Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(97)

Ida gives me a lopsided grin. “Got it. Good luck.”

I give her a wink and run inside of the saloon. I pause just past the threshold, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Once they do I realize that the saloon is empty excepting for the bartender, polishing glasses.

“Where’s the Duchess?” I call.

“In her room back down the hall.”

“She got company?”

“Nope.”

“There’s a horde headed this way, you need to grab what you can and get out of town.”

The bartender looks at me all wide-eyed. “What about the wall?”

“That damn wall ain’t helping anyone now. Only running can save us.”

I dash full tilt down the narrow hallway. When I get to the Duchess’s room the door is closed, and I knock.

“Duchess, it’s Jane. We need to get out of town.”

There’s rustling on the other side of the door, and then it opens a few inches. I walk in.

“Shut the door behind you.” The room’s got a sick, coppery scent to it, and I do as the Duchess asks. It’s pitch-dark, the curtains drawn, and hotter than the dickens.

“You okay?”

“I’m going to cut right to it, my dear. The sheriff knows that Katherine ain’t a real lady.” There’s a choked sound to her voice, and I swallow the lump of dread in my throat.

“How you know that?”

“He came by this morning for his weekly appointment and told me.” The curtain draws back, flooding the room momentarily with light, and I get the glimpse of the Duchess’s face, her lips swollen, eye blackened, before the curtain falls back into place.

My heart nearly stops. “I don’t understand. How’d he find out?”

“That father of his. He apparently followed up with a couple of the newer families in town once the sheriff took a shine to Katherine, and after some conversation it seems they remembered a pretty blond Attendant who was light enough to pass from a couple months back. Sheriff Snyder threatened me, told me he’d kill me if I didn’t tell him the truth. She’s dead, Jane. Both of you are.”

I can scarcely believe this is all happening, right now. “All right. I need to go get her. But we’ve got even more pressing issues to tend to.”

“I tell you the sheriff is out for blood and you say there’s something more important than that?”

“There’s a horde on its way. Big enough to wipe us off the map. We don’t get the town evacuated, we’re all dead.”

The Duchess doesn’t move for a long time. “We can just hole up here. The wall—”

“The wall is wrecked, it ain’t going to do naught for us but trap us in.” What is it with people and their fixation on this damn town? “We need to run, you need to gather up your girls and make a break for it.”

The Duchess doesn’t answer for a long moment, and I take a deep breath. “Please. You’ve been kind to me, and if it wasn’t for you I’d most likely be dead of infection of some sort. You have to grab what you can and run. I know it feels hasty, but trust me when I say Summerland ain’t safe. It never was.”

And with that, I run out of the room, hightailing it to Katherine, hoping I ain’t too late.





Oh Jane, I was a fool. So, very, very naive. I’m afraid it’s all gone wrong, and the only person I have to blame is myself. I knew one day my secret would be out—Auntie Aggie told me as much—but I never thought it would ruin everything we’d built.





Chapter 37


In Which I Sin Yet Again


I dash across the street, dodging the folks gathering in the road. The drovers are bunched up in front of the sheriff’s office shouting and waving guns. From snippets of conversation I gather that they want the sheriff to open the door, tell them what’s happening. They still can’t see that it’s time to cut bait and hotfoot it out of town.

“Move,” I yell, pushing through the drovers, throwing my sharp elbow into soft bits when a few of the men refuse to budge. A particularly large man looms before me, an impassable wall, so I change my trajectory, moving parallel to the boardwalk until I find an opening. All the while a little voice in my head is urging me to hurry to the sheriff’s office. How long does it take for a man to strangle a woman? My brain runs through a million violent tableaus, and still I haven’t made it to Katherine’s side.

“That’s it,” I mutter. I grab the man in front of me, boosting myself up onto his shoulders. He’s barely had time to react before I’ve hopped to the next man, using the drovers as stepping-stones. I lose my balance before the sheriff’s door, tumbling against it. It bangs open and I half fall into the office.

“Now, Jane, that’s what I call an entrance,” the sheriff drawls. “We were just coming to find you.” He gestures with his pistol, the business end pointed right at me, and I crawl the rest of the way in, the door closing behind me. I try to climb to my feet, but before I can, a boot lodges itself in my side, digging into the soft spot just below my ribs. I instinctively curl into a ball.

“Boys. Boys! There will be plenty of time for that later. Get her on her feet.”

“Elias, this is highly unnecessary. Kill them and be done with it.” The pastor’s voice is ice water on my soul, and the wave of fear I’ve been fighting to hold back threatens to drown me.