“Let you run off with these stories that could completely change our lives?” Cate demanded. “Some of these things could really endanger us.”
Junior inhaled. “All right. All right. I guess this is goodbye.” He rose, moved for the door. He tried to meet my eyes, maybe to telegraph an apology, but I stared into the corner of the room. Let him go, then. Junior had been with me from the start, my whole search for my mother beginning with a lie I hadn’t been able to see right in front of me.
“Wait,” Isabelle said. She was still watching the TV screen, but her voice held a command that stopped Junior in his tracks. “Leave the car with us,” she said.
He scoffed a laugh. “And how the hell am I supposed to get out of here?”
“You’ll figure it out,” she said, unperturbed. “We need it. We’re going to Freshwater.”
He made a frustrated sweep with his hands. “You girls want me out of your lives? Fine. Fine, you got that. Congratulations. But now you’re on your own. Figure it out yourselves.”
Part of me wanted to just leave Tom alone, forget about him as quickly as possible, let this wound of betrayal begin to heal over. But another part of me, closer to the surface, sharper and angrier, wanted revenge. “You took our stories, we take your car,” I said.
“You owe it to us.” Isabelle turned her head slightly toward him, still sitting on her heels like a little kid. “We’re going to find Josephine’s mom.”
“That’s not—” Junior started, but Isabelle stood abruptly, in one fluid movement, and crossed the room toward him. She was swift and sure as a blade, her gaze unwavering. Even Cate and I stepped back, instinctively self-protective in the face of an unruly power.
She reached for Junior, rising on tiptoe to close her hands around his throat, her small, thin hands cupped around the cage of his Adam’s apple. Like they’d known each other a long time and Isabelle had complete familiarity with his body. Junior seemed to realize this too, a flush spreading down his neck. Then his face tightened. Blood, red and glossy, seeped out his nose, his ears.
I watched for a second, entranced. There was something beautiful about watching her disassemble a body so efficiently. The opposite of Cate’s palms gluing the world back together. When Junior coughed, his skin growing waxy-gray beneath the blood, I stepped in. “Isabelle,” I said. “Don’t hurt him.” But it was half-hearted. I’d thought that revenge would ease my anger, but it only made it grow, bouncing higher like a flame fed with gasoline.
Junior’s lower face was brightly striped with blood now. His eyes darted to me, helpless.
Cate was businesslike as she moved over to Isabelle and pulled her away from Junior. Isabelle held on as long as she could, but Cate was strong, certain. Finally Isabelle’s hands dropped away, and Junior fell to his knees on the carpet, coughing wetly. “Fine,” he muttered, blood staining his teeth. “Take the car. Just don’t think you’re the heroes in all this.”
Walking over, I knelt next to him, looking him right in the eyes. He was breathing hard. All that history shimmered between us. Junior, taking my hand when I was lost, smiling down at me. Junior as my partner in crime, my compatriot. My friend.
“It’s our story, either way,” I said softly, letting my voice be raw and tender, not hiding my sadness behind the shining heat of anger. “Leave us, Junior.”
42
“Well, this is it,” Cate said.
We crowded on the porch of a small apartment complex. Concrete-encased yard. Yellow siding. Poorly maintained, but lived-in: fresh oil splotches in the parking lot. Mother Four was the last Homesteader on the list. The final piece of the puzzle. I was one big raw nerve of anticipation.
“If Gina’s been reckless enough to be making the news already,” I said, low enough that I wouldn’t be overheard, “maybe we shouldn’t push our luck. Not all the Homestead survivors have been happy to see us. Let’s be careful.”
Cate and Isabelle nodded their agreement. The idea of all those dead birds, thousands of them, their heartbeats stilled in midair, their feathers scorched. The seriousness of this had grown in my head. Gina might be more powerful than the rest of us. And she obviously wasn’t trying to hide her abilities, the way the rest of us had managed to do so far. I remembered that bird on my mother’s lawn and something began spinning together. What if, in reaching out to the others, my mother had summoned one of them to her? What if Gina had come to my mother?