When She Woke (26 page)

Her bladder and her aching head forced her from the bed eventually. Her face in the mirror looked puffy, especially around the eyes, and she had a deep crease in her left cheek from a wrinkle in the pillow case. A month ago, she reflected, she wouldn’t have noticed these details; she would have seen nothing but red and quickly looked away. She realized she was beginning to get used to it. Soon, her scarlet skin would be as unremarkable to her as the mole on her neck or the tiny scar, legacy of a tumble from her bicycle, beneath her lower lip. And say she made it to Canada and the chroming was reversed. Would she ever be able to look at her face and
not
see red?

She felt marginally better after brushing her teeth and showering. When she came out of the bathroom Emmeline was prowling by the door to the hallway, probably wanting breakfast. Hannah gave the knob a perfunctory twist, expecting to find the door locked, but it opened under her hand. The cat darted out into the hall, and Hannah followed more slowly. As she neared the end of the hallway she heard raised voices, coming from the dining room. She crept as close as she dared to listen.

“It’s either got to be George, or Betty and Gloria,” said Susan.

“Stanton suspects George,” said Simone.

“Well, I’d put my money on the ladies,” said Paul. “The disappearances didn’t start until after we made Erie a way station.”

“Coincidence,” said Simone emphatically. “It is impossible that Betty and Gloria would do this thing. They are lesbians, feminists.”

“So?”

“So, they betray their sisters? They help these Bible-frapping
salauds
to subjugate other women? Never.”

Paul made an impatient sound. “Here’s a news flash for you, Simone: women are human, just like men, and so are lesbians. You’re just as capable of treachery. When you shit, your
merde
stinks just as bad as anyone else’s.”

Hannah’s eyes widened.
You’re
just as capable, he’d said. Was Simone a homosexual, then? Hannah only knew one person who was gay, a sweet, fluttering young man who worked at the drugstore near her house. She’d always felt sorry for him, an attitude her father had fostered in her and Becca when their mother was out of earshot. John Payne didn’t share the view of his wife and many evangelicals that gays were minions of Satan. Instead, he looked on them as misguided, damaged souls deserving of prayer and pity. Hannah pictured Simone: her fierce gaze, the proud, unyielding set of her mouth. There was certainly nothing pitiable about her. And Hannah seriously doubted she’d appreciate being prayed for.

“We may not even have a traitor,” Anthony said. “The road is dangerous. Anything could have happened to those women.”

“Three in seven months?” Simone said. “And only the young and pretty ones? I think it smells.”

“Me too,” Susan said.

“Ben,”
Simone said. “There is only one way to discover the truth. We use the girl as bait. We take her to Columbus, and when she leaves, we follow and see what happens.”

“Wait a minute,” Paul interjected. “You said ‘the girl.’ What about Kayla?” There was a fraught silence. “No,” he said, raising his voice. “We offered her the road, and she accepted. We’re bound to help her.”

“We have lost too much time,” said Simone. “She is now a liability we cannot afford.”

“You know the code as well as any of us, Paul.” Susan’s tone was regretful but firm. “No one life is more important than the mission.”

“And no life will be sacrificed except as a last resort,” Paul said, “and we’re not at that point yet.”

Hannah felt the hairs on her arms rise. She’d suspected Simone of being ruthless enough to kill, but to hear Paul speak so matter-of-factly of “sacrifice” was chilling.

“That is your opinion,” said Simone.

“That is fact. Kayla hasn’t done anything to endanger us.”

“Yet.”

“Paul, surely even you can see the folly in this,” said Anthony. “The girl’s due in a week, for Christ’s sake.”

“Ten days. And what do you mean, even me?”

“He means your heart is too soft,” Simone said. She spoke like an older sister, exasperated but not unkind. “You attach yourself too easily.”

“It’s personal, remember? That’s the whole point of what we do. I’d think you of all people would understand that.”

“Paul!” Susan exclaimed, at the same time Simone said, “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer.

“Explain yourself,” Simone said.

“I know what happened to you,” he said. “I’ve known for a long time.”

“You know shit,” Simone snapped.

“I know you’re willing to die to keep other women from having to go through that.”

