Page 52 of Ash Fall

I stop with both hands on it and look over my shoulder. Briar stands a few yards away with her arms folded across her chest and her chin lifted in that familiar Stillwell pose that makes my teeth clench on instinct.

"What?"

"I need to speak with you." Her eyes move toward the others before coming back to me. "Privately."

"Not now, Briar. We have about five hundred things to do before..."

The brush-off is halfway out before I catch myself. Fuck, I'm doing it again.

Wasn't I going to try to be a better brother? Maybe not a good one yet, because that feels ambitious considering our lifetime total of meaningful conversations can be counted on two hands, but yeah, I can do better than what I’ve been so far. I straighten up and really look at her.

Her arms are crossed so tightly her knuckles have gone white. There's a sneer tugging at her mouth, but the attitude doesn't reach her eyes. Those keep shifting around the farm, over the barn, the animals and the strangers moving between vehicles. Then they jump up to that massive broken moon hanging over all of us and it hits me. She is scared out of her mind.

She's fifteen years old and not long ago her biggest crisis was getting expelled from an expensive boarding school. Then our parents sent her home because she embarrassed them, the moon broke, and civilization started falling apart. After that the house staff abandoned her, and the brother she barely knows showed up to inform her that magic is real and her new home is going to be an abandoned coal mine.

If I were standing in her ridiculously expensive shoes, I'd be losing my shit too.

I release the tote and jerk my chin toward the far side of the equipment shed. "Come on."

She follows me around the corner until the shed blocks most of the activity in the yard. I lean back against the metal siding and cross my arms, waiting. Briar glares down at the dirt on her previously pristine sneakers before lifting her eyes to mine.

"Are we seriously doing this?"

"That question covers a lot of ground today, Briar. Are we doing what exactly?"

"Going with these people to live underground. Taking cows with us. The…magic?" Her hand flaps toward the yard. "Whatever all of this is. You can make water float in the air, Kara can freeze things, Reid hears chicken thoughts, and the old woman basically kidnapped me before interrogating me about Mother's affairs."

Despite her panicked questions, a grin forms. "Did she get anything good?"

"Julian!"

"Right. Serious brother moment. Sorry."

She glares at me with everything she has but it fades fast. For a moment, she just looks young and scared, and her voice comes out shaky.

"I don't know what's happening."

The outrage and the superiority have dropped away, and what's underneath both of them is fear.

I push away from the wall and take a breath before I respond. Patience has never ranked high on my list of virtues, but I'm trying to grow as a person during the apocalypse.

"I know."

"You all keep talking like this is normal. Mines and volcanoes and ash clouds and powers and people starving." She swallows and looks away from me. "I don't know any of them. I barely know you."

That one has guilt stabbing hard low in my gut.

"Yeah." I rub my thumb across my bottom lip as I stare at her profile. "You barely know me, and I barely know you. That's not entirely our fault, but some of it is mine. I was old enough to try harder after I got out from under our parents, and I didn't."

Her eyes come back to mine, suspicion replacing some of the fear.

"I'm not apologizing for dragging you out of that house, though. You would die there, Briar. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually. That part is a fact."

"I know."

The quiet admission surprises me, but I don't show it. "Good. That saves us twenty minutes."

Her mouth tightens. "I still don't understand why we have to go with all of them."