Scattered (Zommunist Invasion Book 3) Read online

  “What—what are you going to do?” It was the only thing she could think to say. Did he plan to wear women’s rouge in the middle the night for the rest of his life? What would happen when he got married?

  “I turn eighteen in six months,” he said. “I’m going to join the partisans.”

  “No.” She jerked away from him, staring at him in horror. “Luca, no. Il Duce and his Nazis—”

  Luca shook his head. “I need to figure out how to be a man, Valé. I don’t feel like a man.”

  But he was a man. Or almost a man, at any rate. “You could have any of the village girls. Adelina or Daniella or Francesca or—”

  “I know. But I don’t want any of them.” Luca sighed loudly, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair. “I don’t know what I want. That’s why I’m going to join the partisans and fight for Italy.” He gave her a sad smile. “Maybe fighting Il Duce and his Nazi bastards will make a man out of me.”

  Nonna lay wide awake in her bed, staring up at the pattern of the whorls and knotholes on the wooden bunk above her. It was like trying to see through the impenetrable snow of her youth. Tears leaked, slowly and silently and steadily, out of her eyes.

  She missed Luca every day of her life.

  She feared for Dal, Lena, and Amanda. She feared they’d been swallowed up by the world, much like Luca had been swallowed.

  One minute he’d been beside her; the next, all that remained of him were bloody footprints.

  32

  Shoes

  Stephenson couldn’t sleep. Mental pictures plagued him. He kept seeing Amanda getting her head smashed open by a mutant. Then he saw her getting shot by a Russian. Even worse was picturing her getting attacked by a mutant and a Russian at the same time.

  There was also one or two appalling imaginings of Amanda getting attacked by zombified squirrels. It was like watching a horror movie on steroids.

  As he lay alone in the darkness of the boys’ bunk room, he understood why Nonna said not to cry over possibility. A person could go insane with possibility.

  The next time Amanda went out on a broadcast, he would go with her. He’d go and watch her back, like he should have done this time. Now that Nonna had taught him how to handle a gun, he could help.

  He couldn’t shake the memory of what it felt like to finally hit that stupid log.

  The shoes and clothes under his bunk felt like a raging bonfire beneath him. It was stupid, of course. The clothes weren’t on fire. But their very presence was like a persistent fly buzzing around his head.

  He got up, pacing back and forth across the tiny room. It was eerie being alone in it. He was used to it stinking from all the big guys. Their snoring, while unpleasant, was less oppressive than the silence.

  Why had Nonna given him those clothes? It didn’t make any sense.

  Somehow, she’d guessed his darkest secret. He didn’t know how she’d done it. She’d barely known him a week, yet somehow she knew him better than his own parents and his best friends.

  It was easy to ignore his secret when it wasn’t staring him in the face. But Nonna had made sure it was front and center.

  He couldn’t stand the torment any longer. It was easier to ignore the pink shoes and girl’s clothing when all the other guys were around. They provided a barrier. A shield to hide behind. But when left alone with them, there was no place to hide.

  His body moved all on its own. He got to his knees and pulled out the clothing. Crushing them to his chest, he curled his body around them. Emotion vibrated within him. He crushed it down, terrified of what might happen if he let it loose.

  His fingers dug into the fabric. He wasn’t sure if they were a lifeline or an anchor that would drag him into the abyss.

  Where had Nonna gotten these things, anyway?

  A feeling overcame him. It was the memory of how he had felt in the clearing when he hit that stupid target on the tree.

  No, that wasn’t accurate. He didn’t give a crap about hitting the tree. It was the feeling he had imagined—of how it would feel for his feet to finally be in the right shoes. What it would feel like to finally draw the Sword of Protection and transform.

  He wanted to feel it again. More than anything.

  She-Ra never looked scared. Granted, she was a stupid cartoon character for little kids like Gabby. But still. The point was, transformation never felt scary when seen in a cartoon. Drawing the Sword of Protection in real life was fucking terrifying.

