The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,356

couldn’t have made it this far if they weren’t. But our code is very strict, and I need you to respect it. If you can’t, I will return your weapons and send you on your way.”

“Fine,” he said, “we’ll go.”

“Wait, Peter.”

It was Alicia who had spoken. Peter turned to face her.

“Lish, it’s all right. I’m with you on this. He says we go, we’ll go.”

But Alicia didn’t acknowledge him. Her eyes were pointed at the general. Peter realized she was standing at attention, her arms held rigidly at her sides.

“General Vorhees. Colonel Niles Coffee of the First Expeditionary sends his regards.”

“Niles Coffee?” A light seemed to come on in his face. “The Niles Coffee?”

“Lish,” Peter said, her meaning dawning upon him, “do you mean … the Colonel?”

But Alicia said nothing. She didn’t even look at him. Her expression was set in a way that Peter had never seen before.

“Young lady. Colonel Coffee was lost with all his men thirty years ago.”

“Not true, sir,” Alicia said. “He survived.”

“Coffee’s alive?”

“KIA, sir. Three months ago.”

Vorhees glanced around the room before finding Alicia with his eyes again. “And who, may I ask, are you?”

She gave a crisp nod from her chin. “His adopted daughter, sir. Private Alicia Donadio, First Expeditionary. Baptized and sworn.”

No one spoke. Something final was occurring, Peter knew. Something irrevocable. He felt a wave of disorienting panic rising inside him, as if some basic fact of his life, fundamental as gravity, had been suddenly, and without warning, stripped away.

“Lish, what are you saying?”

At last she turned her face to look at him; her eyes were pooled with trembling tears.

“Oh, Peter,” she said, as the first one broke away to descend her dirt-stained cheek, “I’m sorry. I really should have told you.”

“You can’t have her!”

“I’m sorry, Jaxon,” the general said. “This isn’t your decision to make. It’s no one’s decision.” He stepped briskly to the door of the tent. “Greer! Somebody get Major Greer to my tent, now.”

“What’s going on?” Michael demanded. “Peter, what is she talking about?”

Suddenly everybody was speaking at once. Peter gripped Alicia by the arms, making her look at him. “Lish, what are you doing? Think about what you’re doing.”

“It’s already done.” Through her tears, her face seemed to glow with relief, as if a burden long carried had finally been put to rest. “It was done before I knew you. Long before. The day the Colonel came into the Sanctuary to claim me. He made me promise not to tell.”

He understood, then, what she’d been trying to say to him that morning. “You were tracking them.”

She nodded. “Yes, for the last two days. When I was scouting downstream I found one of their camps. The ashes of their fire were still warm. Way out here, I didn’t think it could be anybody else.” She shook her head faintly. “Honestly, Peter, I didn’t know if I even wanted to find them. Part of me always thought they were just an old man’s stories. You have to believe that.”

Greer appeared at the door of the tent, dripping with rain.

“Major Greer,” the general said, “this woman is First Expeditionary.”

Greer’s jaw fell open. “She’s what?”

“Niles Coffee’s daughter.”

Greer stared at Alicia, his eyes wide with shock, as if he were looking at some strange animal. “Holy goddamn. Coffee had a daughter?”

“She says she’s sworn.”

Greer scratched his bare head in puzzlement. “Christ. She’s a woman. What do you want to do?”

“There’s nothing to do. Sworn is sworn. The men will have to learn to live with it. Take her to the barber, get her assigned.”

It was all happening too fast. Peter felt as if something huge were breaking open inside him. “Lish, tell them you’re lying!”

“I’m sorry. This is how it has to be. Major?”

Greer nodded, his face grave, and stepped to her side.

“You can’t leave me,” Peter heard himself say, though the voice that spoke these words did not seem to be his own.

“I have to, Peter. It’s who I am.”

He had, without realizing it, stepped into her arms. He felt the tears in his throat. “I can’t … do this without you.”

“Yes, you can. I know you can.”

It was no use. Alicia was leaving him; he felt her slipping away. “I can’t, I can’t.”

“It’s all right,” she said, her voice close to his ear. “Hush now.”

She held him that way a long moment, the two of them wrapped in a bubble of silence, as if they were alone. Then Alicia took his face in her hands and bent him toward her;