CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Moxie Tyler
There they were again: footsteps on the frozen earth! Moxie had tried to ignore them several paces back, but now she couldn't; she'd heard them clearly. This part of District 10 seemed to lie in an abominable slumber beneath a thick covering of snow-laden clouds overhead. Only the moaning of the Old Fifty Yards Tree's limbs as they clapped like brittle hands drawn and bone-thin from starvation and exhaustion broke the seemingly impenetrable sound barrier of silence. The ominous whooshing of the wind as it crossed the open plain undeterred was primary among the few sounds Moxie heard, and the footsteps were definitely secondary. Nonetheless, they remained within the compendium of sound effects on this particular wintry day. Despite the natural cushion the new fallen snow provided under foot, there they were again: footsteps, breaking the icy ground, somewhere behind her. She would have ignored them if she hadn't heard them twice before now. It was no longer a coincidence; Moxie knew she was being followed.
Only a fool would venture outside in these temperatures, Moxie thought cruelly. That boy! Moxie was anxious to put distance between her and Deane for this reason: he didn't know how to survive in this sort of weather because he'd always been taken care of by the cow-men. She had done a damn good job taking care of herself and the other Tylers in all seasons for years, so she was more capable of surviving out here than him. Besides, he had the subtlety of a bull when it came to it, so he'd get caught if he followed her here. All of these were very good reasons for him to have listened to her in the first place and to have stayed put, but he was as stubborn as she was, which she had learned to like about Deane, and of course that meant he wouldn't listen to her if he made his mind up to do what he liked. She'd had a hard enough time getting away in the first place, having to endure him asking her to not go for so many weeks; he didn't get that it was her family he was keeping her from seeing, checking up on. Just because he left his brother behind doesn't mean that we are all as hard-hearted as him. Bess wouldn't let me do anything but go and leave her. Moxie kicked the nearest drift pile of snow, wincing when she found that, in fact, it was blanketing a solid ball of ice. It was never my idea to leave. There were footsteps again, four of them, even, one falling rhythmically after the first. Moxie surveyed the plains and concluded that there was nowhere she could hide to get away from her pursuers. She couldn't gauge how fine-tuned their tracking abilities were either: the bleak landscape offered no variation from flat and wide. She was not far from the Old Fifty Yards Tree, which she looked to now with a sense of questioning: were its old branches too old to hold her weight if she chose to climb them? Something else caught her glance then, something beyond the Tree, and it made her mind up for her. Picking up her pace, Moxie reached the Old Fifty Yards Tree within minutes of pausing and felt for any footholds in the smooth, decaying trunk. Her hand found the grooves in that piece of bark that had come off when she was pursuing Deane, several weeks ago, and she peeled away the covering to its hollow, carefully, reaching inside out of some instinctual habit. The hollow was empty, as she assumed it might be, but her heart was racing from the excitement of the chase, from her nervousness about further inspecting what she'd seen, and somewhat about the thought of being pursued by Deane. He'll have impressed me greatly if he can follow me up this tree, Moxie thought as she hoisted her foot up to the hollow in the tree's trunk and used it to propel the rest of her body up into the nook of the Tree, where its branches reached outward and up.
With the first question of leverage answered, the remaining questions of scaling the Old Fifty Yards Tree seemed easier to ask; Moxie tried the first two big branches and found that they were not moved by the wind – clearly a good sign as to answering the question of their stability – but when she began to venture out onto one limb, she could hear it moan awfully, and she quickly backtracked, finding the nook again and trying the next big branch. This one held, and as she perched on it, she surveyed the plain below her. Her pursuant were not in plain sight – which seemed very suspect given the inhospitable landscape, and gave rise to her beginning to doubt her senses (a nearly fatal psychological flaw) – but from this elevation, she could see the Compound much better.
She adjusted her perch to maximize her visibility of the Compound, looking for that hint of movement she'd detected some yards back. The grounds of her home dwelling place were still even in the small continuous breeze that danced across the plain and ruffled the frozen canvasses stretched across some of her neighbors' hovels. The canvasses were never much use except that they shielded their inhabitants from the rain and snow; from frigid temperatures or boiling nights, they were useless. Now, they seemed most useless until Moxie spotted it again, out of the left corner of her eye. One canvas top moved. It flapped as though there was nothing holding it down. If Moxie knew anything about the type of Prairie Dog who would go to the trouble of obtaining a canvas big enough to cover their hovel, she knew that this was an uncharacteristically careless move on their part, to leave a canvas in disrepair.
