Page 23

chapter twenty-two

Emily

Day Five

As the town disappeared from view, I had this panicked desire to drop my backpack and run back to the Goodfellows’ house and beg them to let me stay. To hole up in that room upstairs with the handmade quilt and men already guarding the perimeter of the town. There had been a modicum of safety there, and now, though we were headed home, we were also headed out into a world where I had no idea what to expect. On our feet.

“This fucking sucks balls,” Charlie said. The sun still hadn’t fully risen, but the streaks of color in the sky were plenty bright to light our way.

“Let’s think of it like a hike,” I said. “When this is all over and we’re back home, we’ll be in the best shape of our lives.” I’d show up for my tour looking fantastic. And okay, maybe the tour would be postponed for a few months considering the catastrophe that would have taken place for a large part of the country, but I could not allow myself to believe that it wouldn’t happen at all. I’d worked so long and so hard for my dream to come true and I wasn’t going to let it go that easily. I wasn’t able to pretend like Charlie had suggested we do to cope, but positive thinking wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, I thought it was necessary.

“Yeah. A hike. Okay. It’s not a bad idea,” Charlie said. “I just signed on for that movie where I play a superhero. It starts filming this fall. I’ll be ripped.”

I nodded. “I was thinking last night about how I want to help too,” I said. “There’s going to be so much to do, you know? So much money to raise for the people affected by this disaster and maybe driven from their homes. I can only imagine the terrible stories we’re going to hear, right?”

“True,” Charlie agreed. “Hollywood and the music industry will go all in the way they always do. There’ll be dozens of telethons.”

I perked up at the thought of all the opportunities in front of me. “And marathons.”

“Walkathons.”

“Exactly. We should be on those phones, Charlie. We should cross finish lines for the cause and maybe even—” I drew in a breath as I looked over at him, a new idea suddenly coming to me “—perform a benefit concert!”

“That’s a great idea, Emily. With great privilege comes great responsibility.”

“Exactly.” Maybe I’d start writing a single for it while we were out on the road.

Up ahead, Tuck’s smooth gait didn’t change, but I swore I saw his shoulders move as he pulled in a long-suffering sigh and then let it out slowly.

He hefted the backpack higher on his shoulder and I did the same with mine. Along with the backpack Katelyn had given me, the sheriff had provided two more for Tuck and Charlie, including sleeping bags to roll up and strap beneath. He’d also given Tuck several other items they could spare: some food to get us through a couple of days, a canteen of water, a first aid kit, some matches, a map… They’d been very generous, and I knew it was in large part because Tuck had helped their son and brother who was now pain-free and on the mend.

We followed in his footsteps like we’d done when traveling from the plane to Silver Creek, speeding up when he did, and stopping when he took out the map to study it for a moment before refolding it and returning it to his backpack.

And honestly? I appreciated being led in this situation. Tuck had very naturally assumed the job of leading me and Charlie. Taking charge. Forging the path ahead. And despite that I was grateful for his role, part of me also felt irrationally resentful about the fact that Tuck was happier walking solo.

He was such a damn loner. Always a one-man show. It’d started when he was a teenager and compounded by a million when his mother died.

But he hadn’t always been that way. And that was the part I hated. Once, we’d been a pair. Once, he hadn’t shut me out. And sometimes, when my mind was quiet, and I was thinking about Tuck, like right now, all I could wonder was what I’d done wrong.

We passed abandoned cars and trucks here and there, some that had their front hood open, the insides black with the evidence of a fire that had since burned out. Tuck leaned inside one of the vehicles and dug through the glove box, grinning when he stood up, holding what looked like a couple of food items. Charlie and I walked closer. “Three Fruit Roll-Ups!” I said, my voice rising with excitement.

He tossed one to me and one to Charlie. “Someone threw these in their glove box for their kids and forgot about them. Lucky us.”

I tore the wrapper open and peeled off a piece of the red sticky sweet, my mouth puckering with the taste of it before I’d even put it in my mouth. “Oh, that’s good,” I said, sucking on it as Tuck and Charlie opened theirs as well. My eyes met Tuck’s as he peeled off a piece of his and set it on his tongue. His eyes seemed to soften as he looked at me and I wondered if he too was remembering how we used to eat these as kids, rolling them into balls and then popping the entire things in our mouths.

The sound of Charlie ripping the dried fruit from the wrapper brought me from my childhood musings and I glanced around to all the empty vehicles. “All these people are gone. Where did they go?”

