19. Ava
NINETEEN
AVA
Between muddy dreams and incoherent thoughts, I hear voices and see shadows behind my eyelids. It’s all in my head—the fear and bated breath in which I wait for Lars’s crew to find us, hell-bent on retaliation. I calm myself with the growing confidence that they have far more urgent things to worry about, the same as the rest of us.
The plush mattress keeps me up rather than helping me sleep. It’s a constant reminder I am in Knox’s house and of the conversations we shared today. I had no idea he’d lost so many people, and after what happened with Scott, I can imagine Knox is barely holding himself together. But he is, for me. Just as I’m sure I would have lost my shit by now if not for him. But unease slithers over me, ever-present. It’s only a matter of time before the ground shakes again, and what’s to stop the earth from finally giving in beneath us, swallowing the ranch whole?
Lightning flashes in the distance, as it has been, off and on for a couple of hours, but I try not to worry about fires right now. Lucy and the anxious horses outside will alert us to anything approaching if the time comes. But when I’m not thinking about sudden evacuation, I’m listening to the creaks and groans of the large house settling in the wind.
Amid my tossing and turning, I try to imagine a world different from this one. A world where people don’t have to worry about the shift in gravity or the impending effects of an asteroid collision with the moon. A world where everyday concerns are not consumed with what cataclysmic event will hit next. Where Gerty is the name of a little girl on the playground and not the harbinger of death, the bringer of chaos, and the eventual end of us all.
I roll onto my back and inhale a deep breath, willing myself to go to sleep. I need to maintain at least a little sanity to deal with reality tomorrow. But when the floorboards creak beside me, my eyes fly open.
At first, I think the form looming next to my bed is only a sleepy illusion, but as a man’s broad-shouldered outline sharpens, I scream.
Scurrying out of the tangled blankets, my heart pounding, I flatten against the wall across the room and shove the blinds over, allowing the moonlight in. It swaths Mitch Bennett in a haunting, almost otherworldly blue.
“Ava!” Knox’s voice booms from the first floor as he barrels loudly up the stairs.
I have a distant thought to gather my things and rush out of here, knowing I am the last person on Earth that Mitch would ever welcome into his house, but I’m stunned in place. Confused. Horror-struck at the sight of him. He’s just standing there, silent and motionless.
Mitch’s dark hair is disheveled and his eyes are sunken in. His cheek is streaked with grease or dirt—maybe even dried blood. His black t-shirt with the Bennett logo is torn, and he has a hole in the knee of his Wranglers. But the dead look in his eyes is what pins me in place. His gaze is empty, not glazed over like he’s drunk. He doesn’t even seem angry to see me cowering across the room from him.
“Ava—” Knox lurches to a stop in the doorway, his bare chest heaving as he takes in the sight of his father. “Dad? What—” Knox steps into the room, his hair tousled and his face lined from sleep.
Mitch doesn’t answer, and his stare doesn’t waver from me.
“Dad,” Knox tries again, sterner this time.
Having never seen Mitch Bennett so still and quiet before, I swallow another scream, uncertain of what he’ll do next. “I—I’ll go,” I stammer, afraid to move.
Knox moves to stand beside his father. “Dad,” he repeats carefully.
Finally, Mitch looks at him and his features soften a little. “Knox.” His voice is rough and breathy.
Knox assesses his father up and down. “What happened? I worried you were dead.”
Mitch’s eyebrows draw together, the lines in his forehead deepening, and then his eyes fill with something I have never seen before. It looks a lot like sadness. Relief, maybe. But instead of answering him, Mitch’s shoulders droop; he turns on his boot heel, and leaves the room, a slight limp in his step.
Knox meets my gaze, a flustered, frantic sort of confusion furrowing his brow. Turning, he stalks after his father. “Dad, Jesus—tell me what happened.”
Without Mitch’s invisible hold on me, I start collecting my things in a rush, knowing I cannot stay here now that he’s returned. A pang of sadness is quickly chased away by desperation, and I hurry into the bathroom. I fumble, grabbing what few things I have, and return to the room as Knox strides in.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving, obviously,” I bite out. “I can’t stay here—not now. I shouldn’t have been here to begin with. I knew this would happen.”
“Ava, you can’t go. Where?—”
“I won’t stay where I’m not wanted.”
“He hasn’t said a single thing about you—he hasn’t said anything at all,” Knox amends.
“He doesn’t have to, Knox. Your dad has wished me dead for the last ten years. That feeling doesn’t just go away.”
“You’re assuming?—”
I spin around to face him. “Assuming? The entire trailer park knows it,” I snap. “No, the entire town. ”
Knox glowers and rubs his temple, and I see the weight of every minute and hour and burden in his tired eyes. “Look, whatever happened in the past doesn’t really matter now, does it? Everything changed the minute the sinkhole swallowed half of Texas. If you leave now, you have no way to protect yourself, and no way to get to Sweetwater.”
“I’ll figure it out.” I pull a sweatshirt over my head. “I have to.”
“No,” Knox says, grabbing my arm gently. “Ava, you don’t. You’re being stubborn. You don’t have to do anything. Not yet.”
I meet his gaze, my body trembling.
“At least wait until the sun is up so I can give you supplies.” He motions down the hall. “He’s in his room. If you feel unsafe up here, you can keep your things downstairs with me.” The words must taste sour because Knox struggles to say them. But he’s right, no matter how desperately I want to flee and risk the wrath of the world from here to Sweetwater, I have nothing—no water, no transportation, and no protection. I need a few minutes to think things through and come up with a plan, not a death wish.
“I’ll help you figure it out,” Knox promises. “Just—let me think for a second, all right? Two minutes ago, I thought my dad was dead.”
That steadies my swirling thoughts. “Yeah. Sure.” I suddenly can’t stop nodding. “Of course. You should try to talk to him. Make sure he’s okay.” As much as Mitch unnerves me, he didn’t look okay, not in the slightest. Exhaling, I shake my head, dislodging myself from my self-centered flight mode, and lick my lips.
Knox flashes me a grateful look I don’t quite understand, and then he pulls my pack over his shoulder. “You can stay downstairs in my room. I’ll sleep up here.”
I swallow, glancing into the hallway as my nerves settle a little. “I’m sorry.”
He stops halfway to the door. “For what?”
“For this being one more thing you have to worry about.”
His gaze lingers on me for a minute, but he doesn’t reply as he heads out of the room and down the stairs.
I finish shoving my things into my messenger bag and step into the hallway. But unlike Knox, I hesitate. I stare down the hall at Mitch’s closed door. He is not tearing his room apart. He is not crying, at least not loud enough to hear. I don’t know if it’s years of conditioned fear or waking up to a man in the house looming over me, but I feel more terrified having Mitch here than of what happened with Lars yesterday.
Lucy’s claws tap on the hardwood downstairs, and blinking, I tear my gaze from Mitch’s bedroom door. With the fleeting thought that it was strangely comforting to be here while it lasted, I make my way downstairs.