Sudden Independents (27 page)

Hunter placed the drinks on the table and crossed his arms. “Go away.”

“Whoa! Hey, nice hair. This is between her and me. What’s your problem?”

“She’s my sister, and you smell like a pile of crap. Now take off.”

Ginger tapped Hunter’s leg. He ignored her and glared at the skinny kid.

The kid held up his hands, smiled a yellow row of teeth, and backed away. Hunter watched him until he sat down with a bunch of other kids. They all laughed, but Hunter paid them no more attention.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. He was just rude. You’re lucky he backed down.”

Hunter snorted. “That kid, are you serious? I would have torn him a new one.”

“I realize that, but we’re trying to keep a low profile, not beat up kids with bad manners.”

Hunter conceded with a nod and then forked in his food as fast as he could without thinking about what it might be and how many foreign objects fell into it while it was prepared. Then he washed it all down with water that smelled like eggs. Hopefully, it was purified, but Hunter wished he had brought his iodine.

Ginger picked at her food, following every bite with a drink. She sputtered and started coughing.

“Are you choking?” Hunter asked, rising from his seat.

“At the door,” she managed to say.

Hunter tracked her gaze and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when he recognized
him
. A ripple of anger stopped his breath for a moment.

Patrick stood at the hostess station, giving the little girl on the barstool a hard time. He was bigger than Hunter remembered, but that red hair set him apart like a brushfire. Patrick flipped his casino chip into the can and patted the girl on top of her rainbow cap.

Hunter turned back. He drained his water in two giant gulps.

“What do we do?” Ginger asked.

“Finish dinner. We’ll go outside and follow him when he comes out. Hopefully, he’ll lead us to Catherine.” Hunter wiped his mouth and stood up with his glass. “Can I get you some more water?”

Ginger looked at her empty glass and her plate that was still half-full. “Yes, please.”

Hunter filled their glasses. He didn’t want to go stalk the beast with his brother’s girlfriend. Patrick might recognize him or catch them following and then bad things might happen. Jimmy would never forgive him if bad things happened to Ginger, but Hunter couldn’t send her back to the hideout, either. Too many desperate eyes followed her in the daylight to let Ginger chance Denver alone in the dark.

He was about to return to the table when someone poked his back. Patrick loomed over him like a mountain.

“Hey, man, would you get me a glass of that water?”

Hunter stood for a second with his hands full. He lowered his gaze to the floor. The tops of Patrick’s boots were covered with dark red spots and he smelled like stale sweat. Hunter offered one of his full glasses to the kid that nearly killed his brother three months ago.

Patrick nodded back, oblivious. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Hunter filled a new glass. His shaking hands spilt water onto the counter. His heart raced and he took a deep breath, struggling to keep himself under control.

“Don’t touch me!” Ginger screamed.

Hunter spun to see the skinny kid back at their table, his tongue sticking out, groping Ginger’s chest from behind. She waved her arms in an attempt to fight him off, but he pressed her into the table. He smiled at three other boys standing nearby and laughed.

Hunter exploded into a blind rage. He flew into the kid and pinned him to the ground. Unleashing his anger through his fists, each punch chased the next with meaty thuds.

Someone bumped against his back. He reached behind, grabbed an unknown arm and flung another boy on top of the first. He punched the new kid several times before standing up from the pile, panting. He spotted the other two and stepped in their direction. They retreated, unwilling to join the scrum and ran for the door.

“Behind you!” Ginger screamed.

Hunter whirled. The skinny kid, his face bloodied, sped toward him with a chair held high. Hunter brought his arms up in preparation for the blow. Instead, the boy slid across the table in front of Ginger, scattering the remains of her dinner and crashing to the floor on the other side. Patrick stood in his place.

Hunter clenched his fists. He wasn’t ready for this fight. Not alone.

Patrick’s smile totally disarmed Hunter’s ramped-up adrenaline. “Just a second,” Patrick said, holding up his index finger. The big kid stepped around the table. “Tommy the Perv. How’s puberty, Tommy? Looks like those urges got the best of you this time.”

“Hey, Patrick,” Tommy said, glancing around like he was trying to find a way out of a maze after eating the cheese. “Look, man, I didn’t know this dude was a friend of yours. Swears. I was just talking to his sister, know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean. That’s why you’re the Perv.” Patrick’s face went grim. “You’ve been told to cut the shit. Now get out of my town.”

“But, Patrick.”

Patrick punched the kid so hard that even Hunter’s teeth rattled from the concussive force. The dinner crowd groaned in response to the violence. Tommy the Perv’s face ricocheted off Patrick’s knuckles, and his head bounced back and forth, bobbling like his spring broke.

Patrick pointed to Tommy’s lone friend still sitting on the ground where a smelly puddle gathered. “Help Tommy to the edge of town and make sure he keeps going or you’ll be following him. Got it?”

“I got it. I got it.” The kid took hold of Tommy and dragged him outside. The sound of Tommy’s crying carried through the walls.

All the kids in the cafeteria applauded. What they applauded, Hunter was unsure. All he knew was that he’d just drawn a truckload of attention.

Patrick shook hands with kids like a politician, and even slapped some high and low fives, and bumped a few knuckles. He waved the rest of the applause down and walked over to Hunter.

“Thanks,” Hunter said.

“Don’t mention it. Tommy’s had it coming for a while. She wasn’t the first.”