“Home, I’m sure. The vehicles we’ve passed have almost all had Missouri plates. I’m assuming the majority of these people walked home when their car or truck died,” Tuck said.

The morning was cold but bright, and I shaded my eyes to look out beyond the paved back road we were walking. “It looks like there are farms out there,” I said.

“Maybe one of them will have some lunch,” Charlie offered as he joined us. “Because a Fruit Roll-Up isn’t going to cut it.”

“Maybe one of them will know something more,” I said.

Tuck shook his head. “We’ve only been walking for a couple of hours. There’s no sign that there’s any power here and we haven’t come across one operational vehicle. I think it’s safe to say circumstances here are the same as in Silver Creek. These people are hunkered down and waiting. We’ll take things as they come.”

“Should we check the glove boxes for more food?” I asked.

“Not now. It’ll just slow us down and the Goodfellows gave us enough for the next little while. If we start getting low, we’ll find some cars and search for snacks.”

Unless other people were already raiding the abandoned cars. But Tuck was Tuck, and I was sure he’d already considered that. Plus, the hope was that the farther we walked, the fewer aban doned cars we saw until all the cars we came upon were running. And then we’d negotiate a ride home.

“I’d also love to find a weapon, if possible,” Tuck was murmuring. “If you spot a rifle rack in an abandoned truck or anything like that, let me know.”

Right. Because of characters like Leonard. I thought it was pretty unlikely that someone would leave their weapon in their vehicle, but I guess you never knew. But in any case, I wasn’t totally helpless. “I took a self-defense class at my gym last year,” I told him. “I can hold my own, you know, if I need to.”

Tuck turned toward me slowly, his face neatly blank. “A self-defense class isn’t going to do much against a firearm,” he said. “Plus, people tend to forget all that type of training with a flood of adrenaline.”

“I’m not saying self-defense moves could go up against a gun, Tuck, but they might help me get out of a bad situation, should something arise. I was the star of the class,” I said, bristling with offense. “I didn’t forget anything.” The coach had told me that in all his years, no one had caught on as quickly. Even if he’d made a pass at me later, he’d accepted my polite “no thank you” with seeming grace, so I didn’t think his compliments were contrived. I’d felt strong and…capable.

Tuck’s lip quirked and he appeared deeply amused. I lifted my chin, offense increasing. I bent my knees, taking a defensive stance. “Come at me.”

One eyebrow shot up. “Emily. If I come at you , you’re going to get hurt.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, then. Scared, Tucker?”

His gaze grew dark, and a thrill shot through me.

Tuck very slowly took off his backpack, letting it slide to the ground, then strolled purposely toward me. I dropped my own gear and right before I went to grab him and flip him the way we’d practiced in class, he went low and picked me up off the ground. He flipped me around with a quickness that made me squeal and then laugh, his strong arms locked around my waist. I screamed and I flailed, but he only squeezed me tighter. “Who’s the star of the class now?” he demanded, breath hot at my ear.

“Put me down!” I wiggled wildly, and Tuck let out a grunting noise that sounded far more pained than it should have, considering my useless squirming.

Instead of following my command, his arms only tightened as I scrabbled to get free from his iron grip. “Surrender and I’ll let you go.”

“ Never .” I lifted my knee and then kicked backward, mostly missing as my foot slid past his shin into open air. But despite my poor aim, he let me go with a startled laugh and my feet landed on the ground. I faced him and then immediately ducked left. He mimicked my movement, and I let out a tiny shriek as I dipped in the other direction, and he hooked me around the waist as I let out a sound that I feared gave away the fact that I was less than upset by this little game and that my class-star status had been tested and found severely lacking when it came to real-life role-playing.

“Hello? Children? This is really embarrassing. Can you stop?” Charlie’s voice came from a great distance away. But I couldn’t stop. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.

Tuck spun me around with one arm, and I hooked my leg around his thigh, pushing my heel into the back of his knee as he grunted, knocked off-balance so that we both tipped forward. He twisted his body around at the last minute so that his shoulder made first impact with the snowy ground on the side of the road where we’d landed. “Ow,” he grated.

I rolled over, taking both his hands and raising them above his head where I pressed them to the ground. “Say uncle.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “You say uncle.”

“Why should I? I’m the winner here.”

