Chapter 18: Deal

The captain handed my mother down from the truck bed.

"Mrs. Pike," he said. "Mind the step."

"Thank you, dear."

I crossed the courtyard fast and took her by both arms.

"Mom. What are you doing here?"

"He said you sent for us." She searched my face. "He said the Ridge wasn't safe. Bridget came, too."

Bridget climbed down from the cab last, with a quilt over her arm.

She did not meet my eyes.

My stepsister stood beside the duffel, fifteen and wary, with her hands in her sleeves.

"I told her you wouldn't send a stranger," she said. "She came anyway."

The captain put his hands behind his back.

"The Ridge has one road in and no wall," he said to me. "We brought them where the guns are. Nothing to thank me for."

I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we both understood what he had just said.

They were not guests.

Keaton could make a threat sound like hospitality.

He came down the stairs with his arm held loose at his side, and he kissed my mother on the cheek.

"Mrs. Pike, I'm so glad you're safe," he said. "I was sick over it."

"You're sweet," my mother said, and I watched her decide, again, to be polite.

I said, "A word, Keaton. With the captain."

We stood by the wall of the drill hall, the three of us, with the Anchor's noise at our backs.

"You know I remember," I said, low. "So I'll say the rest plainly. Day forty-one, on the roof, in front of everyone. I give it. I don't fight."

"Good girl."

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