’Til the World Ends

by Julie Kagawa, Ann Aguirre, Karen Duvall

  “Human life is cheap, Mari. I can buy a kid for far less than it costs to join one of the fortresses.”

  I remembered his mother had sold him to the man on the ground before us. So I’d guess he knew better than me about the going rate for a child. “Do they permit buy-ins?” I’d thought, due to population control issues, only people born into the system could live inside the walls.

  “It’s rare but it happens. Anything can be bought.”

  There was no reply to that obvious truth, so I bent. “Do we need to clean this up?”

  Thorne took my hands, drawing me up. “There’s no point. Henry will send someone in the morning to make sure we got the job done.”

  He strode off, and I followed, watching the street behind us. At this hour, even the scavengers weren’t stirring yet. In time, they’d learn that Thorne had taken Stavros’s place. And things might get better. Since it’s Thorne. I didn’t know why I thought that. He might not be different, after all; he was cooler, less brutal, more refined in his cruelties.

  Part of me hoped he would be decent since I had suggested he could build. That might turn out to be the biggest joke of all. Regardless, I ran along behind him as he headed for the bike. I braced my hands on the seat, wondering what you said at a moment like this.

  Without ceremony, Thorne swung on the moto, then he turned to me. “If anyone asks, you don’t know what happened. Rumors will circulate about your involvement, but if anyone finds out how tough you are, they’ll come gunning to make a name on you.”

  How tough I am? Really? Yet I still repressed a reluctant pleasure in the strange compliment, as it came with hard-won respect.

  “I had no plans to brag,” I muttered.

  “We shouldn’t linger. I’ll get you to the bolthole, where the kids are hiding.”

  “Thanks.”

  A flash of surprise quirked his mouth; I guessed he had expected me to argue. “Let’s go.”

  The night was fairly quiet as Thorne drove. I took care where I held him, gentle on his waist because of his ribs. He felt incredibly warm and solid in my arms. If I had been a different person, I would have been tempted to confide my troubles. Tell him how hard it had been, the past few years. Sometimes the burden felt like more than I could carry, but I wouldn’t switch places with a street ghost who had nobody to care if they came home.

  As we neared the hidey-hole, I felt as if I needed to say something, but what? It seemed wrong to thank him for killing a guy, even if it wasn’t for me. And it felt as if it had been, at least a little. I’d seen how his face had tightened when Stavros had called me names, whore and splittail. He’d had the gun up even before the bossman had brought the other girl into the diatribe.

  “What will you do now?” I asked.

  “Clean house.”

  I was curious how he would reorganize, if he’d implement new policies or try to help instead of stealing from those who had so little already. “Will you change—”

  “It’s better if you don’t know my plans,” he cut in gently.

  “Right. I dunno what I was thinking.” My sarcasm was tangible over the purr of the bike.

  To my astonishment, he laughed. In our short acquaintance, I wasn’t sure he’d ever made that sound. Hadn’t been sure he could, to be honest.

  “I’m glad you’re not afraid of me.”

  “Why would I be? You’re no worse than anyone else.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way. But thanks.”

  Why the hell does he think he’s worse than Stavros? The ex-bossman had regularly had people’s kneecaps broken, knowing they’d never heal right without medical treatment. I had seen his thugs do terrible things, night after night, in his name. Speechless with awakening fear and wonder, I finished the trip in silence. Thorne didn’t speak, either.

  He stopped outside a rundown building, and I swung off the bike, handing back his helmet. I couldn’t wait to hug the kids. They’d never know just how close they’d come to being alone in the world, or how scared I was of letting them down. I couldn’t wait to tell them my part in Stavros’s downfall, though they might not believe it. And Nat would be so glad to go home. Hopefully, she could tell me how to find the rest of our neighbors, where they might be hiding.

  “Will you do me a favor?” I asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Destroy the bomb components Stavros meant to use. I won’t rest easy, knowing somebody else could blow up my block.”

