The City Series (Book 3): Instauration

by Lyons Fleming, Sarah

  They’re a good team. Kate exuberant and silly, Louis calm and with a dry sense of humor. Eric told me I’d like Kate, and he was right. You have to work hard not to like her. She’s as soft as she is strong, and she makes no secret of how much she likes you. She tells you, then makes fun when you blush, like a sarcastic ray of sunshine.

  Leo scoots from Paul’s lap to mine, where he gives me a kiss, and then moves onto Indy’s to peer out her window. Paul brought Leo hoping the sight of a child will soften their hearts. And their armories.

  Indy wraps her arms around Leo’s waist. “How are you, little man?”

  “Good,” he says. “I wish I had a lollipop.”

  “I wish I had one for you. Maybe we’ll find one soon.”

  Leo leans against her chest, and Indy kisses the top of his head. Her gaze moves past me to Paul. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Paul says. “I can’t look at my kid?”

  “Nope.” She hugs Leo tighter. “He’s all mine now. You did a great job, though. He’s the best.”

  Leo nestles closer to Indy. Paul watches out his window, cheeks flushed. I turn to Indy, whose attention snaps away from Paul.

  “We’re almost there,” she says in what seems suspiciously like an effort to fill the silence. We’ve reached the intersection at the park’s west gate, which makes it fairly obvious we’re here.

  “Was it the park directly in front of us or your excellent navigational skills that gave it away?” Paul asks. His lips are curved and his expression one I’ve never seen—joking but gentle.

  “Both.” Indy’s bubbly laugh is as light as the fake frown she casts his way. “Jerk.”

  It hits me—Paul is flirting. Indy is giggling. They’re flirting with each other. And now the world has ended for the second time.

  Our appearance does not cause paroxysms of joy at the gate. People inside the park watch us roll in, then scatter like roaches when we step to the pavement outside the theater. Jorge exits the truck he drove with Julie, Chris, Brother David, and Casper, then winks at me. “We smell bad or something?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think that’s—” I run for the bathroom at the ominous sensation my period is seconds away. I get to a stall just in time, then poke around in my messenger bag for a tampon. I have two, which I put in my bag after Indy asked.

  “Sylvie?” Indy calls as she enters. “What was that about?”

  “I got my period. I forgot to take my pills, so it’s early.”

  “Oh. Shit. Do you have anything?”

  “Yeah, and I think I put my cup in my BOB. I try to keep it in there.”

  I hope I have it; a period with no tampons or menstrual cup is going to suck. I haven’t worn a pad in years, not that we have any. Nor do we have the cloth pads that someone sews in StuyTown and gives out for free.

  I leave the stall and wash my hands with soap and cold water. “What if I don’t have it in my bag? What do I use if we can’t find anything?”

  “Wadded up fabric?” Indy’s lips stretch in a grimace. “Mine is coming soon.”

  “We need to go on a birth control mission. If we take the pill constantly, we’ll never get our periods.”

  I won’t need them for any other reason. Maybe ever. That thought is depressing as hell. I could make a list of things in this world that I like to do and every one of them is worse without Eric. Every single one.

  “Tomorrow,” Indy says. “Or the day after.”

  “Aren’t you afraid it’s bad for you?”

  “Fuck it,” she says. “I’m not having kids anyway.”

  When we leave the bathroom, Teddy stands by the trucks. Carmen is at his side, along with a few people we met the last time. As we near, Louis asks, “How do you know you won’t be next?”

  Teddy raises his gray eyebrows. “Because we have a deal with Walt. We mind our own business and he minds his. Except for trading, of course.”

  Kate stands beside Louis, lips pinned together and her body quivering with rage. Finally, she erupts, hands shooting into the air. “His own business? He killed people, he’s still killing people. People you know, at your neighboring Safe Zone! It’s not his. How can you stand there and—”

  “Kate!” Teddy booms. He follows his outburst with a menacing smile. “I think it’s time you leave. I’ve assured Walt I won’t fraternize with the enemy, and you’re on his list, along with Louis. What I should do is hand you over to him.”

  You’d think by now I’d be used to people acting worse than you can imagine, but every time it comes as a surprise. I used a gun on Kearney, and I’ll use it on Teddy, too. In fact, I could happily shoot everyone here.

