Nate. I hoped he was doing okay. I didn’t dare call him. Later today, when I went to the hospital to see Pa, I would find him and say hi.
We biked home. I thought it was so weird that we had disappeared and come back, and no one was taking any notice. It left me with the uncomfortable feeling that they were just biding their time, coming up with a plan to really get us.
I gritted my teeth and pedaled harder. I was different than I had been before prison. They would be dealing with a different Cassie now.
When we rounded the Henrys’ field, we saw the SAS van parked in front of our door.
“So they do know we’re home,” Becca said drily.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said.
We dropped our bikes in the yard and Becca strode up to the front porch, where the SAS agent was waiting.
“What do you want?” Becca snarled, stomping to the front door and yanking it open.
The agent looked calm and capable, like they always do. Confidence-inspiring.
“Girls,” she said. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your father passed away this morning.”
Whatever we’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. I actually staggered backward and fell against a porch post. Becca clung to the door as if it was propping her up.
“What?” Becca said.
“Your father was called home to greener pastures this morning,” the woman said. “May I come in?” She deftly eased past Becca and sat down on the settee Ma had refinished years ago. I followed them in, my mind spinning.
“How?” I managed to get out.
The woman looked at me with sympathy and smoothed her navy-blue uniform over her knees. “It’s been a long, slow process, as you know,” she said. “Anyway, this morning it became critical. The hospital informed me that they tried to call you.”
I looked at the black phone sitting on the small table, as if it would still be able to tell me something. “We weren’t here this morning,” I said. We’d been at the Outsiders’ hangout, which had done us no good at all. Pa had died. He’d died without us there.
“I’m so sorry, dear,” the woman said. “I know it’s always hard to lose a parent, even when it’s a blessing.”
Becca looked at her sharply. “Excuse me?”
“A blessing,” the woman said, lowering her voice. “Of course you loved your father, but the way it all happened…” She let her voice trail off, as if we would acknowledge the shame of my father trying to commit suicide by himself.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my voice as cold as a winter storm. My heart felt like ice. While we’d been bicycling halfway across the cell, Pa had drawn his last breath. A deep pain grew in my chest until I thought I was going to be sick.
The SAS officer gave a delicate sigh and shook her head. “The nurse at Healthcare United asked me to tell you about your father, since I was coming here anyway.”
“Coming here anyway?” I asked. “Why?”
“My dears, I’ve come to offer you the benefit of our complimentary service,” she said, as if surprised it needed explaining. “You can’t keep this farm up by yourself. Your parents are now both gone. Without schooling or a vocation—”
She was saying the same things I’d been thinking myself, but hearing them from her enraged me.
“Get out,” Becca said. Her nose was pink and her jaw was quivering.
“What?” the SAS officer asked.
I stood up. “Leave now, and don’t come back.”
“We don’t need your services,” Becca said, advancing on her.
“We’ll never need your services,” I added, standing next to Becca.
The SAS officer drew herself up. “My dears, I don’t think you realize the position you’re in. Certainly the painless, complimentary gift of a gentle farewell shouldn’t be sneered at.”
“And yet, I am sneering,” Becca said.
“Girls, please,” the SAS officer said. “Your lives here simply won’t work now. If you choose to accept this gift, then you can have the pride and joy of knowing that you’re making way for two brand-new little babies. Isn’t that nice?”
“If you want to keep your face, you need to get out now,” Becca advised, and pointed at the open front door.
“You have no future here!” the woman cried, picking up her black bag.
“No,” I said. “You have no future here.” I gave her a fast shove out the door and we slammed it after her.
For a moment Becca and I stood there, wide-eyed and breathing hard. Then, for the first time in a long time, Becca broke down. She put her fist to her mouth, tears already streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, God,” she said. “Pa.”
Words couldn’t express everything—anything—I was feeling. I nodded, and then we stood there and hugged each other and cried about Pa.
102
BECCA
WE TALKED AND DIDN’T TALK, cried and didn’t cry. Much later, Cassie looked up from the sofa, where she was lying, holding a pillow to her chest. Then she frowned and sat up a little. “What’s that noise?”
I listened for a second. “Sirens? Geez, maybe a fire truck? Is there a fire around here?” Then it hit me. “Oh, shit,” I said. “This is it. Where’s Pa’s gun?”
“I lost it the night I got taken,” Cassie reminded me. “I told you.”
“Crap, right,” I said.
“Baseball bat,” Cassie said, and ran upstairs to get her aluminum slugger. I went into the kitchen and got a couple of carving knives.
It seemed to take a long time for them to get here. My nerves were razor-sharp; all my muscles zinging with anticipation. I felt like I was going to explode.
Cassie’s eyes were fixed on the long road leading to our house, at the clouds of dust the cars were stirring up around them.
“You know, Beck—I was thinking about when we were in prison. What were they training us to do? To be?”
“Uh—assholes? Fighters? Bullies? Psychopaths?”
To my surprise, Cassie smiled and looked at me, and right in that moment she looked so beautiful and angelic that I wanted to smack her.
“Nope. I’ve decided that they were training us to be heroes,” she said, and hoisted her bat to her shoulder.
“What?”
They were close enough for me to count: all six of our police cars were there, the Provost had his shiny gas-powered car, the SAS van was there (of course), and there were a bunch of other vehicles like Hoppers and mopeds and the bigger family cars we all called Biscuits because they were roundish and tan.
“Yeah. We can fight now—ruthlessly, even if we don’t want to,” she said as the cars turned down the smaller dirt road leading to our house. “But we still care about kids, people weaker than us. We still felt bad when they died.”
I was so hyped-up I could hardly think straight. “Heroes?” I repeated.
She gave me another beatific smile. “Yep.”
The crowd seemed to swell and grow, getting bigger and longer like a parade.
We’d closed and locked our ancient driveway gate, and shook our heads when the Provost’s car honked its horn. After it honked several times, the car backed up and rammed our gate, lifting one side right out of the ground.