The Rains (Untitled #1)(68)

“I know where to find bullets,” I said.

She handed it to me, and I clipped the holster to my belt. Then I nodded at her and touched the brim of the cowboy hat, a mock formality to match hers from earlier. She managed a smile.

“Thank you for everything, Eve,” I said.

She couldn’t help but beam a little.

“You’re a good friend,” I said, and her smile faded a few watts. I realized too late how my words had cut her. I hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, but I also didn’t have it in me to figure out how to fix it right now. I was concerned about a thousand things, and feelings weren’t one of them.

I took the gun and turned to leave.

That first time we’d left the safety of the school to head for Stark Peak, there’d been the three of us like always. Me, Patrick, Alex.

The second time, sneaking into the hospital, me and Patrick.

Now it was just me.

As if he sensed my thoughts, Cassius trotted over to join me.

We threaded our way through the cots, heading out. As I neared the exit, my shadow fell before me and crept up the closed double doors. It was tall and broad, topped by a cowboy hat. It didn’t look like my shadow at all.

It looked like Patrick’s.





ENTRY 30

A light rain pinged the leaves all around me, making them dance. Cassius shook off water, then shook again. Most ridgebacks don’t like rain. They’re bred for the African desert, and water annoys them.

I stood a few feet back from the tree line, foliage framing my face as I peered at the rear of the church. There were no flatbed trucks or pallet jacks or patrolling Hosts. Aside from the faint patter of rain, everything was still. I couldn’t sense movement through the stained glass.

But I knew I had to take a closer look.

After a few quick breaths to steel myself, I put Cassius on a sit-stay and sprinted across the back parking lot, diving over the hedge. I lay there against the base of the building, gripping the baling hooks, listening for any sounds. It took me longer than seemed reasonable to catch my breath. Then it struck me—I wasn’t so much winded as afraid.

Though I’d figured it would be scarier out here without Patrick, I hadn’t counted on how much scarier.

But I had to get up and look inside. I had to see if they had Alex in there, crammed into a crate. And if so, I had to figure out what the hell to do next. I pictured her terrified, her knees drawn in to her chest, and felt anger take hold inside me. I let it give me strength.

Rising to a crouch, I peered through a clear piece of glass in the mosaic.

The inside of the church was empty.

Not a single crate. Not any Hosts. No meat grinder or piles of food.

And worst of all, no Alex.

Just a few left-behind sneakers and what looked like food stains on the floors.

Seeing the church empty was almost as unsettling as coming upon the caged kids in there earlier, but I couldn’t say why. My gaze fixed on an overturned Converse high-top. I grappled with the absence of all those boys and girls and what it might mean.

Any hope that this would be a short mission guttered out. The Hosts had probably crated Alex up and trucked her off with the other kids.

I put my back to the wall and slid down again behind the hedges. For a moment I let despair overtake me. But only for a moment.

I pictured Alex again, the way she tilted her chin up when she laughed. How she’d tuck her hair behind her ear when she leaned forward. Her fingernails, chewed to the quick or broken off from hockey practice, not like those of the other girls. Then, for an instant, I let myself remember that look of admiration she’d thrown my way after I helped us escape Jack Kaner’s farm.

Wherever she was, I’d find her. I’d get to her. And I’d bring her back.

To Patrick.

Which meant that I had to cross the valley, scale Ponderosa Pass, and make my way to Lawrenceville, where God only knew what waited for me.

As terrifying as it had been to sneak to the church, my journey had barely started.

My hooks and Alex’s hockey stick were useful, sure, but Patrick had saved the day many more times with a gun. To have even a prayer of making it, I’d need bullets.

And there was only one place to get those.

Back in the forest, Cassius’s eyes glinted from the darkness between trunks. He didn’t move until I jogged up to him and tapped his head to release him. As he trotted at my side, he nuzzled my palm, his way of saying hi. He looked up at me, tail wagging, and I realized that it was more than just a greeting. I made him feel safe. I was his pack. His family.

Since the minute he could walk, he’d stayed at my side whenever he could. Though it was against house rules for a puppy, I snuck him past Sue-Anne into my room most days after school. He’d been an active puppy, chewing up two pairs of my sneakers and an algebra textbook. That’s why I knew that something was wrong when he’d turned sluggish at three months. Then the vomiting started. By the time we rushed him to the vet, he was almost dead from parvovirus. Doc McGraw had to keep him overnight to give him IV fluids and antibiotics. Cassius wasn’t supposed to live through the night. Uncle Jim let me stay with him even though it was a Tuesday. He probably realized he couldn’t stop me anyways. I’d bedded down on an old horse blanket outside Cassius’s crate. In the morning Cassius was too weak to lift his head, but when he saw my face at the bars, he’d flicked the tip of his tail once, the closest thing to a wag he could muster.