Ashes (Page 42)

“Best thing is to leave her alone.” Alex watched the bob of Ellie’s torch and saw the dog weaving in and out of the light, its nose to the ground.

“Yeah.” Tom stood, arms akimbo, looking after Ellie as she waded through the field. “I really screwed up.”

“Hey, you’re always talking about cutting myself a break. What about you? She’s just a kid. Come on, let’s set up the tents and get a fire going. We’ll all feel better after we eat something.”

As they pitched the tent, she said, “I know you don’t want to hear this and I know I wasn’t much help back there, but now I think you did the right thing for Larry.”

Tom was pounding in a stake, so his face was hidden. “I’m having a hard time believing that.”

“Did you ever … I mean, over in Afghanistan, did you …?”

“Kill someone because he asked me to? A mercy killing?” Now Tom looked up. “No. I know this will sound stupid, but there’s killing the enemy and then there’s flat-out murder. There was this one guy in my squad, name was Crowe. He was all torn up. This EFP—explosively formed penetrator—blasted right through the Humvee and his helmet. Took out most of his face and half his skull. Didn’t kill him, and when I got to him, he was conscious. So I was holding his hand, you know, telling him to hang on, and Crowe looked right at me—well, with the one eye that was left—and he said, clear as a bell, ‘Kill me.’ I heard him okay, but I pretended I didn’t, so Crowe said it again and kept on until he passed out. One of his buddies went to see him later, and Crowe said, ‘You tell that son of a bitch Eden he f**ked up.’”

“He survived?”

“Oh yeah. Haven’t you heard? The war’s been great training for those brain surgeons. The upside is you live. The downside is you won’t want to spend a lot of time around mirrors—assuming you’re not a vegetable. Why do you think he wanted me to kill him?”

“But he is alive. He might not think that way now, Tom.”

“Alex, he was our age.” Tom gave the stake a final, savage whack. “If Larry’s right, I’ll give you three guesses what Crowe’s like now.”

Ellie spent the evening not eating, and avoided them both. When Tom tried talking to her, the girl resolutely stared at the ground and hugged the dog until Tom gave up. Shortly thereafter, Ellie took Mina and ducked into the tent. For the next hour, Tom and

Alex huddled over a road atlas they’d found at the ranger station.

“Maybe we should double back,” Alex said.

“I hate doing that. It’s just a waste of gas and time. Look, the map says this levels out, and we already know this is farmland, right? So there will be other houses along the way, which means that the roads have to get better. We keep on this, eventually it’ll feed into that fire road, and that’ll take us northwest, up around Oren.”

“Big town.”

“Yeah, and a lot of people.”

“How far?”

“Forty, fifty miles, give or take.”

“And the other choice?”

“We head southwest and then cut west. There’s an old mine there and a pretty small town about thirty miles north of the mine. Actually, it doesn’t look like more than a village.” He squinted close to read the name. “Rule.”

“So that might be better. Fewer people, anyway.”

“Maybe. I just wish I’d thought to stop at that farm. Might have been a truck or car and some gas.” He shook his head, his breath pluming. “Man, I’m not thinking straight.”

“You’re doing way better than I could. I couldn’t shoot anyone I know, and you cared about Jim.”

“No.” Staring into the fire, he sighed and let his hands dangle between his knees. “I mean, yeah, I did, but that’s not all of it. Remember I said that I tracked him? Well, I had Jim twice before. I could’ve taken him out and probably should’ve. But I didn’t. I was like Larry; it was like Crowe all over again. I kept thinking what if I was wrong; maybe he’d snap out of it and be Jim again. I just couldn’t do it, and then it was almost too late. If Ellie hadn’t screamed …”

“But she did, and then you saved us.”

Their eyes locked, and then he reached over and cupped her face with one hand. “Maybe we saved each other,” he said.

Alex took the first watch. “Go on. I’ll wake you up around one, I promise.”

“Mmm.” Tom glanced toward the tent into which Ellie had disappeared an hour or two before. “I’m thinking I’d just as soon not risk waking her up. I’ll put up the pup tent against the truck and sleep there.”

Midnight came. There were no stars and no moon, for which Alex was grateful. As she fed the fire, she wondered, dreamily, how long it would take for the moon to go back to the way it had been. Years? She yawned. The fire’s warmth toasted her face and hands. Her back was cold, but the cold helped keep her alert.

She thought about Tom, too. She wasn’t sure what was happening, or what all this meant. Her whole body hummed, hungry for his touch. It wasn’t lust; it was the desire to be close, to be held by him.

She’d never had a boyfriend, never been kissed. There’d been one guy, very hot, a moony sophomore with long eyelashes named Shane. They’d gone out as part of a pack and swapped shy glances, but never hooked up. Then her parents died, and it was like she became radioactive, as if her friends weren’t sure if having a good time was allowed, so they stayed away. Then she’d moved in with her aunt, changed schools, got to be the new kid in midstream. Then came the diagnosis, and her world became an endless round of therapy and hospitals and doctors.

She glanced over at Tom’s pup tent. Had he thought about her before he fell asleep? Actually, knowing Tom, he might still be awake. So … what would happen if she slipped into his tent?

Or what if nothing happened?

God, she could see it now. Tom trying to let her down easy, telling her that they’re under a lot of stress and this isn’t the best way to start a relationship …

Leave it, she decided. She didn’t want to know.

The hour mitten on Ellie’s Mickey Mouse watch hit one. Alex decided to let Tom sleep another hour, which became two, and slipped into three, and then—

A prod at her back. “Alex?”

“What?” She jammed awake, stiff and very cold. Fumbling with the Mossberg, trying to turn at the same time, she almost fell from her perch.