Page 144 of The Outsider
“You killed a traitor who attacked your Chief and was going to sell all of us out to a dangerous outsider,” he replied with a shrug. “You kept your oath, which is to the Valley, not to its chairman. You did your job.”
He leaned back in his chair. “But have some sense, Johnny. I believe you were justified, but you’ve been my best friend practically since birth. Hard to predict what the rest of them might do. I’mnotgiving them a reason to toss you out, especially because if what you say about this cult is true, we can’t afford to lose you.”
I blew out a breath. “So, what now?”
“Simple,” Danny replied, looking toward his crutches. “It’s your word against no one’s. Can you help me with these fucking things? I can’t seem to get the hang of them.”
In the following days, outriders were sent to recover Zach and Asha’s bodies based on the directions I gave. When they got back, Danny called me into the command center. He sat behind the desk, his crutches leaning against the wall behind him, and I’d never seen him look so grim. Immediately, I worried someone else had fucking died.
“We found Zach’s body,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Not Asha’s, though.”
I just about fell over.
“What? How the hell is that possible?”
He shrugged. “You said she fell in some long grass. They reported that there was a lot of blood, and they followed a trail from there, but when it ended, they didn’t find her. They tracked down a campsite in the area that looked recently abandoned, but based on what you said, she wasn’t in any condition to be camping.”
“Definitely not,” I answered, frustrated. “So, she might’ve gotten help?”
Danny shrugged. “I can’t see how else she got away, losing that much blood.”
I lowered my face to my palm.
“Fuck. What now? Do we try to track her down?”
He shook his head. “The trail went cold after the campsite. But based on how much blood they said there was, I don’t think she’ll live long even if she had help. All we can do is ramp up security around here and hope Asha’s shit with directions. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.”
Danny had outriders go to tell Jameson his son was dead. He then called another emergency council meeting, which happened a day after the body recovery. I sat at the centre of the meeting, Claire and Kimmy on either side of me, while everyone else stared a hole through us.
I told the story: I’d left the festival to find Asha, only to discover her and Zach. When he refused to keep going with her scheme, she’d killed him, and I shot her in self-defence. Kimmy added details where she could, backing up my story, and Claire nodded along, her eyes on the floor.
Old Jameson was surprisingly quiet as I talked, his eyes red, and for the first time, I actually felt sorry for him. He may have been a stubborn old ass, but he didn’t deserve to lose his son. My lie about Zach refusing to go along with Asha wasn’t planned. It was a small mercy I gave him—the belief that his son saw the light in the end and wouldn’t have sold out his own people.
My pity vanished in an instant when he turned on Claire.
“You, outsider,” he said, pointing at her. “How can we know that you weren’t in on this? That you didn’t know that…harpywas going to kill my son?”
His voice trembled on the last word. Claire flinched as if he’d hit her.
“She has a name,” I shot back. “And Claire wouldn’t do that. She was the victim of Asha’s attacks.”
Jameson gave me a cold look. “I didn’t ask you, Madigan. We deserve answers. If she wants to stay, she can submit to questioning.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Claire’s hand landed on my arm.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly to me, before facing Jameson. “Ask your questions.”
For the next hour, he and several other members grilled Claire on what she knew and when, where she was during any given event, and where her loyalties lay. Kimmy and I spoke up where we could to verifyher answers, and to my surprise, so did a lot of others. It was a mark of how much Claire had won them over that so many people came to her defence, including Nimkii, Jenna, Scott, and parents of her students.
To her credit, Claire didn’t waver during the questioning. She gave short, clear answers, and she didn’t take any of their anti-outsider bullshit. She told them how she’d grown to love the Valley and its people, and that she’d been as hurt by Asha’s betrayal as anyone. She was just herself: soft, well-spoken, and genuine. To my relief, as she talked, the temperature in the room slowly cooled. People were scared, but not too afraid to listen to her.
“All I want,” Claire said, her voice quivering slightly for the first time, “is to marry the man I love and live in peace. I want to keep building on my work here, teaching your children and creating a better education system for all. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep proving my loyalty to all of you, every day.”
She swiped at a single tear, and I squeezed her hand before she continued: “I think of you all like an extra-large, extended family now. I never had that before, and nothing would be worth losing it.”
There was a long silence. Looking around the room, most people looked sympathetic, even moved by her words. The quiet was broken by Abby Miller simply saying, “Thank you for your testimony, Claire. I’d like us to move onto how to deal with this security situation.”
I let out a long breath. She’d won them over, and all I could feel when I looked at her beautiful face was fierce pride. I put my arm around her and kissed the top of her head, and she gave me a token smile. Even Jameson seemed appeased…for now, anyway.
