nine
THE EGGS WERE FORGOTTEN. They tried every light switch. If Carrie would have had any small electronics left, they would have tried the plugs, too. Carrie about cried when Amber turned on the stove and it worked. Real heat. As amazing as that was, Kristina Ziegler noticed air blowing from the vents. The air conditioner had kicked on, blowing cold, stagnant air throughout the house. Every healthy person found a vent to stand on. They tried the faucets, but the water was still off. Still, that couldn’t dampen their spirits. Amber and Zach danced around the house.
“No more dark nights!” Amber cheered.
The longer it went, though, the more Carrie’s joy dissipated. She wanted to think this was Oliver’s doing, but Oliver knew they didn’t have money to pay for electricity. After spending every last dollar to get Carrie legal, neither did Oliver. Which meant an explanation Carrie didn’t like. She could see it in Greg’s stiff posture that he had pieced it together, too.
Greg locked eyes with her across her light kitchen. He stayed silent, leaned against her counter, arms folded while everyone else rejoiced. One thing she loved about Greg was his ability to keep the future in sight. For him, now never came at the expense of tomorrow. That was part of why the Collapse had hit him so hard. For a guy who always planned ahead, the Collapse stole everything he had planned for his future.
He didn’t want to ruin this happy moment for her, but one name hung in the air-conditioned air between them:
Jamansky.
David Jamansky had done this.
As Zach danced past Carrie again, she snagged his t-shirt. “Hey, Zach, run around and turn off all the lights.”
“Why?” Zach said, pulling up short.
“Because,” Carrie said.
“Wait. Why do we have to turn off everything?” Amber said, overhearing.
The others stopped, too.
Carrie glanced at Greg again. “May and CJ have electricity, but they don’t use it because they can’t afford it. And…neither can we.”
“But—” Zach started.
“Just go,” Carrie said.
Greg pushed away from the counter. “I’ll head downstairs and shut off the air conditioner.”
As he left, Carrie wandered over to the nearest kitchen vent. She pressed her feet to the ice-cold metal, savoring the feel on her bare feet. She knew the moment Greg found the switch because the air stopped. She told herself it was for the best. They’d survived all this time without electricity. Thanks to Oliver, she had a house and a yard to call her own. No need to get greedy. But she couldn’t help but wonder if Jamansky had restored her power just to torture her clan, teasing them with things they could never have. Just a new layer to his cruelty.
* * * * *
“What skills do you have?”
“Skills?” Oliver repeated.
The prison guard looked irked. “Yes. Plumbing? Cooking? Electrical work? We assign you to work areas based on previous skills. Just like the sign says. You do read, don’t you?”
Snickers broke out in the line behind Oliver.
He ignored them. It was barely eight in the morning, and the large guard looked like he’d already had a long shift. Oliver didn’t feel sorry for him, though. Yesterday, he’d been ushered through paperwork and guards going through the rules. Today was his first full day in this prison work camp. Today he would be unleashed to the rest of the inmates, guys who looked like they might try cannibalism just for fun.
Skills.
What skills do I have?
He stared down at his stiff, baggy, orange jumpsuit. His brain still felt foggy from a night spent sleeping on hard cement that reeked of urine. Every spot Jamansky had kicked him seemed to have swollen overnight into something excruciating. He could barely breathe without pain stabbing his lungs. His nose felt bruised, and the rest of him felt broken.
Someone behind him swore. “Hey, idiot, go already!”
Skills.
Skills.
“I’m a patrolman,” Oliver said.
That brought a louder round of snickers. Oliver made the mistake of glancing back. It was like looking into a pack of ravening wolves.
“He was a patrolman,” one cooed. The guy looked like he’d come straight from a Chicago street gang, with wild, greasy hair. “Maybe you should make him a guard like you, eh? He’d make a pretty one, too. Wouldn’t you, princess?” The gangbanger made kissy lips at Oliver.
Laughter broke out, loud and frightening.
Oliver quickly faced front again.
A huge crack echoed as the guard slammed his nightstick on the counter.
“Silence!”
