Page 86 of Chaos

“Silver, silver tongue,” she whispers with a smile, tugging the candle from the cupcake.

This is it. This is the time.

“Frankie …” I bite into the cake and swallow, barely tasting it even though it’s the best thing I’ve eaten since Ruby died. “After we raid the factory …”

I break off at the sound of a muffled shout.

“Yorke!”

It’s coming from the base of the wall.

I lean over the edge, look down, and find Rey.

“Shane told me where to find you,” she calls up through her cupped hands. “We got word.”

She means Kelly either left a drop or came in person.

“It’s okay,” Frankie says. “Go. We’ll talk tonight or tomorrow.”

“I’ll be home in an hour or less? We can head down to dinner together.”

I don’t know if I’m more frustrated or relieved as we pack up the blanket and climb down the ladder from the wall into the shadows and the darkness.

WHEN THE ARMY FIRST CAMEto Thornewood, there was a population explosion. We went from having entire empty untouched wings of the hotel, whole floors that no one went to, to being stuffed to the gills.

They came in a thousand strong, bringing what I’m sure felt to the people of Thornewood like endless amounts of food and guns and ammunition. But the thing about armies is, they eat a lot, and they use a lot of bullets.

Training and might gets a lot of glory, but it’s supplies, provisions, and organization that win wars. It’s lack of supplies that loses them.

And we’re struggling under the weight of the army.

Within a few hours it became clear that Thornewood proper wasn’t large enough and groups spilled outward.

Church and Jacquetta claimed some of the small cottages for those higher up in command. They spread along the edge of the golf course. Before the plague, people would have rented them for longer stays, or for groups traveling together.

Conveniently for our purposes today, they’re outside of the wall, meaning no one inside who might be sneaking information to our enemies will see anything abnormal.

We tell the guards at the gate we’re going to check game traps, and as soon as we’re outside the wall and in the trees, we jog about a mile into the woods, just to be sure no one from Thornewood is watching us, then we double back, no flashlights, and cut past the frozen-over stream to Jacquetta’s cottage.

Rey’s waiting inside, sitting on the sofa right next to Kelly. Empty plates sit before both of them and steaming mugs of tea. I see a few crumbs of what I imagine is a cupcake on the plates, along with a late lunch for Kelly.

The silence inside is heavy, the fire crackling in the stone hearth, shadows and light flickering around the room, and somehow it’s this moment that feels the most odd.

The past, my past, was futuristic compared to this, a blur of high-tech gear and smartphones. My present feels like part of a history set.

It’s unnerving.

“Cake for lunch,” Kelly bumps my fist, then Shane’s in greeting. “Did someone tie Plumberger to a chair?”

“He had some extra help today.” I sit down on the sofa opposite them and Shane joins me.

She’s dressed in normal non-military clothes to fit in with the Grey Caps. Civilian clothes. Nondescript. She’s in good shape. I’ve seen her doing drills. But she holds it heavy in the hips, and with her red hair down, she doesn’t look military.

“Tell me what you’ve learned.”

She glances at Rey, then scoots forward to sit on the edge of the sofa, elbows on her knees. “They’re recruiting constantly. That’s why it was so easy for me to get in. It’s a weakness of theirs, but also a strength. The Butcher … Auggie, he’s just a normal guy. He worked at the slaughterhouse for like … two decades, and when the plague hit—he really did go house to house. Like fifteen people fall all over themselves every day to tell me about how he buried their families after everyone died. I think he’s legit when he says he cares about them.”

It’s nothing new. Yet. But it is a fresh perspective.

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