Justin Cronin - The Passage

“Can you believe it?” Alicia said miserably. “They fired me.”

“Sanjay will come around. He’s not stupid. It’s a mistake-he’ll figure it out.”

But Alicia seemed to be barely listening. “No, Sanjay’s right. I never should have gone over the Wall the way I did. I totally lost my head, seeing the girl out there.” She shook her head hopelessly. “Not that it matters now. You saw that wound.”

The girl, Peter thought. He’d never learned anything about her. Who was she? How had she survived? Were there others like her? How had she gotten away from the virals? But now it looked as if she would die, taking the answers with her.

“You had to try. I think you did the right thing. Caleb, too.”

“You know, Sanjay’s actually thinking of putting him out? Putting out Hightop, for godsakes.”

To be put out: it was the worst fate imaginable. “That can’t be right.”

“I’m serious, Peter. I promise you, they’re talking about it right now.”

“The others would never stand for it.”

“Since when do they really have a say about anything? You were in that room. People are scared . Somebody’s got to take the blame for Teacher’s death. Caleb’s all alone. He’s easy.”

Peter drew a breath and held it. “Look, I know Sanjay. He can be pretty full of himself, but I really don’t think he’s like that. And everybody likes Caleb.”

“Everybody liked Arlo. Everybody liked your brother. It doesn’t mean the story won’t end badly.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Theo.”

“Maybe so.” She was gazing ahead, squinting into the light. “All I know is, Caleb saved me last night. Sanjay thinks he’s going to put him out, he’s going to have to deal with me.”

“Lish.” He paused. “Be careful. Think about what you’re saying.”

“I have thought about it. Nobody’s putting him out.”

“You know I’m on your side.”

“You may not want to be.”

Around them, the Colony was eerily quiet, everyone still stunned by the events of the early hours of the morning. Peter wondered if this was the silence that came after something, or before. If it was the silence of blame being tallied. Alicia wasn’t wrong; people were frightened.

“About the girl,” Peter said. “There’s something I should have told you.”

The lockup was an old public bathroom in the trailer park on the east side of town. As they made their approach, Peter and Alicia heard a swell of voices on the air. They picked up the pace as they moved through the maze of tipping hulks-most had long since been stripped for parts-and arrived to find a small crowd at the entrance, about a dozen men and women gathered tightly around a single Watcher, Dale Levine.

“What the hell is going on?” Peter whispered.

Alicia’s face was grim. “It’s started,” she said. “That’s what.”

Dale was not a small man, but at that moment, he seemed so. Facing the crowd, he looked like a cornered animal. He was a little hard of hearing and had a habit of turning his head slightly to the right in order to point his good ear at whoever was talking to him, giving him a slightly distracted air. But he didn’t seem distracted now.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Dale was saying, “I don’t know anything you don’t.”

The person he was addressing was Sam Chou, Old Chou’s nephew-a thoroughly unassuming man whom Peter had heard speak only a few times in his life. His wife was Other Sandy; between them they had five children, three in the Sanctuary. As Peter and Alicia moved to the edge of the group, he realized what he was seeing: these were parents. Just like Ian, everyone standing outside the lockup had a child, or more than one. Patrick and Emily Phillips. Hodd and Lisa Greenberg. Grace Molyneau and Belle Ramirez and Hannah Fisher Patal.

“That boy opened the gate.”

“So what do you want me to do about it? Ask your uncle if you want to know more.”

Sam pointed his voice to the high windows of the lockup. “Do you hear me, Caleb Jones? We all know what you did!”

“Come on, Sam. Leave the poor kid alone.”

Another man moved forward: Milo Darrell. Like his brother, Finn, Milo was a wrench, with a wrench’s solid build and taciturn demeanor: tall and slope-shouldered, with a woolly beard and unkempt hair that fell in a tangle to his eyes. Behind him, dwarfed by his height, was his wife, Penny.

“You’ve got a kid, too, Dale,” Milo said. “How can you just stand there?”

One of the three J’s, Peter realized. Little June Levine. Dale’s face, Peter saw, had gone a little white.

“You think I don’t know that?” Whatever wedge of authority had separated him from the crowd was dissolving. “And I’m not just standing here. Let the Household handle this.”

“He should be put out.”

The voice, a woman’s, had risen from the center of the crowd. It was Belle Ramirez, Rey’s wife. Their little girl was Jane. Peter saw that the woman’s hands were trembling; she looked close to tears. Sam moved toward her and put his arm around her shoulder. “You see, Dale? You see what that boy did?”

Which was the moment Alicia shouldered her way through the crowd. Without looking at Belle, or anyone at all, she stepped up to Dale, who was gazing at the stricken Belle with an expression of utter helplessness.

“Dale, hand me your cross.”

“Lish, I can’t do that. Jimmy says so.”

“I don’t care. Just give it to me.”

She didn’t wait, but snatched it away. Alicia turned to face everyone, holding the cross loosely at her side-a deliberately unthreatening posture, but Alicia was Alicia. Her standing there meant something.

“Everyone, I know you’re upset, and if you ask me, you have a right to be. But Caleb Jones is one of us, as much as any of you.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Milo was standing with Sam and Belle now. “You were the one outside.”

A murmur of agreement flickered through the crowd. Alicia eyed at the man coolly, allowing the moment to pass.

“You have a point there, Milo. If not for Hightop, I’d be dead. So if you were maybe thinking about doing something to him, I’d think long and hard.”

“What are you going to do?” Sam sneered. “Stick us all with that cross?”

“No.” Alicia frowned, not seriously. “Just you, Sam. I thought I’d take Milo here on the blade.”

A nervous laugh from a few of the men; but it just as quickly died. Milo had taken a step back. Peter, still at the edge of the crowd, realized his hand had dropped to his blade. Everything seemed to depend on what would happen next.

“I think you’re bluffing,” Sam said, his eyes held tightly on Alicia’s face.

“Is that so? You must not know me very well.”

“The Household will put him out. You wait and see.”

“You could be right. But that’s not for either of us to decide. Nothing’s happening here except you upsetting a lot of people for no reason. I won’t have it.”

The crowd had grown suddenly silent. Peter felt their uncertainty; the momentum had shifted. Except for Sam, and maybe Milo, their anger had no weight. They were simply afraid.

“She’s right, Sam,” Milo said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sam’s eyes, burning with righteous anger, were still locked on Alicia’s face. The cross had yet to move from Alicia’s side, but it didn’t have to. Peter, standing behind the two men, still had his hand on his blade. Everyone else had moved away.

“Sam,” Dale said, finding his voice again, “please , just go home.”

Milo reached for Sam then, meaning to take him by the elbow. But Sam jerked his arm away. He appeared rattled, as if the touch of Milo ’s hand had nudged him from a trance.