Kit glanced at Ike, who shrugged.
She looked back at Lucas. ‘What is that?’ she asked.
‘You’ll find out. Come with me.’ He glanced back at Ike. ‘It involves a building.’
‘What kind of building?’
‘An old farmhouse – an eyesore, really.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s way too soon for you to ask questions. If you’re with us, prove it. If not …’ He glanced over at Ike.
‘She’s with us,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you, Katherine?’
‘What choice do I have?’
Lucas glanced toward the basement, his stance that of a child assuming the role of an adult. ‘I can’t take the responsibility for letting you leave in this condition.’
‘You could drive me to town,’ she said. ‘That would be pretty responsible.’
‘I will. Ike will, I mean. Once we know we can trust you.’
‘And I already told you, no fraternity hazing.’
‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘You clearly don’t understand our values. It’s a minor chore. Something you wouldn’t necessarily do, but once you do it for us, in front of us, we’ll know we can trust you.’
‘That sounds great in theory,’ she told him, ‘but what are you talking about specifically?’
‘Let’s take a ride.’ Lucas nodded toward the door. ‘You’ll learn the rest once we get there. Fair enough?’
‘Nothing about this is fair.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ Lucas seemed pleased. ‘We’ll need to hurry, though. It’s movie night.’
She started to tell him that she wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want to, but that would be prolonging the inevitable. Maybe Richard was nearby, or John Paul and his cop friends. Perhaps one of them could follow these kids wherever they were taking her, but she was no longer sure anyone could follow them out here in this forgotten vineyard.
The other kids rode in the pickup bed. Kit was wedged between Ike and Lucas in the front seat.
Kit pressed closer to Ike to distance herself from Lucas as much as possible. Yet Ike was crazy too. This is what happened in Stockholm syndrome situations, she knew. Ike and Lucas could play good cop, bad cop with her until she believed Ike was on her side. Soon she would identify as a group member. That wasn’t going to happen, though. The swelling around her ankle had already lessened. One more night, and she would be gone, with or without their permission.
SEVENTEEN
Katherine leaned closer to him as they drove, and Ike had to keep himself from putting his arm around her. He felt bad for Katherine, but he also trusted her to do the right thing. Once she proved herself, Lucas would let her stay. But what if she didn’t want to? Ike remembered what Lucas had said about Jessica. The compound was about being who they were and were meant to be. If Katherine decided to stay once she calmed down, that would be cool. If she chose to go back on the streets, he could not and should not stop her. Right now, they just needed to get this over with before Lucas came up with any more crazy ideas.
Jessica always said Ike was like a big teddy bear. It was the only nice thing she ever said about him, and she probably didn’t even mean it that way. She probably meant he was a brainless pussy. Still, Ike liked the idea of a woman feeling safe with him. That’s what he was thinking as they drove in the dark down the dirt road.
They found the farmhouse and pulled outside it on to a skinny driveway that was actually two little strips of concrete, each about as wide as a tire. Ike kept the truck running, both to keep the heater going and to put off what they were going to have to do.
The kids jumped out of the back of the truck almost soundlessly, their shoes like leaves brushing the ground. Ike recognized the place at once: the ramshackle fruit stand run by the old Armenian lady. Shit, he hoped she wasn’t in the shack. No, she was usually gone this time of year, wasn’t she? Lucas would know. He was kind of obsessed by the nosy old woman. Good thing she didn’t know where they lived, or she would have been snooping around for sure. It was their fault, though, for trying to steal tomatoes last summer, never expecting she would pull out a gun and chase the truck down the road.
‘What are we supposed to do here?’ Katherine asked in a voice that was tougher than she was. ‘Because if you think I’m going to spend the night in that shack, you are out of your mind. I’d risk coyotes and any other predators.’
‘Do calm down,’ Lucas said, but, staring at that place with its brown wood shutters, she got even more worked up.
‘If I have to go back on the streets, I will.’
