“They won’t see me. Don’t worry, okay? Here, take her.” Kusum gingerly lifted Nipa from her shoulder and put her in Jabala’s arms.
“What’s going on?” their father asked, glancing back.
“I’m going to find out who those people are,” Kusum said.
“You are not.”
“I am. We need to know.”
“You’re my daughter. You will stay with us.”
“Someone needs to check. If you had a son, you would let him do it. You have none. Who are you going to send? Darshan?” She waved at her young cousin, who was clutching tightly to Kusum’s mother. “I’m the only one.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No,” Kusum said. “You need to watch over the others. I will go.”
She could see the conflict in her father’s eyes. After a moment, he reached into the bag he was carrying and pulled out a sheath holding a four-inch knife. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Don’t use it unless you have no choice. Be very careful.”
“I will.”
Before he could change his mind, she slipped between two closed roadside stands and into the brush behind them. Looking back, she could see her farther hesitating, wanting to follow her.
“Keep moving,” she said in a harsh whisper.
Reluctantly, he turned in the direction they’d been headed and said, “Come on, everyone. Let’s go.”
She watched them for a second to make sure her father didn’t change his mind, then found a good spot where she could see the whole road, and settled in. It wasn’t long before she heard the footsteps of those on the road behind them. One was walking faster than the others. The child, she thought, working twice as hard just to keep up.
Though she knew there was no way they’d see her, she crouched down a bit more. The sound of the steps increased until finally the trio came into view.
The smallest was definitely a child, a boy probably no more than Darshan’s age. What was surprising was that the other two were children also. Taller, yes, but their faces gave away their age. Kusum thought they couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. They were both girls, the taller of the two holding the hand of the boy.
She looked to see if any of them was carrying weapons, but the only things they had were their well-worn clothes and each other. Kusum considered what to do next, and decided on a course of action her father would have disapproved of.
She waited until they passed, then silently moved out from her hiding place and onto the road behind them.
“What are you doing?” she said.
All three jumped, the smaller of the girls letting out a brief scream. As they looked back, Kusum could tell they wanted to run.
“Don’t move,” she said, showing them the knife.
“Please don’t hurt us,” the smaller girl said.
“Then tell me why you’re following us.”
The girls exchanged a glance. The tall one, who Kusum could now see was a few years older than the other, said, “We’re not following you.”
“You’ve been following us for the last hour and a half.”
“We’re just using the same road. You can’t stop us from doing that.”
Though the girl was smaller than Kusum, she had donned a tough front, going so far as to move in front of the other two.
“Where are you going?” Kusum asked.
“To visit our family,” the girl said quickly.
It was a transparent lie. Kusum was sure they’d grown up in the streets, and doubted they even knew who their families were. She didn’t even think any of the three were related to each other, as none shared any similar physical traits.
She stared at the older girl for several seconds, then put the knife back in the sheath and held it at her side. “When was the last time any of you had anything to eat?”
“We ate just a few hours a—” the older one began.
“Yesterday,” the boy said. “In the morning.”
Kusum frowned. “Come on, then.” She walked through the middle of them, and started down the road toward her family. After a moment, she looked back. “I said, come on. Unless you’re not hungry.”
The boy was the first to move, but the girls weren’t far behind him.
With that simple invitation, Reva, Induma, and Adesh joined Kusum’s family.
They would not be the last.
30
Lizzie Drexel knew they were out there. She could feel them watching her house. She’d seen one of them fifteen minutes earlier, peeking around a tree. And where there was one, there had to be more.
She barely thought about the boy anymore. He’d been gone since the day before. To her, that was a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then. The world, as Owen had always told her it would, had gone to shit.
“You were right, big brother. You were right,” she muttered.
Aren’t I always?
For hours, she’d sat mesmerized in front of her computer, watching the news. Everywhere it was the same — death being delivered in dull metal boxes. That no one had died yet didn’t mean anything. It was going to happen. She knew it would, like she knew why the men watching her house were there. Owen had told her.
Those boxes would be wasted out here, his voice had said. Those are for the crowds. People like you and me, they’ll come for us individually.
He told her how they planned to do it — break in, hold her down, and swab the bug in her nose.
Too bad for them they’ve come to the wrong house, Owen said.
She smiled. “Yeah, too bad.”
Lizzie wasn’t about to die from the killer virus, but she was willing to die if it meant taking with her those who were trying to give it to her.
She went into the bedroom and opened the secret panel in the closet. Her sweet brother had prepared so much for a world he didn’t live long enough to see.
Oh, I’ll see it, he said.
She nodded. “Right. I just meant—”
I know what you meant. Now do what needs to be done.
Owen’s big concern had been a civil war. He hadn’t been clear what form it would take — race-based, religious, or class driven — but that wasn’t important. He just knew it was coming. And while he wasn’t interested in joining any of the sides, he wasn’t about to let anyone take what was his.
He had two main means of preventing that from happening. The first was the four sniper nests he’d created under the eaves of his house. All he would have had to do was crawl from corner to corner to cover the whole house. He’d even lined the otherwise unfinished attic with steel plates for protection.
The problem with this option was that Lizzie was not the marksman her brother was, nor would her bad hip allow her to move around the attic in any kind of useful fashion. That left the second option — setting off the Semtex explosive that was built into the house right above the basement retaining wall, and in the garage along the base.
All she would have to do was wait until the killers approached the house, then boom.
She felt a bit sad that it had come to this. She’d come to love the house, but she was not about to die in it from some painful, draining infection.
Uh-uh. Not her.
She flipped the switches that turned the system on, removed the remote control from its clip, and carried it to the dining room window where she could watch and wait for the exact right moment.
The house sat near the edge of a clearing, a detached garage off to the side. They would have passed right by it if Miller hadn’t noticed there were fewer trees in its direction, then found the broken twigs indicating a spot where someone had sat and watched the building like they were now doing.