Palimpsest (Book 2): Of One Skein, Page 4

  I start to interrupt her and she holds up a finger for me to shush.

  She closes her eyes, remembering.

  “You were already with Carlos when I first found you.

  “You were wearing a pair of jeans so ripped and faded, so threadbare that I thought they might disintegrate and fall off at any minute. That letter jacket was tied to your pack. I remember that you were one of the few with a coat, because it was still hot.

  “I made friends with Denise the next day, but I kept my eye on you. There was something about you, is something about you. You stand out. Denise gave me some pain pills for my…I had some ointments, but it…anyway, that’s how I got to know her. She was kind. So was her mom, I hated leaving her. She was just trying to take care of her family, her child, you know? She had no idea where the rest of her family was, her husband and, you saw her — she wasn’t made for, for…whatever this is.”

  Sam waves her hands in the air for effect.

  “So, I spent the next couple of days with Denise, but you were never close to the rest of us, always by yourself, off to the side — a lone wolf, and always with that .45 in your hand. One day you’d be to our right, then the next to the left, always shifting around. I didn’t know why, not then, but I kept watching you, but from the back.

  “Crowds are dangerous, right?”

  I nod.

  “When it got weird, you know, gangs or whatever, I’d hang with Denise and sleep with the group if I couldn’t find a better place to hide, but I always kept my disguise, even at night, and my .38 ready.”

  “I remember, Goggle-boy, smart,” I say.

  That whimsical smile passes over her face as she continues. “I think it was about a week later you had a run-in with Carlos. It was still warm. The next day you were carrying a kid on your shoulders. Do you remember his name?”

  “No,” I say and look across the waving weeds, back up the hill.

  “I think you do.”

  “Yeah, thanks, we can stop here — I was there.”

  I don’t want to hear this again, don’t want to relive it.

  “But you don’t know what I saw, do you? Or what I thought?”

  “No, but…”

  “But nothing. You can’t feel for me. It doesn’t work that way. Your control issues stop right here,” she says, drawing an imaginary line in front of her boots. “This isn’t your story, it’s mine, you just happen to be in it. So, for the last time, can you shut up, please?”

  I study my own worn shoes, thinking about that line in the sand and nod.

  It’s been a long time since I was scolded.

  “Carlos was leading us away from that Red Cross camp, and you had that little boy on your shoulders like it was just a regular day and he was holding that puppy. We were cutting through the countryside, and you were just joking and playing with him, the kid I mean.”

  “How much did you see?” I ask as a tinge of guilt races up my spine. She’s seen me do much worse since, but memories are weird.

  She sighs and takes a seat next to me on the bumper and lays a hand on my thigh.

  Her hand is warm through my jeans.

  “There was a girl, that last night at the camp. She wanted to leave with us, I think she spent the day with one of the Dalton brothers, maybe she was sweet on him, but her parents didn’t want her to leave, Carlos didn’t seem to care one way or the other. But she must have snuck out and followed us anyway. Her life must have been pretty bad or Dalton was special.”

  “Special is pretty hard to ignore, I get that one.”

  She smiles and then just as quickly, she frowns. “I was still afraid back then, of my own shadow to be honest, and that night…”

  “You’re not still scared?” I ask.

  “Can I tell my story, please? And no, I’m not, not when I’m with you.”

  She looks up at me sheepishly.

  “I never want you to be afraid again…”

  “I know, I know,” she says, taking my hand, and then her tone grows quiet and serious. “I know.”

  She clears her throat after a moment and continues. “Carlos’ guys were acting weird that night, so I kept my distance. I was more scared than usual.”

  “Observant, more like it,” I say.

  “Something was in the air. When I saw that girl, she was sneaking across the field from behind me. She looked younger than I know she was. She was wearing a dress of all things, carrying a suitcase.

  “They caught her alongside a creek, just outside of camp. She tried to be quiet and hide but I watched them walk right to her.”

  “It was her perfume,” I interrupt.

  “What?” Sam asks.

  “She was wearing a lot of perfume. It was easy to know where she was.”

  Sam looks at me with an odd expression, I can’t read it. “They grabbed her and had a gag in her mouth before she could scream.

  “I was terrified, but I knew I had to do something.

  “And then they started pulling up her dress, saying they were going to have fun, and I knew…I knew…I had my .38 out and was…”

  She stops and holds her face in her hands, remembering I guess.

  I know I remember that night — just like all of the others.

  It was a full moon and it was the first night it got cold.

  I remember following those fucks down to the creek. I remember her perfume. I remember seeing her breath fog into the night air. I remember her screams. The sound didn’t go far, but I could hear her, even through the gag — screaming and screaming, panicked like an animal.

  “I saw you,” Sam says, not looking at me, “I saw you, and it was like you knew something was going to happen. You were silent, like an apparition. I was waiting for you to confront them, tell them to stop — warn them, but you didn’t.

  “I know what I did…”

  “You cut their throats, first one and then, before the other could even get out a scream, you cut him too. I never saw anyone move so fast, not like you were Superman or anything, but you never hesitated.

  “If you want to live…” I start.

