Exodia (19 page)

But my thoughts cannot be gathered
back. We drive in silence as soon as Gresham begins to nurse. I
steal a glance or two and envy him. What I really want to do is go
back to the day before I saw Barrett being chased by the guard and
climbing the fence. If I’d never looked out that grimy window maybe
now I’d be somewhere else. And my life would be so much better …
even with an arranged marriage by mother. I wouldn’t know she
wasn’t my mother or that I had siblings. I wouldn’t know about
those prophecies or the ledger or that a whole family of wonderful
people could be herded into slavery.

And David Ronel would just be a nice
old man that people like my nanny told stories about. Not someone
with power and plans, someone who won’t take no for an answer and
is forcing me to be someone I don’t want to be.

We reach level land with the brakes
still intact and Harmon drives east at less intense speeds. Little
by little he leads us southeast and then south and finally west. We
have circled down into Exodia so we can enter from the side
farthest from the capitol grounds. A good idea, I think, until a
tractor pulls in front of Harmon and another slides behind me and
we’re forced to slow down. Right before we come to an intersection
both tractors stop and we are hemmed in at the sides by lines of
people, Reds for sure, who hold serious weapons in their gnarled
and weathered hands. This is not the greeting I
expected.

* * *

Word had spread through the streets,
aided by old solar phones and young runners, that special
emissaries of David Ronel were arriving in Exodia from the east and
that another small town’s worth of refugees were being herded in
from the north by soldiers.

Lydia sat with a traumatized blond
teen, a girl close to her own age, who had witnessed the heartless
extermination of her mother and sisters. Barrett had carried her
all the way back to Lydia’s house and stood ready to run whatever
necessary errand Lydia asked, whether for medicine or pseudo-doctor
or grave diggers.

The girl had cried uncontrollably when
Lydia cleaned and bandaged her head wound, but now she was trying
to pull herself together with halting shudders and broken
sobs.

Lydia spoke softly, “It’ll be all
right, Katie. We’ll help you.” To Barrett she said, “Bear, I’ll
stay with her. You go ahead and tell Korzon what we saw and maybe
if it is Dalton who’s coming in from the east–”

Katie grabbed at Lydia’s arm, stopped
her in mid-sentence and shrieked the name. “Dalton? You know
Dalton? He escaped! My sister–” She broke down again unable to make
any further coherent response.

“
I’ve never seen anyone in
such distress.” Barrett whispered to Lydia. They wrapped Katie in
several blankets, gave her a warm drink, and then Barrett signaled
that he was heading off, prepared to run the distance faster than
any long-forgotten Olympian.

Lydia touched his shoulder.
“Good luck. Do
not
go anywhere near that death march.”

Barrett lifted his left arm for a quick
elbow thump, knowing she wanted to say something more, a greeting
for Dalton maybe, though he hoped not, or a wish that she didn’t
have to stay with the grieving girl and could go with
him.

He turned and ran.

His gemfry gifts of speed and enhanced
hearing made it easy for him to pick a safe route through the slum,
past the capitol, and out to the eastern zone. He heard Korzon’s
deep voice long before he reached the quiet crowd.

Barrett found a spot behind the ring of
Reds, mostly men, who listened intently. He didn’t understand the
resistance he saw; the very men who sent him on missions to Ronel,
to beg for help, to plead for the return of Dalton Battista, were
putting up challenges to four people who stood beside a truck,
digging through suitcases of mechanical magic. Two men, two women,
one with a baby. All with dark red elbows. The blond mother seemed
vaguely familiar and made him think of the injured girl back at
Lydia’s.

He stared at Dalton who seemed taller
than he remembered in spite of the fact that Barrett himself had
grown a foot these last two years. Dalton’s shoulders were wider,
his muscular arms thicker, his posture solid and self-assured.
Another man, equally tall and dark and strong, his face so similar
to Dalton’s that Barrett could imagine him as a security double,
was doing all the talking, showing what the cases held,
demonstrating miraculous power.