  But Stephenson yearned to touch that feeling again. To feel like himself.

  Not giving himself a chance to think about it any longer, he shucked out of his sleeping clothes. They were flannel pants and a matching shirt Anton had lent him. They were much too big on him; Anton was both taller and wider. Stephenson used a clothes pin to hold the pants on.

  Fumbling with the safety pin, he let the pants puddle onto the ground. He dragged the shirt off over his head, not bothering with the buttons. Buttons would take too long. Stephenson didn’t want to wait any longer.

  In nothing but his underwear, he picked up the clothing from Nonna. He shivered in something close to ecstasy as he pulled on the pink tank. It felt like coming home. It felt like finally finding the path to light after a lifetime of wandering around in the dark.

  The cute black mesh top dropped down over the pink spaghetti straps. The Jordache jeans slid up his legs. A sigh of relief rattled out of his throat as he buttoned them around his waist.

  Unlike the flannel pants he’d borrowed from Anton, these fit perfectly. Like they had been made for him. No, like he had been made for them.

  Last of all, he slipped his feet into the pink Converse. Was this what Dorothy had felt like when she put on her ruby slippers? Is this what it felt like to finally find your ticket home?

  Stephenson stood in the darkness, clad in girl’s clothing. Joy coursed through him. He hugged himself, savoring the preciously rare feeling of being at home in his own body.

  It was a feeling he had been chasing for his entire life.

  He’d worn the clothes only one time before, when everyone had been asleep. He’d snuck into the living room and put them on. The terror of getting caught hadn’t been stronger than the pull of the clothing.

  He hunched in the center of the room, hugging himself. What did this mean? How could he go through life like this?

  Some days, he secretly believed it would be easier to be bitten by a zombie or shot by a Russian. Death had to be easier than this reality.

  Stephenson sat on the floor. Pulling his knees up to his chest, he cried. He cried tears of confusion, tears of relief, and tears of fear.

  33

  Absence

  “Valé, help me.”

  Valentina felt as frozen as the world around her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the bloody footprints. They led straight to a body in the snow.

  It was Luca. Her beloved big brother.

  Valentina might only be a girl, but this was not the first time she had seen a dead body. Her great-aunt Greta had died of the flu only six weeks ago.

  She remembered what the body had looked like at the funeral. On the outside, it looked like Aunt Greta. The hair was the same. The age spots on her hands stood as a testament to a long life of hard work. The laugh lines around her eyes and mouth were as familiar as a happy memory.

  Even though Aunt Greta looked familiar, there was an emptiness to her body. Like a vase without flowers, or a shoe without a foot.

  There was a tangible absence to Aunt Greta’s body. It was something Valentina detected as soon as she walked into the chapel.

  As she stared down at her brother’s body, she sensed that same absence.

  The river without water, the clothesline without clothes.

  Blood trickled out of the side of his wool sweater. It wicked across the light gray fabric, creating a large inkblot on his back and side. The partisan patch with its alpine star and edelweiss flowers stood out in stark contrast on the shoulder of his sweater.

&
nbsp; It had only been a few hours since he’d strutted into the kitchen wearing the partisan patch. Their mother and grandmother had been terrified by the sight of it, but they’d cooed and told him how handsome he looked. They lied and told him how proud they were that he was going to fight for Italy. Luca had puffed up under their compliments, oblivious to the fear in their eyes.

  In her mind, Valentina kept hearing him say, Maybe fighting Il Duce and his Nazi bastards will make a man out of me.

  “Valé? Luca is dead. I need your help.”

  A tiny, powerful earthquake quivered from the top of Valentina’s head to the heels of her feet. Luca was dead. He was an empty body. A memory of his big laugh and infectious smile floated just out of reach.

  “Valé?”

  Her chin jerked up. Marcello stood beside her brother’s body. Snow covered his wide-brimmed hat. Flakes stuck to his cheeks and gathered on the buttons of his wool coat. His cheeks were flushed, as though he’d run hard and fast to get here.

