“I was doing all right until Zeke thought it would be a good idea to patch me up a bit with some coagulant.” He shudders. “The stuff nearly did me in.”
“Yeah, but you’re not bleeding anymore, and coagulant sanitizes wounds. You won’t be dying from blood poisoning,” Zeke says.
Zeke and Bowen help Jonah stand, and together we finish the walk to the shelter. Zeke, the only one of us who isn’t injured in some way, crouches down and removes the cans of flour from the shelter’s entrance. “I’m here with four strong, healthy kids and I’m the one doing all the work,” he grumbles. But there’s a smile on his face. He pushes the cupboard leading into the shelter open and yells, “Don’t shoot me!”
“Who are you?” Fo’s voice rings out strong and clear.
“Fiona!” Bowen calls. “It’s us! Don’t shoot!” Zeke backs out of the cupboard and helps Jonah through. When he gets to the other side, Fo gasps, and I hear Jonah’s quiet, sweet voice say, “It’s as bad as it looks, but remember how fast I heal. I’ll be all right.”
Bowen goes through the cupboard next, and I follow right behind him and watch as he stands. Fo shrieks and throws herself at him, wrapping her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck. Her hands tangle in his hair and then they start kissing so passionately that I go back out of the cupboard, into the cement hallway.
“I think they need a minute alone,” I say, unable to stop the grin that’s plastered to my face.
“I think they need a honeymoon,” Kevin says with a laugh.
Chapter 39
For the first time in more than three years I am not wearing my vest in front of non—family members. It feels scandalous, having only a T-shirt and a sports bra between my flesh and the air. Every time Kevin looks at me, I can’t help but blush.
I am in the shelter, sitting on the tweed sofa, leaning over a chess board. I have been staring at the pieces for a long time. Kevin is beside me, studying my profile and holding a jumble of wire, and Jonah is sitting in one of the leather chairs on the other side of the coffee table, waiting for me to make my move. It is the ninth game of chess we have played in the four days since our return. I haven’t won once.
I take a sip of my orange-flavored drink and try not to cringe when I think of one of the ingredients—Fo’s spit. She made two gallons of the drink, with lots of spit added for healing purposes, right before she and Bowen left to have a honeymoon at Kevin’s house.
Jonah takes a sip of his orange drink and leans back in his chair. Between the drink and his own natural healing abilities, he looks great. All his bites and scrapes have scabbed over, and his bruises are already fading. He seems more at peace, too, as if risking his life to save mine has eased some of the memories haunting him.
I glance at Kevin. His bruised throat is almost back to normal. He must feel my eyes on him, because he pulls his attention away from his latest wire sculpture—my face—and looks at me. His eyes warm, and he trails his hand over my back.
In the other chair, Zeke is sitting with Vince in his lap, reading an illustrated encyclopedia to the child. Vince’s black eyebrows are pulled together, and he is studying the pages. He still doesn’t talk, but he’s started smiling when he is smiled at.
“Just so you know, Jack,” Jonah says, “no matter what move you make, you’ve already lost, so you might as well get it over with.”
My shoulders slump. “Okay, fine. You win again. But when we get back out there”—I point up—“I am challenging you to a target-shooting competition.”
Kevin laughs. “Jonah, you better enjoy beating her while you can,” he says. I smile and lean against him, and that is when I hear a soft laugh from the kitchen. Zeke stops reading. Kevin, Jonah, and I stand and go into the kitchen just as Fo crawls out of the cupboard. Bowen follows. When they see us, their eyes light up, and both of them look at me.
“You need to go to the house, Jack,” Fo says. “There’s something there that you need to see.” She hands me her flashlight.
My heart starts pounding. Kevin grabs his gun. I grab spare batteries and shove them into my pants pocket and scramble through the cupboard as fast as I can. Kevin follows, and together we run through the passageway, the cave, and the food-storage room, until we get to the wine cellar. Without making a sound, we creep halfway up the stairs and pause.
It is sunset. Peachy light is slanting in through the west windows, making long rectangles of light across the wood floor. Kevin takes his gun from his belt and signals for me to hang back. He walks up the last few steps. “Hands up, sucker,” he says. And then he does this thing. This laughing. And someone else starts laughing with him, a deep, rumbly laugh that I have been waiting a year and a half to hear.