Ginger shrank in the aftermath.

“Are you all right?” Hunter asked her.

“Yes,” she said, straightening her sweater and tucking a strand of tawny hair behind her ear. Ginger folded her arms across her chest, looking up at him with watery eyes and a trembling bottom lip. “Can we go?”

“Yeah,” he said, offering her help up. She flinched away. He stepped back, aware of her comfort level regarding personal space.

Patrick frowned as they passed. “Hey, man, meet me here for breakfast tomorrow. I’ll get you some decent work to earn your chips. I’ll even throw in extra so she can take the day off.”

“Thanks,” Hunter said. “I’ll be here.”

Hunter followed Ginger out to the dark streets of Denver, wondering if this mission was a success. At least they found Patrick, but Hunter hated himself for not protecting Ginger. Jimmy would not be happy either.

J
immy hated Denver. The city contained more resources than you could dig a shovel into, and yet the kids living there squandered everything. No one tried to make life better. He missed Independents.

The winter snowstorms were unusually harsh, so they waited them out in Independents before beginning their rescue mission. When they found Molly after that first snowstorm died down, they jailed her with Raven, but the two quickly rehabilitated in each other’s company. Catherine did something to Molly, healing her in some way that made everyone more than a little thankful; they didn’t have a single clue what to do with her before the dramatic change.

Raven healed on her own with time away from Chase’s influence, insisting he’s the devil. Jimmy guessed that would explain a lot if it didn’t sound crazy. Chase was evil; there was no doubting that.

After she left jail, Molly focused on psychology and therapy. Hunter found her all kinds of books on subjects like positive thinking, self-esteem and anger management. Jimmy didn’t understand most of it. Molly bugged him to talk about his fear of death. He told her he was dealing with the issue and suggested she work on Samuel’s need for attention, instead.

Raven and Scout started a thing together almost the moment she was released from jail. He just needed to quit calling her by her first name before she would commit to a relationship. Raven offered up the information about Denver without a fight.

Downtown Denver was an upturned graveyard, filled with decayed bones and probably rampant with disease. The skyscrapers were imposing mausoleums. Nobody went downtown.

Most of the kids lived on the northeastern outskirts that stretched along the Platte River, doing different jobs to earn their food. Their farms were supposedly getting better at producing crops, but they didn’t possess the variety Jimmy offered. Eggplant was definitely not on their menu. Mainly corn and potatoes, although their corn was weak compared to Jimmy’s; Independents was in Husker country, after all. The Denver kids’ main sources for protein were chickens, hogs and the occasional wandering elk herd.

Jimmy stood from his chair at the window and stretched as daytime ended with the sunlight drifting from the house like smoke, leaving the in-between shadows of twilight. Scout lit a candle behind him. He and Raven sat with a deck of cards, playing a game that Scout kept winning. Raven kept complaining. Jimmy stared out the window, waiting for the two most important people in his life to return with news of their day. The waiting was killing him.

“You shouldn’t stand directly in front of the window,” Scout said. It was the sixth time they told Jimmy that day and about the twentieth over the past three days.

He stepped sideways. He knew he shouldn’t be there, but he kept finding himself in that spot without realizing it. He scanned the street one more time and sat in the chair that Molly placed as a reminder of where he ought to be. It was usually the pacing that did it. After a moment or two of pacing, Jimmy was there again, back in front of the window.

“They should be back any time now,” Scout said. “Relax.”

Jimmy’s shoulders tightened from the suggestion, but he released his negativity with a slow exhale. Molly would be pleased.

“This has been the longest three days of my life,” he said. “I hope they found something. I can’t take another day of this staring out the window.”

“We can’t either,” Scout said.

Jimmy caught a glimpse of Scout’s poorly concealed smile behind his hand of cards.

“Be nice,” Raven said. She inspected Scout’s last discard and drew two fresh ones from a pile. “Like I keep saying, Jimmy, Denver’s a big place. Just because Chase wasn’t at the old house doesn’t mean they left town.”

Jimmy pressed his hands into his face, very aware of the impression he’d make if he were to scream. Molly would come at him with one of her books, for sure.

“I’m running out of time,” he said.

“What?” Raven asked.

Outside, two dark forms detached from the deeper shadows and closed on the house. Jimmy peered from behind the curtain, his skin tingling with relief when he recognized Ginger and Hunter. Four long strides carried him to the door; he swung it wide open, ready to smother them both with hugs regardless of what they’d discovered through their investigations.

Ginger jumped, confusing Jimmy with her startled expression. Hunter seemed angry.

“What’s wrong?” Jimmy asked.

Ginger buried her face in his chest and her tears bled through his sweater instantly. Her body trembled; he held her tight and frowned at Hunter.

“Inside,” Hunter said. He closed the door, locked it, and looked out the peephole. Then he pulled the cord, closing the curtains for security or privacy, Jimmy wasn’t quite sure which one was more important at the moment.

More candles were lit on the table and the corners of the room darkened. Scout and Raven packed away the cards. Jimmy guided Ginger to the table and pulled out a chair for her.

Molly appeared with two steaming cups in her hands. “Here guys, have some apple cider.” She placed the cups down, gave Hunter a kiss on the head, sat and held his hand.

Ginger’s eyes were vacant after the tears, and that worried Jimmy. She stared at her lap where her folded hands were busy wringing themselves together.