“Jonah.” This time it’s not a question. He recognizes the sound of a command. It looks like he’s aged more in the past year than most of the years prior. But there’s no getting up into his truck without help, and when she waves one hand at him, he jumps to the dirt, wraps an arm around her waist, and half hoists her inside by letting her rest most of her left side against him as she pulls herself up with her right arm.

Their little dance seems like a great prelude to an overdue hug, but no such luck.

She has to remind herself he doesn’t shrink away from her when he’s angry; he does it when he’s ashamed.

Marjorie’s enormously proud of the Head Slayer every time she sees one assembled. It’s a marvelously simple invention, and durable to boot. And it’s her design. They’ve only had to replace one of them twice since they’ve started.

Did something go wrong with this one?

It looks like the seedling tried to get free by jerking her head upward and that somehow jammed the insertion tube farther down her throat than it should be able to go. The results were predictably disgusting. Even the rats still clumped in the cargo area above have moved to one side and gone still, as if huddling together will protect them from the stench of vomit that’s surely wafting up the tube. The same vomit that apparently choked the woman to death.

Technically it’s not a violation, and so technically, Marjorie shouldn’t withhold her affection from Jonah, which after so many years of almost perfect obedience is the only punishment she’d consider meting out in this moment. What the boys aren’t allowed to do is get unnecessarily rough with their seedlings or use them as sexual playthings along the way. A planting is designed to purge dark instincts, but not by letting them run wild. It marries them to structure and purpose. It’s an extraction, not masturbation, as she’s said on more than one occasion, provoking boyish giggles every time.

So technically, this is the seedling’s fault, and it’s because she refused to heed the lesson the Head Slayer’s designed to teach. Silence is strength; screams are not.

“I should’ve watched closer,” Jonah says. “I got distracted.”

“By what?”

“Music. I was playing music.”

“Well, that’s not against the rules.”

Marjorie slaps the side of the woman’s face, feels a satisfying absence of response. Her head jerks slightly to one side, but it’s the tight strap across her forehead that makes the move feel reflexive and quick. A living person would be trying to spit out the tube or cough away the vomit. The seedling’s scrawny, with sharp, visible cheekbones, a high forehead, and a loose tumble of bottle blonde hair studded with dark roots.

“She’s not a hooker, is she?” Marjorie asks.

“No, ma’am.”

“’Cause hookers are against the rules.”

“I know, too easy.”

“How’d you get her, then?” Marjorie’s hoping a bit of small talk will pull Jonah out of his funk. Nothing seems to calm a man down like asking him to explain a complex, mostly physical process. Especially if he thinks he’s in control of it.

“She was mouthing off to a cashier at a gas station outside town. Claiming she got overcharged for cigarettes.”

“Smoking’s bad for you.”

“I know, ma’am.”

“Well, she doesn’t have to worry about that now, does she?”

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

Shame on her for wanting to draw this out. Maybe it’s shooting the little tweakers that’s done it; made her feel older, weaker, needier. The yearlong wait between plantings, even though it’s served them well for so long, is getting too long for her old heart and her old bones. And now she’s desperate to exert some small measure of control over one of her boys.

And what she said a moment ago is still true.

Technically Jonah didn’t violate any of the rules. Sure, he should have watched the seedling more closely, but he’s never had one die on him before a planting. That particular distinction belongs to Wally. He’s lost two. But that’s because he goes for the real fighters, the real screamers. For a while there, Wally’s seedlings had such tough outer shells, the group thought he was abducting them from the middle of literal, screaming bar fights. Two of them he beat to death because they just wouldn’t quit trying to escape. Of course, both times, Cyrus and Jonah ribbed him, calling BS on Wally’s weary accounts. In both instances, the footage from the cameras they all used to monitor their seedlings while driving revealed Wally was telling the truth. Oh, how her boys had whistled and clucked their teeth over the aggressiveness those seedlings had displayed before Wally bashed their heads in.

But for a while there, Marjorie was concerned they were part of a larger trend.

Was Wally turning self-destructive? Worse, would the other boys be encouraged to compete with his recklessness?

It doesn’t seem to have been the case.

The planting’s better with three, but it can work with two just fine. Three’s better, though. A trio makes a nice, satisfying harmony.

“Come here,” she says.

Head bowed like he’s sixteen again, he moves to her, steps into her embrace, and then returns it.

“Show me what else you brought,” she says.

A moment later, they’ve closed the divider door so he can present the gifts he brought her without distraction. A new police scanner—that’s a nice surprise; the old one’s been busted for a few months now—and a framed watercolor of Lake Coeur d’Alene; she and her daddy went there on a road trip once when she was little, before her mother destroyed their family. It’s so dear Jonah remembered her affection for the place. She’s only mentioned it a few times. The problem is, she hates watercolors in general. Why make everything look so messy and vague when a good artist can re-create pretty much anything with a pencil? She doesn’t say any of this to Jonah, of course. He already feels bad enough about the seedling. And it’s a thoughtful gift. And he’s her boy. Her beautiful boy.

He’s answering questions about a music box he bought her at a garage sale when they both hear a sound like muted thunder. A few minutes later another large pair of headlights swings around the northern wall of the barn. It’s a truck of similar size and make to Jonah’s, maybe a little rustier and more battered, and it’s headed straight for them.

35

How could Zoey have thought this was a victory?

So she didn’t panic during the last stretch of the ride, didn’t scream, didn’t cause that hideous device to send a thick black snake sliding down the tube wedged into her mouth. But she’s still a captive, and the last steps that brought her out of the truck and to this cold place included a blindfold and the kind of harness you put on a difficult dog. Using a cord attached to the harness’s back, they lowered her into what must be some sort of pit, then they lassoed her to a thick column of wood.

There were whispers and other sets of footsteps besides her abductor’s. So she’s outnumbered now. But the scariest change of all is the one that seemed like a relief at first. She’s not gagged. There’s not even anything covering her mouth. But that can only mean one thing. There’s no one to hear her scream. No one who can help anyway.