Page 127 of Chaos

“I swear on my life, Ephie, if you’re lying to me right now to get me to do something, I’ll kill you myself.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t know what Duane wants. He said he’d stage a riot and light something on fire. But I was supposed to set Ben free. But … I shoved Duane away last night. He must have realized I wouldn’t help.” Her gaze strays to where Shane’s running back across the lawn, Sheila and Colleen at his heels, along with a couple soldiers with a gurney. “He had me locked up so I wouldn’t get in his way. Used that to cause his riot.”

“Or maybe it was to lure Shane to you?”

She makes a helpless face. “Maybe? I don’t know. They have to be planning on getting a car at some point to get away. Maybe they wanted to hold Shane hostage for it?”

“Maybe.”

Whatever else is happening, we have to stop those birds from reaching the General.

Every single person we’ve met has told the same story about what he’s done in Charleston. Forced breedingrequirements, shooting of anyone suspected of defecting, public hangings.

That can’t come here. Not for the people I love.

I stand up, touch my gun again. “Keep Shane out here. Don’t let him follow me. You hear me? I’ll be fine.”

I don’t give myself room to worry or doubt. Any smoke Maybe might get through my blood is nothing compared to what a hell her life would be if the General shows up here and turns Thornewood into a miniature Charleston.

THE SMOKE IN THE LOBBY has doubled when I get there, hanging from the ceiling like thick angry gray blankets.

It burns my eyes, and makes it feel like everything is covered in a film.

I tug the neck of my t-shirt up and tuck it over the top of my nose. The smell of hot skin, sweat, and fear is thick.

The doors at the front are open, and far in the distance, I see soldiers running along the walls, more surging down the hill toward the gate.

I duck into an awkward crab walk below the smoke-line and take off to the right hallway that leads to the greenhouse.

An explosion sounds in the distance, and I can’t tell if it came from outside near the walls, or up above. A bomb? The fire rampaging through windows and shattering glass? A ceiling giving out?

I skid to a stop in the hallway outside of my greenhouse.

I have a useless phantom sense of the old world, the urge to dial 9-1-1 on a phone I don’t have, call for a fire department that no longer exists, beg them to come to put out a fire with water we don’t have.

Voices trickle through the open door when I get within five feet of it.

I pull my gun, angling it down low and immediately cross to press my back against the left wall.

Movement behind me catches my focus, and Shane and Ephie jog into view behind me.

“What the hell!” I hiss. “Get out of here.”

“No. You pushed me down that hill to save me. I’m not leaving you alone again to face him again.”

“Shane!”

He lifts a finger to his mouth, knowing damned well I can’t argue. Not now. Not with Duane and Ben only yards away.

“The ointment wasn’t enough,” Ephie whispers, her eyes wide with terror and jogs past me to plaster herself against a wall just to the side of the entrance, out of sight.

Shane follows to stand beside her, and I dart to the opposite side, all of us creeping closer to the entrance to the greenhouse.

Despite the smoke, I can smell the greenness coming off it, like the anti-fire.

If those seeds burn, we lose heirloom varieties, and we may never be able to plant them again. We’ll have to trade for more seeds—trade for them? But with who? And what would we trade?

Yorke has been talking about that for a year. What do we have to offer that others will need badly enough to want to trade rather than attack. Something beyond the walls or the army or the garden keeping us alive. Bullets maybe, if Yorke and the half of the army with him manage to bring it back.

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