The wind changed direction, and Moxie lost sight of the anomaly on the Compound. More perplexing, however, was the fact that with that single movement at the Compound, no one standing around the perimeter – the Peacekeepers, in other words – seemed to notice it. Maybe they were used to things moving that shouldn't? But as the wind changed direction, it also gained speed and intensity; it changed from a shivering whoosh to a bone-chilling howl as it whipped across the plain, and as it danced frenetically, it picked up the coat and helmet of a nearby Peacekeeper and lifted them away, exposing to Moxie and any other living person on the plain the truth of the matter: beneath the coat was a skeletal form, marked as if it had been stuck with pins, and all over it was the sort of unhealthy blackening indicative of frost-bitten skin. In fact, Moxie realized with a shiver, the figure didn't even have the stereotypical stockiness of a Peacekeeper. It was a thin, starved corpse… much more like a Prairie Dog. Moxie shimmied back to the nook of the Old Fifty Yards Tree and carefully let herself down its trunk, being sure to replace the strip of bark that covered the hollow in its trunk, and then with a lack of caution she raced herself across the remaining fifty yards to the Compound.
The figures along the perimeter of her home ground did not move as she came charging toward them. The wind shifted and pushed her back in the absence of human resistance, and Moxie had to stop running, catch her breath and quickly wipe away the tears that such a wind brought to her eyes. When she opened them again, she found the bare figure and finished her journey to it. Inspecting the exposed skin, Moxie confirmed what she had feared: the Peacekeepers were literally frozen to death on the perimeter, and this one had drawn the misfortunate lot to be mostly alive while he froze, hence the frost-bitten skin. But there was something else amiss about him. Moxie didn't feel comfortable touching the corpse, but she couldn't understand the flesh wounds the pock-marked this guard's body. As she puzzled over them, her peripheral vision kicked in and she noticed that there seemed to have been an increase in the number of Peacekeepers on the perimeter. Before, she might have been able to see between them from where she had made her lookout point near the canyon; now, though, there were no gaps between each Peacekeeper. Their numbers had dramatically multiplied. Even more obvious up close – they were all wearing similar colors, but not the same colors and definitely not uniforms. If she had to guess, Moxie would have said that less than a third of the Peacekeepers on guard wore uniforms while the others wore the sort of clothing you'd expect an average person from District 10 to own….
The bile reached the roof of her mouth at the same moment that this truth seemed to become clear to her. Moxie retched on the back side of the "Peacekeeper" she was examining. She put a trembling finger to the skin of the skeleton and stuck it into one of the holes. The clothing that had covered this figure had managed to keep the body warm enough so that Moxie could feel inside the wound, but it was not warm enough to plunge her investigative finger too deep inside. She discovered she didn't need to plow the depths of the corpse's wound to find her answer: something metallic pushed back on her finger, biting her skin in the cold and threatening to take off little pieces of it if she chose to tarry long within the cavity. All this confirmed the horrifying truth and Moxie withdrew her finger, doubling over and retching the remaining contents of her stomach. Dizzy from the realization and the effort of being sick, Moxie straightened slowly and stared around the perimeter in horror: were all these extra Peacekeepers actually the corpses of Prairie Dogs?
What about Lenox? Striker? Elka? Sissy? Bess? Are they here too? Have I survived some horrible event just to return and find all those persons I love to be dead right in front of me? She moved automatically, without any control over herself, to the next figure: it looked to be a woman (the chest was developed like a woman's chest). She moved on to the next: perhaps a teenage boy, all skin and bones because the "uniform" he wore looked too big for his frame, the shoulders not big enough for the coat draped around them, the neck not thick enough to support a head big enough for the helmet upon it. The next: a child…. It was a child! Moxie willed the tears away, though she was chilled to the deepest marrow of her bones. The next: an actual Peacekeeper. It went on like this, round the perimeter, with an actual Peacekeeper marking every nine corpses. When she had gotten to the fourth actual Peacekeeper in the circle, Moxie felt a numbness over her that signified a psychological disconnection from her emotional response to what she was seeing. This was truly the most horrifying spectacle she had ever seen. If it's like this out here, what is it like at the Ranches? She found herself wondering, Deane's brother close in mind. Another horrifying thought came to mind: maybe there's still hope. At this very moment, hope was the last thing Moxie wanted; how could hope for Bess, Sissy, Elka, Striker and Lenox's survival siphon the prosaic reality before her? Who could be heartless enough to hope after seeing this?
