Текст книги "Backs Against the Wall"

Автор книги: Tracey Ward

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“You’re not worth it, Ryan,” I snap. He looks at me, surprised by my tone. “No matter what I need, you’re not worth it. You can’t come bursting in here, scribbling your gibberish all over everything, making me give a crap, then go out there and die. You can’t.”

“Hey,” he breathes, reaching for my hand again.

And again, I jerk it back.

“Hey,” he repeats, this time forcefully. Like a scolding. “Give me your hand, Joss.”

I let out a rough breath, then try to smile at him weakly. “Just because I don’t want you to die doesn’t mean I want you to touch me.”

“You’re a massive pain, do you know that?”

I reach out, taking his one hand in both of mine. It feels less claustrophobic this way, having him pressed between my palms instead of being clenched inside his. I can handle this.

“I know that,” I agree, staring at his long, beaten fingers. “We need to clean you up.”

He stands, then tugs on my hands, trying to pull me up as well. I stay stubbornly seated, looking up at him.

“Who’s the whore?”

“What?” he laughs.

“Freedom. You guys didn’t make her up, did you? She’s real.”

He sighs, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, she’s real.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s a girl my brother was… friendly with.”

“She was his girl?”

Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Not really. But he never paid her. I told you, he was a legend in the Underground. This girl really liked him. Her and a lot of other girls.”

“Ugh,” I groan, finally standing.

“Hey, it’s one of the perks. You get good at it, the women start flocking to you.”

I point my finger at his mangled face. “Never again!”

He laughs all the way to the bathroom.

I sit on the closed toilet and watch him get cleaned up. I offer to help but he waves me away, claiming he’s done it plenty on his own. I believe him.

“How is becoming a Risen not the dangerous part of fighting?”

Ryan hesitates, the alcohol soaked rag hovering over a particularly nasty cut on his face.

“The dangerous part is being good at it,” he says quietly. He presses the rag to his skin, flinching slightly. “I got in the ring a few times, but it was never anything official.”

“By ‘official’ do you mean being owned by the gang?” I ask, thinking of Nats and Breanne.

“Yeah. They wanted me to fight for them too, but Kev wouldn’t let me. I still got noticed, though. I got offers from other gangs to join up with them.”

“To fight for them.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what I just realized?”

Ryan smirks as he dabs at another spot of blood on his face. “That being a fighter is close to being a prostitute?”

I frown at him, worrying he’s a mind reader. “No. I just realized I don’t know the name of your gang.”

“Do you want to?”

“Is it bad if I do?”

“No,” he chuckles. “It’s the Hyperions. It’s Greek for one of the Titans. He was the father of the sun, the moon and the dawn.”

I snort. “So you’re a humble bunch?”

Ryan smirks sideways at me. “It’s not as impressive as it sounds. He got it on with his sister to have them.”

“Sick!”

“Yeah. But we didn’t exactly pick the name. The building we’re in used to be a theater. It was called the Hyperion.”

“Original.”

“Judgmental,” he says, pointing at me.

“It’s rude to point.”

“Pot and the kettle and all that,” he mutters, dabbing ointment on his fingertips and applying it to his face.

I shrug. “I can’t help it. I was raised by wolves.”

“Wolves have better manners.”

“You hate wolves!” I protest.

“I hate a wolf,” he corrects, “and he probably still has better manners than you.”

I kick him in the shin. Not hard, but it’s enough to jostle him and his responding laugh is short lived as it turns into a grunt of pain. I’ve made him slip, digging his finger into a cut on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I say hastily, springing up to stand beside him. “Let me see.”

He lets me stand in front of him, dropping his hands down to his sides as I rise up on my toes to look.

“Do you want me to finish it?” I ask, my breath rebounding off his face back at me. I hadn’t realized I was standing so close. I meet his eyes and take a deep, calming breath. He’s staring at me, watching me. He’s patient, but he’s tense. “Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to kiss me?” I whisper.

