The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [42]
He stared out at the black above them, speckled with faint stars, but no wisps of aurora.
“Nope. Just the stars.”
“Are there any satellites? I remember seeing those blinking lights travelling across the sky. My brothers said that’s where we got our TV shows. I wonder if we still had electricity if we could get TV still. You think there’s still TV anywhere?”
He scanned the sky. He hadn’t thought about satellites. Were they still transmitting? Could they tell him anything he didn’t already know? If he spotted one, what did that mean?
He closed his eyes. She was gone.
“I don’t see any,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
15
The girl’s body trembled. She had backed herself up against the side of the gym door, away from the two of them. She held her eyes shut tight, her face shielded from his view, her body curled as if trying to shrink out of sight.
“I know her,” the man with the burns on his neck said. “I can’t believe the little blind one is still alive.”
“Shut up,” John said to the man, and then turned to the girl. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Her nostrils flared and her white eyes narrowed, as if she could see the man standing in front of her.
“Little Bug,” the man said. “She’s one of my kid sister’s girls. Lying little bitch made some bullshit story up and got me kicked out of our village.”
John pointed the gun at him. He eased him back a few steps against the other side of the wall.
“That’s enough,” John said, pressing the pistol into the man’s chest.
“She’s my relative. Take the food and go. I’ll take care of her. We’re family.”
“I don’t think so. Step back.”
John knelt down beside her. Tears wet the sides of her cheeks, and the muscles in her jaw trembled. “Is he who he says?” he asked.
She nodded.
“He’s your uncle?”
She nodded again.
One of her hands had found the ice pick, which he’d left against the door frame. She scraped with her thumbnail at the cold steel.
“What do you want me to do?”
She took a deep breath, then let it out in stuttered white bursts that steamed from her nostrils. She took another and it came out smoother.
“John,” she whispered. He leaned in close to her. “Let me talk to him.”
He stood up and motioned to the man with the barrel of the pistol. “She wants to say something to you.” He crossed the hallway as the man approached the girl. John watched, but he was also thinking about the food stacked in front of him. His stomach burned. Nothing sounded as good as a big spoonful of peanut butter. Chicken sounded better, but he knew it would be a while before he could dig into a chicken leg without getting sick.
“Little Bug, I never thought I’d see you again,” the man said, and as he said this she stood, swinging the ice pick like a baseball bat. The side of the heavy steel bar smashed against the side of the man’s head, sending him to the floor. Before either of them could react, she jumped on top of him, thrusting the bar sideways against his throat, pinning him. He gasped for air and tried to push her off. His starved muscles could do little against her rage.
John started to step in, but once he saw the girl had the upper hand he stood by with the pistol pointed at the floor, his finger beside the trigger.
The girl’s breath came from her mouth in frosty bursts. The man quit struggling.
“You going to kill me?” he gasped. “You blind little bitch? Try check if you can.”
“Why would God let someone like you live and so many suffer? Why?” she cried.
She pressed the bar harder against his throat. Blood seeped through the black hair at his temple.
“Why did all those good people in there have to die and you live?”
The man looked up at John. “Please,” he gasped, “she’s crazy.”
“I wish that water had burned your eyes … Tell him how you got your burns.”
“Please,” he begged again, “I can’t breathe.”
“Tell him what you did to me!” She lifted one knee and pressed her kneecap against the bar. The man started to choke and convulse.
A DOZEN STUDENTS