Aftertime. Sophie Littlefield

food, drugs, anything. That is, if they don’t get themselves shot first.”

      “You think I—You’re fucking insane.” Cass’d been trying to hold on to her patience, but this—Nora’s implication that she had done this to herself on purpose—it was too much. “So where’s all my stuff, then? If I’ve been terrorizing citizens and stealing from them, where is it? I don’t have anything on me, nothing.”

      “I don’t mean to—”

      “Just let her tell her story.” Smoke glared at Nora, and after a long moment, the woman gave a faint shrug.

      Cass took a breath, let it out slowly, considered how much she wanted to give away. These people could help her, or not. They could let her go, or not. Already she felt certain that they would. There was no cruelty in them, only caution, and who could blame them for that?

      “The girl,” she hedged. “Sammi. Why was she out alone?”

      “Why don’t you tell us about you first,” Nora said coldly, and this time she refused to acknowledge Smoke’s warning glance.

      “All right.” Cass gathered her thoughts. “I lived in Silva. In Tenaya Estates. You know—the trailers.”

      Smoke nodded. “I know the place.”

      “I lived … alone. I worked at the QikGo off Lone Pine. Back in the spring, during the Siege, I stayed on for a while. I thought … I didn’t want to give up, I guess. But, you know, when they started coming into town more …”

      She didn’t add that people stopped showing up at the A.A. meetings, until one day she was the only one in the room. That day, she knew she couldn’t live alone anymore.

      “Anyway I went over to the library to shelter.” She dug her fingernails into the callus of her thumb, under the table where they couldn’t see. The next part was hard. “I was there the first time the Beaters came. When they took a friend of mine.”

       And the second time.

      She couldn’t bring herself to tell it. Not yet. “Are there still … is anyone still over there?”

      “Yes, last time anyone was there, they were up to around fifty.” Smoke hesitated and Cass got the impression he wasn’t telling the truth—not all of it, anyway. “They got it reinforced. They haven’t lost anyone … not inside, anyway, in a while. We have eighty here. There’s a few dozen in the firehouse. And you know, you have your folks who are still trying to stay in their own places. More than you’d think, really.”

      “Fewer every day,” Nora muttered.

      “Not our place to judge,” Smoke said in a voice so low Cass was sure it was meant only for Nora.

      “Do you talk to them … the people at the library?” she asked. Now that she was so close, fear bloomed in her heart.

      “We did,” Smoke said. “Until … well, we had some trouble. A couple of weeks ago. Since then we’ve stayed local.”

      “Seventeen days,” Nora said, with surprising bitterness.

      Smoke nodded, acknowledging her point.

      “What happened?”

      “You don’t know?” The suspicion was back.

      Cass looked from one to the other, mystified. “No, I don’t—I told you, I’ve been on my own since I woke up and—”

      “Some people would just say that it’s awfully convenient that you can’t remember anything,” Nora said. “And that you just happen to show up after the Rebuilders set up camp over there.”

      “Who are—”

      “So now you want to accuse her of being a Rebuilder?” Smoke said. “Really, Nora? That’s a little paranoid, even for you.”

      Nora scowled. “Freewalkers don’t threaten to kill children.”

      “Everyone would have thought she was a—”

      “Don’t say it,” Cass interrupted, resisting the urge to clap her hands over her ears. She couldn’t bear to hear the word, to hear the accusation, again. “Please. Look, why don’t I just leave now.”

      “No one said anything about that,” Smoke said tiredly. “You’re safe here. Everyone’s just on edge. It’s been hard. Shit, no one needs to tell you that.”

      For a moment no one spoke. Cass could feel Nora’s anger clogging the air still.

      “All I want to know is how she’s managed not to be attacked,” she said, addressing Smoke alone. “Walking alone as long as she says she has—how does that happen?”

      Cass glared back. “I’ve been lucky, I guess.”

      “Lucky,” Nora repeated, spitting out the word as though it was poison.

      “Listen to me. My daughter was there,” Cass snapped. “In the library. The second time we were attacked. We were outside. She wanted … to be outside.”

      What Ruthie had really wanted was to pick dandelions, one of the few plants to survive the Siege. Cass had taught her to hold the blooms under her chin, so that the yellow reflected off her pale creamy skin. Oh, look, you must be made of butter, she teased Ruthie, peppering her sweet face with kisses. And then Ruthie would laugh and laugh and tickle Cass’s chin with bunches of dandelions wilting in her chubby little hands.

      Ruthie wanted to pick dandelions, and they were hard to find at dusk, so it was barely twilight when Cass led her outside to the little patch of dead lawn in front of the library, after she looked carefully in every direction.

      But not carefully enough. Because the Beaters were learning. And they had learned to hide. They hid behind a panel truck on two flat tires that had been abandoned half a block away … and they waited. And then they moved faster than Cass thought possible, awkward loping strides accompanied by their gurgling breathless moans, and Cass grabbed for Ruthie, who was tracing the path of a caterpillar with a stick and thought it was a game and danced out of the way and darted into the last glorious rays of sun as it slipped down the horizon—

      The challenge drained from Nora’s face. “Don’t,” she begged.

      Smoke placed a work-roughened hand over Nora’s and didn’t look at Cass.

      “Nora,” he said heavily. “She, uh … her nephew. She was watching him.”

      “I was supposed to be watching him,” Nora said hollowly. She pulled her hand away and stood, knocking over her chair. She backed out of the room, brushing against the coffeepot on the counter. It fell to the ground, shattering and splashing hot coffee, but she just turned and bolted down the hall.

      “She’s …” Smoke said, watching her go. Then he turned back to Cass. “I’m sorry.”

      “No need to apologize,” Cass said, but the truth was that she did need it. Not the apology—but the way his voice softened when he spoke to her and the way his eyes narrowed with concern when he looked at her, taking in what had happened to her poor body and not turning away.

      That. Most of all she needed that, the not turning away.

      “Something did happen to me,” she found herself saying, the words tumbling out as though a trapdoor had been opened inside her. “Something bad.”

      Telling was crazy. Telling could get her thrown out of here. Or worse. But Smoke looked at her as though he saw her, saw the real her, and she wanted to hold on to that, wanted him to know the truth and still see her.

      The kindness he’d already shown her should have been enough. Settle for that, she willed herself. Settle for good enough.

      But Cass could never leave well enough alone. She didn’t know how. She wanted someone—one other human being—to