How did everything get so screwed up this fast?
The answer is easy enough if I want to be honest with myself. My mother always warned me I was too curious for my own good, and as usual, I wandered too fucking far into a place I had no business going into and falling in love with the resident nutcase at first sight.
I run a hand down my face before I reach for my scarf and lift it around my mouth and nose.
It wasn’t love—it was seeing someone who could help me raise Lils, and it blinded me to the monster that Bevie is. She never hid it. I just didn’t see it until it was too late.
Blow out a breath, I roll my shoulders as I walk away from the border. I hope Heidi’s death is quick, and it should be considering I hand-delivered her to them myself.
Now, I have to go back to Bevie’s old house and find Lils. I will take her home to where I hide the good fragments of humanity who weren’t tainted by the greed that ravaged everyone outside of its walls and try to figure out how to explain to her why I keep leaving.
“You always leave without me.” Words I know will haunt me tonight when I go to sleep. Finding Lils was an accident, but deciding to keep her is what ensured I remained a good man. She’s right—I do always leave her behind, but it’s only because I’m so worried that something will happen to her.
And the more I let the sentiment sit, the angrier I can feel myself becoming.
How dare she leave home without permission? She knows that’s against the rules, especially without being properly protected against the elements, and the goddamn air is becoming more poisonous by the day.
She’s too headstrong.
On the way down the beaten path back to the old house, I tell myself I have to find out more about the little girl whose life I saved, and who saved my humanity in return. After my mother died, I started to fall to the proverbial wayside. I didn’t want to be burdened with finding the cure, because none of this was my fault.
But Lils smiled at me and wrapped her tiny arms around my shoulders the day I found her, and I promised myself from that day that I would do anything in my power to make the world safe for her again.
The closer I get to the old house, the more I can hear the rambling taking place exactly where I left everyone.
“What’s the problem?” I ask curiously as I walk around and hold my arms out for Lils. The grandmotherly woman who’s holding her so fiercely gives her to me with a smile, and I nod in thanks. She’ll definitely have a good life now that I know she can be trusted with my little girl.
“Your wife—”
“She’s not my wife,” I bark as soon as Lils stiffens in my arms.
“Colby?” she asks me timidly.
“Take it easy. I’m not married to anyone,” I assure her, rubbing her back gently. At least, not yet.
I can already tell she will not take this well, but she’ll sit through the ceremony like the good little girl I know she is, and can be, because she’ll gain a mother out of this entire fucking ordeal.
At least something good will come of this.
“She said—”
“She’s not,” I tell the new elder evenly as I take a step toward him. “Now what’s going on?”
He shrugs simply and nods toward one of the far-off borders. “She and her father are in there.”
Fuck.