A tear streams down Dad’s cheek. “I love you too much to let you do that.”
“This isn’t love.” I turn to my mom. “Don’t let him do this.”
She sniffs and wipes her cheeks. “We both made this decision. Things were happening quickly and we had to make a lot of hard choices. None of our other family—” Her voice breaks and she clears her throat. “No one else is here. We all left a lot of people behind.”
I shake my head, pacing toward the SUV and then back again. “But why? There could still be time to get them. We need to keep calm and work the problems.”
My dad looks like a man defeated. I’ve never seen such despondence in him.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he says flatly. “I still can’t believe it.”
I pinch my brows together, my chest constricting. “What are you talking about?”
“The virus was made to create a vaccine. It was supposed to save people, not wipe them out.”
“Made? You knew about this?”
“It doesn’t even matter now.”
“The fuck it doesn’t!” I advance toward him. “If you were part of this, you have to let me out of here. Let me go get Hannah. You know she’s my everything.”
“I can’t.”
I’m shaking all over now, knowing all too well what caged lions must feel like.
“I’ll never forgive you if you don’t let me go,” I say.
“Pax.” My mom’s gaze on me sharpens with her tone. “We did everything we could.”
My throat tightens as I imagine Hannah in that room, thinking I’m on the way to her, and then never hearing from me again.
“Not everything. You could let me out.”
My father turns to walk away, his back to me as he says, “Hate me if you want. At least you’ll be alive.”
24
“Amira, my love, there are no words in any language to capture how much I love you. You’re my sun, moon, and stars. What the virus took from me pales in comparison to what it gave me. You brought light back into my darkened world.” – excerpt from a letter written to Amira Khalil by Donovan Shore
Briar
I knew announcing that the Tiders are coming to our camp wouldn’t go over well. I didn’t expect it to go this badly, though.
“You’ve lost your minds!” a man from the construction crew yells at me and Nova. “You both need to be locked up!”
My hand instinctively goes to the gun at my waist. Nova puts her palms out in a calming gesture.
“Don’t try that, Mick,” she says. “Not if you want to keep both hands attached.”
“What about our shield?” Stella asks. “It’ll kill them.”
“We’re taking it offline,” Nova answers.
A loud rumble of disapproval moves through the group gathered in the Hub for the announcement, which is everyone left in our camp. It’s still alarming to see how many we lost.
“We don’t have enough food,” a kitchen worker named Georgie says. “We already gave them half of everything and we just lost our whole garden to the volcano.”
I step in, not wanting Nova to bear all this alone. “I know. I get the reaction, you guys. I truly do. Their half of the supplies was destroyed by the volcano. Their entire camp. They lost a lot of people. They had more than a hundred and fifty children, and only seventeen survived.”