And then as quick as that, I was flipped over so that I was flat on my back and Tuck was over me, bringing my hands above my head and pinning me with seemingly no effort at all. I wiggled and bucked, and Tuck let out that same pained hiss, jaw clenching as he stared down at me. “You were out of control then, and you’re out of control now,” he stated, voice gravelly.

Then? I stilled, setting my hips on the ground and going slack beneath him. He meant when I was a kid. And okay, I had thrown things at him then as well. I’d attacked and tormented and done anything to get his attention. He wasn’t wrong about that. Because no one, no one , spun me out of control like Tuck. And I supposed it was still true, because I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself from knowingly pushing his buttons and then enjoying the result.

My indignation drained completely, leaving a strange void. “You’re right,” I said. “I haven’t changed. No wonder you still hate me.”

He let go of my other arm, getting off me and pulling me up with him in a single movement so that our bodies slammed together when we reached our feet. His expression was a mix of things I wasn’t sure I could read. There was some anger there, but also a bit of confusion, and maybe even the shine of what I now recognized as dwindling excitement. Or perhaps that was a description of my own emotions, and I was projecting them onto him because I never had been able to read this maddening man.

“Hate you? I don’t hate you.”

I sighed, stepping away from him and straightening my jacket, all bluster gone. I felt as deflated as if I were a balloon and he’d stuck a pin in me. You’re a sellout. They could have picked up any pretty girl off the street and created Nova . The insult echoed in my head like the whistle of the last of the escaping air. No, he didn’t hate me now and he hadn’t hated me then. He’d been indifferent, and just like the old days, my instinct was to incite a fight—even a fake one—in order to get a reaction. Any reaction. And I did. I always did. But then it was over and if I wanted his attention again, I’d have to find something else to provoke him with. My God, I was pathetic. And my stupid class had turned out to be useless after all.

He watched me for a moment longer, seeming to be working out some puzzle, before Charlie’s voice made us both look to the right where he was sitting on a guardrail on the side of the road, eating a stick of beef jerky from his backpack. “Can we go?” He tore off a bite of dried meat, his expression miffed.

I nodded to Charlie and then mumbled something to Tuck that even I couldn’t interpret, and then picked up my backpack where I’d dropped it and walked over to Charlie.

Tuck had moved ahead again, and I waited as Charlie stuck the jerky wrapper back in the front pocket of his backpack and met me in the middle of the road. “That was weird.”

“I know. Uh, sorry.”

“What’s up with you two, anyway?”

“Nothing. He hates me. And I hate him.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” he muttered.

I gave him a look and slowed my walk so the distance grew between us and Tuck. I didn’t want him to overhear what we were saying. “What does that mean?”

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself. Same with him.”

“We were just messing around, Charlie. Not enjoying anything. He pissed me off. He treated me like a child and…well, I admit I acted like one. All that comes from growing up together, you know? It’s old habit to fight like siblings.”

“So that’s how you feel about him? Like a brother?”

“What? No. Or…yes! Yes, like a long-lost brother who disappointed the entire family and…brought shame on our name.”

“Your name?”

“Metaphorically speaking. We don’t have the same last name.”

“Which means he’s not your brother.”

A breath gusted from my mouth. “You get the point.” But when I looked over at Charlie, his expression told me he did not get the point. “Anyway, listen, Charlie.” I took his hand in mine. “This situation is bound to bring up heightened emotions. I think we should all acknowledge that none of us are going to be on our best behavior during this journey, even though we’ll try our best. There’s no rule book for what we’re experiencing, right?”

“You’re right.” He gripped my hand tighter. “We just have to make it through this journey and get back home. And then everything will go back to normal. We’ll go back to normal.”

I smiled, but it felt forced. What about that statement rubbed me the wrong way? I didn’t know, and so I wrote it off as the heightened emotions I’d just spoken of. Tuck and I had always been up and down and all over the place and that was only going to get worse now.

Tuck rounded a bend a few hundred feet ahead and for a couple minutes was out of sight. When we reached the turn, I saw him hunkered down behind some bushes on the side of the road, holding a pair of binoculars that the sheriff must have given him. He looked over his shoulder and gestured for us to hurry to where he was. “Get down,” he said quietly when we caught up. “I hear horses up ahead.”

“Horses?” Charlie asked. “Are they dangerous?”

“Not the horses, but the people riding them might be. I think we should wait here and see who they belong to.”