I leap up the stairs and run into the room that has the leather sofa. Dean is there, leaning against the wall. He stands tall and blinks at me for a minute, like he doesn’t know who I am. But that’s not why he’s blinking. He’s blinking the tears out of his eyes. And then he holds his arms out.
“Come here, Jack. Come give your big brother a hug.”
So I do.
Chapter 40
I shrug my shoulders out of my backpack, and Kevin takes it and sets it down. We have been hiking the last leg of the journey to Ward, Colorado—to the settlement— since four thirty a.m. All of us—Fo and Bowen, Jonah, Vince, Dean, Zeke, Kevin, and me. And now, we are on the side of a mountain, gathered on a boulder the size of a small building, which overlooks a deep, shadowed valley.
I sit down and press my frigid hands on the boulder. “The ground is warm,” I whisper. “Is it from the fire?” A mile ago, we crossed the line from the dead world to the burned world. All the tree skeletons, brittle shrubs, and dead weeds are gone, leaving the ground an eerie, boulder-marked black beneath the light of the moon.
“The ground can hold heat for a long time after a fire,” Jonah whispers, sitting down beside me. The closer we’ve come to Ward, the quieter he’s gotten. He puts the backpack with the cure in front of his feet and rests his arms on his bent knees. I reach a tentative hand out and pat his back. I know why he’s not talking. He is scared to be reunited with his mom.
“Are you hungry, Jack?” Dean asks. I hear the rattle of calorie tablets.
“No, I’m fine,” I say, just as my stomach growls. Dean laughs and puts the calorie tablets away.
Kevin sits beside me, and I press the side of my body against his and shiver. The morning mountain air is freezing.
Fo unzips her backpack and pulls out a water bottle, taking a long drink before passing it to Bowen. “Why are we stopping?” she asks. “Aren’t we almost there?” She sounds eager to the point of breathlessness.
“We’re very close,” Kevin says, his voice full of energy. “But we’re going to wait until sunrise to go in. That way no one will get shot.”
“Shot by whom?” Bowen asks, handing the water bottle back to Fo. From the corner of my eye, I see him lift his rifle to his shoulder.
“There are guards posted around the perimeter, but as long as they see us coming, they won’t shoot you because you’re with me.”
“So, if we’re almost at your colony, why is the ground burned to a crisp?” Bowen asks.
“If you burn the earth where the pesticide has been sprayed, it removes the toxins so new things can grow again,” Kevin explains.
“Yeah … if there are bees to pollinate it,” Bowen says, voice skeptical. He and Fo sit side by side, right beside Jonah. Fo puts her arm over her brother’s shoulders, and I can’t help but wonder if she knows that he’s scared to see their mom.
We sit until the eastern horizon grows fuzzy with the coming dawn. “Listen,” Kevin whispers, and everyone holds still. There is no sound. Confused, I look at him.
“I don’t hear anything,” Fo says, her voice disappointed.
“Listen harder.” There is a smile in Kevin’s voice. He kisses my cheek, and then puts his arm around my shoulders.
I close my eyes and hold my breath. At
first I hear only the quiet swish of Kevin’s breathing, the nearly inaudible sound of my heartbeat, and the small sounds of the people around me. But after a minute I hear something else. A tiny ringing. “Wind chimes?” I ask.
“Listen harder,” Kevin says, his voice no louder than an exhaled breath.
I turn my head to the side, and my heart starts hammering. “Birds?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“Yes!” he says. Fo giggles.
I close my eyes again and sit perfectly still, just listening to the sound of birds. When the newly risen sun shines bright against my eyelids, Bowen starts to laugh. “Fiona, look,” he says. She gasps.
I open my eyes and peer down, and my heart doubles in size. Tears fill my eyes, and the world nestled in the valley below blurs to every shade of green imaginable, with patches of warm gold in between.
“Come on. Let’s go down,” Zeke says.