It's all Deane's fault, she thought. If he hadn't come to the Compound, none of this would have happened.
She heard the footfalls again, and this time she was prepared to fight whoever pursued her. If it was Deane, she'd knock him out and march him right up to the Mayor's door herself. He'd lost her everything and had he given her anything in return?
Yes. He held you at night. He kept you warm. He was company. He was a reminder that Bess knows best. Moxie frowned at her own thoughts. She hated them. Deane was good for only one thing now: a ransom fee. The footfalls were far greater in number as Moxie heard them. It wasn't one or two folks now; it sounded like at least ten. She would fight them to her own destruction if it took that; she shimmied toward the nearest Peacekeeper corpse and tried to prise the weapon from his frozen fingers. Instead, she managed to snap his fingers, breaking them from his hand completely. The weapon was hers, nonetheless, and she was ready to use it, though she didn't know how. The wind came on strongly again, and this time it was low to the ground and picked up snowdrifts, blowing them up into the air dramatically, creating a semi-transparent curtain of white and grey between Moxie and her pursuers. Come on then, Moxie invited the Fates to toy with her, and in some sense They obliged. As the curtain of snow began to fall, dark, heavily laden figures materialized from behind it. It was like something out of the Hunger Games themselves – a large pack of Careers emerging from hiding to descend upon a seemingly defenceless soon-to-be-dead Tribute. Moxie clenched her jaw, prepared to take down as many as she could. But she was not fast enough. Behind her, a horse and rider appeared so quickly that Moxie had time enough to turn around and lift an arm to received the fatal blow before she was knocked to the ground and had the wind knocked from her.
Lying on the frozen earth, Moxie waited for death. She was ready to join her fellow neighbors, some of whom had been friends, and to become in death a scarecrow dressed like a Peacekeeper – how a pro pos considering that is all the Peacekeepers are, she thought as she gasped for breath that was not forthcoming. Truthfully, it wouldn't have mattered if she'd regained any, for the horse and rider circled her and stopped, the rider climbing down from his steed and crouching over Moxie. His face was mostly covered with a bandana that reminded Moxie of Miss Vetta's stock of bandanas – kept for recreational use as well as tools for her healing trade – and only his glassy blue eyes showed over it. Moxie knew those eyes, but she doubted her instincts, especially given the nature of her attacker's relationship with her in this moment, and she decided that he could be anyone; blue eyes weren't unique in this district. But then he reached out a gloved hand and stroked her cheek, gently, lovingly. His hand moved down her throat and slipped under her tunic, pulling from beneath it the locket she wore. They were both focused on it the minute he drew it out. He looked at her, and she looked at him: it seemed like he was deciding what to do with her and the locket, or maybe just with one or the other, and Moxie used that pause to kick at him. At least her efforts threw him off, but he was quick to regain his balance and he knelt on her legs as he grabbed her wrists aggressively and bound them with a bit of leather thong he pulled from under his heavy fur coat. He wrapped an arm around Moxie's waist and flipped her over on the ground, binding her ankles as well. Then he lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder. She was squirming relentlessly, but his grip was strong and his movements, powerful. It was then that Moxie thought to scream and when she did, he slung her from his back to the saddle of the horse, knocking the wind from her again. Untying his bandana, he twisted it into a cord and gagged Moxie's mouth with it, tying it tightly behind her head. She had a chance to look at him without the bandana, and her screams died… because, she knew that face too well… she'd looked up at it all her growing years. Her pursuers were not Peacekeepers or cowboys; they were something else entirely, something that Moxie had always been close to but had never actually experienced: they put clothes on Prairie Dog backs, scraps of food on Prairie Dog tables; they produced instruments that were passed around the campfires at the Compound on hot summer evenings, and they graced every curve of the Compound and all peripheries of Prairie Dog life since Moxie was little. On the tip of her tongue, she knew what they were but she couldn't think of a title for their tribe: they weren't Townies, they weren't cow-men or cowboys, they weren't Peacekeepers or Prairie Dogs; they might be Wild Folk if they weren't from inside the district; and yet, they were all these things too. And the leader of this pack she had known forever, because – after all – the man who had lovingly stroked her cheek and in the same moment gagged and bound her, throwing her onto a thoroughbred horse from the Ranches, this man was none other than her father, Drake Tyler. He withdrew a small bottle of sweet scented herbs and uncorked it, wafting the scent directly up Moxie's nostrils. Sleep found her, gently.
