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“I should’ve said hot and toned ass. Eddie’s got Joe, Max plans and figures.”
“Plans and figures?” Lana repeated.
“What to do, when and how to do it. What’s next, what’s needed. It’s why he’s in charge. It’s why we’re glad he is. Shaun—I know he screwed up—but he’s messed up about his parents and doesn’t want to show it. He’s scared, and doesn’t want to show it. He reads, he does puzzles, and he joneses because he can’t play vid games. If he could…”
“What?”
“I know it’s not essential or practical, but it’s therapeutic.” Kim smiled a little. “Like Scrabble. If Shaun could have an hour a day to fire up his Xbox, we could cut corners on fuel somewhere else. If you could ask Max—”
To cut Kim off, Lana held up a hand. It couldn’t, shouldn’t be all sacrifice, she thought. There had to be living, too.
“We don’t have to ask Max on everything. But I will tell him I think it’s a really good use.”
“Great. Good. I’m going to finish by saying we all find our ways, but Eric and Allegra are acting—most of the time—like this is some party and they’re a little bored with it, and us. So they get a little drunk, have a lot of sex, shrug off their assignments, have more sex.”
“Have they been?”
“Having sex?” Poe put in. Snorted. “Rabbits are awed.”
“No, shrugging off assignments.”
“Look, we’re not tattlers,” Kim began.
“Speak for yourself.” Poe jabbed a finger at Kim. “Yeah, most of the time. One of us gets it done because it’s not worth the trouble.”
“Party’s over,” Lana announced. “Everybody pulls weight, everybody follows the rules. And don’t make me feel like the damn den mother.”
Allegra walked back in, eyes damp, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She set opened bags of chips, cookies, some sodas, a bottle of wine on the counter.
“You can check our room. I swear this is all, but you can check.”
Lana said nothing, simply started to add the items to the inventory.
“I know it was stupid and selfish. It was childish. I’m sorry. I’m scared. I know I complain about being bored. I don’t know how I can be bored and scared at the same time, but I am.”
“We’re all scared.” The shrug in Kim’s voice didn’t offer much sympathy. “You get rid of boredom by doing something.”
“It’s easier for you— It is! You’re all stronger or smarter or just more capable. I’m trying. I swear, I’m trying. But it’s more, okay?”
She pressed her fingers to her eyes, swiped away the dampness. “I think I’m probably in love with Eric, but he scares me, too. He scares himself. What’s happening to him, it’s so much. It’s so much, and it’s so scary. Can’t you understand?”
Lana thought of the moment on the bridge in New York, that slap of power, and softened a little. “I can. Max and I can help Eric.”
“I know.” Allegra turned to Lana, looked at her as if Lana held all the answers. “Eric knows. He’s … Okay, he gets a little jealous and resentful of Max, but he’s trying. And honestly, I promise, I’m helping him, too. I can make him laugh, or think of something else, or just let him vent, right? It’s just, sometimes it’s so much to handle, you know? And I swear I’m doing everything I can to keep Eric, well, level. I know taking the food was wrong, but it distracted him. And it was fun. I’m ashamed to admit it, but it was fun and it distracted me, too. It’s so much to deal with, it’s all so big, and I’ve never had to deal with … Everything that’s happened, being here, cut off this way, what’s happening with Eric, and how I feel about it. All of it. I’m just scared, and I’m trying.”
She choked out a sob, covered her face with her hands. “Don’t hate me. Maybe I’m just not a nice person, maybe I don’t know how to do things like the rest of you, but I’m trying.”
“Okay.” Lana moved to her. “All right. But we all try together. And nobody hates you.”
Sniffling, Allegra wrapped her arms around Lana, held tight.
“You piss me off.” This time Kim offered a physical shrug, but kept her voice light. “But I don’t hate you. Much.”
On a watery laugh, Allegra drew away, breathed out. “Thanks, I really mean it. I’m just going to go up, pull myself together. Then I’ll come down and do something, like Kim said. I’ll do something.”
When Allegra left, Lana walked back behind the counter. “It’s hard,” she said. “All of this is hard. I guess we need to give one another a break now and then.”
“Sorry counts,” Poe added. “And I guess I didn’t really think about what it must be like to have all that power and stuff going on. You’d know more about it.”
“It’s a lot to handle. For those of us who do, and for those who don’t.”
Eric raced in with an armload of wood. “I can hear them. I heard them coming. It sounds like the truck. It sounds bigger than the car.”
“Thank God.” Grabbing a coat on the way, Lana ran outside.
