The Night Parade(113)

“You’re a very special little girl,” said Kahle. “I’ll bet there’s a whole world of things you can do in time.” That wolfish grin reappeared. “Not to mention that special blood you’ve got pumping through your veins.” Kahle turned that grin on David. “She’s immune?”

David looked at Tim.

“I never said a word to anyone,” Tim said.

“I heard you talking,” Gany said. “And I’ve read the news and know that people are after the girl.”

“We’ve got a whole group of people who would love to meet you,” Kahle said to Ellie.

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” David said.

Kahle stood. “What’s this ‘we’ business?”

“We’re not going to hurt her, David,” Gany said. “She’ll be okay.”

“She isn’t going with you,” said David.

Tim leaned forward on the sofa and stared up at Gany. When he spoke, his voice was low, his tone compassionate. “Gany, honey, what’s this all about? Who are these people?”

“We’re true Worlders, Tim,” she said. “But we’re not just going to sit by and wait to die. Someone like Ellie—someone with her abilities—might be enough to keep us healthy. She might even learn to cure the Folly in time.”

“So you’re turning her in?”

Kahle laughed, a series of loud barks. “Turning her in? Are you kidding me? We’ve got no moral responsibility to the rest of the world. Let them die, for all I care. Not us, though.”

“So you’ll take her as a hostage,” David said. “Use her like a drug and hope that she can keep you all from getting sick.”

“I can’t do it!” Ellie cried. “I’ve tried and I can’t! I can’t cure anybody.”

“Well, maybe, sweetheart,” Kahle shouted back at her, his face suddenly cold as stone, “you’ll figure it out.”

“You’re all mad,” David said.

“You’re no humanitarian yourself, David.” It was Gany, a trace of anger in her voice now. As if she had been the one betrayed. “What difference does it make if she’s our hostage or yours? You’re letting the world die anyway.”

“Don’t do this, Gany,” Tim said. “This isn’t what you really believe.”

“Don’t tell me what I believe!” Gany shouted at him. Her eyes were fierce. “I’ve watched enough people die! I buried my whole goddamn family!”

“Gany—”

“Enough.” Kahle reached out for Ellie. “Come on, kid. Let’s go.”

David wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Don’t make me kill you, Daddy-O,” Kahle said. “Let her go.”

David did not let her go.

The guy in the bandanna stepped forward and pressed the muzzle of his pistol against David’s forehead.

“Stop this,” Tim said, but even his voice was quaking now.

“Ain’t got no problem opening up your head right here, Pops,” Bandanna said. His voice was as deep as a drum.

“No!” Ellie sobbed, pulling free of David’s arms. “Don’t hurt my dad!”

“Ellie,” he said.

She shook her head. There was terror in her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. She looked at Kahle and said, “I’ll go. Just don’t hurt him.”

“No, Ellie,” David said.

She hugged him around the neck, kissed the side of his face, and whispered something too low for him to decipher into his ear. When she pulled away from him, it was as if something vital had extracted itself from inside his body.

Ellie took Kahle’s outstretched hand and got up off the sofa.

“Ellie . . .” David said.

She glanced at him over her shoulder as Kahle hauled her toward the doorway. And then David saw it—the slight narrowing of Ellie’s eyes on an otherwise impassive face. The terror was gone, replaced by a sharp calculation. It was tantamount to the look that had overtaken her just before she’d touched Cooper back in Goodwin.

“You want me to shoot ’em anyway?” Bandanna said. He’d removed the pistol from David’s forehead but still had the gun trained on him, no more than two feet from his face.

“No!” Ellie shouted. She tried to pull her hand free of Kahle’s, but he wouldn’t release her. “I’ll never do anything for any of you if you hurt them.”

Kahle nodded at her. “Fair enough.” He turned to Bandanna and said, “You heard the little lady. Let them be.”

They marshaled out of the room, Gany bringing up the rear with the shotgun still pointed at both David and Tim.

“It isn’t too late to do the right thing, Gany,” Tim said.

Gany just shook her head at him. The look on her face suggested that Tim was a fool and that she pitied him. And then she was gone, moving quickly down the hallway toward the front of the house.

David got up and rushed after them.

“David!” Tim called after him.

David made it to the front porch in time to see Kahle leading Ellie across the lawn toward the SUV. Bandanna hurried ahead and opened the rear door of the SUV. He had collected David’s and Tim’s weapons from the porch and was sliding them into the SUV’s open door now. Gany hung back, the shotgun still trained on David.