  “I know, I know. I understand. I learned,” she says, glancing at me before she stands up again. “There’s no fighting fair. There’s only kill or die.”

  Hearing her say it, accepting it, makes me sick too. No one should ever have to think about every waking minute like that. But that’s our world now.

  That’s the world Emily is growing up in.

  I sigh. “That’s about it, yeah. But you didn’t kill me, that morning we met.” I laugh sourly. “You sure as shit looked like you thought pretty hard about it, though.”

  “Maybe, I’m getting to that part, so shut up.” She grins for a moment and then it fades. “They were going to hurt her. When men…I know that look.”

  I don’t want to think about how she knows. “I thought you never got that close?”

  “You just didn’t see me. I confronted the second guy from behind the trees, while he…I had my gun on him, I was shaking so bad I could barely hold it, and before I could shoot, you were there. Did you see me, did you know?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “You paused for a minute. You listened, even looked at the trees I was hiding behind. But you didn’t follow me. Do you even remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. You want the truth?”

  She nods with doe eyes.

  “I wasn’t sure who it was, but since I really didn’t give a damn if I lived or died…you know? And saving the girl wasn’t honorable or brave. I didn’t give two shits about her. I was just…”

  “Bullshit.” Samantha’s eyes flash and suddenly she’s angry. “Enough already. Why are you lying, to me of all people? I’m not stupid, I know a thing or two, besides I might have been stalking you back then…”

  “Stalking me?” I ask.

  “A little, anyway, the next morning, I heard your run-in with Carlos after he found his friends in that creek.

  “‘Tell your buddies to keep it i
n their pants,’ that’s what you told him — ‘Tell them to treat her right, take her out to dinner, bring her flowers, whatever passes for dating these days — but I swear to God if one more woman gets mistreated,’…and I’ll never forget this part, and it’s why I’m calling bullshit…Carlos tries to finish your thought like he’s being clever, ‘Accidents might happen?’ That’s what he says, like you’re not going to take responsibility. And then you said, ‘No, no accidents. I’ll kill every last one of you.’ And then I’ll never forget the last part either, you nearly broke my heart because I knew it wasn’t true. You’re so young. I could see you’d suffered, survived nightmares, but…‘I have so much blood on my hands, I’d do it for kicks,’ that’s what you told him — that’s the lie you’re trying to tell me now.”

  “I think you might be imagining some of that…”

  “No, I’m not. Every death, every, Jesus…it’s all — every one of those nightmares is etched into your face as clearly as this brand is on mine.” She brushes my cheek again, her fingertips make it tough to focus on anything else, but no matter how much she’d like to, she can’t brush away the evil I’ve done.

  “You left after that…that’s when they talked about killing you. Carlos said you were loco Diablo, remember? Anyway, he also said he wanted you on his side in case shit got heavy. His words. He told his guys to play nice and they did. They respected you. They feared you. I never saw anything like that before. I mean, you threatened them, yeah, but they could have killed you right then, I mean if they wanted to, but they didn’t.

  “I know what happened to you now — I know, some of it anyway, of why you are how you are. So, please, don’t play the I-don’t-care game with me.”

  She looks like she’s staring into my soul.

  “It’s like saying you don’t deserve happiness, or to be accepted, to be forgiven…you do, you so do,” she says quietly.

  I guess I don’t have any secrets from this girl, not really. She sees through me and it’s a relief. She’s strong, so much stronger than me. She may not need me to put her back together, after all, maybe it’s me who needs her.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing. Is that it?”

  “No, there’s more. You know there’s more. Am I boring you?” she teases.

  “No, no…I’ll never be bored of you. How could I?”

  “Say that now…anyway, that wasn’t the end of that night, was it?”

  I shake my head and clench my jaw against the memory. I can’t remember the two guys I opened up, nothing, not even if they screamed or not, but I remember the girl in the red dress…

  “The second guy, before you got to him…before I could shoot…”

  “I know, like I said, I was there. I didn’t save her. He stuck her, so what’s your point?” I demand in sudden frustration.

  “Patience. This is my story.”

  “I’m...sorry,” I say, dropping my head.

  Sam takes my chin and pushes my face up, until our eyes are once again even. “This is important. I never met anyone like you, before everything happened, or since. You ask for nothing, but you never stop giving.”

  “It’s called atonement.”

  “It’s called rescuing feral kittens. You’re still that same kid, underneath — you never changed. It’s just that the stakes are higher now. The rules have changed.

  “She was bleeding and then you took her in your arms…”

  “Her kid comes running out of the woods and attacks me,” I finish.

  “He thought you…but you never hurt him.”

  “How could I, I mean, his mother was, shit, still a kid.”

  “You can’t save everyone. You taught me that. But you can save who you can.

  “You spent the whole night out there with them, trying to comfort the girl and I don’t know what you said to the kid.

  “Jose, his name was Jose,” I say.

  Sam smiles gently. “Around morning, I watched you wrap her up in one of your blankets. I couldn’t believe that Jose helped you bury her.”

  “Regret sucks. It’ll be important to him when he gets older.”

