Ruins

Screw this, she thought. If I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it at all. She looked Marcus straight in the eyes. “Marcus, you know I’m in love with you, right?”

His mouth hung open a second, and then he smiled. “I didn’t know if I’d ever hear you say it again.”

“And you also know I’m in love with Samm?”

His mouth hung open a moment longer this time, his eyes clouded. “That’s not what I wanted to hear next, but still . . . thanks, I suppose. Better to hear it straight out.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.”

“So that’s why you kissed me?”

“That’s not why I wanted to kiss you, that’s just why I allowed myself to kiss you.”

Marcus shook his head. “Not sure that makes me feel better.”

“I made a choice because I thought it was the only one I had,” said Kira. “I know that’s horrible, but there it is. When I kissed him, it was for the same reason—I thought I was going to die, and I kissed him, and I told him I loved him. It’s like . . . I can throw away my whole life trying to help somebody else, but I can only do something for me if I know it doesn’t matter.”

“So you’ve kissed him, too,” said Marcus. “This is becoming an intensely confusing and uncomfortable conversation.”

“I’m so sorry, Marcus. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” said Marcus, though he was obviously struggling to find the right words. “We’re both pretty flawless specimens—I can barely choose between us either.”

Kira laughed. “My choices were so much easier to make when I thought the apocalypse was making them for me.”

“The apocalypse is still young,” said Marcus dryly. “Do you honestly think we’re all going to live through the next few days? Maybe you’ll die and I’ll end up with Samm.”

“Better him than Heron,” said Kira. “Whatever you do, stay away from her.”

“Done and done,” said Marcus. “I’ve only met her once, but . . . holy crap. If anyone does die in the next few days, I won’t be surprised if she’s the one pulling the trigger.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The Partial army didn’t arrive that day, and Kira’s refugees made it to the second outpost at Cross Bay Bridge without trouble. They lit their fires and huddled together through the night, listening for the sound of the Grid’s defensive traps and explosives, but they heard nothing.

“They’re not coming,” said Samm.

“Or they found the traps and disarmed them,” said Heron. She grinned at the nearby humans wolfishly. “Sorry, I’m a bit of an optimist.”

“Whose side are you on?” asked Marcus.

“This close to the end,” said Kira, “we all have to be on everyone’s side. We’re running from them because they’re trying to kill us, but we can’t survive without them. That’s how this works.”

“So how do we reconcile that with the ‘trying to kill us’ part?” asked Calix. “That’s going to make peaceful coexistence pretty impossible, by definition.”

“We’ll talk to them,” said Kira. “But we’ll get everyone to safety first. They’re angry—they think we blew up their home and murdered eighty percent of their species. We’ll get everyone clear—of them and of the fallout—and then when they don’t have anyone left to shoot at, we can talk to them.”

“They can still shoot whoever tries to talk to them,” said Marcus.

Kira nodded. “Here’s hoping that they don’t.”

The next day they loaded up with more dry clothes and walked the four miles to the third outpost. Kira was surprised to find that she’d been there before, on her first trip into Manhattan; they’d gone the long way around to hide, from both the Senate and the Voice, and crossed this bridge into Brooklyn. She hadn’t recognized the city in the snow, but the bridge was unmistakable. Beyond the outpost it was just three miles to the tip of the promontory, to Breezy Point itself, and Kira could already see the vast group of refugees—the entire human population—swarming over the land ahead. It filled her heart to see so many still alive, after living so long alone in the wilderness, but at the same time it chilled her, more profoundly than even the storm.

Every human on the island, she thought. I’ve never seen them all in one place before.

There’s so few of us.