Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(89)

“But he died!”

Benny bent forward and pressed his forehead against Nix’s. “He died, Nix, but you didn’t kill him and neither did I. Even though I think I did almost every night. I think about all the things I’ve done wrong and how if I’d done this or done that, you and I would never have wound up at Gameland. And yeah, I can make myself crazy too. But we didn’t kill Tom. An evil man did that. Preacher Jack shot Tom in the back and that is the truth.”

Nix sniffed but said nothing.

“Nix . . . what would Tom tell us if he could hear this conversation?”

She shook her head.

“No . . . tell me,” Benny insisted.

She sat back and wiped at her eyes. “He—he’d say what you just said. That Preacher Jack . . . ”

“Right. Preacher Jack. An evil man who did an evil thing.”

Nix looked at the broken windows. “And now we have Saint John and Mother Rose. Is that all there is, Benny? Just corruption and evil?”

Fifty conciliatory lies rose to Benny’s lips. But this was not the time to placate Nix.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Panic flared in her eyes, but he smiled.

“I don’t know what’s out here,” Benny said, “but I can’t believe that there’s nothing left worth finding. I won’t believe it. I don’t. We met Eve, Nix. She has a family.”

“Who tried to kill us.”

“No. I don’t see it that way, not anymore. Think about it. They were out of their minds worrying about Eve, and then they find her with us. They don’t know us from a can of paint, and I think it’s pretty clear that they’re on the run. They see us and they’re terrified that we’re reapers. In their places we might have made the same mistake. But look at it another way—they’re running from evil. They aren’t the reapers. They were willing to fight and kill to protect their little girl. What does that tell you? And there’s all that talk about Sanctuary. Despite what Mother Rose and those other freak jobs said, it doesn’t exactly sound like an abode of evil, does it?”

“No,” she admitted hesitantly.

“No,” he agreed.

“And the people who flew this plane. They were scientists working to understand the plague and maybe cure it. Again, not the definition of evil.”

“No.”

“The American Nation,” Benny said, testing the name and nodding approval. “I say we gather up some of these papers, check out the rest of the plane, then get out of here and find Lilah and Chong.”

“And then what?”

“I’m working on that,” he admitted.

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“I do love you, Benny,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

“Even though I’m a nut?”

“Like I’m well-balanced? Hearing voices, remember?” He grinned at her.

She shook her head in exasperation, but she was smiling, too.





69

RIOT HELPED CHONG TO HIS FEET AND STEADIED HIM AS HE TOOK A COUPLE of shaky steps. Eve trailed along behind, silent as a ghost. She stayed close, though, as if unwilling to be more than a few feet from Chong’s side.

Chong insisted on taking the bow and arrows with him.

“Why?”

“Well,” he said weakly, “I can shoot. I’m pretty good. And . . . if there are really doctors at Sanctuary, they might want to look at the stuff on the arrowheads.”

“Okay,” she said, and helped him sling the bow and quiver over his shoulder. “How are ya feelin’?”

“I’ve been better,” he admitted. “My legs feel funny, like they fell asleep, but there’s no pins and needles. Funny thing is that the arrow wound doesn’t seem to hurt much.”

“Oh.”

“Yes,” he said dryly, “I’m pretty sure that’s not a good sign.”

They walked toward the door of the shack. With each step Chong felt his balance improve, but he was not all that encouraged. It was more of a matter of getting used to his condition rather than there being any actual improvement.

“I don’t know if y’all want to hear this,” said Riot, “but I heard once about a feller who got the gray sickness and didn’t die.”

Chong swiveled his head around and stared at her. “I’m pretty sure I do want to hear about that.”

She looked pained. “Well . . . it ain’t like things worked out too great for him.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Together they walked out of the shack toward her quad.

Riot sucked her teeth for a moment. “Well,” she began reluctantly, “this was a feller name of Hiram, a corn farmer up from Arkansas who hired out as a hunter for small settlements. He’d go out with a wagon covered in sheet metal and some horses dressed in coats made from license plates bolted onto leather covers. He’d kill him some deer and whatever else he could draw a bead on, then he’d bring it all back to the settlement and sell it out of the back of his wagon. Well, one time he comes back and he’s looking mighty poorly.”

“Like I am?”

She glanced at him and offered a fragile smile. “Near enough as makes no never mind.”