, and you can look around this place and find proof of that at the bottom of every bottle, in every pill I sell, in the comfort tents. I don’t judge. I provide. But I do defend what’s mine.”
His fury escalated as he talked, and he smacked his palm down flat on the desk for emphasis, making a row of pens jump and skitter.
Cass knew he was right. The community he’d built here was thriving, practically teeming with life, even if it was tainted and self-destructive. But it couldn’t survive on its own energy alone; it needed a constant inflow of product and consumers, and someone to make sure the wheels of commerce kept turning.
“You could send supplies,” Smoke said. He turned to Cass.
“The road clearing we saw—he’s got a hand in that.”
“We play a minor part. Most of it’s the Rebuilders.”
“You work with them?” Cass demanded.
“Not with. But not against. I don’t take sides,” Dor said.
“I’m neutral and I intend to stay that way.”
“You’re not neutral if you’re supplying the resistance.”
“That’s Before thinking. It doesn’t apply anymore.”
“How can you say that? We’re still human. We’re never going to stop trying to build societies,” Smoke answered. “As long as there’s anyone left on this planet, people are going to be putting communities back together.”
“And going to war over them.”
Cass watched the interplay between the two men, as fascinated as she was repelled. An energy oscillated there, a sparking electric tension that seemed like it could erupt into violence at the slightest provocation. Two determined men, one passionate about justice, the other ruthless and cynical.
But she had her own quest to think about. Once she got Ruthie, she might have the luxury of arguing abstract points about the future of the planet. For now, she could only afford to be interested in how these two men could help her.
“I’m going into the Convent,” she said to Dor. “I don’t know if Smoke told you. I need some things. Personal stuff. And something I can trade.”
Dor regarded her with renewed interest. “Why would you want to go in there? You don’t strike me as a believer.”
Cass shrugged, pretending a calm she didn’t feel. She wasn’t about to tell him about Ruthie; he seemed like a man who sought to know everyone else’s trump card while keeping his own hand hidden. “I have my reasons.”
“Fair enough.” He let his gaze linger on her face. “It’s a waste of a damn fine woman, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Maybe I like other women.”
Dor laughed. “Won’t make any difference if you do—they take vows of celibacy.”
Cass raised an eyebrow—she doubted such a vow held much meaning. In a world where comforts were so desperately rare, it would be impossible to stop people from seeking out the few that remained.
“I don’t plan to be there long enough to get that hard up,” she said. “About those supplies…”
“I’ll cover her, MacFall,” Smoke said. His hand moved slightly lower on her back, his fingers dipping into the waistband of her pants. “Give her what she needs.”
Dor considered, his scar creasing as he furrowed his brow with thought. “I can give her an escort, someone they’ll trust. We can get the job done…provided you’re willing to pay a premium.”
“I think we’ve already established that I will.”
The iciness in Smoke’s voice highlighted the tension between the men and sent an unfamiliar thrill through Cass. There didn’t seem to be a limit to the sacrifices Smoke was willing to make for her. Which was exactly what she needed, right? She’d do whatever it took—cheat, lie, steal from him if need be—to get to Ruthie.
Only, he was giving her everything she needed, without being asked. And that felt like standing at the edge of a cliff and being tempted to jump.
Cass forced the thought from her mind—there was nothing to be gained from questioning Smoke’s generosity. Besides, this was a drama that held no place for her, a negotiation about far more than just her passage into the Convent.
“In that case,” Dor said, pushing back from the desk and standing, “I believe our business here is done.”
Cass and Smoke stood in the shade of a bent pepper tree. Before, it had been one of Cass’s least favorite species, with its scabby bark and spiky, unadorned branches. Aftertime, it had endeared itself to her merely by surviving.
“I’ll be out as soon as I can,” Cass said. “As soon as I find Ruthie.”
Smoke reached out a rough-callused hand and touched her face, drawing a line from her cheek down to her mouth, tracing the line of her lower lip. “I wish I could go with you.”
Cass attempted a smile.
His eyes glinted with worry and frustration. “But I’ll be here waiting. And if you don’t come back soon…”
He didn’t finish the thought. What could he promise, after all? The task ahead was up to Cass alone. Others had helped her prepare, but once she went inside, she was on her own. “I
will
come back,” she said softly.
Smoke stroked her mouth softly with his thumb and it was all she could do not to part her lips and to taste his work-rough skin.
“I want to kiss you,” Smoke whispered, his face inches from hers, his voice rough and dangerous. “Let me kiss you.”
“No.” She shook her head, pushed his hand away, but he just pressed closer. She could feel his hot breath on her face.
“No.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I can’t. I can’t…I
won’t
be responsible.”
For poisoning him, for the chance—no matter how small—that the disease lived within her, in her saliva, in her mouth and her throat, roiling and festering while she talked and breathed and swallowed. She would not take that chance. She would not let Smoke die because of her.
Like Bobby had. Like Ruthie almost had.
“I don’t care—”
“
I
do.” The anger in her voice took them both aback. Cass pulled away, and Smoke let her. They regarded each other in the golden light of late afternoon, a slight breeze carrying the scents of sage and wood smoke, the faint strains of someone’s lazy guitar picking, and they might as well have been staring across a chasm a mile wide and deep.
“I care,” Cass repeated, and then she ran, not looking back, straight for the way out of the Box and into the Convent and the next hard thing she must do.
She cared a great deal about not destroying anyone else.
But even worse, she cared about Smoke.
And that was even more dangerous.