World After (Penryn & the End of Days 2)

I shut down that thought and close my eyes.

My sister moans again over my mom’s humming.

“Go to sleep, Paige,” I say. To my surprise, her breathing relaxes and she settles down. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

My mother’s melody fades into oblivion.

I DREAM that I am in the forest where the massacre happened. I am just outside the old Resistance camp where soldiers died trying to defend themselves against low demons.

Blood drips off the branches and plops onto the dead leaves like raindrops. In my dream, none of the bodies that should be here are here and neither are the terrified soldiers who huddled together back-to-back with their rifles facing outward.

It’s just a clearing dripping in blood.

In the center stands Paige.

She wears an old-fashioned flower-print dress, like the ones those girls hanging on the tree wore. Her hair is drenched in blood and so is her dress. I’m not sure which is harder to look at, the blood or the bruised stitches crisscrossing her face.

She lifts her arms toward me as if waiting for me to pick her up even though she’s seven years old now.

I’m pretty sure my sister was not part of the massacre but here she is anyway. Somewhere in the forest, my mother says, “Look into her eyes. They’re the same as they’ve always been. ”

But I can’t. I can’t look at her at all. Her eyes aren’t the same. They can’t be.

I turn and run from her.

Tears stream down my face and I call out into the woods away from the girl behind me. “Paige!” My voice cracks. “I’m coming. Hang on. I’ll be there soon. ”

But the only sign of my sister is the crunching of the dead leaves as the new Paige shadows me through the woods.

Chpater 4

I WAKE to my mom scraping something out of her sweater pocket. She puts it onto the windowsill where morning light filters through. It’s yellow-brown goo and crushed eggshells. She’s quite careful about it, trying to get every yucky drop onto the sill.

Paige breathes evenly, sounding like she’ll be knocked out for some time. I try to shake off the last of my dr

eam, but wisps of it stay with me.

Someone knocks on the door.

The door opens and the freckled face of one of the twins peeks into our classroom. I don’t know which one so I just think of him as Dee-Dum. His nose wrinkles in distaste when he smells the rotten eggs.

“Obi wants to see you. He’s got some questions. ”

“Great,” I say drowsily.

“Come on. It’ll be fun. ” He throws me an overly bright smile.

“What if I don’t want to go?”

“I like you, kid,” he says. “You’re a rebel. ” He leans against the doorframe and nods his approval. “But to be honest, no one has the obligation to feed you, house you, protect you, be nice to you, treat you like a human being—”

“Okay, okay. I get it. ” I drag myself out of bed, glad that I slept in a T-shirt and shorts. My sword thuds onto the floor. I had forgotten that I had it with me under the blanket.

“Shh! You’ll wake Paige,” whispers my mother.

Paige’s eyes open instantly. She lies there like the dead, staring at the ceiling.

“Nice sword,” Dee-Dum says too casually.

Alarm bells go off in my head. “Almost as good as a cow prodder. ” I half-expect Mom to zap her prodder at him, but it hangs innocently on her cot frame.

More guilt hits me as I realize how glad I am that Mom has the prodder in case she needs to defend herself from… people.

More than half the people here are carrying some kind of makeshift weapon. The sword is one of the better ones, and I’m glad I don’t have to explain why I’m carrying it. But there’s something about a sword that seems to catch more attention than I like. I pick it up and strap it across my shoulder to discourage him from trying to play with it.

“Got a name for her?” asks Dee-Dum.

“Who?”

“Your sword. ” He says it the way I might say Duh.

“Oh, please. Not you too. ” I pick through the random assortment of clothes my mom collected last night. She also came back with a bunch of empty soda bottles and other junk from who knows where, but I leave that pile alone.

“I used to know a guy who had a katana. ”

“A what?”

“A Japanese samurai sword. Gorgeous. ” He clutches his heart like he’s in love. “He called it the Sword of Light. I would have sold my grandmother into slavery for that. ”

I nod like that’s a given.

“Can I name your sword?”

“No. ” I pull out a pair of jeans that might fit and one sock.

“Why not?”

“Already has a name. ” I continue digging through the pile for a matching sock.

“What is it?”

“Pooky Bear. ”

His friendly face suddenly becomes serious. “You’re naming your collector’s-item, kick-ass sword that’s made to maim and kill, specifically designed to bring your ginormous enemies to their knees and hear the lamentation of their women—Pooky Bear?”