Нора Робертс - Year One

Will took her hand, kissed it, making her giggle. “Oh, I bet that’s Lloyd and Carla. I’ll get it. Katie’s coming, and we’ll all be here.”

Max let it flow around him, taking stock. Clearly Lana enjoyed the moment—people, conversation, no worry about where they might be the next day, the day after.

He judged Lloyd about the same age as Bill, hovering around sixty, with a wiry, almost springy look about him. Carla, sturdy of build, hair hacked short, took stock of him, Max thought, as he did her.

Katie jogged down the steps, already apologizing. “Sorry. Restless babies. Are you moved in next door?” she asked Will.

“Lock and stock. Wasn’t that much stock anyway.”

When she dropped down beside Jonah on the sofa, Will eased down on the arm of Arlys’s chair. “Maybe we can find time to catch up.”

“Sure we can.” She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry about your mom, your sister.”

“I know.” He laid a hand over hers. “And your parents, Theo. A hell of a lot to be sorry for.”

On the sofa, Rachel tapped Jonah’s knee. He shifted, looked a little reluctant, then shrugged.

“Okay, I’ll start. Rachel, Arlys, and I had a conversation this morning, even before we added ninety-odd people and livestock. We survived, and we’ve gone a long way toward making New Hope home. I know getting power up’s a priority, and so’s security. We need to add supplies to that—medical especially—and that means scavenger and scouting crews.”

As he spoke, Arlys pulled out a notebook, a pencil.

“It might be time to have a town hall,” Lloyd suggested. “Introduce our newest neighbors, call for more volunteers.”

“Yeah. Before we have, I guess what we’d call a public meeting, we want to talk some things over. I guess everybody heard about the Mercers giving Bryar a hard time last night, then Aaron.”

“I heard if you hadn’t gone out, moved them along, it might’ve been more than trash talk from the Mercers. Troublemakers,” Carla added. “Some are just born that way.”

“Maybe. They tried to cause some trouble with a boy in Max’s group today.”

“I heard about that, too.” Carla studied Max. “And how they backed off when you got toe-to-toe.”

“Troublemakers and bullies. Some are just born that way.”

“We need to ask ourselves what we’ll do if it’s more than giving a hard time. So far this sort of thing’s mostly been words, a couple punches.” Jonah paused. “But Bryar shouldn’t be afraid to take a walk at night. Nobody should.”

“Almost everybody’s armed,” Carla put in, “even people who—and I’ll hit the Mercers again—shouldn’t be.”

“Kurt Rove,” Bill added. “Sharon Beamer. A few more I could name.”

“We need a plan. We need structure.” Rachel laid a hand on Jonah’s knee. “Rules, laws.”

“Once you have laws, you need those who enforce them, and those who litigate and legislate.” Lloyd frowned over steepled hands. “Some will object to being told what they can and can’t do. Who writes the laws, who enacts and enforces them, who decides on the consequences for breaking them?”

“We’re starting with a blank slate, right?” Jonah asked. “Maybe we start with broad strokes. With common sense.”

“An it harm none,” Lana said, then held up a hand. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. It’s our first rule.”

“Sounds like a good one.” Bill smiled at her. “We’d have to break it down some. Harm to another person, harm to property, harm to animals. Hoarding supplies, because that causes harm.”

“We can lay it out as for the common good.” Arlys continued to write. “But that takes us back to enforcing, and consequences.”

“Policing,” Jonah said and looked at Carla.

“I was a small-town deputy, so yeah, I know about small-town squabbles and dynamics. It’s a little dicier when you’ve got more weapons than people—and when some of the people have what we’d call unconventional weapons.”

“How much trouble have you had from Uncannys?” Max asked.

“Not much. A couple of kids raising a little hell,” Jonah explained.

“They’re mostly testing their abilities,” Fred put in.

“Yale Trezori blew up a tree, Fred,” Chuck reminded her.

“I know, but he didn’t mean to, and scared himself. He’s only fourteen. I think…”

“Go ahead,” Rachel prompted.

“I think if we could set up a kind of school or training center for the kids, or even people really new to abilities.”

“Hogwarts,” Chuck said, poking her in the ribs.

“Sort of. Bryar would really be good at it. She’s so patient.”

“Do you have anyone in your group who’d qualify?” Rachel asked Max. “Who’d be willing to teach and corral kids?”

“Yeah, we’ve already started that.” He looked at Arlys, gave her two names.

“We could set it up at the American Legion hall,” Fred said. “It’s only a block off Main so the kids could walk. I could talk to Bryar and if she’s willing, Aaron would be. He’d have an excuse to be with her.”

“It’s a good idea.” Jonah looked back at Max. “Would the people you named help structure it?”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“Great. Carla, are you willing to do the policing?”

“I’m willing, Jonah, but will people be willing to accept the authority? Also, I’ve never been in charge, and I couldn’t do it alone.”

Though he’d initially thought of asking Bill, Jonah had reassessed. “I was hoping Max would be willing.”

Max lifted his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because you know how to be in charge,” Jonah pointed out. “And for it to work we need everybody represented. You have a couple of police in your group. That would round it out.”

Max shook his head. “Mike Rozer, yes. He was a big-city cop, about a decade of experience. He’s steady. The other’s Brad Fitz, and he’s got experience, but he’s a hothead. And he’s bitter. It’s not a good combination.”

“Okay. Would you do it?”

Before Max could speak, Lana touched his arm. “You got us here safe. You kept people from losing their heads. Everyone, almost a hundred people, who came here with us knows that, and looks to you for that. With you as part of this, they’ll feel part of this.”

“You’d want me to do this?”

“I … I think you’re meant to do this.”

“All right.” He took her hand. “All right, we’ll try it. But you should choose another from your people, and an Uncanny. It gives balance.”

“Diane Simmons,” Arlys said without looking up from her notebook. “She’s quick-thinking, stable, and doesn’t tolerate bullshit.”

“Shapeshifter,” Katie added.

“I agree, Diane and Carla are sensible women,” Lloyd began. “And first impressions here say the same about Max. But spelling out the laws, and having the community at large accept them, accept the authority of the people we’ve named, is another matter.”

“I was hoping you’d spell things out,” Jonah said. “You’re smart and you’re fair, and nobody here would say otherwise. People respect you, Lloyd, so if you lay it out—and it might not be the fair way, but it’s the best way right now—like it’s just a done deal, most people are going to accept it.”

“And the ones who don’t?”

“Are going to get overruled.”

Lloyd rubbed the back of his neck, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me fiddle with that some. What do we do, if we manage this, with violators? Lock them in a closet?”

“A locked door wouldn’t stop some magickal violators,” Max pointed out. “Lana and I had a different method.”

“We called it Quiet Time.” Lana laughed. “Part of that was to make them feel like idiots, and this was, for the most part, frayed tempers, a fistfight or … some magickal bitch-slapping. We kept the same rule for either. A designated span in Quiet Time.”