July 4.
"either way, we're not alone. i'll find a new place to be from."
It was the Fourth of July, and Daisy Quinn was dead.
At least, that was the word on the street for the past two weeks. Mai Walker knew better than to believe every last rumor whispered like dust on the pavement. All she knew was she was missing from the county and in the end it didn't matter how that truth had come about. Dead or alive, they were functionally the same. She hoped she was alive, but that she'd never return. It was probably best for Mai if she never saw Daisy Quinn again in her life.
Her friends didn't seem to think she was dead either. Mai had kept her distance since first arriving at the mall. Quinn clearly didn't trust her presence; she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd been witness to the attack outside just before her entry. In her defense, that boy outside wasn't carrying much—just a canteen and a drawstring bag. With that little inventory on his back, he must have had a campsite. He must have had friends to stay behind and stand guard. That was the only reason she'd targeted him: she was out of food, water, and just about everything that could have proven valuable. He looked like he could afford to share. She thought she'd been alone, but something had put Quinn on edge. Perhaps she'd seen it, or perhaps it was Emma, the little bird who lurked in the corners where no one else bothered to look.
So Mai had stayed quiet, residing in the Hallmark store in the day and scavenging for supplies at night. She was nowhere closer to Lucy, but she'd learned the lay of the land. Hank Coldwater and the water tower pit fights. The Condor Gas Gang. Rumored cannibals somewhere between Hillside and Merriam Township to the northwest. The Ravens near the mall. She'd thought Daisy was the Ravens herself all along but maybe she'd been wrong if she was killed. If. She still wasn't sure. The rumors hadn't stopped, and the rumors blamed the Ravens.
The truth was she was afraid of her search for Lucy. So long as she avoided bad news she could keep believing she was alive, and the deeper she dug the more likely to find out she was wrong. Who was she kidding, Lucy's parents had money. If they were still alive, the whole family was safe and sound in some sanctuary city. If her parents hadn't made it, and if Uncle James hadn't made it, and only if she had found safety since March or whenever the world imploded up North, would this trip have been worth it. Mai was tired, and lonely, and scared out of her wits to think too far into the future.
If Lucy wasn't there in Saturn County, then Mai had walked along Lake Michigan for nothing.
All that's to say that by the Fourth of July she could not keep justifying lying on the floor of the Hallmark store, haunted by the rows and rows of birthday cards and funeral cards and feel better cards (she was somewhat surprised how well stocked those were, despite the plague). There were anniversary cards and postcards and more trinkets than she could count. Daisy had told the truth when she said that nobody would bother raiding the store.
The store might have been safe but there was nothing there. Her resources were low and she shook hands with death every time she ventured out to score supplies of any variety. She'd thought once she made it to Saturn County, the journey would be over. Chicago went up in flames early; she was on the road by April. She'd frozen and starved but she made it with nothing to show for her effort. She was still alone, she had no food, and she had no plan. If she kept on this way she would never find Lucy, and the truth was she would probably die. She didn't walk along Lake Michigan to die on the floor of a Hallmark store with no one to mourn her but the Sesame Street birthday cards. So something had to change.
Daisy's friends were probably the worst place to start. The mall had all but cleared out since the news broke that the Ravens were encroaching near the mall. Besides, Daisy Quinn was a bitch and invincible. If the Ravens got her, then no other lame kid stood a chance. But Daisy's friends had stayed. At first she'd thought they were in shock or mourning, but as the days passed they stayed still. Most of them, at least. She'd seen the girl with the blue hair and her friend pack their bags not long after Daisy went missing and they hadn't been back since, but beyond that the rest had stayed. They didn't even seem upset, which is partially why she believed Daisy was alive. Someone should have broken by now.
