Plague

Orc seemed to have someplace in mind. But he also seemed confused. They were in an area of tangled woods and sharp, sudden, brush-choked valleys.
    “Are you taking us to Coates?” Astrid asked.
    “Yeah,” Orc answered.
    “Why there?”
    “You wanted to get away, right?”
    “I want my brother to be somewhere safe,” Astrid said, conscious of the hypocrisy.
    “It’s safe there,” Orc said.
    “How do you know?”
    “It’s a secret,” Orc grumbled. “I mean, there’s no one there. None of those kids anyway. Caine and all them guys.”
    “What if Drake goes there?”
    Orc shrugged, which caused Little Pete’s head to fall from his shoulder and loll back. “If Drake’s there, I’ll take care of him.”
    Astrid stepped quickly to catch up with Orc. She put her hand on his shoulder. He slowed down and moved aside so she could walk beside him.
    “Are you looking for Drake?” Astrid asked. “Because I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “I don’t care about Drake,” Orc said angrily. “I had enough of him. But I have to be away from town. Where else am I going to go?”
    Astrid felt sure that was part of the truth. But not all of it.
    “Thanks for helping us,” she said. “But you don’t have to stay away from town. It’s not your fault Drake escaped.”
    “Didn’t say it was.”
    “Then why?”
    Orc said nothing, just walked on heavily, stone feet trampling the undergrowth like some undersized Godzilla. Then, “This kid,” he said.
    “What kid?”
    “This kid, this little kid, was all sick or whatever, and I was . . . I guess I was drunk.”
    “What happened with the kid?”
    “Got in my way,” Orc said.
    It was hard to read Orc’s expression. But she heard anguish in his voice.
    “Oh,” Astrid said.
    “Gotta leave town. Like Hunter. That’s the law. You oughta know, you made up that law.”
    “I didn’t come up with ‘thou shalt not kill,’” Astrid said defensively. The sanctimony in her own voice made her sick. The same Bible that said “thou shalt not kill” also said “he who hateth his brother is a murderer.”
    Didn’t she hate her brother? Hadn’t she contemplated murder? Hadn’t she dared Turk and Lance to do it for her? If Orc had to go into exile, then didn’t she as well?
    Would she wish her brother dead and live with that mortal sin, and yet draw the line at sleeping with Sam? How absurd was that? Murder, sure, but fornication? No way.
    Astrid had never felt so low. She dropped back so Orc wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. Oh, God, how had she become this person? How had she failed so utterly?
    Hypocrite. Murderer in her heart. A cold, manipulative witch. That’s what she was. Astrid the Genius? Astrid the Fraud.
    And now she slogged through darkening woods to find a cold shelter with a drunken killer and her brother. One who killed from rage and stupidity; the other who killed from what? Ignorance? Indifference? From the simple fact of too much power for anyone to handle, let alone an autistic child? She laughed, but it was not a happy sound.
    “What’s funny?” Orc demanded suspiciously.
    “Me,” Astrid said.
    They spotted the dark gabled roofs of Coates through the trees and then struck the road that led up to the front gate.
    It was a gloomy place, a haunted place. Pale whitewashed stone that showed evidence of violence. A massive hole in the facade was like a fatal bullet wound. The door had been ripped apart, shredded.
    Orc stomped steadily forward, climbed the steps, and yelled, “Anyone here?”
    His voice echoed in the arched entryway. “There’re beds upstairs. Gotta take the back stairs.”
    He led the way, obviously familiar with the layout. Astrid wondered how he had come to know the place so well. Orc was not a Coates kid.
    They found a dorm room that hadn’t been burned or shredded or used as a toilet.
    Orc tossed Little Pete negligently onto a bare mattress. Astrid searched for and found a tattered blanket, which she spread over him.
    She felt his forehead. Still feverish, but perhaps no worse than before. She had no thermometer. He was coughing in fits and starts. Not worse, not better.
    “What’s next, Petey?” she asked him.
    If Lance had squeezed the trigger, would the bullet have killed Little Pete? Would he have had the power to stop it? Surely. But would he have known what was happening?
    “How much do you know, Petey? How much do you understand?”
    He would need clean bedding after he wet himself. And she