But when I reached for my door handle, I just couldn’t make myself open the door to get out. Everyone would want to know what had happened at the hospital.
I’d been so sure the doctors would have a diagnosis. I’d promised Pamela and Steve that I would come back with answers that could help everyone. I’d thought I could finally be a real hero, and this time it would be because I wanted it, not because my family expected it of me.
Instead, I had returned with nothing but failure and the promise of death for everyone who was sick.
My hands ached on the steering wheel. I hadn’t even been aware of grabbing it. Gritting my teeth, I tore my hands loose then pushed my muscles to carry me out of the truck.
But I still couldn’t go inside my house.
Going inside meant seeing the hope in Tarah’s eyes die.
I needed to do something, though. Something that would keep my hands busy and my mind empty for awhile. Back home when I felt like this, I used to shoot hoops in the backyard. But there was no hoop and no basketball here. Just the surrounding mountains’ false promise of security even as we slowly died, hidden away from a world that hated and feared us.
The tiny house. That would keep me busy for awhile till I could find a way to break the bad news to everyone.
I reached for the kit’s instruction booklet like a drowning man grabbing for a life raft.
I worked in the dark with a flashlight at first, focusing on being patient and going slowly. And it was slow going. But eventually I had the beam section for an exterior wall up. And then another. And then another, until the ghostly outline of a house began to take shape.
At some point, it grew light enough that I no longer needed the flashlight to see the instructions. Still I kept working. The others would wake up soon and come seeking answers from me. Until they did, I would focus on connecting bolt sixteen to beam F.
Too bad leading an outlawed group of dying Clann outcasts didn’t come with such clear cut instructions.
“Hey,” Tarah murmured behind me, her voice the first sound to break the perfect stillness of the morning.
I looked over my shoulder at her standing there in the dim predawn light, her feet together, her hands primly clasped in front of her. And once again, the way she stood there with that perfect posture of hers reminded me of the days when she had pretended to be the queen of Damon’s and my imaginary realm.
And now that queen had come to demand news of her knight’s latest quest.
I looked away, my mouth twisting. Did queens in the medieval days ever fire knights who proved too lousy to do the job? Or did they just behead them for their failure?
Of course, Tarah wouldn’t have to go nearly that far to punish me. All she’d have to do was look at me while her face filled with disappointment and sadness and fear. That would be punishment enough.
Might as well get it over with.
“Bud died.” The words slipped out, harsh, with no warning. “The doctors couldn’t explain what was wrong with him either.”
There. Now she knew.
I heard her swallow hard, take a crunching step closer across the snow. Then her hand was over mine, and my face was buried in her neck and it was all wrong because I was supposed to be the strong one here. But it was she who did the holding, and me who was held, wrapping my arms tight around her so she wouldn’t see the fear I could feel twisting my face now.
We weren't little kids anymore. This was no child's game of pretend, I was no knight in shining armor, and Tarah wasn't a real queen. But she was still mine to save.
But how?
There was only one way to keep her safe. “You need to go be with your parents.”
She froze, but she didn’t let go of me. “No.”
“You have to. Otherwise you could get sick. You still could, even then. But maybe not. It doesn’t seem to be everywhere right now, just here in our village. At least the odds would be better for you away from here.”
“No.”
“Then go to my grandma’s. She’ll be happy to hide you again as long as needed. She’ll even get you a lawyer to help clear yours and your dad’s names. I can take you to a bus station and get you a ticket—”
“I’m not leaving.”
Desperate, I leaned back, searching her face. Her expression was unreadable. “Tarah, your family wouldn’t want you to be here. Even Jeremy would want you to go somewhere else, somewhere safe.” They wouldn’t want Tarah to get sick and die in the cold woods, cut off from the rest of the world where they couldn’t even say goodbye to her.
“I belong here.”
“I can’t protect you here! Don’t you get it? I can’t save you from whatever the hell this disease is.”
Her chin and lower lip jutted out a bit. "I can't leave yet. I need to know how their story ends first.”
"You'd really risk your life for a stupid story?"
"It's not just a stupid story. It's life or death for them. If I leave now, I can't finish their story. If I can't finish their story, I can't tell it to begin with. And if I don't tell their story, who will? I'm the only voice they've got." She stepped closer to me and whispered, "If I don't tell the world the truth about them, who will, Hayden?"
Growling in frustration, I turned away. “You are the stubbornest, most hardheaded person I’ve ever met!”
“So are you.”
After a minute, I turned back to face her. “How can you not be afraid?”
"Who says I'm not?"
I stepped closer to her, searched her eyes, and found the glimmer of fear hidden in their depths. "Then why stay?"
"Because the world out there giving in to its fear is what got these people in this situation in the first place. It's okay to be afraid. But you can't make good choices based on it. Fear is the real enemy, not the Clann, and not the outcasts. We're all going to die someday. The real challenge is to learn how to live."
Her words reminded me of Bud’s last words. Fear is the enemy.
I scrubbed both hands over my cold, tired face. “What do we do then? We’re not healers. How do we stop this village from dying?” How did you fight a dragon that had no name and couldn’t be seen?
She sighed. “Well, you could start by wishing me a Merry Christmas.”
I scowled. Having a happy holiday was the absolute last thing on my mind. “I meant something to fight the virus. Do the healers need anything? Maybe some new herb I could get for them? Something they haven’t tried yet?”