He nods slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Every time I go to touch you,” he says softly, “you pull away. I don’t want to crowd you. I don’t want you to run.”

I reach down with my right hand, taking hold of his. I move it until it sits heavy and warm on my hip. He follows my lead, pressing his other hand on the opposite side of my waist.

“There, see? You’re touching me and I’m still here.”

“This time,” he points out.

“I know. I’m a pain.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He kisses me softly, his hands pulling me closer to him. He’s careful of my arm this time. He pulls my hips flush with his but leans over me with his upper body. He’s holding me and hovering over me and I feel weightless and strange. And warm. His kiss, his breath, courses through me the way the vodka did, burning and churning into my stomach. His fingers find the edge of my thin t-shirt. They slip under, scorching across my skin. I start to feel anxious and so much more. So many things that I don’t understand.

I pull away.

Ryan takes his hands away, smiling that crooked smile of his and just like that, the heat fades. I can breathe again.

“We should go to bed,” I breathe, trying to bring myself down. To remind myself I’m alright.

Ryan stares are me, surprised.

I swat at him. Hard. I’m not good at being playful.

“Not like that and you know it.”

“I know,” he admits, grinning. “I know what you mean. We should get to sleep.”

When we step out of the bathroom, Ryan immediately heads for the door. He lays down slowly beside it, still being careful with his right leg.

“Goodnight,” he calls softly, settling in.

I hesitate, unsure. I don’t know what I want. Or what he wants. Or what I can handle.

“Ryan, you can—“

“No,” he says gently, turning his head to look at me. “I’m good here.”

I sigh, feeling relieved. “Do you want a blanket?”

“Do you have one to spare?”

“No, but I’ll give it to you anyway.”

He chuckles. “That’s alright, Joss. I’ve slept without one before. It won’t kill me.”

I pad across the room, carrying the blanket with me. Ryan looks up at me, watching me as I drape it over him.

I grin faintly. “And it won’t kill me to share.”

“You sure about that?”

I shrug. “Only one way to find out.”

Chapter Six

I do not die. I don’t exactly sleep, either. Ryan snores. I didn’t know this until now because the last time we had a slumber party I kicked him out before anyone fell asleep. He had to go. He was being a dick, asking questions and wanting answers. Who does that?

We expected to see Trent in the morning, but as it drags on into the afternoon, we get worried. Well, I get worried. Ryan says it’s no big deal. I suck at this, the worrying and not worrying. Knowing when it’s needed, when it’s expected and when it’s useless but you do it anyway. Exhausting. When it was just me, I didn’t have to deal with this crap. I have Ryan to thank for that and I remind myself to kick him in the shins again the next chance I get.

What we do for now is go hunting. I’m out of meat so I know Crenshaw must be too because I’m his sole supplier.

“What do you want to go for?” Ryan asks as we make our way toward the park.

“Shouldn’t we hunt somewhere else? Somewhere farther away from your home?”

He shakes his head, rolling his neck and shoulders. His back must be killing him from sleeping on the hard floor all night.

“Nah, there have been roundups around the other hunting grounds.”

My stomach flips at the thought of the Colonists. “Are they still swarming the watering holes too?”

“Not as much.”

“Have you seen them?”

He scans the roads, his face blank. “Yeah, I’ve seen them.”

I try to smile at him, to reassure him, I think? But I don’t really get why I’m doing it, so I stop.

“You okay?”

“I got out,” I say, trying to sound solid. Like with the smile, I fail. “I’m great.”

What I am is feeling guilty. It’s been too long since I made it out of the Colony. I’m sure at this point Vin and Nats think I either betrayed them or The Hive killed me on sight. Is it too jacked up to hope they think I’m dead?

“We’ll go back for them, Joss.”

I nod my head but I don’t say a word because that’s all it is. Words. None of it gets us anywhere. None of it brings us closer to where we need to be in order to free them. It’s all I can think about every day, even when I’m trying hard not to. When I’m laughing with Ryan and telling myself it’ll be okay, I can feel it gnawing at me that it’s not. That I’m failing. But I won’t sacrifice him for it either. I won’t ask him to fight for me.

