Sophie Littlefield - Aftertime

“So where do you think they got them?”

“There’s stashes,” he said evasively. “I know of a few that the resistance set up. Not all by any means. I don’t know how strong they are in the library, how many people…but it’s got to be pretty organized. Our friend Herkim back there kept this one under wraps. Bet he’s got a few more, too. Probably off-site…a house, a hole, doesn’t take much, and for now at least the Rebuilders can’t keep track of everyone’s comings and goings during the day. Though I’m sure that’s next.”

He laughed, a sound so utterly without humor that Cass flinched.

“Were you with them from the start?” she asked. “The…resistance?”

“Wasn’t really anything to be ‘with,’ just those of us who thought it was fucked up that a few assholes wanted to tell everyone else what to do. I mean, a power grab seemed like an especially bad idea when everything else was still going to hell. Way I saw it, maybe everyone ought to just pitch in and work together until the dust settled, know what I mean?”

Cass thought about Bobby, his easy leadership, the way everyone had turned to him, almost hungry for direction, for someone to tell them what to do. “Sometimes someone needs to take charge,” she said softly, hoping her voice didn’t betray the ache in her heart left by Bobby’s death. “Someone just has to pick a direction and go, or it’s chaos.”

“I used to think that,” Smoke said grimly. “Until I saw firsthand what happens when the guy with the power heads off in the wrong direction. And everyone follows along, like a bunch of lemmings throwing themselves over the cliff. I won’t be a part of that. Not ever again.”

There was a hardness in Smoke’s voice that surprised Cass, and under her hands his muscles tensed. He revved the engine, and she could feel the vibrations traveling up through her body, and the combination of the reverberations and being so close to Smoke stirred her emotions in another direction entirely. There were so many things she didn’t know about him-not just what he had done, who he had battled and even killed, but who he had been Before. There was a current of darkness running through him, a dangerous determination that she didn’t understand. It made her afraid. She didn’t know how far he would go when he was committed, but she sensed it was all the way, that he would go hell-bent in whatever direction he chose.

Right now, he had chosen to go with her. To protect her. And Cass felt herself pulled, almost irresistibly, toward the safety he offered. It was so tempting to ignore the questions nagging at the edges of her mind. The fact that the things she didn’t know about him far outweighed the things she did.

“So…” she said, watching him turn the gun over in his hands. “You’re sure you know how to use that?”

“Yeah…I’m not saying I’m a crack shot, and I panicked back there. But I can probably take care of anything that gets in our way between here and the Convent. Trick’s going to be shooting before we get shot, if it comes down to it…”

“You think there’s…? What are you worried about, freewalkers, Rebuilders, the Convent-who?”

Smoke shook his head. “I don’t know. Nobody was real clear back there. Herkim says he doesn’t think the Rebuilders have had much luck getting into the Convent, so he thinks they’ve sort of written it off, for now. They’re picking off the easy targets at this point, and maybe later they’ll come back when they’ve taken over all the little shelters and the squatters. But he also said the Convent hasn’t exactly been very friendly to the resistance, either. They keep to themselves, no allegiance except their own, that kind of shit.”

Which was why they had sent the children there, Cass hoped. Maybe they were neutral. Like Switzerland. The little bud of hope that she kept safe and hidden inside threatened to unfurl, and it was too soon, too dangerous for that. “The women in there…are they armed? Are they dangerous?”

But Smoke was moving again, keeping to the center of the street, following a path straight toward the entrance. “We didn’t exactly have a lot of time to chat back there but I got the impression these ones here are a bunch of zealots, you know, like a cult. They think the Siege was the start of the End Times or whatever. You know, the same people who blame every bioattack on Islamic extremists. Probably crazy but harmless, at least to us.”

As they came closer the stadium loomed larger until it towered above them, stretching out several city blocks in either direction. They passed a parking lot with cars still parked in a semblance of order, the guard shack splintered and toppled.

Smoke eased off on the gas when they were a few hundred feet away. “Look there,” he said, pointing to an alcove to the left. “That doesn’t look good.”

Cass had to search for a moment to see what he was pointing at.

A figure, dressed in loose pants and shirt, holding an all-business gun, a semiautomatic, the kind that said “gang” and “mercenary” and “drug runner” to Cass, images from a hundred stupid late-night movies. Her heart lurched and she instinctively clutched Smoke tighter.

He reached very slowly and deliberately for the keys and turned off the engine. “I don’t believe I’ll be wanting to challenge that, ” he said softly. “You get off first. Put your hands out so he can see you don’t have anything. I’ll follow.”

Cass did as Smoke suggested, taking her time, holding her arms out like she was trying to balance on a narrow path. She sensed Smoke behind her and then he was at her side, protecting her as always.

“We’re unarmed,” Smoke called out.

“Rebuilder?” the voice answered, and Cass was startled to hear that it was a woman. The figure stepped closer and Cass could see that she was tall and broadly built and that she moved with confidence.

“No,” Smoke snapped. “No fucking way.”

“You won’t mind if I don’t take your word for it. Lie on the ground, facedown, arms out. Just so you know, if I shoot, I won’t bother worrying whether you make it through or not. I’m going to search your girlfriend first and unless you want to clean her off the ground I advise you stay very, very still.”

I’m not his girlfriend, Cass thought as she lay down on cold pavement for the second time in a few days. Unlike the parking lot in front of the school, the concrete here smelled of stale beer and rot. But also unlike that day, the hands that searched her worked quickly and efficiently, a pressure not ungentle, moving so fast along her body that there wasn’t time for Cass to register much more than surprise.

When the woman finished with her she showed Cass the blade she had taken from her pocket-and Lyle’s crystal suncatcher, glinting in the moonlight.

CASS HAD FORGOTTEN, AND SHE CAUGHT HER breath in dismay. “That’s nothing,” she said, hoping Smoke couldn’t identify the little trinket. “Good luck charm.”

The woman didn’t reply, but slipped it into a pocket of her vest. “Fine,” she muttered before moving on to Smoke. Cass wasn’t sure if she meant it was all right to get up, so she just turned her head to watch, in time to see the guard take the gun from Smoke’s pocket.

“Un armed? ” she said incredulously. “What the fuck is this, then?” She slipped the gun into another vest pocket and finished the search, coming up with the spare magazine and another blade, which disappeared into the pocket, as well.

“Okay, time to go see the wizard,” she said, leaning over the bike and taking out the keys. “What’s your name, asshole?”

“Smoke. This is Cass.”