Chapter 6
SIX
Asia
“You ready to rock and roll, Miles?” I said around a huge yawn.
“You sleepy?” Miles asked.
I chuckled. “What gave it away?”
He laughed. “You weren’t supposed to take the night watch last night anyway ’cause you had it two days in a row. But now that Jack’s back, I know he’ll take some nights so you can get your rest.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking away from him. He didn’t need to know that Jack was the reason I hadn’t gotten much sleep.
When I looked at him again, I stayed silent for a moment, smiling faintly at him as the weak rays of sunlight that managed to peek through the burlap and the candles clustered in the middle of the table lit his face.
I glanced down at his arms and started to frown.
His sleeves were too short, and I bet his coat didn’t fit anymore, either.
Problems for another day, not that I banked on those.
“But as I was saying, you ready?” I asked, forcing frivolity into my voice.
Miles nodded, and shoveled oatmeal into his mouth like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten. I tilted my head and watched him but pushed away the bowl in front of me. Despite how much I tried, I still wasn’t able to bring myself to eat it.
It was only pure willpower that even allowed me to look at it.
Every time I saw it, I thought of Bridget.
Remembered her dying.
Wished I had the opportunity to kill her again.
I kept my eyes on Miles, but my smile was brittle. I hoped he didn’t see.
“Heck yeah! But what changed your mind?” he said, finishing off the last of his oatmeal. He pushed away from the table and walked over to the sink.
He wiped out the bowl, and I tried not to cringe. I still hadn’t gotten used to that, but it made more sense this way. It would be a waste of water to wash every dish, so instead, everyone had their assigned cutlery and dishes, which we washed every three days.
“You mean you’ve harassed me to do this, and now that Lourdes says yes, you ask why I’m letting you?” I said.
He nodded. “Yes. I just want to know why you changed your mind?”
I sighed, but tried to cut the sound off quickly. Young as he was, there wasn’t enough time left in Miles’s life to explain what changed. There certainly wasn’t enough left in mine.
I shrugged. “What can I say? You proved yourself.”
He chuckled. “Like there was ever any doubt?”
I stood, grabbed his shoulder, feeling much too much like Jack. “No, there wasn’t.”
The screen door opened and slammed closed, much quieter now. It seemed that when he wasn’t wrecking the tiny bit of peace I’d managed to scratch out, Jack found the time to fix the screen door. I’d wanted to myself but had no idea how to do it. But I was way too petty to thank him for it.
“How are things looking this morning?” Miles asked when Jack entered the kitchen.
I didn’t look at him, but I didn’t have to look to know that he was staring at me.
“Quiet. So perfect,” Jack said as he went toward the coffee.
“There’s oatmeal on the stove. And when I come back, you wanna walk the fences with me?” Miles asked.
“You don’t ever sound that excited to walk the fences with me,” I said. I kept my gaze firmly on Miles, trying—failing—to pretend that Jack didn’t exist.
“No offense, Miss Newman,” he said sheepishly.
I chuckled, the sound high, false. “Yeah, guess I know where I stand.”
“Where are you going?” Jack asked.
I risked glancing at him, but only held his gaze for a split second.
“To clean up,” Miles said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I felt his gaze burning into me. “And what is clean up?”
“The dead ones, they sometimes get caught in the traps. We take them out, then burn them.” Miles took a big gulp of water.
My heart twisted, thinking about Miles having to do that. It seemed normal, but hearing him explain it to Jack like he was talking about mowing lawns to save up for his first car ripped at something in me.
“You’re not going,” Jack said.
“What? Miss Newman said, and Lourdes said—”
“Can Jack and I talk, Miles?”
The boy blinked, and I watched understanding dawn on his face. He nodded, then scurried out of the kitchen.
Jack didn’t give him a second glance.
He was too busy glaring at me.
I looked in his general direction. “We’ll be done in a couple of hours and can use a hand with some stuff around the barn later.”
Then, for need of something to do with my hands, I took a bite of the oatmeal. Only after I choked it down did I feel the disgust that so often plagued me.
I took another bite.
Who said spite didn’t have its uses?