  He nodded. “I’ll take care of it, I promise.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It was a pleasure working with you, Marjolaine Thistle.” My full moniker was silly—and I hated it—a memento of my mother’s whimsy, when practicality would’ve served us better. Thorne raised a brow. “Don’t make that face. Your name suits you.”

  “Sure it does.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you,” he told me. “Not after what we’ve been through together. Keep safe, Mari. It’s a rough world out there.” With a faint smile, he bent and brushed his lips against my forehead, where the heat lingered like a blessing.

  Then he got back on the bike and drove away, whistling; soon, the smoky dark took him from sight, but the tune carried back to me, growing ever softer, until I wondered whether I’d heard it at all. Belatedly, I remembered he still hadn’t called for payment due. I owed him on so many levels, not least for sending someone to check on my sibs when I most needed that peace of mind.

  Therefore, I hadn’t seen the last of Thorne Goodman. I just didn’t know when he’d turn up again...or what he’d ask of me when he did.

  * * * * *

  For my supportive writer peeps in Bend, Oregon.

  Your friendship means the world to me.

  Thank you, Steph, Diana, Trudy, Paty, Mary, Julia, Linda and Beth.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter One

  I stared out the hospital window at the heat-glazed street below, knowing I shouldn’t be shocked to see brown lawns, charred rooftops and the sun-scorched branches of leafless trees in the middle of January. But I was. I’d never get used to a hot winter in Colorado.

  Few people ventured outside in the daytime anymore. The risk of getting caught in a sun storm was greater now than ever before, and only a rare few survived the storm’s lethal rain of radioactive sun sparks. Exposure killed you slowly with Sun Fever, or if you were lucky, it let you live with altered DNA that turned you into a freak. That’s what had happened to me. The sun and I were connected now. I could predict when a storm was about to happen, and there was one coming this way.

  I gripped the window blinds, my fingers like burning bands of iron as the premonition flowed through me. My entire body felt on fire from the inside out, and I wondered if exhaling hard enough would send flames dancing on my breath. But, no, I’d already tried that. The air from my lungs came out as red clouds of smoke instead.

  I had a half hour to warn the town to take cover before the storm hit. It was time to sound the alarm.

  Still vibrating from the effects of foreseeing a storm, I shook out my hands to rid them of the sensation of being pricked by a thousand needles. Wisps of crimson vapor curled off my fingertips. I hauled out the hand-crank siren from the bottom desk drawer in the hospital administration office and rushed out into the hall.

  I almost had a head-on collision with a nurse carrying a loaded tray of meds. The second she saw me she dropped her tray, and pills of myriad colors and sizes scattered across the gray linoleum floor. Her hand flew to her mouth, and her shock revealed the whites of her eyes. My physical appeara
nce during a forecast often had that effect on people. My eyes, which were normally pale blue like the sky, felt hot, and I was sure they glowed. It would be another minute or two before my body returned completely back to normal.

  “A storm’s coming?” the nurse asked. She knew of my ability to predict storms. Everyone in town knew. “Where?”

  A storm could happen anywhere and always did, but my scope of detection was limited to a two-hundred-mile radius. This time it was closer to home. It was home, in the same town where I was born, and it would arrive in thirty minutes. I felt a twinge of disappointment that I’d miss the thrill of chasing it, but I’d still get my kinetic energy fix. I needed it to function. “Here.”

  “You mean Lodgepole?”

  I nodded. “Notify hospital staff. If people don’t make it indoors in time, we should be prepared.”

  She bent to pick up her fallen tray, and I kicked it away. “Leave it. Hurry, okay?” I ran past her for the exit.

  After slipping in a set of earplugs, I gripped the red siren’s handle in one hand and operated the crank with the other. The wailing alarm traveled through the streets and echoed off buildings, alerting the tiny population of Lodgepole that a storm was coming. As long as they took shelter, everyone would be safe.

