Tom . . . who died.
She stopped and let her gaze drift across the trench to the blockhouse. To where Chong crouched in the darkness.
Lilah had never wanted to feel anything for Chong. He was a town boy. Weak and unskilled in any of the ways of survival. She had not wanted to like him. Falling in love with him was so obviously wrong that sometimes she laughed at herself. And when the absurdity of it struck her, she lashed out at Chong.
Stupid town boy.
“Chong,” she whispered.
What is the good of becoming strong if love bares your flesh to the teeth of misfortune? Why risk loving anyone or anything when life is so frail a thing that a strong wind can blow it out of your experience? She wanted to go back to her silence and her solitude. To find her cave and hide there among the stacks of dusty books. With the waterfall roaring, no one could hear her scream, she was sure of it.
How long would it take, how many weeks or months or
years, before she could think of Chong’s name and not feel a knife in her heart?
The reapers had taken Chong from her.
Forever? Or just for now?
She didn’t know, and neither did the scientists in the blockhouse.
If it was forever, then a cold voice in Lilah’s mind told her what the future would be—an endless, relentless hunt to find and kill every reaper. In books the heroines vow to hunt an enemy to the ends of the earth. But she was already there. This was the apocalypse, and the future was awash in blood and silence.
“Chong,” she said to the desert sky, and tried to will her heart to turn to stone.
6
“GOOD MORNING, MR. IMURA,” SAID a cold, impersonal female voice through the wall-mounted speaker. “How do you feel today?”
“Angry,” said Benny.
There was a pause. “No,” said the voice, clearly thrown off track, “how do you feel?”
“I told you.”
“You don’t understand. Are you feeling unwell? Are—”
“I understood the question.”
“Have you been experiencing any unusual symptoms?”
“Sure,” said Benny. “My head hurts.”
“When did these headaches begin?”
“?’Bout a month ago,” said Benny. “A freako mutant zombie hit me in the head with a stick.”
“We know about that injury, Mr. Imura.”
“Then why ask?”
“We asked if you had any unusual symptoms.”
“Zombie-inflicted stick wounds to the head actually aren’t all that usual, doc. Look it up.”
The scientist sighed—the kind of short nostril sigh people do when they’re losing their patience. Benny grinned in the shadows.
The next question wiped the smile off his face. “What happened in the holding cell today?”