Everyone munched in relative silence.
After breakfast, Harper returned to the bedroom to change. She grabbed her least filthy pair of underpants, which she’d already worn at least six times since it had last been washed, frowning at herself for putting off doing laundry so long. She’d attend to it that afternoon. At least the house had come with a few bottles of Tide, even if she had to wash everything with cold water in the bathtub and hang it outside to dry.
Now I know the world is screwed. I’d be happier having a working washing machine than a new car.
Flannel shirt, jeans, sneakers, and shotgun later, Harper headed out to the living room and collected the kids for the walk to school. The sunny morning matched her lighter mood. Now that she’d dealt with the Shadow Man, it didn’t feel like she had to guide the children across a warzone.
They chattered back and forth about school, the farm, maybe going house-exploring once class ended, generally sounding happy. Harper’s good mood dipped a little when they arrived at school and she noticed the other kids also appeared in dire need of a good meal. Violet, too, had lost enough weight that it showed in her face.
No wonder someone’s stealing food. I’m not sure I could even be angry with whoever it is. She waved at the teachers, then made her way outside. But, we can’t let them keep stealing. Gotta be fair with the food.
She paused at the edge of the sidewalk in front of the school. Not worrying about some creep being a threat to the kids felt wonderful. The absence of a driving sense of urgency pushing her to go out there and find him before he did something horrible to a kid made a day of patrolling feel like a vacation.
“Hi,” said a child behind her.
Harper damn near fainted. She jumped and spun, clutching her chest and staring at Mila, who stood only three feet away in a white dress with tiny daisy patterns. The garment looked entirely odd on her since the girl had thus far worn black every time she’d seen her.
“Crap, don’t do that…” wheezed Harper.
“The Shadow Man isn’t gonna stay in jail. I’m sorry for bringing him here. It’s my fault. I wanted to thank you for saving me, and say goodbye before I leave.”
“What?” Harper blinked. “Leave? What do you mean leave?”
Mila clasped her hands in front of herself, looking down. “I have to go away. The Shadow Man will keep following me and I don’t want him to hurt anyone else. That’s why I said creepy stuff. It’s okay if the other kids tease me. If they stay away from me, he won’t hurt them. My mom doesn’t know I’m leaving ’cause she’ll make me stay, and then she’ll die, too. I don’t want her to die.”
“Listen to me…” Harper crouched and grasped the girl by the shoulders. “You’re nine, Mila. You’re not going to run away. There’s far more dangerous people out there than some random creep in a ninja costume.”
“He’s not.” She shook her head. “He can split apart into like five copies with magic. The Shadow Man did that when he chased me around Boulder before I came here. He even caught me for a little while and put me in jail.”
“What?” Harper sank to sit on the curb. “Put you in jail? What did he do to you?”
“He said he would make me a shadow, too. Forced me do stuff, throwing knives, running, hiding, and climbing, but I had to sleep in the jail ’cause he knew I wanted to escape. I hadda shoot someone dead to become a real shadow, but I didn’t wanna. The magic would have gotten into me and made me evil if I did that. I escaped, and he’s mad ’cause shadows can’t leave or they die. But I’m not a shadow ’cause I didn’t kill that man. The boy did, and the shadow gave him food. He only gave me a little food as punishment ’til I’d prove killing.” Mila held her hands up, pantomiming chewing tied wrists. “But I got away. I can move quiet, and he didn’t hear me ’til the door squeaked. I ran and hid. The Shadow Man used his magic to turn himself into copies, but he didn’t find me.”
“Mila…” Harper stared up at her, not knowing how to process any of that. “He’s not a ghost. Maybe you were just so scared you thought you saw him everywhere.” Or she’s got a wild imagination. This is kinda dark and weird for a little girl to make up… but what kid her age could throw a knife like that, right into the zero. “You were kidnapped.”
She nodded. “But I got away, and now he’s mad and gonna kill me for knowing secrets. He’s gonna turn into darkness and float out of jail. I don’t want him to hurt my mom either, so I gotta go away.”
