The Color of Jade (Jade Series Book 1) (5 page)

“Trey is supposed to be doing this.”

My heart shot through my chest. I whirled around wide eyed as Kane startled me. He closed the barn door behind him, his jaw tightened as he walked towards me. His eyes flashed angrily with his brow tensed and I waited for his reproach.

“I needed to Kane, I’m sorry… I waited until it got dark.” My eyes pleaded with his and I watched his glare soften slightly.

“Need some help?”

“Uhh,” I hesitated, confused by the polar shift from his usual inflexibility. “Sure.”

He grabbed a one hundred pound bale of hay and tossed it over to the stalls like it was nothing, and then a second one with equal ease. A dusting of small confetti-like alfalfa leaves puffed into the air as they hit the ground. The taut bailing twine snapped as he cut it with his pocketknife and the bails fell loosely apart. I grabbed a flake of hay and threw it in Fire’s stall. I watched Kane as he helped me pass the hay to the six other horses. His arms curled, flexing his biceps and I noticed how big his arms looked compared to mine. I hadn’t really noticed before, how more like a man, my brother had become. I guess he was out of his teens by two years but I’d never thought of him as an adult until suddenly just now.

“Can I go to town for my birthday? It was last week.”

He looked up. His eyes filled instantly with regret, then irritation by my request. “No,” he snapped. His answer came way to quick.

“Why?”

“Where exactly do you want to go? Marge’s is the only store in this town. If you want to go to the city, the answer is no.”

“I would be fine just going to Marge’s, was her store destroyed?”

“No, it was vandalized but we’ve repaired most of it and she’s opened it up for trading. Little Creek doesn’t look too bad anymore, from the outside. People vandalized abandoned homes and tore them apart looking for stuff, but it’s the city that’s a mess.”

“What is the city like?”

He debated quietly with himself what exactly to tell me. I busied myself, waiting for his response. Water sprayed with bursts, followed by pockets of air from the end of the garden hose as I pumped the leaver for pressure to our underground well. After a minute, it flowed freely and I filled the horses’ barrels. The dry, dusty air in the barn itched at my throat and I took a drink, waiting for his response through the buzzing silence. The well provided clean, drinkable water, more than enough year round and supplied our house included.

“Please, Kane? I want to know,” I asked again, and then wiped my lips with the sleeve of my shirt. He sighed with defeated resolve and shut off the leaver to the pump.

“There isn’t much out there as far as stores and shops. The buildings still stand, but they are empty… Broken into… Trashed. There was nothing left from the riots and it looks like a war zone. There are people out there,” Kane sighed. He grabbed the pitchfork and poked at the straw. I could tell this subject weighed on his mind. “There’s a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done everywhere.”

“I could help you, you already send Trey out.”

“No,” he answered, his response quick and definite. My face burned with frustration.  He leaned against the stall as he gripped the pitchfork and looked at me. “I don’t want you to see it, Jade. You
really
don’t want to see what I’ve seen,” he said, sounding more like my dad than my brother. “I know you think you can handle it… But no, you can’t go. It’s just not safe. Let’s just leave it at that.” We finished the chores in silence. My resentment towards him and his strictness hung heavy in the air.

“What’s out there?”

“Bodies… too many of them… You saw it on TV, but it affects you differently in person. Those images burn into your mind and they don’t ever leave,” Kane said, then looked intently at me. “I hope you don't ever have to see it.”

“What are you doing with them?”

“We're incinerating them at the burn plant or… wherever… open fields, parking lots. I have to gear up and wear a gas mask to keep from breathing the smell and protect against disease. You really don’t want to go.”

“Have you been to the hospital?”

I thought about the last time I talked to my mom after we found out she caught the virus. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach at the idea that my mom died alone, with none of us around her. Only to be surrounded by hundreds of other dead and dying people. The thought of my mom tossed along with the others at the burn plant was too much. I fought back the tears but a few escaped me and with the back of my hand, I wiped them away. I picked up a brush and smoothed it over Fire’s long winter coat for a distraction.

“Yeah… We are going through the public buildings and clearing them out, but the bodies are unrecognizable, so I wouldn't know if there was anyone we knew,” he said cautiously as he watched me with sympathetic eyes. They filled quickly with deep sadness and something else that sent a chill through me as if he held something back but was unable to hide the pain he felt. I wondered what he just kept from me, if he found my mom but didn’t tell me to spare me the details.

I turned from him and continued to brush Fire. My eyes glistened with moisture as tears continued to threaten with the increasing knot in my throat. I wanted my mom back.

“I still don’t understand why I can’t go outside?”

“There are a lot of shady men out there, men that I don’t know if I trust yet. I haven’t seen very many kids out. I’m sure they’re out there, but probably just being cautious, too.”

“I’m not a kid, Kane.”

“I know, but you still need to be careful. Probably more so, since you’re at that age…” Kane’s words hung in the air unfinished and I didn’t pursue his point. “I’m not sure what kind of government there will be, we don’t have law enforcement available yet. We’re still trying to figure all this out… It takes time.”

“Okay... I’ll stop asking, if you’ll stop keeping everything a secret about what you’re doing. Just tell me something, anything. I want to know what’s going on. I can’t stand it! I need to get out! I can’t stay in that house, day in, and day out!  It’s not fair, Kane.” I stepped out of the stall then tossed the brush a little too hard into a bucket and tipped it over.

“I know… I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. With one knee slightly bent, he rested his arms on the handle of the pitchfork.

Tears flowed down my cheeks but I didn’t care, I couldn’t hold back. I felt suffocated, confined inside for too long. I was so mad! Mad at everything, mad at Kane for being so strict, mad at my mom and dad for dying! Mad at this whole thing!