We stand and put our backpacks on, and then start the walk down the steep slope of a mountain. After a few minutes of walking, the burned ground is replaced by wildflowers as tall as my waist and aspen trees with gleaming white trunks and leaves so bright a shade of gold, they look like fire. I stop dead as another sound reaches my ears—the quiet, deep drone of bees. They’re everywhere, just like they used to be, poking their heads into the bright blossoms. I start running, careening down the hill. Kevin runs with me. I trail my fingers through the flowers and laugh as tears stream down my cheeks. Bowen whoops and grabs Fo’s hand, and they run with us.
Nestled in a pine and aspen valley below is a large group of wooden buildings. Cabins. A creek runs through the middle of the settlement, with a wooden bridge built across it. When we get to the bottom of the mountain, where the ground levels off, armed men wearing camouflage step out of the bushes and glare at me as they point their guns at my heart. I screech to a stop, my feet skidding on loose gravel. The men see Kevin and lower their guns. Smiles jump to their faces. One of the men, a blond teenager, starts laughing and runs over to me. I shrink away when he throws his arms around my shoulders. “Jack!” He lifts me off my feet and twirls me around. When he sets me down, I look at his face and gasp.
“Gabe?” I look at Kevin and back at Gabe. Kevin was there the night Gabe kissed me. The night Gabe announced that his family was leaving to find the Wyoming settlement. I look at Kevin again. “You brought Gabe’s family here, didn’t you.”
He grins and nods. Dean comes down then and shakes Gabe’s hand.
Others start coming out of the colony—men, women, and children approach us with slow steps and wary eyes. A woman with braided gray hair shrieks and presses her hands to her heart. Tears start washing down her cheeks and she smiles. I follow her gaze and find Zeke walking into the valley with Vince on his shoulders.
“Woman,” Zeke says, lifting Vince from his shoulders and setting him down. He stops in front of the woman and kisses her cheek. “Your old man’s home for the winter.” He leans down and whispers something into her ear. She nods, wipes the tears from her face, and hustles back toward the town.
Another woman makes her way to the front of the crowd and freezes. Her eyes grow wide in her narrow face. She looks hardly older than me and is holding a baby wrapped in a faded blue blanket. Dean gasps and rushes past me and throws his arms around her and the baby. When he lets her go, he cups her face in his hands and gently kisses her lips. He takes the baby from her and peers into the blanket, then brings the baby to me, pressing her into my arms.
My arms can do many things. I am strong and capable. But when that tiny life is placed into them, they suddenly turn awkward and uncertain. I freeze and peer down at the tiny face, at a pair of blinking blue eyes framed by perfect, tiny eyebrows.
“Jacqui,” Dean says, “meet my daughter, Jacqui.” The baby’s mother steps up beside me. She studies me for a moment, as if she wants to say something, but instead of talking she throws her arms around my shoulders.
“Jacqui, this is Brenna,” Dean says.
“I feel like I already know you.” She smiles and wipes tears from her eyes. I return the smile and carefully—and a little awkwardly—hold baby Jacqui out to her.
That is when I realize Fo is standing beside me, fervently scanning the faces of the people coming out to greet us. Jonah is not here. I turn and look at the mountain we just came down and see him slowly making his way toward the valley. His hood is up, his head is bowed, and his hands are in his pockets.
In a trembling voice, Fo asks, “Is there a woman named Tarsis here?” The crowd parts and everyone turns toward the town. Zeke’s wife is walking toward us with another woman. I squint against the bright morning sun, and my stomach drops into my hips. It is her—Jonah and Fiona’s mom. When she gets to the outskirts of the gathered group, her eyes slowly scan over us newcomers. And then, when her eyes rest on Fo, she stops walking. Her gaze travels over every inch of Fo, and her eyebrows draw together in a frown, as if she can’t believe what she is seeing.
“Mom?” Fo says. Mrs. Tarsis gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. Fo slowly walks toward her, and then throws her arms around her mother. Mrs. Tarsis wraps her arms around Fo and starts crying and laughing all at once.
“Fiona! My baby girl!” She pushes Fo to arm’s length and studies her. “You’re cured.”
Fo nods. “They found a cure for the beasts.”
