The Farm (23 page)

“I don’t—”

“Do you remember what happened at the Dean’s office? You told him to leave and he did.”

“Maybe he needed to go somewhere. Besides, I barely remember that. I’d been tranqed.”

Instead of looking apologetic, Carter frowned, clearly puzzling through something. “Yeah. I’ve been wondering about that. If maybe being tranqed made you stronger or just let you tap into your powers better. Something was definitely up there.”

Somehow his obvious confusion over the incident wriggled under my skin, making me feel queasy. “No. There was nothing up. He probably just had to leave.”

“No.” Carter shook his head. “The Dean was in the middle of important negotiations. There’s no way he’d just walk out. You told him to go and he did.” I didn’t even know what to say to that. I just floundered, mouth gaping for a moment, and then Carter continued talking. “And then there’s the riot outside the cafeteria.”

“You weren’t even there for that!” I accused.

“When it started, I couldn’t get close enough to get you out.” His voice was taut with regret. “By the time you got yourself free, I was already late to meet with Sebastian and had to use the fight as an excuse for disappearing anyway. But I saw the fight. You and Mel got separated. Some guy harassed Mel and all of a sudden you were freaking out. A crowd of maybe two hundred docile Greens exploded into violence in less than a minute all because you were afraid for Mel and you panicked.”

“Here’s another explanation. It was two hundred teenagers who’ve been trapped on a Farm for six months against their will. Sometimes they just lose it. The miracle is that it doesn’t happen more often.”

I thought the argument was a sound one. I thought I’d see a chink in his resolve. Instead he sighed, as if exhausted.

“Yeah, that is the surprising thing, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Think about it, Lil. What have you been doing since you arrived at the Farm? What’s been the one thing you’ve focused all your energy on?” His voice was gentle, like he was trying to soothe a skittish colt.

“Keeping my sister safe,” I said, my voice sounding more spooked-horse than I wanted it to.

“You’ve been keeping her calm.”

“I’ve been protecting her.”

“I’ve watched you do it. You soothe her. You do everything in your power to keep her relaxed.”

“Hey, that’s what I have to do! Have you ever seen Mel in a full-on meltdown freak
-
out?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“The rocking and moaning. The hair pulling and occasional screaming. That crap would have gotten us dragged to the Dean’s office. It’d be disastrous even if there weren’t any Collabs around. Greens wouldn’t put up with it any better. We’d have both been dead.”

“I’m not criticizing you.” He put a comforting hand on my arm. “There are other Farms in the country where the Greens aren’t docile. But the closer you get to your Farm, the—”

I shook his arm free. “I get what you’re saying. You’re saying I’m responsible for the way the Greens acted on the Farm. You’re saying that all those kids were placid cows because of me. You’re saying they just blindly accepted their fate because of
me
. You’re accusing me of being worse than any of the Collabs. Being worse than the Dean.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying.”

“You didn’t know what you were doing.” He was clearly trying to placate me, but I wasn’t in the mood for it.

“What you
think
I was doing,” I corrected him. “I still don’t believe you.”

“Lily—”

“I can tell you really believe this. But it doesn’t make sense to me. Not one bit. And then to top it all off you basically accuse me of”—I paused, choking on the lump in my throat—“of sedating the Greens and turning them into easier food.”

“Think about it this way. If you did all of that unintentionally, then imagine what you could do if you put your mind to it. Imagine the things you’d be capable of if you learned how to use your power. Humanity wouldn’t have to just roll over and be farmed as food. We could fight back. You could convince people to fight. You could lead us.”

“No, I can’t! Do you even hear yourself? You want me to brainwash people into fighting? The U.S. military—the strongest military in the world—could not beat the Ticks. But you want me to brainwash a bunch of teenagers into trying to fight them? I’d be sending everyone to their deaths.” My breath started coming in rapid bursts. It was like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. Like they’d just stopped working. I covered my face with my hands and pushed aside the thought of what Carter wanted me to do. “I don’t want that kind of power.” Somewhere in the background, I heard several rapid
sllluuunks
. The sound calmed me. “Even if I did, I still have to think about Mel. Getting Mel to safety is my first priority.”

