The Variables (10 page)

“You have your life,” Cass interjected without missing a beat. Then she walked with a steady click-clack of her feet against the Center’s tiled flooring and put herself in front of the boy. One of her shoes partially covered the Zombi card on the floor, the tiny wisps of white fog visible underfoot. “The moment you forget that the very fact that you can breathe...the very fact that your heart beats...that your brain thinks...is a gift, then you’ve lost sight of everything that matters. Someone in your family earned your right to live here. And you risk it...you dare to risk it all.”

The trio froze, halted by her intensity. Cass hadn’t sounded overtly threatening, but it was still there: intimidation thinly veiled.
 

“Go,” she commanded and they tripped over each other to exit—swearing at the girls under their breath and mumbling on the way out—the sounds of the festival outside filling the tent for a brief second before the door flapped closed.
 

When it was clear they were gone, Lucy rushed forward. She bent down to retrieve the pieces of Cass’s tarot card. “I’m so sorry,” Lucy said. Cass walked back to her table and Lucy held the torn card in her hand. “You didn’t deserve this. I’m so sorry,” she said again. “It feels like we let them get away with it. It feels like they won.”

“What have they won?” Cass asked. “What did they gain? They left, didn’t they?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” Lucy answered. “A fleeting sense of power, maybe. But your winning argument is that they should feel lucky to be here? Lucky to just be alive?” Lucy stopped and waited for Cass to contradict her. When she didn’t, Lucy asked tentatively, “You don’t really believe that. Do you?”

“Being alive is never enough,” Cass said to Lucy slowly and she sat down in her chair. “You’re nothing without your freedom.” She pulled the rest of her undamaged cards out of her pocket and put them in front of her.
 

Lucy walked over and put the ripped card on top.

“We’ll tape it,” she said.

Cass nodded. Then Lucy watched as her friend wiped away a single tear.

The curtain rustled again and Lucy spun. She half-expected to see Hunter back with more cronies, but instead it was Blair standing at the tent entrance. She was dressed in black leggings and big brown boots; an oversized sweater dwarfed her small shoulders. She didn’t have a loot bag or a string of tickets, only a serious expression, and an ounce of self-awareness.

She looked at the girls and then closed her eyes. When she opened them, she seemed surprised to find them both still staring at her.

“This was a mistake,” Blair mumbled and turned to leave.

“No, no,” Cass called out. “Please...you don’t have to go.”

Blair looked at Lucy and Lucy stared back. Then she walked forward and pulled a single ticket out of her pocket and placed it in Cass’s outstretched hand.

“How does this work?” Blair asked. “Can I ask specific questions?”

Cass tilted her head and nodded. “Yes. And then we can see what the cards say.”

“Alone,” Blair said. She didn’t have to look in Lucy’s direction, but Lucy could still feel Blair willing her to exit.

“Of course,” Cass answered, a little too quickly for Lucy’s liking. Her friend turned to her and tried to look apologetic, and Lucy tried to play it off. She waved goodbye and made a face at Blair’s back before exiting out into the bright fluorescent lights of the Center. The noise hit her instantly—the cheers, the music, the rumble of a bass. Children laughed, some cried, and there was a huge splash from the dunk tank. The cacophony was overpowering: Lucy put her hands to her ears to tune some of it out.

Inside of Cass’s tent, Lucy had heard nothing from the carnival. The world had gone silent under the big heavy flaps. She wondered, just for a second, how her mother had managed that trick.
 

CHAPTER FIVE

They sat in the pickup truck without speaking. Ainsley hunched over with her hands in her lap, and she refused to look up. She kept sniffing and would occasionally let out a little squeak like a swallowed sob. But Darla refused to coddle her and Dean was too busy trying to get them out of the city to spend much time trying to mend the severity of the tension between the women.

For an hour they tried to maneuver the back roads. The freeways and the bridges were gone, clogged, damaged, and cluttered. Neighborhoods were riddled with debris. Dean would turn the car down one residential street and find it empty, only to turn down the next street and find a tow-truck blocking their way or a fallen tree left across the road. Down a different street, the road was washed out. One month since human life was ripped from the world and evidence of mankind’s absence rippled outward in ever-growing circles of devastation. They were not up against people, but rather the remnants of people.
 

