“So?” I say, turning back to Julian. “You coming or what?”
“I’ve never… It’s not possible.” Julian shakes his head, as though trying to rouse himself from a dream. “This isn’t at all what I used to imagine.”
“We can build something out of almost anything—out of scrap,” I say, and I remember, then, when Raven said almost the exact same thing to me after my escape, when I was sick and weak and unsure whether I wanted to live or die. That was a half a year and a lifetime ago. For a second I feel a rush of sadness: for the horizons that vanish behind us, for the people we leave behind, the tiny-doll selves that get stored away and ultimately buried.
Julian’s eyes are electric now, a mirror of the sky, and he turns to me. “Up until two years ago, I thought it was all a fairy tale. The Wilds, the Invalids.” He takes two steps and suddenly we are standing very close. “You. I—I never would have believed it.”
We are still separated by several inches, but I feel as though we are touching. There is an electricity between us that collapses the space between our bodies.
“I’m real,” I say, and the electricity is an itch, a nervous jumping under my skin. I feel too exposed. It is too bright, and too quiet.
Julian says, “I don’t think—I’m not sure I can go back.” His eyes are full of watery depth. I want to look away, but I can’t. I feel as though I am falling.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” I force the words out.
“I mean, I—”
There is a loud bang from our right, as though someone has kicked something over. Julian breaks off, and I see his body tense. Instinctively, I push him behind me, toward the door, and wrestle the handgun from my backpack. I scan the area: all shrapnel and stone, dips and depressions, plenty of places to hide. The hair is standing up on my neck, and my whole body is an alarm now. They are always watching.
We stand in agonizing silence. The wind lifts a plastic bag across the brittle ground. It makes three slow revolutions, then settles at the base of a long-disabled streetlamp.
Suddenly there is a flicker of movement to my left. I turn around with a cry, gripping the gun, as a cat darts out from behind a mound of cinder block. Julian exhales, and I loosen my hold on the gun, letting the tension flow out of my body. The cat—skinny and wide-eyed—pauses, turning its head in our direction. It meows piteously.
Julian touches my shoulders lightly, with both hands, and I jerk away quickly, instinctively.
“Come on,” I say. I can tell I’ve hurt his feelings.
“I was about to say something,” Julian says. I can feel him searching for my eyes, willing me to look at him, but I am already at the door, fiddling with the rusty handle.
“You can tell me later,” I say as I lean in against the door. It gives, finally, and Julian has no choice but to follow me inside.
I am scared about what Julian has to say, and what he will choose, and where he will go. But I am terrified by what I want: for him, and worst of all, from him.
Because I do want. I’m not even sure what, exactly, but the want is there, just like the hate and anger were there before. But this is not a tower. It is an endless, tunneling pit; it drives deep, and opens a hole inside me.
then
Tack and Hunter weren’t able to salvage many supplies from the Rochester homestead. The bombs and ensuing fires did their job. But they did find a few things miraculously preserved among the smoking rubble: cans of beans, some additional weapons, traps, and, weirdly, one whole, entirely unmelted chocolate bar. Tack insists that it remain uneaten. He straps it to his backpack, like a good luck charm. Sarah eyes it as we walk.
It does seem like the chocolate brings good luck—or maybe it’s just having Tack and Hunter back, and the way it changes Raven’s mood. The weather holds. It’s still cold, but we’re all grateful for the sun.