The Night Parade(27)

In the passenger seat, Ellie continued to sob. He stared at her profile for a while, watching the tears stream down her cheeks, unsure what he could possibly do to comfort her. Her face was a mottled red. He reached over and removed the ball cap from her head. With her freshly cut hair, she still looked like someone else beneath the hat, and David couldn’t help but marvel at how much someone’s haircut defined their entire look.

When he reached out to caress her face, she slapped his hand away. Her eyes blazed on him.

“What’d you do?” she shrieked at him. “What’d you do? What’d you do?”

“Baby,” he said, and reached out for her again.

This time she grabbed his wrist. Her eyes flared . . . and David felt a sudden tingling sensation radiate up his arm and flood through his body. A moment later, something like a surge of electricity rocketed through his body, so powerful he jerked in his seat and yanked his wrist from his daughter’s grasp.

“You’re a liar!” She gritted her teeth and threw her head back against the headrest. A solitary sob ratcheted up her throat before she turned and stared at him again, her face blotchy and red but radiant, her eyes both angry and imploring. “Is she dead? Is it true?”

“Ellie . . .”

“Tell me!” She slammed one small, pink hand against the console.

“Yes,” he said. “Mom’s dead.”

A high-pitched keening sounded from her. But then she quickly regained control of herself. “On the news . . . they said . . .” She fought back another sob. “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything, baby.”

“It was on the news! The news wouldn’t lie! You’re the liar! What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything to her. I would never hurt your mother in a million years, Ellie. It was the doctors. They said she would be okay, and that they would take care of her, but they were wrong—Ellie, they were the liars—and now she’s gone. They killed her.” And now he was crying freely, too. His grief was suddenly so great he was unable to keep it together, even for the sake of his daughter.

Ellie just stared at him, her whole body shaking as her eyes welled up with fresh tears. “Those doctors wouldn’t kill Mom. They said she was special. They said her blood . . . what she had inside her . . . that she might even be able to cure what’s happening . . .”

“They broke her, Ellie. There were tests and they worked her too hard. Your mother got weak. That’s why I stopped taking you to see her. She got so weak, Ellie, and I didn’t want you to see her like that. And those doctors, they never stopped, they never let up. They wanted your mom to be the cure for this thing so badly that they used her up until there was nothing left.”

“But the police are looking for you,” she said. “It has nothing to do with back home, does it? There is no quarantine back home, is there?”

“No,” he said.

“If you didn’t do anything, then why are the police looking for you?”

He cradled the back of her head, rubbed his thumb through her hair.

“They’re not looking for me, baby,” he said. “They’re looking for you. That special thing about your mom, that one-ina-trillion resistance she had against the disease that made her immune . . . you’ve got it, too. It’s in you, too. You’re immune, Ellie.” He pulled her close to him so that their foreheads touched. “But I’m not going to let them take you. I’m not going to let them find you.”

Trembling, she pushed him away from her.

“Wait,” he said.

“I’m gonna be sick.” She shoved open the passenger door and staggered out into the grass. She braced herself against the back of the billboard with one hand and bent at the waist.

“Honey.” He slid across the seats and got out the passenger side. He reached her, rubbed her back, bent down to her level. She didn’t get sick; she just stared absently at the ground, at the incongruous bursts of wildflowers that surrounded them, spitting occasionally into the weeds. Gnats orbited around their heads.

After a time, she straightened herself. She wiped the tears from her eyes as her chest hitched one last time. Then she looked up at him, wincing in the blaze of the sun that was at his back.

He grabbed her, held her tight against him. He inhaled the scent of her hair, her clothes, her skin. He felt the gentle undulation of her ribs as he rubbed his hands along her sides. Faintly, he was aware of insects chirping in the trees, of the heat from the sun baking the nape of his neck, of the occasional shush of a vehicle trolling down the highway on the other side of the billboard.

He squeezed her more tightly.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” he said, letting her go. “For now, let’s get back in the car.”

Wordlessly, she crawled back into the car, her shadow rippling across the overgrown grass behind the billboard.

That news broadcast had punched him in the gut, and he knew he would have to shift things into a higher gear from here on out. I can’t believe they’ve started looking for us so soon, he thought as he pulled back out onto the highway. They were the only car straight out to either horizon. They reported that we’re driving the Bronco. That’s something, at least. It may take them a while to realize we’re in a different car. Hell, they may never figure that out.