Ashes (26 page)

He'd lost weight and grown a beard. His hair was much longer, too, well past his shoulders. Yet the smell she'd caught in the front hall when the ladies were let in with their food trolley was the same as on the day he'd shot Tom: stale tobacco, rotten teeth, and Jim Beam.

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Glaring, Harlan balled a grimy rag in one ham-fist. On top of his normal reek, he also smelled of the bleach and ammonia he used to mop the floors of the jail cells. As the village hall janitor, Harlan had, Alex decided, found his true calling. Harlan jammed the rag into a grubby hip pocket. “I've never seen this kid before in my life.”

“Why would she lie?” asked Yeager. The others were still at their places on the bench, but he had descended, coming to stand alongside her. Yeager was smaller than she'd imagined, nearly half a head shorter than she. He had not taken Harlan's hands, however, which Alex thought must be a test of some kind.

Not of Harlan, though. Yeager was testing
her
.

Harlan glowered. “Because she's a kid, and she's got some kind of ax to grind. But I'm telling the truth. I never seen her before just now.”

“Liar. What happened to Ellie?” Alex asked.

“I'm sorry. Who's that? Relative of yours? A dog, maybe?”

From the bench, Ernst said, “This isn't getting us anywhere.”

“Let's wait until—” Yeager broke off as the courtroom door opened and Peter hurried in, a bulging knapsack in his arms. Chris and Jet followed close behind.

“Sorry.” Peter's hair was windblown, and his cheeks were ruddy with cold. He plunked the knapsack onto one of the courtroom's long attorney tables as Chris dumped a second. “There was a lot of crap to gather up.”

“Hey,” said Harlan, “that's my stuff. You got no right to go through my stuff.”

“On the contrary,” said Yeager, and nodded at Chris and Peter. “Open them.”

What tumbled out were clothes, mostly: underwear, jeans, sweaters, flannel shirts, long johns, socks. Peter had gathered up toiletries, shoes, two watch caps, a set of mittens, and several ratty magazines. “And a Bible,” he said, pulling the leather-bound volume from the knapsack.

“Anything you recognize?” Yeager asked her.

Alex shook her head. She'd felt a flare of hope, but a single glance told her that the Bible was not Aunt Hannah's.

“See?” Harlan folded his arms over his chest. “You got the wrong guy.”

“No, I don't,” Alex said. She looked at Chris. “There's nothing else?”

“Just this,” Peter said, and reached into one of the knapsack's side pouches. “Heavy sucker.”

Alex had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. “That's my fanny pack.”

“That's crap,” said Harlan, although Alex caught a thin stiletto of sour milk now. Harlan was worried. “I've had that thing for years.”

“No, I packed it myself,” Alex said.

“A fanny pack's a fanny pack,” Harlan said. “She's gonna guess some of it.”

“Yeah.” Peter unzipped the pack. “So that's why we'll let you tell us first. What's inside?”

Harlan visibly relaxed, and Alex thought with dismay,
He emptied it.
“Sure,” Harlan said. “Lessee, there's a pack of tissues, some old gum, knife …” He rattled off a list of items as Peter pulled each from the pack.

“Yeah,” said Peter when Harlan was done. “That's all of it, except this.” He pulled out Alex's soft-shell black case. “This thing weighs a good ten pounds. What's inside?”

Harlan opened his mouth, but Yeager said, “Just a minute.” He took the case from Peter, studied its contents, then raised his searching, bird-bright eyes to Alex. “Tell us what this is.”

“Hey, it's my pack,” said Harlan.

“Then she won't have the slightest idea, will she?” Yeager nodded at Alex. “Go on. Tell me. What are these?”

Later, she would wonder why Harlan had kept them. The pack, she could understand, but not the rest. Maybe, when he saw the Bible, he realized what he'd done and was just superstitious enough to think that keeping
them
would somehow undo all the rest. In the end, all that mattered was this: if the pack was still heavy, she knew exactly what—who—was inside.

“My parents,” she said.

Her parents' ashes were there, but Aunt Hannah's Bible—and her mother's letter—were gone.

