I hadn’t told anyone I was going to take the test. We’d eaten dinner, which had been a somber affair. Ruining the motorboat was quite a blow. We couldn’t get across the river without it. To get to the nearest bridge we had to cross the Ohio River, which fed the Mississippi and cut across Kentucky. No one seemed in much mood for happiness. Really, it was annoying. Why had the OF sent us all the way out here and then told us to maintain our position? We weren’t moving forward. We were a moored ship. If we didn’t move on soon, we were going to run out of resources. There was only so much we could steal from this area. Things looked bleak.
After dinner, I’d shoved the pregnancy test in my pocket, taken a kerosene lantern, and snuck off to go to the bathroom.
We had a makeshift outhouse that someone had set up near the church, which was basically a toilet seat over a hole in the ground. The thing smelled horrible, and I had this image of dropping the pregnancy test in the hole while I was trying to pee on it. I wasn’t going to go digging for it if that happened. Instead, I was just going to go squat in the woods.
I’d sat for minutes, my bladder begging for release, reading every single word of the instructions twice. Then I’d just gone for it. The whole experience was super gross. I mean, seriously, who wants to hold a little plastic thing in her own urine stream?
But it was done now. I’d recapped the test. It was sitting on the ground. I was pacing and waiting for three minutes to be up.
The sun was going down and the inside of the forest was all bright streams of light and shadows.
I surveyed the trunks of the trees, thinking about how trees reproduced. They didn’t have to have messy sex, oh no. There were no weird relationships and wondering if you actually cared about someone. Just wait for the wind to knock your seeds off into the ground. Some of them would take, maybe, if they got buried or if a squirrel ate them and pooped them out somewhere. It was much easier. Trees never even had to worry about being pregnant.
I didn’t want to be pregnant. I stared down at the test, willing it to be negative. I checked my watch. One minute had passed. Wonderful. These three minutes were going to last longer than the car ride from Georgia.
Thinking about the interminable car ride here made me think about Kieran. He wanted a baby.
Why? Was he crazy? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Wasn’t the girl supposed to want a baby and the boy supposed to want his freedom?
Was that what I wanted? Freedom?
Not really. I didn’t feel very free right now. I didn’t want to be pregnant because it would make my life miserable. I remembered the dream, waddling around with my enormous belly. How would I function if I was so impaired by my own body? I wouldn’t be able to shoot. Of course, only really fucked up people shot at pregnant women.
Maybe I’d be sort of safe if I was pregnant. At least once I started showing, I would be, I guessed. God. It couldn’t be. Kieran and I had used a condom. We’d been safe. Things like this were only supposed to happen to stupid girls who didn’t pay attention to what was going on.
They were not supposed to happen to me, because I wasn’t ready.
Forget shooting at people with a big belly. How was I supposed to shoot at people with a baby in my arms, screaming to be fed? What was I going to do? I was going to be helpless, wasn’t I? I guess I’d have Kieran. Jesus. Maybe that’s why he liked the entire idea. He’d be important. He’d have to protect us. I’d be worthless, nothing more than dead weight.
And I’d be fat. Overall, there seemed to be nothing particularly good about the idea of being pregnant. God knew that when Mina had been complaining about being pregnant, I’d suggested she get an abortion. She’d been horrified. I didn’t think it was particularly nice to get an abortion.
I wasn’t sure whether it was actually a baby or a blob of tissue. But I did know that if the option existed for me right now—
But wait. If the option existed for me right now, I’d be in my senior year of college. I’d be almost ready to have a degree. Would I still choose to have an abortion?
It wasn’t like I hated babies.
I didn’t know. And anyway, it didn’t matter. I didn’t have a choice, thanks to the apocalypse.
Nothing like all the lights going out to set the women’s movement back a few hundred years, right?
I checked my watch again. Two minutes. Really? It had only been two minutes? This last minute was going to be torture, wasn’t it? I bet that it would feel like it lasted longer than the first two minutes combined.
I couldn’t help it. I snuck a look at the test. Oh goody. Only one line. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? I probably wasn’t pregnant.
I looked at my watch again. Wait. Wait. Okay, I’d wait.
I heard a rustling behind me. I pulled my gun, scanning the area with my eyes. “Hello?”
Maybe it was an animal. Maybe Kieran had followed me, because he’d somehow known I was going to take the pregnancy test.
“Kieran?” I called.
But instead, a girl emerged from the woods, looking sheepish. She had red hair, and she was wearing a long skirt. It was Polly, Jason’s new girlfriend.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m sorry,” Polly said. “Put down your gun.”
“No fucking way,” I said, cocking it.
She put her hands up, her eyes widening in fear. “I’m really sorry. I wanted to find you alone. I swear, I looked away while you were…you know…”
Jesus Christ, was she serious? I just glared at her.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “I don’t have a gun. I promise I won’t hurt you.” She had a teeny, high voice, kind of like Minnie Mouse. This was what Jason was screwing?
I looked her over. She probably didn’t have a gun. She was one of those petite, girly types. She probably did the damsel-in-distress bit a lot. “Are you alone?” I asked.