“
This is good,” Korzon
proclaimed. “This is very good.” He looked around the crowd, daring
them to refute his pronouncement. He nodded at Barrett and two
others. “Take them to the safe house. And you, Hamlin, set up a
meeting with Truslow. And Dalton,” he nodded almost reverently,
“you do the talking. Take just the one case. We’ll hide the
rest.”

Barrett could hear Dalton let out a
held breath and stutter a reluctant yes. He caught his eye as he
moved forward to help with the gear. He wasn’t prepared for the
grin and excited greeting.

“
Bear!” Dalton clapped his
friend on the back and ignored the standard greeting for a more
personal back pounding. “You’re tall.” His eyes flickered past him,
looking for someone, then returned to Barrett’s face and held. “How
are things?”

Barrett nodded his head without
thinking then changed it to a slow shake. “Not good. We really need
you.”

Dalton took a step back. He introduced
Mira and Harmon and finally Kassandra and Gresham. Barrett kept his
response as formal as he could. He could only raise half a smile.
This Kassandra, this wife of Dalton, had eyes and hair to match
Katie’s. And Katie had spoken Dalton’s name. Barrett wanted to be
happy for Dalton, but Lydia was going to suffer at this knowledge,
and that poor girl … his mind flew through gemfry
visions.

Two men came up to move the tractors
and others took the truck and car and drove them away. A larger
truck pulled up and Barrett along with two more escorts sat in the
back with Dalton and his family.

* * *

I sit on the hard bench next to
Kassandra and take the baby from her for the bumpy ride in this
canvas-covered truck that reeks of sweat and dirt–a truck so much
like the work trucks we passed yesterday that a shiver races down
my back and I see an armed guard for an instant. As the ghostly
image of him evaporates I count the souls around me. My knee
jostles against Kassandra’s and I see another vision, a scrap of
knowledge, and I turn my head quickly to my left and catch my wife
blushing at Bear. I look down at my son and wonder at my mix of
sensations. My thoughts are reeling, my heart rate is speeding up,
my hands feel clammy, and my knee keeps tapping hers. I stare at
Barrett and he glances away from Kassandra, to the floor, then to
me.

“
What?” I say.

“
I was wondering … how you
two met. What have you been doing all this time? Where did you
live? You never reached Ronel.” I hear the accusation in his tone.
So many questions tumbling from his lips, things unsaid.
Bitterness. My tongue stays glued. I see a dozen words, anagrams.
You never reached Ronel.
You never learned
chore.

“
Dalton helped us,”
Kassandra says. I blink her words away:
Ten
should plead.
What could that mean? She
turns her whole self into my side and puts a hand protectively over
Gresham’s head, pets him. “I come from a family of seven daughters
and he showed up just when we needed a big strong man to help with
all the things we couldn’t do.” I know she’s smiling though I don’t
look at her; there’s something phony in her tone. Instead I watch
Barrett’s face. He has a secret. If I could extend my foot and
touch his boot that secret would be mine. I’m sure of it and
suddenly I have more questions for Mira and Harmon, about our
parents, about their exposure to radiation, because right this
instant, out of the blue, I’m certain that I’m a gemfry, same as
Barrett. Fiery gamma.
I am a
gemfry.

* * *

Barrett sat between two men who’d been
selected along with him to take Dalton and the others to a safe
house. He braced his back against the metal support and pressed his
feet down to keep from sliding sideways into one of the men as the
truck careened around a corner. Across from him Kassandra, Harmon,
and Mira slid a few inches into Dalton who stayed rock steady,
planted on the bench with the baby in his arms, strong and firm
with barely a trace of that insecurity Barrett had seen two years
ago.

Barrett’s eyes flickered across all
four faces, but he stretched the seconds to look intently at
Dalton’s wife. She looked beat, road weary no doubt. There was
sadness there, too, as if she wasn’t happy with Dalton, though why
Barrett should imagine such a thing he wasn’t sure. He was
attracted to her despite her ragged appearance, and there was
something in that first smile, her steady gaze when their eyes met,
and her body language. He had grown reasonably proficient at
reading girls. Something was off base with Kassandra. Something
very right and very wrong.

