“I don’t know tiger.”
“How about crazy?”
I smiled faintly. “My school didn’t offer that elective.”
Just then, Cosmo loped into the cellblock, carrying an armful of picture books. He had Curious George stuffed down the front of his overalls with only the head peeking out. Guess the dish towel had been officially replaced. Cosmo set the stack on the floor by my cell and plopped down. I crouched by the bars. “Where’d you get those?”
“The room with the kids,” he said while sorting through the books like a little pirate counting his gold.
“Kids?”
“On the wall.”
The prison library, maybe? I leaned over to see a book he’d set aside. The title — Where the Wild Things Are — made me smile.
“That book makes no sense,” Rafe said, getting to his feet. “Wouldn’t you want to go where the wild things aren’t?”
“Why would a prison library have kids books?” I asked him.
“Maybe the inmates couldn’t read. How should I know?” He joined us and pointed to the stuffed monkey tucked into the front of Cosmo’s overalls. “George.”
Cosmo’s bottom lip curled. “Jasper.”
Rafe dropped to one knee and plucked a book off the top of the pile. Curious George Visits the Zoo. He tapped the cover. “George.” He flipped to the first page and turned it toward Cosmo.
The little manimal shrieked and fell back against the cell’s bars, clutching his toy monkey. I leaned over to see the illustration. Happy animals in a sweet little zoo. Rafe and I met eyes. “Forget this one,” he said and sent the book sailing across the cell block. “You know what, buddy, none of these are as good as the stories this one guy used to tell me.”
Cosmo perked up. “Stories?”
“Yeah, he made them up and they were great.”
“My dad told you stories?” I asked in a low voice.
Ignoring me, Rafe settled on the mattress. “They were about this fierce girl who lives on the other side of the wall.”
Cosmo crept onto the mattress beside him. “What wall?”
“The biggest wall you ever saw. As tall as the sky. And this girl, she lives over there in a glass tower.”
“All glass?” Cosmo asked.
Rafe nodded. “Even the stairs. Pretty cool, right?”
Cosmo nodded, eyes wide.
“The stairs are not made of glass,” I corrected. “The balconies are all caged in and it’s far from cool. It’s boring.”
They both frowned at me. “I’m trying to tell a story here,” Rafe scolded. “Why don’t you go to bed?” I started to protest but he angled a finger at me. “I’m not taking you into Chicago tomorrow unless you’re one hundred percent fine. That includes rested.” He got up and pointed at the mattress. “Grab that end,” he told Cosmo.
Together they dragged the mattress down the aisle and dropped it by the wall, facing the cells, where Rafe could keep an eye on me, but his voice was no more than a murmur to my ears.
Going by Cosmo’s rapt expression, Rafe was a heck of a storyteller. Not surprising. He even seemed to be enjoying himself. Suddenly I was sorry that they’d moved out of earshot.
Rafe was right though. If I was going to be ready to head out at dawn, I needed to sleep. I was beyond weary. I just wished there was some way to keep corpses and insane tiger-men out of my dreams.
I jolted upright, confused and sweat soaked. In the gray predawn light, I couldn’t make sense of the bunk above me or the wall of bars. Where was I? Then the last two days crashed down on me in an icy wave and memories filled my mouth and nose until I was gasping for air. I hauled myself off the thin mattress.
A section of bars had been rolled aside — an open door. I tried to remember what Everson had said when he woke me during the night. He’d covered me with a blanket and told me that the eight hours were up. I’d been too exhausted to even register that he’d pronounced me Ferae-free.
I found Rafe asleep in the next cell and nudged his leg, He rolled over fast, pulling a knife from under his pillow. When he saw me — too stunned to move — he tucked the blade back under his pillow like it was nothing. “A precaution,” he said.
I brought in a slow breath. “Have you ever cut yourself while you’re asleep?”
“Did you wake me up to ask that?”
“No, I want to get on the road.”
He groaned but threw his legs over the side of the cot. “Tell me you woke me up last.”
“First,” I admitted and he shot me a groggy glare.
I went looking for Cosmo next and got lucky on my first guess — the library. Shelves of dusty books lined three of the walls. A mural covered the last wall with vibrant colors and animals that stared out with knowing eyes. Three figures floated in the center, a man standing behind two children. What a weird picture to find inside a maximum-security prison.
Two little gray feet were propped up on the wall.
I circled the couch and found Cosmo on the floor, lying on his back with his Curious George clutched under one arm, looking at another picture book. The floating children in the mural were holding hands and Cosmo had his feet pressed on top of their entwined fingers. I didn’t think it was a coincidence.
“Think that’s Hansel and Gretel?” I asked Cosmo. “Maybe when they’re being led into the woods by their father.”
Cosmo tilted the book up and glanced at the mural. “They’re my friends.”
Okay, that was enough to break my heart. I sat on the floor beside him and noticed a series of grade-school textbooks on a bottom shelf. I hefted one up, thumbed through the pages, and found pictures of piled corpses and the evacuation. My fingers tingled as I paused at a photo of a city on fire.
This book had been published after the exodus.
I found Rafe in what was once the “Property Room,” according to the sign outside the door. He had weapons stored in small cubicle shelves, like the stockroom of a shoe store.
I held up the textbook. “My dad gave you this, didn’t he?”
Rafe gave me a sidelong look, clearly gauging my reaction. “He didn’t want me to be illiterate.”
“You don’t just live here now, you grew up here,” I said. Rafe shrugged, but my horror mounted. “You’re the little boy who lives by himself in a castle! But it’s not a castle. My dad left you all alone in an abandoned penitentiary.”
“Why not? I had food, weapons, a library, a game room. I’d hook up the generator and watch old movies. It was a good time.”
“You were ten.”
“First you’re mad that Mack spent time with me and now you’re mad that he left me alone. Make up your mind.”
I thought back to the hatch marks on the wall of his cell. That was how Rafe had kept track of the time until my dad returned from the West. Crossing days off the calendar had been one of my own painful routines. If I’d had the occasional pang, wondering if my father was ever coming back, that doubt must have consumed Rafe when he was younger.
“The mural in the library,” I said. “You painted that.”
“So what? It’s my wall.”
“It’s you, me, and my dad, isn’t it?”
“I was a bored little kid. I don’t remember what it was supposed to be. Now, pick a weapon.” He pointed to the assortment he’d laid out on the counter.
“He’s like a father to you,” I pressed.
Rafe sighed as though I was wasting precious time. “Mack would swing by for me on his way to Chicago so I could be his lookout. Afterward, he’d drop me off. Sometimes he’d stay for a while and sometimes he had to get home. That’s all there was to it.”
“You must have hated me,” I said softly. “For taking him away from you.”