He doesn’t take his eyes off Victoria, but Caleb relaxes a little, the crossbow still raised but no longer aimed at her head.
“Yeah,” I say, pulling off my hat. “It’s me.”
I’m not sure what I expected from her, but a hug wasn’t one of the possibilities on my list. But she rushes forward, enfolds me in her arms. I’m so stunned it takes me a minute to respond before I embrace her in return. She smells like soap and the apple tea she always drank, and I close my eyes in an effort to keep them dry.
After a minute, Victoria pulls back and I do, too, neither one of us quite sure what to do with our hands now that we’
re no longer hugging. “I can’t believe you’re alive,” she says. “I can’t believe you’re here.” She glances at Bishop, reaches out and grasps his hand. “It’s so good to see you both.”
She ushers us into the kitchen, taking a second to pull the curtains shut on the window above the sink. We introduce Caleb and Ash while she points us to her kitchen table. “Are you hungry?” she asks, setting a kettle on her stove.
I’m about to say no; eating seems like a waste of valuable time, but Caleb answers before I can. “Yes,” he says simply. “We’re hungry.” He looks at Bishop and me with a shrug. “We have to eat. It might be a while before we’re able to again.” His words remind me once again why he’s survived beyond the fence. Basic needs come first.
Victoria slices a loaf of bread, thick with nuts and raisins, and slathers the pieces with butter. She pours us all warm tea as we eat. I try to remember my manners and not just stuff the bread in my mouth like an animal, but it’s been more than a week since we’ve had much beyond jerky. The rabbits on the fire are only a faint memory on my tongue.
Victoria sits with us, but she doesn’t eat. Her fingers wrap around a mug of tea she doesn’t drink. “Ivy,” she says finally, “you can’t be here.”
I glance at her. “I know. We’ll leave. I don’t want to put you in danger. More than we already have.”
Victoria shakes her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. You can’t be in Westfall at all. They’ll kill you.” She pauses. “The way things are now, there are people who will kill you the second they see you, no questions asked.”
“How are things now?” Bishop asks. “We’ve heard about what’s going on, but how bad is it, really?”
Victoria looks at him. “Not as bad as it was a few weeks ago. But still bad. Ivy’s dad disappeared right after they arrested Callie. Some people think your father had him killed, Bishop. Others think he’s hiding out somewhere orchestrating the rebellion.”
I try to pretend she’s talking about a stranger and not my father. Not the man who taught me to read at the same time he taught me to hate. “Do you think he’s dead?”
“No.” Victoria pushes her mug away. “Everything is still too angry. I think if your father were dead, it would have died down with him.”
“So he’s still got a hand in it?” Bishop asks.
“Probably,” Victoria says. “But things haven’t been blameless on your father’s side either, Bishop.”
Bishop’s jaw tightens. “I never thought they would be.”
“He’s clamping down on everyone he suspects of disagreeing with him. Even people who were just friendly with Ivy’s family.”
No wonder the jam man ran when he had the chance.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing back here,” Victoria says to me. “You survived out there. You found each other.” She glances at Ash and Caleb. “You found other people. Why come back?”
I take a sip of tea, delaying the moment when I’m going to have to speak her name, watch the judgment in Victoria’s eyes. “Callie,” I say finally.
Victoria stares at me. I don’t see judgment in her eyes after all, just a weary disbelief. “You can’t save her,” she says. “I can’t believe you’d even want to try.”
“She’s my sister.”
“She’s poison,” Victoria says without hesitation. “The same as that vial she gave you.” She holds up a hand. “Don’t try to deny it. That was never you, Ivy. It was always her.”
I don’t even realize my fingers are biting into my thigh until I feel Bishop’s warm hand over mine, his fingers gentling my grip, giving me something else to hold. “Everything you say may be true,” I tell Victoria. “I’m not defending her or what she did.” I squeeze Bishop’s hand. “What she tried to get me to do. But she’s still my sister, and I can’t let them kill her.”
“How do you think you’re going to stop it, Ivy? Not even Bishop can stop it.”
I take a deep breath. “You can stop it.”
Victoria sucks in a laugh. “Me? How do you figure that?”
“Let us into the courthouse,” Bishop says. “That’s all you have to do. We’ll take it from there.”