Ruins

“This is a really terrible time to even bring that up,” said Marcus, shooting him a hard glance. He looked back at Kira, who was trying her best not to scream. She breathed carefully, forcing herself to be calm. This is just another obstacle, she told herself. I’ve overcome others, I can overcome this one.

“This is always the hardest part,” she said.

Marcus raised his eyebrow. “Evacuating the entire human population of Earth from a nuclear fallout zone?”

Kira gave a sad smile. “Accepting that I can’t fix everything.”

She curled up in her bedroll apart from the others and tried to sleep. They needed to rise early in the morning and get to East Meadow quickly. The Partials had to listen to reason. She’d seen too many groups like Green’s and Falin’s, lost and directionless as Morgan withdrew ever deeper into her obsession. They were occupying the island because they didn’t know what else to do—surely she could convince them of her plan?

I need to save everyone, she thought. I can’t live with anything less. I won’t leave anyone behind.

Anyone else.

She fell asleep and dreamed of Samm.

In the morning Kira rose early, roused Green and Marcus, and set out for East Meadow. Newbridge Road was wide and straight, lined with trees and stores and crumbling houses. The center strip, which had once been grass, was now bursting up with bushes and saplings, lumpy and white with mounds of snow. The storm had stopped in the night, letting them see farther than they had in days, and the sun was blinding as it reflected off the fierce white sheet. A small breeze blew whorls of loose powder across the surface of the drifts, white ghosts on a white field. The crust was brittle, and they sank to their thighs with each freezing step.

One mile took them nearly an hour.

The closer they came to East Meadow, the more Kira felt her nerves wearing thinner, her teeth more on edge. The city was familiar—the only home she could remember—but it was intensely unfamiliar at the same time, eerily empty and buried in a death shroud of snow. When they reached the turnpike and turned west, they could see the hospital rising high above the rest of the city, the tallest building for miles, but where it was once the hub of a bustling community, it stood now pale and lifeless, the street leading up to it as silent as a tomb. Kira had lived her life among the abandoned detritus of a lost civilization—homes and buildings and cars full of skeletons; wearing dead girls’ clothes and living in dead men’s houses; watched by a thousand lifeless eyes from the family photos of the ones who hadn’t made it. It had never bothered her because it couldn’t—because it was the only world she’d ever known. The old world was gone, and they were building a new one in its ashes. Now she saw her world as theirs, her own life become a lifeless ruin. It made her feel numb, even more so than the cold and the snow and the tiny trickles of ice sliding down her frost-hardened face.

A nurse sat in the hospital lobby, alone in the cavernous silence. She looked up with a stunned expression, as shocked to see them as they were to see her, and after a moment Kira recognized her from her old days as an intern.

“Sandy?”

The woman smiled, polite but confused. Kira pulled off the long strip of blanket she’d been using as a scarf, and Sandy’s eyes went wide. “Kira Walker?”

Kira smiled back, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “Hi.” This city had gone through hell for her, daily executions trying to draw her out. For all she knew Sandy may have lost a loved one because of her. Kira watched her stand up and step toward her, hesitantly at first, but after a moment she was running, wrapping Kira in a tearful hug without regard for the wet slush that coated her chest and legs.

Kira hugged her back. “Where is everybody?”

“Running,” said Sandy, “or getting ready to. Haru sent word that the Partials are planning a final attack, to get rid of us for good.” Her face was pale with fear. “They’re going to wipe us out.”

“It’s not the Partials,” said Green darkly.

Kira furrowed her brow, thinking. “Where’s Haru?”

“We haven’t seen him,” said Sandy, “but we’ve seen refugees who have. The message reached us a few weeks before the snow, and we’ve been sneaking people out when we can. Now there are barely any Partials left in East Meadow, just for show more than anything, and we can leave more freely.”

“They’ve gone to fight rebels?” asked Kira.

Sandy shook her head. “They’re leaving, so they can bomb the whole city and wipe us out.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” said Kira, and got ready to explain about Delarosa and the bomb, but then decided against it. As long as everyone is scared enough to leave, Kira thought. “But Haru’s right, we are all in danger. What about you? Why haven’t you left?”