At one point, I thought I heard Lockwood yell that we were almost there, but my ears rang so loudly that all I could hear was my heartbeat thudding and thudding and thudding against my eardrums—begging desperately to be allowed to live to see another day.
As I continued to push my legs forward, I vaguely made out the tree line. A sense of hope surged through me. I wasn’t sure what awaited us in those woods, but it felt like escape.
How strange that the random collection of earth, trees, and rocks could be both heaven and hell. Of course, I knew it was just a place; it held no meaning except what man assigned to it.
Lockwood tugged against my arm. As the dust began to lessen the further we moved from the community, I could see the forest more clearly.
We were going to make it.
We were going to survive.
And then the world went black.
Chapter 19
My eyelids fluttered open.
As the light of a new day broke through the darkness that pursued me constantly, my eyelids shut again.
It was the light that pained me now.
I was afraid of what I would see. The minute they opened, the world would once again be changed. It was always evolving and becoming something new, altered in ways that if I was going to survive, I would have to learn to live with.
“I think she’s waking up.”
“Robert?” I whispered. I still refused to open my eyes. I had to make sure it was him first. I needed to know I still had someone. That was the trouble of letting yourself need people—it made you strong and weak all at once.
“Yes, Tess. It’s me.”
I slowly let my eyes open. Robert’s face looked down at me from above. “Welcome back.” He smiled.
“What happened?” My voice was scratchy and sore from a mixture of screams and dust.
“One of your father’s bombs went off next to the entrance. The force of it blew both you and Lockwood back. You hit your head pretty hard on the ground,” he explained.
My stomach dropped. “Lockwood?” I tried to sit up. My head felt like it had been stuffed with bricks.
Robert gently held my shoulder down. “Easy there. You’ve been out almost twelve hours. Slowly,” he urged, helping me to sit.
I reached up to find my head covered in a bandage still damp with blood. “Lockwood?” I asked again.
“He’s fine. A bit bruised but living.”
I exhaled. “Who?” Robert raised an eyebrow at my question, but I swallowed back my fear. “Who?” I repeated. I wasn’t going to back down. He knew what question I was asking: who did we lose?
Robert searched my eyes. Whatever he found in them, he could no longer look at me. “What matters right now is that you take it easy. Your father is re-grouping, and then we’ll decide what to do from there. Till then, you need to rest.”
I blinked back tears, surprised they even came to me at all. The smallest mention of my father and I was ready to fall to pieces. Fall to pieces over a man who chose war over family. Had it all been a lie? Every last moment he played the role of father since he had been back? “So, my father is all right then?”
Robert gave a small smile. “Yes, he’s just fine.”
I took a shaky breath and tried to still my nerves. Fear and relief danced inside me wildly, bumping and jostling against each other. “Will you help me up?” I asked, a slight tremble to my voice. Robert opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “I’m awake now. There’s no point pretending I can just sit here and not know,” I challenged, forcing strength into my voice.
Strength I didn’t quite feel.
Robert reluctantly helped me to my feet and linked his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him as we walked through a makeshift medical station that seemed to go on for a good hundred feet. A road of blankets and moaning victims. Men and women. Children. As we moved down the line, I saw all sorts of ailments—injuries that ranged from minor cuts and bruises to amputations much like the one Al had to get.
Al.
The first body I came across. Littered among the suffering naturals were the bodies of those who had died during the hours of my unconsciousness. I didn’t feel much as I stared down at the body of the man who had tried to have James killed. If anything, I felt sorry for him. But I didn’t feel loss.
I thought back to one of the last conversations I had with McNair. He had called the community a new country. He said he hoped it would be a place where they could all start over and avoid the mistakes of the past. But as I looked at one of its former leaders, broken and dead, I wondered if there was any place to start over again.
It seemed like the naturals would always be running from their past.
As we moved down the line, Robert squeezed my shoulder. “What is it?” I asked, looking up at him. I felt the blood drain from my face. He had been trying to warn me. Whatever I was about to see would be terrible.