This a rhetorical question, right? She must know the answer. Except she looks up at me, her blue eyes full of fear for what my answer might be.
“You might be asking the wrong person.” I take the next right and notice a car ahead of us. The way is fairly clear on this road. The obstructing debris—shattered glass, broken down cars, chairs and tables from the nearby restaurants—have been moved to the sides. I don’t warn Hannah or remind her to stay low. She’s scared enough as it is and wouldn’t risk even a small peek out of the window.
“Why do you say that?” she asks.
I sigh and bite down my response. Butt out, those are the words that come to mind first, but I make an effort to be civilized. The fact that I live with animals doesn’t mean I should act like one. I would have answered her that way before The Takeover, but only because at the time she would have been able to find someone else to bond with. Post-Eklyptors, not so much. The going is tough. People who love you and understand you drop like flies at your feet. Now it sort of feels like any stranger you meet can be your friend, as long as they’re the human kind, that is.
“Because I happen to know real monsters. To me, you’re just a girl.”
The car ahead of us turns onto another road. I don’t get to feel at ease for long, though, because another one appears; this one headed in our direction in the opposite lane. It’s a couple of blocks away, so I still don’t say anything. Instead, I look for a way to turn, but the intersecting streets are barricaded. I clench my jaw.
Hannah rests a cheek on her drawn-up knees. Blond hair spills to the side, tangled and dirty. She looks like she hasn’t showered in weeks and, judging by the red circles under her eyes, hasn’t slept much either.
“I keep thinking maybe Dad’s out there, somewhere.” Hannah closes her eyes as if she’s having a daydream. I think she is.
“Stay down,” I say behind my hand. “A car is going to pass by. Don’t freak out.”
Hannah holds her legs tighter, going rigid with tension. I keep my left hand on the wheel and the right one on the gun on my lap. When the car passes—a red BMW—I exchange a glance with its passenger. From here, he looks perfectly human, but my head buzzes, letting me know he’s an Eklyptor. He nods and keeps on his way. I breathe a sigh of relief.
As long as we don’t encounter any morphed creatures with super noses or thermal vision, they won’t detect Hannah. If we run into more scouts, however, we’re screwed. I worry at the leather steering wheel with a sharp thumbnail, leaving marks behind.
We ride in silence for a few blocks. We run into a few other cars, but we pass them without problems, although not without considerable heartburn. For the most part, the drivers look perfectly human, except for one with colorful, butterfly-like patterns on her skin.
The older Eklyptors who have managed to develop useful traits are higher in the pecking order. They were the commanders for the different factions during The Takeover. The newer Eklyptors are the regular “citizens.” They are the ones keeping things going, showing up to work to make sure the cities they stole from us don’t fall apart. So the further we move away from downtown, we should be less likely to run into enhanced beasts. I relax a little.
Finally, I turn onto 15th Avenue East, the road that leads to Lake View Cemetery and my rendezvous with James.
“We’re almost there,” I say.
I stop at an intersection. A car comes to a sudden stop on the opposite corner. My gaze locks with the driver’s. I wait for the buzzing to begin. It doesn’t. I judge the distance between us. The guy is close enough. My head should be buzzing.
He’s human!
My eyes widen in surprise. When he notices my startled expression, his eyes grow as wide as mine and, in the same instant, he steps on the gas and sends his tires screeching and smoking. His car, a white truck, seems to sit still on the spot for a moment, revving, then tears down the street, going from zero to sixty before I blink. I watch him fly by the front of my SUV and disappear down the intersecting street like a bat out of hell.
“Wow.” In spite of everything I’ve seen since I learned about Eklyptors, I’m surprised by this. It’s too terrible an example of what our once-trusting society has become. It makes me wonder about how it used to be. Did we really use to sit next to each other at the movie theater? Dine in crowded restaurants? Shake each other’s hands and say “nice to meet you”?
“What is it?” Hannah asks in a trembling whisper.
“Nothing. It’s fine. Just another used-to-be dying in front of my eyes.”
I move forward, knowing that guy is feeling pretty stupid right about now, though he’s probably also breathing a sigh of relief.
We arrive at the cemetery a few minutes later. The main gate is open. I drive through it slowly, the speedometer needle barely moving from zero. I stop by the same statue of a virgin where I met James once before, the day he took me to The Tank for the first time. I look around but don’t see him anywhere.
“Stay put,” I tell Hannah, then open the door and step out of the car.
A few clouds float above. They are gray, full of the threat of rain. The sun hides behind one of them, and I wish it wasn’t so. A cemetery has enough gloom as it is. A heavy silence seeps from the tombstones and saturates the air. My soul goes quiet and still with respect for the dead. My heart finds a certain peace at the thought of at least some of us being in a better place.
The peace doesn’t last that long. Only until a gust of wind whirls around the SUV and ends up right behind me.
I stiffen. “Hello, James.”
“Guerrero,” he says, pressing one arm around my neck and a gun to my temple. “Hands up.”
“Who’s that?” James demands, gesturing toward Hannah.
I’m sandwiched between the open door and the fastest human being on the planet, as far as I know, anyway. Hannah is still huddled on the passenger-side floorboard. She looks up at us, arms wrapped around her knees, visibly shaking.
I take a deep breath to calm myself. A gun to my temple is a new threat. I wonder if James is serious and took the safety off and everything.
Of course he’s serious, Marci. Don’t be stupid! A heart attack is nothing.
“Um, just a girl. Her name is Hannah.” I remember hearing somewhere that if an assailant knows your name, he’s less likely to kill you. Since he already knows mine, I give him the girl’s. “I was on my way here when I saw her. I wouldn’t have brought her, but two scouts spotted her, too. I couldn’t let them take her.”
“It’s hard enough to trust you already. This is pushing it.”
“I know. I know. But what would you have done?”
James says nothing to that.
“It’s … it’s true,” Hannah says from within the SUV, her voice so weak and shaky it’s barely audible. “She saved my life.”
“Don’t make any sudden moves.” James removes his arm from around my neck and proceeds to relieve me of my gun. When that is done, he steps back and moves his own weapon from my temple to the back of my neck. “Now, step away from the car.”
I do as he says. He sidesteps with me, staying at my back. When we are about ten feet from the SUV, he says, “Hannah, I’m going to need you to get