The guard waited until the laughter simmered down before his murderous glare went back to Oliver. “Try to think real hard, inmate R2964E5. What skills do you have? Janitorial? Can you do laundry?” He spat each word with such venom it upped Oliver’s anxiety.
What can I do?
What can I do?
Each heartbeat stabbed his ribs. All he could think about is what he had done. How many in Carrie’s clan were going through this same process? Carrie? Zach and Amber? Old May and CJ Trenton? Their faces made an endless loop of misery in his mind.
“I’m a patrolman,” he repeated softly.
The nightstick slammed down again, only this time across the back of his fingers. Oliver screamed and jerked his hand back.
“You were a patrolman,” the guard said. “Now you’re nothing!” Scribbling something on a slip of paper, he said, “Give this to the food service manager and head to that station over there. Next!”
Oliver shook out his hand. He couldn’t bend his fingers. They throbbed with red-hot pain. But he did as commanded, heading to the next spot, the only station that didn’t have a line in front of it.
A guard looked up from behind a table. “What’s your number?”
“R2964E,” Oliver whispered, rubbing his fingers.
The guard typed something into his computer before nodding. “Follow me. Hey, Zinka,” the guard called. “I’m going to need you for this one.”
Oliver glanced over his shoulder as they led him out of the Commons. He was the only person in orange being taken anywhere else. He’d stood in that last line until his feet ached, but he hadn’t seen a single inmate being escorted away like he was now.
They led him into a small room where another man sat. The man was dressed differently from the other guards, wearing a simple white lab coat.
“Got one for you,” Oliver’s guard said.
The man in the lab coat pushed up his glasses. “The first of the day. Lucky him. What’s your number, inmate?”
As Oliver recited it, he looked around the small room. Strangely, it resembled a doctor’s office with medical equipment hanging from the walls. But there was a distinct smell in the room, almost like something burning.
Oliver’s eyes zeroed in on a large metal object on the counter. One end was plugged into the wall. The other end was shaped in a circle with a crossed-out star in the middle.
He stared at that crossed-out, metal-shaped star.
A traitor’s seal.
“Lift your sleeve,” the man said, picking it up. To the guards, he added, “Hold him tight. I can’t have him flailing around.”
ten
“YOU ALRIGHT?” GREG SAID, rushing back to Carrie. She had stopped in his grandparents’ doorway, holding the door jamb and blinking a hundred times.
She rubbed her eyes. “Yes. It’s just so bright outside. Can you help CJ?”
Greg took his grandpa from her and helped him out onto the porch. Greg and Carrie had come over early to catch up his grandparents on everything. Being the stubborn people they were, they insisted on attending the morning meeting on their front lawn. Greg had already helped his grandma outside, the feebler of the two, shuffling her one tiny step after another. He’d barely gotten her settled down on the porch steps when Carrie stopped with his grandpa. Richard O’Brien brought up the rear, inching gingerly across the living room.
A sad group.
“Almost there, Grandpa,” Greg said.
Like his frail wife, Greg’s grandpa took forever lowering himself onto the cement step. He hadn’t been as sick when he started the medicine. Still, his tan Dockers were cinched tight with a frayed belt to keep them from falling. Greg’s grandpa had lost weight that he couldn’t afford to lose.
Once Greg got him settled, he went back to Carrie. She was leaning against the brick, rubbing her eyes. Light sensitivity seemed an unfair curse for the girl who loved the outdoors.
“When I get rich,” Greg said to her, “remind me to buy you a rockin’ pair of sunglasses.”
Carrie smiled. “Okay.”
“Or do you want my hat? I’d be happy to donate my lucky Yankees cap to somebody who looks way better in it than I do.”
The memory made her smile, but she shook her head. “No. I’m fine.”
Greg surveyed the group congregating in the front yard. Terrell Dixon lay on the grass, Sasha Green sat with the little Kovach boys under the huge oak tree, and Carrie’s siblings talked to their friends on the driveway. Braden Ziegler hadn’t come because he still felt too miserable. Braden’s mom had woken with a splitting headache of her own. Ashlee Lyon stayed behind, promising to keep an eye on both of them.
