Ruins

“Don’t say that.”

“I thought I was made for something terrible,” said Kira, “and then I thought I was made for something great, and now it turns out I wasn’t made for anything. I’m just . . . here.”

“You mean like everybody else?” asked Marcus. His eyes were kind, almost smiling, but Kira looked away.

“It’s not like that,” she said.

“It’s exactly like that,” said Marcus. “Nobody has a . . . destiny. I mean, nobody has some kind of inescapable path for their life. This mug was made from clay, and that clay could have been anything at all until somebody made it into a mug. People aren’t mugs, we’re clay. Living, breathing, thinking, feeling clay, and we can shape ourselves into anything we want, and we keep shaping ourselves all our lives, getting better and better at whatever we want to be, and when we want to be something else we just smooth out the clay and start over. Your lack of ‘purpose’ is the single best thing about you, because it means you can be whatever you want.”

She closed her eyes, her chest swelling with hope, her heart crying out to believe him, but she couldn’t. Not yet. “What about the Partial soldiers?” she asked. “They were built for one thing, and one thing only—are they locked in one place? They can’t even disobey orders without working against their own biology. What are they supposed to do now?”

“Believing that they had no choices is the attitude that ended the world,” said Marcus. He paused, staring at the floor, and then spoke again. “I had a friend named Vinci—I suppose after the nuke you might never get the chance to meet him, but he was a good man. He was Partial infantry, a sentry in Trimble’s army, but he was also funny, and clever, and smart enough to see that his world wasn’t working, and brave enough to try to change it. He remade himself as much as any human ever has. Look at Green, or Falin.” He shrugged, and his voice grew distant. “Look at Samm.”

“Samm changed,” said Kira, nodding. “So did Heron.”

“You saw Heron again?”

“We were almost friends,” said Kira, and stared at the swirls of her tea. “Not quite, but almost.”

“She helped you get to Denver?”

Kira nodded. “I came back with Morgan, but Samm and Heron stayed behind to help the survivors. I thought one day I might see them again, but then the snow made travel almost impossible, and now with the bomb, I just . . .” She thought about Samm, and their final moments. Their one and only kiss. She searched for the right words to express feelings she wasn’t even sure of. “I miss them, but I’m glad they’re not here. I’m glad they’re safe. I hope they stay safe, and stay in Denver, and if I’m right about the cures, they can live long, happy lives way after the rest of us all die of cancer or hypothermia or . . . bullets. Or crazy madmen who want to kill us and steal our blood.”

Marcus took a sip of his tea. “You make it sound so dangerous here.”

Kira laughed—not a loud laugh or a strong one, barely a chuckle, but more genuine than anything she’d felt in a long time.

“Dangerous and hopeless,” said Marcus. “But I don’t believe it is. You weren’t ‘designed’ to cure RM, but you did it anyway. You weren’t designed to cross the toxic wasteland, but you did that too, and then you escaped from I don’t know how many bad guys, and crossed through the middle of a war zone, and while every other group of weary, bloodied refugees is getting smaller and smaller, yours is getting bigger. You’re teaching people, and you’re recruiting people, and it’s not because you were built that way, or because you had some kind of glorious destiny to fulfill, but because you’re you. You’re Kira Walker. You’re not going to save the world because you’re the chosen one, you’re going to save it because you want to save it, and nobody in this world works harder for what they want than you do.”

Kira put down her mug. “I’ve really missed you, Marcus.”

He grinned. “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys.”

She had loved him once, but then she’d changed and he hadn’t. Now that she’d found him again . . . “You’re not the man I left.”

“It’s been kind of a busy year.”

“Put down your mug.”

He blinked, surprised, then set his mug on the table just before she stepped into him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him fiercely. He kissed her back and she pressed him against the counter, holding him tightly, needing him more in this moment than she’d ever needed anything. Outside the storm raged, the mainland burned, and the island cowered in fear. Kira forgot it all and kissed Marcus.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“They’re coming,” said Falin.

Kira looked up from her pack, fitting in the last bottles of frozen water. “Who?”

“The whole damn Partial army,” said Falin, racing to catch up. He’d been halfway up an office building, scouting behind them while Kira and Marcus and the rest of the refugees foraged for food. “They’re in East Meadow now, but they’re not stopping. They probably already got word that the humans had fled.”

“The entire army?” asked Marcus.