The Variables (52 page)

“Car?” Ethan asked, out of breath.

“Van,” Darla answered. She sniffed and began to cry again. “I’m sorry. Hold on…I’m trying to get a grip.”

“We grabbed a few vehicles...we didn’t know how many to expect. We can take the larger passenger van. Leave the minivan,” Dean answered. He put his hand out for Grant and Grant grabbed it and let his dad pull him into a shared embrace with Teddy. Then he let Grant go and beamed.
 

“We have to go,” Ethan said, and he clasped Darla on the back—his substitute for a hug. “It’s good to see you, Darla. It’s so good to see you.” He put a hand over his mouth. Then he smiled through the tears. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s not your fault,” Darla answered. She leaned over and took Teddy from Dean. She looked at her child and ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his freckled cheeks. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Dean and Grant stood side-by-side. “Dad—” Grant started and without hesitation Dean enveloped Grant. He wrapped his arms around his son, and the moment Grant was safe against his father, he began to cry. “She didn’t come with me,” he said. “She didn’t want to choose...so...I told her...”

“Hey there, cowboy,” Dean said, closing his eyes. “I know a little something about that. Right?”

Grant nodded.

“If it’s meant to be, she’ll find a way. It’s not the end, son. It’s not the end.” Dean leaned down to make sure Grant had heard him. Grant nodded again.

Ethan shifted on his leg and looked around the empty carnival. He scanned the booths and the rides, and just as he was about to ask Darla, he saw her by the Ferris wheel. Her hair was blowing in the wind. She stood up on her tiptoes and waved at him, and then she came rushing forward—barreling into Ethan’s chest and knocking him over. He hit the pavement with a thud and he groaned.

“My tailbone,” he cried out.

“I can’t amputate that,” Ainsley said. She sat him up. Then she pulled back, embarrassed, and she stood to her feet and smoothed out her torn pants and shirt. She offered him her hand.

“You look like hell,” he said.

“Waiting around for someone to rescue themselves is hard work,” Ainsley replied. “Thanks for being sensitive to the fact that I don’t think I could spend another night in this awful, awful place. I had a nightmare last night that the Tunnel of Love was really a portal to this level of Hell ruled by demented giant stuffed animals.”

“That’s a real thing,” Ethan replied. She poked him in the shoulder with a single finger. He smiled. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m alive because I was a coward,” she said in a whisper. “My mom is dead.” She stopped and closed her eyes. “I’m alone...”

Ethan shook his head. He looked at Dean and Grant; Darla and Teddy; and then he looked at Ainsley. “We’re a family. Look at us. It’s the best kind of family…the family you choose. You’re not alone.”

A secondary explosion jarred them, and together they looked out to the sea. A cloud of smoke lifted beyond their view, and Ethan clapped his hands together.

“They’ll do a search here soon enough. So we need to hightail it out of here. They’ll inspect the crash site first...”

“Sweepers?” Darla asked.

“What are sweepers? They’ll just send the guards out,” Ethan clarified.

“The pilot?” Dean asked, worried.
 

“Safe. I hope,” Grant replied. “The plan was to put it on autopilot and set the timer on Scott’s bomb. He was supposed to parachute to the beach and send the chopper out to sea. James Bond style.”

“Goodness,” Ainsley exclaimed.
 

“Look,” Ethan gathered the group together in a huddle. “No one from Huck’s army is on the mainland right now. We gotta go. If we can get out of this area without being spotted and hunker down, we’ll be free. Safe.”

“Forever?” Ainsley asked. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, unblinking.

“I don’t know,” Ethan replied. He looked to Darla. “Get us out of here. You have any idea of a place we could go?”

Her face was a bloated, puffy mess. She smiled at him brightly, her eyes glistening. “Excellent idea. I know just the place.”

“No!” Grant snapped, everyone turned to look at him, and he stepped over to Darla. “No. I know a place. I know a place. And it’s where we need to go.”

“We’ve got contacts in Montana. A group of survivors that have started a little community there. I think that’s where we should go…we’d be welcome there.”

“No,” Grant said again. He was adamant. “I’m going to Wyoming…I promised Lucy that’s where I would meet her and that’s where I’m going. No one else has to go with me, that’s fine, but then give me my own keys.”

