Melt (Book 8): Hold

by Pike, JJ

  A laugh ran through the assembled Ridgers.

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “I told her the truth. Women of childbearing age are excused from combat.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She said it wasn’t fair. That men should be excused, too.”

  There was more laughter.

  “And? You said?”

  “I told her that they were, but that most men still elected to go on raids.”

  “Correct.” Alistair turned back to Herb. “Seems pretty clear to me. Do you want me to go on? I believe this is a fruitful vein of inquiry.”

  Herb shook his head.

  Alistair pivoted so he was facing the recruits again. This was going to be an important point, especially as they’d been in the military and therefore treated like property. “You are never required to undertake a task that is contrary to your belief system. We have conscientious objectors in our number. They never carry weapons, though they are still permitted to join raids if they want to replenish their family supplies.”

  “So men can refuse to go on raids, too?” It was his eager, spotted friend.

  “Correct. If you aren’t called to do something, we don’t force you. Now…” Major lesson, coming up. “If you sit on your backside all day and do nothing you’re going to find yourself pretty hungry, pretty fast.”

  Even the soldiers laughed at that one. They’d heard enough. It was time. “Josephine Morgan has been accused of the crimes of shirking and interfering with the rightful pursuit of happiness. If we had time we could talk longer and, I am sure, uncover further crimes. She’s been coming here for years, possibly attempting to sow dissent—at least, that’s what I heard underneath those insidious questions she threw at Jess—and who knows what else. The law allows us to sentence her to a month in the stocks after which time she would repay the debt she has incurred by working for the people she’s stolen from.”

  He watched the faces around him. His people were enjoying this far more than he’d thought they would. They needed a sacrificial lamb. Josephine was going to be that lamb.

  “We don’t have time. There’s a hurricane on the way, which pushes our own plan out of whack. We’re going to have to move ourselves to Wolfjaw Down soon. That being the case…” He needed to get a feel for how deep their anger and resentment went before he pressed for the ultimate punishment. Let them say their piece before he said his. “That being the case, what should her punishment be?”

  “She needs to pass the tests. The ice and fire and rope ladder…”

  “Whip her.”

  “Honey and ants.”

  “Consign her to the stocks and leave her there.”

  Goodness. They were angry. Excellent. Alistair asked for silence. “Before we debate these suggestions, I have one more crime to offer for your consideration.”

  What had felt like silence a second earlier was shown to be a distant cousin of real silence, by the sudden absence of all movement. There wasn’t a sniffle or a shuffle or a huff in play. They were rapt, thrilled, waiting. If Alistair himself had something to accuse her of it was going to be good.

  “Josephine Morgan has been coming here under false pretenses,” he said.

  Her face! For a second Alistair wished he had a camera. It was priceless, that look of absolute shock. She knew what he was about to say. He walked across the coals one last time and got up in her space so she could be in no doubt as to what was about to happen to her.

  “Josephine Morgan is an FBI Agent.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Get in here.” Hedwig was in the back of the Humvee, standing over Paul. “Now. Nigel. NOW!”

  Nigel clambered into the back of the van.

  Aggie was still frozen to the spot. Midge was blind. Her little sister was blind. How had that happened?

  “It’s my fault,” said Petra. “I took her out of the hospital.” The tears began, though they were quiet. She was thinking of Midge. That was good. At least Aggie could rely on Petra not to make things worse now that she was this calm version of herself.

  Bill hadn’t spoken. He was clasping Midge’s hand.

  “Daddy…” Midge was unperturbed. Did she believe it was night? Was that why she sounded so cheerful and chipper? “I know I have to stay very still, but could we talk about Grizzly Adams?”

  Aggie wasn’t sure her dad was up to the task.

  The ruckus in the Humvee was escalating. She tore her eyes away from Midge to see Nigel pounding on Paul’s chest. She leapt into the vehicle and grabbed his hands away. “He just had surgery, you can’t do that.”

  Nigel went back to his compressions.

  Aggie looked to Hedwig for answers, but Hedwig only had eyes for Paul.

