by Lucin, David
Sophie tucked the cigarette’s filter between her lips. “Wonderful,” she said dryly. “We appreciate your hospitality, Sherriff, even though you tried to kill us. In hindsight, I probably should’ve announced our arrival before cruising into your lovely town, but how could we know, right? In any case, I think it’s time we be on our way.”
The doctor, who had been so silent that Jenn forgot she was here, lifted her nose from her tablet and stared daggers at Sophie. “Absolutely not,” she said.
A muscle in Sophie’s neck twitched. She took the cigarette from her mouth and said, “Look, Doc, I finally have a lead on my people. We need to follow it up. Time is of the essence here.”
The doctor dropped her tablet on the bed beside Dylan. “She,” she started, pointing at Jenn, “is suffering from a concussion and needs to rest. Overexertion now could cause her symptoms to linger. Or worse. He”—she threw a hand in Carter’s direction—“has a bruised rib and possibly some form of ligament strain in his knee. In my professional opinion, if we had the resources, I’d recommend performing an MRI. At the very least, he should remain off his feet for a few days. This one”—she angled her head toward Dylan—“has seen extended exposure to aerosols as a result of the smoke, and his blood-oxygen levels have been adversely affected. If he overexerts himself, he may become light-headed. At worst, he could lose consciousness.”
Sophie pressed her lips together, accentuating the lines around her mouth. Jenn sympathized with her: they’d learned something about her husband, so of course she’d be eager to follow it up. If they were searching for Jenn’s parents, she would have said to hell with her concussion. Yet the prospect of being stuck in a moving vehicle and away from a safe place to vomit made her uneasy. The doctor was right and the smart thing to do was rest, at least for the night, and leave tomorrow morning. But Sophie was right, too: time was of the essence. If Ed was in trouble, they needed to find him.
“I’m okay,” Jenn said and clutched the garbage pail closer. “I can go.”
Dylan sat up in his bed. “Not happening. The doc’s got a point. It’s been one hell of a day. I’m gassed. Vladdy’s limping around, and you look like you just ate some bad beef. We need to rest for the night.”
“Besides,” Jordan said from his chair, “you’re down a truck, thanks to me. The boys at the shop won’t have your Nissan ready till late tonight at the earliest, probably not till tomorrow. They’re having some trouble tracking down the right-sized tires for a model that old.”
Sophie sighed through her nose and adjusted the cap on her head. “Fine. You win, Doc.”
Jordan’s chair squeaked as he pushed himself up. “I’ll arrange for a few rooms at the motel.” He straightened his brown shirt. “And something to eat. I can’t promise it’ll be much, but after flipping your truck, it’s the least I can do.”
Jenn’s belly growled. She hadn’t eaten anything since last night. At first, she assumed it was a response to Jordan’s mention of food. Then she tasted stomach acid and threw up into her pail again.
“Lovely,” Sophie droned. “For that, Sheriff, you’re officially on the hook for supplying my team with beers in addition to supper tonight. Call it a diplomatic favor.”
* * *
The motel room smelled like cigarettes, cheap laundry detergent, and crappy ersatz coffee made from barley and chicory. Jenn’s father used to drink a pot of the stuff every morning, and it stunk up the house for hours. Above her bed, a yellow stain covered the popcorn ceiling, and all the fixtures—the toilet, the sink, everything—were a dirty off-white. There was still a TV in here, an ancient model from probably the 2020s. The buttons on the remote, she discovered with horror, were sticky.
Wearing exercise shorts and a tank top, she lay on the bedsheets and waited for her roommate, Valeria, to return from beers with Jordan and the others. Jenn would have preferred to stay with Sophie or Dylan. Even Carter would have been fine. The tension between them had faded a bit, and Jenn no longer blamed him for what happened at Minute Tire on the day of the bombs. She knew he didn’t mean to hurt her. He was probably only scared. So was Jenn.
But Valeria? She hadn’t said more than a few words to Jenn. A grunt or two, but that was it. What was her problem? Maybe her English wasn’t very good.
