Hungry Independents (Book 2) (16 page)

“What are you thinking about?” Margaret
asked.

Samuel smiled and put his arm around her
shoulders. “Are we going to have one of your famous chats? Because
I have a lot on my mind.”

“And which of your issues would you like to
start with?”

Samuel laughed. “How about we start with the
one where I’m not getting any?”

Margaret gulped but allowed herself to remain
calm. Talking about these types of things appeared to be popular in
the present. She guessed she’d have to adjust to it. “Maybe you
shouldn’t think about sex so much.”

Samuel dropped his arm and his smile. “Um,
I’m just playing. I really don’t want to talk about my issues.”

“Maybe we should talk about what happened
this morning.”

“You mean how we narrowly escaped the
hellhounds because you froze up?”

Margaret frowned at him. “No, I want to talk
about the couple of minutes you were no longer with us.”

“Oh. You don’t like to beat around the
bush.”

“We’re not little kids playing hide and seek
with our feelings. We need to let them out or they will fester and
drive us crazy.”

Samuel stopped. They were a block from
Dylan’s house. He turned to Margaret with an open face, but his
hands slid into his pockets like they held the really good secrets.
“All right, what do you want to know?”

“Do you remember anything?”

“From when I died?”

Margaret nodded.

“I remember Jimmy.”

“Jimmy?”

“Yeah, he was lying in an open grave and then
there was this bright light and I followed him back to my body. He
told me everything was going to be all right. I asked him if he’d
talked to Greg. He shook his head and then I woke up to find you
lying topless next to me.” Samuel smiled a wide, toothy grin at her
that quickly turned sad. “Of course, somebody had already covered
you with my blanket.”

Heat raced back into Margaret’s face, and
this time she couldn’t quell her discomfort. “We better go find
Dylan before dinner.”

“That’s a great idea.” Samuel grabbed her
hand and pulled her, chuckling along the way.

They knocked on Dylan’s door and stood
waiting around until too much time had passed.

“Let’s check out back,” Samuel said.

There were two outbuildings behind the house.
The smell of burning wood that made the mouth water passed through
the roof of the smokehouse Dylan operated for Chef Brittany. They
found Dylan in the smaller wooden shed, fixing up his fishing gear
for the evening. Samuel walked though the door after pounding on
the side. Margaret followed, noticing a sudden switch in Samuel’s
personality. Gone was the easygoing, lopsided grin and slouching.
Samuel’s eyes fixed on Dylan with a fierce, dangerous glint.

“What’s the word, Dylan? Picked anymore
fights since lunchtime?”

Dylan looked up from his seat at the work
bench where he sharpened barbs on a fishing hook. Dark splotches
circled his eyes like a raccoon, and a white strip of tape crossed
the bridge of his nose as if to keep it from falling off. Dylan
turned back to his work.

“Are you here to beat the shit out of
me?”

Samuel leaned against the other end of the
counter, next to stacks of plastic trays containing a rainbow
collection of rubber worms. “Look, I just want all this stuff
you’ve been stirring up to stop. Scout didn’t get Jimmy killed no
matter what you heard.”

Dylan laid down his whetstone and the hook on
the table. “You don’t know that for sure. You weren’t there.”

“I was,” Margaret said. “And it hurts me to
know that everything we went through in Denver has led to so much
anger and animosity. We lost a lot back there. Jimmy made the
choice to save Hunter. No one made that choice for him. Scout
fought to keep Jimmy there, but Jimmy knocked him down and took
off. Whoever told you differently read the situation wrong. And if
that someone was Billy, he arrived right when everything
happened.”

Dylan swiveled on his stool and faced them
with unconvinced eyes. “What about when Scout and Raven left the
night before and Raven hooked up with her old pals?”

“You mean when she was captured by someone
she trusted, who had been her best friend before she decided to
make Independents her home?” Margaret didn’t wait for the obvious
response building on Dylan’s tongue. “Raven gave up a lot to join
us. She made a mistake and misjudged someone she cared about.”

“And then Scout disobeyed Jimmy and went to
save Raven on his own,” Dylan said, like he’d been there.

