Monument 14: Savage Drift (Monument 14 Series) (17 page)

And then the “Star-Spangled Banner” started playing.

Nothing about the drifts.

Did he not know? Was that possible?

If the Network had been running, everybody would know. There’d be images and videos and alarms going off all over the online world.

But only the government had access to the Network now.

It made me feel scared. What else were they keeping from us?

“They’re gonna impeach Booker,” Jake snorted. “The drifts. The NORAD thing. The way he’s handled everything.”

“No, they’re not,” I scoffed. “Who told you that?”

“Rocco.”

“Are you serious? He was a right-wing idiot—”

“Hey!” Jake said, pressing a finger into my chest. “Don’t speak bad of the dead.”

And he held my glance for a moment. His head wavered as he tried to look me in the eye.

Then he threw up his hands and laughed, trying to play off his serious tone.

“I’m just joshin’ you, man,” he said. “Sometimes I think you’re really lame, Dean. A real wet blanket—”

“Oh God, shut up, Jake,” Astrid said from the front seat.

“Let me finish, now, let me finish,” he drawled. “But then I see you’re not such a d-bag. There. See? I had something good to say.”

I chuffed a laugh. Some compliment.

I didn’t respond. Maybe he’d fall asleep. He was drunk enough. Heck, maybe he’d fall out of the car.

“Anybody want some Goldfish?” I asked. “There’s also a box of Golden Grahams and some kiddy applesauce squeezer thingies.”

I tossed up some juice boxes into the front seat, too.

We ate, we drove. Niko said we were at least four hours from Mizzou, though we’d need gas before then.

We still had our gas credits, whatever that meant. I realized we still had our money, too. We’d never paid Rocco.

Niko encouraged us all to get some sleep.

*   *   *

I guess I drifted off because I woke up to Astrid saying, “There! I heard it again! Didn’t you hear it?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Niko said and he shut off the radio.

“Pull over,” Astrid commanded.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Just pull over, Niko. Right now.”

Niko pulled onto the shoulder and cut the engine.

We waited. Jake snored. I started to ask Astrid more about this phantom sound but she cut me off, holding her hand up. Her head was cocked.

And then I heard it.

A soft, muted thumping. Coming from behind me.

And a wail. “Mommy!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JOSIE

DAY 33

We stay in the room until dinner.

Lori won’t let anyone leave.

“Look,” she says. “We go straight to Plaza 900. We eat. We come right back.”

“Why?” Aidan wants to know. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“When’s Mario coming back?” Heather adds. “He should be back by now. He should be here.”

“You heard what Josie said, the doctors are doing their best and we can go back and visit him tomorrow.”

I lay on our bed and look at the wire frame and the stained mattress on the bunk above us.

It was bad, what I had done.

I can see that.

The part of my mind that is still reasonable and well oiled murmurs and tuts inside my head:—Am I suicidal? Is that why I had beaten those boys?

I am done for.

Or am I just a dumb animal now, going on instinct, defending Lori because she is my tribe?

My actions mean she is in for it, too.

In trying to defend her, I have probably doomed her.

And then the darkest, secret voice whispers that we’re all doomed anyway and it’s not my fault.

And that feels good to hear, even if it feels a little dirty to think it. It is true, after all.

*   *   *

The dinner tone comes over the PA system.

One chime—time for the first group to head to Plaza 900. That is us.

*   *   *

There is no talking, no whispering from the kids.

They are simply scared to go to dinner without Mario. They have no idea of the danger I have put us in.

We all hold hands. Aidan’s hand like ice in my right. Heather’s like ice in my left.

*   *   *

Entering the cafeteria it seems to me that a hush falls over the room.

There is no sign of Carlo or the other Union Men.

We walk to the line.

Lori says we should all stay together at all times.

Maybe she thinks the presence of the little kids will keep the Union Men off us.

We go to the line and get trays.

People shush as we approach.

It is eerie.

A man gives me a little salute and a woman with him pushes his arm down and hurries him away from us.

We get our food.

“Where’s your fella?” the cafeteria lady asks me.

“He’s in the clinic,” I tell her.

