Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

There it was again: nightmares, like her and Tom. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. I heard about it every day, dreamed about it every night. My parents are both dead now. Thing is, I’m not sorry about either of them. My dad hated me, and my mom left.” His mouth twisted in a sour grimace. “If I could wash my brain and get amnesia, I would. It would be a relief.”

“Bet not,” she said.

58

More snow fell. The weeks melted away, and then it was only two days before Christmas. Alex watched as her window of opportunity grew smaller and smaller, contracting as her vision and then her mind had when she’d almost died outside that gas station. She didn’t give up, not exactly, but with every day that passed, leaving seemed less urgent and more difficult, as if her will were being slowly suffocated under all that snow.

And really, was it so bad here? Five hundred miles was a lot of miles, especially when she didn’t know what she was looking for or who was waiting, and with the Changed and desperate people out there, too. No one was really bothering her. Where, exactly, did she think she could run to that was safer than where she was?

She hadn’t totally thrown in the towel. She’d gathered things, squirreling them in an old feed bucket that she hung from a joist in the darkest corner of the garage where she stabled Honey. Every item she added—a twist of rope, a book of matches, a jar of peanut butter, a scalpel swiped from the hospice and zipped into the lining of her jacket—felt like a triumph, but for only a moment. A flash in the pan, like the fizzle of a Roman candle. At this rate, she would be here all winter, or until the monster in her brain got tired of playing possum. Well, maybe waiting until spring was a good idea. She didn’t want to set out in all this snow, did she? That was just begging for more trouble she didn’t need.

Her life fell into a rhythm: work with Kincaid, chores at the house, rides with Chris. They were comfortable with each other. Maybe they were even friendly, though they weren’t friends. After that night at Jess’s, Chris had turtled back into himself, covering himself in shadows, as if embarrassed, afraid he’d said too much. That was all right. She had a few secrets of her own, and she didn’t really want to get to know him better. She even understood why. Tom would, too. It would be like Tom giving the enemy a face. Do that and you’d never squeeze the trigger.

But she was scared. She was starting to forget Ellie and Tom.

At night, as Sarah slept, she would lie still and try to block out the distant crack of rifles and summon up Tom’s face, his scent, a flashbulb moment … anything. Yet the harder she tried grabbing hold, the more her memories were like soap bubbles, bursting with every pop of gunfire. She’d have better luck hanging on to a handful of fog. Ellie was only a pink blur.

The attempts left her sick and weepy, gnawing the inside of her cheek until her mouth tasted of rust. There was something wrong with her that might have nothing to do with the monster. Where was the Alex who’d grabbed the ashes and run? The one who said to Barrett, I’m calling the shots now. She sure as hell didn’t know.

So, really, maybe Rule was killing her with the promise of safety. She was cowering in the corner just like a bunny rabbit, hoping that no one would notice. Or maybe she was letting Rule infect her: squash her will, who she was and had been, what she could look forward to.

She’d never have let the monster get away with that, and there were many ways to fight. So why wasn’t she?

Because something was changing. Again. Inside her. She felt it in this slow, general slide into a kind of numb acceptance.

Just like when I was diagnosed. It was that stages-of-anger thing. I was shocked and then I got pissed and then I fought like hell … and then I went numb. They called it acceptance, but it wasn’t. It’s what happens when you have only two choices: live with the monster, or kill yourself.

Only no one would let you kill yourself. It was a crime, which was stupid. Doctors couldn’t help you; they’d get thrown in jail. She knew another girl, also terminal, who’d tried suicide. Pills and Jack Daniels. After they pumped her stomach, they threw the girl in a psych ward because they decided she was depressed.

Well, duh. Try living with a monster in your brain and see if you didn’t get, oh, a little depressed.

So there was no choice, none at all. You either lived with the monster, or you did what she’d done: carpe diem and run.

She should run now. Winter or not, she should get out before it was too late. Sure, she’d probably die out there on her own, but wait too long and she’d be lulled into the belief that all this—Rule, the life they’d mapped out for her, Chris—was her best option. She’d settle for what they wanted.

Really, come to think of it, there were two monsters: the one squatting in her brain—and Rule.

Either way, she’d end up just as dead.

Run, she told herself. Run, you idiot, run.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She just … couldn’t.

59

Christmas Eve, raiders swooped into the Zone. Whoever they were, they might’ve thought everyone in Rule was drinking eggnog and roasting chestnuts (that would be no), but—Peter being Peter and always spoiling for a fight—the patrols were ready. The guards kept Alex and the girls bottled up in the house, where they huddled by the woodstove for most of the night, through an intense battle they only heard: stutters and pops and the ripping roar of what sounded like rifles on full auto. The other girls dozed, but Alex remained awake, raweyed and so anxious her skin crawled. Her thoughts churned and tumbled, each new fear feeding another. Before, she’d had some half-baked idea that she might be able to slip away in the chaos, but now all she could think about was Chris, out there fighting, being shot at. Was he safe? What was happening? God, if they’d only let her help.

When the weak glimmer of a cold winter’s dawn finally lightened the trees, the woods were quiet and word came that the battle was over.

“How many men lost, Nathan?” Jess asked the guard who delivered the news. The skin over her knuckles whitened as she clutched a shawl to her throat.

“Ten men lost, about the same number wounded—three pretty bad,” Nathan said. He was a grizzled, compact fireplug of a man, but his voice was surprisingly light, almost musical. “Could’ve been worse.”

Alex felt the air leaving her chest. Lena’s eyes narrowed to

watchful slits, and the color drained from Sarah’s cheeks. “What about the boys?” Jess demanded. “What about Chris?” “Is Peter all right?” Sarah asked at the same moment. “Is he—” “He’s okay,” Nathan said, and then his gaze shifted to Alex.