Ben tsked at me and jerked his head toward the door. “Just Bear, and I never want to see him again!” Sam yanked the covers over his head. “You really want to decommission Teddy?” he asked. Then he found Bear lying on the floor and placed him on the pillow. I liked Defiance.īen picked him up and deposited him in the bed. I knew it shouldn’t, but it bothered me that everyone had a nom de guerre but me. It’s going to be okay.” Stroking the crew cut I was still getting used to-Sammy just didn’t seem like Sammy without the mop of hair-saying that dumb-ass camp name over and over. As in tears, not fists, and the next thing I knew, Ben was kneeling and my baby brother was crying in his arms, and Ben was saying, “Hey, it’s okay, soldier. “A-hole.”īen looked at me, right eyebrow cocked. The door slammed in that quick, violent way of hotel doors. “You’re the a-hole!” Sammy shouted after her. “My bed now.” She couldn’t resist a parting shot: “A-holes.” She jumped out of bed, marched to the door, turned on her heel, went back to the bed, grabbed the rifle, and yanked on Ben’s wrist. “Maybe Teacup should bunk in my room until Ringer gets back.” “Thanks, guys, for saving me the trouble.” He grinned at me.
“I was just thinking of painting a big red X on the roof,” Ben said. Teacup flopped against the headboard and folded her arms over her chest. Like a switch being flipped, the minute Ben barked the order, both kids fell silent. “It’s cool!” I shouted over the screaming. The door flew open and Ben burst into the room wearing that ridiculous yellow hoodie. Then it was all fists and knees and feet and dust flying from the blankets and Dear God, there’s a rifle in that bed! and I shoved Teacup away, scooped Sam into my arms, and held him tightly against my chest while he swung his arms and kicked his legs, spitting and gnashing his teeth, and Teacup was shouting obscenities at him and promising she’d put him down like a dog if he ever touched her again. “It wasn’t my fault,” I whispered, my arm wrapped around the bear. My father bleeding, crawling in the dirt-Where are you going, Dad?-and Vosch standing over him, watching my father crawl the way a sadistic kid might a fly that he’s dewinged, grimly satisfied. His voice was low and fierce, simmering with rage. For a second I was afraid he’d detached my retina. I never saw it coming, in both meanings of the phrase. He slugged me in the cheek with a balled-up, apple-sized fist. “Oh, Sam.” I left my post by the window and sat beside the cocoon of covers swaddling him. The one with the adorable baby-doll face and haunted eyes who doesn’t share a bed with a stuffed animal she sleeps with a rifle. I’m a soldier now.īurrowed in the bed next to his, another solemn, pint-sized soldier staring at me, the seven-year-old they call Teacup. Teddy bears are for babies, he told me the first night at Hotel Hell. He told me.Ī tiny lump beneath a mound of covers, brown eyes big and round and blank like the teddy bear’s pressed against his cheek. That’s the easiest way to break horrible news. Dad the tether that kept Sams - and me - from hurtling into the nullity of deep space, a nullity himself now.
Sam, m’boy, do you want to fly? Lowering his voice from baritone to bass like an old-time carny hustler, though the ride he was selling was free - and priceless. I saw him do it at Camp Ashpit a few days before Vosch showed up and murdered him in the dirt. Even after the Arrival, Dad was launching him into orbit. Better than me, because the memory was fresher. I would scream with joy, that fierce roller-coaster-ride fear, my fingers clutching at clouds. For an instant that lasted a thousand years, it felt as if I’d keep flying until I reached the stars. My head would snap back and I would hurtle like a rocket toward the sky. Are you kidding me, old man? Damn straight I want to fly!Īnd he would grab my waist and toss me into the air. From the time I could barely walk, my father would ask me, Cassie, do you want to fly? And my arms would shoot over my head.