The ark has changed in the space of an hour, this place that has been my shelter and my prison.
The beds, so eerie before, now seem thanklessly rumpled. The dishes forgotten on the dining hall tables no longer ominous, but discarded. The books on the library shelves left to gather dust now that their spines have been cracked so many times.
Each book, each dish, each bedsheet the last effects of the man who provided them. Dying in an asylum and prison of his own.
There’s no fresh water except in the yard; a shower will have to wait. I’ve changed out of the stinky and bloodstained clothes and now stand in front of the open drawers of my dresser, trying to decide what to take.
I stack clean jeans, T-shirts, and underwear in a backpack on top of Otto’s sketchbook. Women aren’t allowed to wear pants in the Enclave, but I don’t own any skirts. Have been allergic to them ever since being cast out.
I’ll just have to borrow one of Kestral’s, as my mom did fifteen years ago.
I grab Truly’s coloring book, Julie’s purse, and Lauren’s earbuds, my comb, toothbrush, and whatever toothpaste and toiletries are left. Add the last of the OCD prescription, the box of dicloxacillin, and the meds that survived the Warden’s crash—only one bottle of vancomycin among them, the bottom of the carrier a pharmaceutical Molotov cocktail of drugs and glass.
Last, I slip into a fresh pair of sneakers.
And think of Otto.
Shoeless and lying in a creek bed.
I’m ready—desperate, even—to leave. To rejoin Truly, Lauren, and Julie and see Kestral again.
For the first time in my life, I miss the Enclave. Not for its oppressive routine and endless precepts or the rules that regularly landed me in Penitence, but for the false sense of security they gave me. That we were safe and somehow set apart from a world bent on devouring us.
I even miss the walls.
Because I have been—devoured. By the very world Magnus cast me out into when he branded me a heretic and delivered me to Satan.
I find Chase in the mechanical room trying to siphon fuel from the generator.
“They didn’t leave any in the tank?” I ask, incredulous.
“They didn’t leave any in the generators, either,” he says, shaking his head.
Despite the fact that we weren’t exactly friends, I didn’t quite expect them to screw us over.
I turn and kick the open door of the empty weapons locker. Scream every obscenity I’ve ever heard. And then scream again, this time at God, for sending the same solutionless problems over and over again like some obsessive loop from Hell.
I stop when I notice Chase holding his head in his hands.
He finally looks up, lips pursed. And then bursts out laughing.
“This isn’t funny,” I say, but can’t help the laugh that escapes me like a hiccup—not at the situation, but at him.
“That is . . . not how you use those words.”
I roll my eyes and lean back heavily against the wall, just now realizing how exhausted I am.
He shrugs. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to shoot people with AR-15s from the hip or roll them off the road—which, that was my move, by the way—you should probably . . .” He pauses, fighting to keep a straight face. And then his expression smoothes.
“I love you,” he says simply, stormy eyes fixed on me. “There isn’t anyone I’d rather be locked in a silo with, stealing stuff, getting shot at, or committing grand arson with.”
I look away, wanting to ask what happens when that’s all over. Because it will be, one day—if not this year, or the next.
“Wynter,” he says.
“I know. I just—” I stop, startled, as his head snaps toward the mechanical room entrance. He straightens as he turns off his flashlight, mine still illuminating the room as he picks up his rifle.
He moves to the side of the door, weapon trained on the staircase below where my rifle rests on the library table.
“What?” I whisper. He points to my flashlight, still lit.
“Put that out,” he says, low.
I do, as the atrium door bursts open with a boom.