  In the background, Midge was narrating her own story. She knew all the salient details: When Grizzly Adams had been on the Oregon Trail, what he’d sold, which bears he had as companions when. How big the hole in his head had been.

  At Aggie’s feet, Nigel was counting compressions.

  “I don’t think what he did was good, Daddy, because you shouldn’t take a cub away from its mother, but he loved those bears. And the one he called Ben, which is funny because it was named after President Benjamin Franklin, that bear saved his life…”

  Aggie had heard Midge and Bill run through the story many, many times. Now here Midge was, talking about a pioneer who walked around with a hole the size of a silver dollar in his head. Irony didn’t come close to describing what she felt.

  Nigel hadn’t stopped, which meant Paul’s heart had.

  Just as she was preparing to thank her lucky stars that Petra hadn’t seen what was going on in the Humvee, Petra turned and looked inside. Her mouth fell open, but she didn’t make any sound.

  “We have adrenalin.” Hedwig was the first to break the spell. She threw herself out of the back of the vehicle and disappeared around the corner.

  “He had all kinds of injuries,” said Midge. “He was mauled by a tiger, bitten by a bear, swiped and scalped—a little bit, not all the way—by a bear. And lots more.”

  Bill looked to Aggie for relief. His face was a mask of agony, his eyes round as plates, his lips as thin as straw, and the color drained completely from every pore. He had seen what was happening with Paul, but he neither commented nor moved their way. He stayed with Midge and listened to her tales.

  “He must have had all kinds of infections. They had so many germs in the olden days and no medicines like we do. If you got cut by a tiger you might get an infection and the doctor would put herbs and spices on the cut, but they couldn’t give you pills. So we’re lucky, you see, Daddy.”

  “How’s that, Midgelette? I mean, Margaret?” Bill had finally spoken. He sounded like himself. It seemed they needed the world to be in freefall for the Everlees to find their calm centers.

  Aggie wasn’t sure she could take any more. It was too much.

  “Because we have the medicines. So I have a Grizzly Adams hole in my head, but Doctor Fred says we can keep the germs away by doing medicine inside and out.”

  “That’s right. We are going to do everything we can to keep you safe, Margaret.” Fred was doing his doctorly thing.

  How strange the world was. Aggie had no idea what was good luck or what was bad luck anymore. If Mimi hadn’t insisted that Fred not be allowed to leave with potassium iodide, and if Betsy hadn’t lost her mind and driven Nigel away, who knew whether the two medics would have been close enough to Midge and Paul when the time came and they were needed. Good was bad, up was down, the medics who’d abandoned them were doing everything they could to save her brother and sister.

  Midge was patting Bill’s hand, trying to make him feel better. “You don’t have to worry about me being blind, Daddy…”

  Petra looked back down at her little sister, her mouth still gaping. Mimi was at the back of the Humvee, hanging on Midge’s every word. Both of them looked like they’d been struck by lightning and rendered inert.


  “Because we have medicines.”

  Fred nodded and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to take your helmet off, if that’s alright by you, Margaret.”

  “As long as you don’t let the germs in. I think that’s what killed Grizzly Adams. He was forty-eight years old when he died. Daddy says he died of retirement, because he’d only retired from his circus job with P. T. Barnum five days before, but I don’t know if that’s just a joke or if it’s true.”

  “Your daddy makes a very good point.” Fred undid the strap under Margaret’s chin. “There are some studies that suggest there’s sometimes a correlation between retirement and early death. Now, I’m going to put my hand behind your neck to support your head. I don’t want you to be surprised. Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Hedwig grabbed the bar at the back of the Humvee and hauled herself inside again. “Adrenaline. This is what you need, right?” She handed Nigel an EpiPen.

  Aggie found that she’d crossed her fingers for luck. She wasn’t sure she could watch what came next, but she couldn’t look away.

  Nigel took the EpiPen from Hedwig. “Do you have a knife?”

  Hedwig produced a folding knife from her back pocket and handed it to Nigel.

  “I’m going to need you to keep doing compressions.”

  “But no breathing in the mouth. I notice you haven’t been taking breaths for him.”

