Ashes (Ashes Trilogy 1)

She’d figure it out. She had to.

Sunday was church. The Council sat in tall chairs ranged on the pulpit while the Rev led worship, early and mid-morning, and everyone attended one service or the other. Of course, Jess had Alex and the other girls go to both, which was a drag. The service was pretty much what she expected: a couple readings, a bunch of songs, a sermon, more songs, and then go-forth-and-be-numbered-among-the-righteous. Yeager’s was mostly brave-new-world stuff, about how much darker than darkness the world could be and how God could permit such suffering, blah, blah. Along with Revelations and gall and Star Wormwood, the Rev also seemed overly fond of brother stories: Jacob and Esau, Ishmael and Isaac, Cain and Abel. For the Rev, the Changed bore the mark of Cain, the wickedness of Ishmael, the hard primitiveness of Esau. Cain was a no-brainer, but from what she remembered, Jacob tricked his dad, and Abraham couldn’t keep his pants zipped. How any of that reflected on either Esau, who was just a hairy, hardworking farmer looking for a meal, or poor Ishmael—whose only crime seemed to have been being born—she didn’t know. Judging from the stony look Jess gave the Rev when he started in on his brother rant—the way her scent, so white and blank, swelled—there was something about brother stories that touched a nerve in her, too.

Anyway, Alex tuned out. God and religion had ceased to have much relevance for her a long time back. No one had to tell her about darker than dark. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

It wasn’t until nearly two weeks later, on a Wednesday, that she pushed out of Jess’s house to find Chris waiting with Honey.

“Hi,” she said, genuinely surprised. “I thought Greg was going to be my escort from now on.” Too late, she realized how that sounded and added, “I mean, I thought you were busy—”

“I was,” he said, handing her Honey’s reins. The slight smile he’d worn dribbled away. Turning, he jammed on his sunglasses, then swung up onto his blood bay. He peered down at her. “Now I’m back. That okay with you?”

“It’s fine.” Her cheeks heated, but whether from anger or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. He said nothing more as she mounted and they started off, the horses’ hooves thudding dully on fresh-fallen snow. She waited until they’d turned out of Jess’s street before trying again. “So … where were you? Out finding

supplies?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh … where?”

“Around.” He kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “Up by Oren.”

“Oh.” She cast about for something to say. “Isn’t that pretty far?”

His shoulders rose and fell in a quick hunch. “Not bad. Only a few miles north.”

She knew Oren, and it was way more than a few miles. “You couldn’t find what you wanted any closer?”

He hesitated before answering; she could almost see the wheels turning. “I remembered that Oren had this bookmobile.”

She was confused for a moment, then recalled Chris’s conversation with the principal. “You went all that way for books?”

“Well, not just books. There was other stuff.”

“Did you find the bookmobile? How many books were left?”

“Everything, as far as I could tell. It was”—Chris’s voice took on a wistful note—“kind of peaceful, actually.”

She imagined it would be: a nice, quiet, very big van filled with books. “How many books did you bring back?”

“All of them.”

“All of them? That’s a lot of wagons.”

“It wasn’t so bad. Peter was kind of pissed, but winter’s pretty long and there aren’t going to be any more books.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “Maybe we’ll write them.”

He looked at her then. “You wanted to be a writer?”

“I hadn’t thought about the future much.” It helped that this was true. The most future she had was an expiration date.

“Doc says you’re good. Assisting, I mean.”

That didn’t sound like a question, so she said nothing.

“You ever thought of being a doctor?” he asked.

“For a while.”

“What changed?”

“Oh, you know,” she said vaguely. “I was keeping my options open.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way. At the hospice door, Chris said, “Hang on a sec.” He reached inside his parka and pulled out a slim, rectangular black case. “I thought maybe you could use these.”

She opened the case. Inside was a pair of women’s sunglasses. The lightweight plastic frame was sage green, and the lenses were amber.

When she looked back up, he’d taken off his own. His dark eyes were suddenly tentative, and his scent was different: still dark and cool, but with just a touch of something sweet and tart at the same time…. Apple?

“They’re sport glasses,” he said. “The lenses are polarized and shatterproof, so they ought to be good for a long time.”

They were, she thought, very expensive, very nice sunglasses, and the right thing was to take them. To refuse would be mean, petty. But she didn’t want to encourage or like him. All she wanted was to figure out how to get away.

“Thanks,” she said, then closed the case and held it out. “But I’m really fine.”

A sliver of hurt arrowed across his face but was gone in an instant. The scent of apples faded as he took the case from her.

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

57

She was such a complete shit.

She should’ve taken the glasses.

What an idiot.

When she gave herself a second to think about it, Chris had ridden into the carnage and chaos beyond Rule, gone for miles to bring back books so a bunch of kids would have something to read. In the middle of all that, he’d thought of her. She could picture him wandering empty streets, weaving around dead bodies and dead cars, keeping one eye open for the Changed or an ambush and the other for the perfect pair of sunglasses for a girl he barely knew and who, with her track record, might just throw them back in his face.

Which she’d done. Even if she hadn’t needed him for information, being mean just to be mean … that wasn’t her at all. Idiot.

Kincaid kept her very late, until almost nine, and when she hurried to the front entrance, Chris wasn’t there. That was fine. A relief, really. But this was also the first time he hadn’t arranged for someone to wait for her. Maybe a sign that he trusted her to find her way back? No, after this morning, more like a big screw you, honey.