“Jamie!” Cara says. “You’re pointing it atme.”
I step around her and go over to him, gently putting my hand on his wrist. His heart is racing so hard I can feel the blood pumping beneath his burning skin. “Come on,” I say quietly. His hands are shaking. “Put the gun down.”
I move my hand to the weapon, holding my breath and waiting for it to discharge accidentally. Jamie would never forgive himself if he shot Cara.
But then I see it. The safety is still on. Seeing Denton must have scared him so much that he just reacted, not thinking about the safety. Now that I know the gun’s not going to go off on its own, I use a little more force with my good hand to pull it away from him. I hold it out to Niki, who takes it from me and tucks it into the back of her jeans.
Denton takes a careful step forward. “Rosewood said you stole food and snuck out. We sent a few groups to find you and get the foodback. They weren’t supposed to do anything else.”
“Well, you sent the wrong people,” Jamie says.
“And we didn’t steal,” I add. “It wasourfood we left with.”
“And that doesn’t matter anymore because you came after us. All the way to Florida. And you shot me.”
“I—” He stops himself from saying again thathewasn’t the one who shot Jamie, even though he was the sheriff and was the leader of the group sent after us. He takes a moment and then says, “A lot of us didn’t like the way that went.”
I bark out a laugh. “Yeah, we didn’t exactly like the way it went either.”
“I’m sorry,” Denton says. “Our goal was to arrest you and bring you back for a trial.”
“And I’m sure it would have been a fair one,” I say. I see Cal’s eyes darting back and forth between Denton and Jamie, trying to piece everything together.
Denton’s lack of answer is answer enough. His jaw tightens. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re alive, I have no intention of arresting you, all that’s behind us.”
“Then why are you here?” I ask. “Why aren’t you in Fort Caroline? Where is Rosewood?”
Jamie looks terrified all over again, as if he hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Rosewood being here but now he has.
“He’s still in Fort Caroline,” Denton says, fast. “A lot of people are. But me, a few others, we gave up on it.”
“Gave up?”
He gestures to a few tables. “Can we sit down?”
Jamie looks to me and I turn to Cara. She nods and is the first to move. As Denton waits for us, I whisper to Jamie that it’s okay and motion for him to follow her. We all sit, and Denton takes a chair across from us, still giving us space. Rocky Horror and Niki stand beside us while some of the other Nomads decide to continue the tour on their own. Cal stays put, standing by Rocky Horror. Amy remains by the doorway, probably worried that Jamie will go wild again and she might need to make a quick exit with Henri-Two.
“So,” Denton starts, “after we got back from looking for you, Rosewood was pissed. He blamed me for losing you, which I deserved. I didn’t want to go after you anymore. But more than that, it was a waste. He was using a lot of resources on a revenge mission. While we were gone, a few selectmen managed to change some of the laws to benefit themselves. Taking supplies, using labor for their own shelters, stuff like that.”
“Taking advantage of people,” I say. Next to me, Jamie’s left leg is bouncing uncontrollably. I place my hand on it, and he stops. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his shoulders relax a bit.
Denton gestures with his hand as if to sayyes, obviously.
“Rosewood still decided to try and blame me, but people liked me. He knew he had to get people tonotlike me. So—I have no proof of this, obviously, but it reeked of Danny at the time and no other option made sense—there was a bizarre uptick in crime. Bullshit offenses, fights and thefts, vandalism.”
“Psyops,” Cal says. Denton nods, looking impressed. Then Cal turns to the rest of us. “Psychological operations. It’s when a population is manipulated to turn on whoever’s in power. When people startto feel unsafe, they turn on you.”
“Right,” says Denton. “So, with the uptick in crime, Rosewood installed a few more deputies in the sheriff’s department, people Nadine and I didn’t know.”
Denton turns to the Nomads, who weren’t part of our Fort Caroline saga. “Nadine was my second-in-command, and one of my only friends who survived the flu. Anyway, the new deputies didn’t answer to us and decided to make like the selectmen and start taking advantage. They’d blame people they didn’t like for crimes they committed themselves—things I had evidence for. But to answer your previous question, Andrew: No. Jamie’s trial wouldn’t have been fair. Just like the others since haven’t been.”
“It wasn’t a question,” I remind him.
He nods. “Anyway, things went bad quickly. People turning against each other, power struggles among the members of the select committee. Things weren’t ideal.”
“You mean like the white supremacy and their fucked-up registry?” Jamie asks. His leg is bouncing nervously again beneath the table. My hand is still there, but I don’t think he even feels it.
“Registry?” Niki sounds disgusted.