  “We have a child,” Brother David says. Maybe it’s the priestly training, but he’s remained calm, certain Teddy will do the right thing. “We only have a few days of food.”

  “If you’re not on the list, you can return to StuyTown. Walt made that clear. Send the kid back there. Stay any longer and I’ll detain you. All of you.”

  Kate rests her hand on her holster, daring him to try, and Teddy’s smile fades from triumphant to mildly gloating. I can’t hold my tongue any longer, if only because I want to hear him renege on his word aloud. “You promised,” I say. “You said that if we helped with Mo, you’d help us.”

  “Mo took care of himself.” Teddy moves his hands up and down like he balances two sides of a scale. “Let’s see…help you and die, or trade peacefully and live? Not a hard decision. Carmen, make sure they get out and stay out.”

  He spins for the path to the castle. Kate watches his hasty retreat with icy eyes. “I’ll kill him,” she mutters. “I will honest-to-God kill him.”

  She steps forward. Brother David and Jorge take her arms. “Don’t,” Jorge says. “I wouldn’t trust him not to detain you. The only reason he hasn’t is because he’s scared to try. Make him angry enough, and he will.”

  “Stop making sense,” Kate mutters through clenched teeth. “It’s really fucking aggravating.”

  Jorge lets out an astonished laugh, and the rest of us join in. Even Carmen’s lips move into what could be a brief smile. People have begun to creep from their hiding spots, though they stay a safe distance away from the lepers of Manhattan as though any contact could mean death.

  “We’re fucked, aren’t we?” Paul asks. He notices Leo’s pallid, pinched face and swings him up to his side. “We’ll take care of it. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

  Leo nods doubtfully. Brother David moves to Carmen. “Who else is on the list? Just tell us that before we leave.”

  Carmen pats down her shearling coat, then pulls a paper from a pocket and hands it over. “He gave us copies just in case.”

  “How efficient,” Kate says.

  Chris and Julie peer over Brother David’s shoulder as he reads. “Louis, Artie, and Kate are on there,” Chris says. “Jorge, you made the list.”

  Jorge nods as though he expected as much, but a surge of dread sends me to his side. “Roger must have told him I was there,” he says. “Walt knows I won’t forgive him, especially now. He’s right.”

  I can’t see the park through my tears. Jorge takes my shoulders, his face close to mine. “Tranquila, mami. It’s going to be fine. He hasn’t killed me yet.”

  He pulls me to his chest. I hold on for a moment before I realize Central Park might think I’m crying over their uncooperative asses. I step back from Jorge to glare at them. “I hope Mo destroys this place if he gets the chance.”

  Carmen casts a shrewd glance my way. I lift my brows, waiting for her to ask what I mean. “You heard Teddy,” she says. “Back in the trucks. I’ll take you to the gate.” She turns to Kieran and the other guards. “Come with me, Kieran. The rest of you stay here.”

  Kieran pushes back his long red hair and opens the rear door of a truck like a chauffeur. “Nice sword,” he says to Casper. Kieran wears a sword with a silver hilt at his own side. “May I see?”

  Casper pulls it out and tentatively hands it over. Kieran
flips it, runs two fingers along the steel, and passes it back. “Fine blade. Did you belong to a Kingdom?”

  “East.” Casper keeps his head down. “I’d just joined, and, um…”

  “Greetings!” Kieran grasps his shoulder, genuinely thrilled. “Sir Kieran mac Shane at your service. We must talk when you aren’t leaving in such haste. What is your name?”

  “I didn’t have one yet.”

  “The right name will find you.”

  Carmen snorts. “All right, Kieran, that’s enough. Let’s go.”

  Carmen rides on the running board of our truck, arm on the roof, while we roll out of the park. Kieran does the same on Jorge’s truck, though he bends to talk through Casper’s open window.

  “Every time I think the world can’t get crazier, it goes and gets crazier,” Indy says. “That dude thinks he’s a knight?”

  “In the SCA,” I say. “They dress up and fight like it’s medieval times.”

