“How? How is he still Chong? He’s totally infected, Benny. They’re keeping him in a cage, for God’s sake.”
Benny’s face grew instantly hot. “What are you saying? You think they should put him down like a dog?”
“Not like a dog, Benny. He’s a zom and—”
“And what? They should quiet him?”
Nix sat back and folded her arms tightly across her chest. “What do you think is going to happen, Benny? Do you think that Chong is going to suddenly snap out of it?”
“Maybe he will!” Benny yelled.
“Maybe he can’t.”
“I can’t believe you’re giving up on him, Nix. This is Chong. Chong! He’s our friend.”
“Was that really Chong down in that cage? Would Chong try to take a bite out of you?”
Benny whammed the table with his fist. “He’s not a zombie, Nix. He’s sick and he needs our help.”
“What help?” she demanded, her voice jumping a whole octave. “What can we possibly do for him?”
Benny had to fish for how to answer her. When he spoke, his voice was a hot whisper. “We need to give the scientists time to figure it out.”
“Okay. Fine. What happens in the meantime? We go visit him like he’s a zoo animal?”
“Why are you being such a bitch?”
Nix stood up so suddenly that her belt buckle caught the edge of her plate and flipped it over, flinging eggs everywhere. Surprise, embarrassment, and anger warred on her face.
“I—”
“Save it,” snapped Benny as he got up and stalked away.
He made it almost all the way to the door before Nix caught up to him. He heard her coming and quickened his stride, but she ran the last few steps, caught his sleeve, and spun him around. Before he could say anything, she stuck a finger in his face.
“You listen to me, Benjamin Imura. I love Chong every bit as much as you do. I loved Tom, too. And I loved my mother—but people die. In this world, people die. Everyone dies.”
“Well, thank you, Lady Einstein. Here I was thinking that everyone lived forever and every day was apple pie and puppies.” He glared at her. “I know people die. I’m not stupid, and I’m not kidding myself about how much trouble Chong’s in. Maybe he can’t come back, maybe he’s already too sick . . . but I heard him speak today, and even though it was only one word, it proves that some part of him is still there. He’s not gone yet, and I won’t give up on him. Not until there’s no hope and no chance at all.”
“Benny, I—” she began, but he shook his head and turned away.
He pushed past some monks who were on their way into the mess hall. Behind him he heard Nix call his name, but she did not follow him outside.
11
MILES AND MILES AWAY . . .
His name was Morgan Mitchell, but everyone called him Morgie.
Morgie was big for his age, looking more like eighteen than fifteen. Beefy shoulders, arms heavy with muscle, and a dusting of beard smudging cheeks and chin.
His clothes were soaked with sweat, and his eyes were filled with shadows.
An old truck tire hung by a rope from a limb of the big oak tree. The weathered rubber was scarred by thousands of impacts from the bokken—the wooden sword Morgie held in his hands. Each blow made the tire dance and swing, and Morgie shifted this way and that to chase it, to continue hammering it, to smash at it over and over again. The force of each blow threw echoes against the rear of the house that stood vacant and silent at the other end of the yard. The bokken was hand-carved from a piece of hickory. It was his sixth sword. The first five had cracked and broken in this yard, defeated not by the tire but by the force of the hands that swung the wood, and by the muscle in arms and shoulders and back.
And by pain.
Each blow hurt. It wasn’t the shock that vibrated back from the point of impact and shivered through Morgie’s muscles and bones. It wasn’t that at all. The pain was in his heart. And he hammered at it every day. Several times a day. The training leaned him, burning away childhood fat, revealing muscles forged in a furnace of grief and regret.