“The little kid musta done it,” said Harlan miserably. He was slouched in a hardback chair, looking as shriveled as a deflated balloon. Once Kincaid looked through the bags to confirm that they contained cremated remains—teeth survive cremation—Harlan had dropped the bluffing tough-guy routine. Now he stared at his hands and sighed. “She said the stuff was important to
her
.” He jerked his head at Alex. “Once Marjorie got killed, I had my hands full just keeping us alive. Couldn't be watching the kid every five seconds.”

“Where is she?” Alex demanded. It was all she could do to keep from screaming and scratching Harlan's eyes out.

Harlan hunched a shoulder. “I don't know. Like I said, she run off maybe a day south of here.” He let out a grunt of disgust. “Brett was so sure the army was gonna let us in … only we never got that far. I told Brett we ought to keep off the interstate, and Marjorie wanted to go west—to come here, is what she wanted—but he just had to check on his sister, who lived in Watersmeet…. Anyway, that's where we lost the truck … you know, in an ambush. Buncha guys watching the town, outnumbered us by about twenty. Shot Marjorie before we knew what was happening.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, “I know how getting ambushed and shot at feels.” Chris put a warning hand on her arm, and she bit back the rest.

“What happened after that?” Peter asked.

Harlan shrugged again. “What the hell you think? We couldn't go south on account of we heard they wasn't letting people across the border into Wisconsin, and we sure as hell wasn't staying in Watersmeet. Outside
that
town, they don't even give you a chance to explain, not like here; they just start shooting. So we walked.”

“You still had the little girl and the dog?” asked Yeager.

Harlan nodded. “The dog saved our ass a bunch of times. It knew way ahead of us when there was one of those
things
out there. The dog and the kid was with us right up until we was east of the mine, and then the dog went crazy. Just wouldn't go any farther. Even the girl couldn't get it to mind. The dog kept wanting to get away from here. Probably we should've listened to it, because that's the night five of them kids … you know, the Changed … they got to us.”

“The dog didn't warn you?” asked Peter.

“Well, I think it tried and we wouldn't listen. I don't know, man,” Harlan said. “Brett was standing watch. One minute I'm sleeping and the next the dog … it never did settle down, pacing all night long and whining. It started going crazy, and next thing I know, Brett starts in blasting away. His rifle jammed and I couldn't draw a bead fast enough.”

No, this was a lie; Alex smelled it. But whether Harlan had dozed off or accidentally shot Brett wasn't important. Yeager must've sensed something, too, because he said, “Now why do I think that's a lie?”

The skin of Harlan's neck flushed a mottled scarlet. He said, “What are you going to do to me?”

“You left a little girl out there to
die
,” Peter said. His voice snapped like an angry whip. “What do you
think
?”

Harlan's Adam's apple bobbled. His gaze skittered away from Peter's angry face to the blank faces of the men on the bench and then finally to Yeager. “But you can't shoot me.”

“True, but you cannot stay,” said Yeager. “Your sin stains us all.”

There were murmurs of assent from the men on the bench. Peter was nodding, but Chris's face was impassive, the scent of his darkness very strong.

“Banned?” Harlan's eyes filled. “Man, please, don't make me go back out there. Those
things
…”

Peter, for whom most solutions seemed to involve a gun, said, “Hey, man, no skin off my nose. I'm happy to put a bullet in you right now.”

Yeager put up a restraining hand. “You'll be no worse off than that little girl, and a fair sight better. You will have the same three days' rations we give any person to whom we refuse sanctuary.”

“But I been a good worker,” Harlan whined. “I done nothing wrong since I got here.”

“
Do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure
,” Yeager recited. “You bear Azazel's mark. We will not be pure again until you are gone. From this time forward, you are Banned.”

“No. Please. At least let me stay the night,” Harlan said hoarsely. “For God's sake, it's already late afternoon. It'll be dark soon!”

“Then I suggest,” said Yeager, “that you run very quickly.”

“We need to find her,” Alex demanded. Kincaid and Chris sat with her in Jess's kitchen. A golden slant of late-afternoon sun sliced through a window as Jess silently doled out cups of hot tea. Lena, Tori, and Sarah were out at their respective jobs, for which Alex was grateful. The last thing she needed was more of Lena's mouth; she was tense enough already.

Peter had elected to escort Harlan out personally, and from the look on his face, she thought that Harlan would be very lucky to make it through the next hour. She wished she felt sorry for Harlan, but she didn't. “You heard him, Chris. They were a day south. That's what … twenty, thirty miles?”

