I shake my head, words too painful.
“But he’s okay, isn’t he?” Ella’s close enough to touch, her knees bent and her hands trembling. “I know he can’t be—he just can’t be dead.” Her last words soften, as if she’s trying to convince herself.
“He’s alive, I think,” I tell her. The Xua wouldn’t be looking for him again if he’d been killed. “The aliens took him, but I think he got away. So we have hope.” I give her a smile.
Tears glisten in the corners of her eyes. I put my right arm around her shoulders and pull her close. I have a feeling she might be alone here.
“Stay with us,” I say. She doesn’t balk or pull away. Instead she leans into me, her head on my shoulder, not speaking.
That’s all it takes.
Ella is one of us. Again.
I’m glad. Gabe would want her to be safe.
…
There are six of us now. That’s how many there were before we lost Gabe.
Ella joins us as we spend the next hour figuring out which room we’re going to make our base, during which time I ask about all the wild stuff I overheard. Eventually, we find an unused office. Soft voices drift in from the corridor while Carla, Ella, and I carefully arrange Natalie’s bedding; the boys just toss their stuff on the floor. I spread out my sleeping bag between a cot set up for Natalie’s IV and a mat Ella’s been carrying around. Even though everyone says our stuff will be safe, I hang on to my backpack. No way do I want a little kid or an addict stumbling onto the pharmacy I’ve been carrying around.
“Did you guys hear about the Xua that were killed somewhere in South America?” I ask. A girl just brought us each a bowl of hot soup and I take a sip. It’s a thin broth with lumps of potato and carrots, and it tastes like ambrosia.
“Yeah,” Billy answers. “A team of Xua attacked a coffee plantation in Columbia.”
“Why would they attack a plantation? Up until now, they’ve been going for cities.”
Billy shrugs. “Must have been a mistake. Anyway, the guys working in the fields charged the aliens and killed ’em all with machetes.”
“Brutal. Wish we had them on our team.”
Billy and Justin grin. Carla retreats to a nearby corner, and apparently her head’s full of dark thoughts, because she sits with her gaze focused on the floor. Natalie lies down on her cot and quickly falls into a deep sleep. I pull a blanket over her and check to make sure she ate her soup. She did.
I motion for the rest of us to go in the hallway. There we sit, side by side, none of us ready to mingle with the other people here yet. They walk past us, most with heads down, one hand always carrying a weapon. Even the smallest ones have something.
My heart twists when I see a little boy—he can’t be more than five—trudging past all alone, a ragged blanket draped over a shoulder, thumb in his mouth, one hand dragging a T-ball bat behind him.
“Hey, where ya going?” I ask him.
He stops and gives me a blank stare, his cheeks pink, his sandy brown hair mussed. His thumb slides from his mouth, and he tries to speak several times, but no words come out. I settle down beside Justin and pat the floor in front of us.
“Come and sit with us,” I say.
He hesitates. I stretch out my arms, remembering how many times I used to hold Gabe. When he had nightmares, when the kids at preschool teased him. When I just wanted to give him a hug.
“What’s your name, buddy?” Justin asks with a grin.
“Bran,” the boy whispers, although it’s barely audible.
I see marks on the side of his face as he shuffles closer. They could be burns; I’m not sure. It looks like the medical staff has already treated him, so he’s got to be on some pain meds or antibiotics. He sits beside us, and I lightly put my arm around his shoulders, that knife in my chest twisting even harder when he leans into me.
“Are you taking medicine?” I ask.
He nods and pulls a small vial from his pocket. I read the label and try to figure out when his next dose is. Looks like it’s in about an hour, at bedtime.
There are a lot of questions I want answers for. Things like, where is my brother; if Aerithin is alive, then why didn’t he come back for me; and what am I supposed to do next? I’m supposed to be saving the world, but so far all we’ve done is struggle to survive.
But I can’t talk about stuff like that in front of the kid. My gaze slides toward Carla. She’s crying so softly you can’t hear it, her shoulders shaking, her lips curled in.
What brought you here, Carla? I want to ask. She had a gang of her own, even bigger than mine, and her dad still had connections with the military. So how did they all die, and why was she looking for me?
But I don’t say anything. I just pull Bran onto my lap, careful not to touch the burns on his face.
Bran takes his thumb out of his mouth. Long dark eyelashes blink up at me. He looks like a tiny angel, wounded and broken, but still carrying a piece of heaven in his eyes.
“My mommy’s sleeping,” he says.
For the first time, I notice the blood stains on his clothes. There’s a clean spot across his chest and waist, as if he was in the backseat of a car, strapped into a booster seat.
I wrap my arms around him, hiding my face. I can’t hold the tears back any longer. They slide down my cheeks. I try to wipe them away but they won’t stop, so I close my eyes and I pretend that it’s ten years ago and this is my little brother in my lap.
39
About an hour passes, then everyone around us starts heading toward the far side of the building. I wonder if it’s some sort of evacuation. Have the Xua found us, and are we all responding to a silent signal the people at the front door forgot to mention?