Out in the city, further away from Whispering Waters, it reminded the group how egregiously the world was damaged. Some obstacles were moveable. Dean would throw the truck into park and wordlessly they would push a car out of the way or roll abandoned garbage cans to the side of the road. Some obstacles would stay forever.

Every roadblock incensed Darla.

“You’re too close to the main roads. Too many people tried to escape the freeway back-ups this way,” she complained.

Before people knew there was no escape, they tried to flee. Major cities like New York and Los Angeles were hit with multiple attacks. The worldwide wipeout created mass panic. No one knew who the adversary was, but while the virus—in their water, in the air—took effect, countries mobilized against their natural enemies. The masterminds had simply needed to give the world a push; governments accelerated annihilation.
 

“If we can get north of this, we’ll be fine. It’s going to take trial and error,” Dean replied. He was the picture of calm.

Ainsley sighed.

“We’d be farther along if we had
hiked
out,” Darla snapped. “We have about forty minutes before it’s dark, Dean. And then we’re stuck. We won’t be able to maneuver this truck after that. We’ll be one mile away from homes we know are empty and habitable, but unable to get back to them. And Washington is a bad idea. Last time I had radio contact, there were Raiders working up there who told me the bridges were out.”

“Raiders?” Dean asked and Darla didn’t feel like explaining what the world had been up to while he drunkenly slept his days away shut up in his suburban farmhouse.

“I don’t want to—” Ainsley interjected, but then she snapped her mouth shut, aware that she had lost her privilege to make demands of the group.

Darla eyed her and made an exaggerated scoot closer to the window. She restrained herself enough not to reply.

“I can do this,” Dean said. “Herculean, maybe. But not impossible. I know this area, remember?” With that, Dean took a sharp left and bounced up over a curb, the contents in the truck bed hopping and clanking against each other. He drove through a park, passed a jungle gym and a plastic slide, and then pushed his foot down to the floor. The truck lurched forward over the grass and dirt. The vehicle vaulted, and Darla grabbed on to the door handle. She felt herself lift off the seat and slam back down as the truck moved toward a chain-link fence on the opposite side.

“Slow down!” Darla commanded and she fumbled over Ainsley to grab at Dean’s shirt, but he ignored her pawing. “Don’t you dare—”

Gaining speed, Dean looked over at his passengers and said in loud enough voice to carry over the engine, “Trust me!”

The truck hit the fence with minimal impact. The chain-link broke free in a clean swipe and tumbled down off of the hood. Dean slowed down and led the car through an undeveloped plot of land, where he came upon an empty housing development. Unfinished homes dotted the landscape. A black sedan was parked in one of the driveways and the bloated body of a virus victim had fallen between stacks of rolled-up sod.

Darla exhaled.

“This shortcut is worthless unless you have a plan. One neighborhood to another neighborhood is not industrious, Dean.” She leaned her head against the cool glass and felt a rush of air through the gap that had once held the back window against her neck.

The car was silent as Dean meandered around side roads and cut across empty lots, attempting to get closer north while avoiding the jams. They left the underdeveloped neighborhood, driving up over someone’s lawn to avoid debris and demolishing a set of brass frogs playing musical instruments. No one said anything for several minutes; everyone listened to the cadence of each other’s breathing.

“I’m sorry,” Ainsley said, shedding her normal reticence in favor of peacekeeping. She shifted and turned to face Darla. Her eyes were red and puffy, swollen as if she had been in a fight. Dark streaks of soot smeared down across her temples, giving the illusion that she was sweating ash. She wiped off some, but not all, of the blood. She was a mess.

“Save it,” Darla replied.

“I just need you to understand,” Ainsley continued. “I can’t stand this. I can’t drive around with you like this. With you so unwilling to talk to me.”

“Ainsley,” Darla started, saying her name as a warning. “The mere fact that you are even in this truck, sharing the same space as me, should be seen as such a marvelous act of mercy...but if you sit there and tell me that you are going to force me to converse? You’re out of your mind.”

“I want to tell my story,” Ainsley added in a small voice. “Please, Darla—”

“My son is gone. You were in charge of keeping him hidden. Those people came in with the intent to kill. You are not dead. The conclusion is pretty damn obvious.”

