“Today?” The surprise was evident in Peregrine’s voice. “Respectfully, I request Kayla be allowed to bury her sister before any decisions are made.”
“The decision has already been made. However, if you perform the marriage ceremony now, I’ll defer deployment until after the funeral.”
Reid considered it. Should he agree to the marriage so Kayla could attend the funeral? He risked a glance at her, and his heart constricted at the deadness in her eyes. He ached to take her in his arms, to make the rest of the world go away, to make everything okay again. But she’d never look at him without wishing he was Brian, and he couldn’t do that to her or himself.
“Commander,” Peregrine said. “Renata. Postponing would be the morally decent thing. But it does not change my decision.”
“You still won’t wed them?” Anger strangled Vega’s voice and she gripped the edge of the desk so hard her hands blanched white.
“Not unless and until they desire it.”
“Since when does what they want factor into the decision?”
“Since it’s my son and my dead son’s widow.” Peregrine’s face was flushed, his voice passionate. Reid rarely saw that much emotion in his father outside the pulpit. “I’ve given Reid my word.”
Vega stood. “This is on your head, Bishop. Not mine.” She glared at Reid and Kayla. “Landers and Solomon. You will deploy on brevet at 1300 today, and you’re not to return for one month.”
“A month?” Reid blurted. No one ever stayed out a month. “What about my patients?”
“That’s an order, lieutenants. Dismissed.”
Reid clamped his teeth together, turned crisply, and followed Kayla out.
Kayla broke into a jog. Reid wanted to go after her, but he waited for his father. He had to tell him he didn’t blame him. He knew there was nothing more he could have done.
Kayla would miss Bethany’s funeral, but at least she didn’t have to suffer a forced marriage. It was better this way. He’d rather love Kayla from afar than see up close day after day that she didn’t love him. When they returned from brevet, they’d go back to their separate lives. They had his father’s word, and Peregrine had never broken his word to either of his sons.
Two
Reid entered the mess minutes before lunch began. He hung his rifle on a hook and dropped his pack in the corner, then scanned for Kayla. He found her in the back, and slipped into the chair next to hers. She didn’t acknowledge him.
“This taken?” Bartholomew Jones grinned at Reid, indicating the empty chair beside him.
“All yours.” Reid always liked his brother’s good-natured buddy, but it was hard to see him without Brian.
Kayla glanced up and cringed. It had to be even harder for her. Jones was a Remote, Brian and Kayla’s teammate before the accident.
“I was in the orderly room, heard you two’s going on brevet.” Jones scooted his chair in.
“Yeah,” Reid said. “But it’s not what you think. We’re not married.”
“What? This place gets weirder and weirder.” Jones’s voice was low. “Now I suppose you’re gonna tell me it’s true you’ll be gone for a month.”
“Yep. I had no idea what to pack.” Reid chuckled, trying to bring some levity to the table. “I’ve only been outside the fence once, and it was for a week. What do you bring for a month?”
Jones shrugged. “I don’t guess packing for a month would be any different than for a day. What do you need besides a can opener, a knife, and a gun?”
“All rise for the bishop.”
The room quieted and all forty-some people stood.
“Let us pray,” Peregrine said. “Our Father, thank you for the bounty you have provided.”
Reid glanced at the open can by his plate and wondered at his father’s notion of bounty.
“As we mourn our dear daughter and sister, Bethany,” Peregrine continued, “we humbly ask you to bless this food to nourish our spirits as well as our bodies. Amen.”
Reid reached for his can of green beans as he took his seat. Jones was already dumping his can onto his plate, but Kayla slumped in her chair with her hands in her lap.
“Kay, you have to eat,” Reid said. “Jonesy, what you got, carrots? Want to share?”
Jones shrugged and slid half the carrots from his plate to Reid’s. Reid dumped some green beans onto each of their plates. Kayla hadn’t moved, so Reid grabbed her can of lima beans and balked at the milky glob, wondering how it had gotten past the kitchen’s inspection. He chucked the can in a collection tub at the back of the room and gave Kayla some of his food.