Natalie’s still asleep, and I don’t want to leave her. Then I realize Billy has pulled a chair beside her cot, a blanket draped over his shoulders.
“You going to stay here?” I ask him.
He nods, then answers in a soft voice. “I’m not leaving until she wakes up.”
Maybe there are some good things going on during this apocalypse after all, besides Justin and me. Billy’s got it, right through the heart and then some. Any doubts I had before about his feelings for Natalie have vanished. He’s waist-deep in the ocean, waiting for the next wave to pull him out to sea.
Love. Makes you do funny things.
“We’ll come back for you if anything important happens,” Justin says, pulling me to my feet.
Billy nods.
At least he’s got that rifle Manny gave us. He can protect Natalie.
Meanwhile, all the other kids continue to head in the same direction. Both Carla and Ella watch me, waiting to see if I’ll join the crowd. Bran holds out his hand, T-ball bat in the other, and I take his tiny fist in mine, letting him lead the way. The rest of our small group follows behind.
Justin walks at my side, holding my hand. Then he reaches down, picks Bran up in his other arm, and carries him. I listen to how he talks to the kid, tries to get him to laugh by telling stupid jokes, and finally, believe it or not, he gets the kid to smile.
I’m so in love with this guy it makes my insides hurt. Just watching him gives me hope. Just having him at my side makes me think we can win.
Together.
Then he glances at me and notices the expression on my face. “You all right?”
I swallow, my throat dry. “Later, okay?”
“Sure.” He leans closer, kisses the top of my head, and then gives me one of those grins that makes me melt.
Up ahead of us, the doors to a large conference room hang open. Several members of the adult staff guard the doors, rifles strung over their shoulders, weary grins on their faces. Right now, they’re handing out watery hot chocolate to everyone who goes inside. I take mine, slip my fingers around the paper cup, let the warmth sink into my bones.
Carla has one hand on my arm, and apparently now is a good time to talk.
…
I’m expecting her to open up, but we just lean against the wall, drinking hot chocolate. The first sip burns my tongue and, after that, I can’t taste anything. We both stare across the hallway, waiting until all the kids and the adults have gone inside the conference room and the door closes. I’m hoping there’s no wacky Kool-Aid ceremony going on in there. But then, I always worry about the stuff I can’t control.
After the last person has gone inside, I realize the other side of the hall is covered with poster-size stills from those videos Natalie and I made. You can’t tell it’s me in those photos, but that was never the point. Beneath the posters, someone used orange spray paint to write “Death To The Zow” in big dripping letters.
I can’t help but smile at the misspelling.
And then farther down the corridor, in all caps, the word “VICTORY!”
My left hand slides into my pocket, fingers running over Natalie’s beads. None of this feels right without her at my side.
Carla nudges me. “Here.” She opens her palm and reveals a small plastic wand drive.
“What’s this?” I ask as I take it.
“My dad wanted you to have it.” She tries to smile but fails.
I turn the drive over in my hand. “Is there something about Noah on here?” That’s the only thing I can think of.
“I don’t know. It’s top-secret. My dad wasn’t working on that project, so he only heard bits and pieces about it now and then. But he always said there would be a war in my lifetime that would end everything, unless some guy named Noah could help us.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened after you left Snake City?” Or maybe why men with guns were chasing you and that’s why Natalie got shot?
Eyes focused on her shoes, she starts to talk, her voice an eerie monotone. It’s almost like she saw a ghost or a horror movie, and she’s trying to keep her emotions in check.
“I stayed and fought with Justin almost all night. My team was there, too. But then I got a call from my dad—the Xua were attacking Camp Pendleton and other military bases nearby. He wanted me to meet him.”
Her voice cracks, and she pauses, closing her eyes before continuing.
“You know I’m a Genetic, like Justin. Except my parents didn’t go through the GEIVE lottery to get me. My dad pulled a lot of strings because…” She pauses, her eyes tearing up. “Because he wanted a child who would be able to survive this.” She gestures with her arms. “My dad trained me himself. Morning and night, every single day. That’s why I know how to fight and shoot and survive, but what good did it do me? Or him? He’s gone! He’s one of the Xua that shot at us!”
Her dad must be a Hunter now.
I blink, fighting tears. When I speak, my words come out as a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Carla. I didn’t know.”
She shrugs. “It is what it is, right? You lost your brother. We all lose someone.”
I take a shallow breath. Whenever anyone mentions Gabe, it feels like I got punched in the chest.
“Last night, I left Snake City, found my dad, and together we fought the Xua,” Carla continues in a broken voice. “A group of us managed to escape, and that was when I told Dad about you. He said he had to talk to you. At first I thought you were at your school, but you were already gone.”
I think about that chip she gave me and how I left it in my backpack at school. Natalie didn’t give it back to me until the coffee shop.
“It has a GPS tracker in it,” she explains. “That’s how we keep track of people down in the river.”
I nod.
“We were attacked again after we left the school and were driving along the coast. The world filled with mirrors. None of us could see where we were going—not even the guy driving—and I thought our jeep was going to crash. We spun in a circle, and the car next to us flipped over and rolled toward the ocean.”