“You heard me,” he said.
“Yeah, I did, and I’m ignoring you.” I tilted my head to stare at him.
“I don’t know what the fuck kind of game you think you’re playing—”
“None of this is a game, Jackson,” I said, my voice on edge.
“Then fucking act like it.”
“I am, which is why I’m going to eliminate the threat. You know, those dead things, the reason we’re here?”
“Asia…” His eyes flared, and had I been anyone else, I might have been afraid.
But fuck that, and fuck him.
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are and what the fuck you think this is, but you don’t get to come here and tell me what to do.”
He stared at me, and his cheek ticked. “The baby…”
Fucking asshole.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought the same thing, hadn’t wondered. But Jack hadn’t been here and shit needed to get done and I was fine.
“What about him?” I finally spat.
He considered it, an uncommon moment of uncertainty in his eyes. In a blink, it was gone. “You’re not going.”
“And how do you think you’re going to stop—”
My words were cut off in an instant. Jack grabbed me and moved before I could blink, heading straight to my bedroom.
“If you don’t put me the fuck down right now, Jack!”
He dropped me on my bed, and I scurried up. The door slammed shut before I could reach it.
I pounded on it. “Jack, open this door!”
“Might want to keep it down, Counselor. Levi’s sleeping.”
I pounded on the door one last time, but heard his retreating footsteps. They didn’t even pause, not even for a moment.
I stood, listening. The distant sounds of the farm filtered in through the walls. I heard it. The movement. An errant scream. Probably Diane or one of the girls.
This wasn’t cleanup. Zombies had made it past the defenses and gotten close to the house. But we knew what to do. I heard Lourdes’s soft commands, and even though I couldn’t make out the words, I knew what would happen next. The weapons would be grabbed, threat eliminated.
I saw it all like I was there, but I wasn’t, because of him.
I breathed out through my nose, remembering how that therapist Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Levi insisted I see taught me those techniques. More than a decade and a half later, and I was resorting to preteen anger management techniques.
It would be ironic if I gave myself enough time to think about it, but I didn’t. I glared at the door, some part of me wishing the gaze could pierce through it and directly into Jack’s back. But I only spared a moment. Looked around the room, figuring out next steps.
The lone window in this bedroom was high.
I stared at the square, wondering if I should even attempt it. Shook my head, dismissing it out of hand. My preteen self actually tried once, and this body definitely wasn’t hers. So no Alcatraz-like prison break was on the table.
Instead, I rushed over to the tackle box haphazardly tossed in one corner. Uncle Levi had all manner of tools, and one of the things Jack insisted on was keeping different supplies in different places.
Uncle Levi’s tool shed had been a thing of beauty, but Jack—ever smart Jack— said keeping it all in one place was dumb. So we had caches all over the house and farm with essentials. I opened up the toolbox, the orange plastic rough, one of the sides cracked. Studied what was there and then smiled.
I grabbed the thinnest flathead screwdriver in the container and went over to the door. I crouched down, my hips groaning before I settled on my knees. I tried to ignore what that meant.
It was early yet.
The baby wasn’t even a bump. But I still felt it. A subtle, almost imperceptible shift in my center of gravity.
At first, I told myself it was just the altitude difference. I didn’t need to continue to hold onto the lie.
I stared at the door, smiling at the change.
Before, there had been a deadbolt. Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Levi never locked it. But when they remodeled, one of the things she insisted on was changing all the doorknobs.
She wanted something pretty.
Something that matched.
Something that I could easily pick.
I slid the screwdriver into the narrow hole, hoping it wasn’t too thick.
Fuck.
If it was an eighth of a millimeter thinner, maybe a little bit less, and it would have slid right in. I muttered a curse under my breath and stared at the lock.
I tilted the screwdriver so that the thin flat angle was inside. And then slowly, millimeter by millimeter, I twisted.
Heard the satisfying pop.
If I had better knees, I would have sprung up in celebration. As it was, I put a hand down and pushed myself up from the floor.
Screwdriver still gripped tight, the yellow and black ridged handle pressing into my palm, I ran outside.