Kevin’s words echo in my head. “I’m glad you finally got to meet the real me.” As opposed to the fake him? Does he know that I found a way out of the shelter, and found his warehouse full of food? And that I searched his bedroom? For a minute I am so confused, I forget to be sad. And then I remember that I might never get to see Kevin again. My heart crashes, my stomach drops into my hips, and I want to scream. It feels just like the day Dean left.
The air seems to thicken around me, squeezing me, making my head throb, making it hard to breathe. I bite the inside of my cheek and force myself to breathe the dense shelter air.
Something touches my hand, a feathery warmth that wraps around three of my fingers. I look down into a pair of dark eyes. The beast-boy’s eyes. They have the same hopeful expression my little brother’s eyes get right before he starts begging me for something. But the beast-boy stays silent. His lower lip quivers.
Without a thought, I crouch down in front of him and throw my arms around his narrow shoulders. It feels just like hugging my eight-year-old brother, which intensifies the emotions already swirling through me as I start to cry. Sob. And this little boy stands perfectly still and lets me hold him—lets my tears drip down onto him until the shoulder of his oversize T-shirt is soaked.
“Sorry,” I whisper, sniffling and leaning away from him. “Do you have a name?”
His black eyebrows furrow and he studies me.
“How old are you?”
The kid doesn’t say a thing—just stares at me with haunted eyes.
“We’ll call you Vince. That’s my little brother’s middle name. He’s eight. Are you hungry?”
Haunted eyes. Staring.
“Come on. I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Like a lost little puppy, he follows me into the kitchen. As I measure powdered pancake mix out of a can and dump it into a bowl, Vince stares at me. I add the water and hold the bowl out to him. “Wanna stir?”
He stares.
“Parli italiano?” I ask. Do you speak Italian? He blinks at me and scratches his head. “I didn’t think so, but it was worth a try.”
When I put a plate piled high with steaming golden flapjacks onto the table, Vince doesn’t bother to sit or use a fork. He grabs the stack of pancakes and shoves as much into his mouth as he can.
Fo comes out of the bathroom, hair wet and brushed away from her face, eyes red and swollen. A lump forms in my throat, nearly choking me. Today might be the first day of the rest of her life as a widow.
“Here.” I put a second plate of pancakes on the table.
“Thanks, Jacqui,” she whispers, sitting.
I walk to the stove and lift the frying pan from the burner. “Watch, Vince,” I say, forcing myself to sound happy. I flip the pancake up into the air. Vince, mouth still full, watches it soar up almost to the ceiling. It slaps back down into the pan and he focuses on his food again. “Huh. That one always makes my brother laugh.”
A minute later I take the hot pancake from the pan and slide it onto Vince’s plate. He’s already eaten five. At least someone has an appetite. My stomach hurts too much to eat. Fo stares at her plate but doesn’t even pick up a fork.
“They’ll come back,” I say, but it sounds weak.
“How can you believe that when your own brother never came back?” She whispers this, but it hits me in the gut like she’s punched me. I turn and brace my hands on the counter, staring into the stainless-steel sink. She’s right. Nothing works out the way it should.
“I just wish there was a way to stay in contact with them. Why doesn’t Kevin have walkie-talkies? He freaking has everything else in his little shelter,” Fo says, voice full of anger.
Slowly, I turn around and stare at her.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Jacqui?” She stands up from the table, her eyes begging for a scrap of good news.
I whisk Vince’s plate out from under him, midbite, and drop it into the sink. Fo’s plate goes in next, stack of pancakes and all. Wasting food is a sin … unless it is for a really, really good reason. That’s definitely an embroidery-worthy phrase.
“Move!” I grab Fo’s hand and pull her away from the table, then scoot the chair and table to the middle of the kitchen and open the flour cupboard. One by one, I start yanking out cans.
“What are you doing?” Fo asks.
I peer over my shoulder at her. She’s staring at me like I’ve gone nuts. “There’s a door in here.”
“Wow. I think you’ve lost it. The door is that way.” She points in the other direction.
“No—a secret way out that leads to a place where we can see how they’re doing. We can watch them.”
Without another word, she’s at my side, helping me get the last of the flour out of the cupboard. When we’ve gotten all forty-eight cans out, I grab two flashlights, insert batteries into both of them, and hand her one. We both glance at Vince. He is still eating—taking the pancakes out of the sink—and staring at us. I hold out my hand to him. “Come on, buddy. You’re coming with me.” He stares at my hand, so I take his hand in mine. His fingernails are all different lengths and filthy. I wrap my fingers around his hand so they’re covering his tattoo.
“Is it safe? Do you really think we should let him come?” Fo asks.
“Do you really think we should leave him here alone? What if something happens to us? He could die down here without someone to take care of him.” I duck into the cupboard, pulling Vince with me, and climb out on the other side.
“How do you know about this door? Did Kevin tell you?” Fo asks, crawling out of the cupboard and shining her flashlight down the cement hall.
