“And you’re not just as bad?” Lena demanded. “You knew they were planning something, but you never warned Chris or Alex or—”
“Let it go, Lena,” Chris interrupted. “It’s done and let’s just deal, okay?” He turned to Nathan again. “This Hunter guy, why is he important?”
“Jess said he’s got history,” Nathan said. “Isaac will carry weight with the Council.”
“Yeah, but how?” When Nathan didn’t reply, Chris threw a look at Weller. “My God, you don’t know. Neither of you do.”
Weller’s face was a stolid mask. “We took Jess at her word. She’s been in Rule longer than any of us, from a time long before Yeager took over. She knows how the Council works and where the secrets are buried, which closets got skeletons.”
“But you don’t know which ones,” Lena said.
“Even if you did . . . that was enough for you?” Chris cried. “Don’t you see how crazy that is?”
“She has history,” Nathan persisted.
Chris opened his mouth to protest again but decided it wasn’t worth the breath. They were all insane. Jess had come up with some crazy-ass plan that was no plan and these old men had gone along.
“Bet you still think we’re nuts,” Weller said.
“That makes two of us,” Lena chimed.
Weller paid her no mind. “But let me ask you something, Chris. You ever have trouble with any order Peter gave?”
A tiny warning ping went off in his brain. “How do you mean?” Chris asked.
“I thought it was pretty clear. You ever disagree with Peter?”
“Sometimes.”
“You ever go around him?”
“Weller,” Kincaid warned. “This is not his fault.”
“It’s okay, Doc.” Chris studied Weller for a long moment. “I tried never to question Peter in front of the other men, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why not?”
Because I trusted him. Peter was the older brother I never had. “I didn’t always agree,” Chris said. “Sometimes we could talk about it. Other times he wouldn’t budge.”
“And then you followed orders.” Weller mouthed the words as though they had a very bad taste.
“I had to. The Council decided, and Peter gave the orders. I was just doing what I was supposed to, that’s all.” He knew that sounded weak and pushed on. “I don’t see you guys doing anything different.”
“No?” Weller spread his arms. “Then what the hell do you call this?”
“Crazy,” Lena said, flatly. “If you guys don’t like what the Council’s doing, you fix it.”
“We can’t,” Nathan said. “That’s not how Rule works. We’d never convince enough people. It’s ‘go along to get along.’ Anyway, a challenge to the Council—”
“Can only come from within the Council,” Chris finished, impatiently. “Or from a blood relation of someone already in the Council. Yeah, yeah, I know; I got that. But what makes you think that anyone will listen to me?”
“You expose what’s going on,” Nathan said. “You show people the reasons for it, and then they got to face up to the fact that they and the Council—and Peter—have made a deal with the Devil.”
“Peter?” A cold leaked into his bones that had nothing to do with the storm. “What kind of deal? What are you saying?”
“What’s beyond the Zone, Chris?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because. I’ve never gone. It . . . it’s not allowed. Whenever we’ve left for supplies, Peter . . .”
“Peter chose the routes,” Weller put in. “Peter always decided. Peter had the Council’s ear. And what about the Banned? Haven’t you wondered about that particular punishment? When you’re forced out of the village, it’s forever. But why? This is a good Christian community, right? So why no second chance? Where’s all that good Christian forgiveness? And that’s set in stone, too. Go beyond a certain point, cross a foot out of the Zone, and you can never return. So could it be that the Banned might bring back stories the Council would be just as happy we didn’t hear?”
Stop talking. When Chris swallowed, it sounded like thunder. I don’t want to hear this; I don’t want to know.
“Chris,” Nathan said, “haven’t you wondered why the Changed don’t attack Rule anymore?”
Somehow, he managed to drag his voice from his chest. “No.”
“And why not?”
“I don’t know, I just haven’t,” Chris said. “Why should I care, so long as I don’t have to fight them?”
“But does that make sense? You fight them on the road. You know they’re not dead. They’re getting along and they’re not going away, isn’t that true?”
“So?”
“Think, Chris. Even this far into winter, we’ve still had raiders. Refugees still trickle in. And yet we haven’t faced the Changed, in Rule’s territory, for over two months. Why?”
“There are too many of us. They know we’ll kill them.”
“But we shelter them,” Weller interrupted. “Isn’t that so?”
“What? No. If we find them, we kill them.”
“Really?” Weller asked. “We bring back little kids. Isn’t it just as likely they might eventually Change once they’re old enough?”
“If age is the only factor,” Kincaid put in. “We don’t even know that much.”
“What?” Chris was dumbfounded. “We . . . That’s not how the Change works.”
“Well, now, we don’t know how it works, or that it’s over,” Kincaid said. “For that matter, we can’t be certain the Spared are really safe in the long run.”
“What do you mean you’re not certain?” Lena suddenly shrilled. “How can it not be over?”
“Because it might not be.”
“But we’re Spared.” Lena’s voice rang with a new note of desperation. “It’s been months. How can we not be safe?”
“Because we don’t know why you were Spared in the first place, or why there are so few of you. What do you, Lena, have in common with Alex or Sarah or Chris? Or Peter?”