By mid-February, the guard arrived to tell Ness he’d be allowed to drive himself. Ness frowned—he’d never liked driving, and the truck looked as awkward as a boat—but the man didn’t look willing to argue.
At least that meant Daniel and Roan trusted Ness was too cowardly or devoted to run off without Shawn. He could use that, should the chance present itself.
The opportunity came much sooner, and in far different form, than he could have imagined.
Wintry light slicing through the knobby branches. He’d stopped counting apple trees half an hour ago. The more time he spent in the orchards, the less actual work he did. Instead, he pretended he was elsewhere, exploring terra incognita, mapping parts of the world no one else ever had ever seen. He could live here. Eat the apples. Build bridges between the trees and never touch the ground except to dig up the food he buried to get through the winter. He could do that right now, couldn’t he? Hide away from Roan and her men in plain sight of the steam rising from the plant. They’d never find him. He could drive the truck into the river and strike out on his own that same day. If not for Shawn.
He was wondering how long the guilt would last when the alien stepped from the trees and lifted its tentacles above his head.
28
Tristan grabbed Colin’s collar. “What do you mean, you found my brother?”
Colin tried to pull away, scowling at her white knuckles. “Alden Carter, right? Blond kid? Fourteen?”
“Thirteen,” she corrected before remembering his birthday last month. “Where is he?”
“No, no, no.” Colin glanced around for Yvette and the man who served as his own shadow. He lowered his voice. “I can’t tell you that until you help me get out.”
“If you can get me out of these chains, exactly what do you need my help with?”
Colin continued to gaze across the grass. “Parting me from my shadow.”
Tristan didn’t look. “That’s why you wanted to know what I planned for Yvette.”
“And to satisfy my general curiosity about you.”
“You’re sure he’ll scream if you run?”
Colin rolled his eyes. “He’s a loyal subject.”
“So you can give the order, but you can’t pull the trigger.”
“Is that supposed to be a character flaw?” He softened his voice. “Look, I like him, all right? I don’t want to do this to him. But he’s left me with no choice.”
Tristan poked her tongue into the gap in her teeth. She could think of no clear motive for a setup. He could be lying about his motives for leaving the killings to her—he could be less squeamish about the blood than about being caught with it on his hands—but his intentions, at least, sounded legit.
If they weren’t, she could always kill him, too.
“When?” she said.
Colin smiled. “That didn’t take much convincing.”
“I’d be long gone if Yvette weren’t afraid to take a single beating. She banked that I’d roll over as easily as she did. She was wrong.”
He smirked. “One o’clock. Tomorrow night.”
Colin strode away, winking at Yvette as she waddled up with a fat tub of water. Yvette smiled back. She saw Tristan at the wash lines and her smile withered like the vineyards in the valley south of Redding.
She clunked down the tub at Tristan’s feet, splashing her ankles. “You’d get more work done if you spent less time talking to boys.”
“I’m a shameless flirt.” Tristan bent over the washboard. “What are you going to do? Tell Mom?”
Yvette tossed her head. “Maybe I will. It’s not very fair to me when I work twice as hard and we both go back to the same room every night. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“Resentful,” Tristan said. “I’m sorry. This has been such a big transition. I know I could have handled it better.”
Yvette frowned, wrung out a sweatshirt, clipped it to the line. “Well, you won’t be happy until you start to put your heart into it.”
“You’re right.”
Yvette laughed. “Maybe you should talk to more boys. You’re much more reasonable when you’re happy.”
“I’m just seeing things differently, that’s all.”
Tristan found it easy enough to fake her amiability. She just had to turn back the clock to the person she’d been a year before. If she could make it through 36 hours of this polite pliancy, she’d be back outside the walls. So she worked hard and without complaint. Yvette gave her several pointers, nodding in satisfaction when Tristan gave them a shot. Tristan watched Yvette when she wasn’t looking. She felt no qualms about the plan. She could make herself feel guilty, if she sought the emotion out, but mostly what she felt was rage. A part of her wanted to kill Yvette. The woman was weak. Would rather bow to every one of Winslowe’s rules than to stand and resist. She was a weasel who hid in the master’s skirts, waiting for prey to fall, wounded and helpless. Humanity didn’t need people like her.
