At least I’m not cuffed. The almost empty, windowless room is lit by harsh, white incandescent lights. An ominous single chair waits for me at the other end. I walk to it without having to be told. Gabe stands at the door, his eyes hanging on me.
“You don’t have to say anything, Gabe.”
He lets out a sigh. “Why did you bring the gun?”
“Same reason you didn’t bring enough ammunition,” I come back. “Poor judgement.”
His eyes are fixed on me firmly now, but I’m the one to turn away.
“I don’t want you to take the fall,” I say. “There’s no reason for both of us to be punished.”
“I never asked you to do it,” he says.
My head jerks to him and I can feel my neck and cheeks getting hot. He had basically asked me to break into Headquarters for him. “You didn’t exactly protest my offer when I made it.”
“I was afraid this was going to happen,” he says. “I just didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to bring the gun.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting Paxton to come along, was I?”
Gabe shakes his head. “I wasn’t either.”
“What’s going to happen next?”
Gabe shrugs. “I’m sure the elders are going to talk it over. You might be sent away. I don’t know. Paxton isn’t a terrible man, he’s just untrusting. If he thinks he can’t trust you, he’s not going to want you here at all.”
“Will they at least let me tell my side of the story?” I ask.
His face seems to lose color for a minute.
“I’m not talking about mentioning Shadowface,” I say. “Just that I really want my weapons back.”
“I don’t know if they will let you talk. You’ve already incriminated yourself. You did break into Headquarters and steal the gun. Regardless of your reasons, you are guilty in their eyes.”
Gabe was right. They were going to throw me to the dogs and there was nothing I could do about it. He stands in the doorway for a few more moments. I want to tell him to go away, that our friendship isn’t so deep that he should feel as guilty as he does. I’ll find my way. I’ll take whatever Paxton and his elders give me. Finally, Gabe says that he will keep me updated, and turns to leave.
“I’m sorry about Skip,” I say. It sounds half-hearted but I mean it. No one deserves to end like that.
Gabe stalls for a moment as if he wants to say more, then he closes the door behind him, locking it securely.
The room is silent but for my steady breathing. I’m not scared. There is no reason to be now. Being locked away in a room keeps me safe from the greyskins. I’m safer in here than on the outside — at least, for now I am.
It’s just like me to do something stupid like this. It’s just like me to feel the need to take a stolen gun and then use it. It’s been three months since I killed a greyskin. Seeing them surrounding us like they did…I just couldn’t handle it. When I ran out of ammo, I had no other choice but to pull out the gun. In fact, wasn’t it smart that I brought the gun? Didn’t I save my life? Our lives?
Throughout the next few hours I try to focus my hearing in every direction possible. I close my eyes in deep concentration, doing my best to locate the second floor of the headquarters building. I’ve found that the longer I’ve stayed at a place, the better I am at locating sounds. If I’m unfamiliar, I can’t determine the direction of the noise nearly as well. The only problem is that now I hear nothing. Paxton’s meeting with the elders hasn’t started, or it’s taking place somewhere else.
I let my senses dull and stare down at the cold, blank floor in front of me, unsure of how I came to this. Immediately, I know… I stole from Paxton, but in a way, I also stole from Crestwood. How had I gone from a fun-loving, college party girl to a rifle-wielding, greyskin-stabbing, cold girl? But I know I’m not unique. There are a million like me. Unless they’re dead.
I had been well-liked in my former life. I had many friends, but none of them close. I guess even before all this greyskin stuff started, I kept people at a distance. I never had much of a relationship with my family, especially my parents. It’s something that I feel like I should regret, but knowing that they are all dead, I don’t see the point in it. Part of me knows I should have been closer to them all, but another part of me feels relieved that I had been distant for so long. It made it easier to swallow the fact that all of them were probably eaten and gone. I try not to think about the possibility that they still roam the world, turning more of their victims into mindless creatures just like themselves.
I’ve been truly close to only two people in my life…both of them are probably gone forever. I can feel the tears start to sting my eyes so I shake my head as though to fling the thoughts away.
I focus my hearing again, doing my best to erase all the extra noise throughout Crestwood. This time, I can hear noises on the second floor of Headquarters. I think I hear four distinct voices, Paxton not among them. I haven’t been around many of the elders much, but I have heard each of them speak before and I know what they look like. There’s Lillian, the only woman out of the five elders. Then there’s Gavin. He’s a small man who wears glasses and sniffs a lot when he talks as though he has an allergy. Kenneth is the country type that likes to wear flannel and boots. He has a deeper voice than all the others. Avery used to be a medical doctor. I can picture him now as he talks, his white beard moving up and down with every word. Then there’s Paxton, but he doesn’t seem to be present with the others yet.
“But we ain’t scheduled to be here ’til tomorrow,” Kenneth says.
“Robert called us here,” Lillian chides.
“Did we find out who broke in then?” Gavin says in his mousy voice. Sniff.
“Robert will tell us when he gets here,” Lillian says. I haven’t talked to her much, but I can see her looking down her pointed nose at the others sitting at the table on the second floor. To me she always seemed like the type to be very proud to be an elder, thus taking a non-official leadership role, second only to Robert himself. I had never heard anyone call Paxton Robert before Lillian. It seems too personal.
There are footsteps coming down the stairs from the third floor. The door opens, and Avery is the first to speak.
“You mind telling us what this is about, Paxton?”
I hear Paxton move to the table and finally take his seat before answering anyone. I can imagine they are staring at him with confused looks on their faces, wondering what could be so dire that they would need to interrupt their day for an elder meeting.
“We lost a man today,” Paxton says. A couple of gasps float up in the air, most notably from Lillian, who I’m sure is sitting right next to him.
“Who?” I think Kenneth asks.
“Skip,” Paxton answers. “I was out there with the team going to Sturgis.”
“I’m assuming then that we didn’t get the town cleared?” someone asks.
There is no audible reply, but Paxton probably shakes his head. “We’ll do the normal ceremony bull crap that we usually do, but that’s not why I called the meeting.” A beat. “I’ve found the culprit. Some of you might know her. She calls herself Remi.”
“I know her,” Lillian says. “I thought she was the one. Ever since I laid eyes on her I knew she would be trouble.”
My jaw clenches when she talks. Lillian has barely even said hello to me, how could she have pegged me as a lawbreaker?
“How did you find out?” Gavin asks.
“I found the gun on her,” Paxton says.
“Have you questioned her about it?”