“No, Mila. You don’t have to go away. He’s just a man. I know he’s big and scary to you, but he’s not magic. There are bad people out there, so you need to stay here where it’s safe. Maddie and I almost got kidnapped by a gang in Lakewood.”
“That’s different. They weren’t gonna make you shadows. They were just mean.”
Harper nodded. “Those men wanted to take us and force us to join their gang. They would’ve hit us and made us do bad things. Steal, hurt people… But, they’re only humans. Bad humans. Not shadow spirits or whatever. The man who tried to grab you is only a man.”
“Crazy people were all over after the sky lit on fire.” Mila sat next to her on the curb and leaned against her. “I don’t think my parents are alive. Everyone ran around screaming and hitting each other. Threw stuff at windows, lit fires. Soldiers shot at people. After I escaped the Shadow Man, I was alone for a long time. At night, I’d go in a dumpster or trash can or car so he wouldn’t see me. He can’t go outside when it’s sunny or he’ll melt away. Some people found me. I was afraid of them at first, but they didn’t yell at me or throw bricks or try to shoot me. They brought me here and Anne-Marie took me to stay with my new mom. I think she really loves me, but she thinks I’m creepy.”
“Well, you do kinda act a little odd.” Harper put an arm around her. “But it makes sense after what happened to you.”
Mila reached down between her feet to fuss with a tuft of grass poking up from a seam in the concrete. “I watched people die. Everyone went crazy, and I couldn’t find my parents. I didn’t cry. Only wimps cry.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“An Army man yelled it at another Army man when everyone was going nuts. Then they shot people. They didn’t see me under the car, or they’d have shot me, too. They’re both dead now. I cried when you saved me from the Shadow Man, and Mom cried when you told her what happened. That made me cry more, too. Guess I am a wimp.”
“He’s wrong. It’s absolutely okay to cry… especially after nuclear war. And no, Mila, you’re not a wimp. You’re a kid.”
Mila looked up at her and narrowed her eyes. “For now.”
“Heh.”
Her expression fell back to neutral. “Assuming I live long enough to grow up.”
“Aww.” Harper squeezed her. “There you go again with the creepy stuff.”
“It’s not creepy. It’s realistic. People think it’s safe here, but it isn’t. Evergreen isn’t dangerous, but nowhere is safe anymore.”
Harper imagined that guy in black handing Mila a gun and demanding she kill some dude tied up on the floor. Sick son of a bitch. This poor kid. “It is a little creepy for a girl your age to be so blasé about death.”
“What’s blasé?”
“Umm. Talking about it like it’s no big deal.” Logan said we stop being innocent when we know we’re going to die someday. Mila’s too young.
“Why, ’cause little girls are supposed to be sweet and nice and never say anything bad?”
“No. It’s not that… Umm. Like, sometimes when you talk about death, it almost sounds like you’re happy about it.”
“I’m not. I’m telling lies, trying to not be scared.” She took a quivering breath, seeming at the verge of tears, but held it in. “I don’t really want to die. Just scared of the Shadow Man.”
“He’s not magic. Just crazy. A different kind of crazy than the people you saw rioting, but still crazy. Normal people don’t try to turn children into killers.”
“I thought he was a demon.�
��
“Nope. Just a guy in a stupid costume.”
Mila stretched her legs out, examining her flip-flops. “You’re right. I shouldn’t run away in these. My other shoes are too thin for hiking, too. Okay, I’ll stay.”
I hope she’s just being cute and crappy shoes aren’t the real reason she’s changed her mind. Harper hugged her. “C’mon. You should go back to class.”
“Okay.” Mila looked up at her with sudden vulnerability in her eyes. “When he escapes jail, will you protect me?”
Harper brushed a hand over the girl’s head. “You bet.”
“Thank you.” Mila fought back the sniffles, then sat there staring into space.
“You should really go back to class.”
Mila nodded. “I know. Just waiting for my eyes not to be red anymore so no one laughs at me for crying.”