“What if no one’s riding them?” Charlie asked. “What if they’re…abandoned horses?”

“Then we might have our next ride,” Tuck said.

“Can I see?” I asked. He lowered the binoculars and looked at me, his lips thinning so that I thought he was going to say no. But then he handed the binoculars to me and moved to the side so I could look through the foliage like he’d been doing.

I put the lenses to my face and moved the binoculars from one side of the road to the other. The road we’d been traveling had been barren of businesses for the last few miles, save for a few empty, unmanned vegetable stands, only farms visible way out on the horizon. But several businesses were situated up ahead, including a few streets that stretched in other directions. It appeared to be the outskirts of a small town.

And Tuck was right about the horses. I heard them too, and now I could see the front hoofs of one from behind a roadside diner.

I started to hand the binoculars back to Tuck when two men wearing black and white exited the diner, the door opening in our direction so that I could see the front glass had been shattered. I watched as the men let the door swing closed behind them and then stood talking. I stared for another second. “They’re Amish,” I said. “Oh my Gosh. They’re Amish. Maybe they’ll give us a ride.” The Amish were…harmless. The Amish didn’t just have horses. They had buggies!

“Let me see,” Tuck said, taking the binoculars from me. I watched him surveil them, his mouth turning down into a frown.

“What’s wrong? The Amish are nonviolent. We don’t have to be afraid of the Amish.”

“We have to be wary of everyone right now,” Tuck said without lowering the binoculars. “Also, we’re in Missouri.”

“So?”

“I’ve never heard of Amish in Missouri.”

“What are you, the Missouri census bureau?”

He did lower the binoculars then and trained a steady gaze on me. “Are we starting again?”

I smiled. “I’m joking. There could be lots of reasons they’ve traveled here from…” I waved my hand around. I had no idea where Amish people lived.

“Pennsylvania. Ohio,” Tuck said.

“Maybe they wanted to see how far the outage extends. You know…get the lay of the land.”

“Why would they? The Amish have no problem living without electricity. For them it’s business as usual.”

“True, but they do use services in the outside world, right? Like…banking and, I don’t know, like mail and stuff? They have to have noticed what happened.”

“I suppose you’re right…”

“Did you just say I might be right about something.” I brought my hand to my chest and pretended I couldn’t breathe.

“Guys,” Charlie broke in, “there’s only one way to find out. Let’s go talk to them.”

I glanced over at him as though he’d appeared out of nowhere. Why did I keep forgetting Charlie was here?

As Tuck continued to look through his binoculars for another minute, I took the switchblade from my backpack and stuck it in the inside pocket of my jacket. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but Tuck had quickly schooled me on the fact that my self-defense skills weren’t going to save me if I was attacked. And though I wasn’t overly worried about the Amish, it was better safe than sorry, wasn’t it?

Finally, Tuck sighed and lowered the binoculars. “Fine. I think it’s safest if I keep watch and you go talk to them. Wave to me if things seem okay. Scratch your head if things seem off in any way.”

I pulled at Charlie’s arm, and we ducked as we backtracked a bit, dipping around the corner before immediately turning and rounding it again. As we drew closer, I made sure not to look in Tuck’s direction, instead, raising my hand and waving at the two men who’d spotted us. “Hi,” I said. “How are you?”

I plastered Nova’s smile on my face, the one that said I didn’t have a care in the world and was completely untouchable. It felt stretched and uncomfortable, but that might be because the two men were not reciprocating with friendly expressions. “I’m… Nova and this is Charlie,” I said when we got to where they were standing, staring at us suspiciously.

The man on the left slowly extended his hand and shook mine. When I looked down, I saw that he had tattoos on his fingers. I felt my brows rise but quickly adjusted my expression. I didn’t know a lot about the Amish, but finger tattoos didn’t seem on-brand. We waited for them to offer their names, but when they didn’t, and instead looked back and forth between each other, that feeling that something was off increased. What was the signal? Was I supposed to give a thumbs-down to let Tuck know things were off? God, why hadn’t I listened to him?

“Hi there,” the man on the right said, his smile growing in a way that looked decidedly predatory. Uh-oh.

Charlie and I started backing up in tandem, and I shoved my hand behind my back, making every gesture I could think of.

“Leaving so soon?” the other asked.

Then before I could take another step, they both swooped in, one pulling a firearm from his jacket pocket and putting it to my head as he spun me around and started marching us both toward the rear of the closed diner.