Raffe watches me carefully, and I wonder how much of what I'm thinking is on my face.
“Why didn’t you call out to them?” I ask.
It's his turn to shrug.
“You could be getting medical assistance by sunset,” I say.
He pushes himself off the ground and brushes off. “Yes. Or I could be delivering myself back into the hands of my enemies.”
He starts walking roughly in the same direction as the road again. I follow on his heels.
“Did you recognize them?” I try to keep my tone casual. I wish I could just ask him directly how many of them there are, but that's not a question he could answer without betraying military secrets.
He shakes his head but doesn't elaborate.
“No, you didn’t recognize who they were? Or no, you couldn't see them well enough to recognize them?”
He pauses to dig the remaining cat food out of his pack. “Here. Please stuff this in your mouth. You can have my share.”
So much for my information mining. I guess I’ll never be a spymaster like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
CHAPTER 26
“Can you drive one of those things?” he asks, pointing to the road.
“Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Let's go.” He turns downhill toward the road.
“Um, won't that be dangerous?”
“It's unlikely there will be two units flying in the same direction within an hour or two of each other. Once we're on the road, we'll be safer from the road monkeys. They'll think we're Obi's people, too well armed and too well fed to attack.”
“We’re not monkeys.” Hadn't I just thought we were clever monkeys? So why does it sting that he just called me one?
He ignores me and keeps walking.
What did I expect? An apology? I let it drop and follow him down to the freeway.
As soon as we step onto the asphalt, Raffe grabs my arm and ducks behind a van. I crouch beside him, straining to hear what he hears. After a minute, I hear a car coming toward us. Another one? What’s the chance of another car just happening to be on the same road only ten minutes behind the first car?
This one is a black truck with a canopy over the bed. Whatever is under there is big, lumpy, and somehow intimidating. It looks a lot like the truck they were filling with explosives yesterday. It rumbles by, slow and full of purpose towards the city.
A caravan. It’s a very spread out caravan, but I’d bet the contents of my pack that there are more cars ahead and behind. They’ve spread it out to be less noticeable. The Hummer probably knew about the angels flying toward them because they got word from the cars ahead of them. Even if the first car was taken out, the rest of the caravan would be all right. My respect for Obi’s group goes up another notch.
When the sound of the engine fades, we get up from our crouch behind the van and start looking for our own ride. I'd prefer to drive a low-profile, economy car that won't make much noise and won't run out of gas. But that's the last car Obi's men would drive, so we start looking at the large selection of beefy SUVs on the road.
Most of the cars don't have their keys in them. Even at the end of the world when a box of crackers is worth more than a Mercedes, people still took their keys with them when they abandoned their cars. Habit, I suppose.
After looking at half a dozen, we find a black SUV with tinted windows with the keys on the driver's seat. This driver must have pulled the keys out of habit, then thought better of dragging the worthless metal with him on the road. It has a quarter tank of gas. That should at least get us into San Francisco, assuming the road is clear that far. It’s not enough to get us back though.
Back? Back where?
I quiet the voice in my head and climb in. Raffe climbs in the passenger seat. It starts on the first try and we begin weaving up 280 north.
I never thought moving 20 miles per hour could be so exciting. My heart pounds as I grip the steering wheel like it's going to fly out of control any second now. I can't watch all the obstacles on the road and still be on the lookout for attackers. I throw a quick glance at Raffe. He’s scanning the surroundings, including the side mirrors, and I relax a little.
“So where are we going, exactly?” I'm not an expert on the city's layout, but I have been there several times and have a general idea of where parts of the city are located.
“Financial district.” He knows the area well enough to identify the city’s districts. I briefly wonder how but let it go. I suspect he’s been around a lot longer than I have to explore the world.
“I think the freeway goes through that, or at least near it. That's assuming that the road is clear that far, which I doubt.”
“There is order near the aerie. The roads should be clear.”
I throw him a sharp look. “What do you mean, order?”
“There will be guards at the road near the aerie. Before we get there, we'll need to prepare.”
“Prepare? How?”
“I found something for you to change into at the last house. And I'll need to change my appearance too. Leave the details to me. Getting past the guards will be the easy part.”
“Great. Then what?”
“Then it's time to party at the aerie.”
“You're just full of information, aren't you? I won't go unless I know what I'm getting into.”
“Then don't go.” His tone is not ungentle, but the meaning is clear.
I grip the steering wheel so hard, I'm surprised it doesn't crumple.
