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“Maybe I won’t.”
“They’ll take you. Arrest you. Make you disappear,” warned Ford.
“Only if they see me coming,” she said. “Only if they can catch me.”
“You’re fifteen!”
“Stop saying that. They didn’t care that I’m fifteen when they brought my mother back to my house. Twice. Besides, maybe they think my being fifteen means I’m just a kid, that I can’t do anything. That I’m not a threat to them.” She paused. “They’re wrong about all of that. They won’t think I’ll come after them. They’d never think that for a moment. They’ll try and come for me instead.”
The Chess Players kept protesting.
Gutsy fell silent but kept smiling.
Sombra growled, low in his throat. As if he understood. As if he approved.
60
GUTSY TALKED WITH THE CHESS players for a while longer, mostly building a list of people in town they thought might have some knowledge of who the Rat Catchers were, or who had spoken out in the past about the base.
Then she left them and slipped quietly out of the building with Sombra, keeping to the shadows. Fear seemed to crouch on her back like a parasite, though. Her heart kept hammering and did not want to settle down, and chilly fear sweat dampened her clothes. Every face she saw seemed to be turned toward her with suspicious, guilty eyes. Every mouth seemed to be set in a sneer, every glance was an accusation. It irritated her to feel that kind of paranoia, because it distorted her perceptions. Knowing that did nothing at all to help shake the feeling that she was in a town filled with potential enemies.
There were spies in town. There were scientists in a secret lab somewhere. There were soldiers in a hidden base. And there were insane wolf packs of infected killers trying to build an army of living dead.
Gutsy wanted to find a rock and crawl under it.
Gutsy wanted to find the people who did this and kill them.
Gutsy wanted her mama to be there to make it all okay again.
She walked on, feeling the world fracture a little more with every step.
Her route back home was a wandering one, allowing her to surreptitiously check to see if someone was trailing her. If they were, they were better at it than she was at spotting it. Sombra didn’t bark, whine, or growl, however, so that was a comfort.
Not having Spider or Alethea to talk to hurt.
“Mama,” murmured Gutsy, “why’d you have to go away?”
Sombra whined softly and leaned against her for a moment as they walked. Once more Gutsy wondered if Mama had somehow sent the coydog to her. It was a silly thought, she knew, but it seemed impossible to shake.
It spooked her and it felt good in nearly equal measures.
She passed the Chung house and flinched when she saw a familiar figure standing in the yard, hanging freshly washed clothes. The skirt Alice was pinning to the line was no longer smeared with horse manure. The torn blouse was nowhere in sight. As if sensing her approach, Alice lowered her arms and turned. She was pretty and slim, with hair as black and glossy as a crow’s wing. As black as Gutsy’s own, though longer. Some people in town thought Alice was Mexican with strong Native American blood, which wasn’t that much of a stretch. The Asian influence in the Indios was evident in a lot of people Gutsy knew. She even had a bit of it herself. Mr. Urrea had talked about what he called the “global genetic melting pot” that was the Americas. However, Gutsy’s skin took a deeper tan and Alice’s face was pale. And lovely. Always so lovely. She’d even looked pretty when she was mad.
Gutsy stopped by the small wooden fence. Alice stood where she was, a clothespin in one hand and a basket of laundry at her feet.
“Hey,” said Gutsy. Not the world’s most clever opening, but it was what she had.
There was a beat before Alice said, “Hey.”
And a whole bunch more beats as Gutsy sorted through a thousand possible things to say, ranging from clever to apologetic. All them sounded lame.
“Earlier . . . ,” she began.
Alice blinked once. Very slowly. Like a cat.
“You’re never clumsy,” she said.
“Um . . . what?”
