Sign Here(32)

Cal knew her way around a knife, but nothing made her giddy quite like a gun.

The General said he was sent out to find an army, fighters strong and true enough to be deserving of such a place, and they would go there once he could march them home with pride. And in those rare moments when the General was feeling sentimental, he would make quiet promises just to Cal: if they ever got separated, he would wait for her there.

She was fifteen when she finally found the Farm, and it was just as beautiful as the General had promised. It was no sparkling fortress—it had been hard to find for a reason—but after years of gas station bathrooms and nameless cities’ corner blocks, Cal had forgotten the earth could be clean until she saw it under that much sky.

At first, the leaders humored her, the wiry girl in the tattered camouflage jacket who slept with her knife so tight in her fist, her fingerprints took on the pattern of wood grain. They gave her soup and a cot, even let her sit in the back of the classroom during the children’s lessons on US history and the upcoming Almighty End. But after a couple of days, once she had slowed enough to chew her food, they decided to tell her the truth.

None of them had ever heard of her father. They had never been moved by the prophetic power in him, never sent him out to recruit their army. There was, as far as they knew, no special-ops mission handed down from Heaven itself. Not that they were willing to share with an outsider, at least.

Right up until then, Calamity Ganon’s afterlife forecast was golden. The kind reserved for those who have already been through Hell once, without the fun of sinning. But when she threw the grenade into that little schoolhouse, she forfeited her right to call any future suffering unjust.

She didn’t care, she thought as she squeezed through a gap in the Farm’s chain-link fence, the grenade pin clinking against the soda tabs hanging from her neck. She was still a soldier, even if she had nothing left for which to fight.

A couple of times, she thought she found him. She would recognize the back of his head as he dipped around the corner past the local bar, or the loping gait of a passerby who limped the same way he did ever since one brother shot him in the leg. But it was never him. So she went on searching, killing as she searched. She would’ve gone on killing everyone until there was nobody but him left, but she didn’t have the chance. The police shot her dead when she was twenty-six, and she went straight to the Downstairs.





MICKEY





“DO YOU EVER LOOK at someone and think you’d love to rip your nails through their face?” Ruth asked, her foot aligned along the porch banister, hand hovering with the nail-polish brush.

“Of course,” Sean answered. He held his book like he was reading it, but he hadn’t turned a page in over ten minutes, preferring instead to click his pocketknife open and closed over and over, a metronome with an edge. He was faking. He was looking at Ruth without looking at all. It was pathetic, Mickey thought. She had never seen her big brother as pathetic before. Cruel, stupid, sure. But not pathetic.

“Really?” Mickey asked. “With your nails?” She reached out with her foot and pushed the couch swing under him, disrupting his false concentration.

“No, I mean, not with my nails,” Sean said, setting his feet solidly onto the ground. “With my fists.”

“Fists leave bruises,” Ruth said as she leaned over her knee and blew on her toenails. “Bruises heal. Nails do real damage. They rip you open, leave tears. Haven’t you ever really wanted to rip into someone? Not just punch them in the face—I mean really change their surface. Ruin them.”

Mickey and Sean were silent.

“Come on, guys, don’t act like you haven’t thought about it.”

Mickey hadn’t. She honestly hadn’t.

“Of course I have,” Sean said, “but you make it sound sick.”

Ruth blew on her nails again and spread her toes. Their nails were dark green. They matched the trees behind her.

“Wanna go for a swim, Mick?”

“You’ll mess up your toenails.”

“Worth it,” Ruth said as she leapt off the porch railing into the grass.

Sean looked up. “I could go for a swim,” he said, putting his book down.

“Too bad we didn’t invite you!” Ruth yelled over her shoulder, already running toward the lake. She reached her hand back for Mickey, and Mickey caught it.



* * *



—

THEY SWAM OUT TO the float off the dock and pushed themselves up over the edge, gulping for air. Mickey lay on her back. Ruth lay next to her. It was a perfect New Hampshire day, just like every summer memory.

“Whose face do you want to rip off?” Mickey asked, squirming against the dry wood’s heat.

“No one’s in particular,” Ruth answered. She lay perfectly still. She never fussed with her body, never writhed like she was a thing caught inside it. Mickey always felt that way.

“So why did you ask that?”

“I wanted to freak Sean out.”

She laughed, and Mickey did too.

“He would do anything you said,” Mickey said, “including rip someone’s face off.”

“Well, I better start making a list, huh?” Ruth asked, rolling onto her stomach. “Who has wronged me?”

“I brought you here,” Mickey said, holding her hands up.