“There has to be another way,” I mutter to myself.

“And we’ll find it. I promise.”

We’ve entered the woods and I stop, staring into the darkness beyond the trees. Part of me knew already but I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to break the rules any more than I already have, but I have to because he’s my last hope. My last chance at being better than I or Vin ever really were made to be.

“Gandalf.”

Ryan frowns at me, following my stare. “What?”

“Crenshaw,” I say, looking up at him. “We have to ask Crenshaw.”

“Ask him what? To help us?” he asks dubiously. “Unless he’s a real wizard and knows how to summon us a dragon, I don’t think he can do much for us.”

“But he knows things. He knows people. Maybe he knows someone who can help.”

“Someone other than The Hive,” Ryan agrees, looking into the woods again. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Let’s get a kill first, make sure we have meat to bring him. I worry about his diet.”

“People didn’t eat meat before the sickness came and they were just fine,” Ryan reminds me, falling in step beside me as we venture deeper into the woods.

“I know. I just… I worry about him. I don’t want him to get frail, I guess.”

Ryan nods in understanding. “He’s alone, like you. You want to make sure he’s strong enough to fend for himself.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I mutter.

I’m not sure if he’s right but I’m not sure if he’s wrong either. The basic fact is that I worry about Crenshaw. I always have. Even before Ryan, people were still with me. I hadn’t really noticed before because Crenshaw made it so simple. So black and white, easy to understand. I’ve always known what he wants from me and what I want from him. With Ryan, it’s so much gray. So much I don’t get and can’t categorize.

When we hunt for rabbit and squirrel, what we get are Risen. Lots of them. There are so many more in the woods than I remember seeing and it sends my stomach straight through to the ground. Ryan is less effected, telling me this is how it’s been since the Colony collapse. That it got worse after I left as more filtered down here into the heart of the city. As we close in on three of them, I worry about Ryan’s cuts, his aching leg, his stiff shoulders and my busted arm.

“Do you have your ASP?” he asks, flanking the Risen on the left and gesturing for me to do the same on the right.

“Yeah, of course. Thanks for that, by the way.”

He grins. “No problem. I’ll handle two, you take the third.”

“Got it.”

My Risen is a beauty. All gray tissue sagging slowly off the face like pizza dough in a hot room. The left eye socket is dropping down over the bone, exposing black muscle tissue that’s long past useful and the sagging skin over the top of the eye is probably the only thing holding the bulging eyeball in the socket. I have the morbid desire to lift that flesh and see if I’m right. To see if the eye slips out and dangles down, swinging like a pendulum.

When I hear a grunt from Ryan followed by the moist squish of his spike going into decomposed skin, I snap out of it. I get to work. I swing my right arm across my body, then snap it back out, basically backhanding the Risen in the face with the steel tip of my ASP. It makes a loud crunch, sending a spray of skin and black blood arching into the bushes. The head is snapped back hard and before it can try to right itself, I reverse my momentum and bring the ASP back the way it came. This time I make contact with the side of the skull, right in the sweet spot of the temple. The meatbag drops to the dirt – done.

I’ve hardly exerted myself, but when I look at Ryan, I’m breathing quickly and grinning.

“How messed up is it that I missed that?” I ask him, not even caring what his answer is.

My injured arm aches but there’s so much strength coursing through my veins, it doesn’t matter to me. This is so much better than sewing or baking. I’d give up all the pumpkin pie in the world for this feeling. To know I’m strong. Effective. Meaningful. I was nothing in there. Inside the Colony, I was just a body doing a duty. Washing dishes or making a bed. That’s not me.

I spin my ASP in my hand, loving the tensile power inside of it, power given to it by my hand. Without me, it’s just a piece of steel. Without it, I’m just a broken girl running for her life. Together, we’re deadly.

Ryan smiles. “I don’t think it’s messed up at all.”

