Chapter Thirty-Six
THOUGH MY THIGHS BURN AND knees ache, I keep up with Greeley’s determined stride throughout our hour-long journey.
I don’t dare to ask her to slow down. I need her on my side.
I’ve learned she’s like a cat: She’ll come when she’s ready, and not one second sooner.
And if you go looking for her, she’ll run.
My black clothes stick against my sweaty skin, and I wish I could peel them off. Out here, though, I need the extra protection. Even a thin layer of fabric may make the difference between a zombie bite puncturing the skin or not.
I reach into my backpack and grab the flask.
Jasper keeps a jug of boiled creek water in his kitchen, so before Greeley and I headed out, I filled up.
He didn’t seem to mind. He may not think me capable, but it’s clear he wants me to stay alive.
For what reason, I don’t know. I thought he cared about me, but it’s clear now that he just cares about what I can do for Macoby. Which, in his eyes, is nothing.
I lift the flask to my lips. Gulp. Guzzle so greedily the water sweetens to honey, and I’m a deprived bee.
Greeley turns to me. “You’re sure you want to down that thing?”
“Um . . . no?” I wipe dribbles from my mouth.
“We’ve got an awful long way to go, so you might want to conserve it.” She peers up at the sun as if staring directly in the center doesn’t blind her.
“Just one more sip,” I whisper to myself. One more sip . . .
“Your funeral,” she says. Pauses mid-step.
Turns to me. “Know who I’d like to see dead, sans funeral?
” Um, please don’t say me. “Peter.” Phew.
“He’s more fucked in the head than I am, which is saying something.
What’d you see in him? He good in bed or something?
” I spit out my water onto the back of her neck. “Ah, refreshing.”
“I don’t want to talk about Peter.”
“We’ve got nothing else to do for the next hour, Blondie. Might as well entertain me.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t exist to entertain you.”
“Today, you do,” Greeley says, patting the sniper on her back. “I’m your security blanket, am I not?”
“How do I know your plan isn’t to feed me to the wolves?”
“I need you alive, don’t I?”
“To find out what Chandler’s up to.” She nods. “Are your intentions as pure as Chief’s?”
“No one’s intentions are as pure as Chief’s,” Greeley says. I’m unsure if it’s sarcasm in her tone I’ve detected. “He wants to ‘save the world’ because he believes ‘all humans deserve a chance at life.’ ”
Ah, so not sarcasm, then. “Even Chandler?”
Greeley grunts.
I prod. “Do you want Chandler dead?”
Greeley swipes sweat off her forehead. “Do I want the woman I was engaged to dead? The woman who left me to start her own cult in the guise of creating a ‘community of equality’? Yeah, I do. Even if she’s not experimenting on Garrett and Eagan, a person like her in power is a recipe for disaster.
She’ll end up destroying what’s left of the world.
Which isn’t much.” She picks up a rock and skips it along the barren, cracked street, watching as it skitters into the brush on the left-hand side of the road.
The street is lined by miles and miles of destruction, all decimated by the flood.
“Don’t know how I couldn’t see who Chandler really was, or Chief, for that matter.
Guess I was blinded by love, and Chief by the goodness of his own heart. ”
“I’m sorry,” I say, surprised to find I mean it.
“Shut the hell up. Your turn to entertain me. Tell me about dream boy.”
Greeley’s not giving up. “What do you want to know?”
“You and Peter. You were an item. Why? He’s a douchebag, and you’re . . . a delicate little flower.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“That wasn’t—”
“I know,” I say.
I walk step in step with Greeley. I close my eyes and feel the sun on my skin. Hope the light will give me the answers I seek. The sun, so cruel and kind. The sun, so warm, but if you get too close, it burns. A friend or foe? Can one be both?
I exhale, the breath long and smooth. “He was kind to me. At first. He found us. That first year after Z Day, my grandma, sister, and I stayed in our home, boarded up like hermits. My brother, West, was alive back then. He went on supply runs for us, refused to let any of us go with him. Sometimes he’d be gone for an entire day, and we’d keep ourselves busy with Scrabble. And Bananagrams.”
“Bananawha?”
“Never mind. When my dad left, West was away at college. Z Day gave him the opportunity to act as the man of the house, I guess. I think protecting us gave him purpose. Only, if he’d brought me with him on runs, maybe we wouldn’t have ended up so defenseless . . .”
I trail off, unsure why I’m opening up to Greeley of all people. Granted, she did open up to me. Maybe one day I’ll make her friend list.
