“Time to go.” Lynn’s hands were on her shoulders, pulling her back from his weak grip.
“Ben,” Lucy stuttered, backing away from his pleading eyes and hands still reaching for her. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
The plea changed to wrath in a second, and his hands went from penitence to fists as he struck the floor around him. “You will take me with you! You can’t leave me broken.”
“Ben,” Lucy said from the doorway, “you were broken long before I got here.”
He screamed at them with all the air left inside him, his wordless anger following them down in the lobby, along with the sound of his upper half dragging his useless legs behind him in a futile effort to catch up.
She followed Lynn on wobbly legs to the parking garage. Ben’s screams had brought others from their rooms, but no one was willing to face Lynn’s gun, and they had the streets to themselves. Lucy slid into the passenger seat with relief, dumping her bag in the back and letting her body go entirely slack.
Lynn drove quickly; Lucy watched her eyes darting back and forth in the rearview mirror, not relaxing until they were well beyond the pale fingers of the dead buildings that reached for the sky. The desert opened up around them again, the emptiness of it all somehow reassuring after the cluttered rot of Las Vegas.
“You know where you’re going?” Lucy asked.
Lynn tapped her temple. “It’s all been up here for the past two states.”
“All right,” Lucy said, her head tilting to one side to rest against the cool window. “I trust you.”
The three small words swelled in magnitude in the confines of the car, and Lynn tightened her grasp on the steering wheel. “I want you to know there’s a lot of things in my life I wish I could take back. If I could only choose one, it’d be Carter.”
“I know it,” Lucy said, eyes still shut. “But it’s done now. It is what it is.”
“Maybe so, but I need you to know he asked me for it. Said he couldn’t stand the guilt of dead children, bodies of the people he knew burning in a pit, and him being what put ’em there. He didn’t want to be alone and . . . he said he couldn’t help but hope you’d be happy, but he hated that it wasn’t with him.”
Tears that she didn’t bother to brush away poured down Lucy’s face. “But it didn’t have to be that way. He didn’t have to die.”
“I didn’t know that, and neither did he. You’re the one that holds on to hope, Lucy. The two of us, we’d already accepted that life is unfair. And he died for it, and I can’t put together enough words to tell you how sorry I am.”
“Neither one of you can be blamed for it,” Lucy said eventually. “This is a hard place we live in.”
“It is indeed,” Lynn answered. The storm finally broke around them, dropping water in great sheets that rolled off the windshield as they headed west.
“But I’m still glad I’m here,” Lucy managed to say as her eyelids closed.
The last thing she heard before she drifted into unconsciousness was Lynn heaving a great sigh and saying, “Lord, I wish I had a five-gallon bucket about now.”
Part Four
OCEAN
Thirty-Four
Lucy resisted when Lynn tried to get her to drink in the morning.
“That’s water from the city,” Lucy said. “I don’t want to drink it.”
Lynn took a swig from her own bottle and swished the water around her mouth. “Knowing what’s in it doesn’t make it taste better, but it’s water all the same.” She handed Lucy the bottle and opened her car door. “Hope you’re not too spoiled by the driving. We’re outta gas.”
“I’ll survive.” Lucy got out, enjoying the feel of the rain-washed air against her skin in the cool morning light. Her lips were dry, and she’d taken a swallow of the water before she had time to think about it.
“How far ’til Sand City?” Lucy asked, looking to the horizon.
“A few hours’ walk is my best guess,” Lynn said.
Lucy leaned against the car. “What do we do when we get there?”
“That’s a good question, and hell if I know,” Lynn answered. “I never came up with an answer, as I was never entirely sure we’d make it.”
“California,” Lucy said, as she looked to the west. “Kinda seemed impossible, didn’t it?”
Lynn shrugged. “You don’t have to look in that direction, you know. We’re in California right now.”
Lucy turned to the north. “California. Kinda seemed impossible, didn’t it?”
Lynn snorted and threw a handful of sand at her.
They hit a field of wind turbines hours later, the turning white arms bright beneath the sun.
“What’re those?” Lucy asked.
“Kinda like a windmill,” Lynn said. “There was a farm back home had one. Stebbs took me out to see it once. They make electricity, though the one in Ohio was all broken down. It didn’t work anymore.”
“These look like they’re working.”