Burn (Pure #3)(64)

Hastings moves in to break them up, but El Capitan rolls away from him, grabbing Bradwell by the throat. Bradwell rips loose and gets El Capitan in a headlock. Helmud punches Bradwell in the back of the head while El Capitan drives his elbow into Bradwell’s gut. Bradwell loses his grip and falls to one knee.

“Don’t ever shove Helmud around!” El Capitan says, reaching up and supporting the back of his brother’s head. “You hear me? I’ll protect him with every drop of blood in my body. You got that?” He turns his face to his brother’s. “You okay?” he whispers.

Helmud’s breath is ragged. “Okay,” he mutters.

Bradwell and El Capitan are breathless too.

“Did you even think about the bacterium?” El Capitan shouts. “You idiot!” And then he shouts at Helmud. “Check it!”

He feels Helmud’s nimble fingers touch its outline. “Check,” Helmud says weakly.

“Sorry,” Bradwell says, pushing on his head with both hands. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“She’s unprotected,” Hastings says.

“She wouldn’t have it any other way,” El Capitan says.

“She told us she’d send us a message,” Hastings says. “Let’s give her time to assess the situation.”

Bradwell looks at El Capitan sharply.

El Capitan lets his eyes rove the rubble around them, the distant pile of bodies. “She could die before she even gets there.”

Bradwell draws a deep breath. “Why didn’t she at least let us help escort her in?”

“If she dies, it’ll be on her own terms,” El Capitan says. “That’s what you wanted, right? To die on your own terms?”

Bradwell rubs his eyes. Maybe he’s crying. El Capitan can’t tell.

The boy says, “There was something else.”

El Capitan had forgotten about the kid, who steps out from behind the rocks. This time he talks as fast as he can. “She said don’t give up on the kids. Wilda and them. Don’t give up on them. Keep looking.” And before they have a chance to ask him any questions or get in another fight, he turns and runs away.

They’re all silent for a moment.

And then Hastings stands tall. “She might get mad, but I have to at least try to find her and protect her. I still have some loyalty coding, and it’s fixed on her. I have an excuse.” And that’s it. He jerks his head as if flipping his hair out of his eyes and moves off into the rain, swinging his prosthetic in front of him and hopping over it with quick agility.

“I’ve got somewhere I need to go too. Somewhere I can think straight,” Bradwell says. He looks at El Capitan almost pleadingly and then down at the ground. “Will you come with me?”

“Depends. Where?”

“I didn’t say it was someplace I wanted to go. I said I need to go there. Just say yes. We’ll stay together.”

“Together,” Helmud says.

“Okay,” El Capitan says. “We’ll stick together.”





PRESSIA





HOME




Pressia steps in through what was once the doorway, her boots crunching the broken glass. Its roof is gone, like a gaping maw over her head. The floor shines with dark puddles of rain. There’s the old striped pole, lying on its side, the row of blasted mirrors, and tucked in way back, up against the solid wall, the one remaining barbershop chair, the counter, the combs upright in an old glass Barbasol container. The fire made its way here. The walls are even more blackened, the remaining shards of the mirrors fogged gray as if sealed shut. Pressia reminds herself that it hasn’t been that long since she was here. But that doesn’t help. Everything is different.

There could be snipers near, but she doesn’t care. Kill me, she thinks. Wilda and the children are dead. If she’d gotten here faster, if she’d never left them so unprotected… It’s her fault.

She sees the fake panel that her grandfather built along the back wall—her escape hatch—fitted back into place. It leads to the barbershop’s back room, her childhood home. She walks up to the panel, wedges it loose.

And there is the cabinet where she once slept. She rubs her hand on the wood, the fine grit of ash. This was where she drew the lopsided grin of the smiley face. She promised her grandfather she’d come back, and now here she is, finally. Even though he’s dead, she should be true to that promise—to herself if no one else.

The cabinet door is slightly ajar, and she can see the old storage room—the table legs, her grandfather’s chair. She crawls into the cabinet and fits the panel back into place. Once inside the small space, she tightens the cabinet door from within. It’s dark, and she feels small again. She tucks the doll head under her chin. She tries to remember what it was like to be here that first time—the cramped space, the fine motes of dust and ash spinning in the air, and how some part of her hoped she could survive just by being good and quiet and small. She remembers her grandfather sitting in his usual spot by the door, his stump knotted with the veins of wires, the brick on his lap, the fan in his throat whirring one way and then the other with each of his ragged breaths.

She misses him. She misses who she once was in this cabinet. She was his granddaughter. He’s dead, and it turns out she wasn’t even his granddaughter. She was just a lost little girl surrounded by dead people in an airport. He saved her.