Footsteps; Moxie waited anxiously for Deane to return from the meeting. All that had happened since she realized it was Dad who had taken her and drugged her to sleep, all that she had learned about the fate of the Prairie Dogs on the Compound, all of it was too overwhelming, and the effects of it were settling on her now. Her words came back to her from the beginning of this ill-fated journey, words she'd said to Bess (perhaps the last she'd said to her sister, who knew?): He's not from our world, Bess. The world she'd stumbled into, the world her father occupied when he wasn't with them on the Compound, was a world she'd never known to exist before, even though it had always been there at the back of her mind. Now she was a part of it. Did that mean she was still a part of the world she'd grown up in, the world of her sisters and brothers? Or had that world vanished the minute she left it to create a world – very much between all the others – with Deane? Who was she now if she had no clear world to exist in? She played with the locket around her neck. Her fingers had practiced opening and closing the trinket many times out in the canyon. Deane hadn't known about it, she believed; it was something she kept to herself. It was the only totem from a world that she had known and lived in, that she had left and could never return to. This is all wrong.
She flicked open the chambers of the locket and lifted them up to her face, staring at the children in the pictures kept safe beneath those doors, appropriately now immortalized in the chambers of her heart, lest they live and breathe there only. What had her mother been like? What had her desires been when she'd met and fallen in love with their father? Had she planned a life like the one that had unrolled before them? Moxie couldn't remember the world in which her mother and she had lived; it was long enough ago that she had some recollection of quick moments, but none of them were of a woman and a man, just her mother and her father. She found that these were severely lacking in information: she wanted to know more. How had it felt to depend on only one person? How had she made the decision to leave her family and cling to a man like Drake Tyler? How did they meet? How did it feel the first time they'd seen each other? She could only vaguely remember times when her Mom and her Dad had been together with them, but the one memory that overwhelmed the others was her last memory of Mom, giving birth to her brothers while sacrificing her own life for theirs. What sort of woman was she that she would make that kind of choice? Moxie didn't know, because she wouldn't have made it. Who would want to bring children into this world, knowing that they'd probably die between the ages of eleven and eighteen (if they were lucky to live through their first three winters, of course)? She'd steered her own life in the direction of the life she thought her Dad led, and she'd never considered asking questions about her Mom's life, but now that she had stepped into Dad's real world and seen it for its horrors, she wanted to know her mother better. Of course, it was too late: that world died almost six years ago, and Moxie had lost the chance… had lost the right to ask about it.
Had Dad always been like this? Moxie couldn't wrap her head around what her mother had seen in her father if he had always been this way. Before she had known it was him who was pursuing her, Moxie had thought him to be a heartless criminal… or Deane… and when he'd revealed himself to her, it had completely changed her understanding of everything foundational in her life. She had probably lost Bess, Sissy, Elka, Lenox and Striker, and now she knew she'd lost her Dad. She did not know this man. So, who did she have on her side now? Miss Vetta? No, because she was in the Town and probably didn't know what was happening out here, or was not able to come for her. She didn't have Miss Vetta. She hadn't made friends with anyone from school, but she'd had Mrs. Bulmer for a brief moment that next to last day she remembered being in school. That equation they'd configured, a lot of it still confused her, but the result seemed pretty clear: the number of the Districts was greater than the number of the Capitol. In order to get the Capitol firmly on one side, alone, you had to subtract the Districts. They slaughtered children on the Compound. They left anyone who was still alive to die slowly and painfully. How can the number of the Districts be greater than the number of the Capitol? They all knew about the Treaty of Treason, the inception of the Hunger Games, the blood debt they had to pay: they all knew that. Was that the number of the Capitol? Was that the number of the Districts? All that learning seemed empty of meaning to Moxie, sitting here waiting for Deane to come back to her. He'd been gone a long time now, and she wasn't tired. She figured she couldn't rely on Mrs. Bulmer being on her side, if she ever crossed paths with her teacher again. She didn't have Mrs. Bulmer.
