Page 140 of Chaos

He said he wanted to see Ben die.

His jaw works hard under the layer of dust, and I can’t help but wonder what he feels right now. Maybe the same thing I feel, just … tired.

This man has made our lives hell for so long, he took on bigger shape and form, became something more than human in our minds, and now, it’s like the wizard stepping out of the curtain.

Ben is just a shitty person.

And he’s about to die.

Shane looks from Ben down to his hand, which is holding a gun. His right hand. His smashed hand, covered in soot anddust, but under that will be a tangle of scars. I can tell from how he’s holding it the fingers are stiff.

“My hand works. Or it did, just for one second when I needed it,” he says. “I used it to shoot Duane.”

Ben burbles but otherwise doesn’t move as Shane turns his back and walks away.

I take Frankie’s filthy hand in mine. “Let’s get you and the blueberry to Sheila.”

“The blueberry?” Frankie takes a limping step toward Auden, and neither of us looks back at the man, dying alone in a pile of rubble under an icy, darkening sky.

“The baby.”

“Oh. You call her the blueberry, huh? Like a tiny, summery, fruity little bundle of seeds. I like it. A seed is nothing but potential if you think about it. Will it grow? Will it be happy? A tiny little maybe waiting to show herself.”

As she clambers awkwardly on top of the wall, her back turns toward me, revealing that the entire back of her shirt is dark with blood and dust that has turned to mud.

“Should I be carrying you?”

“No. You carried me out of the cellar.” She hops unsteadily down on the other side. “This time I want to walk.”

“IKNEW YOU’D BE OKAY,”Auden says as we walk to the pool house, Beast darting in circles around us.

“Good,” Frankie says. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“My tooth is loose.” He grins, and slides his tongue along a wiggly front tooth. It wobbles nauseatingly back and forth. “Where will we sleep?”

“I’m sure Colleen is working on a plan for that,” I say.

He keeps chattering a mile a minute, the whole way, telling us how it’s okay the tower is gone, because he’s big andhe doesn’t need Mr. Oink-Oink, and the library wasn’t in the tower, so there are still books. He says Frankie can get face cream from the spa, and how he thinks the crashing tower put the fire out because he heard Wendell say that, and he thinks Beast is scared.

As soon as we step inside the pool house, Alice guides us to a sheeted-off area they’ve created in the old cafe. We pass throngs of people. I see the woman in the coat, but I still don’t know her name. She’s standing against a rear wall, watching me closely.

I catch a fleeting glimpse of Church unconscious on a gurney.

Alice brings in a bucket of water and soap, and as the curtain flips, I see Kelly lying on another gurney in another sheeted-off area, Sheila bent over her with a stethoscope to her chest, listening for a heart I hope is still beating.

“How’s Kelly?” I ask Alice.

“She needs surgery. Internal bleeding. Can you give blood? No one else is willing to, and Sheila doesn’t trust anyone else’s memory of their blood type. You’re a known O-neg.”

“Of course.”

“Be right back.” Alice ducks out.

“Why won’t they give Kelly blood?” Frankie asks, as I squat down to unlace her dust-covered boots.

“They consider her a traitor now, regardless of her reasons. Rey too, so they’re closing rank, spreading word.” I pull her left boot off as Alice returns with draw-bags and an IV.

As she swabs my arm and inserts the needle, I ask, “How’s Church?”

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