“What are you smiling about?” she asked softly.
He looked up to meet her eyes, his face growing hot at having been caught. And for a moment, he wondered. Was that something important that he heard in her voice? Something… softer?
But he shook his head, telling himself to put it away. He hadn’t forgotten how she reacted when he’d tried to kiss her. And the last thing he wanted to do right now was go through another rejection like that.
“I was laughing at how much has changed,” he said, being mostly honest. “The first time I was here, I was speccing the place out as a location for a bunker I was designing for a very rich guy and his wife. And then the nanovirus came along. By the time the bunker was nearly finished, it had become obvious that my client wasn’t going to make it here, so I started… well, I guess I started thinking of this place as my own.
“I had already brought some of my own stuff, and I started to wonder how long I could stay here. How long I could last. So that bunker down there, it holds a lot of my life from before, you know? A lot of the pieces of who I used to be. It just seems strange to be sitting up here now, a very different person in a very different situation, and with a very different future. It makes me wonder whether I’d even recognize who I was before—or those things that I brought here.”
Funny, he hadn’t even realized he was thinking all that. But now that he’d said it out loud, he knew it to be true. He was a different person, after the last several months. Maybe not at his foundation, but certainly at the surface. The person he was now would have laughed at the person he’d been back then.
“Let’s find out,” Alice said abruptly.
“Huh?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You wondered if you’d even recognize the things you had before. Let’s find out. It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do, unless you have some sort of EMP-proof TV down there. In which case I’ll be extremely angry that you’ve kept it from me during this entire dinner.”
For some reason, he paused at that. “I don’t think—”
“I’d like to see them,” Alice interrupted. “I’d like to know who you were before.”
And that was all he needed, really. His embarrassment melted away, and he started to think that maybe it would be fun to bring some of his stuff up to go through.
After all, she was right. They didn’t have anything better to do.
“My record collection,” he said proudly, opening the first box and starting to rifle through the faded, shabby covers. “My sister and I used to collect records when we were kids, and it’s just something I never outgrew, I guess. Of course the record player I have down there doesn’t work anymore. But these are some of my most treasured items.”
Alice put down the mug she’d been holding—they’d managed to warm enough water to make hot chocolate, and had even located a bag of marshmallows—and scooted around the fire to where he was sitting, leaning into him to get a look into the box.
“Records,” she said longingly, reaching out to caress them softly. “What a memory. Can you imagine, just sitting down to listen to music for fun?”
He shook his head, a smile growing on his face. “Before we had to spend every day fighting for our lives, right?”
“Exactly,” she murmured. She started flipping through the sleeves and laughed. “I see you were a fan of the classics.”
“Oh, absolutely. Tom Petty, Dylan, George Harrison. I loved that old rock and roll sound. The rebellion of it. The power. The lyrics.”
“How did you find these? They have to be collector’s editions, at this point.”
“They are,” he said wryly. “Though I suspect collectors would have a heart attack to know that I actually took the records out of their sleeves and listened to them. Exposed them to damage, the horror! I even ripped a few of these covers.”
“You rebel,” she joked. “What else do you have?”
He dug into the next box, shockingly pleased at her interest.
“Books,” he said. “My tablet is no good anymore, obviously, but I kept so many books in hard copy. It just makes them seem more… real, you know? And I love the smell. I’ve always been a paper-and-pencil sort of guy, I guess.”
She scooted closer to him again, leaning against his arm and diving right into the next box.
“Books! Oh God, I’ve missed books. I used to read maniacally. Even won reading contests when I was still in school.”
“Reading… contests?” he asked uncertainly.
“Well, not contests exactly, but awards in class for having read the most books, that sort of thing,” she said sheepishly. “What’s your poison?”
“True crime,” he said without hesitation. “Sometimes thrillers, but there’s something about real life that always got me.” Then, after a moment’s pause, “What was your favorite genre?”
She didn’t pause at all. “Fantasy. Other worlds. Dragons, sorcerers, elves, monsters… I didn’t care if it was for adults or teenagers, as long as it took me to an entirely different place. This life… Well, it wasn’t always enough for me. Or it was too much, and I needed a way to escape.”
He gazed at her for a long, intense moment, yearning for… something. He wasn’t sure what.
Then he shook his head and drew back a bit.
“And now we’re in a world where we don’t get to escape at all, no matter how badly we want it,” he observed.
Alice rocked back on her heels. “Well you sure know how to ruin a moment,” she muttered.
After a sigh, she looked up at him, stretching her neck and resetting her shoulders. He could practically see the veil of responsibility falling over her again—and replacing the vulnerability that had been there a moment before.
“Well, shall we find our way to bed, then?” she asked. “It’s been an awfully long day, and something tells me tomorrow is going to be even longer.”