Dalton asked him
what?
and Barrett spewed a
handful of questions, sure that Dalton would choke on the answers.
He was right. Kassandra answered for him.

It was a thoughtless impulse that made
him ask, “Kassandra, do you have a sister named Katie?”

The abruptness of the question, the
question itself, made both Dalton and Kassandra stiffen.

“
Yes. How would you know
that?” She gave Dalton a worried frown and looked back at Barrett.
“We were all taken–” Her throat grew tight and she clutched at
Dalton’s arm, shaking her head. She looked up at him. “You
tell.”

Dalton gave the briefest of details:
the town meeting, the march, the escape. “Katie is the next oldest
sister after Kassandra. There are five more plus her mom and her
dad. We left them all two days ago. Have they reached Exodia? Do
you know where they are?”

Barrett didn’t want to answer. He’d
give up all his gifts to never have to answer. Stupid fool. He knew
the immeasurable sorrow his words would bring.

* * *

I have to keep my eyes down,
concentrate on not gripping the baby too tightly while holding very
firmly to Kassandra’s heaving shoulders. Her head’s pressed against
my left shoulder, her hair beneath my chin. I brush my lips lightly
on her scalp. I knew Barrett had a secret. I could kill him now …
to spring such news on us without a warning. Kassandra’s startling
screams have given way to unbearable weeping.

I focus as well as I can on the floor
of the truck. It seems to ripple. I blink and the floor is solid
for a moment until I picture Flor’s face and Sana’s and Araceli’s
and Marcela’s and Deandra’s. And Kassandra’s mother.

That the evil of this
Blue-run world would bring this misery to us suffocates me. My
fault. My fault from day one. When I killed that man. When I hid my
deed, my shame. When I ran. I don’t need a prophecy or a message in
the stars or an anagram of
died gone
to know how guilty I am.

Mira reaches over and takes the baby
from me. I wrap both arms securely around my wife; her incredibly
deep grief cannot be reduced by simple hugs and yet she softens a
bit and the sobs grow weaker. She tries for words between trembling
breaths and I decipher her desire. She wants to be with
Katie.

The men in the truck are uncomfortable,
hesitant to veer from Korzon’s order, but Barrett taps on the
window, makes the driver stop and goes out to give directions. When
I hear him give what I know is Lydia’s address I start to
sweat.

* * *

It was as good a safe house as any,
Barrett thought as he directed the group quickly through the side
door. The truck would make a wide loop and return in ten minutes.
That wouldn’t be enough time, he knew, but it couldn’t be helped.
If only he hadn’t opened his mouth.

“
In there.” He pointed to a
small room off the kitchen. He and the others stayed back and let
Kassandra and Dalton enter the room. He felt bad not giving Lydia a
heads-up, just springing Dalton and a wife on her.

* * *

I see Lydia sitting next to the bed
before I see Katie. It seems too short a second to process how
Lydia has changed and how she hasn’t changed at all. Kassandra
doesn’t even notice Lydia. She goes straight to Katie, plops onto
the bed and grabs her sister. I hear a tiny gasp from Lydia and the
quietest of thankful sighs from Katie, bandaged and pale and
looking like a ghost. The hollows of her eyes and cheeks hold dark
shadows of pain and grief.

Lydia mumbles, “Oh, you must be … I’ll
just leave you … uh.” And she stands, her face a mix of two
emotions. She tries to scoot past me and her hand brushes mine. Her
raven black hair frames her face; her eyes and the touch of her
hand tell her story to my soul. I read the look she gives me. A
second, maybe two, and I try to explain these two years in a
moment’s fragile gaze. As if we need no words. She lowers her eyes
and passes through the door.

I look back toward the bed where
Kassandra holds Katie and they cry, soft at first, and the door
clicks shut. I take the seat that Lydia had vacated and
wait.