“I swear,” she said, “it’s just me. If Jason found out I came to talk to you, he’d be really angry.”
I put the gun away. “What do you want?”
“Can I come closer?”
I considered. “Whatever.”
She took several timid steps forward, but eventually stopped out of my reach. She clasped her hands in front of her, twisting them nervously like a five-year-old. In that moment, she disgusted me. I hated her.
Sometimes weakness does that to me. I see it, and I sneer at it. I know that I was weak once, and if Jason hadn’t trained me, I’d still be weak. It doesn’t matter, though. I still can’t stand it.
“You’re different than I expected,” she said to me in her tinny voice.
“So are you,” I said. I’d expected Jason would want someone with more of a spine.
“You’re like him.”
I was so not like him. But she could say what she wanted. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I’ve known Jason for a while,” she said.
Not as long as I had. But I didn’t say that. It sounded petty. “Okay.”
“I met him when he used to do the street fights.”
“Street fights?”
“You didn’t know about that? They were on youtube. Lots of people knew about them. Jason was like a celebrity.”
Somehow, the fact that Jason had run around beating people up on youtube after we broke up did not surprise me.
“Anyway,” she said, “I really liked him. He seemed so strong and masculine, you know, but he was also kind of…haunted. I thought it was sexy.”
Yeah, okay. I guess she’d pegged that right. I nodded. “I get that.”
“Well, he’s just, he’s getting different,” she said.
“No,” I said. “He’s not getting different. He was always like that. You just wanted to see something else.”
She twisted her hands harder, getting them caught up in her skirt. “Maybe so,” she said softly.
Damn it. Despite myself, I felt a little bad for this girl. I kind of knew how she felt.
“Sometimes he scares me,” she said.
“Leave him,” I said. “Get the hell away from him.”
She laughed kind of helplessly. “I wish I could.”
“You can,” I said. “You could stay with us. We’d find someplace for you. Someplace safe.” I didn’t really know how we’d do that. I didn’t like this girl much, but I did feel sorry for her.
Maybe if someone just helped her out a little bit, she’d be stronger, and she wouldn’t need to be with dickwads like Jason.
She shook her head. “No, that’s not really an option. I can’t do that.”
I wasn’t going to force her. “So you just wanted to have girl talk, then? Did you think I’d tell you that underneath all that violence and anger, Jason’s really just a fuzzy puppy? Because he’s not.
He’s deeply disturbed. And he still flirts with me all the time, so—”
“No, I know that,” she said. “He’s still in love with you. He’s never lied to me about that. I didn’t come to complain about him.” She looked embarrassed, like she’d brought the wrong thing to a dinner party. “He’s scary sometimes, and I think he’s losing it, and that’s why I came to talk to you. You’re looking for that book he has, aren’t you?”
The grimoire? “Yes,” I said.
“I thought so. If you had it, he says you could make it so he can’t, you know, make everyone listen to him.”
I nodded. “I could.”
“I think that would be better,” she said. “He didn’t used to do that all that time, but now, it’s like he’s controlling everybody. Maybe if that went away, he’d be more like he used to be.”
I smiled sadly at her. “Sweetie, I don’t think he’s going to change. I waited for years, and he never did. He just got worse.”
She unclasped her hands and rubbed the tops of her thighs, still looking incredibly nervous. Was it me? But I was being nice now. “I have to try, though, you know? Everyone else has given up on him. If I give up on him too, I’m afraid he’ll lose it completely.”
My heart went out to her. “You can’t help him,” I said. “You can’t stop him.” Maybe only I could do that. And I resisted doing it all the time, too. How messed up were we both?
“I’ll help you get the book,” she said. “I’ll get it for you, and I’ll bring it you. It’s really all I can do, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “But I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“He won’t hurt me,” she said. “He never hurts me.”
I’d said that before.
But as much as I didn’t want Polly to be in danger, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If she wanted to help, I’d let her. We set up a time to meet again, in two days, dusk, in this same spot.
We didn’t talk much more. I couldn’t help but repeat my offer to her. She could leave Jason and stay with us. She was firm, if quiet, in her response. She wouldn’t leave him.
After she walked off, her small body disappearing into the trees and the growing darkness, I couldn’t help but think a little about her. What was the difference between Polly now and me at seventeen? At that age, I’d been just as devoted to Jason, and just as sure of his internal goodness, hidden in there amongst all his complexity and danger.
If I were honest with myself, what she said was true. Jason wasn’t one to hurt women he dated.
When it came to other women, like his mother for instance, he didn’t seem to care too much about gender. But he’d never hurt me. No. Jason’s violence had always been directed towards people who threatened our safety. He’d protected us. If he hadn’t done a lot of the things that he’d done, we’d be dead. And it wasn’t like I was a saint either.