‘You can stay with us,’ Lucas said. ‘At least for now. I already told you that.’
The other kids danced around the house quietly. Too late to stop it now.
‘Shall we?’ Lucas opened the door and glanced back at them.
‘Coming,’ Ike said, feeling as if he was back at home and talking to his father. He almost added ‘sir’.
He started to open his door, but Katherine looked up at him with large, frightened eyes.
‘What’s he going to make me do out there?’
‘Nothing we can’t get through. Then it will be over, and everything will be all right. Come on. We’d better get going.’
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I want you to tell me something, and I want the truth.’
‘I’m not a liar, Katherine.’
‘Then tell me. If it were up to you, would you make me do this? In the cold? On a dark night? In the middle of a deserted field?’
Ike flopped his arm over the back of the pickup. His hand landed on her shoulder. She looked at it but didn’t flinch.
‘If it was up to me,’ he said, and knew he wasn’t going to lie to her. ‘No.’
‘No what?’ In the dark, her eyes gleamed like the flames on the candles his granny liked to burn when she made him hot chocolate.
‘If it was up to me, I wouldn’t ask you to do this.’
‘Yet you introduced me to the guy who is,’ she said.
‘It was the best thing and still is. Besides, I’ve got your back. It will be over in no time.’
‘I’m not going inside that thing.’
‘You don’t have to.’ Again, he wasn’t lying. ‘Five minutes, ten, and we’ll be back on the road, laughing about it.’
‘I doubt that,’ she said, and he could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
Ike made himself think only of the job ahead. He couldn’t start feeling sorry for her now.
The passenger door yanked open, and cold air sneaked in with Lucas’s smiling face. ‘Ready, Katherine?’ Lucas asked. ‘Your audience is waiting.’
‘I’ve got your back,’ Ike repeated.
‘You’re doing a lousy of job of it so far.’ She pulled the truck door shut and then slowly opened it again.
Ike imagined the cold air chilling her legs.
‘Why does he want me at this particular place?’
Because he thinks the old lady spies on us. ‘I don’t know. Just hurry up. It’s cold as hell out here.’
‘You think hell is cold?’ she asked.
‘I don’t have time for riddles, girl. Let’s just get this handled.’
She started out the door and then looked up at him as if for one last time. ‘If I do this and do it right, do you think Lucas will let me go?’
‘Maybe.’ He felt like the magician clown he used to watch on the TV back before everything went to hell. ‘Lucas doesn’t lie,’ he said. ‘Remember what I said.’
The kids piled their bundles around the front of the structure. Fire starters. Now she understood. Kit wanted to run. Instead, she had to burn down a deserted shack. Her hands trembled, and she felt a wave of nausea.
I can’t. That’s what she wanted to say, what she should have said the moment she considered taking one step from her relatively safe life into this one.
Instead, she said, ‘What do you want me to do?’
The shack was one of those that farmers built for their laborers. The once
-white wood had gone dingy, and as Kit looked at it from across the safety of the field, she tried to imagine its insides. No entry hall from the front door, just a square room. To the left, a kitchen with a wood stove. To the right, a hall with one bedroom and, not much farther down, one bath. Windows, what there were of them, would look out on wet grass and black earth. It didn’t deserve to be burned.
Kit glanced back at Ike. He responded with a quick shake of his head, as if to say this was the only way she could get out of here.
She looked into the field behind her again and saw only Ike in his thick camouflage-print gloves and matching jacket.
Do it. Ike mouthed the words. Now.
The other kids continued piling kindling, gleeful but silent, as if holding in their laugher only excited them more.
Kit walked up to the front door of the house and almost told it she was sorry. Her nostrils burned with a sharp chemical smell. All right, then. For a moment, as she reached for the fire starter and aimed it, she thought of her mother. After the treacherous journeys that both of them had taken to find each other, her mother would not approve of this detour. ‘Just tell the truth,’ she would say. ‘Tell those people what you need.’
