“No way,” I said.
“Way,” he confirmed. “Hawkeye had gone out to relieve himself and had somehow missed the giant gaping hole in the ground. Twisted his ankle and couldn’t climb out of the deep end.”
I tried so hard not to laugh, but it was impossible. The mental image was just too damn good.
Liam reached over and switched on the radio, letting me choose the station. He seemed satisfied with my decision to stay with the Who.
With the window down all the way, I leaned out, resting my chin on my hands. The morning air was warm, licked by the first rays of sunlight. When I looked up past the very tip-top of the wild trees, there was nothing but blue sky.
A small sound, a ghost of a sigh, was released behind us. Both Liam and I turned to look at Zu’s sleeping face.
“Did we wake you up last night?” he asked.
“I caught a little of it,” I said. “Does she have a lot of nightmares?”
“In the few weeks I’ve known her, it’s been an every other night thing. Sometimes she dreams about Caledonia and I can talk her down, but I never know what to say about her family. I swear, if I ever meet her parents, I’m going to…”
His voice trailed off, but the anger coating them had given the air a palpable charge.
“What did they do to her?”
“Gave her away, because they were afraid of her,” he said. “Like, me and Chubs? Our folks tried to keep us hidden, and that’s why we went to the camp late. Zu’s parents actually sent her away when she short-circuited her dad’s car in the middle of a freeway.”
“Oh, God.”
“They sent her during the first official Collection.” He propped an elbow along the door panel and leaned his face against his hand. His Redskins cap hid his eyes from view. “I forgot you missed this.”
I waited for him to explain.
“It was after most people our age had already been taken or were in hiding. The government issued a notice that any parents who didn’t feel safe or capable of taking care of their kiddos could send them to school on a specific morning, and the Psi Special Forces would be there to collect them for rehabilitation. Kept it all very hush-hush to avoid upsetting the children or inciting them to misbehave.”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to force out the images flittering through my mind. “Did she actually tell you this?”
“Tell me—tell me, you mean?” He kept his eyes straight ahead, but I saw his hands choke the wheel. “No. She wrote it out in bits and pieces. I haven’t heard her say a single word since…”
“Since the breakout?” I finished. I felt relieved in spite of everything I knew. “It’s a choice, then, not something they did to her.”
“No, it has everything to do with what they did, and it’s not a choice,” Liam said. “I think maybe the most frustrating feeling in the world is to have something to say but not know how to put it into words. To have lived through something but not be able to get it out of you before it festers. I mean, you’re right—she can talk, and maybe one day she will. After everything I’ve put her through, after what happened…I just don’t know.”
It was the most frustrating feeling in the world, second only to the inherent helplessness that came with being trapped in a camp, all of your decisions made for you. After what had happened with Sam, I didn’t say a word for almost a full year; there was just no way to vocalize that kind of pain.
The radio jumped as we lost the station’s signal, switching through a Spanish language channel, then to one with classical music, before finally settling on the dry, nasally voice of a man reading the news.
“…to inform you that initial reports indicate that four separate explosions were set off this morning in Manhattan’s subway…”
Liam’s finger shot out to switch the channel, but I changed it right back.
“—though confirmation has been slow to come out of the city, we believe these explosions were not nuclear or biological in nature, and were concentrated around midtown, where President Gray was rumored to be in hiding after the most recent attempt on his life.”
“League, West Coast, or fake?” Chubs’s sleepy voice floated up behind us.
“Our sources indicate that President Gray and his cabinet believe this to be the work of the Federal Coalition.”
“Federal Coalition?” I repeated.
“West Coast,” the boys answered together. Chubs elaborated. “Based out of Los Angeles. They’re the section of the government that survived the D.C. bombings and weren’t crazy about the idea of Gray disregarding that whole two-term limit they had set up. They’re mostly talking heads since the military sided with Gray, obviously.”
“Why is Gray in New York and not Washington?” I asked.
“They’re still rebuilding the Capitol and the White House, only it’s not going so well since, you know, they defaulted on all of their debt,” Liam said. “He spread the government out between Virginia and New York for its protection. To make sure none of the fugitive Psi groups or the League got any ideas about wiping it all out at once.”
“So the Federal Coalition…they’re against the camps? The reform program?”
Chubs sighed a little. “Hate to break it to you, Green, but something you’ll learn pretty fast is that we’re not exactly a priority to anyone right now. Everyone’s more focused on the fact that the country is broke as a joke.”
“Who do we like, then?” I pressed.
“We like us,” Liam said after a while. “And that’s about it.”
There were, apparently, only two restaurant chains left in the state of Virginia, or at least the western half of it: Cracker Barrel and Waffle House—and one wasn’t open before nine o’clock in the morning.
“Thank goodness,” Liam said in a solemn voice as he parked a short distance away from the Waffle House. “I don’t know how we would have chosen between these two fine culinary establishments.”
He had nominated himself to order whatever food he could afford with twenty bucks, but refused when I asked if he wanted me to go with him.
Zu held up a small notebook, waving it to get his attention as he stepped outside.
“Done already?”
She nodded.
“Why don’t you have Chubs check your answers? No, don’t make that face. He’s better at math than I am, anyway.”