Coli took it upon herself to answer LaShay’s question. “She attacked me when I was trying to help her, so I had to defend myself. She messed up her stitches.”
“What’d she do that for?” asked LaShay, heavy judgment in her voice.
“Because she’s…”
“Coli! That’s enough!” yelled Trip.
My eyes flew open at the sound.
Coli was fuming, but wisely kept her mouth shut. Even I knew that when Trip was talking like that it would be stupid to say anything at all. He was a nice enough guy, and a cousin to Coli, but he was still the chief - or one of them, anyway.
Winky appeared from around a corner and came to sit at the side of my bed. Everyone else kind of faded away as she sat there, staring at me.
I held her gaze for a few seconds, but then I had to look away. I didn’t see any admonishment in her eyes, but I didn’t see pity either. She was just waiting for me to say something.
After a while I couldn’t take it anymore. “What? Quit looking at me like that.”
“So, you are fully aware and not catatonic.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” I said bitterly.
“Good. I have to take those bandages off and sew you up again. Looks like you did a hell of a job on the good work I did for you before.”
“You sewed me up?” I felt confused. Why hadn’t I realized that before? How out of it have I been?
“Yep. I’m in the sewing group with Coli. I used to do a lot of embroidery as a hobby before all the doo-doo hit the fan. Now I just make clothes and shoes. I’ll be pretty busy getting stuff together for these new kids, so I need to get you taken care of and healed as soon as possible.”
She reached behind her back and her hand came back out with a knife. “No more goofing around with Coli. I don’t want to have to do this again. Your scar’s going to be ugly enough as it is.”
I looked at her with my mouth hanging open a little. She was being so matter-of-fact about everything - as if we hadn’t just gone into some stranger’s house and blown it all to hell, killing some kids in the process … very possibly one of them being my boyfriend.
I couldn’t decide whether to cry or punch someone, and I felt sick over doing either, so I opted instead to do nothing. I watched in silence as she sliced the dirty bandages off my arm and revealed the angry red mess underneath. I looked up at her, pissed now about the whole ugly world I’d found myself in.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Tell me what you’re thinking. I can see you’re freaking out. Normally you would have wiped the ground with Coli’s butt, but it looks like she got the jump on you.”
“I can’t believe you of all people are asking me what I’m thinking. You were there, Winky. You saw almost everything.”
“Tell me what I missed. Tell me what happened to you.”
I swallowed hard, battling tears. I wanted to tell her. I felt like I was all alone with this nightmare replaying in my mind. Maybe if I can get it out of my mouth, I could get it out of my head. I took a big breath and let it out, trying to calm myself before I started telling her my story.
“I was in that pool house with Loco … Dave. The leader of the canners. And there was this great kid in there. Julio. He had one leg left, and that was it.” I cleared my throat once to keep the tears at bay. “He was a soccer star and had a cute girlfriend. He told me about her. And then Loco attacked me and I ended up stabbing that disgusting cannibal in the neck, which is way more disgusting than it looks in the movies. And right after I left, Julio kicked that grenade right at Loco and blew the place up.”
“Wow. How’d Julio do that when he only had one leg left?”
I noticed the people around us had gone silent. My story had them all frozen in place, listening.
“It dropped out of the back of my pants and rolled over by him. And when I fell down nearby, he told me to balance it on the top of his foot. So I pulled the pin and did it.”
“I can’t believe it didn’t just fall off,” said Winky, her voice sounding reverent.
“He had his foot bent up, like he said he did with hacky sacks or something. He held it there tight, even after I’d pulled the pin. I … I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to kill him, but he kept saying he wanted to go…” A loud sob escaped my throat. I covered my face with my good arm.
Winky stroked my arm as it rested on my face. “Shhh, don’t cry about it. Peter told us the kids who were left would never have made it.”
LaShay came over and sat down by my feet. “Julio was done-for, girl. He had serious gangrene all up in his legs and stuff. He was dyin’. I’m surprised he was able to do as much as he did. You must have inspired him or somethin’.”
“He was telling me how happy he was to be able see his girlfriend again,” I said through my tears. “She had died already.”
“Yasmine. He talked about her a lot,” said LaShay. “Lucky girl. Julio was a great guy. What they did to him … evil. Shameful. But what you did, girl, was the right thing to do. Ain’t nobody who was there gonna say any different. Those killers had it coming to them. If I coulda shoved that grenade down their throats myself, I would’ve. Every single one of ‘em was a demon straight from hell.”
I pulled my arm away from my face, my tears stopped for the moment. “What about that kid Sean? He didn’t seem like he was totally in with them.” I remembered his conversation with LaShay that I’d overheard when I was hiding in a nearby tree with Winky.
“Sean? Yeah, I call that demon Doctor Mengele. You know, like Hitler’s doctor who did all those nasty experiments on kids?” She shook her head. “He ain’t no better than the rest of ‘em. He coulda tried to break us free, just like you did, but he didn’t. Nope. He just kept cleanin’ our wounds, stitchin’ us up, keepin’ the meat cold for the kid-eaters. Huh-uh. No, ma’am. Sean is evil. There ain’t no excuse for what he did.”