But her mother was probably with Richard, trying to be strong while she imagined the worst. She didn’t need to know what her daughter was about to do.
One more glance back at Ike. One more approving nod, and she reached down, squeezed the trigger of her fire gun, and watched the logs outside the front door of the house turn blue and orange. Heat drove her back before she could light more, but the fire and the flames reminded her that whatever happened was out of her control now.
The moment before she turned away, Kit looked into that blaze and thought of her mother again. How could she ever explain that she had burned down a perfectly non-threatening farm shack for no reason other than to appease some crazy kid who had put himself in charge of other kids’ lives?
The intensity of the flames shoved up hot gray billows of smoke into the air.
‘Come on,’ Ike shouted. ‘We’re done.’
Kit needed to turn away. She had to. Her feet made the decision before she did.
In a few steps, she would sit with Ike, proudly arriving at the compound. Having proven herself, she would be accepted by Lucas long enough to get out of there and tell Richard where his niece was.
‘Help. Fire.’
Kit stopped. The voice sounded like the whine of the trees.
‘Come on.’ Ike seemed nervous. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. Fire trucks will be here before you know it. Cops too maybe.’
‘Help me,’ she heard again. Oh my god, someone is in there.
Ike didn’t have to say he heard it. Kit could see it in his face.
‘There’s someone in there, Ike.’
‘We need to run.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ She started for the house. ‘You go, then. You coward.’
She went around the back, hoping that part was still intact. It was. An old woman stumbled toward the back door. ‘Help, someone.’ Her high-pitched voice sounded like everyone in Kit’s life she hadn’t been able to save. The woman moved in a disoriented dance.
‘I’m here,’ Kit said. ‘I’m here now.’ She might have shouted or whispered the words; she no longer knew.
The woman fell. For a moment, she looked dead. Then she stirred.
Kit ran on to the smoke-filled back porch and grabbed her.
Lighter than she looked in her heavy tapestry-printed robe, she let Kit lift and carry her from the burning house.
Once outside, Kit helped her sit on a tree stump. Only then did Kit realize that the woman could barely breathe. On her knees, she gulped in air and realized she had almost committed murder.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You saved my life.’ The woman spoke in a heavy accent.
Kit heard the sound of a fire truck. ‘You’re safe now.’ I’m so sorry.
‘My house.’
‘The firefighters are on the way. They’ll be able to save it.’
The woman put her face in her hands and sobbed.
Kit ran to the front. She had done this and would have to pay for it, but at least the firefighters could help this poor woman. Once she told them the truth, she would be free of Lucas and the others.
‘Not so fast.’ Ike grabbed her into his powerful arms and carried her to the truck.
‘No!’ she shouted.
‘You’re just upset, Katherine,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here before she sees us. You could be arrested.’
‘I don’t care,’ she cried. ‘I don’t care.’ Kit shouted it over and over until she realized there was no hope, no hope at all, and they pulled into the compound.
EIGHTEEN
‘Impressive.’ Lucas strolled around the kitchen, his back so stiff and stance so rigid that he must be imagining himself in a military uniform. ‘Everyone has a strength. Yours might be your bravado, Katherine. That’s different from bravery, of course, but it’s still admirable, considering.’
‘Do you realize what almost happened?’ she demanded, beyond outrage, but trying to express it the way Katherine would. ‘That woman could be dead.’
‘So could you. It’s nice how it worked out, isn’t it?’
Kit started for the front door and had to grab for the frame to steady herself. She needed to find a working phone, but no one was going to hand one over. Maybe just try to get close to Jessica, then. If Kit could gain her trust, she might be able to get out of here.
‘You made it worse with your heroics back there, didn’t you?’ Lucas walked over to where she stood trying to hide her pain. ‘It was worth it, though. You saved a life. We all have talents here. Everyone contributes something. After what I just saw, you might be exactly what we need.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ Ike said.
‘Your message, friend, has been far from clear – to me and I’m guessing to yourself.’