  “Oh, yeah, a few of them did Shakespeare in the Park. You’d think there’d be a band of medieval fighters who survived the zombies somewhere.”

  “There should be military, too,” Kate says. “But they probably went first.”

  “There’s military in New Hampshire,” I say. “At that Whitefield Safe Zone. Jerry told us about them.”

  I liked the Coast Guard guys, especially Jerry, and not only because he gave me bacon. But Wadsworth is gone, and the thought that this is fast becoming a planet of Walts and Teddys is too terrifying to consider at length.

  Louis slows the truck when Carmen knocks on the roof. She hops to the path, signals two guards to hold off on opening the gate, and then motions Louis to roll down his window. “Where are you staying now?” she asks, elbow on the window frame.

  Everyone in the vehicle, including Leo, is silent. Carmen opens her mouth, then turns at the sound of a truck. It screeches to a stop beside us. Teddy steps out along with Landon, whom I suspect we were all glad not to have seen. Clearly, this is not our day.

  Indy remains in her seat, arms crossed and eyes straight ahead. Pressed tightly in the backseat, however, I can feel her tremble.

  “They’re on their way out,” Carmen says to Teddy. “You need something?” She moves from the window, her face set in the contentious smile she wears around him. A smile that now seems close to dislike.

  “Landon wanted to say hello.”

  “Indy!” Landon calls through the glass, then opens the door when she ignores him. “Indy?”

  He looks good. Well-fed and clean. The hand he rests on Indy’s arm is practically manicured. “India, please talk to me. I’m sorry about how we left things.”

  Indy turns slightly to acknowledge his existence, though her arms stay overlapped. “How we left things? I didn’t leave anything.”

  Landon has the good grace to lower his head. “I know. But I’ve spoken to Teddy, and he says you can live here. I have a great little room we can share, and we have plenty of food. We can be like we were. Just us.”

  He does look sincere, I’ll give him that. Fluid brown eyes and possibly a little sallow beneath his golden glow. Then again, he did win a Tony. Indy views him skeptically.

  “I’ve fallen in love with you,” he announces, as though she’s won an award of her own. “I didn’t realize until I saw what else was out here.” He directs his fake smile at me, Paul, and Leo in the back of the truck. “I’m sure your friends will understand. They wouldn’t want you to die for them.”

  Paul actually growls. I curse inside, but I don’t say a word. If Indy can’t parse the meaning of what he’s said, she’s a hopeless case.

  Indy steps from the truck. Landon’s veneers gleam as he takes her arm, which she promptly shakes off. “You know what, Landon? I wouldn’t stay in your room and eat your food if they were the last room and the last food on Earth. The only person you love is you. So why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

  She returns to her seat and slams the door, eyes ahead and chin high. I watch Landon go from anticipative to stupefied to outraged. Purple creeps up his neck, and his mouth opens and closes like a dying fish.

  “What’s he doing?” Indy murmurs.

  “He’s about to blow,” I say. “That was beautiful.”

  “I’ve been waiting to say that for a long time.”

  It’s possible she’s been waiting for years, ever since her first love broke her heart. “I’m so proud of you,” I say. She squeezes my hand.

  Paul watches out the window with a shit-eating grin. “Let me punch Shakespeare,” he begs. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  A tiny laugh escapes her lips, though she keeps her expression composed for Landon’s benefit. “Let him stew. But thanks.”

  Landon rakes a hand through his hair, walking in a tight circle. “That’s what I get for trying to save your life?” he yells. “You are going to die, bitch! I hope you do.”

  “Put me on your list, then,” she mutters.

  The gate opens, and we pull out.

  “Absolutely not,” I say.

  This is the first time I’ve seen Jorge furious. He’s been angry before, though it’s been tempered with sorrow, like after Maria. When he crosses the floor of the lounge toward where I sit in a molded yellow plastic chair, he’s mad enough that I fear an aneurysm is on the horizon. He wants us to return to Central Park on our knees rather than stay with him, who’s been earmarked for death. Even if it wasn’t possible suicide, I would never leave him out here with a target on his back, and I’m insulted he thinks I would.

  “You could take Leo with you,” he says. “Better to be in there with food than out here starving to death.”