I bite my lip. I’ve seen those mirrors too many times. A shiver turns my arms to gooseflesh.
“Then aliens came out of nowhere, more than I could count. Most of them were behind us, attacking other cars on the freeway—but some of them came after us. The Xua turned into smoke, and they got inside our jeep. It was awful. They were swirling around our heads, and we couldn’t see. Then another car crashed into us, and we got pushed off the freeway, even closer toward the ocean. Those smoky Xua were still curling around us. I knew I had to keep my mouth closed, so I did. Without saying anything, my dad yanked the door open and pulled me out. Together we ran toward the beach. Once we were there, on the sand, I thought we were going to get away—”
She shudders and stops talking.
“But you did get away. You’re okay now,” I say.
“Not really.”
The conference room door thumps open, and Justin steps out. He pauses on the other side of the hall and leans against the wall, watching us. He just waits, like we might need him soon. His eyes meet mine.
“My dad put this in my backpack and told me to find you,” she says, gesturing to the plastic wand drive.
“Why me?”
“I don’t know. He just pushed me into the ocean. He told me to swim and not to look back, no matter what. I almost drowned with that stupid pack on my back. I probably would have, except I’ve been training since I was four…”
“Whatever happened, it’s okay,” I tell her. “You’re safe now.”
She catches a long breath, then closes her eyes again. When she starts to speak, it sounds like she’s a million miles away. “I did what my dad said. I started swimming, but I didn’t get very far before the aliens showed up. I didn’t look back; I couldn’t. But I know they came down on the beach, because my dad started yelling.”
Another long pause and I’m trying hard not to see that beach in my mind, but I can. I can see it all—her dad surrounded, them holding him down. I’ve seen how the Xua torture humans. It’s awful.
“They didn’t possess him. Not yet, anyway,” she continues. “It would have been quiet if they did. So they probably tried to make him call me back. But he wouldn’t. He just kept cursing at them, telling them to go to hell. I wanted to help him—”
“There were too many of them, Carla,” Justin reminds her.
“What good is being a Genetic if you can’t save the people you love?” she asks, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I bet I could have killed at least five of those monsters, maybe ten. I could have saved my dad.”
Again I’m running the tiny flash drive through my fingers. It has a waterproof casing and a loop on one end, like it was meant to wear on a cord around your neck.
“I kept swimming,” Carla says, her words a dark confession. “Even though my dad was yelling, I just kept swimming away from him. I thought the Xua were going to follow me, but they didn’t. I swam up the coast, until I came to San Onofre Beach. There I crept onto the shore and hid for a while. After that, I made my way to Pacific Coast Highway and, from there, I stole a car and drove back to Santa Ana, looking for you and following that marker.”
“I’m sorry, Carla, really,” I say.
But her words keep playing over and over in my head. Something that Carla just said is really important—I can feel it. It’s like my brain is on fire. I force myself to go back over every detail, looking for a clue.
“You were in the ocean,” I say, thinking.
Carla nods.
“And the Xua didn’t come after you?”
She shakes her head.
Okay. So they don’t like the ocean. But why? Is it that they can’t swim, are they afraid of sharks, are they allergic to water? There
must be something they were trying to avoid…
I gasp. “Oh my God!”
Both Carla and Justin just stare at me.
“Don’t you see it? The rain today didn’t bother them. There was still a Xua frenzy, plowing through Santa Ana. So it wasn’t water that stopped them from following Carla. There’s something about the ocean,” I say. “Something they really don’t like.”
Lightness, like a houseful of sunshine, fills my head. I think I just figured out one of the Xua’s weaknesses.
The ocean, a large body of water, stopped them.
A large body of salt water.
40
Once I’ve convinced Justin and Carla that I’m right, we slip into the conference room where the kids have been telling stories about what’s happened since the invasion. I’m practically vibrating with the need to either demand one of the Xua stationed at this abandoned building talk to me or wake up Natalie and figure out what to do with our salt theory. Justin wants me to wait until morning, and Natalie needs rest. Honestly, we all do.
After half an hour, the kids begin to fall asleep. Some of them curl up together in the middle of the floor, a mass of little arms and legs, sharing blankets. Others hide in the darkened corners of the room, their weapons still clutched to their chests.
At that point, Justin, Carla, and I tiptoe out of the room, Bran in my arms. Ella follows us. The door swings open, and a flow of fresh air calms me just a bit. Tomorrow morning, Natalie will be feeling better, and we’ll come up with the plan that’ll win this war.
We’re passing the makeshift cafeteria before we realize we’re being followed.
Two little girls about eight years old are just a few feet behind us. I know the instant I see them—the lost expression in their eyes—that they have no one here, no older sisters or brothers.
We stop and wait for them. Justin reaches down and scoops one of the girls up into his arms. She leans her head against his chest, her brown-gold hair tumbling over her face. Carla takes the other girl’s hand and then, together, we head back to the office we claimed, taking a small army of children with us.
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