Kristina Ziegler made the eighth person who had caught this government-created virus. Since she had slept in Carrie’s basement with the other “healthy people,” they’d probably have more starting soon, making Greg wonder if they’d ever completely contain it.
Sighing, he slid his fingers into Carrie’s and pulled her close. That took the edge off his stress. But she wasn’t close enough. Sliding an arm around her waist, he kissed her forehead, a long lingering kiss that let him enjoy the scent of her soft, washed hair.
“Greg,” she whispered, “people can see us.”
“Why do you think I’m behaving?” He kissed her temple next, planning to make his way down her enticing jawline. She had the softest skin.
Her cheeks colored. “Greg.”
Grinning, he traced the blush settling across her summer freckles. “Come on. How am I supposed to resist this?”
Her lashes lowered, heightening her loveliness.
“What in the world?” his grandma said suddenly.
Greg looked over his shoulder. His grandma sat on the porch step, mouth hanging open at the sight of the two of them connected at the hip.
“What’s wrong, Grandma?” Greg asked innocently.
“Well…it’s just that I thought…I thought that…” She struggled for a moment before giving up with a harrumph. “Why didn’t you tell me you two were an item now? CJ, did you know Carrie is with Gregory? CJ! Turn around and look.”
Greg’s grandpa barely glanced back. “Yep.”
That only made her scowl. “You should have told me. It would have cured me right up.”
Crazy enough, it probably would have. Forget medicine. The woman’s entire existence revolved around her family and making sure they got what they needed—or what she thought they needed. In Greg’s case, that meant a sweet girl like Carrie Ashworth.
Greg’s smile faded as he thought about how his mom would have liked seeing him and Carrie together, too—seeing Greg happy like he was.
“I told you that you two would make a lovely couple.” His grandma shook a wrinkled finger at him. “What took you so long?”
“Would you believe it, Grandma,” he said, squeezing Carrie’s waist, “but Carrie wouldn’t have me. I chased her for months and months, but she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I guess this illness zapped the last of her fight, ‘cause she finally caved. Lucky for me, don’t you think?”
It was Carrie’s turn to gape at him. “What are you talking about?” she whispered, “That’s not even close to…You never even…”
With her so close, he nearly kissed her again. Instead, he pressed a finger to her soft lips.
“Let me have a little fun.”
“You better be treating her well, Gregory,” his grandma continued to rant. She pushed her thick glasses up. “No letting that sharp tongue get away from you. Are you treating my Carrie well?”
He crossed his heart. “Doin’ my best, but it’s a big job. Real big.”
Carrie poked him, but she was fighting off a smile.
As his grandma went back to complaining about being kept in the dark, a movement out of the corner of Greg’s eye caught his attention. Little Jeffrey Kovach was waving at him—or rather, waving at Carrie.
Greg leaned close to Carrie. “I think your other friend is tryin’ to get your attention.”
She looked up. “What?”
Her bad ear. Greg needed to remember. In an effort to save her from more old-lady interrogations, he pointed to the three-year-old across the lawn.
Carrie smiled at Little Jeffrey. “I’ll be right back, May,” she said.
Greg wasn’t about to lose her, not with a matriarchal lecture brewing, so he followed Carrie off the porch and through the group. Sasha leaned against the massive tree trunk while the two boys played in its shade.
Carrie crouched down by Little Jeffrey, close but not too close. She’d been on the medicine long enough she probably wasn’t contagious anymore, but nobody knew what to do if a little kid caught it. Give half a shot for tiny ones? Not even Ashlee Lyon knew.
“Hi, Jeffrey,” Carrie said. “What did you find today?”
The kid grinned a big toothy grin. “Look, look!” His dark eyes, so much like Jenna’s, watched in amazement as four tiny ants explored his arm. Greg’s skin crawled at the sight, but Carrie just smiled.
“Wow,” she said. “Where did you find those?”
Little Jeffrey parted the grass to reveal a tiny mountain of dirt. Thousands of ants scurried about. “Look.”
