The Invasion of the Tearling

Jonathan hesitated for a long moment, eyes gleaming and hand clutching the banister. Then he tucked the gun back inside his jacket and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway, as silently as he’d come.

TWO HOURS LATER, Lily hobbled slowly toward the nursery. She’d meant to check on the woman much sooner, but in the end she broke down and took a hot bath. Even after an hour soaking in the tub, she could barely walk. She would have taken some aspirin and gone to bed, but she didn’t like the idea of the injured woman sitting in the dark nursery alone. Lily didn’t know whether Jonathan had gone to check on her; he appeared to have disappeared from the property again.

Greg had gone to Washington for his crisis meeting at the Pentagon. Above the stone wall around the garden, Lily could still see the orange bloom of flames, the thick smoke that obscured the moon. They hadn’t been able to get the fire under control yet, and Pryor was still burning. Had Dorian Rice built the bomb herself? Where had she learned that kind of thing, young as she was? The Blue Horizon recruited many veterans, both men and women, who had returned from the oil wars to find themselves unemployed. But Dorian looked too young to have done a single tour of duty.

When Lily reached the nursery, she slid the dimmer switch on the wall panel up slowly, not wanting to scare the woman if she was asleep. But Dorian was awake, lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling, looking lucid for the first time. Lily set a bowl of broth and a glass of water on the table in front of her, and Dorian nodded thanks. She had sharp eyes; they tracked Lily’s every movement and grimace as she limped across the room.

“Looks like we’ve both been through it today,” Dorian remarked. “Where are we?”

“My nursery.” Lily reached the loose tile, but now she faced a logistical problem: squatting was simply not going to happen, not tonight. She was reduced to pawing at the tile with her toes. After an interminable period, during which she could feel the young woman’s eyes pinned to her back, she managed to work a toenail beneath the edge of the tile and flip it up and over. She bent one knee and stuck her other foot out, gracefully, like a ballet dancer, flipped two books out of the hole, and pushed them over to Dorian, who picked them up off the floor and flipped through them appreciatively.

“Where’s a woman like you get real books?”

Lily bit her lip, not sure how much to tell. What if this woman were taken for interrogation?

Dorian grinned, showing a missing incisor. “You’re already in plenty of trouble, honey.”

“There are a few other wives in the neighborhood who like to read. One of them has family in California with some kind of collection. They bring her books whenever they come to visit, and we pass them around.” Michele could also procure pharmaceutical-grade painkillers for anyone who needed them. Lily wished she had some now.

“Does anyone know I’m here?”

“Jonathan does. He went to let some other people know.”

“I won’t be here long, then.”

“You can stay as long as you like.”

“Dangerous for you. I bet Security’s all over this town.”

“Yes.”

“When they don’t find me, they’ll start searching houses.”

Something new to worry about. But Dorian didn’t look particularly worried, so Lily shrugged and tried to look nonchalant as she sat down carefully in her favorite armchair. She tightened up everything in preparation for the landing, gritting her teeth, but when her ass met the cushion, it still started all over again. She should have taken the aspirin.

Dorian yawned. “I’m getting sleepy. If you decide to call Security, do me a favor and shoot me in the head first.”

“I won’t call anyone.”

“Good. Because I’m not going back into custody.”

Lily swallowed. She thought again of the blank door, that day in Manhattan, the group of uniformed men hustling the man in the suit inside. She had never found a single article or news report about what went on behind that door. “What’s it like?”

“What?”

“Custody.”

“Oh, it’s wonderful. They serve you steak and whisky, and when you go to bed, there’s a little mint waiting on your pillow.”

“I’m only curious.”

“Why do you care?”

“My sister—” But Lily found she couldn’t finish that thought. Did she really want to know what had happened to Maddy behind that door? “Nobody talks about it.”

Dorian shrugged. “It’s bad. For women especially.”

“Women have a bad time everywhere.”

“Oh, get off it, rich lady. Sure, you walked in here limping and shuffling, but we’ve all done that walk. You should be thankful he was the only one.”

Lily swallowed again. The throb between her legs, the raw-rubbed skin, suddenly felt much worse.

“I need to sleep. You can go.”

“I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”

“There’s no need for that.”

Lily leaned back in the armchair, crossing her arms.