  “I believe you. So the next day you were carrying him around on your shoulders and the puppy…

  “I…”

  “You gave him love, acceptance — belonging, it’s just that simple. The puppy was…where on earth did you find a puppy?”

  “Where is this going?” I ask.

  “Somewhere important, don’t be an asshat.”

  I grin, even though I’m not digging Memory Lane here.

  “So all of that made me think about you differently, well, I was already – crushing on you. Can we still do that, crush on someone during the apocalypse?

  “Surprisingly, I think so; I’ve seen enough of it.”

  “Seen it?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  The sheepish look returns. “Anyway, so you weren’t just this hard-ass loaner. You were tough, but you were compassionate too. You were good. But it was what happened later that week that sealed the deal.

  “Carlos?”

  “Yeah, Carlos. You took Jose into see him and made him take responsibility. You told him he was older and better suited to raising Jose. At first, I thought I was wrong about you, that you were just dumping Jose off on someone else, but then I understood.”

  “What do you think you understood?”

  “Carlos needed saving too. His guys were bad, but Carlos was always fair, as far as I could see anyway. He had to be tough enough to lead, but it was tearing him apart.

  “He needed to take responsibility for his crew. He needed something to do,” I say. “We all do, that never changes.”

  “I thought it was sweet when you told him that if the puppy died, you’d track him to the ends of the earth. Maybe sweet’s the wrong word.” She grins. “I heard you telling people that no one crossed Carlos, and you did whatever he asked you to do, like a good little soldier, but that wasn’t really the truth.

  “Do you even know what’s real anymore?” She looks at me seriously.

  “Mostly? Is that a fair answer?”

  Her serious shifts to worry.

  “I’m fucked up, I get it,” I admit.

  “You told Carlos we have to live the change we want to see in the world. You said we can’t be the people that started this shit. We have to be better.”

  “I said that?” I ask.

  “You know you did…”

  “A lot of shit’s a blur; I’ll take your word for it.”

  She folds her arms over her chest for a moment and then relaxes. “I knew I was in really deep like with you by then. Do you see where this is going yet?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That morning we met, by then I was just following you, staying close because I knew you had a better chance of making it than most and also, that you might need help and when you did, I wanted to be there for you.

  “But when it really came down to it that morning, I thought I’d misjudged you, misjudged everything. I was scared, no, I was terrified. You were so…so together, so much older than I thought. I didn’t even think about my disguise. I chickened out when you told me I had to come with you.

  “I have no idea why I pulled my gun…I thought, I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted to get away. Look at my face. I have trust issues, okay?”

  “So when did you fall in love with a killer?” I ask, watching for her reaction.

  But she’s stone, just like she’s been for the last week on the road.

  “This morning, I watched you hand your pistol to that girl, helped her hold it to your head…I thought I was going to lose you. I was…I was terrified, again.” Her voice is growing thick. “I thought it was you…I thought, there was so much blood on your face, I thought you were dead, for a split second, I thought I’d lost you. And then when I picked you up, you were so…so gone…I thought I’d lost you anyway.

  “I didn’t know where your mind was, not until
we got back down to the wagons and you grabbed that pistol.

  “I stood there, petrified, unable to move — watching you cry, watching you shake and then you fell on your knees. I knew how alone you were then.

  “I also discovered that I can’t live without you.

  “I knew I loved a killer when I told him. I don’t know if he loves me back.”

  “Dude sounds like an asshole if you ask me,” I say.

  “I didn’t ask,” she says, grinning to spite the seriousness of the day.

  “So, what happens next?” I ask.

  “You two polishing your bullets back here?” Cam says through a grin as he walks around the trailer.

  “Really?” Sam asks. “Asshat.”

  Cam shrugs. “What?”

  “So — what happens?” I ask again.

  “To the killer with no name?” Sam asks.

  “You mean this guy? I think that problem has been solved, whether you like it or not. Haven’t you heard? He’s the Ghost,” Cam says.

  Ghost?

  That’s fucking stupid.

  My old name doesn’t mean anything anymore, no matter what Samantha says, I’m not that guy. I can’t be, there’s no time for rescuing feral kittens. For better or worse, I’m this new guy, the guy that loves Samantha and the guy she loves, the guy that Emily needs, the guy that will kill to protect them both — this guy doesn’t have a name, and it’s sure as shit not going to be Ghost.

  “Are you serious? Ghost? That’s just asinine,” Sam says irritably.

  “Ass-a who?” Cam asks, still grinning.

  But she isn’t having any of it.

  “Why not?” he asks. “It’s who he is.”

  “Who I was doesn’t matter any more than who I am,” I say dismissively.

  “Yes, it does, don’t think like that,” Sam says.

  “He’s a legend,” Cam says, almost sarcastically.

  “A legend, huh, well that’s pretty cool,” I say, trying to diffuse the situation.

  Samantha gives me a sideways glance that tells me this conversation isn’t over. “All of you matters, don’t you get that? The before, the now — all of you, didn’t you hear anything I just told you?” she pleads.

  “It’s going to take some time, okay?”

  “We have time, and sooner or later you’re going to tell me your name, sooner or later you’re going to let me in, you’re going to trust me,” she says sincerely.