Randall walked out without looking behind him to see if June would follow.
He went to the front window and peered between the boards. June hung back, watching him.
“They took the Prowler,” he said, more to himself than to her. “But they left the other car. If they didn’t cut the brake lines or something.”
“I don’t think they would,” June said. It was the first thing she’d said in hours, and her throat cracked with thirst. “I think Violet wanted us to be able to get back to the village.”
“You obviously don’t know the first fucking thing about what that bitch wants,” Randall said. “Who the hell would’ve had sex with her? That’s what I want to know.”
June retreated to the kitchen, found one of the water skins on the counter. She nosed it to the edge, mouthed the nozzle, and pried the cap off with her tongue, guzzling down as much as she could before Randall could find her and stake a claim. He had driven the lead car in; he had the keys. Violet and the OLE group had taken all the weapons. Satiated, she backed up to the counter and opened a drawer as softly as she could, hoping to find something, anything: a knife, a screwdriver, a goddamn fork. The room was on the east side of the house and dim. She was working blind, anyway. She twisted her shoulders until the bones popped and reached her bound hands as far back behind her as she could without pushing the drawer shut with her bottom. The pad of her middle finger caught a splinter, nothing else. Kill him with a splinter, she thought senselessly. She leaned forward again and scooted to the right. Eased open another drawer.
“What are you doing back there?” Randall yelled from the living room.
She debated whether or not to answer him. Her fingers fumbled against something smooth. Cool and metal. Gritting her teeth, she leaned back and was able to close her hand around it. “Trying to get some water,” she called back.
His heavy footfalls thundered toward her. She hurried back to the counter and stood beside the drained skin just as he entered.
“You have better saved me some,” he said. He picked up her skin and tossed it down, throwing her a dark look. She bobbed her head toward the cooler.
“There’s more in there. I promise.”
He threw the lid open and found a full skin, dipped his head through the strap and mouthed the nozzle. His throat worked. Then he exhaled, pawed around in the cooler some more, and found a second skin. This, too, went around his neck.
“I’m going to go see if the car will start.”
“Are you planning to leave me here?” June asked.
He stared, his eyes getting a faraway look that she assumed was his version of deep thought.
“I should,” he said finally. “Look what you got us into. That crazy bitch you call a daughter, my God. Murdering Joe. Leaving us here to help those Zoners.”
“I wonder how everyone would react if you came back without me,” June said.
“If I told them you was dead and Joe was dead and Violet split crazy, I reckon they’d be grateful I made it back alive.”
“Maybe,” June said. “Or maybe you overestimate how much you’re liked back home.”
He considered this. “Maybe. Or maybe you do, June. Maybe you’re the one who has it wrong.”
Violet’s parting words came back to her: I love you, but I can’t live with you. I’m sorry.
“You could be right about that,” June said.
“I always thought you didn’t have it in you to do what needs doing. Sometimes I wanted to just say”—he looked left and right, miming bewilderment—“are you seeing what I’m seeing? Is this our . . . I don’t know, our fucking mayor or president or whatever? Our dictator, more like it. But why? Based on what?”
He waited for her to respond to this. When she didn’t, he shrugged. “Anyway. I’m checking the car. I might be back. I need to think about it.”
“I’ll wait here,” June said pleasantly.
“You do that,” Randall said.
When the front door slammed shut, she thumbed the box-cutter blade and popped the zip tie; it took seconds. Which was good. She needed every moment she could get. She peered through the boards over the picture window. Randall had reached the car, opened the driver’s-side door. He was leaning over the steering wheel instead of sliding in behind it—also good. If he decided right now to turn the ignition, lock the doors, and take off, there wouldn’t be a thing in the world June could do about it. The chances she’d find a car out here that would start were one in a million, maybe one in a billion. But she didn’t think that Randall would take even that chance. No, if he was bent on returning to Ruby City without her, he’d kill her first.
He turned the engine off, stood. Looked at the house.
June’s heart, always doing its silent, mostly unnoticed work, made itself known now. She’d felt this before—this exhilaration and terror, this bodily response to some deeper call, some instinct in her marrow. She had more experience than Randall would guess at doing what needs doing.
He drew the water skins off from around his neck, moving as deliberately as he’d done with the rifle when Violet held her gun on him. Tossed them into the car’s passenger seat. Leaned behind the wheel again, and the trunk popped open. Get the tire iron, Randall, June thought. Let’s finish this.
—
She didn’t like being on the road at night. With no streetlights to penetrate the darkness, she was forced to rely on the car’s weak headlights, which, even set on bright, picked up the craters in the road maybe seconds before June would have to swerve to miss them. So she went slowly. Maddeningly slow. What she wanted more than anything was to walk into her house and into Roz’s arms, and when she’d done that—when she’d been restored to the one person in this life that she could count on—she would find the words to explain what had happened today, and she’d try to make sense with Roz of how Violet had done what she had done, and why, and together they would decide what came next.
What came next. What came next? They no longer had Marta Perrone or Wes Feingold. If Marta made it back in-zone, she’d be able to tell her husband everything about Ruby City. Violet could draw him a map right to their Town Hall.
Violet wouldn’t do that. Would she?
Randall had been right about one thing: June had no idea what Violet was capable of.
Pregnant, she thought again, shaking her head in wonder.
It had been the parting blow. “I’ll finish up here,” Violet had said, and the OLE group had left the house with Andy hauled between Wes Feingold and the big olive-skinned man, the pretty young woman following with a gun pointed to his back.
When the outside door had slammed shut, Violet turned to June. She engaged the gun’s safety and slid it over her shoulder.
“Is this when you explain to me why this happened?” June asked. “Because I really want to know, Violet. I really want to know what I did to make you hate me so much.”
“I don’t hate you,” Violet said. “I love you, but I can’t live with you. I’m sorry.”