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He’d been a warrior, she thought. He had that controlled danger under the easy. She’d seen that control in Max, seen him develop it as he’d led people, had them depend on him.
Now she sat with another warrior, another leader.
“People are stronger together. I know how to defend, too.”
“I got that impression. I’ve had it since I found you in the henhouse.”
“I didn’t always. In New York—was it really only months ago?—I liked to shop, to plan dinner parties. I liked to dream about opening my own restaurant one day. I’d never held a gun, much less fired one. And my power … it was barely a whisper.”
“It seems you’ve found your voice then.”
“It’s more being found. If you hadn’t come back to help your parents, would you have stayed in the army?”
“No, it was time to get out.”
“What did you want to do?”
He realized they were having the longest and certainly the easiest conversation they’d had to date. With a dead man a few yards away. Christ, he wondered why it didn’t strike him as strange.
“I thought about starting a business maybe, in the town up the road that’s not a town anymore.”
“What kind of business?”
“Making furniture. That was kind of a hobby of my father’s, and I picked it up. A little business working with my hands, on my own time, in my own way, close to home because I’d spent so much time away.”
The light began to settle toward twilight, and he found it too easy to just sit, talk with her about old dreams as night approached.
“Anyway, I’ve got to dig a hole.”
He walked off to get a shovel.
Lana stayed where she was, crossed her hands over her belly. Despite the death, the violence, the threat, she felt safe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the end, Lana had her way. She couldn’t go into the settlement, nor have anyone come to her. Either might put lives at risk if the Purity Warriors came back.
Her child had spoken to her, and through her. For now, she believed things were as they were meant to be.
She cooked, gardened, gathered eggs, and took comfort in the simplicity of the quiet.
As summer waned toward fall, she harvested vegetables, canned them for winter use. Made jams and jellies while Simon mowed and baled hay, cut wheat for the meal, hauled corn to the silo or the kitchen.
One day he brought back seeds he’d bartered for—three each from the fruit of dwarf orange and lemon trees. She found them as priceless as diamonds.
“Could work,” he said as they potted them for the greenhouse. “Lemonade on the porch next summer.”
“Duck à l’Orange next fall.”
“Maybe we’ll find lime. Tequila shots.”
She laughed, carefully covered a seed with soil.
“You must like tequila,” he commented. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you really laugh.”
“I’m planting orange seeds in dirt sweetened with chicken poop and imagining knocking back some tequila. It’s pretty funny.”
“My dad always said a little chicken shit’ll help grow most anything.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Curious, she went with instinct, held her hands over the pot. She let it flow through her, in her, of her, out of her.
She felt the rise, the pulse, and the power.
A tender green sprig broke through the dirt, reached toward the light.
She laughed again, a sound that began on amazement, ended on joy. Beaming with it, she looked over at Simon, found him staring at her.
“That’s a hell of a thing,” he managed.
“If you’d rather I didn’t—”
“Do I look stupid to you?” he demanded, eyes firing green under gold. “The world is what it damn well is. As it is, I’m a farmer who’s got a witch who can give the crops a boost. Have you got a problem with what you are?”
“No, but—”
“Why should I? The way I see it, the biggest problem we’ve had, right from the get, is people pointing fingers and worse at ones who aren’t just like them. We ought to try to do better this time around. It might be our last chance to get it right.”
He tapped another pot. “Do this one.”
She let it come, all joy now. Then stepped back from the tender sprout.
“I don’t know if it’s me or her or us. But I know she changed me. If I woke tomorrow, and all these months had been a dream, I’d still be changed. Oh!” Once again she laughed as she pressed a hand to the side of her belly.
Those kinds of moves and gestures made him twitchy. “You okay?”
“Yeah. She’s kicking.” Surprising them both, Lana took his hand, pressing it to her stomach.
He felt a jolt, one that went straight into him. Life kicking against his hands, and for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, into his heart.
Someone grew inside there, he thought. Someone innocent, helpless. Yet from the strength of the kick, fierce.
“She’s … got some sass.”
Now he stepped back as Lana’s face was nearly as luminous as it had been when she’d brought life out of the dirt. The look of her, bold and glowing, stirred something in him just as the child stirred in her.
He’d been careful, damn careful, to avoid that.
“I’ve got work I need to get to. Can you handle the rest of this?”
“Yes.”
When he left, she stood quietly with the scent of dirt and growing things.
* * *
Simon kept busy, and treated Lana like he’d have treated a sister if he’d had one. Twice in September groups passed by. She stayed in the house and out of sight, wary.
He gave them supplies, directed them to the settlement. Some would stay, others he knew would continue on. Searching for something else, something more. Just searching.
After he saw the second group off, Simon came into the kitchen to find her stirring stew on the stove with the shotgun propped beside her.
He moved it to the back door.
“Eight people. One of them had wings. I can’t get used to seeing that. They skirted around D.C. a few days ago.”
Since the table was set—she tended to fuss with that sort of thing—he washed up in the sink.
“They heard gunfire, saw smoke. One of them was getting the hell out when he hooked up with them. He said, word is— God, what’s her name?” He paused, rubbed his temple. “MacBride’s still alive, and what’s left of the government’s trying to hold the city. Every time they get communications up, somebody takes it out again.”
“It seems like another world. Like a story about another world.”
“Yeah, it does. But it isn’t. There are rumors about people in camps and labs.”
“Magickal people?”
“Yeah, but not just. The estimate is…” He’d considered saying nothing to her, had nearly convinced himself to take that tack.
But he couldn’t.
“I’m telling you because it’s not right you don’t know, but it’s not confirmed, okay?”
She turned to him. “Okay?”
“They’re saying the plague’s finished, run its course. That’s the good news. The bad is they’re estimating it took about eighty percent of the population. That’s world population. That’s more than five billion people. It could be more.
“I need a drink.”
He went to the pantry, got a bottle of whiskey, poured two fingers.
“I heard the same a few days ago.” He downed half the whiskey. “There’s a guy with a ham radio in the settlement, and he’s been able to reach a few others—even a couple in Europe, and it’s no better there. Adding the ones who offed themselves, the ones killed for the fucking hell of it, you can up the percentage. New York … Do you want to hear this?”
“Yes. But more, I need to hear it.”
“New York’s under the control of the Dark Uncannys. There’s talk of human sacrifice, of s
take-burning people like you—who aren’t like them. The military’s holding some areas, especially west of the Mississippi, but from what I get, the chain of command’s pretty fractured. There are offshoots, and they’re posting bounties on all Uncannys: dark, light, doesn’t matter.”
“The Purity Warriors.”
“They’re leading the charge. Raiders are keeping mobile, doing hit-and-runs. And they’re bounty hunting.”
Calmly, she ladled stew into one of his mother’s fancy dishes—she did like to fuss. “So it’s bad for everyone, but for someone like me? We’re hunted by all sides. It’s hard to believe what you said the other day about getting it right this time could happen.”
She carried the bowl to the table.
“I have to believe it.”
Now she ladled stew from the dish to the bowls.