She would need to tread water carefully; she knew less about Daisy's friends than she cared to admit. There was Emma, who she knew had spied on her, and Sebastian, who'd been drunk a few weeks back but didn't seem to mind her presence. They hadn't spoken since that sad excuse for a party, but he always gave her a slight smile when they passed each other. She'd met a boy named Benji as well—the lanky one with dark skin—but one conversation with him and she knew he wasn't the best ally. He let a little too much slip about their run-in with the Condor Street Gas Station Gang, but also revealed that he thought Emma was a harmless little kid. Benji was an idiot. He'd be no help. Sebastian was her greatest hope. Sebastian also had a habit of going to the roof of the mall at night. She'd seen him and Daisy sneak off to some supply closet at the party and had taken it upon herself to explore the very next morning.
She was gonna need a peace offering. Luckily, she was in that goddamn Hallmark.
Around sundown she saw him ascend. She spent thirty minutes thinking of every excuse possible not to speak to him, every other solution she could possibly imagine, but she always returned to this shot in the dark. She waited until she saw Emma leave their little campsite—she didn't want to be followed—and then she crossed the white linoleum floor of the mall, and followed Sebastian up to the roof.
He was seated near the edge of the roof, cross-legged just a couple feet back from the edge.
"Hey," she said loudly. "It's Mai from the Hallmark store." It was important to make her presence known, and she lifted her hands to show their empty innocence as he turned around. She had a knife strapped to her belt of course, but nothing in her hands. It was the sort of gesture she'd only ever seen on tv before the world ended. Put your hands in the air so I can see them.
"Oh, hey, Mai." He hadn't scrambled to his feet or reached to grab a weapon.
She approached him slowly until she was standing a few feet behind him to his left. He could turn over his shoulder and see her fully. "You're gonna get yourself killed like this, sitting on the edge, not jumping to defense."
"You don't think that's insensitive right now?" The expression on his face was wrong for the moment, almost something like a smirk. She wasn't sure if he was coping with humor or if he knew there was nothing to mourn.
"Should it be?"
"Come sit," he said. "If you were gonna kill me right now you'd get caught."
"I could make it look like an accident," she said but sat down beside him regardless. She hadn't noticed just how long his hair was before. It brushed across his forehead, nearly covering his eyes. He brushed it out of the way, but it fell back into place only a few seconds later. "It would look like you jumped."
"And my sister would see you leaving the supply closet." Sister. Singular. He had one in particular in mind. She figured he meant Emma—she didn't even know the older one's name—but it was good to think about regardless.
"Well it sure is a good thing I'm not planning to kill you." She handed him her gifts. "I brought you two cards. The one in the envelope is for your loss, the other didn't have envelopes in stock yet."
She could have sworn Sebastian almost laughed when he saw the holiday card. "It's the Fourth, isn't it?"
"Who's counting?"
"Thank you," he said and she almost thought he meant it. "Can I ask you something?" She nodded. "What was the deal with you and Daisy?"
"Damned if I know," she muttered. "We met once a few weeks back, before I came to the mall. I hadn't thought much about it at the time. I think she was defensive of her territory." Territory, she thought, What a stupid word to say in real life.
"You don't have to defend her, you know." That confirmed every suspicion Mai had.
"You don't think she's dead."
"On the off chance that I'm wrong, that would be a terrible thing to admit."
"Look, I don't know what Daisy had against me. We met on that sledding hill by the elementary school and then we met again during your little party. I never threatened or hurt her or you or your friends. I get her not trusting me because she doesn't know me but—"
"She liked the drama of it, I'm sure," he murmured.
"She tried to send me to the trailer park with all the religious fanatics."
That piqued his interest. "I thought the trailer park was safe," he said. "It's where all the adults went." She'd seen enough to know that adults and safety held no correlation. She'd felt safer sleeping alone in the mall than she ever did with that group she met outside Michigan City, Indiana.
Someone shouted something from the street below. From a distance it was hard to tell if a scream was in distress or celebration. Sebastian didn't react, but Mai was brought back to the present. She wasn't on the roof to waste time or make small talk. She needed help. If she was the one shouting in the street no one would risk themselves to help her. She was alone.
