Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

the DWBs offered me, so I never got enough food to get stronger. And I never found the right moment to use my lockpick and shank until you showed up.”
    “The important thing is that you survived,” I said. “Nothing else matters to me.”
    “Well it matters to me!” Darla snapped.
    An overwhelming gratitude flooded me. I’d been insanely lucky to find her amid the chaos of Iowa. Words failed me, and I hugged her gently instead.
    Then she pushed me back out to arm’s length. “I’ve seen the way Alyssa looks at you.”
    “I rescued her and Ben. At first I thought she was you.”
    “There’s more than gratitude in her eyes.”
    “Yeah. She tried to—”
    “I knew it! I swear to God, I’ll shank that bitch.”
    “Darla, no, it’s okay. She found a way to protect herself and her brother when she was with the Peckerwoods, and she’s still falling back on that—on using sex to survive.”
    “It’s wrong.”
    “Give her a break. What’s wrong is that she felt she had to—that she had no other options.”
    “I don’t trust her.”
    “You don’t have to trust her. You can trust me.”
    Darla stared into my eyes for a pregnant moment, then pulled me back into a hug.
    “I saved this for you,” I said, pulling away from her embrace. I extracted the broken chain from my pocket.
    Darla’s eyes shone as she fished the 15/16ths nut I’d given her out of her own pocket. “It was stuck in the layers of my shirts. I fiddled with it when things were bad. It helped.”
    I threaded the nut onto my broken chain and knotted it behind Darla’s neck. “We should get moving.”
    Fifteen minutes later, we were rolling away from Worthington. Rita Mae had gotten everything I wanted, although she scolded me about not giving her enough time to negotiate properly. She’d also spent part of the night taping plastic over the broken windows of our truck. I hoped I’d see her again—she was one of the few people I trusted.
    Mom offered to drive, which I took as a good sign that she might be emerging from her daze. But her hands trembled and her voice quavered, so I told her no. She didn’t argue, which struck me as a strange role reversal.
    The black night faded to gray and then to a suppurated yellow as we drove. With the increased visibility, I punched our speed up to about forty. The roads were too uneven and slick to go any faster.
    The fuel gauge read three-quarters. I thought that would be enough to reach Warren. Maybe. If we didn’t wreck or have to take a massive detour on the way.
    Alyssa navigated. We avoided all the big towns and as many of the small burgs as we could. The few we did pass through were burned and abandoned.
    When she wasn’t busy plotting our route, Alyssa brushed Ben. He didn’t seem to need it—given everything we’d been through, he was holding up remarkably well. Maybe she was brushing him to comfort herself.
    I didn’t want to cross the Mississippi on any bridge. I assumed they’d all be watched, either by Black Lake or one of the gangs. Nor did I want to get anywhere near Lock #12 and the barges of wheat Black Lake defended. Instead, we found a boat ramp between the lock and Sabula, Iowa, and used it to drive out onto the frozen expanse of the Mississippi.
    On the far side of the river, I pulled the truck into a cove where we were sheltered by trees. We ate a breakfast of cold cornmeal mush, beef jerky, and dandelion leaves. I didn’t leave the truck running, but the warmth from the heater lingered long enough to keep us fairly comfortable during breakfast.
    As we ate, I sat sideways in my seat, watching Darla. Her face was more angular, her cheeks concave with hunger and illness. But she was here, beside me. The miracle of it left me breathless. I stretched out a hand to hold hers.
    After breakfast I asked, “Can I check your fever?” I placed the back of my hand against Darla’s forehead.
    “I’m okay,” she said. “I think the Tylenol is working.”
    I thought her forehead still felt hot, and she was slumped against the seat. “We should go.”
    I started the truck and pulled out of the cove. It took more than an hour to find a way off the ice of the Mississippi. We moved slowly in Illinois, picking our way through the back roads, trying to avoid both Galena, where there was a Black Lake camp, and Stockton, where all the roads were blocked by their crazy wall of cars. It took us almost two hours to travel the last thirty miles to Warren.
    We approached my