“Oh, dang, son, I heard ten different versions of that tall tale.” She laughed and shook her head. “Boys are funny. They’ll make up any dang story just to impress a gal.”

“You think I’m making this up?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. But when we’re done here I’ll introduce you to my uncle, Daniel Boone. He keeps a chupacabra for a pet and has a fresh-raised gray man as his personal butler.”

Chong tried to argue, to explain that Lilah was real and that he knew her, but Riot kept laughing and shaking her head. Finally he gave it up.

Riot gave him a wicked little grin and ticked her chin toward the arrow. “So, unless you got more tall tales to tell . . . let’s give ’er a go, shall we?”

Chapter 47

47

BENNY AND NIX STARED AT THE ZOMBIES ON THE T-BARS. THE CREATURES twisted and reached for them, their moans softer than the desert breeze. Red streamers were tied around their ankles.

Around the neck of each was hung a small plank of whitewashed wood. The message on each was the same.

I DIED A SINNER

DARKNESS IS DENIED TO ME

“What’s it supposed to mean?” asked Nix in a hushed and frightened voice.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

Nix nervously touched one of the streamers tied to the nearest zom’s ankle. “That looks like what Saint John was wearing.”

“Yeah. Let me rephrase what I said. I really do not freaking want to know what this means. Actually, this whole thing is really scaring the crap out of me. We need to find Lilah and—”

“We need to look inside that plane.”

He smiled at her. “You’re actually nuts, aren’t you? The desert sun’s baked your brains and—”

Nix just looked at him. Benny felt suddenly detached from the moment. Here was Nix, the girl he loved, the girl he’d risked his life for, the girl he’d left his home for. Nix, with her wild red hair and explosions of freckles and brilliant green eyes. Nix, who had a scar on her face that Benny actually thought looked sexy. Nix, who was everything to him. But she was also the Nix he did not know. The girl he’d come to know less and less ever since they’d seen that jet.

This Nix laughed less often. This Nix was less kind, less . . .

Soft?

He considered that word and its implications.

Soft could mean weak, or it could mean gentle, open, receptive. The Nix he’d known all his life was soft, but was she ever weak? No, absolutely not. Not before and not after the jet. Okay, then what about the other meaning of soft? Was this new Nix gentle?

Mostly no. Life had been so hard on her that she had become hardened.

Was she open?