At the End of Everything, page 23
I don’t know what’s worse. Not sleeping enough or dreaming too much. I try to steer the conversation in another direction. “What do you think the world will look like when all of this is over?”
“If there’s a world left by the end of it, you mean?”
“Wow, bitter much?” I’m not used to that. Not from him.
He closes his eyes and doesn’t speak for such a long time that I worry he’s fallen asleep. When he finally does answer, his voice is distant. “I hope there are still ice cream parlors. Do you know that’s what I miss most? Before I ended up with my foster family, I lived with my sister, Ashley, in a small apartment above the pharmacy where she worked. It was barely big enough for her and too cramped for the both of us, but we made do for almost a year. She wasn’t great at taking care of me, but every Friday after work, she’d take me to this tiny frozen custard place. Each week, we tried a different flavor. Vanilla custard. Birthday cake. Mango gelato. Mint chocolate chip. We had three flavors left on the menu by the time I was taken away from her. Those first few nights in foster care, I repeated the flavors to myself, over and over and over.”
“How old were you?” I ask softly.
He scrunches up his face. “Six.”
“What were the flavors?”
“Lime. Toffee. Stracciatella.” The words have a singsong quality to them, and I wonder how often he still repeats them. My stomach growls at the thought of it. “If the world ever goes back to normal, I want to go back to her. And taste those flavors of ice cream.”
“Do you know if she’s—” I stop myself. “That sounds good.” I rock back and forth on the bed, my fingers still clutching the edge. “I’d like that for you.”
“I also want to graduate,” he admits, after another bout of silence. He doesn’t answer the question I nearly asked. “Find a way to work in a hospital.”
“Go to med school?” I ask.
He raises his eyebrows. “Got a problem with that?”
“No.” I tilt my head, considering. “After all of this, I wasn’t sure that’s what you wanted to keep doing.”
“It’s because of all of this that I do.” He settles in a bit more comfortably. He folds his arms behind his head and leans against the wall. “I don’t know if med school is for me. I don’t know that I’d want to become a doctor or anything, but maybe I could go to nursing school. I want to learn how to care for people. I want to be able to help.”
“I respect that.”
“Hope for a Better Future, hmm?” He smirks.
I scowl. “You’re hilarious.”
“I know.” His grins softens to a real smile. “I like the idea of a brighter future though, Grace. Something to work toward. One day, this plague will be over. You read the notice; they’re working on medication. If we get the rations, if we can survive that long, we can endure whatever comes next.”
“I know,” I say, plucking at the hem of my shirt. Something of that same fire from before settles inside me, but it’s not anger this time. It’s fierce determination. “But it has to be more than that. You told me yourself. Survival alone isn’t good enough.”
“So we live,” he says. “We thrive. We eat ice cream. We travel the world. We chase our wildest dreams and our most impossible fantasies. We wish on every falling star, and we love with abandon.” He changes position to sit a little straighter. “And whether that happens once the plague is vanquished or we are free again, I don’t care. It’s enough to know that it will. It must. For ourselves, and for the people we carry with us. Everyone who should still be with us, if only someone had cared.”
“We can’t live for them,” I say.
“No one can, but we can remember.” Casey balls his hands into fists. “We can remember that every single one of them deserved to live as much as we do. Nothing we did out there merited being abandoned and left to starve. Nothing we did merited a death sentence, and we will not forget that.”
“So, do you want to work in a hospital or overthrow the government?” I attempt to jest, but Casey’s steely gaze sobers me.
“Both, if I have to.” He shakes his head. “Food and medicine, Grace. What on earth did we do that means we don’t warrant that? Aren’t we human?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue. To ask him why he got sent here in the first place. He’s one of the few people in Hope who’s managed to keep his secrets close to his chest. It cost him quite a few cuts and bruises from the west wing.
I bite it back, but his eyes darken anyway. He was always too good at reading me, and it seems unspoken words can still hurt. He rocks to his feet.
“Does it matter, Grace? Maybe I shot someone. Does that mean I don’t matter anymore? If I did what your foster brother did and assaulted a girl, would I deserve this? Maybe it was armed robbery or murder that got me sent here. Would that be enough to let me die in an outbreak? Where do you draw the line?”
I narrow my eyes. “None of us are that bad. Remember? We’re here because the state and Better Futures believed we could be rehabilitated and turned into productive members of society.”
“God, yes, productive. Because that’s all we should care about.” He grimaces. “Is bad the opposite of human, Grace?”
I hesitate. “I don’t know.”
“The twins were convicted for arson and attempted manslaughter. Are they bad?” He breathes out hard. “Besides, if we are left to our own devices, do you think it’s any better in detention facilities? This is supposed to be a good place.”
“I guess not,” I admit. I hadn’t thought about it or about anything else beyond these walls and this community. I couldn’t. I can’t.