  “One of Il Duce’s fascists got him.” Marcello’s eyes were wide and dilated in the darkness. A smear of blood marred his chin. More blood covered his knuckles. “I tried to help, but I wasn’t fast enough.”

  “A fascist?” Valentina hunched into her coat, eyes darting through the severe winter night. Blood smeared the side of Luca’s head, like he’d been punched.

  “There was only one of them. He must have seen the partisan patch.” Marcello stared down at the brightly colored patch on Luca’s shoulder. “The fascist ran away when he saw me. I didn’t get a look at his face.”

  Her eyes drifted to the bloody footprints in the snow. Luca’s footprints.

  Marcello’s bloody knuckles hung in her periphery like a nightmare.

  Grief, hard and sharp, knocked the breath out of her. She fell to her knees, sobs wracking her. Hot tears dripped out of her eyes and fell steaming into the snow. They were swallowed up by the bloody puddle beneath her. She couldn’t tell where her grief ended and Luca’s life-blood began.

  How could Luca be gone?

  “What—what happened?” she gasped between sobs.

  “I told you. A fascist killed him. He was an idiot to wear that patch out in the open where everyone could see him.”

  How? The question shivered in the air around her. How had one of Il Duce’s fascists. found and killed Luca?

  “The bastard must have pushed him onto the rake.” Marcello toed an upright rake that lay on the ground beside Luca. The tines steamed in the cold, each sharp end gleaming wet with her brother’s blood. It was her father’s rake. He left it out here sometimes, forgetting to put it into the shed.

  She crawled through the snow, not caring that her skirt and coat dragged in the puddle of his blood. Resting her forehead on his back, she cried.

  “It’s supper time, Luca,” she wailed into his scratchy gray sweater. “Luca, Mama sent me to fetch you for supper.”

  “Valé.” Marcello’s voice penetrated her grief. A hand came down on her back. Marcello rubbed her between the shoulder blades. “Valé, we have to get his body inside. We can’t leave him out here. Come, help me.”

  Sniffling, Valentina pried herself off of Luca’s body. The blood soaking through the knees of her stockings was still warm. She pushed his shoulder and rolled his body over.

  The face that was revealed belonged to a memory she had done her best to forget. The neat black mustache Luca had grown a few months ago sat above lips painted bright red. The eyes pinched with the pain of death were rimmed with coal. Cheeks marred with indentations from the snow were dusted with light pink rouge.

  When Nonna awoke after a long night of fitful sleep, she immediately knew Dal, Lena, and Amanda had not returned during the night. There was an absence in the air that spoke volumes.

  She lay in bed, squeezing her eyes shut against the fear and grief that threatened to overtake her. She reminded herself than Nonna Cecchino was made of the toughest fibers. Tears were reserved for those rare moments when they really counted, not for moments of fear and potential loss.

  Resolved, she swung her feet to the cold floor and slid them into her slippers.

  “Stephenson,” she barked. “Get up. It’s time to go practice.”

  Nonna might not be able to do anything for her grandchildren, but there was still one teenage boy she could help.

  She would do her damndest to get him ready for this war.

  34

  A Brother Like You

  Dal, Lena, and Amanda didn’t come home that night. Their absence was like yawning abyss. Stephenson didn’t let himself look into the darkness. He couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine a world without Amanda in it. Amanda or Cassie. They were his best friends.

  What could have happened to them? They always took the truck to remote places in the middle of nowhere. They should have been safe.

  He wished Cassie was here. She would make him feel better. She had a practical side that always made Stephenson feel grounded.

  At least she was with Leo. He could tell from the way the other boy looked at her that he would lay down his life to keep her safe. It gave Stephenson a sense of comfort to know that at least Cassie was okay.

  “Stephenson. Get up. It’s time to go practice.”

  Nonna’s voice filled the empty cabin. Stephenson latched onto it, glad to have something to distract him from a world that currently did not have Amanda in it.

