“I don’t know. I might. I don’t respect you; I know that.”
“People change, you know? I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Lewis has changed. Everyone is changing and the change is not good. Not good at all.”
She grabs him by the arm and tries to drag him away from the others. “We need to talk.”
“No!” He jerks from her grip. “No. I know they feel the same. I know they do.” He makes a sweeping gesture with his arm. “How could you not? This is suicide. Am I right? This is suicide.”
Their faces, wrapped against the cold, give nothing back.
“You’re wrong,” Clark says. “They don’t. They believe that we’re going to get through this, like we’ve gotten through everything else, and our lives will be better for it.”
His vision shakes. He can’t seem to settle his eyes on anyone or anything. “Let’s vote, then.”
“Don’t be weak, Reed.”
“Let’s put it to a vote.”
Her hand tightens around his arm, as if it were a neck to strangle. “Shut up, Reed. Please, please, please shut up.”
He reels against her and breaks her grip, but it turns out she was the only thing holding him up and he falls to the ground. “You talk about America. You talk about democracy.” He knows he sounds out of breath. “So let’s vote. We’ll vote. We keep going or we turn back.”
Everyone is motionless, studying him. He knows how he must look. Like a crazy person. Kneeling on the ground. His arms outstretched, beseeching them. His hat has fallen off and his hair thorns from his head. He stands and brushes away the snow that clings to him. “Who thinks we should turn back? Who thinks that?” He holds a hand up, as high as it will reach. He tries to smile but can feel the smile failing. He studies each of them in turn. They all look away except for Lewis. “Not even you, freak show? No one?”
“That’s right.” Clark crosses her arms. “No one. Now, pull yourself together.”
The horizon is lit red by the oil fires. A black snow begins to fall and blur the air, filling up their tracks, the way home. He cannot do it alone. The distance traveled and the dangers faced already feel impossible. He will starve or he will freeze or he will bake. He will fall or something will fall on him, a boulder or branch. He will succumb to a snakebite and wander for hours in a fever while one of his limbs purples and swells. He will be torn to pieces, a feast for the beasts and birds and bugs. There will be no marker for his grave except a half-buried pile of sinewy bones riddled with tooth marks. And even if he made it, even if he somehow stumbled out of the desert and into St. Louis, toothless from scurvy, mad with loneliness, what then? Maybe he would knock on the gates and shout, “Let me in, I’m back, so sorry to have worried you, it was all a dreadful mistake!” Or maybe he would sneak in, wait outside the Dome until Danica emerged for a walk, then grab her by the wrist, say, “It’s me!” She would pull away from him, he felt sure. She wouldn’t recognize him, just as Clark didn’t recognize him. He didn’t recognize himself anymore. And then Thomas would lop off his head and hang it somewhere for everyone to admire. It is clear now: if he returns, he will fail, and if he keeps going, they will fail. He is a failure. Life is a failure.
“Fine.” Reed nods. “Okay. You’re right. I can see that you’re right.” He keeps nodding, even when he withdraws his revolver and puts the muzzle in his mouth and pulls the trigger.
Chapter 33
DANICA KEPT THE dagger. The one she found on Resurrection Day, in the stadium, when the girl was marched to the gallows, when her husband applauded, when she snuck away and Reed bent her over the table littered with weapons. He filled her, again and again, until she felt something unraveling inside her, as if every ligament and tendon and muscle fiber and nerve ending were loosening at once—and she reached for something, anything, to stabilize her, before she came undone. It was the dagger her hand curled around then. In a way she never let go.
The blade is six inches long, the hilt four, the guard the same. It is flat, meant to be worn close to the skin. She spears cockroaches with it. She tosses it, end over end, into wood floors for the satisfying thunk it makes. When she holds it up to a band of sunlight or moonlight, it makes a shadow like a cross on the wall. When she draws it across the skin at the inside of her thighs, it traces a thin pink line that wells into red dots. She keeps it sheathed beneath her dresses. She sleeps with it beneath her pillow. There is something reassuring, boosting, about always having its sharpness nearby. Maybe that’s how men feel about their cocks.
She had a blade when she was a girl. A belt knife. Her grandfather gave it to her, said it wasn’t a toy but a tool, said she should learn it like a limb. She carved her name into stucco, carved dwarves and goblins out of wood, carved up meat and cheese, carved off the ear of an older boy once when he tried to get between her legs.
Her hand is on the dagger and she is awake the moment her door cracks and the boy steals his way into the room. She watches him with her eyes half-lidded. Watches him watch her. Then study his surroundings. He wears a backpack. No shoes. When he whispers toward the dresser, she expects him to reach for the jewelry box atop it, but he does not. He slides open one drawer, then another, her underwear drawer, and reaches in. He is a pervert, then.
She could call out for help. But she has always preferred to take care of matters on her own. So she slides out of bed, slides across the floor, so quietly the air seemingly cannot grip her. She wears a silken slip that makes no noise.