Page 52 of Chaos

I don’t know.

All of it, if I’m honest.

The rage can’t be separated or isolated or simplified. Nor can my feelings for her. She’s mine. Not mine like my gun is mine or my shoes are mine. She’s mine like my heart is mine or Auden is mine or Shane is mine. She’s mine like I claim her as my own, as someone whose safety and wellbeing is of equal to or greater value than my own. As someone I’d die to protect.

She may not be my wife, but she is my family.

If I wasn’t born with a sacred duty to protect my family, then what was I born with? What the hell am I doing here? What will I take with me when I die? And all of it happened because she gave herself up to stop me from shooting Ephie, without even knowing for sure I would.

I’ve never felt mad at Frankie before—but it’s there, an undercurrent to everything.

I agreed non-verbally in the lobby today not to kill Ben. I nodded at Colleen. She understood it for what it was, and so did I.

But I said nothing about the man in the hospital, and while my only focus should be on getting bullets for the army, it’s not—it’s on him.

I slide from the bed, tucking the covers back around Frankie, and dress in silence in combat pants, an olive fleece, and a patrol cap to shadow my face. Last, I take my rifle, handgun, and flashlight, and lock the suite silently behind me.

Colleen may tell me tomorrow to leave, and if it comes to it, we will. Maybe we should anyway.

No lights are on in any of the hallways or stairwells due to power rationing, the bulk of it deviated toward the kitchen and laundry, as well as security cameras along the roads, motion sensors in the woods.

I move through the dark unobtrusively. A few lamps are on in the lobby for the soldiers on duty, but I stay to the edges, keeping my head down, slouching to hide my size, avoiding eye contact as I pass toward the hall and Sheila’s infirmary.

In the dark, I look like one of the thousand soldiers now stationed at Thornewood.

There’s no guard posted outside the infirmary. No late-night check-in by Alice or Sheila. No Gus in the hall outside Wendell’s room.

I step inside the bearded fucker’s room and close the door behind me.

I click on my flashlight, splaying its beam over the man inside.

He’s handcuffed to a gurney.

Bandages wrap around his skull, over sunken cheeks and a flattened nose. His mouth is open, lips purple and blubbery, missing teeth, dried blood, a swollen tongue.

Momentary pride flickers through me.

He came for her, and she responded like a warrior.

I pull the pillow from behind his head. He gurgles, his swollen tongue waggling and bulging against his bloody gums. With the bandages covering his eyes, I can’t tell if he’s awake.

It doesn’t matter.

This is the part they always fade to black in movies.

I get why.

My fingers sink into the cotton-covered pillow as I lower it directly over his face.

His arms twitch and his gurgle turns into a muffled grunt, and then I swear he says my name.

I pause, pull back the pillow. “What did you say?”

“Urrgg … th… boyfriend? Uuuurk Garrett?”

“How do you know my last name?”

“Nng … a … vinnia Hope’s uuuukkkking for you.”

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