“We should,” he agreed. “I have several sleeping bags and cots, so we’ll be comfortable. At least for the night. And there’s still enough viable air down in the bunker for a few days.”
“Guess that’s all we can expect,” she replied. Turning, she threw sand over the fire, dousing it, and then grabbed a box. “Let’s go.”
Garrett followed, his heart aching for everything he’d lost—and then rekindling hope that they might find those sorts of things again in the future. Somehow. Somewhere.
Chapter 17
The next morning Garrett woke to the absolute darkness that was really only possible in an underground bunker without lights. They’d gone to sleep like that, of course, unwilling to keep the candles burning when they weren’t there to supervise them, but there was something about waking up to the same utter stillness that made him feel distinctly off-balance.
“Alice?” he called softly. She’d been sleeping on a cot not far from his, and though he couldn’t hear her breathing anymore, he thought there was a chance she was laying there awake still.
Her lack of answer told him that he was wrong about that.
He quickly rose and reached for the candle he’d left sitting on the shelf next to his bed, along with the lighter he’d placed next to it. One quick flip of the thumb and he had light again. The wavering flame showed him only a piece of the room, the corners left in shadows, but he could see far enough to seek that Alice definitely wasn’t in the room anymore.
He placed the candle into the candle holder he’d found the night before and quickly went about getting dressed, his mind already moving up the ladder and to the outside world, where he hoped he’d find Alice. She hadn’t left, had she? Hadn’t decided to strike out on her own the way John and Cora had, back at Trinity Ranch?
The thought sent his stomach plummeting into his shoes, and he increased his pace. The wound in his thigh was still slowing him down, but sleep seemed to have helped—or maybe he was just growing more used to the spot on his thigh that went back and forth between burning and aching. Either way, he was able to move more freely, and within a
few moments he had gone to the kitchen area, grabbed a bottle of water, and moved toward the ladder, ready to get up into the fresh air and sunshine and find his friend.
When he stepped through the front door, Garrett was surprised to see that the sun wasn’t even up all the way yet. Without the aid of his watch or a clock, it was nearly impossible to tell the time of day, and the darkness below ground in the bunker had made it even more difficult. It couldn’t have been much more than five in the morning, he thought, given the level of semi-darkness still clinging to the ground around them. But sunrise was fast approaching. And there, at the end of the driveway, he saw Alice, outlined against the coming sun like a shadow creature covered in fairy dust.
He walked quickly toward her, unscrewing the lid from the water bottle and taking a deep drink as he walked. She was standing incredibly still, and he wondered for a moment if she was meditating—and if he should perhaps leave her alone.
Then she turned and met his eye, giving him the ghost of a smile.
“Come stand next to me,” she said quietly. “The sunrise is my favorite time of day. It feels like rebirth, doesn’t it?”
He drew to a stop next to her and brushed her shoulder with his as he stared out across the distance. The first slice of sun was starting to rise above the horizon, now, and the sky was going from the middle grayish purple of pre-dawn to an explosion of roses, oranges, and brilliant fuchsia.
Desert sunrises were one of the most heavenly things he thought he’d ever seen. And it felt like it had been years since he’d had the time—and the patience, and the safety—to really watch one.
“I always thought of them as the sign of another shot,” he said. “A blank canvas, just waiting to be written on. If you’re brave enough to make the new day your own.”
“A noble thought,” she observed. “Idealistic. Maybe naive, but I like it.” She hesitated. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”
He waited for her to finish, but she seemed to be waiting for a response to that, so eventually he said, “And? I assume you’re going to share your thoughts with me, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
He saw the corner of her mouth crease with a bit of a smile. “Smart-ass. Yes, I’m going to share my thoughts with you, and it might actually go with your vision of what a sunrise is.”
Turning to him, she took both his hands—to his surprise—and squeezed. “I’ve always thought that when you have things, it sort of… well, it holds you in place, really. You make a life, you make a home, and you put down roots with all of your things. And then you get… stuck.”
He frowned, not really understanding where she was going with this. Was she talking about all the things he’d shown her last night? Because those didn’t mean he was stuck here—if that was what she meant at all.
“That’s called life, I believe,” he said slowly. “Are you saying it’s a bad thing?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “I am saying that it’s not the only way to be, though. When you lose all that stuff—when the house is gone and the things are destroyed and even the people who had kept you in one place have disappeared, when they’re dead…” Her voice hitched before continuing, “…or gone, or just… missing—it changes your life. Everything is gone, and that means you have everything to gain, as long as you’re open to gaining new things. There’s a big, wide world out there, and we’ve got nothing holding us back. Not anymore. There must be somewhere that we can go. Somewhere that we can make a life again. We just have to reach out and grab it.”
