Page 18 of Chaos

I keep moving over the perch, ignoring the questions.

People close in around me, and I brush them off, incapable of looking at anyone, let alone hearing them.

On the other side of the perch, Colleen and Wendell keep time with me as I stalk up the drive, shrugging off more people inside the lobby.

Misty, who seems to be everywhere these days, materializes almost instantly and tries to touch my shoulder. More people, everywhere, trying to touch me, asking for updates, offering condolences.

I don’t look at them.

I never wanted any of them.

All I wanted was Frankie.

As soon as we hit the War Room, Wendell shoulders in, Colleen beside him.

I let them take the letter without resistance and they stare down at those loopy blue words.

I turn away as more people gather. The original crew that came from DC, some of the army people, a few of the people who joined from town. Church and Jacquetta, their two closest in command, Rey and Ebundi.

More people. Every time I turn around the circle keeps growing.

Shane moves in to stand next to me, and I let him stay, leaning against my shoulder. He and Auden are the only people I can tolerate being inside two feet of me.

Noise scatters around the room, people relaying the news, echoing, clambering, building.

“She’s alive,” and, “Thank god,” fills my ears, roaring into a din.

Wendell drops a heavy hand down my shoulder, and I have to turn away, pinching the bridge of my nose, and focus on the map.

She’s alive, I tell myself that over and over and over again.

Unless she’s not.

It could still be a lie.

But it fits with what the man in the cell downstairs said.

The map spreads across the table before me, the searched red areas, the unsearched colorless ones, the forest cast in green.

Only the tiny northeasternmost edge of the forest is visible on the big table map.

“What did you have to trade?” Colleen asks stiffly. “Yorke,” Colleen pushes when I ignore her. “What did you trade?”

“Bullets.”

“Ah, fuck,” Jacquetta says, a low grumble in her voice. “Who heard that?”

“I did,” Rey says, a disapproving bite to her voice.

“And you’ll keep it to yourself,” Church spits back.

“It won’t matter,” she fires back.

“Too many people heard,” Ebundi says. He and Rey are the two most senior officers after Church and Jacquetta.

Wendell consults his road atlas, and marks out a new line on the map, to the park’s main entrance. “It’ll get out no matter what.”

“What does that leave us with?” Colleen asks.