“I heard him say that they sicced the dogs on him,” said Winky. “I think he tried to escape once, right?”
“Yeah, that’s true. He did try to escape, to save his own ass, not anyone else’s. And the demons sent them dogs, Duke and Dracula after his sorry ass, too. Mangled the hell outta his arm and one of his legs. I was glad when I saw it. I wished they’d gotten his throat instead.”
“Would you have escaped if you could?” asked Winky.
“Hells yeah. What? You think I’m stupid?” She was obviously offended by the question.
“I was just wondering, because you’re coming down kinda hard on that guy Sean when he did the same thing I would have done … and you too, from what you just said.”
LaShay let out a burst of frustrated air. “Ssssshhhhh. It ain’t like that. Don’t be twistin’ my words all up. You know what I meant.” She got up to leave. “I can promise you one thing. No matter what you just said, if I see his face anywhere around here, I’m gonna blow it off for him. Then I’m gonna feed what’s left to the gators.” She strode out of the hut, her bandaged half-arm held out to the side for balance as she picked her way over the ground of lumpy roots and rotted earth.
“Well, I guess she told me,” said Winky, smiling.
I half-smiled back. “She’s probably right, you know. If that guy is ever stupid enough to show his face, I don’t think he’ll survive it. No matter what we saw or heard, he was there with them … those canners. He’s one of them, even if he wasn’t totally into the craziness.”
Winky shrugged. “It’s not all that black and white to me, but whatever. We need to get you better. So is that what’s bothering you so much? That Julio kid and killing Loco?”
I sighed. “Yes and no, Doctor Winky, psychoanalyst.”
She bowed her head slightly at me, but said nothing.
“I’m mostly upset about other things. Yes, I’m feeling sick about taking someone’s life. I thought I’d be okay with it, since the guy was evil. But imagining it and doing it are totally different things. I just didn’t realize how different until now.”
I put my hand up to my eyes, covering them as I squeezed my temples, trying to block visions of Bodo’s face from my mind. “And we left Bodo behind,” I whispered hoarsely. “I can’t get over that. I need to know what happened to him.”
Winky leaned over and whispered near my ear. “I’ll make you a deal. You get better, and I’ll go back with you and see what we can find.”
I pulled my hand away from my face and looked at her in shock. That she would offer was one thing, but the fact that her face and tone were dead serious and that she was actually going to do it, was nothing short of amazing. Friends this loyal didn’t come around very often. Having Coli around made it even easier to appreciate what Winky was offering me.
“You’d do that? Why?”
She shrugged. “You’re part of our tribe now. Family does what family needs done.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said, knowing as she spoke that neither Kowi nor Trip would allow us to go back. It was too risky.
“Sure it is. Bodo needs to be found. There’s no one more motivated or qualified to do that than you and me.”
I winced. “How’s that? I’ve been on one mission and I’m still in the clinic while everyone else is acting like life’s all back to normal. My qualifications seem pretty sucky.”
“First of all, you suffered more losses than anyone. You’ve lost the love of your life, right? And you watched a great kid kill himself to save you. Not to mention, you killed a guy with your bare hands, which is different than shooting someone, I think.”
I started to cry again, silently.
“But nothing changes the fact that no one can kick canner butt like you. And no one can track like me. So together, we make the perfect Bodo rescue team.”
My mind was swirling around with questions and the possible implications of what she was saying. My tears stopped and I felt energized for the first time since this whole crapstorm began. The sudden mood swings were making me feel unbalanced, but I kept talking anyway.
“You’re serious? That you and I could go back there and find him?”
“Or what came of him. I’m not promising we’ll find him alive.” She reached over and took my good hand. “I don’t mean to be harsh, but he could be dead. But at least we’ll know. I’ll do my best to find answers with you.”
“Who else will go with us?”
“No one,” she said quietly. “I’m pretty sure Trip and Kowi will say no if they know about it. So we do this on our own. No Peter, either. No offense, but he’s pretty useless in battle.”
I smiled, feeling a sliver of happiness make its way into my heart. “He made it out without a scratch.”
“Well, you missed the bruise on his jaw. He got punched by a canner after he tried to palm thrust him or something, remember?”
I thought back to my tree-surveillance and remembered something happening like that. “Oh, yeah. Poor guy.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got heart, I’ll give him that much. But I think he’d be more of a liability than anything else.”
“Who’d be a liability? For what?” came Peter’s voice. He walked up and stood near my head.
“Nobody you know,” said Winky. “Did you come to assist?”
“Oh, heck no. That’s gross. I’m just here to tell Bryn that Kowi wants to see her.”
“Why can’t he come over to me?” I asked. It’s not that I was refusing to see him, but I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom without passing out.
