I have to believe that he will fix it, even if it means killing them all.
We’ve finally shaken off the chaos and the crowds. We’re near Cumberland now, where Lena used to live, in the quietly run-down residential portion of the city. In the distance, the foghorn in the old watchtower on Munjoy Hill begins blowing, sending mournful notes beneath and beyond the alarms. I wish we were heading home instead of to Fred’s house. I want to curl up in my bed and sleep; I want to wake up and find that today was all just a nightmare that has pushed through the cracks, past the cure.
But my home is no longer my home. Even if the priest did not get to finish his pronouncement, I am now officially married to Fred Hargrove. Nothing will ever be the same.
Left onto Sherman; then right into yet another alley, which will dump us onto Park. Just as we reach the end of the alley, someone runs out in front of the car, a gray blur.
Tony shouts and slams on the brakes, but it’s too late. I have time to register the tattered clothing, the long, matted hair—Invalid—before the impact carries her off her feet. She spins across the hood—fans for a second against the windshield—and drops out of sight again.
Anger crests inside me, sudden and startling, a stabbing peak of it that breaks through the fear. I lean forward, shouting, “It’s one of them, it’s one of them! Don’t let her get away!”
Tony and the other guards don’t need to be asked twice. In an instant, they’re rocketing into the street, guns drawn, leaving the doors of the car hanging open. My hands are shaking. I squeeze them into fists and lean back, taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. With the doors open, I can hear the alarms more clearly, and distant sounds of shouting, too, like the echo-roar of the ocean.
This is Portland, my Portland. In that moment, nothing else matters—not the lies or the mistakes, and the promises we’ve failed to keep. This is my city, and my city is under attack. The anger tightens.
Tony is hauling the girl to her feet. She is fighting, although she is outnumbered and completely outmatched. Her hair is hanging in her face, and she’s kicking and scratching like an animal.
Maybe I’ll kill this one myself.
Lena
By the time I make it onto Forest Avenue, the sound of the fighting has faded, swallowed by the shrill cries of the alarms. Every so often I see a hand twitching at a curtain, a fishbowl-eye peering down at me and then vanishing just as quickly. Everyone is staying locked up and locked in.
I keep my head down, moving as quickly as I can despite the throbbing in my ankle where I landed on it wrong, listening for sounds of squads and patrols. There’s no way I’ll be mistaken for anything but an Invalid: I’m filthy, wearing old, mud-splattered clothes, and my ear is still streaked with blood. Amazingly, there’s no one on the streets. Security forces must have been diverted elsewhere. This is, after all, the poorer part of town; no doubt the city doesn’t feel these people need protection.
A path and a road for everyone . . . and for some, a path straight into the ground.
I make it to Cumberland without problems. As soon as I step onto my old block, I feel for a moment as though I’m caught in a still life from the past. It seems forever ago that I used to turn down this block on my way home from school; that I used to stretch here after my runs, placing one leg on top of the bus-stop bench; that I would watch Jenny and the other kids playing kick the can, and open up the fire hydrants for them when it got hot in the summer.
It was a lifetime ago. I’m a different Lena now.
The street, too, looks different—saggier, as though an invisible black hole is spiraling the whole block slowly down into itself. Even before I reach the gate in front of number 237, I know that the house will be empty. The certainty is lodged like a hard weight between my lungs. But I still stand stupidly in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up at the now-abandoned building—my home, my old house, the little bedroom on the top floor, the smells of soap and laundry and cooked tomato—taking in the peeling paint and the rotting porch steps, the boarded-up windows, the faded red X spray-painted on the door, marking the house as condemned.
I feel as if I’ve been punched in the stomach. Aunt Carol was always so proud of the house. She wouldn’t let a single season go by without repainting, cleaning out the gutters, scrubbing the porch.
Then the grief is replaced by panic. Where did they go?
What happened to Grace?
In the distance, the foghorn bellows, sounding like a funeral song. I start, and recall suddenly where I am: in a foreign, hostile city. It is no longer my place; I am not welcome here. The foghorn blows a second, and then a third time. The signal means that all three bombs have been successfully dropped; that gives us an hour until they blow and all hell breaks loose.