With the kid hunched over, Greg saw several more ants crawling around his t-shirt and one even scurrying across his cheek.
Greg shuddered.
“Those are amazing,” Carrie said easily. “Which one do you like best?”
Little Jeffrey thought a minute before pointing at the ant exploring his elbow.
“I like that one, too,” Carrie agreed with a smile.
Jonah, the younger of the two boys, kept hitting his stick against the tree trunk until Sasha yanked it from him. “No hitting trees, Jonah.” She shook her head at Carrie. “I keep finding sticks and dead bugs all over my house. You can’t take any of those ants home, Jeffrey. They have to stay here. Do you understand? Bugs stay outside.”
The light vanished from the boy’s eyes.
Greg scowled at Sasha. The Kovach boys had lost both of their parents within one day’s time. Jenna died, and Jeff had been kicked out of the clan for violence. Carrie had been ten times the babysitter Sasha was, but after the attack, Jeff Kovach worried Carrie hated him. Since Sasha had never been able to get pregnant—plus she was married and settled while Carrie still had two siblings to take care of—Jeff left his boys with Sasha and Dylan Green. If Jeff ever returned from North Dakota, he’d obviously want his boys back. Would Sasha miss them as much as Carrie did?
Carrie searched the grass by her own feet. “Look, Jeffrey. I see more ants over here.”
That did it. The kid perked back up and joined her.
Carrie moved back to give him space. In the bright sun, her honey-colored hair glowed—almost as much as she did watching him.
Many times during Greg’s six weeks at the Naperville training facility, he’d pictured her like that, glowing in the sun. Thinking of her had helped pass the endless hours of field drills, marksmanship, and mind-numbing propaganda classes. When his sergeant pounded him with nightsticks, Greg thought about Carrie’s peaceful, gentle nature to keep from fighting back. And at night, as he lay exhausted in his upper bunk, he stared at the dark ceiling and imagined what it would be like to hold Carrie, to kiss her senseless, and to possibly, maybe, if all the stars aligned, come home and win her love. Even during his mission with Isabel Ryan
, Greg vowed that if he ever made it back to Logan Pond, he would make Carrie laugh like she deserved to. While she didn’t find him nearly as funny as he thought he was, he didn’t care. There was plenty of time for that.
Sometimes he wondered what had happened to the others he’d trained with in Naperville, like Burke and Lopez. Were they fighting illegals now? Killing rebels? Had Isabel and Commander McCormick found Kearney and the resistance, or had Kearney listened to Greg and relocated the rebellion? But those moments of wondering were few and far between. Greg happily left his short career as a military special op behind. The only thing he cared about now—the only person—stood a few feet from him, finding joy in a little kid playing with ants.
A sudden overwhelming and entirely premature thought hit Greg. He wanted Carrie to be the mother of his kids’ someday. Someday far in the future. Really, really far. Or maybe not so far. He and Carrie were in their twenties. He’d learned the hard way how fragile life was, so why wait to pursue happiness?
The thought intrigued him.
Carrie glanced up and caught him watching her. She truly glowed as she smiled at him. He was half-tempted to ask her feelings on the subject, but it wasn’t worth her dropping dead of shock. So he shook out of his thoughts.
“I think everybody’s here,” he said. “You ready?”
Nodding, she ruffled Little Jeffrey’s dark curls before following Greg back to the porch.
Twenty minutes later, the clan had a compromise.
Before Jamansky showed up that evening, they would empty the homes and head down a trail behind Logan Pond. There they would wait Jamansky out, staying long into the night if needed. After the supposed raid Friday, they would reassess. Greg had stayed awake half the night, trying to come up with something that would appease everybody. Now his plan paid off. There hadn’t been a single argument. Just a simple, quick consensus. Even Carrie had agreed, which surprised him.
“What about my grandparents?” Greg asked the group. “Should they go with us, or are they safe here?”
CJ looked at May who had leaned against Carrie on the step sometime during the discussion.
Citizens of Logan Pond Box Set Page 94