Kayla didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes stared unfocused.
Reid swallowed a mouthful of green beans without really chewing. The vegetables got mushier each week, if that were possible. “Hey Jones, it’s been two years since I was in the city. What’s the story out there?”
Jones frowned. “You don’t need my intel. Kayla knows everything there is to know.”
Reid glanced at Kayla, but she hadn’t engaged. “Yeah, but where would you go?”
“Me? I’d partake of the Honeymoon Suite at the Broadmoor, no question.”
“It’s not like that,” Reid said. “Vega’s making a point with my dad, that’s all. We survive out there a month, then things go back to normal.”
“Then you’re missing the best part of brevet, man.” Jones accepted a platter of barbequed rat from the person across the table and helped himself. “At least you won’t have any trouble with the survival part. Kayla was the best Remote on our crew.”
Reid took the platter and speared a portion of the bony meat. “I know.” He glanced at Kayla again. “But I’d like to make it easier on her, if I can.”
“Then how about the Academy? The commissary’s empty, but nobody bothered much with the houses. There’ll be more than enough supplies to last you. Those military families stocked up almost as good as Mormons.”
“The Academy? I never made it that far north. Isn’t it right at the edge of the Burn?”
“Yeah, but don’t let that worry you. Burn or no Burn, you gotta respect the supplies. Man, it’s to the point where only one out of four cans contains something edible.”
“The Burn doesn’t concern me,” Reid said, though it actually did. “It’s the hills. I remember Brian saying it was hell going north.” Reid winced at Brian’s name. He imagined it stung Kayla like a whip.
“Yeah, north’s a bitch. Once you get down from the Mountain, it’s uphill the whole hump, but that’s probably why it ain’t been cleaned out yet.” Jones shoveled a forkful into his mouth and continued talking while he chewed. “If you want flat, head south or east. But it’s a long-ass way before you find good pickin’s.”
“How far?”
“What’s it matter?” Kayla stood. “It’s not like we’re in a hurry.” She shouldered her pack, grabbed her rifle, and went out the door.
Reid shrugged at Jones and stood.
Jones shrugged back. “Good luck and God’s favor.”
Reid snagged his stuff and jogged after Kayla. He caught up as she passed the trash bins, but she didn’t look over at him. It would be the longest month of his life if she kept this up.
The guard at the blast door watched them approach. When they stopped in front of him he took a clipboard from the holder on the wall and scowled at it through thick lenses.
“Landers and Solomon?” he asked, like he didn’t know who they were.
“Stan,” Kayla said. “I’m not in the mood.”
Stan glowered at them. He was a young thirteen and still took guard duty very seriously. Reid watched him finger the butt of the M4 slung from his shoulder and questioned for the umpteenth time the wisdom of arming hormonal teens with automatic weapons.
“I’m giving the outbriefing, whether you like it or not.” Stan was obviously trying to sound officious but came off like a bratty kid. “You are hereby ordered to remain inside the established perimeter. Stay out of the Burn at all t
imes. Leave inedibles open for the rats, control your fires, and report any sign of Raiders immed—”
“Got it,” Kayla said. “Let’s go, Reid.” She crossed the threshold into the tunnel.
“But—” Stan protested.
Reid hurried past. Kayla knew what she was doing, and the fresh air called to him.
At the mouth of the tunnel, Natalie and Wade were on guard duty. Reid figured it was no accident they’d been assigned together. They’d probably been matched. Wade’s wife had died in childbirth two weeks ago, but the baby survived and needed a mother. Wade should be allowed to grieve for his wife and bond with his baby, but that’s not how things were done.
Kayla passed the guard shack without stopping. “We know the drill.”
“Fine by me,” Wade mumbled.
Reid caught his eye. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you in a month.”