Jenn’s ankles itched. When she leaned down to scratch them, she checked again for bite marks. Nothing. After Jordan opened the room for her, the first thing she did was inspect the mattress for signs of bedbugs. There were none, but she could never be too careful. The monsters had infested nearly every unit in every modular housing complex in Metro Phoenix and had laid siege to most of the city. Tourists might have unknowingly brought them to this dumpy motel.
This dumpy motel, however, was the same one Jenn and her family stayed at during their trip to Prescott when she was twelve or thirteen. The coincidence shouldn’t have surprised her. Thanks to short-term rental apps, motels were a thing of the past in most towns. This was the last one in Prescott, and it was the only place Jenn’s parents could afford. The manager—a corpse-like man who stunk of mothballs and gave Jenn nightmares—had insisted that more than two heads per room would be subject to a surcharge. No problem, her mother said. It was just her and her husband. Then, after their unexpected late-night hike in the mountains, Jenn, Jason, and Andrew snuck into the room and slept on blow-up mattresses. They slipped out the next morning while her parents distracted the manager at the front desk.
Sam laughed when Jenn first told him that story, mostly to be polite. He and his family would have rented a house owned by some one-percenter who stayed at his property in Prescott for three weekends a year. No, actually, they wouldn’t have done that. Why bother? They had their own vacation home in Payson.
Jenn shook the thought from her head and reminded herself to stop dividing the world in the way she used to.
Her thoughts wandered to Sam. Lying in this motel, trying not to throw up, she regretted asking him to stay with his family last night. It was a short-sighted decision. In the past thirteen hours, she’d been shot at, watched Dylan kill two or maybe even three people, and wound up in the worst—well, only—car accident of her life. It almost didn’t seem real, as though she left Minute Tire a week ago, not early this morning. If she’d known the journey would be this dangerous, she wouldn’t have let Sam out of her sight until she drove off in the Nissan. She needed time and space to deal with what happened in Payson, sure, but if tomorrow was anything like today, she might never see him again. Pushing him away was one of the most selfish things she had ever done. The admission made her reach for the garbage pail beside the bed.
The door creaked open.
Valeria came through, stumbled over her feet, and swore under her breath in Spanish. The battery-powered lantern on the nightstand between the two beds illuminated her in bright white as she stood on one foot and pulled off her boot.
The scent of beer wafted off her and reached Jenn, who wondered if Jordan’s beers were any good. A proper IPA or sour, not the mass-produced Canadian lager Gary always bought. The headaches and the nausea were a nuisance, but by far the worst consequence of this concussion was the doctor’s orders to drink no alcohol. “Under no circumstances,” were her exact words. Jenn would have stayed with the crew and simply not drank, but her head throbbed. Worse, despite the inroads she’d made with Carter and the time she’d spent with Dylan, she felt like an intruder. These people had years of history together. How could Jenn match that in less than a day?
“Oh,” Valeria said when she saw Jenn. Her cheeks glowed red, and her eyes nearly pointed in different directions. “Sorry to wake you.”
Those were the most consecutive words she’d ever spoken to Jenn. “It’s okay. I wasn’t sleeping.”
Valeria hiccupped and reached into her bag for some clothes to sleep in.
“How’s it going out there?” Jenn asked. Small talk was painful, but sharing a room with a stranger was worse. Everything she knew about Valeria came from what So
phie had said over the radio when negotiating with Jordan: that she killed a dozen Brazilians in Columbia before she turned sixteen. Jenn doubted it was true, even though the timeline added up. Valeria was thirty-one or thirty-two and Brazil invaded Colombia fifteen years ago. Actually, the more Jenn thought about it, the more plausible it seemed, especially considering how easily Valeria handled a rifle.
“The smoke’s less now,” she said. “We’re able to breathe better with no masks.”
“That’s good.”
Valeria flicked on a flashlight and withdrew to the bathroom to change. Crickets chirped outside. Then came a bang and a curse from Valeria. At long last, she stumbled out wearing a gray romper. Her hair, out of its usual ponytail, was thick and wavy and hung far past her shoulders.
“You all right?” Jenn asked. “Sounded like you were having some trouble in there.”
Valeria laid her jeans and tank top over the chair. “Hmmm?”
Jenn searched for a joke, but Valeria’s blank, distant stare compelled her to give up. “Nothing,” she said.
