Page 61 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

More dark spots, big dollops of blood-red. Tavo pushed the door open with a creak.

They stepped out into the hall, with Tavo sticking close to her. The trail of blood continued down the hallway. Blood rushed in her ears, a vein pulsing in her throat. She grabbed for Gustavo’s hand. It was warm and strong; he held hers tight. His eyes, when he looked at her, were etched at the corners with worry.

Together they followed the trail down the darkened hallway.

20

ADELE

Adele slipped back toward camp. Exhilaration had her breathing deep and moving fleet-footed up the path, past the hulk of Enchantments. She’d found theperfecthiding space, something she hadn’t seen on any map or on the WholeEarthNow images. This is why her father always insisted on recon.There are things you can never know about a place until you’ve had boots on the ground.

The stuttering rumble of the generator disrupted the deep peace of the site. It was an invasion of sound, and the area seemed disturbed by it. Again, she felt that stutter. That question. What was she doing here?

The answer was clear: money.

What do you need with all that money?her father, a true minimalist, would probably wonder out loud.

Peace, freedom, security, the knowledge that Blake and Violet will not want for anything,she’d tell him.

Things that can never be sought without,he’d surely offer.Delusion.

The world had changed, though, hadn’t it? Since her dad was a young man with a family? In a postpandemic world where inflation ran wild,and even with a job her health-insurance premiums were a big chunk from her paycheck, and her grocery bill was shocking, and the kids didn’t have a fraction of the things their friends had now. Or maybe it was just that they’d lost so much when Miller left them. Maybe if they’d never had so much, the absence of that security wouldn’t be so frightening.

The things that kept her up at night: Could she pay for school for both kids if they didn’t get scholarships or she couldn’t get aid because of her abysmal credit history? What would happen if she got sick? Who would be there for her kids if she died? What would happen if shedidn’tdie young? Would she ever be able to afford to retire?

That’s what I need with all that money, Dad. The world has changed.

Some things don’t change, he would tell her. She heard his voice so clearly; far more clearly than that of her mother, who was alive and well.

As Adele approached the site, she noticed the slightest flicker of light from inside Malinka’s tent, making her big dome glow pink from within.

So was thatnotMalinka on the path?

Or had she taken another route and beaten Adele back to camp?

Whoever it had been out there, Adele hadn’t seen the figure again or anyone else as she picked her way through the overgrown property, finding the established paved paths hiding beneath the fecund overgrowth.

Now Adele edged closer to Malinka’s tent and heard the young woman’s childlike voice. She was whispering something, but Adele couldn’t make out the words. It brought her back home through a mental wormhole to standing outside Violet’s closed door, listening to her daughter sing to herself or talk to her friends. Not eavesdropping or spying; she’d never had to do that with Violet. Just listening to her become, marveling at her smooth, grown-up singing voice, or how kind and wise she was with her friends,her word choices. She was so far from the little baby Adele had carried in her arms, and yet that essence was the same, somehow. Something uniquely Violet that stayed glowing at the center of who she was. Her essential self.

Violet’s being Violet again.Blake always meant it as an insult. But Violet hadalwaysbeen Violet. And only a grown woman who’d been to hell and back knew what a gift it was to own yourself, to know yourself.

Adele strained toward the tent to hear better—yeah, eavesdropping this time. But try as she did, she couldn’t decipher the young woman’s words, just the tone. Urgent. Secretive.

What had Malinka discovered onhersolo recon tonight?

Still standing outside the tent, Adele opened Malinka’s page on Photogram. Nothing new. Then she checked her WeWatch channel. Malinka was dark, hadn’t posted anything since the attack. Whoever she was talking to, it was offline.

A rustling in the foliage behind her caused her to jump like she’d been tasered, heart flying into her throat.

Adele froze as a huge black form emerged from the branches.

A giant bird, black in the shadows, with an impossibly large wingspan and kited tail, whooshed over her head, a shadow that lifted with great, silent flaps of its wings and then was swallowed by the clouds as suddenly as it had appeared.

The buzzard again. She imagined it with another feast for its chicks. Was it the same one? She felt a strange connection to the mama buzzard, hunting and fighting to feed her babies.

Her heart was an engine, and she breathed to calm herself, glad she hadn’t cried out and revealed herself as listening outside Malinka’s tent. She watched the sky for another glimpse of the bird. Falconers considered buzzards difficult to train and lazy because they were willing to feed on carrion. Adele thought that was a little unfair. They were survivors; she admired that. Being difficult to train wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Wildness was underrated.

Inside Malinka’s tent, the girl had gone quiet. After guiltily hovering another few seconds, Adele turned to return to hers.

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