  “Yes, Nonna.” He sat up in the bunk, hunching to keep from whacking his head.

  Changing into the clothes he’d worn yesterday—it wasn’t like they had a lot of extra clothes in the Cecchino house, and besides, all the other boys were bigger than Stephenson—he paused as he automatically reached for his sneakers.

  He hated the shoes. They were ugly Nike knock-offs his mom had picked up for him at Payless Shoe Source. They were white and blue with red laces. So stark and ugly. Nothing like the Converse that sat in the dark recesses in the shadows beneath the bunk.

  Screw it. He grabbed the Converse. He wanted to wear them almost as much as he wanted Amanda to come home. If he couldn’t have Amanda, he would wear the shoes.

  The thought of what she might say or do if she saw him in the shoes only solidified his resolve. Truth be told, the idea of his friend seeing him in those shoes was almost as uncomfortable as the thought of being seen naked.

  It was so uncomfortable that he became convinced he had to wear them. Like his fear of being seen in them would magically make Amanda appear on the steps of the cabin.

  Resolute, he strode out into the main room. He braced himself for a comment from Nonna.

  She was at the kitchen table lathering slices of bread with jam. “Breakfast.” She didn’t look up as he approached. “We’ll eat while we walk.”

  There were two handkerchiefs on the table. Wrapping two slices of bread in the a blue cloth square, she handed them to Stephenson.

  It wasn’t until she rounded the table and headed for the front door that she noticed the shoes. Her steps slowed as she caught sight of the hot-pink footwear.

  “About time,” was all she said.

  He trailed her to the front door. “Where did you get them?”

  “They belonged to my daughter-in-law. She only wore them a few times before she died. They were too nice to send to the Goodwill.”

  “And . . .” Stephenson dug deep. Honestly, if he wasn’t worried sick about Amanda, he wouldn’t have found the courage. “What about the other stuff?”

  Nonna’s mouth softened around the edges. “Also Christy’s. Lena’s mother was very fashionable.”

  Something moved in her dark eyes. It struck Stephenson that Nonna had out-lived so many people that she loved. Her husband. Her son. Her daughter-in-law. She had to be worried sick about Leo, Anton, Lena, and Dal.

  “Nonna, how are you doing?”

  The sliver of emotion he saw was immediately tamped down. The old woman who looked out at him was an impenetrable fortress.

  “I already told you.�
�� She turned on her heel, heading for the weapons rack. This time, instead of only grabbing the handgun with the silencer, she also picked up a Soviet machine gun. “We do not shed tears on possibility in this house. Get a machine gun. It’s time for you to learn how to use one.”

  “Right.” Stephenson attempted to rally, turning his attention to the guns. The machine gun felt like a yoke as he lowered it around his neck, but he didn’t complain. A heavy machine gun was a welcome distraction right now.

  He and Nonna began the long hike to their shooting glade. Stephenson ate the bread as he walked.

  The silence between him and Nonna was oppressive. He kept filling it with thoughts of bad things happening to Amanda.

  “What kind of jam is this?” he asked in an attempt to distract both of them.

  “Sour cherry.”

  “It’s really good. I’ve never heard of sour cherries.” He may have even enjoyed it if his insides weren’t tied up with worry.

  “We had them in the village where I grew up. It’s a family recipe. I brought some cherry pits with me when I immigrated to America with my husband.”

  “How old were you when you immigrated?”

  “It’s not proper to ask a lady her age, Stephenson.”

  “I didn’t ask—”

  “It was a very long time ago.” Nonna’s voice was gruff as she hiked along in front of him. “A few years after the war ended. I was only seventeen.”

  “That’s how old I am.”

  Nonna didn’t say anything. Stephenson tried to imagine being married and moving to another country. He couldn’t get past the horrified vision of being married.

  His eyes skimmed over the top of his pink shoes. Yep, he most definitely wasn’t marriage material.