“I found it when Kevin locked me in the shelter to go and get you guys.”
“So he didn’t tell you about it?” She sounds disappointed.
“No. Why?”
“Jonah thinks Kevin is an undercover raider. He thinks Kevin may be leading them into a trap, because if Jonah and Bowen are gone, then you and I are easier to capture. And with a secret passage down here, we’re not as safe as I thought. He could send men in to get us without us ever unlocking the door.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I argue. “He could have already handed me over to the raiders.”
“Jonah thinks the only reason Kevin didn’t hand you over to them already is because he would lose his chance to hand me over too.”
“No way. Kevin’s not a raider.” Anger makes my voice too loud and I wonder at this strong attachment I’ve grown to him.
“I didn’t say I agreed. That’s just what Jonah thinks. I think he’s a Siren.”
That theory actually makes sense. Almost. “But if he’s a Siren, what does he gain? What is a Siren’s ultimate goal?”
Fo shrugs. “That’s the question.”
We start walking and I keep hold of Vince’s hand.
The walk through the cement hall seems to take forever, with Vince slowing us down to touch every crack in the wall. When we get to the cave, the going is even slower. Vince pulls against my grasp on him and stares at everything, touches everything, has to jump in the stream that flows over the pathway until his pants—Kevin’s oversize pants that are rolled up about ten times—are completely soaked. When he’s done splashing, he crouches and lets the water run over his fingers, staring at it like he’s never seen water before.
“Come on, Vince.” I gently pull him away from the water. We continue through the cave without talking and then arrive at the food-storage room. Fo’s mouth falls open as she looks at the rows and rows of food.
“I know,” I say. “There’s enough food in here to feed everyone in the city.”
“Or to last Kevin a lifetime. Where did he get all of this food?”
“He said the food came from scavenging abandoned houses after the bee flu epidemic and pesticide wiped everything out.”
“That’s impossible. There’s too much food. No one would have been able to gather this much.”
I think of the meager rations my family lives on, despite searching abandoned houses and buildings for food on a semi-regular basis. Fo’s right. There has to be another explanation.
Finally, we arrive at the wine cellar. Sunlight floods the cellar stairs, warming the air.
“Come on. We’ve got to go upstairs.” I lead the way to the bedroom with the telescope. Without wasting a moment, I press my eye to the lens.
Morning sun is streaming through the window, warming my skin. I move the telescope, scanning the hillside. The motion makes my stomach turn, because moving the telescope one inch is like watching the world zoom by at one hundred miles per hour. Finally, when I’m queasy with motion sickness, I see a flash of movement. Three heads are bobbing down the foothills at an alarming rate, and they’re almost at the bottom. I scream and look at Fo. “Found them!”
Fo takes my place at the telescope. I sit on the edge of the bed beside Vince and tap my toes. “Do you see them?” I ask.
“Yes. They’re almost at the bottom of the foothills.”
Vince leans his head against my shoulder, so I turn and look at him. He’s holding something, turning it over and over in his hands. I take a closer look because I recognize it. “Can I see that?” He doesn’t seem to understand, so I take the thing from his hand. It is an empty single-serving applesauce container with the foil lid still attached on one edge and fingernail marks gouged along the edges. “Fo, where did Vince get this?”
She takes her eye from the telescope, looks at the applesauce container, and points to a small bedside table that has a shallow drawer. I stand and open the drawer. There are other things in it—an empty tube of watermelon lip balm, a peanut-butter cracker snack-pack wrapper, and the letters AB made out of wire. My heart starts pounding, and I lift the wire letters.
Before anyone came into view, the dogs started barking, their noonday shadows blunt on the snow beneath them. I was on watch, so when I saw who it was, I told the dogs to be quiet and waved my dad back inside. “It’s nothing,” I said.
He was back, the homeless guy who seemed to find his way to my house a couple of times every month. Today he wore calf-high leather snow boots and layers of rags to keep the cold at bay. Dry mud was matted into his clothes, his eyebrows, even his beard, and there were enough twigs in his shoulder-length hair to make it look more like a bird’s nest than hair. I couldn’t even tell what color it was. Where did he find mud and twigs? Everything had been buried beneath eighteen inches of snow for more than two weeks.
“Hello, Jack.” A smile lit his face. He looked worse than normal—the skin visible on his face was chapped, his lips were cracked and peeling—so I did what any human being would do. I reached into one of my vest pockets and took out a tube of watermelon lip balm. Since it made my lips slightly pink I wasn’t allowed to wear it. The only reason I’d held on to it this long was because I loved the smell.
I held the lip balm out to him. He glanced at my hand and then up at my face, and his eyes filled with wonder. “Go on. Take it,” I said. He reached for the lip balm. Fingerless wool gloves covered his hands, and when our bare fingers touched, he held on and looked right into my eyes. I forced myself not to yank away from his skin. When he let go, I covertly wiped my fingers against my pants.
“Thank you,” he said, eyes still locked on mine. He tucked the lip balm into a fold of his ragged sweater. “I need to speak to your father.”
