bust in there.”
“Start that crap and we’ll retaliate.” The man’s voice is every bit as pissed off as Cuellar’s.
“Oh yeah?” Cuellar taunts. “I got an ax.”
“We’ve got an improvised bomb and Molotov cocktails.”
Cuellar looks surprised for a moment.
“Bull! You’re bluffing!”
A cheerful woman’s voice comes from behind the door. It sounds like the lady who looked vaguely like Mrs. Claus.
“No, we do, really! You can make them out of normal household chemicals, and for the explosive device all you need is—”
“Margaret, hush!” the man’s exasperated voice snaps.
“Sorry,” she says to him, then she raises her voice to us. “Sorry we can’t help y’all!”
Her tone is like if we’d knocked on the door looking to borrow a cup of sugar.
“Listen, okay, we don’t have to get in the room,” Siggy says, both to us and to the preppers on the other side of the door. “We saw troops outside, they’re going to come in. We need to warn them. Do you have that radio?”
“Already tried it,” the man says. “It won’t work, they got a dampener.”
“Right,” Siggy says, her tone conspiratorial. “But we got a signal when we went out into the skyway. Maybe if you give us the radio we could actually communicate with—”
“No.”
Just like that.
“You don’t understand,” Siggy begins, but he cuts her off again.
“Oh, sure. I get it, kid. And maybe you’re even telling the truth about the signal. But then what? I open the door to give you the radio. You guys try to force your way in here. Next thing you know you’re in, or you’re not. But at what cost? People could get hurt. My people. Then undead come. It’s a real snafu.”
Siggy’s mouth just drops open, the expression almost cartoonish. She’s just gaping at the door, head shaking gently in disbelief.
Then she swipes at her eyes with a hand. Shakes her head more forcefully, and steps back.
And I’m furious suddenly. White-hot rage at the obnoxious preppers on the other side of the door. Who wouldn’t even try to figure out a way to work with us. To help us.
And at how they just knocked her back like that. My Siggy. Stealing her hope, like taking candy from a baby. Like it didn’t matter.
Like she didn’t matter.
Janet repositions her drawer plank, resting it across the tops of her shoulders. She tips her head away from the door.
“Let’s go.” Her voice is tight with anger.
“Where?” Annie asks.
“Away from this toxic BS,” Janet says. “We’ll regroup, make a new plan.”
Cuellar nods. Simon moves out farther into the hall, like he’s on point.
Blair follows Simon, and the rest of us move into our turtle shape, our energies either dejected or infuriated.
Imani stays at the door; her body is rigid with fury.
I go stand beside her.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“These . . . these . . .” Her voice is so tightly wound it’s like she’s fighting to control the low words.
“People,” she hisses. And somehow it’s the worst insult.
“I know,” I tell her. “The worst.”
“What’s the point of rules?” Imani crosses her arms over her stomach, almost like she’s cradling an injury.
She looks at me.
“What’s the point of rules if there’s no empathy underneath?”
And it’s easy to forget, sometimes, that Imani needs rules so much because they’re protective. Because they make her feel safe.
Because underneath everything, her calm, strong demeanor, her academic gifts, and her beauty . . .
She’s a kid. My best friend in the whole world. And even though sometimes I put her on a little pedestal, with love, she’s human.
She’s scared, too.
“I know,” I tell her.
Siggy touches her arm. “It’s all right, Imani,” Siggy says, and her voice is so strong, it makes me feel stronger just hearing it. “We know better, they don’t. They have to live