And my reward for that was the feeling of her arm’s birdlike bones twining around my neck. I twisted around so that I was facing her, because I wanted her to see my face—I wanted her to see how serious, how sincerely I meant it when I repeated myself. “You are incredible.”
“You two have been busy, I see.”
Liam leaned against the aisle’s endcap, eyebrows raised. Zu bounded toward him, scooping up the shirts and socks she’d picked for him.
“Thank you—oh God, Chubs is going to piss his pants when he sees this!” His hand came down to rest on top of her head. “Jeez, I leave you two alone for a little while and you clean out the joint. Good job.”
I pushed myself up off the floor, helping them gather up the clothes and supplies we’d managed to scrounge up. That done, we started our slow, reluctant shuffle back to the others. All three of us seemed to be aware that once we left that peaceful moment, it would be behind us forever.
Zu had only just darted out a few steps ahead of us when Liam turned to me and said, “Thanks for doing this. I’m glad you got what I meant.” He gave my braid a little playful tug. “I just wanted to ask them a few more questions.”
“And you didn’t want”—I nodded toward Zu—“to hear?”
He looked down at his feet, and when he looked back up, his ears were pink. “Yeah, but also…you were kind of distracting them.”
“What? I’m sorry I threatened them or whatever, but—”
“No—distracting them,” Liam repeated. “With your…face.”
“Oh.” I recovered quickly. “Did you get anything useful out of them?”
“The names of a few of the friendlier tribes, a few cities under lockdown for insurrection—stuff like that. I just wanted to get a sense of what was happening in Virginia.”
“I meant about the Slip Kid,” I said, maybe a little too eagerly.
“Nothing we didn’t have before. Apparently everyone takes some sacred oath not to reveal more information than that. Totally ridiculous.”
“They really wouldn’t give you any more information?” I said.
Liam looked down at the ground. “Greg made us an offer—a trade—but we turned him down.”
“What did he want?” What was so valuable that they wouldn’t trade it for the one thing that would reunite them with their families? Black Betty?
“Doesn’t matter,” Liam said, and there was finality in his voice. “If those numbnuts managed, I’m sure we can find East River ourselves. Eventually.”
“Yeah,” I said, with a light laugh. “True.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him hoist the pile of clothes onto his shoulder, his gaze never leaving where Zu was hopping and skipping through the field of cans and old magazines. I glanced down at a blond movie star’s face as we passed it, my eyes falling over the words SHE FINALLY TELLS ALL printed under her face.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Why are you looking for the Slip Kid?” I asked. I felt his eyes on me, and I knew what explanation was coming. “I mean, besides wanting to help Chubs and Zu get there, and trying to deliver Jack’s letter. Is it because you want to go home, or…?”
“Any reason in particular you’re asking?” His voice was even. Testing.
“The questions you were asking them about the camp,” I explained. “It just seemed like you were trying to figure something out.”
Liam didn’t reply for a long while, not until the tents they’d set up for the night were in sight. Even then, it wasn’t an answer. “Why do you want to find the Slip Kid?”
“Because I want to be able to see my grandmother.” Because I need to understand how to control my abilities before they destroy everyone I care about. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
Zu dashed through our tent flap, and the lantern in the tent lit up Chubs’s delighted face. When she handed his new things over, he folded her into an enormous hug, lifting her off her feet with the force of it.
“It’s…the same as you,” he said. “I just want to get home.”
“Where’s that?”
“See, that’s the funny thing,” he said. “It used to be North Carolina, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
We stood staring at each other for a moment, nearly toe to toe, and when he lifted the flap of the tent for me, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had picked up on my half-truth as easily as I had picked up on his.
SIXTEEN
IT WAS AN HOUR, MAYBE MORE, before liam’s breathing evened out and he began to snore. He slept flat on his back, his hands resting against the soft flannel of his shirt. His face, which earlier had seemed marked by old, bruising shadows, looked young again. He might have been able to pass as a twenty-year-old with his facial scruff and solid build, but he didn’t fool anyone while tucked away in sleep.
His face was turned toward Zu, who slept between us under a mountain of blankets and was currently the only thing that was keeping me from inching closer to him; from slipping my hand under his bigger one and learning the contents of his dreams.
But the distance between us was there for a reason. Imagining a future in which I didn’t exist, in which I had unwittingly erased myself from his memories, kept my hands pinned under my legs and my mind, for once, in check.
When I heard Greg and his pals stir in their tents next to ours, I finally gave up all pretense of sleep. Their voices began as a low murmur indistinguishable from one another, and grew louder as the minutes ticked by. Finally, they turned their lantern on to the lowest setting, just enough to be visible through our own green tent’s shell.
I slipped out the other side of the tent, careful to keep my footsteps soft against the concrete. Their whispers grew in volume and urgency the closer I came.
“—them,” Greg mumbled. “We don’t owe them anything.”
My hands clenched at my side, all of the anxiety and distrust that had been swelling up inside of me over the past few hours coming to a head. For a single second, I wished that I had brought my backpack inside the store with me. The panic button was there, waiting to be used if the situation blew up fast and ugly. Stupid Ruby, I thought. Stupid.