Casey does the unthinkable. He grabs me by my shoulders and pulls me to my feet. He wraps his arms around me and holds me so closely, I might suffocate. He holds me close enough that I can smell the citrusy shampoo we stole and the scent of musk and detergent. He holds me until I stop resisting, stop shaking, stop tearing up.
He holds me until I cling to him in return and everything is right and the world may stop turning around us.
“We can’t forget, Grace. Promise me you won’t. We are the only ones who can save ourselves.”
My voice is muffled. “I promise.”
I won’t.
I’ll save them all if I have to.
I’ll carry his words with me when we go into town tomorrow, like a shield, an anchor, a guiding light.
Like a memory of who we were and who we will someday be.
Thirty
Logan
Five of us leave Hope. Almost half of everyone who’s left. The others, minus Leah and Xavier, come to see us out. Over the past few days, the importance of this trip has grown, and it makes me nervous. I don’t want us to fail. I don’t want us to be disappointed.
We walk to town together but split off before we get there. Nia and I in our cleanest and best, with surgical masks that Grace stole from one of the houses. I try not to think too hard about who wore them before us. Emerson wears their Sam’s Throne disguise uncomfortably. Their shirt is a little too small, the jeans a little too wide, and they keep rolling their shoulders. When they put on the woolen jacket that Sofia found, they complained that it itched. But they don’t look like they come from Hope, and that’s what matters.
Grace and Riley keep some distance behind us.
Nia nearly rubs elbows with me while we walk toward the town center, her eyes darting around. Her breath catches several times. “It’s so empty here. Where is everybody?”
“At the town hall,” I sign. “Or dead.”
She swallows hard. “Do you think this’ll work?”
“I think it’s worth a try.”
“What if it doesn’t? What do we do then?”
“We let Emerson try. If they don’t succeed either…”
“We’ll figure something out, though I don’t know what yet.” Nia spends all her time in the kitchen. She knows how empty our stores are.
“Exactly.”
“This is our last chance, isn’t it?”
The reality of that set in for all of us over the past couple of days. From good chance, to best chance, to last chance. I don’t know what to say.
“Stay close to me, will you?”
I reach for her hand and squeeze her fingers. I keep my eyes on the street in front of me and refuse to count the plague signs for a change. Instead, we follow the easiest route toward the main street. We avoid the church and the school. The house with the dolls inside and the last one we cleared. It had an unfinished painting of a father and his daughter at a carnival on an easel. The picture used as reference leaned against it.
When we get closer to the town hall, other people join us on our route too. Some glance in our direction, but most keep their heads down. They’re alone. As hesitant as Nia and me. As scared too.
I try not to stare, but I need to be aware of them. Where they are, how they walk, how close they might get. It’s why Leah would ask me to stand guard when she went out stealing.
The door in the house to our right opens. A young woman walks out with a toddler in her arms. The girl has blue ribbons in her hair, and she’s wearing a cute, yellow dress that’s too large for her. The woman’s gaze meets mine for a second, then she immediately looks down. She clings the girl closer to her.
On the other side of the street, a boy in a wheelchair makes his way down the street. He’s wearing headphones and a mask, and he pays attention to nothing and no one but the empty road in front of him. He speeds past us.
“Do you think any of them survived the plague?” Nia whispers. “Do you think they are still waiting for others to recover too?”
I shrug. I don’t know, but it’s the nightmare that haunts me. The idea that there are people like Leah out there, not surrounded by friends or family, but in marked houses. Alone.
The closer we get to the center, the busier it gets. Occasionally people shout across the street and greet each other, though they keep a careful distance.
The first time it happens, Nia tenses up completely, and I freeze in my tracks.
She tugs at my hand. “Come on. We’ve got to keep going.”
By the time we turn onto the main street, the silence I’ve grown used to here has made way for a soft buzzing of voices, the occasional shout, and once, children laughing.
Nia starts at that, before she laughs too. “Wow, that’s different.”
“Everything is.” Everything is different, and I wish I could show Leah this. She’d like it. She’d appreciate that people still manage to find ways to live.
She’d appreciate it and wouldn’t have a clue what it means, because she never saw any of this. The mere thought of it hits me hard. Leah still lives in another world. She wouldn’t understand it.
Three trucks are set up at the parking lot near the town hall. In front of them, tables are covered in large boxes of food and whatever else is handed out here. Soldiers with guns guard both. They’re all wearing masks and face shields and gloves. This must be the protective gear the note mentioned.
People form long lines in front of the tables, but no one hands out parcels yet. I assume it’s because it’s nowhere near noon yet, but the lines are growing. One or two people stand close together, with masks and hungry expressions, then there’s a gap of a careful distance followed by people. And so on, until the line turns the corner.
I nudge Nia. “We should get in line.”
She nods, speechless. Her hand goes to her pocket, and she takes out a torn piece of paper. On it is the story we wrote, the one we rehearsed until we know it by heart. She’ll have to do the talking, but if it’s necessary, I will be able to prompt her.
When we get in line, the people in front of us turn and stare. An elderly Black lady with a big, plaid scarf around her shoulders and a mask to match nods at us, but the ginger-haired man behind her scowls. He clings to a plastic card the way Nia holds on to her speech.
