Ruins

“Not that,” said Marcus, and took her by the shoulder. “That.” He turned her around, facing north toward the mainland, and she gasped. Out across the fields and forests, beyond the low hills of the island’s northern face, the sky was red and roiling, burning like a low flame. A massive mushroom cloud dominated the horizon, miles wide and towering into the atmosphere.

Green joined them on the roof, his link data so black with despair that even Kira could feel it. It made her sick. His voice was soft and ghostly. “White Plains is gone.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Mohammad Khan died at 8:34 p.m., in a small house on the North Shore. The disease had brought him to the brink of death; add the pressure the winter conditions had put on his body, and it was simply too much for a weeks-old baby to handle. Isolde was in the basement, holding him and crying, completely inconsolable. Ariel stood by the back windows, overlooking a steep, rocky bluff above the sound, and looked west to the mainland. To the mushroom cloud.

The Partials were gone.

They were her enemy, but they were also her people. The only real, biological link she had in the world, behind all the lies and deceptions, and she’d never even known them. There were still Partials on the island, of course, though she figured the group that had killed Senator Kessler was gone now. Dead of the same plague that killed Khan, she thought, but the thought gave her no joy, no vindictive triumph at the parity of their deaths. Nobody needed to die in that building, and yet six people did, and three more were wounded, and now Khan’s gone and White Plains is gone and . . . everything’s gone. Xochi had taken a bullet in the hip, and another in her hand; Hobb had taken two in his back, which Nandita said had pierced his lung and liver. As poorly as Hobb was doing, Ariel wondered if Isolde might be the next to die. She was physically unharmed, but her soul was destroyed.

Nandita herself had been clipped in the shoulder, the lightest of the wounds, but her gene mods had accelerated her healing so dramatically that the hole was already starting to close.

Ariel played with the gun in her hands, flicking the safety on and off. On and off.

Even if we could travel, we don’t have anywhere to go. That child was the entire purpose of our journey—protecting him, getting him to safety, curing his disease. He gave us a direction and a reason to hope. A reason to stay together. Now that he’s gone, what do we do next?

On and off. On and off.

Ariel knew exactly what to do next; she’d been planning it since the day Khan was born. Help Nandita save him, and then . . .

She turned and walked downstairs.

It was warmer down there, the windows blocked with old clothes and couch cushions, and a broken nightstand burning slowly on the bare cement floor of the laundry room. The house was barely half a mile from the country club, but still farther than Xochi or Hobb could have traveled on their own. Ariel had dragged them here, sliding them over the snow on a makeshift sled while the Partials, terrified of the infant bioweapon, had fled just as quickly in the other direction. For all Ariel knew, they’d gotten back to Riverhead before they died, and given the disease to everyone else. She looked at Hobb, bandaged like a ragged mummy and sedated on the floor, still completely unaware that his son was dead. He’d risked his life to save the child, which Ariel had never expected. She crept past him, past Xochi, past the wailing form of Isolde, to the last room in the narrow hallway. Nandita was sitting in the dark.

“The mushroom cloud is gone,” said Ariel. “No sign of anyone chasing us.”

“I imagine they’re somewhat preoccupied,” said Nandita. “Under the circumstances.”

Ariel sat across from her. Nandita had to see the gun in her hand, in silhouette at the very least, but she said nothing about it.

On. Off.

“You think Hobb’s going to last the night?”

“I don’t know,” said Nandita.

“I can’t help but think it’ll be easier for him if he dies,” said Ariel. “He sacrificed himself to save his son, and now he has to wake up and hear that his sacrifice didn’t mean anything.”

“His child did not survive,” said Nandita. “That doesn’t mean his sacrifice didn’t mean anything.”

The fire spit and crackled behind them.

On. Off.