“God’s favor on the outside,” Natalie said dutifully.
“Yeah. God’s favor,” Reid said under his breath.
Despite everyone else’s fears, Reid wasn’t scared of being on the outside. He didn’t believe in the prophecy of a second solar storm any more than he believed Raiders still existed. The tickle in his belly wasn’t fear, it was anticipation. Despite his regret at leaving his patients, he was excited. He’d be under the stars for a month.
A whole month, just him and Kayla. Relying on each other. No one else.
Even if Kayla didn’t start to see him as something other than Brian’s little brother, it would be more than enough time for her to come around and tell him the whole story of how Brian had died. He’d be patient. He was good at that. He’d had a lot of practice.
He watched Kayla ahead as she managed to look graceful traversing the crumbling asphalt and potholes that Norad Road had become. A few years back, Vega had ordered a team to repair the road, but they’d only made it worse. Now it was a sprained ankle waiting to happen.
Around a sharp bend, the road descended into neighborhoods. All of the houses looked equally dilapidated, even though some had been fixed up and occupied by families from the Mountain back in the beginning of the New World. Back before they knew Raiders existed.
His grandparents had lived in one of those houses with little Peregrine and another baby on the way. As a kid, Reid had begged his grandfather to tell him about the Raiders, but Tinker had refused and Reid knew better than to ask his grandmother. She didn’t talk about the baby she’d lost, the scar on her face, or the Raiders who’d driven them back inside the Mountain.
Ahead at an overlook, Kayla drank from her canteen. Reid stopped beside her, but she stared past him. The landscape below was brown and silent and still. Reid couldn’t imagine it any other way. He’d never shared Brian’s conviction that the world would be reborn and green again. Kayla had. He wondered if she still did, now that Brian was gone.
Reid searched for something to say, to comfort her. But she resumed walking before he could find the words. He took a drink, then nearly dropped his canteen. Something had moved below. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he stared at the city, but everything was still again. He told himself it had been a trick of the eye, but he knew he’d seen something.
“Kayla, wait up.”
She stopped and turned around. Her expression was somewhere between misery and disgust. She hated being stuck with him. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. “Yeah?”
“When Stan started to say something about Raiders . . . that was just routine, right?”
“If by routine you mean bullshit.”
“That’s what I thought. But from the overlook, I saw something move in the city.”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it was a Remote, Reid. What, did you think we were the only ones out here?” She continued down the hill.
Reid’s cheeks burned. What was wrong with him, getting all creeped out like a kid? Of course their own people were in the city. Besides, there weren’t any Raiders. Brian had spent the last five years on patrol and hadn’t seen a shred of evidence of anyone else left alive in the world. If he had, Reid would have been the first to hear.
Vega wanted everyone to believe Raiders lurked outside the perimeter, but it didn’t add up. After the Raiders killed hundreds in the initial attacks, the remaining Originals had retaliated with a vengeance. They’d hunted down and killed every Raider they could find, then formed regular patrols in case more came. But none had come. Not then, and not in the forty years since.
Despite this, Reid’s brother had become a Remote and gone on patrol at every opportunity. At first Reid hadn’t understood it. Brian wasn’t the bloodthirsty Raider-hunting type any more than he was. Then one day Brian had returned from patrol beaming. He’d pulled Reid into a private corner and shown him a handful of seeds. Then it all made sense. Brian was trying to grow things.
But after five years of finding and planting seeds, the only thing that had grown was Reid’s fear his brother’s heresy would be discovered. Even now, Reid kept the secret, safeguarding Brian’s reputation and protecting Kayla.
Reid was surprised when Kayla turned off the main road, but he wasn’t about to ask her anything. Halfway down the block, she went up a driveway. Reid looked at the house and stopped dead, watching in disbelief as Kayla opened the red front door and went inside.
It couldn’t be coincidence.
The only people who knew what he’d done there were Tiffany and Brian. Tiffany would never tell, and Reid had thought Brian wouldn’t either.