“A day south two weeks ago. We didn't have the manpower to search for Tom, and that was nearly the same distance. It's not a straight line, Alex. It's twenty miles and who knows which direction,” said Chris.

“You guys go out all the time.”

“Yes, but that's with specific objectives in mind. We know where we're going. A search is very different.”

“But she's only
eight
.”

“I'm sorry, Alex,” said Chris. “We can't.”

“You mean, you won't. She's Spared, but she's not
valuable
enough.”

Chris opened his mouth to reply, but Kincaid broke in. “Alex, Chris is on your side. He's the one who got Peter to go out after your friend. He can't change what his grandfather decides, or Peter. It doesn't work that way.”

“What makes Yeager so right? You make it sound like he's some miracle guy. Why's he in charge, anyway? Don't you guys ever decide anything for yourselves?”

That got to Chris; she could smell that sliver of ice splinter his darkness. “Listen,” he said, “you don't know everything. You just got—”

“Chris.” Kincaid put a warning hand around Chris's wrist. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay? Maybe it's best you head on home now.”

Chris wanted to argue; Alex could see that in the set of his jaw. But all Chris did was give a curt nod before sliding out of his chair. Shrugging into his coat, he said, “I'll be by for you tomorrow.”

“What? Why?” she said.

“You need an escort,” said Chris.

Before leaving the village hall, Yeager had suggested she work with Kincaid at the hospice, a suggestion that was an order.
Probably to keep an eye on me
, she thought now. “I can escort myself.”

“That's not the way things work here, girl,” Jess said.

“But I don't
need
him,” she said.

“Sometimes you don't know what you need until it's gone,” said Kincaid.

She felt a twinge of disquiet. Chris didn't seem to be a bad guy, but all these stupid rules, a guard outside the house, and now an escort? Were they going to watch her around the clock? What had she gotten herself into? “Look, it's nothing personal,” she said to Chris. “It's just that I—”

“No, it's fine.” The skin around Chris's mouth was white. “I'll get someone else to do it. I wouldn't be able to do it every day anyway.”

“But I don't want anyone.”

“It's not my call,” said Chris.

“Well, he's your grandfather. Talk to him.”

“It's not that simple. The rules are the rules. You have to follow them.”

“Or what? You're going to kick me out?” She pushed back from the table. “Fine. That's what I want anyway. I'll leave now. Just give me back my gun and a pack, and I'm out—”

“Oh, for pity's sake, put a plug in your jug, Alex,” said Jess. “I've aged five years just listening to you.”

Alex felt her neck heat. “I'm just
saying
—”

“Jess,” Chris began at the same moment, “if she doesn't want me—”

“Be quiet, both of you. Honestly, you two are like cats in a gunnysack. Alex doesn't know what she wants.”

“Wait a minute,” Alex flared.

“You only want to brawl. You want a fight. Fighting tricks you into believing you can change the past, even when the past is dead and gone and all of it ashes,” said Jess.

Alex felt the hot burn in her chest dim. Jess was right, damn her. Fighting back had been drilled into her from day one of her diagnosis. For her, accepting the monster meant giving up, succumbing. If you didn't fight, you died. Had that changed when she walked away, cut school, and headed for the Waucamaw? No. She'd fought back in a different way, that was all: pushing back at the doctors and the tests and the treatments in favor of calling the shots herself. Since the Zap, she'd been fighting to stay alive every day.

So, now what? Accept what was happening here? No. She hadn't chosen this life; this wasn't her home. These were not
her
people. They were nice enough, but they had their reasons for keeping her here—she was sure of it—and by God, she wasn't going to stop fighting now. She
was
getting out of here, and she
would
find Tom and Ellie. She just had to figure out a way.

Aloud, she settled for something that was also true. “I'm just mad about … you know. Everything.”

“I know that,” said Jess. “You're only human, but you need to start thinking about the greater good. As for you, Christopher, you need to get over yourself and lighten up. Now, you're young, you've been thrust into a position of responsibility well before your time, and you're scared. But sticking to rules just because they're there does not make them right. You need to learn when the rules should be broken.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Chris said. If anything, his dark scent grew even blacker—not anger, Alex thought, but embarrassment. Chris's eyes bounced from Jess to Alex and then to the table. “An escort's probably overkill.”

