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JENNA
“Where is she?” Carter brings both fists down on the back of the sofa.
He’s asked this question at least a hundred times during the night. Seeing the anguish on his face makes my heart split in two.
I wish I could tell him where Kate was. I wish I could tell him why she left.
I wish there weren’t two empty brandy bottles on the counter. I wish the third bottle wasn’t missing.
“I don’t understand where she could have gone or what’s taking her so long.” Carter paces up and down the dorm living room. “She’s been gone the entire night!”
I don’t point out that Kate survived outside for several days when she journeyed here on foot. She knows what she’s doing out there. That won’t make Carter feel better. It doesn’t make me feel better. My anxiety ratchets up every minute that passes without her return.
Johnny, Eric, and Reed are with us, all of us having stayed up the entire night waiting for Kate to come back. We even left the downstairs door unlocked for her.
“Did you know your mom beat a guy with a metal chair?” Johnny asks.
“What?” Carter stops his pacing.
“Yeah,” Johnny says. “When you guys were stuck in that rock shop. She went ape shit on one of those drug guys. He had a gun, but your mom charged straight at him and started beating him with the chair. He ran away like a little kid.”
“Our mama did that for us?” Reed sighs happily. “I’m so glad I adopted her.”
“Are you serious?” Carter asks. “You’re not exaggerating?”
“No, man. Your mom turned into a total she-demon. I know you’re worried about her. We all are. But your mom is insane. She’ll be okay.”
Carter returns to pacing. “My mom is tough. I know that. But she’s been missing for almost twenty-four hours.” He grips his head in both hands, pulling on his hair. “I have to look for her.”
“Her note said not to come looking for her,” Eric reminds him.
“I don’t care what the note says,” Carter growls. “My mom is out there somewhere. She could be hurt, or-or—”
The door opens.
Kate bursts inside. Her hair is matted and wet. Cobwebs cling to her clothing. Dirt smudges every exposed part of her body—her hands, her neck, and her face. A huge bruise swells on the front of her face. Dried blood crusts her upper lip. Bits of shiny brown residue are smeared across her face. Pale crumbs of something are stuck to the brown stuff. Her breathing is loud, her chest heaving like she’s just run hard and fast.
She stands in the doorway, eyes wild.
I watch her wrestle with her emotions, watch her rein back whatever terror or fear drove her back to us.
Her breath slows. She swallows and closes her eyes.
When she opens them again, the Kate we all know and love looks out at us.
“What are you all doing here?” The slight hitch in her voice is the only indication of her true mental state.
Her voice is like a trigger. We all leap to our feet and rush her. Carter gets there first, wrapping her in a bear hug. Reed and I are right behind him, throwing our arms around them both. Eric and Johnny join in, the six of us standing in a group hug.
“Mom, where were you?” Carter demands. “We were worried.”
“I didn’t say it, but I thought the zombies got you for sure,” Reed says. “I didn’t say it out loud, but in my head, I was like, Kate is zombie food. My mama is dead.”
“I thought you went back to Trading Post to get more shoes.” Johnny leans back to look at her. “You didn’t go back to Trading Post, did you?”
“She didn’t go to get shoes,” I snap. “Kate, let me get you a washcloth for your face.” An ice pack is also in order, except there’s no ice anymore.
“That would be nice, Jenna. Thank you.” Kate extracts herself from the pack, crossing the kitchen to sink into a chair.
Carter gets her a bottle of water. “What happened to your face, Mom?”
Kate cracks open the water and downs half of it in a long gulp.
“Mom.” It doesn’t take a genius to see that Carter is about to lose it.
“My face had a close-up conference with a pancake and syrup. Thanks, Jenna.” She takes a wet cloth from me and scrubs at what is apparently syrup and pancake on her face.
“A pancake? Mom, what the hell happened?”
Kate sighs. She sets down the cloth and squeezes Carter’s hand.
“I’m sorry I worried you. I went to talk to Johnson.”
Silence. We all stare at her. Is the woman completely insane?
Kate winces under the weight of our incredulity. She resumes scrubbing at her face.
“I tried to negotiate a peace treaty with him,” she explains. “It didn’t go well. Hence, my face meeting the pancake.”
“He could have killed you,” I say.
“That’s why I went alone,” Kate replies. “I knew it was a long shot, but I had to try. I didn’t want to put anyone else at risk.”
Carter yanks out a chair and flops into it. “God, Mom. You scared us to death.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” She gives us a short retelling of her overnight adventure, which included sleeping underneath a porch with spiders. “I had to try,” she finishes. “For you, Carter.” She looks up at the rest of us. “For all of you.”
“Promise me you’ll never do that again,” Carter says.
The rest of us murmur in agreement. Kate looks away.
“Mom.” Carter’s voice takes on an edge.
“I promise, baby.”