  “Is it?” I ask. “What if Teddy hands us over to Walt? Might I take a moment to remind you of Debra?”

  “Sometimes you remind me of Maria.” Jorge points a finger. “That is not a compliment.”

  “Do you honestly think I’m going to leave you? You’re the reason I’m alive to begin with.”

  “Sylvie, it’s only going to get colder. We have no heat.” He sits on the chair beside me with clasped fingers and a deep breath. He’s attempting a calm tactic, and it’s doomed before he begins. “Forget starving. You want to freeze to death? You want Leo to freeze to death?”

  “We’re not going to freeze to death. We’ll figure it out.”

  “How? How will we figure it out?”

  “I’ve read some books about this stuff, you know. We’ll go to the library or a bookstore and find more.”

  Jorge drops his face into his hands with a short laugh. “The library?” He whispers something in Spanish, of which one word might be loca.

  “I know the call numbers,” Julie says helpfully. I give her a thumbs up.

  Kate and Louis watch from seats by the windows, vacillating between amused and troubled. Paul and Indy have my back and have said as much, but Jorge won’t let this go.

  “Mami, you don’t understand—this is your life.” He lifts his head to peer desperately at Paul and Indy, then at Julie, Chris, and Casper. “All of your lives.”

  “Would you leave me?” I ask.

  Jorge doesn’t answer—he doesn’t have to. He knows what it’s like to have no one. That first day in the hospital, he didn’t get in line for the phone the same way I didn’t. We both had no one to call, to warn, to proclaim our love to and say goodbye. But we have each other now, and I won’t say farewell unless there’s no other choice. “What you don’t understand is how much I love you, Jorge.”

  Jorge rubs his temples like I’ve given him a headache, or I am a headache. Although I don’t want to fight with him, there’s something grounding about it. Fighting makes everything crisp and decisive. It’s what pulled me out of despair two days ago, and it’ll be what saves our lives and the lives of everyone in StuyTown.

  Jorge scans the room and stops on Brother David. “Brother David, help me out here.”

  Brother David’s lips part. Before he can launch into a sermon, I say, “You’re not going to
change my mind.” He hides his smile beneath his beard, but I know when he’s amused. I face Jorge. “Either you can help figure out heat, or you can yell at me twenty-four hours a day while we figure it out. But it’d be more useful if you helped.”

  Jorge exhales. “Fine. Have it your way. Die.”

  “Sometimes you remind me of Maria.”

  His shoulders jump as with a laugh. “Promise you’ll go if it gets too dangerous?”

  “Of course,” I lie, and pat his knee. “First things first, though. We need food and heat, and then to figure out how to stop Walt with next to no weapons. We should’ve blown them up when we had the chance.”

  Kate clears her throat. “We could make bombs with what we find in hardware stores and chemistry labs, but it’s dangerous work. We’d need detonators, too. Something like Semtex would be perfect, but good luck finding that.”

  She taps a finger on her lips, thoughtful. “Our problem is that we don’t want to hurt our own people. The way I see it, we have two options: sneak in and take them out, which isn’t a viable option. Or, my vote, mount a campaign of inconvenience. Do whatever we can to make their lives hard. Anyone we get away from the group, we cull. We need their weapons.”

  I’m in awe of what just came out of Kate’s mouth, and the fact that she’s suggesting we cull people. I’m not against it, but my eyes must be as round as Indy’s.

  Chris raises his hand. “Hold up. Is anyone else reeling from the fact that Kate knows how to make bombs?”

  I thrust my hand into the air, followed by Indy and everyone but Louis.

  “I couldn’t sneak that past you, huh?” Kate rises from her chair and walks to the center of the room. “Sylvie, did Eric ever mention Declan told him he was in the IRA years ago?”

  Julie, Chris, and Casper exchange astounded glances when I nod. “He said Declan got out and followed you to America.”

  “Declan did follow me to America, but he also followed me into the IRA. My dad was from Ireland, and I grew up hearing about the Troubles. The stories he told were romantic—taking back our land, our heritage. Getting out from under the British. I had dual citizenship, so it was easy to go over there. I met Da’s old friends, and I ate up their stories. I was raring to go. I joined up, met Declan a few months later, and he came along for the ride.”