Flashlight still in hand, Valeria made her way around the bed but bumped her knee into the corner. No cursing this time. Jenn stifled a laugh. A joke came to her, but she pushed it down while Valeria struggled to untuck her covers. With great effort, she threw off the comforter and slipped beneath a white sheet, then sighed loudly and shut her eyes.
Jenn could let her go to sleep. Well, more like pass out. But she knew something concrete about everyone else on the team. Learning about Valeria, even if the information was mundane or trivial, might make her seem less intimidating. Admittedly, drunk Valeria was easier to be around than the sober version. “Why’d you volunteer to come along?” she asked. “Do you work for Ed, too?”
Eyes still shut, Valeria scratched her nose. “Yes.”
“On the potato farm?”
She shot Jenn a dirty glare. “No. Ed’s hired me to make his books.”
“Make his books?”
“Yes, make his books,” Valeria said with a conviction that told Jenn she was a moron for not understanding. “Track sales, minus expenses, count inventory. Make the books.”
“Oh, you mean bookkeeper. You keep the books.”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve said. Bookkeeper.”
Jenn sensed she was making progress. “For Minute Tire or for the farm?”
Another sigh. “Both.”
“Both? So you work with Carter and Dylan?”
Valeria closed her eyes tight. “No, I don’t do work with them.”
“But you know them, right? Like, you know Dylan.”
Valeria went stiff and stared at the popcorn ceiling.
An image of Dylan moving through the woods flashed in Jenn’s mind. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Jenn snorted. “It’s not nothing. That’s the worst poker face I’ve ever seen.”
Valeria rolled over. A strand of her dark hair fell over an eye, so she brushed it away. Lines creased her forehead and cheeks. She suddenly seemed very sober. “I’ll tell you, but if you say it to Dylan that I—”
“I won’t,” Jenn said. “I promise.”
“Good.” She laid her head on the pillow. “He was in the military.”
“Right. I kind of figured that much. He doesn’t like talking about it, hey? He’s all secretive.”
“Dishonorable discharge,” Valeria whispered as if Dylan could hear her from two rooms over.
Jenn stopped breathing. She listened for movement but only heard crickets. “Why?” she asked in a tone that matched Valeria’s. “He get in a fight with his superior officer or something?”
“I don’t know everything,” Valeria started, “but he says he was an escape goat.”
“Escape goat? You mean scapegoat?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
Pulling the sheet up to her neck, she said, “We can’t be talking about this.” She reached over to switch off the lantern, but Jenn blocked her with an outstretched hand.
“It’s okay. Tell me. I won’t say anything.”
Valeria’s eyelids drooped. The beers were about to knock her out for the night.
“Come on,” Jenn prodded. She shouldn’t be pressuring Valeria this much. The woman was already uncomfortable talking about it and had clearly let the whole thing slip due to the alcohol, but Jenn needed to know.
After wiping the edge of her lip with a thumb, Valeria said, “War crimes.”
“War crimes!” Jenn repeated, then clamped both palms over her mouth.
“Shhh!” Valeria scolded. She sat up in her bed, knees tight to her chest. Her head tilted to the side as she listened. Still only crickets, but Jenn half-expected Dylan to come barreling through their door.
“Sorry,” Jenn said after a while. “It’s just . . . War crimes? That can’t be right. Don’t war criminals go to prison or get hanged?” She recalled an episode of Gary rambling about the Nuremberg trials after World War Two. The Nazis responsible for the Holocaust were, as far as she knew, imprisoned or executed. But Dylan wasn’t like that, was he? He couldn’t be. No way.
Valeria wrapped her arms around her legs. “I don’t know about it. Probably war crimes is not the right words. It was a massacre in the West Ukraine. Women and children in a village, dead. Dylan was there. I can say nothing else. He says he’s been set up by his superiors and blamed for a thing he hadn’t done.”
West Ukraine. Liam lost his leg during the civil war there. Apparently Canada had sent forces as well, which made sense: NATO led the operation because Russia vetoed the UN’s proposal to send a peacekeeping mission, probably since its soldiers were the ones blowing up West Ukrainian government and civic buildings. According to Gary, the whole thing was a fiasco with atrocities on both sides. In the end, it was also a total failure from NATO’s perspective: a coup in Kyiv brought an army general to power, and he promptly began reunification talks with Russian-controlled East Ukraine. A year later, Ukraine was again united but flying the Russian flag.
