For six years, home had been a house at the eastern edge of the Waste, far enough from the darkness that no one came, far enough from the nearest town that the lights didn’t reach.
V-City was a place from the past, a place for the future, but Kate and her mother lived in the present. She wanted to remember it as boring, dull, restless, but the truth was, it was perfect. And she was happy. The kind of happy that smoothed time into still frames.
Arms wrapped around her shoulders while she read.
A warm voice humming while fingers braided her hair.
Wildflowers in vases and cups and bowls, wherever they would fit.
Color everywhere, and sunsets turning the fields to fire.
Somewhere else, the world was really burning.
Somewhere else, shadows had claws and teeth, and nightmares came to life.
But there, in the house at the edge of the Waste, it hadn’t reached them. There it was easy to forget that the world was broken.
The only thing missing was her father, and even he was there, in the photographs, in the shipments of supplies, in the promises that soon they could come home.
After, she told herself a lot of things. That she’d always wanted to leave. That she was sick of the little house. That when she spoke of home, she meant the capital.
The sun rose against Kate’s back, showering the fields ahead of her with light. Dew glittered on the tips of the grass, and dampened her pants from shoe to knee, and the world smelled fresh and clean in a way the city never did. August walked a few steps behind, and Kate watched the coordinates on the watch shift up and down, inching closer.
He was quiet, but so was she.
They skirted factories and storage facilities, each guarded as heavily as the Horizon, and caught the wary gaze of a haggard-looking woman standing outside a squat compound, checking to make sure she hadn’t lost anything in the night. Midmorning Kate saw a skeletal town in the distance, light glinting off the metal roofs and outer walls. They steered clear, kept to the tree lines when there were trees and the tall grass when there were none. And the whole time, Kate kept her eyes on the watch, the numbers edging closer, closer, closer.
Up ahead, the woods came into sight. Memory flickered behind her eyes. The barricade of trees that looked dense but gave way to a smaller field, half a mile in.
And a house.
They crossed the tree line before Kate realized that she couldn’t hear August’s steps behind her anymore. She turned and found him a little ways back, running his fingertips thoughtfully over a chestnut tree.
“Come on,” she called. “We’re almost there.” He didn’t move. “August?”
“Shhh,” he said, closing his eyes. “It finally stopped.”
She walked back toward him. “What stopped?”
“The gunfire,” he whispered.
Kate frowned, looked around. “What are you talking about?”
August’s eyes drifted open again, his gaze fixed on the rough bark. “Leo was wrong,” he said softly, his voice strangely musical. “He told me it was who I was, what I was, and I believed him, but he was wrong, because I’m still here.” He broke into a boyish grin. She had never seen him smile, not like that. “I’m still here, Kate.”
“Okay, August,” she said, confused, “you’re still here.”
“The hunger hurt so much at first, but now—”
Kate froze. “How long have you been hungry?”
He just laughed. A simple, delighted noise that sounded so wrong coming from his lips. And then his gaze met hers and Kate caught her breath. His eyes were burning. Not just fever-bright, but on fire, the centers icy blue, the edges licked with gold.
It was like staring into the sun. She had to look away. “August—”
“It’s okay,” he said cheerfully, “I’m better now, don’t you see, I’m—”
“About to set the woods on fire,” she said, coming toward him with her hands up. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked around, as if there might be a sinner conveniently waiting, but of course, there were no sinners nearby, because there were no people nearby. They were in the middle of a fucking forest in the middle of the fucking countryside. Kate closed her eyes, trying to think, and then felt a flash of heat and opened them to find August’s fingers grazing her cheek.
“It’s okay,” he said gently.
She pulled back. “Your hand.”
“My hand,” he echoed, considering it. “It looks like yours but it’s not because I’m not, I’m not like you, you look like me . . . but that’s wrong isn’t it—”
“August.”
“—I look like you, but you were born and grew and I wasn’t and then was, not like this, not exactly, smaller, younger . . . ,” he rambled, a kind of manic energy rising in his voice, “. . . but I start from nothing and then all of a sudden I’m something, all at once, like the opposite of death, I’ve never thought of it that way. . . .”