Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(64)
I stand over her as she holds her face. “You kicked me in my mouf,” she says, the words garbled.
“I think you’ll find it’s better to just let me do as I please.”
She’s smart enough to say nothing in response.
I make my way to the window again, which has been left open to let in some semblance of a breeze. The night is dark and looming, heavy and warm. For a moment I consider going back to my spot, lying down, and trying to get along with the status quo. But I ain’t never listened to that little voice before, and I ain’t about to start now.
A quick jump, and I’m out on the roof. Before I can even look for a way down, a bright light a few hundred yards away catches my eye. At first, I think it’s the sun coming up, but it’s way too early for that. It’s only then that I understand what I’m seeing.
Electric lights. Dozens of them, lining the streets and dotting the houses on that luxury section on the southern side of Summerland. The lights shine soft but bright in the night fog, and it’s more lovely and peaceful than anything I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe in my whole life. I know now why I’ve been able to read by what I thought was moonlight each night.
But those lights ain’t for me. I’m two stories up, and there doesn’t appear to be any way down from here. Below me a couple of cowpokes stumble out of the saloon singing some song, the words too slurred to make much sense. An ugly feeling of hopelessness wells up in me, and I have to fight tears.
I ain’t giving up. No way, no how.
Pulling on my boots, I walk to the edge of the roof. The next building is only a few feet away. It looks to be abandoned, the second-floor windows covered in a thick layer of dirt. I try to remember what’s on the first floor, but I come up blank. With a running start, I jump to the adjacent roof. The window is open a bit, so I jimmy it wider and climb in.
I stop just inside of the window. Through the darkness comes the sound of someone breathing. I wait, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom. Lying in a bed, arms hanging over the side, is the tinkerer I met on the first day, Mr. Gideon. His pale skin glows in the little bit of moonlight, and I’m a bit scandalized to see that he’s naked from the waist up. He’s too tall for the bed he’s in, and his feet hang off the side. He looks like a broken baby doll, half-dressed and tossed where he lies.
There hasn’t been much time for social visits and I ain’t seen him since I got here. I ain’t sure if he’s friendly or not. I remember the way he pointed that revolver at my head, and decide that he’s probably not someone I want to risk waking.
I take a step backward to climb out the window, and my foot catches a squeaky board. The movement from the bed is explosive. Mr. Gideon sits up, and a pistol gleams in the low light, the business end pointed right at me.
My heart pounds in my throat, and for the first time in my life I wonder why I always leap before looking. But there ain’t ever much time for regrets, so I swallow down my heart and raise my hands in surrender. “You sure do like to point that thing at my head.”
“Miss McKeene?”
“None other.”
“What are you doing in my sleeping chamber?”
I take a deep breath and let it out. I feel like I’m about to jump right out of my skin, but I’m in no immediate danger. The penny under my shirt is warm.
The view, what I can see of it with the moonlight coming in the window, is the nicest thing I’ve seen all week. Gideon is all slim muscles and interesting boy angles, and it’s hard to formulate an answer.
“I suppose . . . the proper answer is that I don’t rightly know. The honest answer is that life in this place is untenable, and if I don’t get out of here soon something bad is going to happen.”
I think of my momma’s warning about my temper, the temper I inherited from her. “Do not let things get to you, Jane. Do not give in to your rage,” she’d always say, her voice full of warning and a knowledge I was afraid to plumb. But now, that anger is building up, making me feel like I’m going to lose my mind. In here with this boy I don’t know, this is the calmest I’ve felt all week.
The tinkerer puts his revolver away and gives me a wry smile. “Miss McKeene, this is a place where terrible things happen more often than you know. Go back to bed before Sheriff Snyder discovers that you’ve gotten out.”
I should leave, should turn and go back to my crowded room, but I don’t. Instead, I lean against the wall, bold as can be. “You mind answering a few questions before I go?”
He crosses his arms, and I feel his regard more than see it. “You barge into a man’s room in the wee hours of the night, where he pulls a gun on you and tells you to leave, and now you wonder if you might ask some questions?”
“You did put the gun away.”
His chuckle echoes through the room. “Well then, how could I say no?”
“Why ain’t we trying to thin out the dead that surround the settlement? Whole plain is full of them, and all we do is keep them off the wall. Sooner or later they’re going to be more than we can hold back. I figured the point of settling in a place like this would be that it was far away from the eastern cities, largely empty of people to turn shambler?”
The tinkerer sighs, running his hand through his hair, and I see the telltale glint of a bracelet on his wrist. I wonder if it was a gift from someone important. I ain’t known many men to wear jewelry that wasn’t a gift. That makes me wonder if he has a wife, and if he does, why ain’t she here?