I nod to his knuckles. “What is that? Did you make it?”

He flexes his fingers, looking at the spike along his knuckles. “Kevin did. He made it for in the arena.”

“In the Underground?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s cool,” I tell him admiringly.

He shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “It’s better than nothing. Let’s get that meat you wanted and go see the wizard.”

When we finally manage to bag a couple of rabbits, we start to head back toward Crenshaw’s.

“I should do it alone.”

He frowns down at me. “Why?”

“He likes me.”

“He likes me too,” Ryan insists, sounding offended.

“He likes me more.”

“What are you? Two years old? It’s not a competition. I’m sure daddy loves all his kids the same.”

“But I’m special.”

“Why? Cause you’re a girl? Get over yourself, Joss. I’m going with you.”

I want to hit him for trivializing how hard it’s been to do this on my own being a girl surrounded by Lost Boys, Colonists and Risen. It’s been a nightmare, and honestly, being around people again has its pros and cons too. I can’t exactly say it’s hands down a better deal than what I had before. It’s different, sure, but is it better? I feel annoyed more often, that’s about all I know. Like right here, right now.

Annoyed.

“Whatever, let’s go.”

I turn my back on him instead of hitting him or yelling at him. I feel like that’s a sure sign that my social skills are improving.

We reach the edge of Crenshaw’s property and pause, scanning the trees.

“You want to knock or should I?” Ryan asks.

“Just do it.”

He chuckles. “You are seriously a sore loser.”

“I haven’t lost anything!”

“Athena?” Crenshaw calls.

“Nothing but your temper,” Ryan whispers in my ear, his breath tickling my hair across my neck.

I shiver, shoving him away as I try not to smile.

“I saw that,” he mumbles.

“Shut up.”

“Ah, Athena,” Crenshaw says happily, emerging from the shadows like mist the way he loves to do. “I thought that was you.” He looks Ryan up and down briefly. “And you’ve brought young Helios with you.”

I turn to ask Ryan who the hell Helios is, but my words die in my throat. He’s down in the grass on one knee, his head bowed.

“Master Crenshaw,” he intones deeply.

Crenshaw grins affectionately, waving his hand to him. “Rise, rise, my boy. As you’ve brought Athena with you, I assume this is to be a social call. No need for such ceremony.”

Ryan stands beside me. I stare at me in amazement.

“What was that?”

“Shh,” he shushes me. “Master Crenshaw, we seek your council.”

“Ah, so then it is not entirely a social call.”

“No, sir.”

“Well, come, my children. Come. You’ll sit at my hearth and tell me your troubles.”

We follow silently and carefully behind Crenshaw as he leads us through his maze of traps. I’m bursting with questions about what the bowing and ‘Master’ bit was about, but I lock it up for now. Talking to Crenshaw, especially about real issues, is a delicate thing. Some days you get sharp moments of a man well aware he’s living in an apocalypse. Other days, you get the wizard who wants to show you his latest trick of turning water into wine. It’s not wine. It’s not even grape juice. It’s water with mashed up grapes in it, seeds, skins and all. But you drink it because you’ll hurt his feelings otherwise and if there’s one thing you never do, it’s piss off a wizard.

He seats us at his small table inside his hut, Ryan actually on his bed with his long legs tucked up nearly into his chest. We both pass on whatever brew he has going on the stove that wreaks of onions because that’s probably what it is, boiling onions, and we offer him a share of our kill in exchange for his advice.

“What knowledge do you seek?” he asks us seriously, his large round eyes scanning both our faces.

Ryan glances at me quickly, looking anxious. This is where it could go well or very wrong. You never know.

I clear my throat. “Helios and I,” I begin, feeling like an idiot, “are looking to free the other souls I was imprisoned with.”

Crenshaw’s face falls in shadow. It’s as though the light of the entire world has been sucked from it and the only thing left besides the darkness is the burning fire in his eyes.

