“Listen to me, honey. Felix is a made-up name. He’s my son. His name is Samson, and Bathsheba is his sister.”
“But why would he—” she says.
“Well, for one, to get away from me. But two, he was raised outside the law, you feel me? A sovereign. And there are—issues in his past. Things he’s running from.”
Story starts to laugh. In the space of an hour she has lost her entire family and learned that her boyfriend is an entirely different person. It’s so absurd, so outside the boundaries of human comprehension, that her mind decides to treat it like a joke. And so she laughs, and then she starts to shake, because the truth is, if this is a joke, then she’s the punch line.
Simon puts his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s been a long day.”
Avon spits on the ground. His right hand is throbbing now. There’s Tylenol in the bag on the ground, but he doesn’t reach for it.
“Where are my kids?”
Simon glances at Girlie, topping off the tank. She’s on her phone, talking to someone. Avon takes a step forward.
“The world’s on fire, boys and girls, and I’m three thousand miles from the bunker. You got thirty seconds to tell me where my children are, or I’m gonna put a big hole in your heads.”
“We don’t know,” Simon tells him. “We got separated. I was with Felix—Samson. We were—the Wizard took her, your daughter. E. L. Mobley.”
“The billionaire?”
Simon nods.
“In Marfa. We went there to save her, but when we broke in, it was an ambush, and we—we never saw her. I’m not even sure she was there.”
“But she’s in Palm Springs.”
“Maybe. That’s—before we split up, we figured out how to send a signal. At least one of my friends is in Palm Springs. I don’t know where the Prophet is, but he says we have to save her, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”
“The Prophet and the Wizard.”
Simon rubs his eyes. “It’s a long story.”
Avon thinks about the Witch in the flames.
“Take me to them,” he says.
“Look,” says Simon. “Thanks for the ride, but I think we’re gonna—we need to find our friends. Hitch a ride, I guess. Maybe, if we find Bathsheba, we can call you.”
Avon stares at them. He feels that same dawning flood that came over him when Fat Eddy started telling him about all that money locked in a hidden government account. Purpose. He feels purpose.
“Wait here,” he tells them.
Girlie is screwing the gas cap back on the Kia. Avon comes over.
“Babe, I need you to call one of those Uber things, take your sister back to the airport. Take her home. Call Charlie One-Eye. Tell him it’s the D-Day scenario. He’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“Why?” she says. “We have the car.”
“I need the car. The kids know where Sheba is, they say, and maybe Samson. I gotta find them. That’s why I’m here, I think.”
“You’re here to get Rose, and we got her and it’s on fire and we have to go home. You have to take us home.”
He ignores her, goes to the back door, opens it. He shakes Rose by the shoulder.
“Rose,” he says, “time to wake up.”
He turns back to Girlie, who is standing there, her mouth open.
“Get on your damn slave device and call yourself another car,” he says. “I’m taking this one.”
He pulls Rose out of the car. She blinks groggily under the yellow fluorescents.
“Kids,” calls Avon. Simon and Story look over. Avon beckons. “Time to go.”
They exchange a look.
“Haul ass,” he says. “We’re gonna find your friends.”
Simon grabs Story’s hand, leads her to the car. Avon opens the trunk, takes out Girlie’s suitcase, rolls it toward her.
“I’ll call you when it’s safe,” he says, then gets in, slams the door. Simon puts Story in back, opens the passenger door. He sees Girlie and Rose staring at him, offers a halfhearted wave.
“Stay safe,” he says, then squints. In the orange glow of the new day, he sees something in the shadows behind a dumpster. A black figure, crouched down, watching. It smiles with bone-white teeth.
Time
Chaos descends. Information and disinformation collide. The only common language people speak now is violence. Emergency rooms all over the country are flooded with gunshot victims, beating victims, stabbing victims. After the Senate bombing, cars and trucks become weapons, bats, boards, frozen water bottles launched from T-shirt guns. Individuals aggregate, become crowds, human mobs drawn outdoors by outrage and fear. The time for talking has passed. Reports from the street echo reports from other streets. Face-offs between men and women screaming into one another’s open mouths under a summer swelter to accept reality. But what is reality, if not conflict?