“But—”

“No. That’s what matters. Keeping her safe. Getting her to Canada.”

I couldn’t let myself be distracted by anything else. I couldn’t even let myself consider the possibility that what he was saying was true. It just wasn’t. He was wrong.

He couldn’t be right. I
couldn’t
be responsible for all those deaths.

“Lily—” He reached out to me, but I dodged around his hand.

“I don’t want to talk about this again. Ever. I’m going to get Mel and take her back up to the house. I want a shower while there’s still hot water.”

Carter must have known there wasn’t any point in arguing with me, because he let me go.

I let Mel shower first while I looked through the kitchen. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just opening and closing cabinets. Staring mindlessly at what remained of Uncle Rodney’s life. It wasn’t until I was standing in the tiny, mustard yellow shower, with warm water washing over me, that I let myself really think about what Carter had said. I still didn’t believe he was right about me being an
abductura
. The idea was absurd.

No, that wasn’t what bothered me. What bugged me the most was that he believed it so completely. And it explained everything about his behavior in the past couple of days. How protective he’d been of me and Mel. The way he’d yelled at me for putting myself at risk in Vidalou. The fact that he’d come to rescue us at all.

This was the friggin’ pencil and the biology test all over again.

I squirted a glob of Uncle Rodney’s cheap shampoo onto my palm and scrubbed it into my hair, scraping my nails across my scalp. Getting upset because a boy didn’t like me was about the stupidest thing imaginable under the circumstances. It so did not matter. But it still hurt. It hurt because I wanted him to like me, but also because I thought I was past hoping for things like that. I didn’t like being wrong about myself.

**

I managed to avoid being alone again with Carter for the rest of the night. Staying busy was easy.

Sebastian had disappeared down the mountain on foot to “patrol the perimeter.” There was plenty to do before sunset. Uncle Rodney had brought most of his supplies with him, but true to his note, he’d left some things. A month’s worth of MREs—meals ready to eat, like soldiers eat in the field. Divided among the six of us, it would be enough food for more than a week. Certainly plenty of food to get us to Canada. There was the bow but only four arrows, far fewer than I’d hoped for. But that was okay. It gave me hope that Uncle Rodney—wherever he was—had figured out that arrows could hurt the Ticks. Several rifles. Hunting shotguns. Water purification tablets. All kinds of things we’d find useful. It took over an hour for Joe, Carter, and me to pack everything we needed into duffel bags and load them into the van.

McKenna was exhausted and spent the time watching old Elvis tapes. Mel played with her Rubik’s Cube. As I walked in and out with supplies, I noticed that she was frowning a lot and seemed distracted. Normally, working the Cube she’d had at home back in the Before relaxed her and she moved through it over and over again quite easily. Today, though, she seemed to be having trouble making the pieces line up.

I could sympathize. By the time we were done packing the van so we could get an early start in the morning, it was nearly dusk. Carter went off to find Sebastian. I quickly looked for a place to sleep while he was gone. McKenna had claimed the storm cellar’s only bed, so I piled blankets on the floor and lay there curled on my side. Mel came and lay beside me and I was comforted knowing she was near.

I didn’t believe Carter was right about me. It felt wrong. I couldn’t explain it any other way. I just had this gut-deep feeling that he was wrong.

But I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because of the comic-book quality of the power he described. Or maybe I just didn’t
want
that kind of power. If I was an
abductura
, then that changed everything. Forever. I wouldn’t be able to go to Canada to safety. I would have to give up any hope I still clung to that there might be a normal life for me somewhere. I just wasn’t ready to do that based on Carter’s hunch that I had this weird power.

And I certainly didn’t want that kind of power, because I wasn’t strong enough to lead humanity in a war against the monsters.