Playing demure helped hide Tristan’s nerves, too. Those buzzed like her fourth cup of espresso. Her stomach fluttered. But these biochemical reactions didn’t climb to her brain. That remained detached. Focused. Resolved.
The day after she agreed to the plan, with just seven hours until it was scheduled to begin, Colin drifted up to Tristan after dinner. He gestured toward the patio where the servants were allowed to smoke, chat, and grab some fresh air, so long as they didn’t leave its cement boundaries. After the warmth of the kitchen, the nighttime marine air gripped Tristan’s body in a clammy fist.
“Still ready to get a little exercise?” Colin said.
She zipped up her jacket. “Hard to run when your legs are in chains.”
“Oh, that. Maybe this will help.” He reached for her hand. She started to draw back. He pressed something sharp and metal into her palm. In case anyone was watching, she held his hand for a minute, then moved the keys to her pocket.
“Where did you get these?”
He grinned with half his mouth. “Winslowe.”
“She hates me. She’d never just hand these over.”
“No, but get an orgasm or two in her, and she sleeps like a stone.” He gazed at a roly-poly crossing the patio. “Don’t judge me. We all do what we have to.”
“I wasn’t about to stone you. After tonight, you’ll have a couple of boulders to chuck my way.” She glanced inside. Yvette watched from a chair by the window, gaze ticking between Tristan and Colin. “What’s the plan?”
“Take care of your chains. Take care of your shadow. Then come to my room and take care of mine. He’s an absurdly light sleeper. Expect him to wake the second you open the door.”
“From there?”
“Hop the fence. I’ve got supplies waiting down the hill.”
“How?”
“Same friend who found your brother. You get us out of the house. I’ll take it from there.”
Tristan nodded slowly. “If this friend can do all that, why doesn’t he get you out?”
“Because he’s not that good a friend. And he’s not a fan of being executed.” Colin glanced at the window. “We’ve been out here too long. That shadow of yours can’t seem to keep her eyes off me. What do you think, should I ask her out?”
Tristan returned inside, ignoring Yvette’s stares, forcing herself to keep her hand out of her pocket. She read a National Geographic article on oceanic volcanoes until the bell sounded for bedtime. Yvette gave her the cold shoulder as they brushed their teeth and dressed for bed. That was fine with Tristan.
Winslowe came by to lock them in. Tristan waited in bed, listening to Yvette’s breathing. Tristan had a digital wristwatch Winslowe had given her to keep up with her chores; every few minutes, she cocooned herself in the covers and pressed its light function to check the time.
At 12:58 AM, she removed the key from under her mattress and fit it into her shackles. The right cuff popped free with a metallic click. Yvette breathed on. She released the second cuff and pulled her feet up to
her butt, leaving the shackles beneath the sheets. Her ankles felt incredibly light. She unzipped her mattress cover one tooth at a time and slid her fingers into the cut in the fabric. She touched plastic. She withdrew her second shiv, a long-toothed comb. She’d worked on it for weeks, sharpening its handle against the grout whenever she went to the bathroom, using the noise of the toilet and faucet to cover the sound of the scrapes.
She rose, careful not to stir the shackles. Light peeped from the base of the door. Yvette slept on. Tristan leaned in. She clamped one hand to Yvette’s soft mouth and slashed the shiv across her throat. Blood spurted over her hand. Yvette tried to scream, gargling on her own blood. Tristan jabbed the shiv into her heart and dropped her weight. Plastic scraped the girl’s ribs. She shuddered. Tristan bore down on her shiv and Yvette’s mouth. The blood stopped pumping. The girl’s chest stopped rising. After another minute, Tristan eased off and cleaned herself on Yvette’s sheets.