He mutters something, but I strain not to hear it. This is nerve-racking enough without people like him making it worse.
“Granddad wasn’t completely right,” Leah told me once. “It isn’t just good people and wolves. There are also people who assume everyone else is a wolf, and that makes them dangerous too.”
Granddad thought we were wolves.
A teenage boy with light-brown skin and sandy hair gets in line behind us. He doesn’t even spare us a glance. He has a phone in his hands, and his thumb is rapidly moving across the screen.
When Nia notices it, her eyes widen. “Wonder if I could borrow that for a bit…”
I wince. “Probably not.”
“I know, I won’t ask. I don’t want to make a fuss, but… I would like to know how my family is doing.” She scrunches up her face, like she has so much more to say but doesn’t.
We haven’t had working phones for weeks, and it’s sometimes hard to imagine things going on as normal—or as normal as can be—in the outside world. If anyone were to come and tell me a year had passed since this whole mess started, I would believe them in a heartbeat.
The line continues to grow, and it makes me feel restless, this many people in one place.
In the distance, church bells echo, and as if on cue, our line moves. The line adjacent to us is half a pace slower. A girl clutching a bag nearly drops it when she rushes three steps forward.
She sees me look at her, and color rises to her cheeks.
It becomes a dance for all of us. A few steps forward and wait. A few steps more. We crawl closer to the corner, and with every step we take, my heartbeat kicks up a notch. I want to be able to flap my hands, or pace, or tell Leah what’s going on. Anything to distract me from the restlessness building up inside of me.
Nia has found her own way to cope. She crumples the piece of paper between her fingers, straightens it, and does the same all over again. If I lean in close enough, I can hear her whisper the words we agreed on.
On my left, the girl with the bag reaches into her pocket and produces a similar card to the one the guy in front of us has, and my breath lodges in my chest.
I elbow Nia. “I think they have ID of some sort.”
She pales. “We don’t.”
“I know. Maybe we’ll get it if we make our case?”
“If we don’t, Emerson has a problem too.”
“Yeah.”
Emerson hasn’t joined a line yet. They’re holding back to keep a good distance between the three of us so no one can accuse us of colluding.
The nervous excitement makes way for ice-cold fear. It makes every step feel like a mile, and as the time crawls by and the sun arcs across the sky, the only option I have is to follow Nia’s lead and go through our text line by line.
Until we’re there.
The soldier behind the table does not show any recognition. He doesn’t look like he was at the barricade when we first escaped. But he raises his head and holds out a gloved hand. “Ration card please.”
Nia clears her throat—and clears it again. “Sir, we’re from the Hope Juvenile Treatment Center, several miles up the road from here. There are fourteen of us left, less than half of who we were. We’re in dire need of food too.”
With the masks and face shields, it’s hard to tell if the soldier shows any reaction to Nia’s story. But he’s still holding out his hand. “Do you have a ration card?”
“No, sir. We weren’t offered—” Nia clears her throat again. “We weren’t informed of the rations. We weren’t given any cards, but we believe we have a right to—”
“No cards, no rations,” the soldier interrupts her.
Nia wavers, and I reach out to steady her. “Sir, you don’t understand. We are all minors. There are fourteen of us left, and we’re hungry.”
Her words are met with murmuring from the people around. The girl in the line adjacent to us is staring from us to the soldier and back, her eyes hard. The man who left the line in front of us has crossed the street and glowers. Someone behind us tells us to stop holding up the distribution.
Another soldier jumps off the truck and walks toward us. She glances at her colleague. “Any trouble here?”
Nia is full on trembling now. “We don’t want to cause any trouble, we just want food. We want to find a way to make it through this too.”
The soldier looks down on both of us. Her voice holds an indifferent edge when she says, “This food is allocated to Sam’s Throne and the people here. If you want to claim rations, I suggest you contact the state officials or private company in charge of your care.”
“We have no working internet or phones,” Nia throws back. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“That is not my problem. Perhaps you can come into town and find assistance here.” The soldier gestures vaguely at the people around us, who are either staring or have taken a step or two back. The guy across the street is joined by another familiar face—Store Guy, gun and all. He’s talking and gesturing, and his face is turning a threatening shade of red. Wolves, the lot of them. I’m sure they’ll be dying to help us.
She turns on her heels toward the trucks, and the other soldier shoos us to the side.
“No card, no rations. Clear the line, please.”
My heart sinks, and my shoulders drop. Next to me, Nia’s breath hitches.
No cards, no rations.
We’re so hungry.
The soldier is resolute, and someone behind us grumbles for us to hurry, and we may be surrounded by more people than I can wrap my head around, but I’ve never felt so lonely and so forgotten before. I reach for Nia’s sleeve and pull her away, because it’s the only thing I can do. Because it won’t make a difference to them to see us crying.
That’s when Store Guy and the guy across the street take a step in our direction.