Harper sat there with her, sick with dread that she might not be able to find Mila in time if that guy ever did manage to escape. It didn’t seem all that likely, but she couldn’t help but consider that a man capable of training a nine-year-old to throw knives with deadly accuracy in only a few weeks’ time could probably get out of a little town jail.
21
Silver Bullet
Not sure what else to do once Mila went back to class, Harper headed from the school to the militia HQ and told Walter Holman what she’d learned.
She had the feeling the man had kept the girl in a literal jail, probably having taken over a small police station somewhere in Boulder. She didn’t want to risk traumatizing her more by dredging up bad memories, so had left the questioning light.
The revelation that this guy actually had come here specifically targeting Mila and not hunting random children surprised Walter. Though, she had mentioned some boy who’d also been abducted. Once he’d done what he meant to do to Mila, either killed or captured her, he very well might have tried to abduct other kids to join his ‘shadow’ group. Walter suggested he might have been spying on her siblings because Madison somewhat resembled Mila from behind, both having straight, black hair.
Harper hadn’t thought to ask for more details about the boy. ‘Boy’ could’ve meant anything from child to teen. She worried that a mentally traumatized child might be stuck in a jail cell somewhere without food, trapped while this idiot tracked Mila all the way to Evergreen. However, she couldn’t justify trekking cross-country on a search for a boy who may or may not be real and might not even be locked up. Or, sad as it was to think about, even still alive. Mila had told her the boy did shoot a man as ordered, so possibly, the creep trusted him enough as an ‘official shadow’ not to keep him prisoner.
“The guy still hasn’t said anything.” Walter exhaled hard, fluttering his lips. “We’re still trying to figure out what to do here. Letting this man go would surely present a direct threat to little Mila, or other children. Or you… anyone here really. Someone who’d track that kid halfway across Colorado because she refused to murder a helpless man and join him…”
“Might want to kill everyone here out of revenge,” said Harper.
“Seems like it would be best to put a bullet in him, but I don’t feel right making that call. And I don’t think we have too many people here who’d be willing to play executioner.”
Harper nodded, certainly not wanting to do that. One thing shooting a man about to hurt her or someone else, but murdering him when he isn’t a threat didn’t sound much different from what he tried to force Mila to do. “Why not have a trial? We have a lawyer.”
“Hah! I’m sure Arturo would adore that. But… what if we do and a jury trial comes back with a death sentence?”
“He didn’t kill anyone…. That we know of.”
“So we keep him locked up, draining our food for how long?”
She cringed. “I dunno.”
“Thanks for bringing this information to our attention. That poor girl. How’s she doing?”
“Shocked, I think. She had this guy built up in her head as some kind of demonic supernatural creature. She even thinks he can split into multiple copies of himself. When I knocked him out with a load of buckshot to the face, it kinda shattered her world… in a good way. She’d been stuck in a bad world. It needed shattering.”
Walter chuckled.
“That’s it, really. If there’s nothing else…” She started to turn toward the door.
“Dismissed,” said Walter.
Harper stuck her tongue out at him.
He laughed.
School let out early for farm day.
Harper went with the class across the highway again, figuring it couldn’t hurt to watch the lessons and maybe pick up a thing or two about how the farms worked. Madison’s group spent their two hours learning about caring for cows. Lorelei and the smaller kids got to feed chickens, and Jonathan’s cluster walked with Jim Rollins, the farm manager, as he gave them an overview of how the irrigation system they’d hand-built worked.
She decided to follow that group roaming back and forth around rows of potatoes, carrots, turnips, tomatoes, and whatnot. Seeing all the plants made her stomach growl, but none of them had yet matured enough to produce anything edible. The size of the farm did give her hope, though. They had only to weather a few lean months and maybe everything would work out.
Daydreams of a time when she complained about food she didn’t care for and never once imagined still being hungry after dinner distracted her from Jim’s lecture. She mentally drifted off, craving pizza, French fries, or that surprisingly decent chicken ranch salad her high school cafeteria made.
Does Madison really like tofu or does she just feel so sad about animals she accepts eating it as punishment for being human?
