Page 39 of Chaos

“None of that is your fault.”

His face twists, and he turns toward the window, facing the soldiers out on the snow-covered lawn beyond it. The backhoes are breaking the partially frozen ground up close, snowy mountains beyond fading into distant blue obscurity. “I want to see him die,” he says, his voice cracking. “I want to see it.”

I get it, but the desperation of his tone also worries me that he might storm off and try to handle Ben on his own.

“Look, I hear you, okay?” I say. “Just be patient. Right now, we need to focus on securing Thornewood. To do that, we need the people living here under control, we need to figure out who Ben was talking to, who else could be comingfor us. We need bullets, we need the wall built. Once we’re safe here, we can shift our focus.”

He nods, acknowledging the logic, even if he hates it. I imagine his expression is similar to the one I had in the car when Colleen made her argument.

“Fine.” He puffs out a fat, manful breath. “We need info from Ben?” he asks. “And Ephie?”

“Yes.”

In the distance, through the window, Beast rounds a hill at the edge of the back lawn, in a part that will soon be outside our walls, barking manically at a chicken pecking its way across the snow. That one thing didn’t change, the whole time Frankie was gone. No matter what, he loves to harass those chickens.

“I think I can convince Ephie to talk to me,” Shane says. “You’d have to trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“She feels bad about my hand. I can tell when she looks at me. I just …” He thumbs the edge of the bandage. “There’s not a lot I can contribute. But this … I think I can get her to talk to me. I’d have to let her go free, though.”

She can’t go anywhere anyway. Stripped of weapons. It’s a calculated risk. There are worse people loose inside Thornewood. Duane, for example. And it would be good for Shane to have a sense of purpose.

“Do it,” I say.

His eyes widen. “Really?”

I touch the bullet in my pocket, the chain, find the pointed tip of the archer. “Yeah. You’ll have to keep an eye on her, though.”

10|Always on the wrong side

EPHIE

THEY ASK THE SAME QUESTIONS over and over again. When they don’t like my answer, they trade places so a new, judgy-faced person can introduce themselves, only to start over again, stressing different syllables so their words imply I’m either dangerously stupid or rotten beyond redemption.

What was Ben planning?

Why does he have those pigeons?

Was he making a deal with the Butcher?

Do you know anything about DC? Charleston?

Who was Ben talking to?

My answers never change.

I dunno.

I’m not sure.

No clue.

I know nothing.

Don’t ask me.

But they keep on asking until I’m so bored I lose track of the words coming out of me and replay my favorite TV show in my mind.

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