“Aw,” she clucks. Then she leans forward to whisper. “Look, he asked me to do something. I don’t know. Can you tell him I’m still thinking it over?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, looking away.

She presses an extra dinner roll into my hand. “You tell him it’s from Cheryl.”

“I will,” I say.

Cheryl gives all the kids extra spaghetti and, what’s more, an extra meatball each.

A little boy named Jonas runs over to Aidan.

“You guys are in some kinda trouble!” he says cheerfully. “My daddy said the Union Men is out for you all!”

“No!” Aidan retorts. “That’s dumb. We gave them oatmeal just yesterday and ALL our sugar! They’re on our side now!”

If only.

*   *   *

We go ensemble to a table. People go back to their eating and talking, but we get a lot of glances.

The food tastes like tomato-covered wood pulp, to me, though I see the little boys eat up their large helpings with gusto.

So the word is out that the Union Men were going to come for us. It explains the death pall we’d brought over the cafeteria.

“I’m not going back with you,” I say quietly to Lori. “You take the kids and you get back to the room and lock the door.”

Lori looks at me, her eyes red, her thin brown hair limp around her pale face.

“And you’ll do what? Hide somewhere?”

There is sarcasm in her voice and for the first time, I actually see the girl.

She isn’t as pasty as I thought. She has some spirit.

Maybe she will make it.

“I’m going to fight them,” I say.

She shakes her head, her mouth set in a grim, determined line.

I slide my hand into hers so she’ll really look at me.

“The thing is, I’ve been ready to die for a long time, Lori,” I say quietly and my throat gets a little constricted, eyes a bit watery, maybe.

But it is the truth.

“No,” she says. “We can make it to the room. We can make it one more night.”

“And then what?”

She squeezs my hand hard.

“You are going to make it through the night so you can see Mario in the morning and then you’re talking to the reporters and getting out of here, Josie Miller.”

I look at her for a beat.

Maybe she really will make it.

The kids are done eating now, and starting to fidget.

“My tummy hurts,” Heather says.

It was likely the extra meatball.

“Let’s go,” Lori says.

We rise and then a skinny mother, a woman from our hall, stands up at the table opposite us. She elbows her kid—a teenage girl I’ve seen shuffling around. The two of them, and three more people from the table behind them, get up.

“Are you headed back to the dorm?” the lady asks us.

Her voice is narrow and shaking.

These are the first words she has ever said to us, and she lives right on our hall.

“Because we’re headed back, too.”

And as we start to walk toward the door, people cram the last plastic forkfuls of pasta into their mouths and chug their milk.

Soon we have an escort of fifty or sixty people, herding us toward the dorm. I recognize one of the men—he is the guy who had fought to get me free, when I was trapped in the Men’s hall. Patko.

As we walk, whispers come to us.

“We’ll help you any way we can.”

And, “Don’t be scared, kids. It’ll be all right.”

The skinny mother grabs my hand and squeezes.

“We’re praying for you,” she says.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DEAN

DAY 33

“There’s a KID in the TRUNK!” Astrid said, scrambling to release her seat belt and open her door.

I practically fell out of the car.

Niko was frantically reaching around the dash, trying to find the trunk release button or knob or whatever.

He pulled it and
thonk
, the trunk came up and I skidded around the bumper and there was a little girl. A toddler with black hair matted down by sweat. She had skin the color of caramel and big brown eyes. She wore a sweater dress and little white shoes.

The toddler saw Astrid and me standing there and burst into sobs.

Astrid stepped forward and took the girl in her arms.

Astrid looked up at me. “Juice box. Now.”

*   *   *

I grabbed a juice box as Niko came around the car.

“Whoa,” he said.

“Yeah,” I answered, putting the straw in and handing the box to Astrid.

The crazed (now-dead) mother of this child had made a nest for her little girl in the trunk of the sedan.

There were blankets and two or three sippy cups.

There was also a large pack of diapers pushed to the side.

“We tailgating?” Jake asked, stumbling to us. Then he saw. “Hey, who brought the baby?”

He patted the back of the toddler. She pulled away from him and cried all the harder.

