Page 30 of Chaos

I want Ben dead so badly, every single part of me, even the good parts, want him gone, along with every potential threat he offers. Extinguished like a light that should never have been lit.

Surely that’s coming soon.

Colleen must be planning something.

It hits me so powerfully it has my hand shaking as I stroke a length of Auden’s too-long sandy hair behind his ear, and force my thoughts back to the present. “Is she talking to anyone?”

“No.” He shakes his head fast, those gray-green eyes and big lashes so wide and earnest and real as he looks up at me again, so much energy and movement and thinking and feeling, like he’s processing at hyperspeed. “Church goes and plays the guitar outside her room sometimes, and Colleen sits out there and talks to her. Wendell and May and Len, too, and sometimes Venus bangs on the door and shouts about bears and being strong. I heard her tell Shasta her real name isn’t even Venus, and how her country was at war, and sometimes people have to accept change and make a new plan, but Shasta won’t let anyone in. When I tried, she said she looked ugly. But I said she couldn’t know since she was blind, and I could tell her, but then she started crying. I heard it.”

I squeeze him tighter. “I’ll visit her when you’re back at school.”

“You should try now.” Auden tears his body from me. “Church tried everything. He even brought her fancy-ass chocolates, but she shouted at him to go away. What? That’s what he called them. Not me. I’m just being accurate.” He pronounces that wordack-uh-rayte. “He thought they’d make her feel better. Come on.” He crawls over Shane—who winces when he catches a sharp knee to his thigh—then spins back around toward me, and freezes in superhero pose perched half over Beast. “Frankie?”

“Yes?”

“Now that you’re back, we can have Christmas, right?”

The rapid shifting of gears gives me momentary pause. I didn’t realize it had ever been ‘off.’ I assumed they did it without me. I glance at Yorke who nods.

“I think so,” I say. Because Venus was right, we make a new plan, we carry on. Despite Ruby being gone, and Shasta being blind, and Ben being alive, and the chaos that seems to be gnawing away inside me, a thousand whirling thoughts like bees buzzing inside my skull.

“Yes! YES!” The constellations of his freckles shift wildly, and his teeth show in a grin, gappier lately, which I think means his baby teeth will start falling out soon. He barrels off the bed and out of the room, shouting, “Santa is coming!”

Beast books it after him.

Shane starts to follow, then stops, turns back to me. “I’m really glad you’re home, Frankie.”

“Me too. Thank you.”

He tosses his long hair to hide his face and leaves.

Yorke climbs off the bed and holds out a hand for me, his face carefully neutral. He’s been quiet since the bathhouse. Reserved, controlled, maybe he has a maelstrom of chaos bees raging inside his head too. “You ready?”

No. “Yes.” I take his hand. “She’ll be more likely to talk to me if I’m alone.”

He does something with his mouth I haven’t seen him do in a long time, moving it like he’s literally grinding away at his own thoughts. “Shane and I’ll drop Auden back at school.” He pulls a handgun off the side table, where it sits with all his books on warfare and military strategy, and rotates it around as he extends it buttface to me. “We need to find you a new belt. And new boots. But for now, keep this on you. I don’t know most of the soldiers, Duane is still out there, and so is whoever killed Nando.”

That’s a stiff reminder that nowhere is safe like it used to be—not even the home I’ve been longing for.

I take the gun. It’s bigger in my hand than the one Jimmy gave me, the one I lost the day Ben kidnapped me. Heavier. I flex my fingers around it, wishing I’d had it in the cellar.

I could have ended things much sooner.

“You need rest.” Yorke’s gaze goes to the gnarly knot on my forehead where I hit the same damned stair board I spent weeks pulling on. “You know that, right? You still have a low-grade fever, you’re malnourished. Mild concussion. Fatigued.”

“Yeah. I’ll be careful.”

He makes a grumpy face. “I’ll come up and check on you when I can. Or do you want me to wait here?”

I shake my head. “Life didn’t pause just because I was gone.”

He touches my chin lightly, an unreadable look in his eyes, like he’s swallowing questions and fighting his own thoughts, reminding me of so many answers I owe him. He’s got to be wondering how bad it was in that cellar. “It did for me.”

SHASTA BROUGHT ME CHAMPAGNE, chocolate, and a bikini once when I was in need of a friend.

I bring an ax.

The weight of it in my hands reminds me, oddly, of Bellybuster, my old bat from DC.

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