In the dark and covered with mud it had been impossible to gauge who was present, but once the fire had been lit and the grime had been wiped clean, we were able to size each other up.
Twenty-three had survived the safe house’s demolition. Twenty-three out of nearly three hundred. Chase’s uncle was the only family member present, but two women matched the descriptions given to us by their brothers, back with the injured at the mini-mart.
The mood was somber now. Others shared what news they had, but Billy sat by himself away from the fire, using the excuse of fixing the CB radio as a reason to be alone. In a way I was glad I didn’t have to look for my mother. My hopes of meeting family on the coast had been laid to rest long ago.
“How’d it happen?” I heard Chase ask Jesse.
Jesse shook his head, his snake tattoo seeming to slither in the flames. I sat cross-legged on the ground a cautious distance away. Behind me, Rebecca laid across the grass, her head on Sean’s thigh. He combed her hair behind her ear, oblivious to all else.
“Don’t really know,” said Jesse. “I was out hunting when I heard it—a whistle, like those firecrackers we used to set off in the summer when I was a kid. And then it was like the War all over again. The shaking and the screaming…” He trailed off. “And then the quiet. You remember.”
I shuddered, remembering the collapsing tunnels when the resistance had been bombed in Chicago. The way the earth had nearly swallowed us.
“I remember,” said Chase.
“Found the others in the wreckage,” Jesse said. “A couple on the beach. A couple hiding out in the woods. That guy over there.” Jesse pointed to a man sitting alone, staring blankly into the flames. “He carried his dead wife around for half the day. Thought she was just knocked out.”
“Please,” hissed a woman, rocking a child. “Please, can’t you talk about something else?”
I’d had enough, too. I rose and wandered to the other side of the circle, passing a girl who sat with her back to the fire. She was draped in enormous clothes, her bare feet stretched out before her. I was so surprised by her pregnant belly that I nearly stumbled.
“Sarah?”
“Oh!” She shimmied up to her knees and grabbed my hands. “You made it!”
The last time I’d seen her in Knoxville her face had been bruised and swollen, and we’d been loading her into the back of the carrier’s truck to send her to safety. I tried to remember when that had been. It felt like months, but it had just been a couple of weeks. After finding what remained of the safe house, I’d been sure she was gone.
I smiled. The marks to her face had faded, leaving pretty dimples. Seeing her gave me hope.
“How did you…”
She motioned with her chin over her shoulder. “Jesse. I was out for a walk when it happened. He found me on the beach and brought me with him. He saved us.”
I looked back to Chase and his uncle, thinking I might have been too quick to judge him. It had been a long time ago that I’d met him, and this world had a way of changing people.
Billy stalked by on his way toward the food, but when he saw us talking he slowed. I motioned him over. To my surprise, he joined us.
“Nobody’s got a radio,” he said. “I thought I might be able to salvage parts and rig something strong enough to connect to the interior, but…” He shrugged.
Maybe it was better Tucker’s team couldn’t reach us. Since only twenty-three people had survived, it wasn’t like we had a lot of good news to share.
When I looked over at Sarah, she was straightening her sweater. Billy glanced up, then shoved aside his greasy hair.
I’d forgotten they’d never met. “Billy, this is Sarah.”
He waved awkwardly. Neither of them spoke.
“Okay,” I said, hiding a smile. “I’m going to check on the food.”
We didn’t have plates or utensils, but it hardly mattered. The old man who’d cooked the boar cut off chunks with a butterfly knife and handed me a piece on a broad, heart-shaped leaf. There was only enough for two grisly bites, but it was better than nothing. I took another piece for Chase.
He was still sitting on the grass with his arms draped loosely around his knees. His slumped posture and tapping heel made me tense. He took the food with an absent nod and scooted over to make room.
“Everything okay?” I whispered, sitting beside him.
Jesse jabbed into the fire with a stick and grinned. “My nephew and I were just talking about the good old days.”
“Oh?”
Chase stared into the fire. “Nothing important.”
“Come on,” said Jesse. “Tell her about that time you stuck up that guy inside the pharmacy.”
Chase glanced at me, then looked away.
Jesse laughed. “He goes into the place shakin’ like a leaf, knife ripping a hole through his shirt pocket. First-time jitters had him so worked over.” Chase smirked, but his heel was digging into the dirt. I bit down on the inside of my cheek. “He came back outside, no meds, no knife. Nothing but a black eye the pharmacist gave him.” Jesse was doubled over now, wiping a tear from his eye. “Boy, were you soft back then.”
I knew Chase’s education during the War had been unique; he’d stolen cars and learned to fight—things that had kept us alive. But I’d never heard the details of how he’d learned. I didn’t think I wanted to hear them from Jesse’s perspective.
“Not soft anymore.” Chase slung a broken branch into the fire.
Jesse stalled, and leaned back against a felled tree trunk. The dried berries he flicked into the fire popped like tiny gunshots.
“Is that right,” he said quietly. “So you’re a man now.”
I didn’t understand what they were talking about at first, but the pain was coming off of Chase in waves, and it wasn’t hard to figure out he was thinking about Harper again, and what had happened in the hospital in Chicago.
The flush hit my cheeks like a slap. “That doesn’t make you a man,” I said.
“It does in this world,” said Jesse. He sized me up with his gaze. “I saw you with that fork, neighbor. Would you have had the courage to stick it in my heart?”
I didn’t realize I was leaning forward until I felt my elbow bump Chase’s. “I got it in your leg, didn’t I?”
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Jesse’s face. It made me wonder what he’d done that had forced him to go into hiding.
I looked to Chase to back me up, but he was staring through the flames as though he wasn’t even listening. I placed my hand gently on his knee. He shuddered, as though waking from a dream, and wiped his palms on his jeans. Jesse watched us curiously.
Across the fire, Jack’s tall form stooped to talk to a small gathering of survivors. After a few moments, he rose and moved to Billy and Sarah. Billy stood and made his way to another group as Jack limped in our direction.
We stood. Jack picked at his teeth. What looked to be a T-shirt was tied around his leg.
“Rat’s gone missing,” he said. “A few of us are going back to the bridge to see if he’s there.”
It wasn’t until then that I remembered that Rat had raced past me in the attack. I’d assumed he’d returned once the fight was over, but apparently he had not.
“He went through the woods,” I said, leaving out the part that he’d been running scared. “I saw him during the fight.”
“Your uncle probably stabbed him. Accidently, of course.” Jack tightened the bandage around his leg, then spat into the fire. The flames hissed back at him.