Would she ever be herself again? Or had Astrid, the old Astrid, died, to be replaced by this new creature, this angry, frightened witch?
Not for the first time she realized that this had been Sam’s life since the coming of the FAYZ. How much rage and fear had he endured? How much bitter shame for his failures? How much guilt ate at his soul as it now ate at hers?
She wished he were here now. Maybe she would be able to ask him how he lived with it.
No, she told herself, it’s not Sam you need. A priest. You need to confess and do penance and be forgiven. But how could she be forgiven when even now she was watching Orc as he labored uphill, seeing Petey’s lolling head, and asking herself over and over again if she had meant it.
Go ahead. Shoot him.
God hears prayers, even from those who have not repented, she told herself. She wanted to pray. But when she tried she couldn’t see the face of a patient Christ as she had in the past. She could see memories of crucifixes, paintings, statues. But the God she had believed in was not there anymore.
Was she losing her faith?
Had she lost it already?
A simple act of murder . . .
Leslie-Ann knew about the quarantine. But she also knew she couldn’t stand being thirsty and hungry any longer and her two brothers couldn’t stand it, either.
The one good thing about being Albert’s maid was that Albert made sure she had enough to eat. Albert always had food and water. He wouldn’t let her starve.
So Leslie-Ann made her way from the house she shared with her siblings to Albert’s much fancier house.
She noticed a strange thing over toward the west: a cloud. Leslie-Ann frowned, wondering why that seemed so strange.
But she had no time to wonder: the FAYZ was full of weird stuff. If you’d seen Sam shoot light from his hands—and she had—you stopped being amazed by strange things.
Albert’s front door was open. That in its way seemed weirder than the cloud. Albert never left his door unlocked. Never. Let alone open.
Leslie-Ann approached cautiously. She felt for the hilt of the knife she carried. She was nine years old, and not exactly big or scary. But once she had waved the knife at a kid who wanted to steal her cantaloupe and he had run away.
“Albert?” she called out.
She pushed the door all the way open. She drew her knife and held it out in front of her.
“Albert?”
She thought she heard something coming from the living room. Her foot slipped on the Spanish tile. She looked down: a red smear.
Blood. It was blood.
She turned and ran back to the door. Ran outside, waving the knife around her.
She looked around, wishing Edilio or someone would come along. But if they did she’d be in trouble for going outside during the quarantine. Her brothers would still be thirsty and hungry, and so was she.
Leslie-Ann steeled herself and headed back inside, knife first. She stepped over the blood smear.
Her foot ki
cked a can. It rolled noisily. A can on Albert’s floor? Who would have made that kind of mess? She would have to clean that up or Albert would fire her.
She bent down and snagged the can with her free hand. It smelled of food. Her mouth watered. She held the knife awkwardly as she ran her finger inside looking for anything that might be left. She came up with maybe a tablespoonful of tomato sauce and licked it greedily from her finger.
It tasted like heaven.
She carried the can with her to the living room. And there the full extent of the mess became clear: cans and wrappers everywhere. And tomato sauce all over the white carpet.
Only here it wasn’t tomato sauce and Leslie-Ann knew it.