  “No. Just compressions. Between 100-120 per minute. Can you do that?”

  Hedwig knelt beside Paul, though there was barely room for her, put the heel of her hand in Paul’s chest like Nigel had shown her and began compressions.

  It was all taking so long.

  Paul. Please don’t leave us.

  Paul was starting to turn blue around the lips. How had this happened? Why? What were they going to do? Mom was going to go ape. Completely and utterly ape.

  “Do you have any IV fluids and a catheter? I need a bag.”

  Hedwig grabbed Aggie’s hands and put them on Paul’s chest. “Compressions. Like I was doing. Keep going. We’ve got this.” She was out the back of the Humvee and racing for the van as soon as she was sure Aggie had the compressions under control. “Under control” was a bit of a stretch; she was doing them, but she had no clue whether they were making a difference.

  Nigel scraped the plastic wrap from the outside of the EpiPen. At the non-needle end there was a dent in the plastic contraption.

  Aggie kept pumping Paul’s chest though with each compression a little more hope leaked out of her. She looked out of the back of the Humvee.

  Dr. Fred was unwrapping Margaret’s bandages while Nurse Nigel unwrapped an EpiPen. It was surreal.

  The back of the EpiPen sprang open. There was a long spring coiled around the base of the mechanism. Nigel removed that, then removed the needle from inside the autoinjector. There was far more medicine than Aggie had expected. She’d always thought EpiPens had these micro-doses that you poked into your leg, but apparently underneath all the packaging there was a long needle and a ton of meds.

  “There are approximately three doses in each EpiPen. We’re going to use all of them.” Nigel took the sheath off the needle, turned it upside down, tapped it so the air bubble moved—just like they did in the movies, except upside down—then stopped what he was doing and stared out the back of the van.

  “What are you waiting for?” Push, push, push, push, pushpushpush. “Jam it in him.”

  “We need the IV catheter and a bag of meds. He’s had a heart attack. That means there’s no blood flow. If I push the Epi it’ll just sit in his veins.”

  Aggie had imagined him raising the needle above Paul’s chest and slamming it between his ribs. Apparently that wasn’t going to happen.

  “This isn’t Pulp Fiction.” It was like he’d read her mind. “The chances of intracardiac epinephrine working aren’t great. We’ll do it if we must, but I don’t want to chance a bleed.”

  Okay. Fine. Whatever that meant. But do something. My brother is dead. DEAD. I am doing chest compressions on a dead man.

  Hedwig came back.

  Nigel’s face said she’d brought exactly what he needed. He worked around Aggie, prepping Paul for a shot of adrenaline and a squeezy-bag of fluids to get it to his heart.

  “Hold compressions,” he said.

  Aggie held her hands in the air as if she was surrendering to the enemy.

  Nigel pushed the epinephrine into Paul, pushed the bag with both hands, and all three of them watched and waited.

  Paul took a long, shuddering breath.

  Aggie threw herself at Nigel and hugged him, thanking him over and over and over again.

  “Two problems,” said Nigel. “He was down for several minutes. There could be brain damage.”

  “I don’t care. He’s alive. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Paul’s color returned to his face, slowly.

  “The other problem is his abdomen.” Nigel lifted Paul’s shirt and pointed at his bandages. “He’s bleeding. We’re going to need to check his stitches.”

  “Okay?” What did he want her to do? She’d do it, he only needed to say. If he wanted to teach her how to suture, she was ready for that. If he wanted to do a blood transfusion, she was more than ready. If he wanted a spleen or heart or head or anything, she’d give it for Paul. She was ready.

  “How far are these salt mines?”

  “About half an hour,” said Hedwig.

  “We’re going to take him and do the procedure there.” Nigel climbed out the back of the Humvee to talk to Fred.

  Aggie couldn’t hear them, but she didn’t care. Paul was alive. Her brother was alive. They were all going to pull through. She could just feel it.

  Fred had put Midge’s helmet back on. She’d missed all that. She didn’t know what was going on with her baby sister.

  It was all a mad blur.