“Hey,” said a boy. “Everything okay?”
Harper looked up at Logan Ruiz. He still had on the same clothes she’d seen him in before, standing a few feet away with his hands in his pockets, head tilted a bit to the side, hair fluttering in the wind.
“Yeah, just thinking.”
He wandered closer. “What about?”
“You know, pizza. Usually what comes to mind when standing by rows of… whatever this is.”
“Potatoes.” He nodded toward Jim’s group, which had progressed a decent distance away during her mental check out. “Tour group left you behind.”
“Heh. I kinda left them behind. It’s okay. I’m not really a student anymore. Just pretending.” A mild gust threw her hair over her face. She puffed at it, blushing. Can I be any more awkward?
Logan chuckled. “Hey, you want to hang out later?”
“I dunno. I got my siblings to keep an eye on.”
“What about your dad? Can you slip away for a bit after dinner? There’s a spot south of the dirt road. You know, where we had that barbecue like a week ago.”
Harper wouldn’t have thought twice about going out to spend time with her friends before. Now, it felt like doing something wrong. She needed to be with her family. Though, Madison’s clinginess had fallen back to almost pre-war levels, especially when Becca came over. The idea of taking a little time for herself to have some fun did appeal to her. With the supposed Shadow Man contained, the pervasive sense of dread that had been hanging over Evergreen had faded.
Maybe I should. I’ve been wound so tight lately. She fidgeted. Hanging out with a group of random teens at night had never been her scene. That usually meant underage drinking, possibly weed, possibly stronger drugs. Definitely breaking rules. The few times Christina had dragged her to parties, she’d mostly spent the whole time standing in the corner desperately waiting for it to be time to leave. The ‘good’ parties, people left her alone. The not so good ones, someone invariably couldn’t believe that a ‘girl like her’ felt uncomfortable around crowds. Some called her ‘too pretty’ to be shy. Others couldn’t grok that a ginger lacked a wild streak. The bad parties, she’d get grabbed or pawed, or someone would try giving her a drink with something in it. Harper had no idea how often people tried to roofie her, sinc
e she’d never once accepted a drink anyone tried to hand her. If she hadn’t been ashamed to tell Veronica and Darci how she really felt about going to parties, they probably would have stopped encouraging her to go.
But the world changed. Spending time with a small group of survivors didn’t have the same vibe as a house crammed full of a hundred teens racing each other to see who could pass out first.
“Umm. Maybe. I’ll try.”
“Cool.” Logan’s smile melted off with a sigh. “I gotta get back to work, but I’ll see you tonight?”
“If I can get away. My sister is kinda brittle.” Oh, yeah. Blame Maddie. Way to big sis properly. “But she’s getting better.”
He nodded, looking off to the side. “All right. Don’t feel guilty if you can’t make it.”
“’Kay.” She cringed at reminding him of his sister, who probably died. “I should be able to make it.”
Logan smiled. “Cool. See you there.”
Harper watched him walk back to a plot of some short bushy green plants. He picked up a white bucket and scooped something from it onto the ground as he made his way along the row.
Her father’s imagined voice told her not to give up on life just because the world changed.
Okay. Okay. If Maddie can handle me disappearing for an hour or two, I’ll go.
Moonlight provided a surprising amount of illumination when no electric lights worked anywhere nearby.
Harper stayed home until after dinner, chickening out and not mentioning anything about going to spend time with kids her age until it started to get dark. Madison surprised her with a casual ‘okay’ that made her wonder if her little sister also thought she needed to relax for a change.
Of course, Cliff had been mortifying. He assumed she ran off to pull a Beth-Jaden. She’d been too embarrassed at the implication to even tell him that she’d never done more than kiss a boy, and had no intention whatsoever of going all the way with a boy she’d spent less than two hours talking to. Hell, she had no intention of even kissing him. ‘Just hanging out with friends’ got an ‘uh huh’ from him, plus a knowing smile.
The World That Remains (Evergreen Book 2) Page 20
