Cruel World(75)

“It’s got four sides like this.” Ty drew a square on the tabletop with his finger.

“You got it. Can you find the square that’s mixed with all the other shapes?” Quinn asked. Ty tipped his head to one side, his eyes looking off to the corner of the ceiling as his hands began to roam over the shapes. Within seconds he’d found the square magnet, tracing it with his fingers.

“Here it is.”

“You got it! How about a triangle? Do you know what that one is?”

“Yep, it’s a lazy square with three sides instead of four.”

Quinn laughed. “That’s right.” Ty sorted through the shapes, producing the triangle correctly. They went through the rest of the magnets, Quinn quizzing him on the shapes he knew and explaining the ones he didn’t. All the while he could feel Alice’s gaze on him like heat from a fire. After Ty had memorized the shapes that he didn’t know, Quinn showed him how the magnets would attract one another if slid close together. Ty giggled each time the plastic pieces snapped together, glancing in Quinn’s direction, his smile as radiant as his mother’s.

“Okay, buddy, that’s enough for one night,” Alice said after a time.

“Oh mom, we just started.”

“I know, but you need a bath. You’re smelly.”

“Mom, I’m not smelly. I had a bath, I can’t remember, but it was maybe only yesterday.”

“Yeah, that’s why you’re not in charge of planning your baths.”

“What’s after bath?”

“After bath is bedtime.”

“But I’m not tired.”

“You always say that, and you’re always asleep in under a minute,” Alice said, picking Ty up from his place at the table.

“Can you tuck me in, Quinn?” Ty asked as Alice began carrying him away. Quinn blinked, shifting his eyes from the boy to Alice who stared at him and then gave a curt nod.

“Sure can, buddy.”

“Yay!” Ty exclaimed, as Alice turned and brought him toward the bathroom.

Quinn sat in the kitchen, his gaze roaming around the room. Dirty dishes rested beside the sink, a magazine was folded open to an article on the counter, three marbles lay beneath a chair. He let out a sigh and stood, grabbing his AR-15 from where it leaned near the doorway before heading outside.

The yard was fading into darkness, the last light of the day cool and gray through gathering clouds on the western horizon. The wood surrounding the house was a vast trove of dead leaves and tendrils of green poking through them. Quinn moved down the driveway, pausing every dozen yards to listen. No cars, no planes, nothing. He stopped short of the road running past the driveway and waited. The sun continued its descent, and shadows began to grow like dark mildew across the ground. He returned to the house and went past the bathroom, where Ty was singing something too soft for him to hear, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. He put his ear against the master bedroom door and waited, but there was no sound from behind it. The woman was exhausted and probably still in shock. Maybe tomorrow they’d be able to coax her out of her stupor and learn more about where she was from. Alice would hate it, but if the woman could tell them where her home was, they would have to make sure she got there safely.

His thoughts were broken by the sound of Alice bringing Ty to the sitting room, and he left the woman to her slumber, descending the stairs noiselessly. When he entered the small room near the front of the house, Alice was tucking Ty in beneath a heavy blanket on the loveseat. He hovered in the doorway, setting his rifle down in the hall.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Alice said, smoothing Ty’s dark hair back from his brow. “Sleep good, okay?”

“But I’m not—” Ty paused as an enormous yawn cut his words off. “—tired,” he finished.

“No, not at all. Quinn’s going to say goodnight then you get some sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Okay mom.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Alice kissed him on the forehead before moving past Quinn out of the room. She gave him a glance he couldn’t read and disappeared down the hall into the kitchen.

“Hey, buddy, you all tucked in?” Quinn asked, crouching down beside the loveseat.

“Yeah. Thanks for teaching me with the magnets. Do you think I could keep them?”

The image of the three marbles lying dormant beneath the chair in the kitchen buffeted his mind.