“We stay together,” Dean said to his son. “Wherever we go, we go together.”

“Wyoming,” Grant replied. “Jackson Lake.” He stood tall and looked at Darla, his mouth rigid.
 

Darla reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of keys on a leather keychain. She tossed them to Grant and he caught them awkwardly against his body.

“Lead the way,” she said, and Grant panned the expectant faces of the group, steeled himself against the charge of leading the group, and marched off toward the Playland parking lot. Darla smiled and kissed Teddy’s face.

“I love you, little dude,” she said.

“Love you, Mama,” Teddy answered.

Darla beamed and marched off behind Grant, content to let him take the lead. They climbed into a large white van. There were two other vans in the lot. Grant peered in through the windows and saw keys sitting on the seats. He exhaled, relieved, and continued to their vehicle. He slipped behind the wheel, started the engine, and started to drive out of the parking lot. Nobody said a word. Dean sat in the passenger seat and looked at his son; Ethan and Ainsley had climbed into the very back and sat next to each other, their legs barely touching. And Darla rested Teddy against the middle seat, buckled him in, and rested his head in her lap. She ran her finger through his hair and closed her eyes.

Without warning, Grant threw the van into park. The passengers jolted and shifted under the sudden stop; Darla groaned. Jumping out, Grant left everyone confused and silent and they watched as he ran, with his arms pumping, back toward the Playland parking lot.

“What the—” Ethan started as Grant stumbled away from them.

When Grant reached the other van in the lot, he opened the door and scavenged around; he found a receipt from a fast food restaurant and an eyeliner pencil. He scribbled a note and left it on the leather seat. Then he dropped the pencil to the ground, turned and ran back to the van. He slipped back into his seat, put the car in drive, and barreled down the road.

He didn’t say a word to anyone about the brief detour. And no one asked.

They drove south away from the crash site and the amusement park, straight down the Atlantic coastline, and then they cut west. Kymberlin had slipped out of view: the tower no longer visible along the horizon.

Even as they traveled further away, they could hear the sound of an army of helicopters arriving in their wake. By the time Huck’s men inspected the shore and the decimated remains of the charred helicopter and came to the conclusion that no one had been on board at the time of the explosion (or the bodies had been swiftly carried out to sea—no one would be able to say with conviction which one was more likely), the van carrying the survivors would have passed into rural New Hampshire on their grand adventure out west. They would be rushing along the highways on a steady course to Wyoming, starting their new life together: as a little, but beautiful, patchwork family.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Scott’s faced remained pressed against the hot cement of the helipad. One of the guards pushed his foot squarely into Scott’s back while the other kept a gun aimed at his head. He was still and calm as he watched the helicopter drift toward the shore and out of sight. What a serendipitously cloudy day. Ethan’s face, so full of gratitude, shock, and fear played for Scott again and again. He had made them a napalm bomb—a simple act of chemistry. Creating it had required no great scientific mind—only a boyish curiosity and some basic understanding of combustion. It would, combined with the gasoline, decimate the helicopter. The thought made Scott feel warm and comforted. His final act on this earth had been to do what he had been trying to do from the beginning: help.

Huck was coming.

Gordy, too.

And yet Scott didn’t feel afraid.

Like a movie, he replayed the events of his life that culminated in this one moment. The job interview, the test, the proposal, the acceptance. The years of traveling to cities and bunkers, performing experiments on people who had sold their right to life to help others. Those people didn’t know that the people they had given their lives to protect were doomed as well. Scott’s virus was indiscriminating.
 

The elevator doors opened and feet rushed forward, and stopped. Scott’s head was bleeding from the rough tackle to the ground, and his arm hurt. Maybe it was broken, but he didn’t think it mattered anymore.

“Get him up,” Huck commanded.

The guards grabbed him under his shoulders and lifted him to his feet. The Truman men stood before him. Veins throbbed in Huck’s neck and across his forehead; Gordy stood behind his father, just over his shoulder, and he stared at Scott blankly.
 

