“What are you suggesting?”
“I can find out who this Shadowface is for you,” I say. “I don’t even need you to help me.”
He squints his eyes at me and shakes his head. “Remi, I was just confiding in a friend. I’m not trying to get you to find anything out for me.”
I jump from the flowerbed and land inches from Gabe. “How old are you?” I ask.
“Twenty-five, you know that already.”
“Be a man!” I nearly yell. One or two heads in the distance turn to look in our direction, but no one stays interested for very long. Gabe is stone faced as I stare into him. “As lead scout it’s important to know who you’re working for,” I say, whispering now. “If Paxton and the elders are answering to someone else, don’t you think you should know about it?”
His silence is my answer.
“I’m just letting you know that I’m willing to go in and find out for you.”
“Why?” he asks. “What’s in it for you?”
“You’ll let me be a soldier,” I say. “You could use a person like me. I bet I can shoot better than any person here.” I take one step closer to him, my face only inches from his. I can feel his nervousness, or perhaps it’s my own heartbeat pounding away. “Including you.”
I turn away sharply and walk to the entrance of my apartment building, placing my hand on the door handle. Before I open it, I look back at him.
“If you’re caught, you could get into serious trouble,” he says. “I could get into serious trouble.”
“I’m not a rat,” I say. “If I get caught, I will deal with the consequences myself. Do you want me to find out more or not?”
He looks from side-to-side before finally placing his eyes on me. He nods. “Paxton keeps a journal in a desk on the second floor of the headquarters building. I’m pretty sure he keeps record of everything in it. You find out who this guy is, and I’ll give you a shot.”
“Good,” I say, opening the door. “I’m tired of babysitting kids at the town nursery. I swear you people are so sexist.”
Gabe grins at me and turns to walk away while I go into the apartment building. I let out a sigh as I think about my luck to have been given an apartment on the top floor. The several climbs up and down per day weren’t annoying at all. I shake my head once I reach the fifth floor. I bet they only give new citizens the top floor apartments to test their perseverance. When I had first walked into this building I had been happy to see an elevator, but my brief lapse of thought caused me to forget that it probably hadn’t been working for the past three years since the outbreak. When groups of people started banding together in towns, they began to strictly conserve energy. It costs a lot more to run electricity now — not money, but fuel. Finding a place with electricity is golden. It might only mean a lamp in your room, but never something so luxurious as an elevator.
Crestwood may be nice by standards of living in this greyskin-infested world, but it obviously had its problems in the early days. The stairs are dirty, splattered with sticky remains of who-knows what. Even when I walk into my apartment, I can’t help but notice the scratches and dried, dark stains on the walls and floors that someone had obviously failed to remove prior to my coming. I can only imagine what might have happened here. Nothing I haven’t seen before, I’m sure. And I have stayed in worse places. At least this studio apartment has a bed and couch, running water, and a place to sit and eat. The living space is tiny, but it is perfect for me.
I walk into the bathroom and turn on the faucet. The mirror in front of me is foggy and crusted with grime. I look healthier than I have in a long time. My eyes are regaining a little bit of their brightness again, and I’m not as skinny as I was. This would have been of some concern about three years ago, but I’m just happy to eat now. I splash some water on my face and turn off the faucet.
I walk out of the bathroom and into the living area to the only window in the room. One advantage to living on the fifth floor is getting a good view of the town. I bet I can see further over the wall from here than any of the soldiers who patrol it.
I think about what I proposed to Gabe. I know he wasn’t asking me to do anything for him. I’m sure what I said took him off guard, but three years on the road have given me an itch that I can’t get rid of just yet. I’ve only been here for three months and the thought of walking anywhere without my gun and knife makes me feel exposed and defenseless. I suppose that’s the main reason I want to be a soldier. I don’t care about scouting beyond the wall. I don’t even care about standing at the wall, waiting for something to show up. I just want my weapons back. In this world, when someone strips you of your weapons, he strips you of all you have.
I look down at the wall and see Gabe talking to one of his soldiers. To this day, I still can’t figure why Paxton had asked me about special abilities. How could he have known that for the past year I’ve been able to hear things better than any other person? I know exactly when it happened, but I don’t know why. All I know is that it has stayed with me since.
I stare down at Gabe and turn my head slightly. His voice enters my head almost as if I’m standing right next to him.
“That’s what I was thinking,” he says. “Just make sure you let me know if it comes down to that, okay?”
“Okay,” the soldier on the wall says to him.
I turn my head away, and I can hear him no longer. I have no idea what he was talking about, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t plan to tell him why I know I won’t be caught. I can hear someone coming long before they get to me. If I wanted, I would be able to hear the conversation of anyone in the town so long as I knew where to listen. I won’t get caught snooping through the elder’s secret documents because when I sneak into Headquarters and steal the journal, I will be able to hear every snore, every sleep-talker, every person that gets up to pee. And if anyone hears me, I’ll be gone before they even take a step.
Chapter 3 – Waverly
It is well past midnight before Gilbert turns the SUV down a side road to make camp for the night. Ethan questions his decision, but Gilbert tells us that we will run out of gas in the next 100 miles or so and we need to figure out the best place to find fuel so we can actually get to the town of Crestwood .
The road winds through a forest and he eventually stops when he sees a small clearing surrounded by large trees. I open the door and step out onto the grass as the cold wind nearly knocks the breath out of me.
“It’s going to be cold tonight,” Ethan says to no one in particular. “The nights are getting colder the farther north we travel. We might want to sleep in the car.”
“You can sleep in there all you want,” Gilbert says, “but you can’t have the heat on. Uses too much gas. Besides, the back window is shot out. I say we build a fire.”
“Build a fire so raiders and greyskins can see us for miles?” Ethan says.
Gilbert holds out his hands and turns. “Why do you think I drove us back here? No one is going to see a fire out here. We’ve driven long enough to know the raiders didn’t follow us, and we’ll take turns staying up to watch for greyskins.”
Ethan doesn’t respond, but I care nothing about raiders or the greyskins. All I care about is getting warm.
“Fire sounds good to me,” I say quietly.
“You see?” Gilbert says. “She agrees with me.”
I don’t know how I feel about Gilbert being happy that I agree with him, but I don’t even acknowledge his words.