“Dylan, have you ever been in love with
someone?” Margaret asked.

Dylan looked away.

“Because one day when you find someone, I
hope they never get stripped away from you. It’s not an easy thing
to live with. I was awake when Scout returned after losing Raven.
He was tearing himself apart inside worrying about her. And he
alone saved Raven and Catherine. He even took out Patrick in the
process. And Raven? She held out under terrible torture only to
reveal a small piece of information when she could have told them
everything.”

Anger surged into Margaret as she defended
actions by people she considered heroes. Certainly more heroic than
her, because when you added everything together all the blame fell
solely on her. That ugly thought cast about in her mind, sending
hot tears down her cheeks.

Samuel moved and curled his arm around her.
“Hey, Molly, are you all right?”

Molly. She had done so many terrible things
before Catherine had healed her mind. Why did God do this to her?
Margaret was one of His faithful followers. She had been there
doing His Will from the beginning. What possible benefit could have
been gained from the seventeen years without knowledge of her true
identity? What purpose did she serve until this morning when
Catherine brought it all back?

Margaret pressed her face into Samuel’s chest
and cried out her frustrations. Samuel rubbed her back and stroked
her hair. She wept for a while and then backed awkwardly into a
folding chair that Dylan held for her. She accepted the seat and
wiped her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Margaret said.

Samuel shrugged it off. “Don’t be. Your day
started earlier than usual. You should see how emotional I get
after picking beets all day. And yes, I think we’re having beets
tonight.”

Margaret took a deep breath, smiling at
Samuel’s attempt to make her do just that. She refocused on Dylan.
“Look, Scout didn’t make the perfect choice running after Raven,
but he was doing what he thought was right, unlike when I led Chase
to Catherine and then hit Jimmy over the head so Patrick could win
the fight.”

Both Dylan and Samuel looked away.

“You could say that everything leading up to
Jimmy’s death happened because of me. That’s something I have to
live with, just like Hunter living with Jimmy’s sacrifice. But
blaming Scout for any of it is just plain wrong.”

Dylan spun back and forth on his stool.
“Billy made it sound like Scout and Raven were responsible for
everything. Why would he do that?”

“Billy left everything he knew to join us. He
was probably trying to fit in. Judging from what Ginger and Raven
told me about Denver, he probably had to fight everyday just to
stay alive. It’s different here. We take care of each other.”

“I guess so,” Dylan said.

“Plus, when we first met Billy, he had just
killed Patrick to save Hunter. Billy still refuses to talk about
it. Has he ever spoken to you about that?”

Dylan shook his head. “Hunter told me about
it. I never bring it up with Billy.”

“Killing somebody like that when you’re
barely nine has got to mess with your head,” Samuel said.

Dylan winced, closing his eyes in apparent
discomfort.

Margaret scooted to the edge of her chair.
“Are you okay?”

“I’ve got a bad headache. I guess I didn’t
count on Scout being so tough.”

“Are you kidding? Scout’s scrappy. I bet you
think twice next time.”

“That’s not helping right now.” Margaret slid
off the chair towards Dylan. “Do you mind.” She held up her
hands.

His eyes widened in alarm. “What are you
about to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. I may be able to
help.”

“All right, just watch the nose. It’s tender
as hell.”

Margaret laid her hand on Dylan’s forehead.
She prayed, asking for God to help ease Dylan’s pain and to allow
her to mend his broken nose. Upon thinking amen, a light flooded
into her spirit like molten grace—pure, alive and energizing.
Margaret allowed the light to flow over Dylan and felt the healing
begin.

Samuel stumbled into the wall and several
items clattered to the floor, but Margaret couldn’t break the
process now that her healing was in motion. The light pulsed then
fled back into her, tainted by the pain and the wounds that had
been lifted from Dylan’s body. This was the unpleasant part. She
brought all of that hurt inside of her and channeled it through.
Then she lifted her head, opened her eyes, and all of the badness
fled from her in a throbbing flash. She felt nauseated and
extremely worn out. It had been a long time since she had performed
a healing. Her legs refused her weight as she slipped from
Dylan.