"How long have you all been in the mall for?" If she couldn't make an ally she could at least try to learn. And besides, Sebastian didn't know about the trailer park. Perhaps there was more to gain from her than she'd realized.
"My sisters and I have been here for a while, since May or so," he said. "The others have been about half that time." So they hadn't all been traveling together for that long; this was news to Mai.
"And the Ravens have never been an issue?"
"As far as I'm aware, no," he shrugged. "But they've been a problem around here for sure. The neighborhood across Grove is cleared out and I heard they attacked the Condor Gang, which isn't great. We're gonna have to leave if that gang wants to start a turf war." This, on the other hand, she already knew.
The night air was surprisingly cold, and Mai crossed her arms around her knees. She regretted leaving her black windbreaker in the Hallmark. But then again, she may have seemed more vulnerable in just a tank top. And while she hated the thought of looking vulnerable, it meant Sebastian would be less defensive, and she wouldn't make a friend if he was scared of getting hurt. "So you're planning on leaving the mall?"
"I wish," Sebastian muttered, shaking his head towards the cement. "Daisy was wrong about a lot of things but she never wanted to stay at this goddamn mall."
"Do you know the whole story about what happened to her?"
"Are you saying you do?" For the first time she was certain she heard something cold in his voice.
"No, I don't–I don't know her," she said, but Sebastian was already scrambling to his feet. She reached for the handle of her knife, but he didn't seem to be getting ready to fight. He had his back turned to her fully; he was too trusting.
"If you're looking for information about Daisy, you won't get it from me," he said. She got up to follow him. If he left she'd lost her only opportunity. "She didn't say shit to me, okay?"
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked," Mai pleaded. She hoped he knew she meant it. "I don't care about Daisy, I don't. I promise."
He turned around again. "So then why are you here?"
"You seem smart, Sebastian." She hadn't known that until just now, and was thankful her best option turned out not to be the drunk fool she met on his birthday. "You know the mall isn't a permanent solution. You know you need to be thinking ahead. I'm thinking the same way."
This seemed to catch his attention. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm from Chicago," she said. "I came here looking for my cousin, but odds are she's in a sanctuary city or dead. I don't know Saturn County. I don't have any friends and I don't have any enemies, but I've walked along Lake Michigan to get here. There are communes popping up around the coast. Some places are doing alright, some aren't. Comparatively, this county has way fewer adults and seems surprisingly okay. I've seen things that nobody else around here could have seen. If I die, that information dies with me. And I really don't want to die, you know?"
Sebastian nodded, and stood there for a second, contemplating what she said. She watched as he chewed on his lower lip, eyes trained directly on her. She felt frozen in place. "I didn't realize how you got here," he said eventually. She didn't say anything. She wasn't sure what there was to say. "Are you looking for a group or do you want to stay on your own?"
"I'll take what I can get."
He paused again, but whatever he meant to say was cut off by the small door leading to the roof being thrown open. Mai reached for the knife again, this time noticing Sebastian pull a small switchblade out of his pocket.
"Sebastian!" a man's voice yelled, "It's us!" Mai didn't recognize who was speaking, but saw a small crowd pour out of the doorway, their bodies just silhouettes in the darkness until they approached. Sebastian put the blade back in his pocket. It was just his friends. Mai suddenly felt very exposed.
"Look what I found, man," someone said. This time she could see it was Benji. He held a box of fireworks in his hands and wore a maniacal grin.
"This seems like a terrible idea," Sebastian said, but he couldn't hide his smile. Almost all of the others wore similar expressions: glee they couldn't cover, no matter how hard they tried. "Aren't we just telling the world that we're here?"
"Or we're staking our claim," said another boy. This was the shorter Asian one, certainly younger than the other guys. She hadn't learned his name.
Sebastian looked at the oldest girl, the one she recognized to be his other sister. "You approved this?"