Three
Reid hadn’t thought about that house since he and Tiffany had been granted a divorce. As he looked up at the red front door, the broken shutters, and the peeling paint, his cheeks burned again, but not from embarrassment. He understood Kayla lashing out because she was hurting, but she’d gone too far.
He climbed the steps and opened the door. Kayla was on the other side of the living room, standing at the picture window facing the backyard. Her head was angled toward the exact spot where he’d buried them.
“I don’t know if I’m more pissed that Brian told you, or that you brought me here to throw it in my face.”
Kayla turned. “What?”
“Look, I get that you need to blame someone for the brevet, for Bethany, even for Brian. So blame me. I can take it. But bringing me here—”
“What makes you think this is about you? This was a special place for Brian and me. I left something here. I came to get it.”
“But this is where Tiffany and I came on our brevet. . . .”
“I know. That’s why Brian brought me here. What you did meant something to him.”
She turned back to the window, and he followed her gaze to the place where he’d buried the couple who lived there in the Before. He hadn’t felt right tossing out their bones while he and Tiffany ate at their table and slept in their bed. So he’d dug a grave and said words over them, even though the church forbade it and Tiffany had been horrified.
“You’re wrong about me,” Kayla said in a small voice, still facing the window. “I don’t blame you. Not for any of it.”
“Then why can’t you look at me?”
Kayla looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since Brian died. “It’s just . . . you remind me of him. Your voice, your eyes, even the way you walk.”
Reid wished he hadn’t asked. This was worse than thinking she blamed him.
A tear spilled down Kayla’s cheek. Reid hadn’t seen her cry. Not when Bethany died, not even at Brian’s funeral. Maybe she was finally ready to let out the pain she had walled inside. He took a step closer, willing to hold her, to comfort her, whatever she needed, despite his own feelings. But she wiped her face and gave a shuddering sigh.
“I’ll be ready to go in a sec.” She squeezed his arm, then crossed the room and disappeared down a hallway.
Reid touched his arm where Kayla’s hand had been, and turned to the window, remembering when he and Tiffany had discovered the house and its i
nhabitants. The couple had been elderly, judging by the photos. Apparently devoted to each other. He and Tiff found them sitting on the couch facing that window, holding hands. He’d buried them like that, with her hand clasped in his. Even then he’d known what he felt for Tiffany was not that kind of enduring love. Not the kind Brian and Kayla had for each other.
“I know some apartments not far from here,” Kayla called. “There’s a bait station close by, so good hunting. If we hump it, we can make it by dark.” She came out with her hair freshly pulled into a ponytail, the wisps around her face damp. “Okay by you?”
He nodded and followed her out, pulling on his cap to shield his face from the sun. They walked shoulder to shoulder, saying nothing. But the silence was different now. Not as heavy.
As the sun inched toward the mountains, they approached the apartments, rifles in hand. Two rats darted from behind the rusted hulk of a car, and Kayla nailed them both before Reid could squeeze off a single round.
“You better grab those, Landers,” she said. “You’ll be cooking tonight. Fair’s fair.”
“Fine by me, Solomon, but that means you scavenge the rest of dinner.”
“I hope you’re quick with the knife because I’m starving.” She shoved him in the direction of her kills.
Reid smiled as he grabbed the rats. It was like he had the old Kayla back.
They found an acceptable unit on the second floor, tossed down their packs, and got to work. While Kayla rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, Reid gathered a pile of papers and a couple of books into a desk drawer and went out onto the balcony. The barbeque grill was dry, so he laid a fire with the papers, books, and some unvarnished pieces of the drawer, then lit it. In minutes, Reid had the rats gutted and cooking.
“This will be better hot,” Kayla said, placing a pan of something gray-green on the grate next to the meat.
While the rats sizzled, Reid leaned back in a chair with his boots up on the balcony rail watching Kayla bring stuff out.
Seeds Page 2
