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“What? Going to the camp?”
She nodded, tapping her hand against the open window. “With all the Angel Killers there, when I’m . . . what I am. They’re not exactly going to be my new best friends, are they?” Her voice sounded tense.
Stupidly, this hadn’t even occurred to him. He thought about it as he steered them around a series of ruts. “I guess some of them might be pretty taken aback at first,” he said. As he had been; he didn’t say this, but he knew they were both thinking it. “But, Willow, it’s not like you’re on the angels’ side — they want you dead; they think you can destroy them. That’s what everyone will be interested in, not what you are. ”
She grimaced. “I hope so. ”
The urge to touch her was overwhelming. Alex gave into it, resting his fingers fleetingly on her arm. “Hey, don’t worry. It’ll be OK. ”
Willow’s face relaxed a fraction. She shot him a small smile. “All right. Thanks. ”
They drove in silence for a while as the Chevy wheezed and moaned across the desert. Spiky yucca plants dotted the dry soil, and lizards scuttled out of their way. Finally, Alex saw the camp’s chain-link fence come into view, wavering with heat lines in the distance. “Guess what. I think we made it,” he said.
Willow sat up straight. “Is that it?”
“That’s it. ” Viewing the camp through her eyes, he saw a cluster of low white buildings in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a chain-link fence with razor-edged wire curling at its top. There were no trees, no ornamentation of any kind. It was sparse and functional, completely featureless.
It was the only home he’d ever really known.
Willow pulled her shoes on, not taking her eyes off the camp as they neared it. “It looks just like what I saw. ” She gave him an uncertain glance. “So, how many people will be there? Do you know?”
He shook his head. “No idea. The most there ever were when I lived here was thirty-seven. ”
“That’s all?”
Alex shrugged. “It varied,” he said. Varied, depending on who had gotten killed that week and on whether his father had managed to recruit anyone new. They had gotten a lot of crazies out there — people who couldn’t handle the energy work and ended up drifting around in a dreamy haze, or psychos who just wanted to shoot up everything in sight. The core number of AKs that you could actually count on had been more like twelve.
As they neared the gates, he slowed the Chevy almost to a stop and untwisted the wires under its steering wheel. Obediently, the car died.
He stepped out into the baking sun, shading his eyes as he gazed around the camp. Apprehension crawled across his neck. It was much too quiet; there wasn’t a single other vehicle in sight. On the gate in front of them, the sign that said PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT AT RISK OF PHYSICAL HARM was hanging sideways, dangling loosely from one screw.
On the other side of the car, Willow had gotten out, too, staring in at the buildings beyond the fence. She looked quickly at him, not saying anything.
Alex had a very bad feeling about this. Walking up to the gate, he saw that the lock that had always hung there was missing; there was only a latch in its place. He lifted it, and the gate pushed open easily at his touch. Inside, the building that they’d used as general storage stood with its metal door open, obviously vacant. The other buildings looked similarly abandoned. Jesus, it was a ghost town in there.
Willow moved to his side, hugging her arms. “So what does this mean?”
“It means I’m an idiot,” said Alex. He slapped his hand against the chain-link fence; it trembled and rattled. “Shit. The CIA must have moved the whole operation after they took over. The training camp could be anywhere now. ”
Willow bit her lip. “Oh. ” She looked back at the buildings. “Do you think Cully is definitely where the camp is?”
“I don’t know. I just assumed he’d be training new AKs, but . . . ” Alex pushed harshly at the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign, so that it swung on its remaining screw. “I don’t even know how to get hold of him. None of us have any of the other’s cell phone numbers anymore. ”
Willow looked deep in thought. “Well — what if he’s not training new AKs?” she suggested finally. “Where would he be, then? Maybe we could start with that, and see if we can track him down. ”
Her reasonable tone calmed him, made it easier to think. “Yeah, maybe . . . We could try Albuquerque, I guess. I know most of his old hangouts. If he’s not with the AKs, he’s probably there somewhere. ”
“OK,” said Willow. “Albuquerque it is. ”
She gave him a smile, and Alex managed a rueful one in return, relieved that she wasn’t blaming him for his stupidity — he was blaming himself enough already for both of them. He started to head back to the car, already dreading the thought of trying to get the thing across the desert again.
“Wait — could we have a look around before we go?”
Alex turned to her in surprise. She was still standing at the fence gazing into the camp, the sun casting chain-link diamonds across her face.
“What for?” he asked.
Willow ran her finger along one of the chain links, and glanced back at him with a smile. “I’d just really like to see where you grew up. ”
“This was the canteen,” said Alex.
They were in a long, low building with a counter on one side. The metal folding tables and chairs were still there, the chairs scattered about the tables as if everyone had just gotten up and trooped off to the rec room to play poker, or to the range for some target practice. Standing beside the counter, Alex shoved his hands in his back pockets, gazing around him. It was like seeing two scenes at once, one overlaid on the other: there were Cully and some of the other AKs, sitting laughing at a table. Man, what is this crap? Cully had demanded at practically every meal. Where’s that lowlife cook, so I can shoot him? Alex smiled slightly, remembering. There had been no cook; they’d lived off canned goods and stuff in plastic packets.
Willow drifted around the room. Her fingers trailed across the back of a chair as she passed. “What was it like, growing up here?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed normal to me. ” Alex picked up an empty coffee mug from the counter and turned it over in his hands. “We didn’t have a TV because it would drain the generator, so I didn’t really know how weird it was. I mean, I sort of knew that the rest of the world didn’t live like this, but . . . ” He shrugged, putting the mug back.
“How old were you when you moved here?”
“Five,” he said.
“God, so young,” she murmured. “Where are you from originally?”
“Chicago. I don’t really remember it, though. ”
There was a light dusting of sand on the floor. It made a scraping noise under Willow’s sneakers as she moved to join him. “So what did you learn here, if you didn’t go to school?”
He laughed suddenly. “Hey, we had school. We did target practice, and we learned how to spot angels, take care of our weapons, read auras, manipulate chakra energy . . . ” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I was probably busier than you were. ”
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