Yes.
Alex squashed a quick spurt of triumph, afraid it would show on her face.
Now, if I can get them to loosen up a little more …

But Kincaid was shaking his head. “You let her go without an escort, you're gonna have to change the rule for everybody then. Not sure you want to go there without a lot of thought. Gonna have to go up against Peter on that one, and probably the Council. I don't think you'll win.”

Chris threw up his hands. “There's no satisfying you guys. First, Alex fights me, then Jess tells me I should break rules, and then
you
turn around and tell me I shouldn't. I mean,
Jesus
.”

“Language, young man,” said Jess. “Matt is right. If you want to make an exception, you'll need a good reason. Charting your own course isn't the same as being impetuous. Right now, Alex is just complaining. She could be Lena all over again.”

“Hey,” said Alex. The fact that she was trying to figure out a way to escape didn't make her any less pissed. She was
so
not Lena.

“So this is what's going to happen,” Jess continued. “Christopher, you will take her when you can and if your duties permit. Get to know Alex. If you feel that she can be trusted to come and go on her own, then let her. Tell Peter why. Heavens, if it's a question of protection, let her prove that she can take care of herself.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” asked Chris. His pale skin was a patchwork of white and scarlet, and his dark eyes were glittery with anger. “Give her a gun? Let her get in some target practice?
Ride
with us?”

“Yes,” said Alex. “I'll bet I can shoot just as well as you guys.”

“For so is the will of God, that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.”
Jess threw Alex a look. “And foolish girls. Until you know what you're about, Alex, hold your tongue.” To Chris: “You are a very smart boy. Figure out what is right and then do it.”

“Jess, it's not as easy as that,” said Chris.

“Nonsense. You want to be a man? Start acting like one.”

“Jess,” Kincaid said, “the boy's doing the best he—”

“I can defend myself,” Chris snapped. That icy edge was more pronounced now, cleaving his shadows in two. Alex felt a squirt of sympathy. She could handle Chris, but she didn't really want to watch him getting hammered by a woman old enough to be his grandmother.

Jess said, “Chris, you have survived this long by being both very lucky and very smart, but eventually, you must follow your own path, however frightening.”

“I am,” said Chris. His face was ashen. “I
am
.”

“No, you're not. Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right than for doing what is wrong. Don't fool yourself, Christopher. Peace comes with a price.”

What was going on? Alex had the feeling that they—Jess and Chris and even Kincaid—were talking over her head somehow. This was not about Chris's playing bodyguard, but an argument over a question she hadn't yet asked. She thought Chris would say something, but his hands fisted, grabbing back whatever had been on the tip of his tongue. Then he stalked out, flinging the kitchen door shut with a resounding clap that made the glass chatter.

“That went well,” said Kincaid.

“Sow the seeds of righteousness,” Jess murmured.

“That what you were doing? Felt like you were ripping the boy a new one.”

“Watch your language, Matt.” She shot Alex a warning glare. “He is not the only young person who has ceded his free will.”

“Wait a minute,” Alex said. “Why are you getting on my case? I
want
to be free.”

“Freedom has a price, too, girl. For all your bravery, you do not—” She broke off as the kitchen door opened again and Sarah appeared, shaking a salting of snow from her hair.

“What's wrong with Chris?” Sarah asked. “Is he all right?”

“Never you mind,” said Jess, and then she turned to Alex: “You are an ungrateful and very foolish young woman. While you are here, you will be quiet and follow the rules.”

What,
what?
Follow the rules? Alex's shock flashed to anger. “Five seconds ago, you said the rules—”

“Don't presume to correct me!” Jess cut her off with a vicious swipe of her hand. “You will be
quiet
, young woman. Stop spouting about things you know nothing about. Is that understood?”

Sarah's eyes were round as pie plates. Alex was mortified. If the floor had opened up to swallow her, that would've been fine. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Excellent.” Jess favored Alex with a frosty glare. “I'm so glad we cleared that up. Now, I'm sure there's something useful needs doing somewhere.” She swept from the room.

“Wow,” Kincaid said after a moment. “Bet you really
could
hear a pin drop.”