I don’t think about my aunt. I don’t think about how it’s becoming clear that not all wounds heal. They don’t even scar over. Including, quite literally, the wound still seething under the bandage on my shoulder.
A brand-new-looking dark-green pickup with a double cab comes up the drive behind me, parking off to one side and well back from the blazing house. Or what remains of the house.
Jewels, wearing high-waisted cotton shorts and a wrapped jersey halter top, practically tumbles out of the driver’s side of the truck with her hands raised to her face, staring at the house. In horror? In prayer? Are they one and the same?
Fuck, I’m morose.
Not a great color on me.
If she was somehow poisoned — rather than it being a risky ruse to pull the Cataclysm away from the compound — Jewels looks to have recovered. I expect I’ll hear more of the story right before Jewels formally requests a favor from me. A favor she’s desperate enough to risk the Cataclysm’s wrath to secure.
Wrapping the rest of the corn bread in the tea towel, I slide off the tailgate. A moment after my bare feet settle upon it, the hard-packed dirt underfoot rumbles.
To my right, the barn explodes, followed by two of the other outbuildings in quick succession. I make a guess that the farthest away of those buildings, visible through the anemic shade trees, might be the entrance I was carried through after I tumbled out of the Cataclysm’s portal.
I’m going to have to ask Jewels what month it is, what day. It appears to be summer, but this part of the continent runs continually hot — in my opinion, anyway. So maybe I haven’t lost as much time as I think.
Jewels screams — thrice, and with the same intensity — with each explosion.
An intense satisfaction thrums through me. For a moment, I’m not certain it’s my own emotion. Only then do I realize what I’ve been waiting for. Or more specifically, why the universe has allowed me to pause.
The fire I set in the medical bay has spread despite the concrete construction of the bunker. Maybe I helped it along by setting the house ablaze? But either way, the entire underground compound is likely destroyed now, to the point of taking out the buildings above.
Wordlessly, I cross to Jewels’s still-running truck, climbing into the passenger seat and tucking the rest of my corn bread into the storage niche in the door. Thankfully the air conditioning is on.
Jewels, stumbling over her feet, climbs into the driver’s side, closing her door. Then she just stares out the windshield at the house.
The clock on the dashboard informs me that it’s not yet nine in the morning. I blink at it, trying to recalibrate my brain by assuming the shifters must have been slow-cooking the chili for their lunch. I point at the display. “How the fuck is it already so hot out?”
“It’s Texas,” Jewels says, not looking away from the burning house.
We watch in silence for a few more minutes.
The house finally collapses.
Jewels takes a shuddering breath, then another. Then she wipes her face as if she’s been crying — she hasn’t — and reaches around the back of my seat. She offers me a plastic shopping bag from a chain store I have distant memories of as a child. The bag is made of actual plastic. I don’t think I’ve ever handled one, not in all my travels.
Inside, I find a set of light gray cotton underwear and a sports bra, a plain black oversized T-shirt, and cutoff jean shorts, frayed hems and all. Plus plastic flip-flops. Purple plastic flip-flops. I normally can’t handle anything between my toes, but I’m currently in possession of only a single item of clothing, so I really can’t complain. I have no cash, no access to money, no phone …
“My mother told me that …” Jewels can’t quite look at me. “That you’d owe me a favor.”
Recalling the shifters’ reactions to me in the kitchen — or more specifically, their reaction to the power I’m apparently radiating — I don’t look at her, tearing the certain-to-be-scratchy labels from the clothing instead. “And you mean to collect.”
Jewels swallows. “There’s … he …” She presses one hand to her stomach. It’s slightly rounded now, or perhaps I’m just now seeing her clearly. “He doesn’t know that we’ve been tricking him, but he’s certain to find out.”
“Tell me.”
“There’s … he has this obsession with breeding …”
“Especially girls,” I say, tugging the new underwear on under the silk dress and blithely ignoring that it hasn’t been washed yet. Zaya Gage gets to be an utter snob about her clothing. The Conduit takes what is offered in order to keep moving forward.
Jewels glances at me, eyes wide with fear. “After …” She shakes her head, correcting herself. “Something happened. Years ago now. And he couldn’t … he killed at least three of his chosen women before the next in line figured out that he was sterile.”
“Something happened …” My stomach sinks. I weave more threads together in my mind, piecing together a little more of the tapestry my aunt and I apparently share. Or that she bequeathed to me. “Thirteen years ago?”
Jewels shrugs, unsure. “Something like that.”
Did that ‘something’ happen on the night the Cataclysm snapped my neck, killing me for the very first time? Even though I should have been safe on the estate, sheltered by my aunt and the intersection point. Did my aunt do something to her rejected mate in retaliation? Did she try to kill him? The result of which was … infertility?