Am I the only one who sees the lie in her eyes?
“I’m serious, Mom. Promise me.”
Her eyes sober. “I promise to keep you safe, Carter.” She looks up at the rest of us. “I promise to keep all of you safe.”
*
“BABE?” CARTER STIRS in the bed next to me as I sit up. “You okay?”
“I can’t sleep.” I keep my voice to a whisper so as not to disturb Lila. Not that Lila responds to much since Johnson’s assault.
He exhales sharply, sitting up beside me. “Me, neither. I was just pretending because I thought you were sleeping.” He scrubs a hand through his hair.
The moon outside the window is full. I love the way the light plays on the angles of his face.
“Do you think she was telling the truth?” I ask.
Carter doesn’t ask who I’m talking about. “She was holding something back. I could tell. I just don’t know what.”
I nod, staring at the closed bedroom door and wondering if Kate is awake. It’s no secret she was shaken by her encounter with Johnson, even though she tried to hide it from us. After she got back, she spent several hours napping on a sleeping bag in the living room.
Except I don’t think she was really napping. Her eyes were closed, her back to us, but I never got the sense she was asleep. It felt like she was hiding from us.
It probably doesn’t help we spent the day buzzing around her and fretting. The third time Reed offered to massage her shoulders, I think she was ready to throw something.
“I’m worried about her, too.” A lump of emotion swells in my throat just thinking about what she risked for us. “I love that she wants to take care of us, but she doesn’t need to fight this battle alone.”
“She doesn’t have to protect us. She needs to work with us.”
“I know.” I get out of bed and cross to the closed door. Carter pads after me. Hand in hand, we open the door and stare down the short hall that leads to the living room.
The room is dark, but not silent. A soft sound comes from the kitchen, but I can’t tell what it is.
My eyes adjust after a minute. Then I see it: a lone shadow pacing back and forth.
Kate.
I nudge Carter. He nods, letting me know he’s also seen her.
Is she okay? Should we go talk to her?
Kate leans against the kitchen table, hanging her head. Her shoulders shake.
She’s crying.
I shift, ready to head out and comfort her. To find out what’s really going on. Carter stills me with a hand on my arm.
Kate lifts something off the table. “Foot Soldier, are you there? It’s Kate. Over.”
The answer comes immediately. “I’m here, Kate. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
Silence. Kate’s breath hitches.
“Kate? You there? Over.”
“I’m here.”
“You okay?”
“Not really.” Her voice wavers. A single, silent sob wracks her body. “You know how you said we need each other more than we need enemies?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“Well, turns out not everyone agrees with that statement. Those fuckers definitely don’t agree with it.”
“It’s okay, Kate.”
“It’s not fucking okay!” Her voice is a whisper-shout. “I’m not fucking okay.”
“I get it.” Alvarez’s voice is smooth and comforting. “I’ve been where you are. I know what you’re going through. It’s shitty. You could always run.”
“No fucking way.” Kate’s voice is soft but vehement. “I spent half my life running away from problems. I don’t run anymore.”
“Doing the smart thing isn’t the same thing as running away.”
“Running isn’t the smart thing. You’ve seen the roads. You know what waits out there. Traveling by car is risky. Traveling by foot is near impossible if you’re not like me.”
Alvarez doesn’t argue this point. The ham is silent in Kate’s hands.
“Oh, God.” Her voice is ragged. “I can’t let them hurt my kids.”
“No. You can’t.”
Kate drops into a chair, slumping over the kitchen table with the ham pressed against her face. “I don’t want to do this.”
“You have to. You tried the peaceful way out. It’s not your fault they spit in your face. Do you have a plan?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it a good plan or a half-assed one?”
I watch the silhouette of Kate’s back expand as she sucks in a ragged breath. “It’s a good plan.”
“Do you need to talk through the details?”
“No.”
“Did I ever tell you that when I first saw you and Frederico running through the woods in Laytonville, I pegged you for two country hicks who smoked too much pot in the sixties?”
“I was born in the seventies,” Kate replies drily.
“Whatever. You know what I mean. What I’m trying to say is that when you buried Frederico’s daughter, I knew I’d misjudged you. I knew you were a tough mama bear and nothing was going to stand in your way. I knew you’d make it to Arcata. When you guys left the bar, I knew you’d make it.”
“Is this your idea of a pep talk? Frederico died not long after we left the bar.”
I glance up at Carter to see how he’s taking this. His face is stony.
“But you didn’t die. You’re the mama bear. Mama bears are some of the most dangerous animals out there. No one fucks with mama bears, Kate.”
“No one fucks with mama bears,” she repeats.
She sits in silence for a long while. Slowly, her spine straightens. Her chin lifts. Resolve infuses every line of her body.
“Thanks, Alvarez. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Over and out.”
“Over and out, Mama Bear. Take no prisoners.”