“Do you believe him?” Jenn asked. “That he’s a scapegoat?”
“Yes,” Valeria said quickly. “I’ve said too much.” She shut off the lantern. In the pitch-black room, Jenn heard the crunch of Valeria’s sheets as she slipped beneath them. Within a few minutes, she was snoring.
Jenn lay awake, her insides swirling. Saliva filled her mouth. She hadn’t vomited since before leaving the hospital, and the painkillers helped dull the headache, so why was she suddenly so sick? She wanted to blame the soy sausages Jordan had cooked for dinner—after all, they tasted a lot like an old catcher’s mitt—but her mind kept returning to Dylan.
Was he involved in one of those atrocities? Did he shoot defenseless women and children? He said he was a scapegoat, though, and Valeria believed him, so why shouldn’t Jenn?
Every time she tried, she pictured him opening fire on the truck in Camp Verde. Already he’d been less than forthcoming about his training as a soldier, even when Jenn brought it up directly. Was it so farfetched to think that he would lie about his involvement in a massacre, too?
11
“No offense, Jansen, but you look exhausted,” Dylan said from the driver’s seat of the Nissan.
Jenn rubbed her eyes. This morning, she hardly recognized the woman in the mirror at the motel: her skin was as white as Sam’s, and her hair felt like the bristles on a broom.
“Thanks,” she said. “The ladies love to hear that.”
She knocked on the window with a knuckle. Today, Dylan’s crooked nose seemed a little bit more bent, and the scar on his eyebrow looked a little deeper. There was something in his eyes, too—something fierce—but Jenn couldn’t put her finger on it.
Or it might have been nothing. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe Valeria was right and Dylan was a scapegoat and he was only in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wanted that to be true but wasn’t quite able to convince herself.
Dylan pres
sed the brakes and eased around a motorbike beneath a set of traffic lights. As promised, Jordan had repaired the Nissan. Thanks to the roll cage, it suffered no major structural damage in the crash. The wheels and tires were brand new, and the broken windows had been replaced. Save for the scratched paint and a few dents, the truck looked much as it had yesterday.
Jordan also gave them some more water, a fresh jerry can of gasoline, and even a few leftover soy sausages. Despite Jenn’s concussion, Carter’s rib—his knee, fortunately, was already feeling better—and what Sophie called a “wasted afternoon,” the trip to Prescott was a success. The team learned more about the extent of the nuclear attacks and discovered a relatively safe route between Prescott and Flagstaff. Jordan promised to send his own envoys to Mayor Andrews as soon as he had a spare vehicle and at least two spare bodies. He hoped that would happen sometime before the twenty-second century.
They drove south along Highway 69, a divided four-lane road that connected to the interstate at Cordes Lakes. This was the most direct route into Phoenix from Prescott. Ed had likely gone this way after his detour around Camp Verde, so Sophie decided to follow him. The Nissan led the pack again. Dylan guessed the drive would take about forty-five minutes, but with so many wrecks on the road and the lingering haze of smoke, Jenn expected it would last more than ninety.
“You get any sleep last night?” Dylan asked.
An hour. That made a total of about six or seven since Payson. Even with the concussion, visits from Yankees Hat and now worries about Dylan’s past kept her awake. “I would’ve if Valeria didn’t snore like a chainsaw.”
Dylan took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. “Yeah, she’s a beast. It woke me up at least twice.”
Jenn dug her fingernails into her palm. If Dylan could hear Valeria snoring from his room, had he heard her and Jenn talking about him? Would he have said anything if he had?
She remained quiet, and for an hour and a half, they drove mostly in silence. Every five or six miles, Carter would point out that the smoke was beginning to thin, and Dylan would appease him by humming an acknowledgment. Jenn tried to sleep, but anxiety flooded her belly. The road here was wide like the interstate, and the terrain was flat and open, but she couldn’t stop reliving the moment when the Nissan hit the spike strips outside Prescott. It could happen again, and next time, it might not be the local sheriff who was responsible.