The Invasion of the Tearling

“Get off her. Right now.”


Greg froze. Lily peered over his shoulder and saw Jonathan, his dark eyes wide and furious, holding a gun to the back of Greg’s head.

“Up, asshole.”

Greg eased off her, sinking back to rest on his knees, and Lily scrambled away, panting hoarsely. She could already feel heavy pressure high on the ridge of her cheekbone, the beginnings of a shiner. She fumbled with her jeans for a moment before she got them buttoned.

“What are you doing, Johnny?” Greg asked, blinking up at Jonathan as though trying to place him. Lily pushed herself to her feet, but found that her ankle would take no weight. She balanced on the other foot, tottering awkwardly.

“You all right, Mrs. M.?” Jonathan asked, never taking his eyes from Greg.

“Fine. My ankle’s broken, I think.”

“Whatever you think you saw,” Greg began, “marital disputes are resolved between husband and wife, Johnny. That’s the law.”

“The law,” Jonathan repeated, and his mouth twisted up into something that might have been a smile.

“Why don’t you go back to the house, and we’ll forget this ever happened? I won’t even report it.”

“That right? You won’t?” Jonathan’s words were beginning to broaden, southern twang showing up between each carefully spoken consonant. Dorian had called him South Carolina, Lily remembered, in an early morning that already seemed like years ago. She stared, transfixed, at the gun barrel pressed against the back of Greg’s skull.

“Come on, Johnny. You know me.”

Jonathan grinned wide, a rictus that showed all of his white teeth. “Yes, indeed, Mr. Mayhew. We have boys like you where I come from. Three of them took my sister for a ride once.”

He turned to Lily. “Go inside, Mrs. M.”

“No.”

“You don’t need to see this.”

“Of course I do.”

“Johnny, put the gun away. Remember who you work for.”

Jonathan began to laugh, but it was hollow laughter, and his dark eyes blazed. “Oh, I do. And I’ll tell you a secret, Mayhew. The man I work for wouldn’t even think twice.”

He shot Greg in the back of the head.

Lily couldn’t stop a small shriek as Greg’s body fell forward to land at her feet. Jonathan leaned down, planted the gun at Greg’s temple and fired another shot. The reverberation was very loud, bouncing off the backyard walls. Security would come now, Lily thought, whether they had found the Mercedes yet or not.

Jonathan wiped the gun barrel on his dark pants and put it away. At Lily’s feet, half of Greg’s head was blown away, leaking steadily into the bright green perfection of the lawn. Lily looked down and found herself covered with gore, but most of the blood was hers, from the cuts on her arms.

“You need a doctor,” Jonathan told her.

“I have bigger problems now,” Lily replied, then reached out and grasped his shoulder. “Thank you.” The words were not enough, but she could think of nothing better, and now she heard the first siren, still distant, somewhere downtown. Someone must have called Security when Lily went through the glass doors. “They’re coming. You should go.”

“No.” Jonathan’s face was resigned. “We take responsibility.”

“You can’t stay here!”

“Sure I can.”

“Jonathan. They’ll never listen. Even if I told them everything, they wouldn’t listen. They’ll kill you.”

“Probably. But I had to do it.”

Lily nodded, trying to think. Even now, at the strangest of all times, the better world was in her head, crowding out all else, every other consideration. It was the river that held her, she saw now, the river with its deep blue water. She had failed in Boston, but here was another chance.

“Give me the gun.”

“What?”

“Give me the gun and get out of here.”

Jonathan shook his head.

“Listen to me. They’ll be coming for me anyway, sooner or later. I can tell the same story, and I have better evidence. Look at me; I’m a mess.”

“You won’t do any better, Mrs. M.; Security is Frewell’s organization, right down to its bones. They’ll look at your face and arms, believe every word you say, and find you guilty, all the same.”

“He won’t let me go, Jonathan. On the ship. I asked and he said no.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you have to go.” Lily looked down at Greg’s corpse, wishing she were as brave as the rest of them, but she knew she was not, and she needed Jonathan to leave, now, before she lost her nerve. “We take care of each other, yes? You did this for me. Now I want you to go.”

“They execute wives who kill their husbands.”

“I’m dead anyway,” Lily retorted, taking a shot in the dark. “On September first, right?”

Jonathan swallowed.

“Isn’t that what’s going to happen?”

“Mrs. M.—”