Page 110 of Chaos

He turns part way away from me, his good hand curling into a fist. “What about me?”

“It’s not my place to tell you where to go or what to do, but I think you should stay here with Frankie.”

He lets out a long puff of air. “I want to go with you.”

My throat tightens. Having him along will make it more dangerous. But leaving him behind, knowing he doesn’t wantto be left behind, seems worse. I did that to Carl. My dad did that to me. I know the scars that leaves.

“Okay. We leave as soon as the bullet factory is secure.”

He nods. “Fine.”

“Hopefully, she just wants to talk, most likely negotiate, but it could be dangerous.”

“I still want to stay with you,” he says.

“Okay.” I reach out to touch his shoulder. “You always have a place with me. You shouldn’t doubt that.”

He’s quiet as we jog down the stairs. Then, in the lobby, which is quiet in the only way spaces can be when they’re packed with soldiers preparing to leave for a mission in the dark.

Soldiers are already funneling outside, forming lines to board the trucks to take them into position for the coming raid. “If anything happens today while I’m gone, you’ll help Frankie with Auden and Shasta?”

He nods. “I’ll go back up there now.”

He gets halfway up the stairs, and I’ve just headed off to where Wendell is waiting for me by the check-in desk, when Shane calls my name.

I turn back. “Yeah.”

“Ephie will want to come with me, I think.”

Jesus.

Every person is like a sticky burr, connecting to another network of sticky-burr people, and they never want to let anyone go.

“We’ll talk about that when I get back.”

27 |Advanced warning

FRANKIE

IWAKEjust as Yorke leaves the bed.

And something about the acoustics of his murmured conversation with Shane delivers his words straight to me in the bed.

He lied.

He knew back when he found out about Maybe that he’d have to leave. Because Lavinia Hope is looking for him, and I can’t leave Sheila if I’m pregnant.

That’s why he kept sayingyou’ll need diapers,instead ofwe’ll need them.

Daylight leaches the sky of black like a brush full of turpentine sucking away paint as I lie in bed and replay the conversation he had with Shane.

It’s like I climbed in Auden’s sled and am slipping down the snow-covered hills, right back toward that endless-sky waterfall of nothing and everything all at once, riding the tiltawhirl hellride of the apocalypse. Uncontrollable chaos.

Lavinia Hope wants Yorke and he’s decided he’s the problem and the solution all rolled into one.

As soon as Auden wakes up, we go to the Tastemaker where we’re immediately caught in the buzz that Ben was sick again all night.

Not effing dead.