Samuel caught her before she hit the ground.
“My God, Molly, how did you do that?”

Margaret wanted to answer, wanted to tell
Samuel her real name, but the world dimmed around her and then she
slept.

Yesterday, Jimmy enjoyed digging his grave,
without all the hassle and responsibility of feeding a whole town.
He’d come to accept his fate of being dead. Like he had a choice,
but death was no big deal. At least he found more across
mortality’s threshold than simple oblivion. He was glad to be back
among the living, even in his ghostly state. He had missed other
people, so it was nice seeing all his friends again—especially
Ginger.

He followed after Catherine and Mark, careful
not to float through anything and especially anyone. The handful of
accidental times he’d shared space with a living person had really
freaked him out. There was this sticky sensation, like he might
actually become glued inside them if he didn’t pull away fast
enough.

He wanted time alone with Catherine to ask
her about this whole being dead business. Maybe she could explain
exactly what he could and could not do. All that depended on
whether she knew the answers and if she was willing to share. She’d
have to be straight with him now, right? Who was he going to tell
in his present, intangible state?

Jimmy was happy to see that Independents
hadn’t changed after he left for Denver. This place was paradise
compared to conditions there. He was proud of the society he helped
build for kids to grow up in. Now they were growing up with
Catherine’s help.

Jimmy was so excited to see that Vanessa had
made it past her eighteenth birthday. Did that end the plague?
Catherine said she needed to cure Jimmy to save the world because
Chase had started the plague by infecting Jimmy’s parents. He
didn’t understand that. Why had his family become such a focal
point for so much misery?

“Hey, where are you wandering off to?”
Catherine called.

Jimmy had drifted away from the path without
noticing. Mark was knocking on somebody’s front door, while
Catherine hung back in the street, smiling at Jimmy.

He shrugged, or at least thought he’d
performed the action. He didn’t know how he appeared to Catherine
when he couldn’t even see his own hand. He floated over next to
her.

“What’s Mark doing?”

“Billy plays with some of the boys who live
here. We’re just checking it on the way to Billy’s house.”

“Who does Billy live with?”

“He and Preston took over a house together a
couple months ago. Before that he’d been living with me and Ginger,
but I guess he found that too constraining. I always made him pour
the tea and play Barbie dream house with me. He was a pretty decent
Ken.”

Jimmy smiled, remembering the day when he and
Ginger discovered their mutual affection for one another. Somehow
Catherine had known all along.

“Remind me who Preston is?”

“He’s about the same age as Billy. Another
one of Hunter’s motorcycle gang recruits. Hunter is teaching them
survival skills. I think your brother is ready to settle down.”

Jimmy laughed at that. “How long have I been
dead?”

“Everybody settles down eventually, silly,”
Catherine told him.

Mark walked up, closing the conversation.
“He’s not here. Let’s go try Billy’s house.”

They started off again with Jimmy floating
behind. He expected to feel something from the intense afternoon
sunshine, but instead it was nothing as usual. Jimmy wanted time to
walk the fields on the southern outskirts of town—his old stomping
ground. Samuel probably had all the crops under control, but he
wanted to check just to make sure.

They walked to a ranch house that had the
typical facial look with two windows for eyes and a door in the
middle that made the nose. The porch was the mouth. This one smiled
with neglect and Jimmy knew that, soon, somebody would have to
replace the support beams underneath the sagging wooden planks.
Mark stepped up and rapped three sharp knocks on the wooden frame
of the screen door, which rattled on rusty hinges. No wonder
Preston and Billy found this house vacant. Jimmy couldn’t wait to
see the inside.

The door swung open and he recognized the
little kid that had protected Hunter in Denver. Jimmy would never
forget the sight of Patrick lying in a pool of blood with a hatchet
in his back. He could still hear the chickens clucking. Where had
Patrick gone when he died? Jimmy had only been an hour behind him.
Maybe Patrick was the last soul to enter Heaven, unless the other
alternative was still open for business and had first dibs.