  The impending storm made me anxious and eager all at once, yet I felt concern for anyone who chose not to heed my warning. I prayed there’d be no casualties this time. We had only two doctors left, and I served as a hospital orderly in exchange for room and board, as well as medical care for my ailing father. Frequent heat strokes had wreaked havoc on his brain, as had the depression that set in after my mother died of Sun Fever. My father and I both lived at the hospital now.

  Like a football player hit so hard he hears ringing in his ears, the world had its bell rung when the biggest solar storm in history permanently blacked out half the northern hemisphere. We still heard echoes of that bell ringing as repeat storms sent radioactive sun sparks to infect hundreds of thousands of people with the deadly Sun Fever. Subsequent storms nudged the planet’s poles a little at a time, causing earthquakes and tsunamis around the globe. Electricity, and therefore clean water, was difficult to come by. I held out hope that given time, the world would return to normal. My mother had always told me to never lose hope, and as long as I believed conditions would improve someday, I would have something to look forward to.

  My attention was drawn to a bulletin board on the wall behind the vacant nurse’s station. A number of newspaper headlines had been tacked there as the hospital’s historical record of what was now known as the Bell Ringer. The clippings looked older than they were, having been yellowed and turned brittle by the hot dry air.

  Bell Ringer Blacks Out Canada

  Radioactive Sun Sparks Cause Lethal Fever

  Electronic Communication Ends for Ninety-Five Percent of the World

  Solar Storms Cause Heart Attacks, Short-Circuit Pacemakers

  Dry Conditions Cause Fires, Entire Cities Burn to the Ground

  My hands balled into fists as I reread these headlines for the hundredth time. Chain reactions between events had caused as much destruction as the solar storm that had started it all. Frustration with what I couldn’t change raised the hair on the back of my neck. I slapped the board and left a sweaty handprint that smeared the ink on the clippings.

  “Sarah!”

  I swung around to face whoever had called my name. One of the nurses stood by a window that looked out onto the street. She pointed outside, her face contorted with worry. “Sarah, come here, quick! It’s your father.”

  What the hell? I ran over to stand beside her and peered out the window. My dad, wearing only his plaid boxers and a dingy tank undershirt, shuffled clumsily toward the empty lot across the street.

  My father’s tattered sandals seemed to weigh down his feet as he dragged them over the hot asphalt. Gulping dry air that felt like a mouthful of thumbtacks, I ran to my room, which was next to my father’s, and jabbed my feet into a pair of rubber flip-flops with partially melted soles. My heart thudded with panic as I dug out the heavy anti-radiation blanket from a cupboard. I tucked a bottle of water in the waistband of my shorts. Practically tripping over my own feet, I raced down the steps for the front door.

  Going outside was like facing a furnace blast. I gazed up at a too-perfect blue sky, the sun a blazing orange orb that always appeared brightest just before a storm. The bottoms of my flip-flops stuck to the asphalt as I trotted across the street. I remembered a time when the hospital parking lot was always full and both sides of the street had been lined with cars. Not anymore. Tumbleweeds, dried leaves and pieces of old trash had taken their place.

  Dad, what were you thinking? But that was the problem. His thinking was far from clear, and I found him kneeling on the baked ground, his head bowed over the dirt as if in prayer.

  I flicked a glance at the sky. Red sparks glistened in the sunlight as they floated toward Earth. Though my mother had been exposed to the deadly sparks that killed her, my father never had. I wasn’t about to let it happen now.

  “Dad?” Having already been infected and changed by the sparks, they couldn’t hurt me, so I held the blanket over him and left myself exposed. I reached for his hand to help him up. Making an effort to keep panic from my voice, I said, “Let’s go home.”

  My gut clenched when he emptied his bottle of water over the dry ground. “Your mother forgot to water her vegetables today.”

  “She’ll be happy you took care of it for her.” Glittering sparks fell around us, bouncing off me as if I were made of rubber, yet their touch on my skin made me tingle from head to toe. I felt like a vessel filling to the brim with energy, but it wouldn’t last. My body buzzed with fallout from the storm.