He almost always wanted to speak to Dad, and Dad never turned him away and never told me why. He’d just brush off the vagabond’s sporadic visits like they were a normal occurrence. And they were after a while.
“Why do you want to talk to him?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
His cracked lips curved up just a bit, giving me a glimpse of fuzzy teeth. “Just tell him I’m here. Please. I’ll wait.”
“Who should I tell him is here?” I asked. It had been nine months since he’d started showing up, and every time I asked him his name, he gave me the same reply:
“Names aren’t important. Just tell him the vagabond is here.” A smile twinkled in his eyes and pulled his lips away from his green, crooked teeth.
Not daring to take my eyes from the man, I walked backward to the front porch and opened the door. “Dad, the vagabond is here again.”
Dad came to the door. When his gaze settled on the filthy man, Dad smiled. “Wait here, Jack,” he said, and strode across the yard to meet him, holding out his hand. The bum took Dad’s hand in his, and they shook like old friends. They spoke a few quiet words to each other, leaning close so their voices didn’t carry, and then Dad turned and walked back into the house.
I stood on the porch and stared at the vagabond. He stared back, gaze riveted on me, hint of a smile on his mouth. “It’s been cold,” he called, kicking at the crusty snow.
The snow was everywhere, blanketing the whole visible world since no snowplows scraped the streets, and no one was around to shovel their driveways or sidewalks. It covered the trash and filth that littered my neighborhood—the broken-down cars, useless garbage cans, broken mailboxes—and made everything appear fresh and innocent.
“Are you guys staying warm?” His breath puffed out like white mist when he spoke.
“More or less.” I shivered despite my goose-down coat and walked across the yard. I stopped beside Dean’s dog, Bosco, and rested my hand on his head. “We have a big supply of useless furniture to burn, and when we run out, we just go into one of these houses for more.” I nod toward the nearest house, a brick rambler that used to belong to the Johnsons. The bee flu killed them all.
The vagabond nods and takes a step toward me. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. I don’t. Bosco’s fur bristles and he growls, but the stranger doesn’t look at the dog. He’s too intent on me.
“The snow makes your eyes look like they are flecked with silver.” His voice is quiet. My eyes grow round and I shrink away from him. Warning bells gong inside my head, and I put my hand on my gun. The vagabond lifts his hands up in the air and takes a step back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a random observation.”
I take my hand off the gun and put it back on Bosco’s warm head.
“Thank you, Jack.” He lowers his hands and stares at me. And stares at me. And stares. There’s something in his eyes, something I know well. Hunger. I can take a hint. I dig in my coat pocket and pull out a small piece of flatbread, flicking little pieces of lint from it, and then hand it to him.
He seems startled by the offering, but takes it and puts it in his mouth, and while he’s chewing, he searches through his clothing and pulls out a thumb-size letter J made from wire, holding it up for me to see. It’s beautiful—the wire is bent and weaved so it looks like the J is made out of a silver vine.
“There’s a loop on top of it so you can put it on a necklace or keychain,” he says.
I take the J and step back into my yard. The vagabond takes one more long look at me. “Good-bye, Jack.”
“See ya,” I say, and watch him walk down the snowy street, until he turns a corner and is gone from view. Then I unzip the top pocket on my vest—the pocket where I keep my most treasured things, like the lip balm I just gave away—and tuck the J safely inside.
I pick up the wire word AB, which is woven to look like it is made from silver vines. Lifting Kevin’s sweatshirt halfway up my chest, I unzip the top pocket on my vest, take out the J I was given nine months ago, and hold it to the AB. It fits perfectly—the wires lining up so exactly that the three letters had to have been woven at the same time and then had the J snipped off later.
A shiver runs down my spine. JAB. Those are my initials— Jacqui Aislynn Bloom. I put all three letters into the top pocket of my vest and walk in a daze to the closet. I already know what is in there, and it makes perfect sense. But the perfect sense is too weird to wrap my brain around.
The bars on the right side of the closet are full of hanging clothes, filthy oversize clothes, covered with dirt and dried grass—clothes no one would want to wear, not to mention hang up in a closet. On a shelf above the clothes are wigs, scarves, hats, and beards—all caked with dried mud and twigs and grass. Kevin’s words echo in my head again. I’m glad you finally got to meet the real me. As opposed to the nasty, filthy, homeless version of him that I’ve sort of known for a year and a half. He is the vagabond. I shudder at the thought of kissing that homeless man. And then blush when I think of Kevin’s lips on mine.
I lean against the closet door frame as opposites battle inside me. Trust versus mistrust. Attraction versus repulsion. Truth versus lies.
But the biggest thought running through my head is: why in the world has Kevin, dressed as a filthy bum, been coming to my house for all these months? Because it obviously wasn’t for the minuscule tidbits of food I gave him.
“Oh no,” Fo mutters. I grab the door frame and hold my breath, waiting for bad news. “Jack! You need to see this!”