It's no secret that we're only temporary allies. Neither of us is pretending that this is a lasting partnership. I help him get home with his wings, he helps me find my sister. After that I'll be on my own. I know this. I've never for a moment forgotten about it.
But after only a couple of days of having someone watch my back, the thought of being on my own again feels...lonely.
I clip the open door of a truck.
“I thought you said you could drive this thing.”
I realize I've been pressing on the accelerator. We're weaving drunkenly at 40 miles per hour. I pull it back down to 20 and force my fingers to relax.
“Leave the driving to me, and I'll leave the planning to you.” I still have to take a calming breath as I say this. I've been mad at my dad all this time for leaving me to make all the hard decisions. But now that Raffe is taking the lead and insisting on me following him blind, it churns my stomach.
We see some ragged people along the side of the road here and there, but not a lot. They scurry away as soon as they see our car. The way they stare, the way they hide, the way their furtive, dirty faces peer at us with burning curiosity brings to mind the hated word: monkey. This is what the angels have turned us into.
As we get closer to the city, we see more people. The path on the road is less labyrinthine.
Eventually, the road is mostly cleared of cars, although not of people. Everyone still looks at the car, but there's less interest, as though a car moving on the roads is something they see regularly. The closer we get to the city, the more people there are walking on the road. They look around warily at every sound and motion, but they're out in the open.
Once we enter the city proper, the damage is everywhere. San Francisco got pummeled along with a lot of other cities. It looks like a smoldering, post-apocalyptic, melting nightmare out of some Hollywood blockbuster.
Coming into the city, I catch glimpses of the Bay Bridge. It looks like a dashed line across the water with a few crucial chunks missing from the middle. I’ve seen photos of the city after the great quake of 1906. The devastation was staggering, and I’d always found it hard to imagine what that must have been like.
I don’t have to imagine anymore.
Entire blocks are charred rubble. The initial meteor showers, quakes and tsunamis only caused part of the damage. San Francisco was a city that had rows and rows of houses and buildings built so close together you couldn’t fit a piece of paper between the buildings. Gas pipes burst and caused fires that raged unchecked. The sky was choked with blood-tinged smoke for days.
Now, all that’s left are the skeletons of skyscrapers, an occasional brick church still standing, lots of pillars holding up nothing.
A sign proclaims that Life is G_od. It’s hard to tell what product the sign was selling because the sign is singed all around those words as well as on the missing letter. I assume the sign used to say Life is Good. The gutted building behind it looks melted, as if still suffering the effects of a fire that just won’t stop, even now under an alien blue sky.
“How is this possible?” I don't even realize I say it aloud until I hear my voice choked with tears. “How could you do this?”
My question sounds personal and maybe it is. For all I know, he could have been personally responsible for the ruin around me.
Raffe stays quiet for the rest of the drive.
In the middle of this charnel, a few blocks of the financial district stand tall and shiny in the sun. It looks almost completely undamaged. To my utter amazement, there is a makeshift camp in the area of the city that used to be South of Market, just outside the undamaged portion of the financial district.
I weave around another car, assuming it is dead, until it suddenly lurches in front of me. I slam on the brakes. The other driver gives me a dirty look as he drives past me. He looks about ten years old, barely tall enough to see over the dashboard.
The camp is more of a shanty town, the kind we used to see on the news where refugees flocked by the thousands after a disaster. The people—although they aren't eating each other as far as I can tell—look hungry and desperate. They touch the car windows like we have hidden riches in here that we could share with them.
“Pull over there.” Raffe points to an area where a pile of cars are stacked and spilling onto what used to be a parking lot. I drive the car there and park. “Turn off the engine. Lock the doors and stay vigilant until they forget about us.”
“They're going to forget about us?” I ask, watching a couple of street guys climb onto our hood. They make themselves at home on the warmth of our car.
“Lots of people sleep in their cars. They probably won't make a move until they think we're asleep.”
“We're sleeping in here?” The last thing I feel like doing with all this adrenaline rushing through my veins is sleep under glass surrounded by desperate people.
“No. We're changing in here.”
He reaches to the back seat and grabs his pack. He pulls out a scarlet party dress. It’s so small that at first, I think it’s a scarf. It's the kind of shapely and tiny dress that I once borrowed from my friend Lisa when she talked me into going clubbing with her. She had fake IDs for both of us, and it would have been a fun night except that she got drunk and went home with some college guy, leaving me to find my way home on my own.
“What's this for?” Somehow, I don't think he has clubbing in mind.