Deane. He's all I have now. Moxie stroked the pictures of her and her sisters, and of her brothers, locked in the chamber of her heart and yet devoid of their parents. Perhaps that was the way to move forward: without Dad. What had Mom seen in him? Deane, she thought and felt anxious all over again. What's keeping him so long? Now that she was coming around to it, she had Deane, for sure, because she'd pushed him away many times, but he'd never left. She'd become so accustomed to him that she didn't push anymore, except for when she needed to venture away to the Compound, and even now, with perfect vision in looking back, she smiled at the thought that maybe Deane had already known what she would find at the Compound, and he'd used that knowledge somehow to delay her from finding it out. So maybe the stubborn one among them was her, and the constant one was him. She'd needed his constancy in the last two months, just to keep her sane. She'd never questioned that he had that power on her, but she'd never taken him for smart except in the beginning when he showed her how to track time based on shadow lengths, but then she'd not known him very well because that basic knowledge seemed like intelligence. He wasn't smart, but he was, perhaps, kind and definitely constant, stable. If things had not gone like they did, she wouldn't have minded returning to the canyon and staying with him there. They could have done it, too.
Deane was asleep when Manu brought him into the shelter. After he was laid down on his bed, and after Manu left, Moxie tiptoed to his side and watched him sleep. He was frowning even in repose. She wanted to touch him to be certain he was real, and she wanted to smooth the creases in his skin, to turn the corners of his mouth up into a smile. Instead, she just stood there and watched him. This was not the same boy who'd threatened to have her killed in the Hunger Games; that boy had vanished when that world had been destroyed. Somehow, though, she knew that this boy had helped her destroy it. It wasn't his fault what happened at the Compound; all worlds had to come to an end at some point, and maybe it was time for the world of the Compound to expire. When the Fates chose a time for something to begin and something to end, it was irrevocable. No door closed without a window being left open, though: Moxie thought she was looking at that window, sleeping before her. Even if their world had come to a close, Deane was still here with her, and there seemed to be no reason why that should have happened, which had to mean that it was part of some other plan she had no knowledge of but was definitely a player in. Her anxiety evaporated: Deane was on her side; she could go on. Dad intruded into her new world, quickly coming through the flap door and closing it again. He had to have seen her even though he paid no attention. He drew up beside Moxie and assumed a similar gaze upon the boy. Moxie side stepped away from him.
"Moxie," Drake said, softly.
"I don't know what to call you," Moxie replied.
"Call me Dad."
"Is that what you are?"
"Of course. It is who I've always been, Moxie," Drake replied.
"I don't know," Moxie challenged him. "I don't know what you are."
"I'm your father."
"I don't think I have a father anymore. I think he died the night Deane came to the Compound. I think he died and someone else took his place." Moxie felt her heart sink. These were hard words to share with the man beside her. They were truth, but she didn't feel like they were full truth.
"He never died," Drake said quietly. Moxie waited for more, hoped for more, but she was given nothing more. Disappointed, she turned around and went back to her bed. "You kept the locket." Drake said to her back. "You know he's not dead."
"He's not there, and he's not here either," she responded, climbing onto the tabletop and pulling the blankets around her. "Mom's not even there. It's just my brothers and sisters."
"Moxie, don't give up on him."
"On him? What's there to give up on? I don't know him." Drake covered the distance between them in two long strides and seemed to fall to his knees at her tableside.
"Moxie! You do know him. He's changed but he's right here, still trying to keep you safe."
"I don't know," Moxie began, the familiar feeling of stones filling her insides and choking her throat. "All I see is a man who kidnaps children and lets Peacekeepers slaughter his own people."
"I didn't know that was the plan. Something went awfully wrong, and like it or not, your boy there is at the center of it all."
"Deane's been the most stable man in my life these last two months. Don't you tell me he's to blame for this."
"You can spin it however you want, Moxie, but Deane is not someone you should connect yourself to. He's trouble."
"He's all I have." Moxie spat. A strange silence fell, and in it Drake got to his feet and sat down on the corner of Moxie's resting table. He slouched over like he was carrying the world on his shoulders.
"I think you need to let him go." Moxie didn't want to hear more of what he had to say. She turned over, he back to Drake Tyler and eventually he left.
Deane was sitting on the edge of her table when Moxie woke. He smiled at her, a quick and hapless smile, and handed her some food. It was toast with a small egg and scant butter. Regardless of the portion size, it was good.
"What took so long?" She asked between bites. Deane shook his head. She knew that to mean, Eat first. Then we'll talk. So she ate, and a few minutes later, she asked again.
