I strode toward the car wall, only to realize that Rafe had known how my mother had died. I slowed my pace. “What else did my father tell you? Why would he talk to you at all?”
“Get a mug of moonshine in Mack and he won’t shut up.”
“That’s not true. He’s very private and he almost never drinks.”
Rafe shrugged. “So he cuts loose over here.”
Or maybe I didn’t know my father at all.
We’d reached the wall of crushed cars, but my legs felt so unstable I couldn’t take another step. A scorching sensation rolled over my skin. I cast about for somewhere to sit.
Rafe’s aqua eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
“Leave me alone.” I sank onto a car bumper that barely jutted out of the wall. I put my hands over my face.
“Oh no,” Rafe scolded. “We are not stopping out here in the open. Come on, let’s get inside the compound. Then you can cry all you want.”
“I’m not crying,” I snapped. Though I wanted to. What else had my father lied to me about?
Rafe unslung his pack and dropped it at his feet with a sigh. “I guess Mack wasn’t exaggerating. You are as tough as a declawed kitten.”
“Stop talking.”
“Whoa, you dropped the please. That’s progress.”
When I didn’t look up, Rafe settled by me on the bumper. “Want to know what else he said?” Rafe put his lips near my ear. “That with the right guy, you’d turn wild.”
I shoved him hard. He was laughing before he even hit the ground. I shot to my feet and glared at him. “You’re disgusting.”
Grinning, he rose and dusted off his pants. “Got you up.”
I hated him in that moment. He was obscene and obnoxious, but he’d also escorted me to Moline as promised. If I found my father inside the compound, then he’d helped me save my dad’s life. “Thank you for bringing me,” I ground out.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He strode toward a break in the car wall. “You’re not past the gate.” Cupping his hands around his mouth, he yelled, “Hey, Sid, open up!”
I peered through the bars of the gate at the compound beyond. Like everywhere else, invasive vines and stray plants had reclaimed the town center, but I was starting to get used to the lush ruins. Even starting to see the beauty in them.
“Sid, get your porky self out here!” Rafe shouted.
Inside the compound, a short, pudgy man appeared in the doorway of a ramshackle building across the street. “What are you doing back so soon?”
“What’s it to you?” Rafe replied. “Unlock the gate.” He stepped in front of me as Sid hurried over with a jangling key ring, but Sid had already spotted me.
“Who’s she?” he demanded.
“Aren’t you full of questions?” Rafe said, still blocking me from view.
“That’s how I earn my keep, you know,” I heard Sid huff.
“Open the gate, or I’ll kick your guts into sausage.”
With a grunt, Sid unlocked the chain and pushed the gate just wide enough for us to slip through. “I’m not supposed to let strangers in without checking them out first.” Rafe rolled his eyes but Sid’s back was turned as he relocked the gate. “It’s a big responsibility, you know, keeping this compound safe. It all rests on me.”
From the back, Sid was an oily little guy in a stained undershirt and suspenders. I waited for him to turn so that I could assure him that I wasn’t a threat, but when he finally did, I jerked back with a gasp. Tusks curled out of his mouth and ended in sharp points on either side of his piggy snout.
“You got a problem?” he squealed, thrusting out his chin, ready to charge.
Laughter erupted behind me. “She’s seen a guy infected with tiger.” Rafe nudged me aside. “I don’t know why you’d freak her out.”
“I’m so sorry,” I sputtered. “I didn’t mean to —”
“Mayor’s holding a compound meeting,” Sid told Rafe, while turning his back on me. “In the station, as soon as Jared’s memorial service finishes up.” He shot me one last indignant look before trotting back across the street with his giant key ring jangling.
“I thought you silkies were big on manners.”
I turned on Rafe, who was still grinning. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“About?”
“That he’s …” I lowered my voice. “A feral.”
“Sid’s not a feral. He’s just an eyesore.”
“But … his feet, his nose — they weren’t human.”
“Wait till you see his tail. Actually, you won’t get to. He’s pretty self-conscious about it, with good reason.”
“Why is he inside the gate? I thought this pile of cars was supposed to keep the ferals out.”
“Learn that from your knight in shining armor?”
“Who?” I asked and then realized he was talking about Everson. “Just answer the question.”
“Your line guard might call everyone who has Ferae a feral, but over here, we have distinctions. Our lives depend on it.”
“What distinctions?” We entered the town square, which was bounded on one side by the Mississippi River. A path of boards, laid over mud, led past the buildings toward the rushing brown water. Tattered store awnings flapped in the wind, giving the place a desolate air. Or maybe I was getting that feeling because other than a few vendors standing by carts loaded with vegetables, the square was empty.
“Everyone must be at the service,” Rafe said, nodding toward the church. “We’ll wait in the station.” He pointed at the largest building on the square, a red brick box with several three-blade wind-power rotors spinning lazily on the roof. Strangely, a dozen bathtubs were mounted on top of the station as well. The tubs’ drainpipes ran down the wall and into four enormous tanks on the ground.
I wanted to ask more about Sid but was distracted by a woman pushing a tarp-covered shopping cart across the square. Slouching along, she cast her head from side to side in a weird manner that made the hairs on my arms stand up. She seemed off in a way that I couldn’t pinpoint. But off didn’t even begin to describe the vegetable vendor she stopped to talk to. He was covered in pale gray fur. “Distinctions,” I prompted. “How do you know who’s feral?”
Rafe followed my gaze to the vendor. “Is he drooling?”
“No.” If anything, the man seemed perfectly nice as he bundled up carrots for the old lady.
“Growling? Chasing his tail?”
“Ferals do that?”
“Ferals are feral. They’ve got animal brain.”
I remembered Dr. Solis saying it took a while for the virus to take over the infected person’s brain. “When will he get animal brain?” I made a discreet head tip toward the furry vendor.
Rafe shrugged. “No way to know. Some people beast out fast — usually if they’re infected with some kind of reptile. But most people stay sane for years, like Sid. We call them —”
“Manimals!”
“If you knew, why’d you ask?”
“I didn’t know I knew.” So, my dad’s stories were true, right down to the details. I’d loved the manimals he’d described, with their distinct personalities, often squabbling, sometimes eccentric, but almost always friendly. They walked upright and would offer the little girl help or advice when she got lost in the magical forest.
And that’s what Chorda was! A manimal, not a feral. He could talk; he was sane. I had been right to stop Rafe from killing him, even if Rafe didn’t want to admit it.
“Sid has Ferae,” Rafe went on, “and he’s mutating, but he’s not feral…. Not yet.”
“But he will be someday for sure?”
“They all think they can beat it, that their human side will stay dominant, but the beast always wins. Sooner or later, every one of them turns into a slobbering animal.”