‘I can do whatever Katherine can,’ Sissy put in.
‘You’ll get your chance.’ Lucas glanced toward the wood stove. ‘Got any coffee over there?’ Sissy glared at him, and then hurried to the cast-iron coffee pot, lifted it, and shook her head. ‘Tea will be fine,’ he told her, and then turned his attention to them. ‘Remember how the Weasel used to say we needed a new challenge?’ he asked.
The others responded with groans and grunts.
‘He called them growing opportunities,’ Ike said. ‘So we could discover all we were capable of. I can still see the Weasel in my nightmares.’
‘We all can,’ Lucas said. ‘That’s why we’re here. One of the reasons, at least. And he had a point. Katherine just proved she’s not afraid of fire.’ He smiled at her. Kit looked away and limped to the table. ‘What else can we work on?’ Lucas asked.
‘Strength,’ Ike said.
‘Loyalty.’ Wyatt turned toward Jessica, who returned his look so briefly that Kit thought she might have imagined it. But then she saw the cold freeze of Lucas’s gaze and knew better.
‘What do you think our next challenge should be, Katherine?’ he asked her.
‘You’re the so-called leader,’ she said, ‘and I’m not going to be here that long.’
He walked around the group, checking out each one of them. Finally, he stopped in front of Sissy, who stood beside nerdy dark-haired Theo.
Sissy turned, wide-eyed, from the wood stove. With their blond hair, slight build, and façade of innocence, she and Lucas might have been brother and sister.
‘What quality of life and survival would you like to see tested here?’ he asked her.
Sissy pouted and looked at Jessica. ‘Trust maybe. Yes, trust.’
‘That’s pretty nice.’ Lucas returned to his natural understated voice and turned his approving smile on Sissy, who blushed. ‘If we don’t have trust, I guess we don’t have anything, do we?’
‘We don’t have anything,’ Sissy echoed, and s
troked her fingers over her arms. The rest of the kids mumbled to themselves and each other.
‘Would you not agree, Katherine?’ All of a sudden, Lucas glided as if on skates, and faced Kit with that contrived smile of his.
‘That depends.’ She rose from the table. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not setting any more buildings on fire.’
They responded with chuckles.
‘Is that so?’ Lucas produced another feigned smile. ‘But are you willing to play a little game of trust?’
‘I don’t know.’ She glanced at Jessica, who shook her head. Then she met Lucas’s gaze. ‘Probably not.’
‘Sissy,’ Lucas said. ‘If I were to ask you to prove your trust for me right now, what would you do?’
‘Anything.’ She shrugged and looked down at her hands.
‘Would you walk through fire if I told you I’d be on the other side and guide you through it?’
‘Fire’s out,’ Kit said.
‘It was an example.’ In a response to the force in her voice, Lucas lightened his even more. ‘If not fire … would you walk through ice if I waited on the other end of it?’
Sissy nodded. ‘I would. What about you, Jessica?’
‘I would,’ she shot right back at Sissy. ‘If Wyatt waited for me.’
They were playing into Lucas’s hands, Kit realized, but she could not figure out what the game was, or what he wanted from it.
‘And you, Ike?’ he asked, his clipped voice forced and polite. ‘Would you walk through ice blindfolded?’
Ike chewed on his bottom lip, and Kit knew he was trying to figure out the game as well. ‘I would,’ he answered slowly. ‘If Katherine was waiting.’
‘Perfect.’ Lucas took the mug from Sissy, sipped, and then grinned at them over the top of it. ‘I think I’ve figured out our next challenge.’
‘Not tonight, I hope,’ Ike said. ‘I don’t want to walk through ice blindfolded.’
The others chuckled softly – all but Sissy, who shoved her hands to her hips and glared at all of them as if she wished they would leave.
‘Not walking, friend.’ Lucas moved slowly around the inside of the circle that had closed around him. ‘Not walking blindfolded.’
Goodbye Forever Page 14