Meaning an abortion? It had to be; what else could Paul be referring to? And besides, it explained so much. Having something so profoundly personal in common with Simone gave Hannah a queer, unsettled feeling. Except in her case, all she’d had to “go through” was the abortion itself. Nothing had gone wrong, not until afterward. Had the doctor botched Simone’s procedure or hurt her in some other way? Had she served time for it? Though abortion was legal again in Canada, it had been a felony offense during the scourge and for several years afterward.

“Yes, I am,” Simone said. “But I am not disposed to risk my life and yours for some girl who killed one of her own family.”

“Well, I am.”

“You think she cares about you, eh?” Simone made a scoffing sound. “She is using you. And if you were not thinking with your other head, you would see it.”

“What I see,” Paul said, “is a young woman in trouble. Someone we looked in the eye and promised we would help.”

“I’m sorry, Paul,” Susan said. “I have to agree with Simone. We can’t risk her going into fragmentation on the road.”

That’s it then.
Hannah leaned into the wall, mind whirling. She and Kayla would have to escape somehow. Steal a car, leave Dallas. Outrun the Novembrists, the police, the Fist. And if they managed to do all that, what then? Where would they go? Who would take them in?

“On the other hand,” Anthony said speculatively, “the girl’s young and pretty.”

“So?” said Simone.

“Double bait for the hook.”

“He has a point,” Paul said quickly.

A silence fell, and Hannah knew they were all waiting for Susan to decide.

“Simone?” Susan said finally.

“All right,” Simone said. “But if she starts to frag out, or if she compromises the mission . . .”

“You follow the code,” Susan said. “Agreed, Paul?”

“Agreed.”

Hannah shivered. If he was dissembling, she couldn’t detect it.

She was about to steal back to her room when she heard a faint meow coming from the dining room. She froze. She’d forgotten about Emmeline, who was supposed to be locked in with her. If they realized she’d been listening in …She ran back to her door and closed it loudly, then strolled to the dining room, praying none of them had noticed the cat’s presence until just now.

“Good morning,” she said, striving for nonchalance.

They were all startled by her appearance, all except for Anthony, who studied Hannah with a narrowed gaze. “I put Emmeline in her room last night,” he said to the others. “I must have forgotten to lock the door.”

Four pairs of eyes skewered her, looking for telltale signs that she’d overheard them. With a rueful smile, she raised her hand to her forehead. “I think I had a little too much holiday cheer last night. Have you got some aspirin?”

For long seconds, no one moved. Then Paul said, “I’ll get it,” and Hannah felt the tension drain from the room. She sat down, wobbly with relief.

“Fetch Kayla while you’re at it,” Susan said. She turned to Hannah. “You’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

T
WENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER,
she and Kayla were back in the van, hooded, on their way to Columbus, Wherever. The only one Hannah was familiar with was in Ohio, but there was probably one in every state.

She had a sense of dislocation, an untethered feeling that grew as the minutes and the miles passed. Here she was again, hurtling forward in the darkness, destination unknown. It seemed an apt metaphor for what her life had become. She pressed her back into the wall of the van, feeling suddenly giddy with loss, attached to nothing and no one. Everything she had was dropping away from her, everything. And then Kayla moved and accidentally kicked Hannah’s foot, and she corrected herself. She had a true friend, if nothing else. It was enough, for now, to sustain her and give her life some meaning.

Her life, which was somehow continuing despite the loss of Aidan. She was inexorably in motion, on her way to a fate that would not include him, and though she missed him still, she was conscious that something had shifted inside her since she’d seen him on the vid. Through some unknown agency, the roar of his loss had diminished to a loud rumble, and the waves had spent much of their fury. The hole he’d left inside her was beginning to knit itself closed, and if she squinted, she could see that one day far in the distance, all that would remain of it would be a ragged seam, sensitive to the touch perhaps, but no longer tender.

She and Kayla were walking into grave danger, Hannah had no illusions about that. But still, she felt more hopeful and less afraid than she had two and a half weeks ago, when she’d decided to accept Susan’s offer. Part of that was knowing they wouldn’t be actively hunted by the police. She fiddled with the ring Susan had given her that morning, tracing the smooth bulge of the stone with her finger—a fake opal concealing a tiny jammer that blocked the nanotransmitters. Kayla had one too, a moonstone.

“What if we get caught with them?” Hannah had asked.

“Say you got them in Chromewood,” Susan said. “Black-market jammers aren’t hard to come by.”