  It hurt to lie, but I had to. “Let’s go tell Mom, okay?”

  My father nodded. “Okay.”

  I helped him to his feet, and he clung to me for balance. I noticed his knees were blistered from contact with the hot ground, and sweat beaded on his shiny scalp. Not only did I have to protect him from the sparks, I also had to get him inside and cool him off.

  “I don’t feel so good,” he said, then began to retch. He teetered on his feet, and I struggled to keep the blanket over him. Sparks were thick in the sky as the storm flooded the air with a hellish red glitter that dissipated on contact with the ground. I wasn’t strong enough to pick up my dad and carry him in. I hated taking the risk, but I’d have to wait it out and hope a spark never touched him.

  Just then I heard the crunch of quick footsteps over the sun-baked ground and saw a man with hair the color of maple wood running toward us. He wore gray scrubs, and his body was unprotected from the sparks.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I yelled. “Being out in the open during a sun storm is suicide.”

  “I could say the same to you.” The man stopped in front of me and attempted to grab my father, but I held on, not sure about handing my dad over to someone I didn’t know. “Let me help.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the stranger staring at me, his strong features a stoic mask of confidence. His eyes were a deep shade of chocolate, his skin ruddy from countless sunburns, and his thoughtful scowl wrinkled the skin just above his nose. Despite the fierce countenance, he was a handsome man. His full lips expressed neither joy nor distaste, but a practiced neutrality. He had the look of a troubled man.

  I blinked as I noticed the sun sparks bounce off him as they did me, which could only mean one thing. “You’re a—”

  “I’m a Kinetic, and I’d hazard a guess that you’re one, too.”

  Chapter Two

  “Now, let me help your old man, okay?” The stranger grabbed my dad away from me and gently lifted him up to cradle him in his arms, taking care to keep the blanket in place.

  “Are you a doctor?” I asked his back as I followed him inside.

  “I’m the new janitor.” He turned to face me, a long hank of hair falling over one eye. He jerked his head ba
ck, and the errant lock flipped aside to reveal a white scar that bisected his eyebrow. It suited him, and I was surprised by how attracted I was. I had no clue who, or what, this guy was, but I felt drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain.

  “Thank you, mister...”

  “Matthews. Ian Matthews, but please, call me Ian.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a snarly sort of smile. My heart quickened. “I’d shake your hand, but my arms are full.”

  “I’m Sarah Daggot. Thank you for helping my father.” I gestured for Ian to follow me to my father’s room, where he laid my dad on the bed.

  “Dad?” I took my father’s hand and rubbed it between both of mine. I checked him for the telltale purple rash that came with exposure, but his skin was clear. My shoulders lifted with a deep sigh of relief. “Can you hear me?”

  My father opened his eyes and nodded.

  “Be right back, okay?” I stepped out into the hall, and Ian came with me.

  “Will he be all right?” Ian asked.

  “I think so. This isn’t the first time he’s collapsed from the heat. I’m just glad he wasn’t infected. Thanks to you.” I didn’t like how flirty that sounded.

  “Lucky I saw you two out there. I heard your warning siren and figured I should stick around to help.” He still hadn’t smiled, but I was intrigued by the firm set of his jaw and how the corners of his lips made shallow dints on the sides of his mouth. I had a hard time looking away.

  “My dad has never wandered off before,” I said.

  “Dementia?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s becoming more common in heat stroke victims.”

  “It’s caused partly by the strokes, but also from depression after my mom passed away. Sun Fever took her from us about a year ago.”

  His eye made a sudden twitch, and he looked away from me to focus elsewhere. I think he knew what it was like to lose someone to the fever. I waited for him to say so, but he didn’t. So I did. “Has anyone close to you died of Sun—?”

  “I should let one of the doctors know about your dad,” Ian said. “I need to get back to work, but I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.” He started walking backward down the hall toward the stairs. “We’ll go out for a drink. What do you say?”