Monsters (Ashes Trilogy 3)

Although Jayden said there’d been a moment after they’d killed the girl with the corn knife when Tom had . . . hesitated: When I said your name, you could see it in Tom’s face, how surprised he was to find out who you were, and . . . it was so weird. Tom was angry. Like he already knew something about you, and hated your guts. If Ellie hadn’t asked him what was wrong . . .

Jayden hadn’t said the rest, but his meaning was clear. Which made Chris wonder just what the hell Weller had said to Tom. He hadn’t had the time to find out. For the moment at least, Tom seemed to have swallowed his rage at Chris in favor of working together and getting these old men to listen to reason.

“We’re talking about defending the kids.” At his tone, his black shepherd, Jet, pushed his snout into Chris’s thigh and chuffed. Chris had been so happy to see that dog, he’d nearly bawled. “That’s the only fight left,” Chris said, scratching the big dog’s ruff.

“We know that,” Jarvis said. “Keep those bastards out of here.”

“No.” From his seat on Chris’s right, Jayden spoke up for the first time. “That’s not what Tom is saying. You’re not listening. If Tom is right, you might as well throw the bullets. No, better yet . . . lob spitballs and shoot yourselves in the foot. Better use of the bullets.”

“I’m not asking for your opinion,” Jarvis began.

“You want to yell, yell at me,” Tom said patiently. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but please listen. This all makes sense, especially when you take into consideration what Weller’s motives might’ve been, and that picture of him and Finn. Blowing the mine ought to have sent the Changed your way because so many are from Rule. They’re your grandchildren, and their friends. But they haven’t showed.”

“That doesn’t mean they’ve been rounded up. A few have returned.” Smoothing a hand over a rumpled gray checked shirt, Yeager pulled himself a little straighter, but his chest had caved in; his sallow cheeks were sunken; the canny, once bird-bright eyes were now dull and hollow. “After that business with Ben Stiemke, we discovered and killed four more, but that’s all.”

“All that we found.” Thin, bloody fluid dribbled onto Jarvis’s chin from ugly scores on either side of his mouth. Smearing the mess away with the heel of a hand, he peeked and then ran his hand over a pant leg. “But now there’s the two you shot, and that girl with the corn knife and the . . .” He tapped his cheek. “I might’ve seen her around town before.”

“Claire Krueger.” Once so bluff and round, Ernst looked like the Michelin tire guy with all the air let out. “She wasn’t from Rule, but in the same year of high school as Ben.”

“So who the hell knows how long they’ve been hunkered down there?” Jarvis said. “We pulled at least five bodies from that crawl space, and we’ve got about a dozen missing in the past couple weeks, not counting the Landrys themselves. They disappeared day after that . . .” Jarvis shot a sidelong glance at the Council, then quickly looked away, the small muscles in his jaw clenching. “That thing with Ben Stiemke. Honestly, we thought people were sneaking out. Can’t blame them. Tell the truth, we haven’t been working real hard to keep people who want to leave. So if that’s all that’s come out of the mine collapse, it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“But it’s not all,” Chris said in his husky, rough voice. He sounded like a chain smoker. “That’s what Tom is saying.”

“There were a lot of kids in that mine, a couple hundred at least, and more moving in and out,” Tom said. “What Weller didn’t know was that Finn needed me to blow the mine to make it easier for his people to hunt them down, like herding cattle or buffalo. If only a couple have shown their faces here, I bet he’s rounded up quite a few, and if he’s doing to them what I’ve seen in those altered Changed? You don’t stand a chance, and neither do the children.”

“You saying he’d kill kids?” Jarvis asked. “Shoot ’em, or feed ’em to his Changed?”

“No. The kids are valuable, but for different reasons.” Chris had kept the details of his . . . dream? vision? out-of-body experience? . . . to himself. “He’d experiment on them.”

Tom nodded. “I think that’s why Mellie was gathering kids. This was never about raising an army to march on Rule. It was about finding guinea pigs, experimental subjects. Finn probably wants to see what happens to normal kids, or those he can catch in the process of Changing. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think Finn’s camp was always relatively close by, too. It’s the only thing that explains why Mellie fought so hard to keep us there and why the Changed never attacked. Finn protected the camp. He probably deployed men to guard our perimeter, especially once the mine was gone.”

“Okay. Let’s say you’re right. But . . . run?” Jarvis was shaking his head. “We’re barely holding on now. There aren’t enough supplies to go around for everybody.”

“Who said anything about everybody?” Chris said, hoarsely. His words hung there, and Chris was content to let them. Of all the assembled men, Chris thought that, from the sudden narrowing of his eyes, only his grandfather had any inkling of what they were proposing.

“But . . .” Jarvis turned a blank stare around the room. “But if we can’t fight and win . . .”

“He means the children.” Yeager’s gaze seemed to have regained some of its peculiar clarity. “And only the children.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You can leave Rule, or you can stay. But we take the kids, not you. You can’t come with us,” Chris said. “You can’t follow or try to find us either.”

“What?” Jarvis spluttered. “That . . . that’s crazy! You’d leave us here to die?”

“No. If most of you want to leave, go,” Chris said. “I think you should get out of here.”

“Get out?” Blue veins swelled on Jarvis’s temples. “Most?”

“Some have to stay behind,” Tom said, quietly. “If you don’t put on a show, Finn will know you’ve been warned. You have to buy the kids time to get out.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You just said we shouldn’t fight.”