In Yellowstone, living around other people (but not too close) gave us a sense of community. We made close friends, while also deepening our connection with nature. Discovering that my brother—assumed lost in the event of so many years ago—was still alive filled me with tremendous joy, and over the years a deeper bond had formed than what we had known as children. Our parents would have been overjoyed that we both survived and had found each other.
For Katie, the move to Yellowstone meant so much more than even we could have envisioned. Our life story was as much about her as it was about Lila and me. Now sixteen—the age Lila was when the world turned upside down—Katie had a fire raging inside her. Her thirst for discovery far eclipsed anything that Lila and I ever felt.
With her shiny raven hair flowing over her shoulders, and looking like a carbon copy of Lila at that age, she was much more confident and prepared for the world around her than we ever were. After all, she grew up having never known the life we had left behind. She was her own person—smart, capable, aware, ferocious when necessary, a loner to a great extent, but kind and loving beyond imagination. She no longer even went by the name of Katie. I just still called her that from time to time. She was now Cat. Not Kat, short for Katie, but Cat. Knowing who she had become and some of the experiences that had led her to that point in her life, the name certainly fit.
So when Cat announced one day that she and eleven other teenagers were leaving Yellowstone to explore the country, we weren't totally surprised. We also shouldn't have been worried. After all, Cat was one of the most self-reliant people we had ever known. And she would be surrounded by others who had grown up in this new world.
But the fact was, we were scared. Because we all knew that there was something terrifying out there…
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Eden Lost (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 2) Page 22