Everyone breaks out in excited whispers. It is then that Jonah finally reaches us. He stops beside me and stares at his mom. It is as if Mrs. Tarsis can feel his eyes on her. She looks away from Fo and focuses on Jonah, her gaze traveling up from his feet, over his tall body, and resting on his shadowed face. He sighs and pulls the hood from his head. Mrs. Tarsis stands frozen, staring at his face. She takes two unsteady steps toward him and then falls to her knees. Jonah is beside her in the blink of an eye, lifting her from the ground. Mrs. Tarsis lifts a trembling hand and touches Jonah’s scarred face.
“Jonah?” she whispers.
“Yes. It’s me.” He hangs his head. “I’m sorry, Mom. For everything. For Dad.”
“Oh, Jonah.” She sniffles. “I forgive you. I forgave you four years ago.” She throws her arms around him and squeezes. He buries his face in her shoulder and his body shakes with sobs. “I love you, son.”
Epilogue
Kevin and I walk into the town. Every log cabin has the remains of a massive vegetable garden in the yard, with cold-weather plants, like acorn squash and gourds, still in the dirt. Ears of corn and baskets filled to overflowing with potatoes are sitting out on front porches, as if no one is worried about them being stolen. And I guess no one is. If a person has enough to eat, he doesn’t need to steal food.
One log cabin has tall wooden boxes in front of it, and I can hear the quiet vibration of bees when we pass them. “What are those?” I ask.
“Beehives,” Kevin explains. “My grandpa’s.”
I can’t help but smile. Bees! I stop walking for a minute and listen to them. “Where is your grandpa?” I ask.
“Zeke’s wife says he’s at the fortress.”
“The fortress?”
“You’ll see.” He takes my hand in his and we keep walking to the other side of the town, to a huge, rectangular building made of weathered logs. The air changes, growing heavy with animal smells, and I am reminded of the zoo. I wrinkle my nose. “What is this place?”
“It’s the fortress—where we keep the tainted ones. The beasts. It is where my sister is.”
My legs slow without my meaning to let them. “Wait. How do you keep them from attacking people?”
“If they’re well fed, they’re not as violent. We keep them in cages and feed them. Once a week or so, they’re sedated and washed, and their cages are cleaned.” Kevin pulls me toward the building. He opens a thick wooden door, and I can’t help but put my sleeve over my nose and mouth to try and dull the smell.
I am standing in a huge room with knot-covered wooden columns supporting the ceiling and metal bars blocking the windows. The
re are more metal bars, which rise from floor to ceiling. Behind these bars are individual rooms, divided with thick wooden walls that are covered with dents and scratches, and inside each room is a beast. I look from cage to cage, counting. There are twenty beasts.
A disheveled, white-haired man is standing in the room, pressing pieces of hard, flat bread into the cages. “Grandpa,” Kevin calls.
The old man turns and looks at us, and a grin wrinkles up his face. He strides over to Kevin and throws his arms around him. He looks at me over Kevin’s shoulder, and his grin turns to wonder.
“Is this Jacqui?” he asks, letting go of Kevin. He puts his hands on my shoulders and takes a thorough look at me.
“Yes. This is Jacqui. And this”—Kevin takes his pack off—“this is the cure.”
The old man’s hands fall from my shoulders. He and Kevin both walk over to a cage on my right. Inside is a girl with tangled auburn hair that reaches her shoulders. Her hands are wrapped around the bars of her cage, and there is no tattoo—no mark of the beast—on them … but she’s staring at us with unblinking, wild eyes, and drool is dripping down her chin.
“Jack, meet my sister, Tessa,” Kevin says, and unzips the backpack.
Acknowledgments
I must first thank my four young children for going to bed by eight p.m. every night (not always by choice), because without my evenings free, there is no way I could write books! Now, if I could just get you to sleep past seven a.m. … And my husband, Jaime, who might as well have a wife who works nights even though I’m sitting in the house, typing and talking to people only I can see and hear. Thank you for your support!
Michelle, Bonny, and Kristin, thanks for being fast beta readers! You three are my go-to girls, and I couldn’t do this without you.
Again, I must thank Marlene Stringer for being an agent who responds to my e-mails in mere minutes and knows exactly what to say.
All the wonderful people at Walker books, especially Emily Easton and Laura Whitaker, thank you for believing in me.