Even though my mind was racing, the normalcy of Mel’s presence calmed me. I kept my breath slow even when Carter came in and talked to Joe. Apparently Sebastian had sensed a nest of Ticks about thirty miles to the west when we passed through Fayetteville, but he didn’t think they’d be a problem. His Tick ESP had longer range than their sense of smell. They wouldn’t smell us as far away as they were. Sebastian would stay awake throughout the night. If they headed our way, he’d know and there’d be plenty of time to warn us. They talked for a few more minutes. Once Joe went off to lie down beside McKenna in the bed, I sensed Carter standing over me. I kept my breathing deep and even. After a minute, he walked away. At some point, I rolled over to stare at the ceiling. I felt Mel’s fingers brush against my hand. She was never a touchy person, but I turned my palm up, some part of me hoping she’d take it. She carefully placed her stuffed squirrel in my hand. My fingers closed over the lovey and I squeezed tight. I must have actually fallen asleep after that. When I woke, I still held the squirrel and I’d never been more sure of Mel’s love.

I sat up and tried to quietly stretch the kinks out of my body. A couple of blankets hadn’t been enough to offset the hard concrete floors, or the abuse my body had taken in the past two days, and my muscles ached.

Everyone else was still asleep and I moved quietly so I wouldn’t wake them. On the bed, McKenna lay curled against Joe. They looked unexpectedly cozy so close together on the twin mattress. Carter lay stretched out on the floor beside the cellar door, his head propped on his backpack. I would have to step over him to creep out the door, so I sat down near the Elvis shrine and pulled my shoes on.

Before I left the cellar, I went to stand in front of the shrine. I pulled the Altoids tin out of my pocket and removed the Rolo. I put it at the base of the velvet Elvis painting. I let my fingers rest beside the Rolo and sent up a silent prayer of thanks for Uncle Rodney. I’d looked all around the cellar but hadn’t found a pen. Uncle Rodney hadn’t been big on writing. But I got my sweet tooth from him and I knew he’d appreciate the Rolo. If he came back through, he’d see it and know I’d been there.

Then I went the rest of the way up to the steel door. I pushed it open a mere inch, listening to the sounds of dawn, the irregular
drip, drip
of condensation falling from the trees, the chatter of birds. Before I could decide whether or not I heard anything sinister, the door was wrenched from my grasp and opened. Sebastian stood there, door in hand.

“I was just coming to wake you.”

“Me?”

“All of you. We need to get back on the road. The Ticks I felt last night were heading back to their nest from hunting, but something caught their attention and now they’re heading this way.”

“What?” came Carter’s voice from behind me. I turned to see him standing in the doorway. He looked surprisingly alert for someone who had been asleep just a moment ago and I wondered if I had woken him up when I stepped over him. “I thought you said they wouldn’t catch our scent from that far away. They shouldn’t be coming anywhere near us.”

Carter walked up the steps and I automatically stepped aside to let him pass.

“The Ticks shouldn’t be able to track us from that far away,” I said. “We aren’t even downwind from them. They shouldn’t have caught our scent.”

Sebastian looked from Carter to me and then said, “Lily, you should go wake the others.”

“I will. As soon as you tell me why those Ticks are heading this way when you said they wouldn’t.”

“I was just wrong.”

I stepped closer to him, despite the little tremor of fear that skittered down my spine. “I’m not being unreasonable here. I’m not blaming you, but you acted like this spidey sense of yours was infallible. If it’s not—if it’s something that only works sometimes—then we should know about it.”

Sebastian’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a wolfish expression. The sound emanating from his throat was almost a growl. That sense of unease I often felt in his presence exploded into fear. Before my fight-or-flight instinct could kick in, Carter stepped between us.

“Lily, calm down. His instincts are good. He’s never wrong when it comes to locating the Ticks.”

“Except this time,” I pointed out, my panic abating now that I wasn’t looking right at Sebastian.

“He wasn’t wrong about their location; he was wrong about their decision making. That’s not his spidey sense. He made a guess about what he thought they would do in the night based on his understanding of their psychology. Besides, something else may have attracted their attention.”

“What would do that?”

Neither man answered, but they exchanged a look that said there was something they both knew and didn’t want to tell me.

“Don’t keep me in the dark about this. Whatever it is, tell me now.”

Carter blew out a breath and said, “They might be tracking the chips.”