“Ethan—”

“Was not as vulnerable as
my
child. Was not your
job
,” Darla seethed, every word punctuated.

“I thought—”

“Shut up.”

“I know it’s my fault, but—”

“Stop! Just stop talking!” Darla screamed. Her voice filled the tiny cab and even Dean bristled, shooting her a look over Ainsley’s head that she quickly ignored. “You are alive. Teddy is gone. That’s all I
ever
need to know.”

Ainsley dropped her chin to her chest and began to cry. Her shoulders bounced with sobs as she bawled and she brought her hands to her face. The car settled into silence again. Dean mumbled something under his breath and stopped the car in the middle of the street. He threw the car angrily into park.

“Give me the cigarettes,” Dean said, reaching across Ainsley to Darla, and waiting for her to reluctantly hand them over. When she did, he rolled down his window and lit one—holding his breath for a long time before exhaling, blowing the smoke outside, where the wind carried it up and away. “Oh, wow. I’d forgotten how that felt. Okay. Girls,” he stopped and looked between Darla and Ainsley—Darla stalwart in her anger, and Ainsley unable to stop crying. “We don’t go anywhere until we get one thing straight. We’re a team and our only goal is to rescue Teddy. I’m not really very good with the whole...crying bit.”

Darla sneered and Ainsley nodded as she pulled her sleeves over her fists and covered her eyes, stopping the flow of tears. Then she exhaled and nodded again.

“Can I say something?” Ainsley asked, her voice barely audible.

She didn’t wait for Darla’s approval. Dean put fatherly hand across her shoulder.

“My mom...” Ainsley started and then her voice broke, but she swallowed her pain, her eyes brimmed with tears automatically. “I was only worried about my mom. I heard the shot and...”

Consumed with her own pain, Darla hadn’t put all the pieces together. It wasn’t just Ethan in the upstairs part of the house. Ainsley’s mom had been up there, too. She closed her eyes, fraught with shame.

“Jesus,” she mumbled. “Ainsley—”

Unaware if Darla was frustrated or commiserating, Ainsley ignored her completely.

“It was just us. Just us left. Everyone lost someone, I know that. But I knew I could make it if I still had her. And I panicked...Darla.” Ainsley turned. “I panicked.”

“You weren’t down there at all,” Darla breathed. She thought of Teddy, scared, and alone. She pressed her eyes shut and tried to drown out his screams that echoed in her memory. However, even Darla had to admit that she was happy to abandon her original thoughts of Teddy witnessing violence against Ainsley. There were some things he’d never be able to un-see, some things she wouldn’t be able to fix. It was a small comfort.

“I hid him in the secret room. The one off the fruit cellar, Ethan told me about it. I knew it was dark and...but...he was so brave, Darla.”

“Stop.”

“I didn’t think they’d...” Ainsley’s voice broke.

“They knew right where to go,” Darla interjected. And Teddy may not have stayed in the dark. Left alone, without Ainsley’s guidance, he might have tried to venture back upstairs. It made sense. She opened her eyes and turned toward the young woman. “How did you get out?”

“I hid. I was out of the basement before they got there. I know that makes me a coward and I know that they got Teddy because of me...but I kept seeing my mom’s face. And then I ran out the back.” She looked down to her torn pant leg. “I ran. I tripped. I left her. I just left her there. All the smoke...I thought maybe, I should go back. Maybe she needed me.”

“Ainsley—” Dean interrupted, but Darla shook her head to stop him from divulging too much. They looked at each other over Ainsley’s head and Dean closed his eyes and let his words trail off. There was nothing Ainsley could have done; those men killed her mother the moment they walked into the study. It was an attempt at full elimination.

“We all wish we could have done things differently.” Darla brought her hand up to pat Ainsley on her shoulder, but she changed her mind and let it drop into her lap.

“I’m sorry,” Ainsley said.

“Me too, kid,” Darla replied. “But let’s get one thing straight. Teddy is a five year-old child. Five. He was defenseless, alone, and he’s gone. I am not going to undermine your loss, but this is my kid. A
child
...
my
child.” Darla felt a swell of emotion and her lip quivered. “Dean and I are going to rescue our kids. You’re not supposed to outlive your kids, Ainsley. That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen. And I’m not going to let that happen.”