"The meeting was about what to do. There are many tribes here at this camp: too many. They need to go their ways. They need to decide what ways to go and when and where to meet up again. Some are going to follow the bison beyond the fence. Some are staying here and waiting for the spring. Some are going to other parts of District 10, but their purpose is unclear." He paused, looked gravely at Moxie, and then continued. "Was unclear. It's been made more clear to me while you were sleeping. You see, that man who took me away last night, he came to wake me up this morning. He said that there is a group of wanderers working to keep folks in 10 alive. Why they are doing this is a big matter, but it is a lifestyle choice and it's a dangerous one." He sighed again. "They make raids on places like the Ranches and take whatever is in excess, and then they go and give it to those who need it most. They do it for the good of all of District 10."
"Deane," Moxie interrupted him, her sense of anxiety growing. "Why all the detail?"
"You never told me you recognized Drake as your father," Deane replied but not in an accusing way.
"It's complicated. I don't think he's my father anymore."
"Don't be stupid, Mox. He's always going to be your father, no matter what else he is."
"Deane, answer me."
"Why all the detail? Because," he scratched the back of his neck, nervously. Moxie could feel what was coming next, but she didn't want him to say it. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. "Because he's told me to join them."
"Do you have any choice?" Moxie said, frustrated. She wiped her eyes clean of tears, angrily. Deane took her hands in his and gave them a squeeze.
"He said it is up to me to decide. And I'm saying it's up to me and you to decide, because I won't go if you don't want me to go." He blushed. "I mean…" Moxie squeezed his hands.
"I know what you mean. We're a team." He looked at her long and hard, and while he did, Moxie knew what the answer was: even if they decided he shouldn't go with the wanderers, Drake would find a way to keep them parted. Maybe he would even do it himself. Moxie found him to be completely unpredictable. But she also knew that Deane couldn't stay here because, if he was suggesting that there would be an assault on the camp when the weather was better, he would definitely be found and probably killed. She didn't want to let him go beyond the fence because she didn't know anything about the Wild Folk out there, and who knew what else was out there? It seemed there was danger everywhere now, and that meant his path would always have death walking it with him, probably closer at some times than others. If the wanderers were skilled at raiding and getting away without being caught, then that was a group she would rather have Deane a part of. Of course, he was the other half of this equation. Between them, they knew, their numbers were equal, not lopsided. So she offered him a reassuring smile, realizing some of her old self was returning: she'd keep brave for them both while he was away, and if he came back to the camp, she'd be there waiting for him. It was probably the same way her mother had lived… Moxie wiped the thought clear.
"Well," Deane sighed. "They'll want an answer soon. The wanderers are leaving before midday, and there's talk of a storm on the horizon. The Wild Folk are leaving as soon as I make a decision. So…?"
"I think you should go with the wanderers," Moxie said, trying to be strong but noticing her throat was closing. "I think they will be able to keep you safe, and their cause sounds like a good one, even if it sounds very dangerous and risky. I would rest better knowing you're with professionals rather than Wild Folk." She nodded but she could see in his eyes a sense of sadness. He sighed and looked away at the flap door.
"Or I could stay with you."
"It wouldn't be with me, Deane," Moxie said, fighting her own sadness. "Some way or another, they'd separate us. I don't know why or how but it would happen. And if there was a raid from the Peacekeepers on this settlement, you'd be caught, either captured and taken away or killed and forever taken away." And I could never let that happen.
"But we'd keep each other safe, like we always have." Deane protested, but he knew it was futile.
"We can keep each other safe like this," Moxie said, tears beginning to fall. "I think you have to go. I don't think they'd let you stay."
"Yeah," Deane sighed heavily. "I didn't think so either." He looked down for a long pause and then briefly caught her eyes, turning away at last. "I should go tell them." He got up after another momentary pause, strode slowly to the flap door, still limping slightly, and paused at the entrance. He unfastened the flap, drew it back, paused as if he was going to say something to Moxie – which she waited for with baited breath – and then shook his head and left, the flap falling behind him. Moxie listened to his footsteps until they died. And then, she stopped fighting and let herself be consumed by an overwhelming grief. She'd had Deane, and now she'd let him go. She had nobody in this world. No one. Perhaps it was time to leave this world and try to salvage one more familiar to her. Perhaps, she thought, but not today. Today I just want to mourn.