That was news to Hannah. Why, if jammers were so commonplace, had she never seen anything about them on the net or the news vids? She could think of only one reason: the government didn’t want to advertise the fact that such evasion was possible. If people knew that Chromes were going about unmonitored . . .

“But the good ones don’t come cheap,” Kayla said, surprising Hannah again. How would she know that? “Where would we get that kind of lana?”

Susan looked her up and down in sly appraisal. “The time-honored way. Say you bartered for them.”

Hannah bristled when she took Susan’s meaning, but Kayla merely laughed. “Yeah, I guess if you ain’t got money, there’s always honey.”

When it was time to leave, Susan and Anthony walked them out to the van. Hannah smiled when she saw for the first time the logo painted onto the side of it: N
EW
L
IFE
C
HURCH.
“Is there really such a place?” she asked.

Susan smiled back at her. “You’re standing in it.”

Hannah had expected to part with handshakes, but the couple hugged both her and Kayla warmly. The feel of Susan’s ample, motherly bosom pressing against her brought an unexpected lump to Hannah’s throat. She wasn’t exactly fond of these people, but they’d sheltered her, risked their lives to help her, shown her a sort of tough kindness. And they were a known quantity, whereas the road, and the people they would encounter along it, were a looming question mark.

“Thank you for this chance,” Hannah said. “If you hadn’t sent Simone and Paul for us that night—”

“It’s personal,” Susan replied. “And you earned it. Good luck to you.”

Her words came back to Hannah now, as she sat on the cold metal floor of the van. Had she earned it? By not having betrayed Raphael, had she made herself worthy of the gift of a new life, a clean slate? Did she not deserve punishment for what she had done, if not melachroming, then some other sort? The Novembrists would say no, that she’d committed no crime. Simone had tried to convince her of it one day, insisting that a fetus wasn’t a life, merely a bundle of cells that had the
potential
for life. Hannah could tell that the other woman truly believed what she was saying, that she wasn’t just being kind and trying to make her feel better (though she sensed, with some surprise, that kindness was part of it). Hannah didn’t buy it, though. Her own bones told her a different story.

And yet. She
had
paid, and dearly, for the abortion. She’d lost her family, her love, her dignity. She’d truly repented her crime. Was that not enough? The Bible said yes, that God was merciful, that repentance earned His complete forgiveness and His Son’s blood cleansed all sins. But if there was no God, or if He was indifferent, where did that leave her? The world was an unforgiving place; she’d seen enough of it to know. A thought bloomed in her mind. She rejected it, but it stole back:
I have to forgive myself.

The van picked up speed, and Simone told them they could remove their hoods. Hannah did so gratefully, feeling claustrophobic. The sight of the two large wooden crates with which she and Kayla were sharing the cargo area didn’t help matters. On them, in big, bold type, was stamped: F
OOD
D
ONATIONS
. C
ANNED AND PACKAGED FOOD ONLY
.
N
O
PERISHABLES
. With two 120-pound exceptions. She and Kayla would have to hide inside them every time they crossed a state line or “frontier,” as Simone called them. Clearly, the crates wouldn’t withstand a thorough search by the border police, but Paul and Simone didn’t seem too concerned. The church logo had an immunizing effect, Paul had explained, and all the police had ever done was take a cursory look inside the van.

Through the windshield Hannah saw a road sign fly past: S
HREVEPORT,
170
MILES.
She registered belatedly that they were traveling east on I-20, the same route she’d once taken with Aidan on that goldenlit day in October, in that other skin, that other life. How safe she’d felt then, despite the risks they were taking, how happy and carefree—all of it, an illusion.

Kayla drifted off, slumping awkwardly against the wall of the van, and Hannah took her friend by the shoulders and settled her head in her lap. Automatically she began stroking Kayla’s hair, just as she and Becca had often done for each other, usually when one of them was upset but sometimes just for the simple pleasure it gave them both. She felt a spasm of longing for her sister, commingled with helplessness. She’d told Cole she’d be watching over Becca, but that had been an all-but-empty promise even then. Now, Hannah was bitterly aware, it was an utter impossibility. Becca’s fate and her own hadn’t just branched, they’d been severed, irrevocably unjoined; Becca just didn’t know it yet. Hannah felt momentarily jealous of her sister’s ignorance, but then the feeling vanished. If bitter certainty was terrible, how much worse must it be to be the one who went on hoping and wondering, despairing a little more each day that passed with no word?