“Cat lady,” he breathed.
I nod, relieved. “Just like Dumbo, only Teacup wasn’t so lucky.” See, Zombie, I’m the one who lost her—and you’re the one who avenged her. Not exactly absolution but the nearest I can give him.
“Tell me it was quick.”
“It was quick.”
“Tell me she didn’t suffer.”
“She didn’t suffer.”
He turns his head and spits on the side of the road. A bad taste in his mouth. “A couple of days, you said. ‘I’ll scope them out and be back in a couple of days.’”
“I don’t make the rules, Zombie. The odds—”
“Oh, take the odds and stuff them up your ass. You should have come back. Your place is with us, Ringer. We’re all you’ve got and you left us.”
“That’s not what happened and you know it.”
He stops suddenly. Beneath the rust-colored mask, his face is a deeper red. “You don’t run from the people who need you. You fight for them. You fight beside them. No matter the cost. No matter the risk.” He spits out the word. “I thought you understood that. You told me in Dayton that you did. You said you were an expert on what matters, and I guess you are, if what matters is saving yourself while the rest of the world burns.”
I don’t say anything because he isn’t talking to me. I am the mirror.
“You shouldn’t have left,” he goes on. “We needed you. If you hadn’t left, Teacup would still be alive. And if you’d come back, Poundcake might be alive. Instead, you decided to hang out with a total stranger, to hell with us, and now Dumbo’s blood is on your hands, too.” He jabs a finger at my face. “If he dies, it’s your fault. Dumbo came looking for you.”
“Hey, kids, is everything all right?” Constance, her smile withered to a concerned grin.
“Oh, sure,” Zombie says. “We were just discussing where we should go for dinner. Chinese sound good to you?”
“Well, it’s closer to breakfast,” Constance answers brightly. “I could really go for some pancakes.”
Zombie looks at me. “She’s fun. What a blast you must have had this winter.”
Constance’s worried grin disappears. Her bottom lip quivers. Then she bursts into tears and flops down on the asphalt, resting her elbows on her knees and burying her broken face in her hands. Zombie takes in the act for a long, uncomfortable moment.
I know what she’s doing: The best hammer to break the bonds of distrust is natural human sympathy. Pity has killed more people than hate.
When the last day comes for Zombie, it won’t be another person who betrays him; it will be his heart.
He glances at me. What’s with this woman?
I shrug. Who knows? My apathy fuels his pity, and he gives in to it, squatting beside her.
“Hey, look, I was being an asshole, I’m sorry.”
Constance mutters something that sounds like pancakes. Zombie touches her shoulder gently. “Hey, Connie . . . It’s Connie, right?”
“Con-stan-stan . . .”
“Constance, right. I have a friend, Constance. He’s hurt pretty bad and I need to get back to him. Now.” Rubbing her shoulder. “Like, right now.”
It makes me sick to my stomach. I turn away. Across the eastern horizon a slash of garish pink glows. Another day closer to the end.
“I just—I just don’t know—how much more—I can take . . .” Constance is moaning, on her feet now and leaning her whole body into Zombie’s, a hand on his shoulder, a not-so-young-and-fair damsel in distress. If I had to give Constance a nom de guerre, I would pick Cougar.
Zombie gives me a look: A little help here?
“Of course you can take more,” I say to her, my stomach still churning. I wish the hub would get a grip on my gut. “And then you’re gonna take a little more, then a little more, and after that a little more.” I pull her off him, not gently. She snuffles loudly, pouring it on.
“Please don’t be mean to me, Marika,” she whimpers. “You’re always so mean.”
Oh dear God.
“Here,” Zombie says, taking her arm. “She can walk with me. You should be covering the rear anyway, Ringer.”
“Oh yes,” Constance purrs. “Cover the rear, Marika!”
The world spins. The ground heaves. I stumble a couple feet off the road and double over, at which point everything in my stomach comes out in a violent gush.
A hand on my back: Zombie’s. “Hey, Ringer—what the hell?”
“I’m okay,” I gasp, shrugging off his hand. “Must be the undercooked rabbit.” Another lie and not even a necessary one.
33
MIDMORNING, DOWNTOWN URBANA, under a cloudless sky, the temperature in the midforties. You can feel it coming. Spring.
Zombie and Constance rush into the coffee shop while I cover the street. From the doorway, I hear Zombie’s startled cry, and then he’s skittering back to me across the treacherous coffee-bean-covered floor.
“What?”
He pushes past me and lurches onto the street, whipping right, then left, then back again. Constance comes over and says, “Apparently the kid’s gone.”
In the middle of Main Street, Zombie throws back his head and howls Dumbo’s name. As if in mockery, the echo ricochets back at him.
I trot over to his side. “Screaming probably isn’t a good idea, Zombie.”
His response is a wide-eyed, uncomprehending stare. Then he turns and races down the street, calling his name over and over, Dumbo! Dumbo! and Dumbo, you dumbass, where are you? He loops back to us after a couple of blocks, out of breath and shaking with panic.