She rolled her eyes. "Like I have any say about anything." Mai had the suspicion that wasn't true, and the girl's eyes fell upon her. She looked to her brother. "Who's she?"
"Oh yeah," Sebastian said, and gestured towards Mai. "Everyone, this is Mai. She lives in the Hallmark store." It was an introduction, but she wasn't sure what that meant. She wasn't sure it was an invitation in.
Some of them said hello, and some of them ignored her completely, and some ran across the roof to start setting up for a show she had to agree was a stupid idea. It was dumb to draw attention and it was dumb to waste a match. Still, it was dumb to argue with a crew that had not yet let her in. The show began.
Sebastian hated how drawn he was to fireworks. He always had been. He hated the chemtrails they left behind, and hated the gunshot sounds, but how could he ever look away from the lights raining from the stars? He'd never been so close to them before, standing up there on the roof while his friends lit them only fifty feet away. Benji and Marko had barely made it back to the others before the first one shot into the air.
He heard people screaming on the street, but for once he wasn't afraid of what was happening below. He knew all eyes were watching the roof of the mall. For just two minutes or however long that box lasted, nobody was getting hurt. Because how could you ever look away? Standing there on the roof with Emma to his left and Lucas and Benji to his right, he had to admit he felt almost normal.
"I said, what is she doing here?" Emma was turned towards him. He hadn't noticed the first time she spoke. Her blue eyes were lit by the explosions in the air, but her attention was solely on him. Her eyes never trailed to watch the sky.
"She knows that Daisy didn't die that night."
"You told her?" She looked at him like he was stupid, her lips slightly agape like there was something she wanted to say but the words couldn't find their way out.
"I didn't tell her. I'm not stupid, Emma," he snapped. He used to teach her math at the kitchen table. He hated the way she looked at him now. "She figured it out because she's not either. She could be helpful."
Emma paused. He knew she hated being wrong. "Just be careful, Sebastian," she said eventually. "Daisy was our fighter."
He punched her playfully in the arm, a chuckle to ease the growing uncertainty in his stomach. "You might still become a fighter yet." His eyes wandered back up to the sky, and as the fireworks slowed, the blazes burning down around his friends, he gazed towards Mai. Her pale skin glowed in the light, the rest of her black clothes disappearing into the darkness. She didn't look at him, and he didn't look at Emma, who wanted nothing more than to run away but knew he needed her to be his extra set of eyes. His good set of eyes, really. Daisy had warned her about Mai, and Daisy knew more than any of them. Emma had big shoes to fill.
~*~*~*~*~*~
In the morning the birds that flew in fear of the fire would return to the trees, chirping their songs to the rhythm of the sticky breeze. The squirrels awoke from their dreys and the rabbits disappeared into their burrows. Across Saturn County, the streets were scorched with the evidence of fireworks, the smell of booze lingered in the alleys, the memories of a holiday for a country that lived only in their denial of the truth, a holiday for a country that abandoned the rotting towns.
At the water tower, Hayden Barrels held a lukewarm bottle of Corona to his fist. His knuckles were bruised and bloody, but he held his head high as heart sank into the earth. For once, he had won. At the library on the east side of town, a girl called Twig slinked through the nonfiction shelves. Someone set fire to the library early on, so early on the firetrucks could still make it. But not so early for the damage to go unnoticed. Even farther north, as far as the trailer park called Sunset Valley, three young people broke into the trailer of a man who died months before, but Donovan Mayler remembered how he sold his mother moonshine when he was young. They would make a product. They would make themselves valuable.
And south at the Condor Street Gas Station, the rumors had made their way into a war, spoken only in whispers. By dawn the next day, the whole county would know. The Ravens had made their presence known. The Ravens were at the mall.
a/n
everytime i post i am shocked by how long it's been since i last updated. anyways this chapter took a year to write apparently, y'all better hype me up.