“Those zealots,” he says quietly, his voice trembling slightly, “have been a menace since the start. I have seen countless souls ensnared in their nets. Countless bodies tossed carelessly within their chariots to be their slaves. To work their fields, tend their livestock. Fatten their King. But the day I knew they’d taken you,” he reaches out with his warm, worn hand and rests it gently on top of mine. I tense, doing everything I can to keep my hand there. To sit still and not offend him. I can feel Ryan’s eyes heavy on me, on my hand, and the weight of his stare makes it so much worse. “It broke my heart, Athena.”

I freeze, staring at him in surprise. I’m surprised by his sad voice, by his angry eyes, but most importantly I’m surprised that it’s all for me.

“It did?” I whisper.

“Of course. You are my bellatrix.”

“Like in Harry Potter?” Ryan mumbles.

I kick him under the table.

“What does that mean, Cren?”

He laughs, squeezing my hand before mercifully releasing it. “Your Latin is atrocious! It is a woman warrior. You are a Valkyrie, Athena. Defeating the devils that have escaped Hell’s gates.”

“I’m not exactly doing it alone,” I chuckle nervously, feeling both of their eyes on me.

“No, you’re right. You have Helios to help you. I must say that this,” Crenshaw gestures between Ryan and I, “is right. It is as it should be. You’ve fought valiantly, my dear, but there’s no shame in accepting help. And Helios, he can help you.”

I glance quickly at Ryan, feeling my checks burn with that irritating flush of embarrassment. He smiles smugly at me.

“I know that,” I grumble, feeling my ASP against my thigh and the press of the splint on my injured arm, both of which wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for him. I might not be here if it weren’t for him and Trent. I’m starting to owe a lot to a lot of people and I’m thinking that debt is another thing I lived without before all of this started. It’s also something I have to sink deeper into.

I level my gaze on Crenshaw, stowing my doubts, my girly blushes, and getting down to business.

“I’ll need more help than just Helios here,” I tell him, jutting my thumb at Ryan. “I’ve considered going to The Hive, but—“

Crenshaw leaps from his chair, his staff tossed aside carelessly. I have no idea where he got it from, maybe he conjured it from air and rage, but there’s a long gleaming dagger suddenly in his hand.

It’s pointed at my face.

“You will not,” he says, his voice sounding cavernous and strange, “talk about The Hive in my house.”

Chapter Seven

Ryan and I are on our feet immediately, instinct kicking in. We’re whipping out our weapons before we can even think. Crenshaw pauses, looking from one weapon to the other, his breathing erratic.

“Master Crenshaw,” Ryan says calmly, as though he’s not holding the Punch of Death pointed at the guy, “we have no quarrel with you. We never have. We want no violence. Can we all be calm? May we stow our weapons and sit again as friends?”

It’s nice to know it’s not only me. That I’m not the only one who has to slip into character like I’m reading from King Arthur’s diary in order to talk to this guy. He watches Ryan for several long, tense moments before nodding his head and taking his seat.

“Please, sit. I apologize for my outburst. My tempers, they flare at the mention of the Zealots but they burn with fire eternal when I’m forced to think of… the others.” Crenshaw takes a deep breath as we sit down again, both of us a little further back from the table than we were before. “You mustn’t go to them. Promise me.”

Ryan and I glance at each other, unsure. I have no desire to break a promise to Crenshaw but if all else fails, I made a promise to the people in the Colony as well. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up betraying someone’s trust.

“Why, Cren?” I ask him gently. “What are you so against us going to The Hive?”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Can you not speak that name in this building? It is my home. My sanctuary.” When he opens his eyes to look at me they’re tired and sad. “They have taken so much already. I do not care for them to ruin this as well.”

“Of course, yeah,” I agree, not understanding entirely. But I understand enough. I understand having a home and defending it at all costs. I understand having it taken. Invaded.

“We don’t want to go to them,” Ryan tells Crenshaw. His eyes are still watching the old man closely. His weapon is still in place on his hand. “We were hoping you could advise us on how to gather people together. To get more help. We could try to rally the gangs, but they don’t play well together. Not in a fight.”

