Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)

“I saw that fuss in the dining room. You fighting with Red?”

Benny shrugged.

“This about Chong?”

“Yeah,” said Benny. “I suppose.”

“He’s pretty messed up, huh?”

“He’s sick . . . and if you want to lecture me, too, about—”

“Whoa—slow your roll, boy,” she said. “Just asked a question.”

“Yes,” Benny said slowly. “He’s in bad shape.”

“Red wants to put him down, is that the size of it?”

“Yes.”

“She know that Lilah’d skin her quick as look at her, right?”

“She knows.”

“So, where’s that leave everyone?”

Benny sighed. “In trouble.”

“Life don’t never get easy, does it? It just keeps getting harder in stranger ways.”

They watched Lilah, who had stopped pacing and now stood as silent as the dead, staring across the trench toward the blockhouse.

“That Lilah’s a puzzle,” said Riot quietly. “I must’a tried fifty times to talk to her. Not deep conversation, just jawing about the time of day. All she did was tell me to go away. That’s it, two words. Go away.”

“Lilah’s had a really hard life,” said Benny.

Riot’s face took on a mocking cast. “Did she now? Well, she sure don’t hold the deed on grief and loss, son. We all been mussed and mauled by bad times. But that girl’s done gone and shut down. I met gray people with more personality.” She tapped her temple with a finger. “I’m beginning to suspect there ain’t nobody home.”

“She’ll snap out of it once they do something for Chong.”

Riot cocked her head to one side. “Y’all really think so?”

“Yes,” said Benny with far more certainty than he felt. In truth he was frightened for Lilah. Any gains she had made since he and Nix had found her—wild and almost unable to communicate with people—seemed to have crumbled away. And secretly, he agreed with Riot’s assessment that Lilah’s personality seemed to be . . . well, gone. She would participate in combat training, but otherwise there was nothing.

His inner voice asked, How deep inside your own heartbreak do you have to fall before there’s no outward sign of life?

It was a sad question, and that made him wonder what Nix would have been like if she’d dealt with her mother’s murder without friendship and support.

Or what he would be like after Tom’s death if it hadn’t been for Nix, Lilah, and Chong.

He ached to do something. If this was an enemy he could fight, he’d have his sword in his hands, but the truth was that there were some enemies you could not defeat.

Benny nodded toward the blockhouse. “You were in there, right? A few years ago? In the lab area. What was it like?”

“Those boys didn’t let me see much. They stuck me in a little room with a cot, a commode, and nothing else. Not even a good book to read. All I got to do was stare at the walls all day, every day, and that ain’t even as entertaining as it sounds.” She thought about it, then chuckled. “I was right happy when I heard that Lilah done busted up the place. They’re good people over there, but they sure ain’t nice.”

Benny grunted and changed the subject. “Have you seen Joe today? I want to ask him about Chong.”

She shook her head. “No. He was out at the wreck until late last night. Not sure when he got back. Saw that big ol’ dog of his this morning—one of the monks was walking him.”