Laura raised her eyebrows at her mom. “Told you the food sucks.”
“Well, be thankful that you have something. There’s a lot of people struggling out there.”
“Lucky them,” Aiden said.
Maya rolled her eyes, ignoring her children’s comments. She took a deep breath and crossed her arms. “I’m going to go lay down for a little while. Are you guys okay?”
“I’ll look after them,” Luke said.
Laura rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We’re, like, the same age. I don’t need you looking after me.”
“Okay, looks like you guys will be fine,” Maya said. “I’ll see y’all in a little while.”
Maya walked out and hung a right down the hallway. She had only taken a few steps when she heard adult laughter behind her. She turned around to see Gerald and Cameron holding hands and walking toward her. They looked up to see Maya staring back at them, and Cameron’s smile quickly disappeared as they stopped by the door.
“Hey.” Cameron avoided eye contact with Maya, who raised her eyebrows.
“Where are you headed?” Gerald asked.
“I was going to try to rest for a while. Needless to say, it’s been a long few days.”
“I understand.” Gerald kissed Cameron on the cheek, then gestured toward the door. “You mind if I walk Maya to her room?”
Cameron glanced at Maya, then back at Gerald. “Uh, yeah, sure.” She flashed Maya a quick smile, then went into the room to join the kids.
Maya turned around and Gerald stepped up beside her as they walked down the hall. She was the first to break the cold silence.
“Guess you guys made up. Or, should I say, she forgave you for leaving her to die?”
“It’s not like that. You think I wanted to leave her? I was planning on going back to get her.”
“Oh yeah, well, you didn’t exactly give her that impression.”
“I didn’t know how dangerous it was going to be out there, or what things were going to be like at this base. I didn’t want to risk her getting hurt.”
Maya stopped and turned to face him. “Damn straight you don’t. You need to send word to your military pals in White House. They’re holding women in the high school there against their will. You need to report it.”
“To who? It’s too risky to be out there right now.”
”Is that right? But you can risk the safety of our kids?”
Gerald sighed and ran his hand over his shadow of a beard. “That’s not the same thing. I didn’t trust the kids being in the care of your mother, especially that close to Nashville. I had to come get them. You would have done the same thing.”
Maya slapped him across the face. Then she stuck her fingertip within an inch of his nose.
“You don’t have any right to tell me what I would have done. And you sure as hell didn’t have any right to do what you did to my mother.”
“They’re my kids, too, dammit. I get a say in how to protect them, and you weren’t there. I did what I thought was right by them and not by their grandmother.”
Maya stood back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fuck what you think is right, Gerald. And fuck you.”
“Put yourself in my shoes. Really. Can you quit thinking about yourself long enough to do that? You would’ve done the exact same thing if you were in my position.”
“You really don’t know me anymore, no matter how much you think you do.”
Gerald turned and leaned back against the wall. He thumped his head against it twice.
“We’re only going to make things difficult for ourselves if we go back and forth like this. Difficult for the kids, too.”
“They’re all I care about.”
“Then at least, while we’re around them, treat me like I’m their dad and not just some deadbeat piece of shit.”
Maya stared at him and thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Only because I know all of this has been hard on them.”
“Thank you.”
Maya started walking again, and Gerald stepped off the wall and caught up with her in a few quick strides.
“I can get to my room myself. I think we’ve said all we need to say.”
“You know, I think you’re right when you said I don’t know you. The Maya I knew would never have made friends with someone like Cameron.”
“She’s a good woman. I don’t really understand how you fooled her into thinking you were worth having her, but you did, somehow.”
Gerald laughed. “Yeah, trust me. I think about that every day.”
They didn’t say much to each other the rest of the way to Maya’s room. When they got there, Maya turned to look at him. She thought of her earlier conversation with Reno.
“So, what happens now? How long were you planning on keeping the kids here?”
Gerald shrugged. “I hadn’t really planned on leaving. And with you and Cameron here now, there’s really no point. We have enough food and supplies to last a long time.”
“What about Reno? Did he tell you what he knows?”
“He did.”
“And?”
Gerald shrugged. “Well, I don’t think we’re going to do much about it. No offense to you, Maya, but he’s just an EMT. The guys found him and some cop out in the woods with an injured soldier. We don’t even know if his story holds up.”
“We’re targets here. Even if you don’t believe Reno’s story, we’ll die if we stay. They’ll eventually destroy the base. Have you seen the dome? The lasers? The fucking spaceships, for god’s sake?”
He sighed as if he had answers for all those questions, but couldn’t be bothered with telling Maya what they were. Instead, he leaned in and took the conversation in a different direction.
“Listen, I’m going let you in on something. Something’s not right with Reno. He’s unstable and he’s not thinking clearly. It’s pretty apparent something happened to him inside that dome. You need to be really careful around him.”
She turned her head to the side, her mouth open. Him, of all people.
Maya stared at her ex, silent and just waiting for Gerald to leave before going into her room. There, she laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
31
She wasn’t the only one wandering. Maya had seen several people as she’d walked down countless hallways inside the base, each one looking much like the last. Some of the doors had been left open, others locked, and some were being guarded by soldiers with guns. Drugs or ammo, she thought. There wouldn’t be anything else inside of Fort Campbell that they’d feel was valuable enough to guard—not once the mess hall had been locked.
She’d passed a few people, but those few had kept their eyes to the floor or given her a quick, plastic smile—the kind you reserved for the family of the deceased in a funeral home.
Finding her kids. That had been her only goal for so long. Maya had given everything she had, sacrificing herself and others to get back to Laura and Aiden. She had always known they were the most important things in her life, and now there was no doubt. Holding them, and even hearing their voices, brought her a taste of the sense of normalcy that had ended when that damn dome had dropped on Nashville.
But having her kids nearby didn’t make things easier. In some ways, it made them worse. More complicated.
The rec room lights were on and Maya walked on past, glancing in at two teenagers playing ping pong. She smiled and paused to listen to them making fun of each other in that good-natured way that teenagers will—rarely. And then she turned away and continued down the corridor.
How long could this last? Even if they weren’t under attack, what was a realistic expectation for the lights staying on? How much food did they have? Clearly, medication and ammo were already low enough that at least some rooms needed to be guarded.