“Maybe it would have been better for me to get sick, and then at least I wouldn’t be such a problem for you…” My voice caught and I turned away. Kane set the pitchfork against the stall and turned me to face him. His blue eyes looked hurt and stressed the sadness apparent in his voice. It wasn’t his fault that things were the way they were.

“Don’t say that, Jade.” I wiped my tears. My twenty one year old brother, the one who used to chase me around and tease me, forced to take care of Emery and I.

“I’m sorry. If Em and I weren’t here, you and Trey could move on with your lives a lot easier.”

Kane pulled me over to the bench and sat me next to him. “It might have been easier, but since when did I ever do things the easy way. I don’t know how. If you and Emery were gone, what reason would I have to make this place better? It isn’t for me and Trey, it’s for you and Emery! Every man out there, at least every good man out there is trying to make things right again. We all have someone who deserves better. The world around us needs to have order. It needs to be safe and right now, it isn’t. If we can’t agree on how things will be done around here, we will be in a lot of trouble.”

He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me as I threaded my arms under his and hugged him back. I looked at him, his blue eyes pleaded with me to understand.

“And don’t you ever think for a
second
that you are a burden, and that I would be better off with you gone! I know I’m just your brother, but you're the only family I’ve got. We need each other, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Besides, who would I have cook me dinner?” Kane said, lightening the strain in the conversation.

“I’m sure you could find some cute girl to make you dinner,” I teased. His face reddened a bit.

“That’s the last thing I need.”

“I don’t think it’s the last thing you need.”

“Well, maybe not,” Kane sighed. He looked down at the dirt floor of the barn deep in thought for a brief moment. A faintly amused smirk appeared like there was someone specific he had on his mind. “But the last thing I have much time for.”

I looked at Kane thoughtfully. I felt bad. The Kane I knew that chased girls had to take a back seat to unexpectedly having to take care of his two younger sisters.  I smiled back, seeing for a brief moment, the kindness and concern that genuinely lied under the surface of his thick tough skin.

“Alright… I’m not going to tell you everything,” Kane said, as we walked to the house, “but our world is going to get worse. A lot worse.”

“I know.”

“Yeah, I guess you do… I need your help prepping the garden.”

“Serious?” I asked, and stopped in my tracks.

“I hope I don’t end up regretting this.”

“Don’t get my hopes up.”

“Come on.” He looked back at me and pulled on my arm. “Serious… we can plant the cool weather crops. I’ve been meaning to start on it, I just haven’t yet. We’ll do it together.”

I smiled. “Anything to be outside again. Can I start riding again, please?” I begged. I knew I was pushing it but I had to ask while Kane’s sympathetic mood remained.

“You need to stay on our property. You have the five acres surrounding our house. I don’t even want you over at the farm. It needs to be this way. You can ride in the arena. Just for now, let’s see how it goes for a couple of weeks. If it goes okay, then I might let you go to Marge’s, that’s it.”

“Thank you, that’s all I need.”

***

My parents’ bed called to me. I crawled next to Emery, already asleep. I stared at the glow of the lantern that danced on the ceiling. Deep in thought about my conversation with Kane, the cleanup and my mom.

Her love of people, her desire to help is what ultimately led to her death. I remembered the gentle healing touch of her hands and the soft soothing sounds of her voice. The last time we talked, she tried to comfort me, to calm me, even with her destined fate viciously staring at her, but all I could do was cry.

***

The phone rang that morning back in September and woke me off the couch. Mom. She said the hospital was busy when she arrived to work the previous day. The ER, bombarded with sick people, became the place to avoid. As the day progressed, more and more people came in.

“The virus spread quickly across the country,” she said, with worry in her voice. “Don’t go anywhere! Do you understand me? You all need to stay inside, okay, and don’t let anyone come in.”

“Just come home,” I cried into the phone, “please!”

“I can’t. It’s too late now…I,” she held back, “I’m contagious now and I can’t bring it home to you kids.”

“What!”

I hadn’t noticed until then, but she sounded weak on the phone.

“I need to stay here. When they figure this out and it’s over I will come home. Take care of each other, Jade. I love you…I’m so sorry.” Her voice wavered as she spoke through tears.

Kane took the phone when the sounds of her tears caused mine.

“What is she saying? I want to talk to her again!”

“Jade, quiet! She can’t!”

“What’s going on?” Emery asked, quietly. I looked over and saw Emery in tears on the couch.

“Mom!”

I had a deep impenetrable fear that I couldn’t shake! I pulled at Kane’s arm, pleading with him. He shot me a menacing look and then at Trey as he held the earpiece to his head.

Trey pulled me from him so he could finish his conversation with mom. They both tried to hide the troubled look they had on their faces. I looked at him for some kind of reassurance. With his eyebrows furrowed, he clenched his jaw tight, I didn’t get one as we waited for Kane to get off the phone.

“She can’t stay there!”

“She doesn’t have a choice now! All we can do is wait and hope they find a cure...” Even though he meant to sound convincing, I heard the uncertainty in Kane's voice.

“We need to go get her!” I pulled myself away from Trey and grabbed onto him. “Please!”

“There is nothing we can do!”

I shoved him out of frustration but he barely budged then wrapped his arms around me, unwilling to let go. Uncontrollable sobs, muffled against his chest.

“Jade, listen to me. If we go out, we will get sick. I want to get her just as much as you do… But we can’t! Mom said to keep us here, and that is what I’m going to do, we aren’t leaving until it’s over.”

“How long?”

“As long as it takes…Work, school, friends, it’s over! We won’t be doing any of that. We aren’t going to the store, we aren’t letting anyone inside, we aren’t going to get mom. We aren’t going anywhere until they find a vaccine or the virus burns itself out, and that could take months!”