Second Shift: Order (Shift, #2)(53)

There was a knock on the door. The handle jiggled. The boots outside quieted as they gathered around. Frankie pressed his finger to his lips, his eyes wide. The wire overhead creaked as it swung back and forth.

The door budged. Mission hoped for a moment that they would go away, that they were just making their rounds. He thought about hiding under the sheets used to cover the unneeded desks, but the thought came too late. The door was shoved open, a desk crying as it skittered across the floor, and the first person through was Rodny.

His sudden appearance was as jarring as a bomb. He wore white coveralls, the creases still in them like a great letter H across his stomach and down his chest. His hair had been cut short, his face newly shaved, a nick on his chin.

Mission felt as though he were staring into a mirror, the two of them in costume, the same costume. More men in white crowded behind Rodny in the hallway, rifles in hand. Rodny ordered them back and stepped into the room where all those tiny desks lay neatly arranged and empty.

Allie was the first to respond. She gasped with surprise and hurried forward, arms wide as if for an embrace. Rodny held up a palm and told her to stop. His other hand held a small gun like the deputies wore. His eyes were not on his friends but on the Old Crow.

“Rodny—” Mission began. His brain attempted to grasp his friend’s presence. They were there to go rescue him, but he looked in little need of it.

“The door,” Rodny said over his shoulder.

A man twice Rodny’s age hesitated before doing as he was asked and pulling the door shut. This was not the demeanor of a prisoner. It was one who held captive the attention of others. Frankie lurched forward before the door shut all the way, calling “Father,” as he caught a glimpse of his old man in the hall with the others.

“We were coming for you,” Mission said. He wanted to approach his friend, but there was something dangerous in Rodny’s eyes. “Your note—”

Rodny finally looked away from the Crow.

“We were coming to help—” Mission said.

“Yesterday, I needed it,” Rodny said. He circled around the desks, the gun at his side, his eyes flicking from face to face. Mission backed up and joined Allie in standing close to the Crow, whether to protect her or feel protected, he couldn’t say.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Mrs. Crowe said with a lecturing tone. “This is not where your fight is.”

The gun rose a little.

“What’re you doing” Allie asked of her old friend.

Rodny pointed at the Crow. “Tell them,” he said. “Tell them what you’ve done. What you do.”

“What’ve they done to you” Mission asked. His friend was different beyond the garb.

“They showed me—” Rodny swept his gun at the posters on the wall. “That these stories are true.” He laughed and turned to the Crow. “And I was angry, just like you said. Angry at what they did to the world.”

“So hurt them,” the Crow insisted, her voice creaking like a door about to slam.

“But now I know. They told me. We got a call. And now I know what you’ve been doing here—”

“What’s this about” Frankie asked, still in the middle of the room. He moved toward the door. “Why is my father—”

“Stay,” Rodny told him. He pushed one of the desks out of the way and moved down the aisle. “Don’t you move.” His gun swung from Frankie to the Crow, whose chair shivered in time with her palsied hand. “These sayings on the wall, the stories and songs, you made us what we are. You made us angry.”

“You should be,” she screeched. “You damn well should be!”

Mission moved closer to her. He kept his eye on the gun. Allie knelt and held the old woman’s hand. Rodny stood ten paces away, the gun angled at their feet.

“They kill and they kill,” the Crow said. “And this will go the way it always has. Wipe it all clean. Bury and burn the dead. And these desks—” Her arm shot up, her quivering finger aimed at the empty desks newly arranged. “These desks will be full again.”

“No,” Rodny said. He shook his head. “No more. It ends here. You won’t terrify us anymore—”

“What’re you saying” Mission asked. He stepped close to the Crow, a hand on her chair. “You’re the one with the gun, Rodny. You’re the one scaring us.”

Rodny turned toward Mission. “She makes us feel this way. Don’t you see The fear and hope go hand in hand. What she sells is no different than the priests, only she gets to us first. This talk of a better world. It just makes us hate this one.”

“No—” Mission hated his friend for uttering such a thing.

“Yes,” Rodny said. “Why do you think we hate our fathers It’s because her stories are true. But this won’t make it better.” He waved his hand. “Not that it matters. What I knew yesterday had me terrified for my life. For all of us. What I know now gives me hope.” His gun came up. Mission couldn’t believe it. His friend pointed the barrel at the Old Crow.

“Wait—” Mission raised a hand.

“Stand back,” Rodny said. “I have to do this.”

“No!”

His friend’s arm stiffened. The barrel was leveled at a defenseless woman in a mechanical chair, the mother to them all, the one who sang them to sleep in their cribs and on their mats, whose voice followed them through their shadowing days and beyond.