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“How long’s that going to take?” asked Benny, keeping his frustration off his face.
> “The meeting is set for next Tuesday.”
“That’s almost a week from now.”
“It’s the soonest we can get the right people together.”
Benny shook his head. “My friends and I could be halfway there by then. Maybe all the way, if we can find enough gas between here and there.”
“Not a chance,” snapped the mayor. “There’s no way on earth I’m going to let you and your crew take six quads and—”
There was more. There was shouting. It all amounted to the same thing.
• • •
“They said no,” Benny told his friends.
“Of course they did,” said Chong, who was sitting in the shade of the porch. He had been weaving a broad-brimmed straw hat and had a piece of the straw between his teeth. A compound bow and a full quiver of arrows was propped against the wall nearby.
“Solomon, Mayor Kirsch, all of them,” said Benny. “They said they were working on a plan. They said they’d handle it. They said we should try being kids for a while and stop messing in stuff.”
“What’d you expect?” asked Morgie, who sat cross-legged on the porch floor surrounded by a dozen knives of various lengths he’d arranged like a starburst. He ran a whetstone along the edge of an old pre–First Night army bayonet.
“Pretty much expected them to say all that,” said Benny.
Everyone nodded.
“Even after all this,” said Nix. “Even after everything we went through and all the stuff we did, they still think we’re just kids.”
Lilah sat next to Chong and was busy with strips of tough rawhide that she was using to secure a double-edged knife to the length of black pipe she used as a spear. She was smiling as she worked. She often smiled when she worked on her weapons.
Nix and Riot sat on the porch swing. Nix was cleaning and oiling a Glock nine-millimeter pistol that used to belong to Tom, while Riot was sorting small metal ball bearings into the pouches of a green military web belt.
Benny went over and sat near Morgie, shrugging off the strap of the kami katana his brother had given him the night he’d been murdered. Benny eased the gleaming sword from its scabbard and studied the blade. There was so much history in the weapon. Tom had gotten it from Joe Ledger a long time ago when the two of them were hunting for monsters—human and zom—in the Ruin; then Tom had used it as a paid bounty hunter, giving closure to the families of the living dead; and then it came to Benny, who avenged Tom and then carried that sword through the war with Saint John. So much history, so much blood. It was a warrior’s sword. It had never once been used for selfish or cruel purposes, despite the horrible work it had done. After Tom had died, the mayors of the Nine Towns had wanted to put the sword in a museum. Benny declined.
Without looking up from his work, Morgie slid a bottle of oil, a rag, and another whetstone toward Benny.
They sat there and worked as birds sang in the trees.
After a while Nix said, “Riot says she can pick the lock on the shed, so we can get to the quads. Once we’re ready we can just push them out into the field. We’ll mess with the other quads so by the time the guards fix them, we’ll be gone.”
Benny nodded.
“We can take three trailers, too,” added Riot. “We can tow enough gas to get us to Arizona. Maybe Texas.”
Benny nodded.
“Got enough dried meats, canned vegetables, and protein bars to last for a couple of weeks,” said Chong. “Carpet coats, first aid kit, and the rest are in bundles hidden where we can grab them.”
Benny nodded.
Morgie glanced at the others. “They’ll try to stop us.”
“They can try,” said Lilah.
The birds chattered between the leaves, bees and dragonflies drifted among the flowers, clouds tumbled across the sky. The six of them worked.
Nix watched the clouds and didn’t even glance down as she reassembled her pistol. Her hands moved quickly, smoothly, expertly. When she slapped the magazine into the handle, it startled the birds and a few leaped into the air.