“Mommy,” I said, nodding to the trunk so he could see the nest of bedding.

“Wow. That’s … that’s…”

“Sad? Horrifying? Tragic?” Astrid offered as she bounced the little girl.

“Lucky we found her in time,” he said.

“Okay, okay,” Niko said. “We need to think. We need to get off the road and think.”

“I need to change her first,” Astrid said.

I got a whiff of the kid. Yes. She had to be changed.

*   *   *

Astrid held the girl on her lap and we drove to the next truck stop, fifteen miles down the road.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” Astrid had asked her, but the girl wasn’t talking. Maybe she couldn’t talk yet. It was hard to tell how old she was. Maybe two? Maybe less?

In the backseat, I picked up one of the photo albums that we’d thrown behind the headrests.

The album started with the mom we’d seen hugely pregnant, being hugged by her husband. Some of those kind of sappy naked-belly photos with the man placing his hands reverently on her giant, round globe of a stomach.

Then there were photos of the hospital waiting room. Parents milling around. Two families, one black, one white, waiting it out with expressions of nervous excitement. Some older kids playing around with bubble gum cigars.

There was the dad, grinning broadly, coming to tell them the news.

There was the mother, holding the little, squished-up, squalling baby.

Lots of photos of an older boy holding the newborn. A cousin? A brother?

Some embarrassing photos of breastfeeding.

And amid many, many photos of this baby girl dressed in many cute outfits, some of which featured headbands, tutus, and/or animal ears, was the girl’s birth announcement:

Our baby girl has arrived!

Rinée Lea Manning

Born May 14, 2022 at 11:56 p.m.

7 pounds, 9 ounces • 20 inches

“There’s a birth announcement in here,” I said. “Her name is … Rin-ee?”

“Rin-ee? How’s it spelled?” Astrid asked.

I spelled it, complete with the accent.

“I bet that’s pronounced ‘Renée.’ Is your name pronounced Renée, sweetie?” Astrid asked the girl.

The toddler nodded and in a very soft, quiet voice she said, “Winée.” It was the first word we’d had out of her.

*   *   *

Niko pulled into the parking lot at the service station. It was one of those big ones, with a bunch of chain fast-food restaurants inside. There were plenty of cars clustered in the spaces near the station. Who knew how much food there was to be found inside.

Niko parked at the far end of the lot—away from the rest of the cars, near the place where the asphalt ended and a small wooded area began.

We all got out of the car.

It felt good to be out in the air. The afternoon was turning gold—it would soon be time for dinner, if we could afford any.

Astrid rested against the car, the toddler squirming to get down.

“Okay, okay,” Astrid said.

The girl went right for a puddle about ten feet away.

“I’ll watch her,” I told Astrid. She looked like she needed a break.

Rinée looked up at me with some suspicion. When I offered her my hand to hold, she marched right away from me and headed to the puddle.

“What are we going to do?” Astrid asked Niko.

Rinée jumped in the puddle, splashing her legs with the muddy water.

“Ew!” I said with a smile. “Yucky.”

“Yuck!” she repeated.

“We can’t go on with her,” Niko said. “She has to go back.”

“We can’t go back to Vinita,” Jake argued. “What about the drift?”

“Maybe it’s moved out by now,” Astrid said bleakly.

“Yuck!” Rinée yelled, splashing again.

She bent down to pat the water with her hands. That was just too gross for me.

I bent and scooped her up.

She screwed her face up, like she might cry. I twirled around, spinning her in the air.

She laughed.

“Moy,” she said.

“Moy?”

“Moy woun’!”

More around. Okay. Rinée could make her desires known verbally. That would be helpful.

I twirled her again and her laugh broke out—like a bell ringing. Oh, it was a sweet sound.

I laughed with her.

“We have to take her back, Jake. She has a dad. He’s probably worried sick.”

“He’s probably dead!” Jake shouted. “Let’s be honest!”

His face went all red and then he burst into sobs.

“Like her mother. She’d be alive—,” he cried. “She’d be alive if I had just been—smarter, faster, I don’t know, BETTER, I could have shot that guy and she’d be alive.”