Well. Jason’s violence hadn’t always been directed against threats to our safety. Maybe he thought of them as that, but sometimes, he was motivated by jealousy, pure and simple. It made him ugly. Hell, I guess I wasn’t immune to it either. Hadn’t I let loose with my magic because I’d seen him making out with Polly? If only, back in New Jersey, things hadn’t gotten so out of hand. If only, when I thought about Jason, I didn’t remember a motionless body on the floor, and Jason’s wide eyes as he claimed, “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
And I guess it wasn’t strictly true that he’d never tried to hurt me. There had been the time in the Sons’ stronghold, when he’d shot at me. That was the only time he’d ever threatened to hurt me.
When he’d done it, he’d had that look in his eyes. That empty look, full of rage.
Afterwards, I remembered him sobbing on his knees, forcing me to hold a gun to his head, and begging me to shoot him, to end all of the darkness within him. He’d known what he was capable of. I’d discarded it. I hadn’t believed it was there. Did that make me stupid? He’d sobbed like that in New Jersey too, but it hadn’t mattered anymore. He’d crossed a line, and he could never make it right. Never.
Back then, Jason was all I had. I didn’t believe I could count on anyone else. I guess, back then, I felt like I needed someone to count on. Now…well, now, I was used to being on my own. Maybe that was why it was so hard to let Kieran in. Because Kieran wanted to take care of me. And I didn’t know if I wanted to let anyone do that for me ever again. It was scary for one thing. And it was unnecessary. I didn’t need help. I’d been through so much. I was what I was. Trying to be vulnerable for someone like that wasn’t something I really wanted to do. But if I was going to have a baby, I was going to be vulnerable, and I was going to have to get used to—
Crap. The pregnancy test! I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes?!
That was too long, wasn’t it? But what happened if you read the test too late?
I raced over to the test and snatched it up off the ground. It was too dark. I could hardly see anything. I sat down hard on the ground and held it up to the kerosene lantern. I could see one strong pink line. My heart thudded.
Negative.
But no. There was another line there. It was faint, very faint, but I could see it. And the test said that even a faint line was a positive.
No. No, no, no. Please, no.
Why had I lost that other test? If I had it, I could test again.
Two lines. I was pregnant. Oh, God. I was pregnant.
* * *
As I got back towards the church, I could hear angry voices, talking over each other. Great. This was all I needed. I was pregnant, and now I was coming back to an argument. I trudged up from the woods. Everyone was still sitting outside around the grill, where I’d seen them last. Kieran was on his feet, gesturing wildly. Hallam was standing too. He was pointing his finger at Kieran. They were both talking at once. I couldn’t make out what either of them were saying.
I sat down in an empty chair. No one seemed to notice that I’d arrived. Maybe no one had noticed that I’d left.
“You’d risk the lives of these people on some kind of revenge errand?” Hallam was saying.
“They’re dangerous people,” Kieran said. “And they’re in this area. I think they need to be dealt with.” Oh, okay, I got what this was about. Kieran wanted to rally everyone into going after the people who’d murdered his family. Hadn’t I told him that Hallam wouldn’t go for it?
“We have neither the resources nor the time—” Hallam started.
“Time?” said Kieran. “What are we so busy doing here, huh? I don’t think we’re doing anything.
We’re sitting around waiting while Jason’s people attack us and ruin our boat.”
“You’re not taking anyone with you to find these people, and that’s final,” said Hallam.
“Well, can I ask them?” Kieran said. His eyes swept the group. Everyone turned away from him, not meeting his eyes. “Maybe they want to help.”
Hallam gritted his teeth. “It’s not their decision. I’m in charge here, and I say that no one’s going anywhere.”
Kieran’s nostrils flared.
“Sit down,” Hallam said.
Kieran did, but he didn’t look like he liked it.
He was interrupted by Gus, who’d been inside. He stuck his head out the back door. “Radio transmission!” Gus yelled.
Everyone stood up at once and started for the church. We got a little bottlenecked at the doorways, but within a minute, we were all inside the radio room. We crowded inside, not bothering to sit down. Hallam squeezed between our bodies to get to the radio.
Hallam seized the radio’s microphone and pushed the button to talk. “Wakefield team here.
Wakefield speaking. Over.”
“Copy that, Wakefield. Sit tight while I put on Phillips. Over,” said the crackling radio.
We waited. The radio hissed and sputtered for a few seconds, and then Phillips came on.
He didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. “We’ve been trying to reach Junkin’s team up north for the past three days with no answer. We can only assume the worst. Teams to the south aren’t making near the progress you’ve made. Right now, you’re our best shot. Over.”
“You’re saying you want us to try to get across the river? Over,” said Hallam.
“Affirmative, Wakefield team. Your orders are to get across that river as soon as possible. Over.”
“Well,” said Hallam. “There’s a slight problem. We don’t have a boat anymore. Over.”
“What happened to the one we sent you? Over.”
“It was sort of destroyed. Over.”
“Good God. You’ll have to find another boat somewhere. We need your team on the move as soon as possible. Over.”
“Copy that, HQ,” sighed Hallam. “Over and out.” He looked around at everyone who’d gathered inside. “I need to think. Everyone out except Marlena and Lily.”
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