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“I see him.”
As the zom tottered closer to them, Morgie saw that he was wrapped by creeper vines, as if he’d stood for so long that they’d grown all over him. He’d seen that before, and it made him sad. It was such a lonely and terrible thing. Waiting forever.
“We better git before we get bit,” said Riot, and gunned her engine. The roar of the quad motors—a sound rare and unnatural in all this tranquility—had almost certainly triggered the creature from its lonely vigil.
Morgie scanned the overgrown fields of the big farm. “Don’t see any others. The house looks to be in good shape. Be nice to sleep indoors.”
“Glad you ain’t ending the day without at least one good idea,” said Riot. Lately that was the kind of thing she said. Little digs. Once upon a time she’d joked like that, but now neither of them was smiling. Certainly not at each other.
Morgie winced but turned away to keep it from showing.
He loved Riot, but wasn’t sure she was capable of returning it. Not really. Even Riot admitted that she was damaged goods. After all, she’d grown up as a reaper—as Sister Margaret—in the Night Church. During those years she’d been physically and verbally abused by Saint John and his senior reapers. She was emotionally scarred in ways Morgie could never really understand. Before meeting up with Benny, Nix, Chong, and Lilah in Nevada, Riot had never lived in a town. She’d never had a loving family, and had no idea at all what a normal life was like. In that regard she was much like Lilah—though not as distant and strange. Nix told him it was huge that Riot could fit in at all, or that she could love anyone ever.
Morgie tried to be an adult about it, to be understanding and accepting and patient. But Riot’s words still hurt.
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
The old schoolyard rhyme never made sense to him. Of course words could hurt. They punched faster and smashed harder than any physical weapon. Morgie was a good fighter, but one of Riot’s comments could slip through his guard and draw blood.
He suspected that Riot was on the verge of breaking things off completely, and maybe by insulting him she hoped he’d be the one to leave first.
Fat chance, he thought. Stabbing words or not, he loved her. He just wished he knew how to be in love with someone like her.
She snapped fingers in front of his face, startling him. “Hey, Earth calling Morgie Mitchell. You even in there?”
Morgie growled something and tried to swat her hand away, but she pulled it back too quickly.
“Let’s go,” he mumbled.
“I’m already gone,” laughed Riot as she zoomed away down the hill.
Morgie lingered a moment longer, slowly gunning his engine. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
11
THEY STAYED THE NIGHT IN the old farmhouse.
They worked together to clear the place—checking each room and closet for lurking zoms—and found nothing. They cooked a meal in silence, ate in silence, and went to bed in separate rooms on separate floors.
He sat up for hours, weary beyond words but unable to sleep.
Morgie understood heartbreak. He’d been in love with Nix his whole life, and had nearly died trying to protect her from Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer. But Nix only ever had eyes for Benny.
Then he’d met Riot and fallen very hard for her, intrigued by her exotic looks, her complex history, her humor, and her strength. She’d even loved him, too. Or said so.
Now, though, that love was fading into a dusty nothing that matched the entire landscape of the world.
He sat up, staring out through a crack in the shutters at the endless field of stars. Remote and cold. He couldn’t touch them, either, and they were indifferent to him.
Sleep finally took him, and he fell a long way into bad dreams.
In the morning, exhausted from that kind of night, he helped repack the quads, and they continued on. There was a long way to go, and he was sure he was going to feel every inch of every mile of the journey, knowing he could not catch up to Riot in any way that mattered.
PART THREE NEW ALAMO
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
—MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