She dressed in pants, shoes, and a jacket. The door was closed with a bedroom/bathroom handle, reversed so it locked from the outside and keyed from the inside. But Colin had given her a key for this, too. She slipped it into the lock, feeling it glide over the tumblers, and turned.
The hallway was bright and empty. She paused in the doorway, heard the buzzing of lights and the muffled moans of the king enjoying himself upstairs. She crept down the hall to Colin’s room, turned the lock, and slipped inside.
It was a converted office, boards nailed gracelessly outside the window so the moonlight cut through in silver slats. Both men sat up in their beds. Tristan held the shiv in front of her and stared at Colin’s partner.
“You’re going to be very quiet,” she said.
The man pushed himself against his headboard. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Tristan advanced on the bed. “You have a choice to make.”
The man shuffled his feet in the sheets, as if trying to force himself through the wall. “I won’t say a word.”
“Convince me.”
“I’ve seen you together. I saw Colin give you the keys. I could have said something.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He laughed, burbling and off-kilter, then covered his mouth, eyes wide. “You kidding? I saw what you did to the guards the night you came here.”
Tristan turned to Colin. “Come on.”
“This isn’t what we planned,” Colin said.
“Shut up and get your shoes.”
“We can’t risk him—”
“He’s smart,” Tristan said. “Smart enough to prefer a beatdown to a comb through the heart. Right now, the king is upstairs with one of his brides. In sixty seconds, I’m out this door.”
“Break your word the moment you step through my door.” Colin fumbled for a shirt, pulled it over his smooth chest. He jammed on his shoes and laced them tight. “Great way to earn my trust.”
Colin’s partner stared through the moonlight. “You made her promise to kill me?”
“It was nothing personal.”
“I’d say that’s pretty fucking personal!”
“This is no time for couples counseling,” Tristan said. She pointed at the man in the bed. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. Wait ten minutes, then you can leave, too.”
The man’s brow creased. “Why can’t I leave with you?”
“Because I’m not friendly.” She pocketed her shiv. Yvette’s blood lined her nails. “The hard part is over. Wait ten minutes, then run.”
Colin pulled on his coat and picked up a small black bag. “Ready to go? Or do you plan to literally shoot us in the foot first?”
She stared at him, then opened the door. The hallway was still empty. The moans upstairs had ceased. She went to the back stairs and leaned over the railing. The kitchen was dark. She descended and moved to the light blinking on the alarm beside the back door. She’d been watching Winslowe reset it every morning. She punched the code. The light went green. She slid open the door, glass rumbling.
Cold air touched her face. She jogged across the dew-soaked lawn Dashing had the peasants mow every Sunday morning. Colin kept pace. She didn’t look back until they reached the high fieldstone wall. No extra lights had gone on at the palace.
She climbed straight up the rough stone, flattened herself under the first string of barb wire, and held down a hand to help Colin up.
“Who are you, Spider-Woman?” he whispered once he’d struggled his way up top. “What do you need me for?”
She smiled. “We’ll see.”
They dropped into the grass beyond the wall. Still no lights or alarms from the clubhouse. It would be another two or three minutes before Colin’s shadow made his move. And he would, too. Colin had misjudged him. She understood the urge to keep their conspiracy to a tight two, but it would have been less messy to include the man than to kill him.
Colin’s shoes smacked asphalt. She followed him down the road between the dark mansions of Oceanside. Or was it still Oceanside? It was Dashing’s land now. The territory of Better San Diego. The kingdom was a joke, but it was real, too. The institutions that had made it Oceanside were all dead. If a stranger were to come and draw a map, an update of what the country had become, Dashing’s claim would be the accurate one, the one that should be set down in ink. How many micro-nations bloomed on the blackened corpse of the United States? Even with the aliens gone, there was no hope for restoration, was there? Too many people had died. The few who were left would persist in pockets like Dashing’s for years. It could be generations before rulers had the resources to begin conquering and consolidating, pulling these new cities back into proper states. It could be hundreds of years. Progress was not inevitable. It was always easier to burn than to build.
