“Is it true?” Atticus asked, sitting on the counter. “What you told me back in Lexington City? That you lived in the forest, hunted and fished and farmed?”
I nodded with my mouth full. “Mmm-hmm”—I swallowed—“My father and my sister and me; we lived on our own for a long time.” I sucked at the hot sauce on the tips of my fingers.
“And what about your mother?”
My mood shifted in an instant. I went back to eating. Atticus sat across from me, his long legs covered in camouflaged pants, dangled over the counter.
“My mother died a long time ago,” I said, as if it were nothing.
(Sensing her discomfort, I abandoned the topic.)
“How long did you live like that?” he asked. “In the forest?”
“I was eleven when The Sickness hit, so it was about seven years.”
“So, you’re eighteen now,” he said.
I nodded, sucked on a finger. “Almost nineteen, but I don’t know exactly. Maybe I am nineteen. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” I said, and added, “And you were never attacked until now?”
I shook my head and swallowed down the last bite. “We had some close calls,” I said, recalling each one. “But in the beginning, we had more ammunition. And more people. The people in our town were very close; we stuck together, protected each other and what little we had.” I wiped my hands on my dress. “Some died of old age. Some died of disease. Some left and never came back. Some…well they couldn’t go on and died in their own way.” I paused, thinking of my mother and my sister, and then I looked at Atticus’ hands again. “And some died from infection.”
He glanced down at his cuts. They were healing; a thick layer of blood had dried in the wounds, along with dirt that still had yet to be washed out. He had argued before that we didn’t have enough water to be using on cuts he “knew” wouldn’t get infected. I thought he was just being stubborn.
“I don’t know who attacked our town,” I said, “or who killed my father, but…” I couldn’t finish. I felt vengeful in my heart, but my conscience got the best of me. Like my father, I believed there was good in everyone, and it was easy for me to forgive. But I could never forgive those who killed my father, and I couldn’t deny, every day when I woke up, the darkness growing in my heart.
“That man who brought us to the city,” I went on, “he told us it must’ve been the cracks who attacked our town.”
ATTICUS
I looked at my hands again, but I wasn’t seeing the cuts anymore. With regret in my heart I curled my fingers, stretched the battered skin over the top of my knuckles just to feel the pain.
I couldn’t say anything at first. I didn’t want to. But I knew I had to.
“It wasn’t Marion’s party that attacked your home, Thais,” I said at last. “But it was a party from Lexington City.” I tightened my left hand into a fist, so hard that the flesh broke, reopening the wound over my knuckle. Blood trickled over the top of my middle finger. “I heard the men talking about it in the bar one night.”
Thais stared across the room seemingly at nothing, her gaze fixed on the window over the kitchen sink. I did the same; the pinkish-purple sky in its transition from day to night blurred in my vision.
She broke her attention from the window. “Nothing to do about it now,” she said, pretending to be indifferent, I knew—I had mastered that game.
I hopped down from the counter and went over to her, bothered by her lack of emotion—if it were me, there might be a new hole in the wall, or I would’ve already stormed out of the house to find and kill the ones who destroyed my life. But Thais and I were like night and day, darkness and light, hard and soft; I embodied violence and retribution, while Thais, she seemed to personify…hope.
“It’s okay to be angry,” I said, standing tall over her small form. “If you need to take it out on me, I welcome you to.” (I want you to!) I crouched in front of her, eye-level, forcing her to look at me. “If you want to hit me, or claw my eyes out, or”—I reached behind me, balanced on the toes of my boots, and pulled the gun from the back of my pants—“if you want to shoot me, I won’t stop you.”
She looked down at the gun, and I urged her to take it, but she pushed my hand away.
“I could never kill a person in cold blood,” she said. “Least of all you.”
“Why not me?” Why would she say such a thing?
“Because you’re not the man you believe you are.”
Taken aback, I rose into a stand.
“I’m every bit the man I believe I am,” I said, and then slid the gun back behind me. “I could’ve left Lexington City a long time ago…” I turned my back to her and went slowly over the yellow-tile floor toward the counter again. “Whether or not you can kill me, you can’t think that way about everyone, Thais. You’re not in the forest anymore; you don’t have a town full of people with weapons to protect you. You’re out in the open now, and like animals in hunting season before the world went to shit, you’re fair game, and every season is hunting season.”
“I know,” she said simply.
“Then don’t ever say you could never kill a person,” I scolded.
Thais sighed.
“You don’t understand,” she began. She stood from the chair. “I would defend myself, Atticus. If I had to, if I was forced to, I would kill. But I hope it never comes to that.”
I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think she really believed herself.
She lowered her eyes. “It just doesn’t seem right to take someone else’s life if I can’t even take my own.”
I shot her with a reproving look.
“So, you’re back to that again,” I accused. “Don’t make all this be for nothing.” I pointed at the floor, gritted my teeth. “You’re too strong for that; you deserve better than whatever waits for you on the Other Side—there’s nothing over there but darkness. Take your own life, the cowardly way out, and that’s what you’ll get—darkness.”
I didn’t realize how deeply my words cut her until it was too late to take them back. Thais’ shoulders stiffened; her pale, freckled face, tempered by anguish.
“So that’s what you believe?” she said critically. “You think my mother and my sister were cowards, and they’re just out there somewhere, floating around in nothingness? No absolution? No peace?”
I sighed. Why the fuck did I say ‘cowards’?
“I didn’t mean that—look, I don’t know what happens after we die, but…” Something occurred suddenly. I stepped up closer to Thais. “Your mother committed suicide, too?” I didn’t know an easier way of asking.
THAIS