World After (Penryn & the End of Days 2)

“Yeah,” says Dum, “but they could just be unconscious for all we know. ”

“There’s got to be a dead angel around here,” says Dee, lifting a concrete chunk and looking beneath it.

“Agreed. There has to be something. ”

But there isn’t.

Chpater 10

IN THE END, the only thing we bring back is what’s left of the few dead scorpions that we found scattered beneath the rubble, and their one surviving victim, Clara.

When we park in front of the school, Sanjay walks with her, quietly asking her questions. I don’t have to ask her anything to know that she just wants to find her husband and kids. Everyone who sees her moves away, looking like they think she’s contagious.

When I get back to our history class, the stench of rotten eggs hits me as soon as I open the door. The windowsills are lined with cartons of old eggs. Somehow, my mother has managed to find a stash of them.

Mom is out. I don’t know what she’s doing or where she is but that’s pretty normal for us.

Paige sits on her cot with her head down so that her hair covers her stitches, and I can almost pretend not to see them. Her hair is as shiny and healthy as any seven-year-old’s. She’s in a flower-print dress, tights, and pink high-top sneakers that dangle over the edge of the cot.

“Where’s Mom?”

Paige shakes her head. She hasn’t said much since we found her.

On a chair beside her cot is a bowl of chicken soup with a spoon sitting in it. Looks like Mom hasn’t had much luck feeding her. When was the last time Paige ate? I pick up the bowl and sit on the chair.

Lifting a spoonful of soup, I move it toward her. But Paige won’t open her mouth.

“Aaand the train goes into the tunnel. ” I give her a little clown smile as I push the spoon toward her mouth. “Choo-choo!” It used to work when she was really little.

She peeks up at me and tries to smile. She stops when the stitches begin to crinkle.

“Come on, it’s delicious. ” There is meat in it. I had laid down the law and declared that Paige could no longer be a vegetarian as soon as we started having trouble finding food. Maybe that’s what keeps her from trying the soup?

Maybe not.

Paige shakes her head. She’s no longer throwing up, but she’s no longer trying to eat either.

I put the spoon down into the bowl. “What happened when you were with the angels?” I ask as gently as I can. “Can you talk about it?”

She looks at the floor. A tear sparkles on her lashes.

I know she can talk because she’s called me “

Ryn-Ryn” like she used to when she was little, and “Mom” or “Mommy. ” And “hungry. ” She’s said that several times.

“It’s just us. Nobody else is listening. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

She shakes her head slowly, looking at her feet. A tear drops onto her dress.

“Okay, we don’t have to talk about that right now. We’ll never talk about it if you don’t want to. ” I set the bowl on the floor. “But do you know what you can eat?”

She shakes her head again. “Hungry. ” The whisper is so quiet that I barely hear it. Her lips hardly open to talk, but I can still catch a glimpse of her razor teeth.

My insides churn. “Can you tell me what you’re hungry for?” A part of me desperately wants to know the answer. But the rest of me dreads what she might say.

She hesitates before she shakes her head “no” again.

My hand comes up without me thinking about it. I’m about to stroke her hair like I’ve always done. She looks up at me, and her hair falls away from her stitches.

Crude, uneven stitches crisscross her face. The stitches that run between her lips and ears give her a forced grin that cuts her face. Red, black, and bruised, they scream for attention. They run down her neck and into her dress. I wish there wasn’t one cutting across her neck like they’d sewn her head onto her body.

My hand hesitates over her head, almost touching her hair but not quite.

Then I drop it back to my side.

I turn away from Paige.

A pile of clothes sits on my mother’s cot. I dig through for jeans and a jersey. Mom didn’t bother ripping off the tags, but she has already sewn a yellow starburst on the bottom of the pant leg for protection from the boogeyman. I don’t care so long as it’s dry and doesn’t smell too badly of rotten eggs.

I change out of my wet clothes. “I’m going to see if I can find something else for you to eat. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

Paige nods, looking at the floor again.

I leave, wishing I had a dry jacket to cover my sword. I consider wearing the wet one but decide against it.

The school sits on a prime corner with a grove owned by Stanford University across one street and a high-end strip mall across another. I wander over to the shops.

My dad always said there was a lot of money in this area and even the strip malls show it. Back in the day, in the World Before, you could see Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, eating breakfast here while he was still a living resident of Silicon Valley. Or catch Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, grabbing a bite with his friends.

They all looked like middle managers to me but my dad was into all that. Technocrats, he called them. I’m pretty sure I saw Zuckerberg digging the latrine ditch beside Raffe at the camp a few days ago. I guess a billion dollars doesn’t buy much respect in the World After.