The fog of her breath hung in the night. Colin jogged down a long hill, scanning house numbers, then turned into a driveway and knelt beside an overgrown flower bed. He lifted a stone owl and fished a key from the dirt.
“Just as planned,” he grinned. He led her through the dark house to the garage. A black Prius sat in the gloom. He laughed and grabbed her and hugged her to him. “Can you believe it?”
“Maybe.” She put her shiv to his neck. “Now where’s my brother?”
Colin went very still. “What are you—? I’m on your side!”
“Then you’ll be happy to tell me where Alden is.”
“Did the squid swap your brain with a crocodile’s? If you stab me, you’ll never find your brother.”
“Unless I start with your extremities and work my way in. If I cut off your balls, how long do you think it would it take you to bleed to death?”
“Cartwheeling Christ,” Colin said. “Washington State. A nuclear power plant made it through—it’s called Hanford. They got all kinds of slaves there. What’s your problem?”
Tristan lowered the knife. “How do you know all this?”
He popped the driver’s door and leaned in for the keys. “Same guy who set me up with this car. Old high school friend. He’s a coyote now, been driving people up there for weeks.”
“A guy like that is your friend?”
“Look, I just know the guy. You got a problem with that? Maybe you can go talk it out with Yvette.”
“Just want to know what we’re getting into.” She pulled the trunk latch. Water. Food. Blankets. She closed it, the click echoing in the three-car garage. “We got out. That was the deal. Why are you helping me now?”
He crossed his arms, rocking on his heels. “I had a little brother, too. He made it through the Panhandler. He wasn’t so lucky with what came after.”
She met his eyes. They were steady, bright. She went to the garage door and hauled it up with a metallic clatter. “Let’s go.”
He smiled unhappily and started the car. Brake lights flooded the garage. The engine was far softer than her Vespa. Colin wound through the palm-lined streets and the silent Spanish manors. He reached the highway and headed north. The gas engine kicked in, grumbling through the car’s sl
eek frame.
“What do you think you’ll do once you find him?” Colin said.
“Kill whoever’s got him.”
“I meant after that, Terminatrix.”
“I hadn’t really thought of it.” She gazed out the window at the flat, black Pacific. “Find a place. Stock up. Go from there.”
“I want to find a few people. Just a tight little group. No psychos like Lord Dashing.”
“You don’t want to go it alone?”
“No way,” he said. “Who’s going to watch your back against the wolves? Anyway, you’d get lonely, don’t you think? I mean, my hand makes great company, but it’s awfully clingy.”
“You could get a mannequin,” she said. “Dress her up however you like.”
“Just you and your brother.” He laughed, gazing across the car at her. “What are you going to do when he wants to find a girl?”
“I told you. Mannequins.”
“Well, he is fourteen. He’d probably go for that.”
With the aliens gone, they drove straight through Los Angeles, slowing to weave through the wrecks blockading the lanes of the highway. Smoke rose from a handful of chimneys, but entire stretches of the landscape had been burnt to the foundations. Tristan looked out Colin’s window, trying to catch a glimpse of the sea and the disc of the ship jutting from the waves, but the highway was too far inland. Another time.
They stopped at a gas station in the cleft of the hills north of the city. Tristan peed in the weeds, then made a pass through the convenience mart, but it had been stripped bare. Colin topped off the tank with one of the two jugs in the trunk. Tristan bashed in the window of an SUV and siphoned the jug back to the top. They continued on.
“You smell like gasoline,” Colin laughed.
“Peril of the age,” Tristan said.
“Got some gum if you want it.”
“You kidding? I’d kill for gum.”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 135