* * *
Eddie drove the SUV, trying to pack the snow down further, to give Max and the truck better traction. They’d grabbed a couple of bags of sand from the gas place, laid them over the tailgate of the SUV so they spilled out sand—with Max’s witchy-woo help—along the road.
But it was rough going.
He knew Max pushed it—with his Craft—and still the truck labored. As the incline steepened, he gritted his teeth as if pushing the truck himself, until sweat rolled down his temples, the back of his neck.
“Come on, Max, come on.”
As he topped the incline, he saw the house. Felt a new flare of hope as Lana ran out. He saw some of the others sprint out after her.
“We’re going to do it.” Then in the rearview, he saw the truck slide a full yard back. “Fuck me!”
Lana threw out power, imagined it like a hook and chain, latching onto the truck, pulling it up the hill. Her heart hammered through a vicious tug-of-war, then she felt the chain snap tight and begin to pull.
“Help,” she snapped at Eric. “You can help.”
“Trying.” His face went white, his eyes dark. “It’s so damn heavy.”
“Try harder. Pull!”
Another foot, then another, then she felt, finally felt, Max’s power mate with hers. She focused all she had on the baby-blue truck with the big white barrel, with the man she loved inside.
“He’s going to make it! He’s nearly at the pull off.” Poe ran, slipping and sliding along the path they’d dug in the snow.
“Don’t let go yet,” Lana told Eric. “Don’t let him go.”
“We’ve got him.” Eric clamped a hand on her shoulder. “Look, look, he’s at the pull off, he’s at the generator.”
When she saw Max was safe, she let go and ran.
Eric glanced back toward the house, saw Allegra, blew her a kiss. He spotted Shaun in his bedroom window, waved enthusiastically.
When she got to the pull off, Lana leaped into Max’s arms. “You did it!”
“Touch and go.” Breath labored from the effort, he rested his brow on hers. “Your touch turned the key.”
“Man, getting that big bitch up here took some doing.” Poe punched Max’s shoulder, faked one at Eddie’s. Then his jaw dropped when he saw the supplies loaded in the back of the SUV.
“What? You hit Sam’s Club?”
“Grocery store.”
“They had all that?”
“It’s a story,” Eddie told him. He wiped at his sweaty face. “Now we have to figure out how to get the gas out of the truck into the generator.”
“Max will figure it out.” Eric gave his brother an apologetic smile. “He got it here. Sorry, bro. Way, way sorry.”
“We’ll talk about it.” But he laid a hand on Eric’s shoulder, shook it. “And, yeah, we’ll figure out how to fuel up the generator.”
“I know how.” Shaun lost his balance on the shoveled path, went down on his ass. His glasses bump
ed down his nose.
Poe stepped to him, took his arm, helped him up.
“A nerd’s nerd.”
His ass wet, Shaun still managed a smile. “Yeah. I used to hang out when the gas guy came up to top it off. I like seeing how things work.”
“Show us how it’s done, my man.” Eddie stepped back as Joe sniffed manically at his boots and pants. “I’m going to get the supplies up to the house. Lana, why don’t you ride with me? You can take a look.”
She caught his exaggerated eye roll, gave Max a last squeeze, then climbed in.
“You hit the mother lode of supply stops.”
“Yeah, we did. They had a drugstore, too. I slipped what you wanted in my backpack. Otherwise, Max would’ve wondered what the what.”
“Thanks, Eddie.”
“I’m just gonna say good luck, ’cause I don’t know which way you want it to go. Front outside pocket.”
“I’m going to take your pack upstairs with me. We have to unload first. I have to do inventory. We have to keep an account, then I’ll go up.”
“Go up now while most everybody’s down below. It doesn’t take long, right? There was this girl once, and she thought maybe. Wasn’t, so whew, but I remember it doesn’t take long. I’ll say you went up to get some socks since you ran out in your shoes and they’re all wet.”
“Good. That’s good.” She slung his backpack over her shoulder, climbed out to go to the back and take a load in.
“I’d taken off my boots.” Allegra grabbed a cardboard box. “I had to get them back on or I’d’ve been out sooner.”
“That’s too heavy. Take one of those bags instead. You, too, Lana,” Eddie instructed. “And get out of those wet shoes, get something warm on your feet. We don’t want anybody getting sick.”
“You’re right. Just start putting things in categories—canned food, dry goods, and so on. I’ll be right back.”
She ran upstairs, closed the door. Rushed into the bathroom, closed and locked the door. She already knew, but wanted—needed—verification.