Garrett stared at her for several moments, his brain reconfiguring the person he had always thought Alice was. He’d had several characteristics written under the heading of Alice, and they’d been pretty straightforward. Complex, yes. Efficient. No-nonsense. Brutally effective, when it was necessary. Responsible. And absolutely organized.
Never in a million years would he have thought she’d had a romantic hidden underneath all that bluster. But right now, she sounded like she should be writing romance books.
And she was talking about going out there, into the world, with him.
Something in him bloomed into a million different colors, and fire rushed through his veins at the thought. Into the world. To find someplace safe—to find someplace where they could truly make a life again. With her. This woman he’d never seen coming, and now couldn’t imagine living without.
That didn’t mean there weren’t problems with her plan.
She saw the doubt creep into his eyes and nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. The others. How can we leave them behind? How can we be sure that they’ll find their way to safety? How can we just… go?”
He nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. We don’t know whether they made it to any town, not really. And then there are Bart and Riley. How can we just run away and leave them to their own devices?”
Her face fell. “I was hoping you’d have some brilliant plan for that,” she admitted.
He turned and faced the sunrise, keeping one of her hands in his, and thought about it for a long, hard moment. Yes, his heart was telling him that they should go back again and look for their people—fight for them if they needed to. Find Bart and Riley if they could. Make sure everyone was settled in a new town, make sure they were taken care of.
That was what his heart was saying.
But his head was telling him something entirely different.
“We have to trust them,” he said simply. “Most of those people had been in that town before we ever arrived. They know how to survive in this environment, better than we might. They may have lost Greyson and Ben, but they have Manny, and he’ll take care of them. They knew the plan. They know to look for other towns. They have enough food and water to get them to any place within walking distance.”
Alice nodded and looked expectantly at him.
“And Riley and Bart,” Garrett continued, “if the bikers had captured them or killed them, you know Kraken would have rubbed it in our faces. He would have bragged about it. Or even used the kids for leverage against us to take over Trinity Ranch. So I have to believe Riley and Bart got away. And Bart had learned enough to know he couldn’t come back to Trinity Ranch, because the bikers would have been watching that path.”
Pausing, he followed his thoughts through to their natural conclusion, and then turned to her.
“And we know we can’t go back. If any of the bikers are still alive, they might be looking for us. It would be the same as walking into a trap. We might never locate our people to start with, and we certainly won’t do any good if we’re dead, having been killed by bikers we should have avoided.”
She was nodding eagerly, seeing the sense in his words, and he nodded as well, excitement flooding through his body.
“I have to believe that we taught our friends everything we knew when we were together. And now they can take that knowledge and those skills and use them to start fresh in a new town.” Garrett paused, feeling more confident in the decision they were making.
“Yes, I’ll go with you, Alice. I don’t know where we’ll go and I don’t know what we’ll find there, but as long as we’re together I don’t think it’ll matter. We’ve escaped from a prison. We’ve come through a battle in the desert. Let’s go find someplace where we can actually make a life.”
She gave him a brilliant grin, nodded once, and then leaned forward to take his face in her hands. “Let’s find somewhere where we can start fresh,” she breathed. “A new sunrise.”
Then she leaned in further and pressed her lips to his, and he melted into the kiss, allowing all the fear and rage and frustration and confusion of the last three months to melt away as he took a step forward and wrapped his arms around her.
An hour later, they had managed to pack all the things they thought might be useful from the bunker onto the back of the bike. It was going to be a tight fit to get them both onto the machine along with all that stuff, but they’d done it before.
And Garrett didn’t
think either one of them would mind being so close, now.
They stood in the shade of the bunker’s hallway, both drinking from bottles of water and chewing on potato chips as they considered what they were about to do. Garrett had been trying to get out of the U.S. and to a place where they might find civilization again ever since he left this bunker months ago. Now it looked as if he was finally going to do it—something that he found both daunting and exhilarating. He didn’t know if they were going to find what they were looking for. They were chasing little more than a myth, after all. But he knew that if anyone could help him find home, it was Alice.
And he didn’t think he’d ever wanted anything more in his entire life.
“So, Mexico?” she asked suddenly, as if she’d been reading his mind.
“Seems like the smart place to start,” he said. “We know the rumors. We know there might be a community down there willing to take in strays. And if any of our friends have survived, they might already be on their way there. What better option do we have?”
She gave him a sunny grin. “I’ve always wanted to learn the language.”
“Well then.” He reached down, took her hand, and led her out into the driveway toward the motorcycle. “Let’s go find it.”
They climbed onto the motorcycle, Garrett driving this time, and he revved the engine, then tore off down the driveway and turned south at the main road, Alice holding tightly to his middle. If that settlement in Mexico existed, they were going to find it.
And if it didn’t, they’d make their home somewhere else.
THE END
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