Page 13 of Open Road

A pause. Then through the door, “Thank you.”

Her voice is quiet. Something careful in it that isn’t fear or trust yet, something in between that doesn’t have a name, which seems to be the condition of most things tonight.

I set Mr. Rabbit against the wall beside the door and walk back down the hall.

The compound goes quiet around me. Scout heads to his room with one last look over his shoulder. Zeppelin is no longer on the sound system. Winchester’s chair is pushed back, his footsteps toward the back. The building is learning to be still again.

My room is at the end of the hall, but I sit on the floor outside her door instead. My back is to the wall, arms on my knees, and head against the plaster. The hall is dim, low overnight light, nothing else.

Nobody asked me to.

The thing in my chest with no name has been getting quieter since the moment the compound gate swung open. It sits steady now, the way the road sits quietly at this hour. Present, patient, and not asking for anything.

This is fine.

This is just for tonight.

I’m still telling myself that when the hall light makes its slow arc toward dawn.

Chapter Four

JANIE

The room is better than I expected.

Not palatial, not even particularly comfortable with a double bed, clean sheets, a lamp on the nightstand throwing warm yellow light, and a window with blinds. But a real door and a working lock. That last one is carrying most of the weight right now.

Devil showed it to me herself. She guided us down the dimly-lit hall, Rose still slung on my hip, running her half-asleep assessment of everything we passed, and she stops at the door, pushes it open, and lets me step through first. Then she reaches past me, her thumb finding the lock without looking for it, and turns it, once. Click and back.

Then she watches me.

Not checking whether I understood the mechanics. Checking whether I’d clocked the fact that it was mine to use. Those are different things, and she seems to know it. Two years of Craig, information was managed toward me from a distance, rationed and controlled. Here is a woman handing over something with both hands.

“All yours,” she says. Her accent rounds out the words, warm and certain. It’s the particular warmth of someone who’s decided you’re worth it before you’ve done anything to earn it.

Rose’s head comes up off my shoulder. “Are there snacks?”

Devil looks at her. It’s the precise, measuring look of a woman taking a question at its full value.

“There are,” she says. “Follow me.”

The kitchen has stainless-steel benches, countertops, backsplashes, and appliances. It’s a room built for function, not comfort, and suits the place.

Rose eats everything.

Three crackers, half a banana, a slice of cheese, most of a cup of apple juice, and whatever comes out of a tin Devil produces from the back of a cabinet with the certainty of a woman who keeps a stocked kitchen on principle—small round cookies, something with coconut. Rose works through them one at a time with the focused attention she gives all food, as if eating is serious business that deserves her full concentration.

Devil refills the juice without being asked and pushes the tin closer. She talks to Rose in the matter-of-fact register some adults use with children who’ve demonstrated they can handle real information. No baby talk, and Rose receives it with dignity.

The doorway is where I stay, watching them and working on breathing.

“Sit down, love,” Devil says, without looking up.

“I’m fine.” Old reflex, worn smooth.

She looks up then. Something settles around the edges of her face. It’s not pity, but something older than pity.

“I know,” she says. “Sit down anyway.”