  Other people were organizing the logistics. She was free to sit and hold her brother’s hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. Maybe when he’d come to visit her in the shed, when he and Petra were trying to convince her it would be okay to leave and Mom wouldn’t be mad and this was all a misunderstanding.

  She leaned down and whispered in her brother’s ear, “We’re the Everlees. We never give up. We’re stronger than anything they can throw at us. Remember. Your name is Paul Kenneth Everlee. You’re one of us. And we never give up.”

  Then, suddenly, Mimi was in the back of the Humvee with them. She had Bryony in her lap and Mouse at her feet. Then Petra was the other side of Paul, holding his hand and talking in their code language. Aggie had no idea what Petra was saying, no clue who was driving, barely a care in the world. She watched Paul’s chest all the way from the field where he had died and come back to life. Midge—Margaret, you must call her Margaret; this is her wish, you will honor it if that snake, Fred, can—Margaret was blind, but alive.

  They were all together. They’d gained a couple more group members, but if Nigel and Fred decided to stay until the nuclear wind died down, she’d find a way to feed them. It was all going to be alright. They were together. It had been so long since she felt like things were going to turn out alright she was almost giddy.

  And then she remembered Mom.

  Mom was back at the house with Betsy. Aggie had abandoned them, as well as Pippy and Floofy. She had to go back. Oh, shoot. Jim and Sean. She’d told them to sit by the trees and she’d be back for them. She was all over the place. Aggie Everlee did not break her promises. Neither did she leave anyone behind. As soon as she’d gotten everyone situated at the mines she’d head back on Indie.

  It turned out she didn’t need to work on getting them situated. The group dynamic had shifted. She wasn’t the insistent nag who had to press people to do what needed to be done any longer.

  Nigel and Fred took Paul into the mines as soon as the Humvee had stopped.

  Mimi and Petra carried Margaret. Wow. Talk
about things being different. Petra wasn’t hanging off Paul, wailing. She was doing something useful.

  Mimi returned and collected Bryony, who’d been standing with Bill, and she and Bryony and Mouse set off on an adventure.

  Dad drank three cups of water and a Gatorade, downed a couple of oxy, and lay down as soon as he found a flat space. “Give me ten minutes,” he said. “Ten minutes and I’ll have it under control.”

  They made their way into the cool, dark space that was about to become their home. Petra and Hedwig organized supplies, directed who was to go where, admired the work she’d done getting the place prepped. Mimi came back with Bryony. She had lots of nice things to say about the arrangements. They all loved the lights she’d rigged, the generator she’d acquired, the kitchen she’d organized, the stash of water, the fact that there were toilets, everything. They liked everything.

  Fred was off somewhere with Margaret, tending to her brain.

  Nigel recruited Petra to be his nurse. Petra, of all people. Since when was she the one the doctor chose to help out? (Well, nurse, but Nigel was going to act the part of the surgeon again, she could see that.) Incredibly, Petra seemed to know her way around the medical supplies. When had that happened? Had she been watching Betsy and Nigel when they did Paul’s surgery? Had pregnancy made her sensible? Had she been abducted by aliens and replaced with a non-emo version of herself? Whatever had happened to Petra it was a welcome relief. It meant Aggie could leave them to take care of Paul while she went and took care of her own business.

  She needed more than one vehicle if she was going to collect Mom, Betsy, Jim, and Sean. Which meant she needed another human. Who should she take? There was really only one choice. Dad was still fragile. Bryony needed Mimi. Which meant it was another road trip with Hedwig. That suited her just fine. Hedwig was the no-nonsense chick she’d always hoped she’d become.

  “Any chance you could do a trip back to base with me?” Aggie knew Hedwig would say yes, but she still felt the need to explain.

  “Let me make sure they have what they need and I’ll be right with you.” Hedwig did the rounds. There were two “surgical suites” in two salt caves. She had delivered gauze and tape and medical equipment to each practitioner. She briefed Petra on where the meds were so she’d be able to replenish their supplies. She took pains to point out where the antibiotics were, so Paul would have what he needed when he woke up.