“How dare you?” Huck asked with quiet anger. He stormed up to Scott and without hesitation spit squarely in his face. The stream of saliva traveled down Scott’s cheek and dripped from his chin. Then Huck turned to his guards and said, “Hit him.” One guard landed a punch in Scott’s stomach, and it knocked the wind out of him. He coughed and his body pulled him to the ground, but the men held him up.

Huck paced.

“You have told me so many times in the past that you understood our cause. And yet every single one of your actions recently has shown me that you are a liar,” Huck seethed.

Gordy stepped forward, but Huck pointed a finger at his son and his face turned red.

“Don’t you dare intervene,” Huck spat. He turned back to Scott, “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Scott shook his head.

“Nothing?” Huck let out a condescending laugh. “You aided and abetted
kidnappers
. You created a destructive device with the intent to harm
my
people. You allowed your son and your little...” Huck stopped. “What is Grant to you, Scott? Your little protégé...your little experiment.”

“He deserved to live,” Scott said. He lifted his head to look at Huck fully. Huck was nothing; so slight, so fragile. He had caustic words and a mindless army to back him, but he had no power and no control over Scott anymore. “You rule with fear and anger. The people on these Islands will not follow you down a rabbit hole of merciless killing. Your empire will crumble and you will fail and I will only be sorry that I didn’t get to watch it happen,” Scott said.

Gordy stepped forward. “Enough.”

“Stay out of this,” Huck warned.

“I said
enough
,” Gordy said again.

“He dies,” Huck said.

Gordy nodded. “I agree.”

“And we hunt down the boys. Bring Teddy back safely and annihilate the others.”

Gordy stood away from the group and looked out over the helipad. The helicopter was out of sight, and he scanned the cloudy horizon. “I’ll call all the pilots from the other Islands. They’ll be behind by twenty or so minutes, but we will get them. We can start a search mission—”

He was interrupted by the sound of an explosion. It was a loud, rolling clap of thunderous noise. They swung their heads to the sound and watched as a plume of smoke erupted through the clouds. From their position they could see a fiery mass plummeting from the sky. Scott tried not to jump for joy. Instead, he twisted his face into surprise and cried out.

“No!” he gasped. “No...” he whispered and he hung his head.

“Oh,” Gordy breathed. “No, no.” His face went ashen and he pointed at the spot where the smoke was billowing. “There was a child on that helicopter. A
child
! Dear God…Blair…what will we tell Blair?” He covered his mouth with his hands and stood and looked out.

Huck turned slowly to Scott. He stalked over and lifted his face upward.
 

“You are hereby sentenced to death. For treason, aiding and abetting, possessing illegal materials, and for
murder
.” He walked to his son and clasped a hand on his shoulder.
 

Scott wiggled under the firm hands of the guards.

“Gordy,” Scott said, his voice firm. The son turned. “I accept my own fate, but my family had nothing to do with my actions. Do not punish them for my indiscretions...”

Gordy looked to the ground.

“Please,” Scott begged. “Promise me.”

“You’ve earned no such promises,” Huck said and he stepped to the side.

But Scott was unrelenting. “I gave you everything I had...my entire life and my family. You couldn’t have accomplished any of this without me. I gave you everything...and all I am asking for in return is safety for my family...that’s all I’ve
ever
wanted.”

“There would have been someone else,” Huck replied. He turned his back. “There is always someone else.” He turned to the guards. “Shoot him.”
 

The guards loosened their grip and went for their weapons, and Scott seized the moment. He pulled away from them and took two large steps backward, and then he rushed to the edge. A small fence separated the helipad from the edge of the tower. Looking below, he could see nothing but gray. The ocean water from that height did not move or turn with the wind: it could have been cement beneath him—there was no way to see for sure. Ignoring Huck’s angry shouts and the guard’s warning shot in his direction, Scott climbed over to the ledge. The wind rushed around him and filled his ears with steady pounding.
 

A shot rang out and it pierced Scott’s shoulder. The pain radiated down his arm and he held on to the railing. Tears stung his eyes and his clothes whipped around his body. He thought of Maxine—his perfect mate, the mother of his children. He thought of her strength, her resoluteness, and her power. When he first met her, he knew that he had to spend the rest of his life with her. He knew he would be a better man for making her his everything. They had made such beautiful children. Strong and brave. Tender and empathetic. They were amazing, despite his own shortcomings as a father.