Greeley launches past me toward the side of the road. A zombie lies flat on the ground, its skull embedded in the dirt like a stone. “Kinda like this?” She yanks a knife out of her back pocket and drives it through its skull.
“Just like that, Greeley.”
She smiles, satisfaction plastered all over her face, then brushes imaginary dirt off her shoulder. “Please, continue with your monologue.”
I tell Greeley the rest of our story: how Grandma, Bunny, and I were trapped behind the pharmacy counter in Walgreens. How Peter showed up. How he saved us.
And I’m reminded that it could have been Jasper.
Greeley pulls a compass out of her pocket, checks it, shoves it back in. “How heroic.”
“He was,” I say. “That day, he was heroic.”
“A man does one good thing, and you overlook the rest of his bullshit.”
I pause. Think about it. Really contemplate why I put up with his bullshit for so long.
At first, I overlooked his actions, but eventually, I accepted them as part of the deal.
“He was good to me, and then he wasn’t. It was always like that.
He’d do something horrible, then apologize.
He’d secretly bring home medicine for Bunny and Grandma, or sneak me packs of mini M it’s not worse than when I got my ears pierced as a kid.
“You’re going to be fine,” I say. I pull my knife out of my pocket.
The man screams, Greeley tells him to shut the fuck up, and I cut off a bit of fabric from my shirt.
I ask with my eyes: May I? He nods, and I bandage his ear. “There. Good as new. What’s your name?”
As the man opens his mouth, Greeley grunts. “His name is Andrew. Don’t pity him. He’s been sneaking into my yard and stealing my wood for years—”
“I didn’t think you cared!”
“Of course I care, you asshole. You took what’s mine, and now I can take your truck and not feel a lick of guilt about it.”
“Not Telulah,” he says, his eyes gazing longingly at his white truck. “Please.”
“And I’m gonna rename her.”
“No!”
“I’m thinking Tony?”
“No!”
“And I’m gonna leave your ass here. On this crumbling road.”
I step in. “Greeley—”
“Come on, Kota. Let’s go.”
I look down at the blubbering baby on the ground beneath me, eyes spilling over with tears, fat lips quivering. My stomach sinks. “We’re not leaving him here.”
“Yes.” Greeley strides up to me and grabs my arm. Her fingernails pierce into my skin, leaving little welts that sting like a BB gun pellet. “We are.”
“No.” I pull out of her grip. “It’s cruel. Do you really want to turn into her?”
Greeley narrows her eyes and whispers, “Martyr,” before putzing over to Andrew’s truck. She flings open the driver’s door. “Sweet! Another knife!”
“Please,” Andrew begs. “I won’t make it back alive without it. These roads ain’t safe.”
“We made it here on foot,” Greeley says, sifting through the center console. She tosses a few quarters on the ground beside Andrew. Useless litter. “Get yourself something pretty.” She hops out of the car and throws her hands on her hips. “You ready, Kota?”
I hold out my hand. “Give me the knife. You don’t need it.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Give me the fucking knife, Greeley.”
“Fine! You want the knife? Take it. And you—stop whining. Shouldn’t have stolen my wood, asshat.”
Andrew throws himself face-first onto the broken asphalt with the dramatism of a stage actor.
His sweaty shoulders shake with sobs as Greeley tosses the dagger to the ground beside him.
I squat next to him. My knees crack like snapping pretzels on the way down.
Snot drips down Andrew’s lips as I unzip my backpack and lay my flask out for him.
Once, after a birthday party, I was given a goodie bag. Pink-and-white polka dot paper bags brimming with bubblegum-flavored lip gloss, stickers, friendship bracelets. Andrew’s goodies come sans bag, but it’s all I can offer him.
“You drove here,” I tell him. “You know how to get home. It’s a straight shot—one hour walking distance.
Drink the water, keep your knife in your hand, and get back to the Split before sundown.
” I look at Greeley, whose smile I’d like to slap off her face.
Partly because I also want to hug her—now we have a car.
This is what it takes to survive, isn’t it?
“And think again before stealing Greeley’s shit. I can say with 99 percent certainty—”
“100 percent certainty,” Greeley adds.
“That the consequences will be much worse next time.”
Andrew nods without lifting his head.
“You’ll be fine,” I say. I walk to the truck’s passenger’s side. “Let’s go, Greeley.”
“Goodbye, Telulah,” Andrew mutters.
As I shut the door, pebbles stack up in the depths of my belly. So does power.