Benny said, “What do you think of him?”
“Joe? You should ask Red,” said Riot. “She thinks the sun rises and sets around that feller. Better watch out, boy—I think she’s sweet on him.”
“It’s not like that. Nix has been pumping him for information.”
“Information for what? For that silly diary of hers?”
“It’s not silly and it’s not exactly a diary,” said Benny. “She’s been collecting information on zoms.”
“Like what?”
“All sorts of stuff—traps, barriers, and like that. How to fight them. She’s been working out how we—people, I mean—can take back the world. It’s smart, too. Joe gave her pages and pages of notes. She’s been asking him how to fight the reapers, too. Like, if we settle in a town or maybe start a settlement somewhere, Nix wants to be ready to defend it against anyone, living or dead.”
Riot nodded approval. “If that happens, let’s put her in charge of the defenses.”
He nodded.
Riot smiled. “Wow. And all this time I thought she was writing love poetry or stories about princesses and unicorns.”
“You really don’t know Nix, do you?”
“Apparently not. She’s a . . .”
Riot’s voice trailed off, and she stared openmouthed at something across the trench. When Benny followed the line of her gaze, he saw a figure that made him feel sick and sad.
It was a zombie. A woman. In life she had been beautiful, with masses of wavy black hair and a face as coldly regal as any of history’s great queens. Now her flesh was gray and wrinkled, the moisture leeched away by the heat, and her hair hung in matted strings.
Mother Rose.
Once the spiritual leader of the Night Church. Once consort to Saint John.
Once Riot’s mother.
Now . . . what was she?
Mother Rose stood at the edge of the trench, and in some weird and inexplicable way she must have recognized Riot. The two of them, mother and daughter, stared at each other. Benny tried to calculate all the things that separated them. Beliefs, remorse, life itself, so many things, all of them greater than actual measurable yards, feet, and inches.
Two small tears broke and fell down Riot’s cheeks. “Oh God.”
“Riot, don’t look,” sad Benny quickly. “Go back to the hangars, don’t let—”
“Go away,” said Riot.
“Hey, no, I just meant—”
“Just go.”
Riot crossed her legs and lowered herself slowly to the ground. She sat there, staring across the trench at the thing that had been her mother.
Benny turned and slowly walked away.
13
BENNY WENT BACK TO THE mess hall to find Nix. He didn’t want to be mad at her. Maybe if they talked it out she’d understand the thing with Chong.
But she wasn’t there.
The breakfast crowd was mostly gone, but Benny saw the ranger, Joe, come in. The big man wore camouflaged pants, a sweat-stained gray T-shirt, and handmade sandals. His blue eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. His skin was burned to a red-gold except for white lines from scars old and new. There were a lot of scars. Although he had to be in his late fifties or even early sixties, Joe was very fit, with ropy muscles that flexed under his tough hide as he walked. Ordinarily Joe was vibrant with good humor and rapid-fire snarky comments, but today he shambled to the steam table, and it looked like he needed to use serious concentration to spoon eggs onto his plate. Joe’s dog, a monster of a mastiff named Grimm, trailed along behind him. Joe thumped down into a chair at a table by the far wall; Grimm collapsed on the floor next to him. Everyone at the adjoining table got up and moved.