Crenshaw nods sagely. “Each would wonder what was in it for them.”

“Exactly. There’d be so much fighting with each other, we’d never get around to fighting the Colonies. It’s why we wanted to go to the largest of the gangs, because they’re already united, but,” Ryan glances at me quickly, his face unreadable, “we’re pretty sure we wouldn’t want to pay their price.”

“Indeed you would not,” he agrees softly. He looks at Ryan with eerily sharp eyes. Eyes that remind me of Trent. That feel too lucid to be my Gandalf the Gray. “Never take her to them. Never let them see her. Women in The H—“ He sighs forcefully. “It’s no place for women. Especially women like her.”

I frown, annoyed that I’m obviously being discussed as though I’m not sitting right here.

“What do you mean, ‘women like her’?” I demand.

“You lost someone to them,” Ryan says sadly.

Crenshaw nods.

“To who?” I ask. “To The—to them?”

They ignore me again. I’ve gone full Casper.

Crenshaw nods. “She was her age. Just as bright. Just as beautiful.” He grins faintly. “Just as rough around the edges.”

Ryan smiles. “It’s part of the beauty.”

“The greatest part.”

“I’m sorry about your daughter.” Ryan says, obviously gleaning more from this conversation than I am. What daughter?

“Don’t be sorry for me. Just do a better job protecting her than I did.”

“I swear it.”

“Good lad.”

“What the hell?” I mutter, looking back and forth between them.

They wouldn’t hear me with Ouija board.

Crenshaw rises from the table slowly. It’s as though his outburst has drained him of everything he had. He’s hunched slightly, his movements labored. I have to remind myself that as spry, lively and crazy as he seems, he is an old man. He’s got a lot of life under his belt and it’s not just bones that get tired.

He goes to a wooden box about the size of a toolbox sitting at the foot of his bed. After digging around silently, he pulls out a large piece of worn, white paper. I’m waiting anxiously to see what this is. It could be anything. A spell book. A nude drawing of Tom Hanks. A cheat sheet to the 2009 SATs. Or something far more disturbing like a nude drawing of himself or a detailed chart monitoring his bowel movements. One never knows.

What he actually does lay out on the table both startles and amazes me.

It’s a map of Neverland. A hand-drawn, near perfection, detailed map of the Seattle area. Not as it was, because who cares? This is a map of what the city is today. Instead of zip codes, the city is broken up by gang territories. The stadiums are labeled as what they really are – Colonies. I eagerly search the outer edges to the south, looking to see if Cren knows exactly where the third Colony lies, but there’s nothing. Just a drawing of the shoreline with a topless mermaid out in the water, waving at me.

“Whoa,” Ryan breathes, stowing his spike hand under the table and leaning forward over the map.

Crenshaw smiles at him happily, his mood shifting dramatically. He’s proud and pleased to see Ryan so into his work. Excitement is written all over both of their faces.

“It is incomplete,” Crenshaw warns. He spreads it flat with gentle, soothing hands. “I shouldn’t be showing it to you, Helios. Other gangs, other tribes, would be angry to know I’d shown you where their hideouts lie. But I have faith in you. I trust in your trueness.”

“Thank you, Master Crenshaw,” Ryan says with a small smile. He looks so happy. Flattered by the old guy’s admiration and I realize I’m not the only one who grew up without a dad. Who feels that missing piece of me.

“I believe I have the names of each of the tribes correct, but of course I’m unsure as to what the true names of the Colonies are.”

“C-92,” I deadpan, pulling my eyes away from Ryan’s smile. I wipe my sweating palms on my pants before pointing to the football stadium. Next I point to the baseball stadium right next door. “G-11. The one in the southeast is somewhere along the water but I don’t know where. The people I talked to didn’t either. It’s G-35.”

They stare at me in shock. I don’t know if they’re surprised I remembered the names or that I know them at all. I have a brief, paranoid and horrifying thought that they’ll think I’m a spy. That I didn’t ‘escape’ the Colony at all but that I was released to… what? Be socially awkward with a hot guy and help an old lunatic finish his map quest?

“Where were you held?” Ryan asks.

He’s looking at me, I can feel it. I keep my eyes trained on the table.

“The MOHAI,” I reply curtly.

“The what?”

I point to the spot on Cren’s map. The small area tucked in the harbor that felt a million miles away from here but now looks so close. Too close. And too small to house so many people. Too small to house a person like Vin.

“It was here. In the old museum building. I can’t remember what MOHAI stands for, but it was Colony A-36.”

Crenshaw quickly whips out a charcoal pencil from his box of goodies and begins filling in the information I’ve given him.

“Why did they name them like that?” Ryan asks, watching Crenshaw’s simple, slanting handwriting scrawl over the pages. I expected something more somehow. Old English flourishes or Latin. Maybe Aramaic. These chicken scratches annoy me. “It seems so cold compared to what they’re always spouting on the billboards or over their intercoms.”

“Everything about them is a lie,” Crenshaw mutters.

“It’s to confuse people.” I point vaguely to the MOHAI. “The people in the building where I was held are pulled from all of the other Colonies. It’s what I told you about breaking up families. Every one of those people has someone in another Colony somewhere. Someone they care about. They all have something to lose.”

Ryan nods. “Makes sense. It’s a good way to control people. But why did these people get pulled away from their families to go here? Is it a new Colony? I’ve never heard of one up that way.”

“It can’t be new. It’s too well developed. And a girl I talked to said it had been occupied before but there was a problem in the building. They abandoned it for a while.”

“Who was this girl?”

I shrug, sitting back with my arms crossed over my chest. “Just some chick angry at being there.”

“Another friend?” Ryan asks, grinning.

I shake my head. “I punched her in the face.”

“Typical.”

“And the ear. I almost knelt on her throat. Nearly smothered her with a pillow.”

“Now do you see why I have a hard time believing you made friends in there?”

“This young woman,” Crenshaw says suddenly, frowning at his map, “did she know if there were others? Other Colonies?”

“No, just the ones you have marked now.”

He looks up at me, his face drawn. He’s disappointed. “It is a shame you could not gain us more valuable information while you were there.”

“It is. It’s a shame I didn’t do more sleuthing while I was there,” I say, my temper rising. “I should have gone all Sherlock up in that joint, but I was too busy trying not to lose my mind from all of the bright lights and bodies everywhere. Next time, I promise, I’ll do better.”

Ryan isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s watching Crenshaw carefully, probably worried I’ll upset him with my sarcasm. Part of me is worried too, but a bigger part is annoyed. Tired. Angry.

“What is this?” I demand, changing the subject.

I point to a dark area of the map, shaded in shadows with jagged strokes. It’s in the south, just a few blocks from the two stadium Colonies sitting side by side.

“Hmmm,” Crenshaw moans quietly. “That is a portal into Hell.”

“Right.”

“The space between here,” he points to a narrow corridor running between the dark area and the Colonies, “is the Valley of the Shadow of Death. One must never, never pass through it.”

“Of course not.”

“But none of this is important, not right now. What I want to show you is this.”

Crenshaw turns the map toward us. He points decisively to a small area at the very bottom. It’s just the peak of a piece of land, nothing descript or defining about it at all. But written carefully over the top of it is the word Elysium.

“And what is that?”

Crenshaw smiles at me, his eyes wild. “Heaven.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say faintly, squinting at the map. “I can see it now.”

“How is it Heaven, sir?” Ryan asks.

His foot nudges mine gently under the table. I don’t know if it’s on purpose, if it’s a warning or an accident. Either way I don’t like it and I move my feet away from him.

“It is an island in the south. It is completely and utterly wraith free.”

“That’s impossible.”

“My boy, in Heaven nothing is impossible. This is where you will go to look for help.”